Soul-Seeing in Elul

(This sermon was delivered on Friday, August 9th, 2013 - Shabbat Shoftim)

Late one night in the city of Chelm, known to be populated by fools, Shmuel happened upon his friend Avrum.  Avrum was down on his hands and knees, underneath a streetlight, searching for something.  Shmuel inquired as to what Avrum was doing. “I’ve lost my keys,” he replied.  “Perhaps you’ll help me search.” Shmuel joined him.  After half an hour, they still had no success.  “Avrum, where exactly did you lose those keys?” Maybe we can concentrate our efforts.”  Avrum replied, “I lost them in that alley over there.”  Shmuel was dumbfounded.  “So why are we looking here!?!?!?” Avrum looked over at his friend: “Why are we looking here?  Because the light is better here-  that’s why!”[1]

The story seems a little silly, yet we know it hits on a real truth – one that likely resonates deeply with many of us: that too often we choose to look where the light is best, where it is easiest to see, even if that which we are seeking is located someplace entirely different.  When navigating our own lives and making our own choices, we generally take familiar, well-lit paths - those routes we’ve traveled many times, ground we’ve traversed before.  It’s more predictable, more comfortable that way.  It’s also why we tend to fall into the same patterns of thinking and behavior over and over and over again, despite our “best attempts” at a different outcome.

That’s why the period of time in which we find ourselves calls to us to try something different.  This Shabbat marks the first Shabbat in the month of Elul, the 30 day period that serves both to close out the past year and to prime us for the year ahead.  Each day of Elul beckons us to step out of our comfort zones, to search our lives, our thoughts, and our actions in ways that aren’t always easy, to acknowledge both the enlightened parts of ourselves, but also to confront the darker parts of our souls, all with hope that such a search might positively impact our own process of teshuvah – that call for repentance and return that is the essential demand of the High Holy Days – now less than a month away.

There are, in fact, many long-standing traditions associated with the month of Elul to help this process along.

Traditionally, the shofar is blown every day during Elul (except Shabbat), sort of like a repentance alarm clock, to remind us of what is coming. And in case you don’t have a shofar, and want to get in on the daily shofar call, there’s an app for that!

Some recommend that in anticipation of the High Holy Days, the every person should focus on repentance, prayer, and tzedakah in advance for at least one hour every day.  An hour a day – not so bad.

Others advise compiling a cheshbon hanefesh – literally an inventory of the soul – in which one documents their successes and failures over the past year generally in light of their relationship with God, other people, and themselves, as sort of a preparatory document and teshuvah business plan as it were. 

But before any of these recommended steps can happen, I believe there is a critical pre-step which might be the most important thing any of us can do if we seek to engage in this challenging seasonal work of teshuvah.

Many of you have heard me sing the praises of Rabbi Alan Lew of Blessed Memory and his incredible master-work titled, “This is Real and You are Completely Unprepared.”  It is, in my opinion, the best book out there about the High Holy Days and what they can mean.  If you are considering acquiring any book at all about the High Holy Days, this is the one you should have.  Much of this pre-step is inspired by his book as well as the following story that he shares in it:

While hiking on Martha’s Vineyard with his son, a storm came up and they had to take shelter in a little shack with a big picture window.  Rabbi Lew sat looking out the window in the rain at the birds and other nature, none of which he found very captivating after about 5 minutes.  His son, on the other hand, was having a much more interesting time.  He was not looking out through the window at what was outside, but rather at the window itself.  The window, he pointed out to his father, was a very active world in and of itself, a nature preserve for insect life.  It was clear that the window wasn’t just something through which to view the world; it was a world in and of itself, a place with a life of its own. 

The shifting of our gaze from the big broad world out there and how we engage in it, to the window through which we see the world – our own lens of experience and consciousness -  that is where the work of Elul and the High Holy Days begins.  Because that screen of our perspective mechanisms is, according to Rabbi Lew: “not just a blank transparent medium.  Rather, it is a world unto itself, a world teeming with life, and that life affects everything else we see.” [2]

If the main work of the teshuvah process in Elul is to travel back over the past year and essentially sight-see the course of our lives and relationships, determining high lights and low points along the way, then the pre-step to that process, this deeply inward focusing, might be understood as soul-seeing, where we move our search light away from the outside world and point it in a different direction, illuminating the activity taking place in the window through which we view that world.  The concept sounds complicated, but it’s really not.  Think about the expression of what it means to look at or see the world through rose colored glasses, and you’ll have a great example of what this means.

This week’s Torah portion, Shoftim, offers us deeper insight into the type of soul-seeing we need to do before embarking on the interactive work of teshuvah.  Usually interpreted as a portion focused on the establishment of an ancient judicial system, the Torah reads: “Judges and officers you shall appoint for yourselves in all your gates.”  What gates are we talking about? According to Hasidic tradition, those gates mentioned in the text are more than the big city gates.  As Rabbi Lew also points out: we learn that there are 7 gates - or better windows to the soul of every human being.  2 eyes, 2 nostrils, 2 ears, and the mouth.  Everything that passes into our consciousness must enter through one of these gates. And appointing judges for those gates comes to mean that we seek to acquire discernment over that which influences our consciousness, that which passes through our gates.  So, the passage from the portion really beckons us to look deeply into our own systems of discernment and opinion and even belief, to understand that all of it is a lens that colors our impression of the world and our relationships.  [2]

As many of you know, I spent the last 2 weeks of July in India as a part of American Jewish World Service’s 2013 Rabbinic Delegation. Inspired by the Jewish commitment to justice, American Jewish World Service works to realize human rights and end poverty in the developing world.  One of the most difficult parts of the trip was coming to understand that how I see the world and the characterizations I understand as defining concepts like failure, success, liberation, and oppression are not universal, but are in fact specific to the western cultural lens to which I am conditioned.  At one point, the women in our rabbinic group had the opportunity to meet with the women of the rural village in which we were working.  We asked the village women to tell us about their system of marriage and family.  They shared that in India, marriage is not about individuals, but rather it is about families. When a couple is married, they do not live separately in their own house but rather move in to the groom’s parent’s house (in which sometimes grandparents still live), where they will continue to live.  Boy did we have a hard time with this, and our immediate evaluation of their system was really negative.  What a system of oppression – where were the rights of the individuals to choose whether or not to partner with another,  and where were the opportunities for them, if they even did choose each other, to start their own life together without the burden of their entire family, I wondered?  But then the village women asked us to tell them about our system of marriage and family life here in America.  And when we explained first that marriage in and of itself wasn’t mandatory, but for those who chose it, marriage was really about the individual choices of 2 people to share their lives – nothing more and nothing less, the village women stirred a bit.  “But where do you live?” they asked.  And when we said that often newlyweds share their own apartment or home together, without other members of the family living with them, they became even more uncomfortable.  “But how do you take care of your parents and grandparents when they get older and need you?”  And let me tell you – any negative judgment that I was feeling about their ways was shared equally in the negative judgments they were feeling about our ways.   And so, when the conversation moved to the topic of poverty eradication and human rights, we had to understand that the things we assumed were base-line, shared systems were actually completely different.  That’s not to say that the village women didn’t yearn for empowerment opportunities for themselves, nor did it mean that they didn’t want to improve the living conditions in their village no less their country – in turns out we shared the same values and desires, but the way they envisioned what that might look like proved entirely different than any Western ideal I know of.  It wasn’t until we were able to acknowledge our own lens of assumptions that we were able to find common ground.

The same is true for our own selves and souls.  Before we can do anything that begins to address the world outside of ourselves, we have to develop a keen awareness of the driving personal forces behind the thoughts we think, the choices we make, and the actions we take.  And there is no real way to account for, and certainly not to atone for our choices and actions, until we can be aware of that window in each of us, which refracts every one of our assumptions and thoughts, no less behaviors in the world.

Because we can’t begin to look outwards and assess our engagement with the rest of the world until we attempt to search out those places where the light doesn’t always shine so brightly.

So this start of Elul, take some time, maybe it’s a few minutes, maybe it’s an hour a day, and take a good look at your own window.  Spend some time there and study closely what you find.  You just may discover something that you didn’t even know you’d lost, but once found, will lead you on a path of return, assuring that your life and the lives your life touches will be all the better for it.

---

^[1] Joel Ziff, Mirrors in Time, A PsychoSpiritual Journey through the Jewish Year

2 Lew, Rabbi Alan.  This is Read and You Are Completely Unprepared.  

Where Am I?

Dear Friends:

As many of you know, the Jewish tenets of social justice (tzedek), acts of loving-kindness (chesed), and global repair (tikun olam) are central to my understanding of what it means to be a Jew in the world today and certainly core to my own Jewish identity and rabbinate.  As such, I am so honored to be a part of the American Jewish World Service’s 2013 Rabbinic Delegation, joining 16 other Reform, Orthodox, Conservative and Reconstructionist rabbis selected from around North America.  Our delegation will be travelling to Lucknow, India for second half of July, where we will experience first-hand the power of grassroots development and explore issues of social justice and global responsibility from the perspective of Jewish texts and tradition. Our group will be working at Sahbhagi Shikshan Kendra (SSK), an AJWS-supported NGO devoted to fighting prejudice, urging local community leaders to advocate for the rights of oppressed people, and educating members of the Dalit (untouchables) communities about their rights so that they can take steps to realize them.  Just preparing for this trip has already been quite an experience! Each morning, we will work in partnership with SSK helping to construct and repair various water and food preparation systems so the community (in particular the area school) has access to clean water and sanitary food preparation.  The afternoons will be spent meeting with community representatives.  The evenings involve intensive Jewish text study and processing. We depart on Sunday, July 21st and return on Friday, August 2nd.  While away, I will not have access to phone or email, but  I look forward to sharing stories and insights from my work during the high holy days, as well as at other moments.

In the meantime, to learn more about AJWS, check out their website at AJWS.org

Much gratitude to all of you for the support and encouragement!

L’shalom,

Rabbi Wendi Geffen

The Power of Fear

(My sermon from Friday, May 31, 2013)

Which emotion do you think is the most critical to human survival?  Love, trust, happiness? How about fear?

As defined in the Medical Dictionary: fear is “the unpleasant emotional state consisting of psychological and physiological responses to a real external threat or danger, including alertness, tension, and mobilization of the alarm reaction.”[i]  And that alarm reaction is, of course, what enables us to then make critical decisions that often prevent harm.  Fear lets us know when to flea a dangerous situation.  It’s how we know what risks not to take. 

But fear isn’t just about our reactions to the real threats that we see and experience.  Fear also includes our reactions to the perceived dangers we imagine.  This is where the concept of anxiety comes from. “Anxiety reflects a combination of biochemical changes in the body, an individual’s personal history and memory, as well as social situation. As far as we know, anxiety is a uniquely human experience. Other animals clearly know fear, but human anxiety involves an ability to use memory and imagination to move backward and forward in time. The range of anxiety each human experiences varies, but anxiety in and of itself is something that every person experiences.”[ii] 

I tend to think that we Jews know a thing or two about fear and anxiety, whether real or imagined, because the truth is that we Jews have been worrying and fearing for a really long time.  

Do you know what the most repeated commandment is in the Hebrew Bible?  Al tirah – do not fear.  God or God speaking through someone else says some form of this phrase over 120 times in the TaNaKh.  The command “not to fear” becomes a poignant trope throughout our most ancient Jewish text, as it is employed at every point of danger and every point of destiny along our ancestor’s path of wandering from Egypt to the Promised Land.

And the truth is: whether real or imagined or anything in between, fears in our lives today often, not always, but often sit at this same crossroads between danger and destiny.  Our anxieties often sit in contradistinction to our own advancement.   And so, I can’t help but feel the poignancy and relevance of the command “Al tirah” for us still today.  After all, we live in an age that sociologists claim is governed by the culture of fear.  In his book with the same title, Sociologist Barry Glassner writes:  “There has never been another era in modern history, even during wartime or the Great Depression, when so many people have feared so much. Three out of four Americans say they feel more fearful today than they did twenty years ago.” [iii]  The truth is: fear, when experienced in proportion, functions as a healthy guide for people and societies vis a vis survival. It helps us avoid dangerous, destructive, overly risky scenarios.  But when fear is hyper-emphasized, it often distorts reality, at a minimum holding people and societies back, if not causing them to regress somewhat or entirely.[iv]  

This is not a modern phenomenon.  It is the main factor at play in the Torah portion, Shelach L’cha.  In it, our ancestors actually reach the border of the Promised Land only two years into their journey. Twelve scouts from among their leaders enter into the land to assess the situation.  All report that the land is indeed good, but it is also heavily fortified by its inhabitants.  Ten of the spies emphasize the size of these inhabitants, calling them giants and reporting that the Israelites must have looked like grasshoppers in the giant’s eyes.  With this, the entire people begins to panic.  Two of the scouts- Joshua and Caleb, announce that despite the obstacles, the people should still move forward.  They will be safe because God is with them, the land is indeed good, and twice, they cry out:  “Al Tira-u - Do not fear!”  But it is too late – the people are overcome with worry of the perceived danger that they may face, and they beg to return to Egypt.  And as you might imagine, that response does not go over so well.  The entire generation, save Joshua and Caleb, are condemned to wander the desert for the rest of their lives – none of these people who actually stood at the border will ever see the Promised Land again. 

When that generation of our ancestors encountered their moment of danger and destiny, their fear caused them to forget that God had been and would continue to be with them, that their perceived dangers were no more real than any monster that exists in dreams but disappears in the morning’s light.  Their anxiety so clouded their vision that they completely lost sight of their destiny. 

In the case of Shelach L'cha, those ten scouts who disseminated the frightful message serve as what Glassner calls “Peddlers of Fear” – individuals and groups that energize and promulgate messages of fear for their own benefit.  In a modern context, the top two “Peddlers of Fear” in our world today are the media and politicians.  But at a certain point, we can’t just place responsibility on the ten scouts, on MSNBC or Fox, on the DNC or GOP.  At some point, just like each of our ancestors, we each become accountable for our own responses and actions.  So we need to ask ourselves, have we become our own peddlers of fear in those liminal spaces in- between danger and destiny?   What are those moments, those times of “stuck-ness” when we, like our ancestors, need to quiet the voice of “I can’t” and heed the command “Al tirah?”

We all know about these in-between moments when we find ourselves standing on the border in-between, when the future’s call of potential whispers from the distance, but the loud beckoning of the status quo or the past reverberates powerfully.  We may experience this in different ways:

·         In our relationships that putter on: in our marriages, with our parents, with our siblings, with our children, or with our friends - relationships that we know could be more, that we know we need more from. But the thought of entering in to that conversation, of taking that first step toward change, also presents the risk of cracking the relationship open and potentially damaging or even losing it.

·         

     In our jobs or courses of study where we've been safe, that have sustained us, but where we know we could do more and be better. Where the thought of asking for a change or promotion, or the possibility of stepping away from it and into a different path seems at once appealing and at the same moment terrifying.

·        

     In our personal behaviors where we so deeply desire to be known and appreciated, but again and again choose to put up walls and defenses that keep others at a distance for fear of being vulnerable and thereby potentially wounded.

So how can we tell the difference between the real fears – the  ones that can actually avert legitimate danger – verses the anxieties that seem real but prove only to hold us back – that in reality are distractions, avoidances, those vaporous ghosts that diminish and eventually disappear once that first bold step is taken? 

Modern psychology and mindfulness teachings offer many tips, but personally I like a more traditional process, as taught by Rabbi Alan Lew, of blessed memory.  The first time our ancestors hear the command “Do not fear”, it is in response to what appears to be a very dangerous situation. Trapped, with the waves of the Sea of Reeds lapping at their feet and the massive Egyptian army rapidly closing in on their backs, the Israelites cry out in terror, “Was it for want of graves in Egypt that you brought us to die in the wilderness?”  Moses and then God respond to the Israelites with the following statements, beginning with the command Al tira-u – do not fear. It is the first time the Israelites hear this, and it is also the first time they are confronted with the reality that destiny doesn't come easily.  The command is then followed by 4 verbs, presented in rapid sequence, that distill the process of moving beyond fear. First:  hityatzvu – gather yourselves. In the context of the story: unify, get together, feel less alone.  But as a teaching for us as individuals – collect yourself, get yourself together, take that first deep breath.  An interesting thing about hityatzvu: it comes from an ancient near eastern word that means “to build”[v]– thus if in preparing to build a structure, one must first gather the proper tools and materials in order to do so, in this situation, one must collect the appropriate emotional tools with which to handle the situation – think:  perspective, analysis, optimism, cool headedness.   Second: Re-u - See.  See clearly.  Look around you to see what is really happening.  Not the fears of your mind that run rampant, but what is actually real. See with open eyes the danger, the promise, and everything in between.  Third: tacharishoon – be still.  Different from hityatzvu, that first deep breath, this stillness implies a more empowered and focused stance.  This is place from which decisions are made – not before.  And decisions about facing fear cannot be made in a place of hyperactivity. Even if the world around is full of turmoil, the self can find a place of stillness.  And then, if you find that what you initially so feared is nothing more than a peddler selling his wares of worry, then it is time for the 4^th step – yisa-u – get going.  Step forward, bravely, boldly, collected, and eyes set firmly toward what awaits you.[vi] 

Because at the end of the day, the difference between danger and destiny ultimately comes down to just one step.  A step of faith into the beckoning promise of the future in spite of an awareness that the potential of the unknown can be scary, sometimes scarier than the known trouble and struggle of the present and past.   

Because fear may indeed be the most important emotional resource we have when it comes to survival, but when it comes to really thriving, to true actualiziation and optimization, we must remember the powerful, still relevant call to our ancestors and to us: “Al tirah” – then and now, “Do not fear.”

---

[i] http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/feared+for

[ii] ibid/  anxiety

[iii] Glassner, Barry. The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things. New York: Basic Books, 1999.

[iv] Zbigniew, Brzezinski, “Terrorized by ‘War on Teror’: How a Three-word Mantra Has Undermined America” The Washington Post, March 25, 2007

[v] as taught by Rabbi David Ingber

[vi] I first learned about it from a teaching by Rabbi Alan Lew of blessed memory in his powerful book on Jewish meditation – Be Still and Get Going.   

If We Choose To Pray

If we are going to choose to pray to God, let's not direct our prayers to the Divine for Boston, for the Red Sox, for the Marathon, or for any other thing that doesn't breathe.

Let's direct our prayers to God for people. Let's pray for 8 year old Martin Richard's family and friends and classmates and teachers at school. Let's pray for the families and friends and communities of 29 year old Krystle Campbell,  graduate student Lingzi Lu, and MIT police officer Sean Collier. Let's pray for the hundreds of people who cling to life, whose limbs were lost, whose lives are shattered. Let's pray for the helpers who run toward chaos instead away from it. Let's pray for any and all of the people whose lives have been physically, emotionally, spiritually violated, because they were at the Marathon, or heard about it, or live or lived in Boston, or feel connected to it because something in them hurts when others do. Let's pray for the people whose hearts move swiftly from a necessary desire for justice to a seething desire for vengeance that God comfort their pain with a loving-kindness that tempers the hate and anger and hurt they feel. Let's pray for people whose souls and lives are so broken that they seek not to build, but to destroy.

For justice, for mercy, for healing, for consolation, for a Shelter of Peace, for hearts and souls all around us.

Simultaneous Joy and Pain: The Wisdom of the Counting of the Omer

(Originally published on Huffingtonpost.com, based on a sermon I delivered on April 29, 2013)

This year at our Passover Seder, I experienced something deeply powerful -- something I had not felt in the context of Passover before. Like many, we spend much of our Seder going around the table, each reading a section from the Haggadah out loud. Generally, because our Seder is populated partially by adults and partially by very young, mostly illiterate children, we move from adult to adult, skipping over the smaller folks at our table. But this year, when my husband finished reading his part, my Kindergarten age son said he'd like a turn to read.

And all of a sudden, space and time expanded for me, while I assume it continued at a normal pace for everyone else. It felt like a worm hole opened, and in what must have actually been only a second between my son saying he wanted to read and his starting to pronounce the Haggadah's words, his entire life so far from his birth until that moment flashed through my mind. And in that 5 1/2 years contracted down into 1/60th of a minute, I felt the most profound, overwhelming joy, and at the very same time, an all-consuming sadness. Joy at the fact that my son could actually do what he was doing: he could read, was somehow growing up, increasingly less toddler like and more and more fully real. Sadness that my son could actually do what he was doing: he could read, was somehow growing up, increasingly less toddler like and more and more fully real.

This is the time of year when we Jews find ourselves in the middle of the annual observance known as Sefirat haOmer, the Counting of the Omer. As such, beginning on the second day of Passover, each day (technically evening since Jewish days start at night) we say a blessing and literally count which day and week it is in the seven-week cycle, leading us up to Shavuot, which falls on the 50th day. What began as an ancient agricultural-spiritual holiday to mark the weeks between barley and wheat harvests has evolved significantly over time.

Thanks to the rabbis of the Talmud, we understand the Counting of the Omer primarily as the communal spiritual re-enactment of our ancestor's process of journeying from the Egypt for 49 days to the Torah being given to them at Mt. Sinai.

Thanks to the Kabbalists, we also understand the Omer time as an individual opportunity to refine and perfect areas of our own lives as we leave our own individual Mitzrayim -- whatever narrow and constricted parts of ourselves hold us back, and then travel to a place where we too can be open and receptive to whatever Revelation awaits us.

In either case, most important is the idea that we count up, not down, to express our ancestors and our own increasing excitement as they and we step closer and closer toward Revelation.

But the period of the Omer, as you might know, is also overshadowed with the tone and rituals of mourning, thus the associated prohibitions against haircuts, shaving or getting married, except on Lag B'Omer , the 33rd day of the Omer. The question is: Why? Why the sadness and mourning, if the time should have been completely celebratory? Think about it: Our ancestors were finally free -- no Egypt, no taskmasters. They could live life on their terms and would soon culminate their seven-week trip with the most momentous, holy experience of meeting the Divine and receiving of the Torah. Not much to be sad about, right? There are a few explanations for the mournful tone of the Omer period, mainly having to do with a plague that was said to have ravaged a Jewish community at the time of the Mishnah's composition. But I wonder if there isn't something more at play?

When we think about our own journeys out of whatever enslaves us, into moments of liberation and redemption and then ultimately to moments of real awakening and revelation, what are they really like? Are they filled only with excitement and joy? Or are they more complicated than that?

As a person whose job privileges her to share many important moments in people's lives, I have seen this complexity -- simultaneous overflowing joy and sadness -- particularly, but not exclusively at life-cycle events, made manifest in tears. Tears that society and Hallmark card commercials suggest are wholly joyous, but which I know also contain an honest sorrow. Both feelings evoked by the same experience, at once deep happiness for the arrival at a new marker, and also grief that the arrival at said marker comes with the knowledge that all the previous markers won't be sought out and reached again. It's in these moments that we live in both worlds, but out of which we all have to make a choice: which sensibility we will choose to let color our experience? When we arrive at these crossroads, one the path of joy and optimism and one the path of sadness and regret, how do we choose which route to take?

The Omer tradition, linking Passover to Shavuot, gives us the answer. This set of seven weeks, each made up of seven days, enables us to live in the real, complicated world of emotional complexity, fully, experiencing both joy and sadness -- incarnate in each day of the counting. But when the last day of the Omer concludes, the mourning ends. There is a reason that the moment of Revelation happens the first day of the eighth week, the 50th day -- the day after the last day of the counting. Because to experience Revelation, we can't be in mourning. We have to release it, and take that deep breath that acknowledges that we have a choice to make: Will we view life as some sort of diminishing, increasingly limiting count down to the end -- a road that ultimately leads us back to Mitzrayim, to the death of the spirit -- or will we see life as opening to an unending fount of opportunity, hope and joy -- a road that is the promise of a Revelation at a mountain point in an open, awaiting, uncharted land?

The wisdom of the Counting of the Omer is that it enables us to live in both worlds for a bit. The moments in between, those moments where only a second in real time passes, but a lifetime flashes through our mind's eye, those moments between Mitzrayim and the Mountain, that's when the real awakening happens. But you can't stand at Sinai unless you are awake -- heart, mind, body and spirit not somewhere back where you've been before, back in Mitzrayim, but open to the only place and moment there really is: the Present.

Back to our Seder: So I'm in this out-of-place-and-time experience, fully immersed in my seemingly conflicting feelings. And then, I hear my son carefully sound out: "God -- took -- us -- out -- of -- E...E...E...g...." And just like that, I am back. Back from this journey into the realm of my own reflections and emotions, because my son needs my help. "Egypt" I say. "Egypt with -- a -- strong -- hand..." he continues. And my eyes well. And there is no longer any sadness. But neither is there joy. I am simply and only and entirely filled with the most deep and overwhelming sense of gratitude and wonder instead.

Are We There Yet? On Sea Crossing, Mountain Climbing, Departures, Arrivals, and the Space In Between

 Each year at the Passover Seder, we read these words:

“This year we are here, next year, in the land of Israel. 

 This year we are slaves, next year, free people.”[i] 

We navigate the entire Seder through this dichotomy, as if dancing back and forth between the imprisoning constriction of Mitzrayim and the boundless openness that true freedom seemingly provides.  We engage in story-telling, observe and consume edible symbols, and physically mimic different postures evoking these same themes of slavery and freedom,  disgrace and glory, degradation and praise, departure and arrival.  And ultimately, we culminate the Passover Seder with the same hopeful words every year:

           “L’shanah haba’ah b’Yirushalyim – Next year in Jerusalem!” 

Which can lead one to wonder: will we ever actually get there? To that state of shalom/peace and shaleim/wholeness that Jerusalem represents? Will we ever actually arrive at the freedom, liberation, openness, and fulfillment that is the yearning and promise of every previous Seder’s beginning and end?   What’s the point of telling the same story with the same unfinished ending over and over again if we never really get anywhere?

Because ultimately, there is only one story to tell, and it is the Truth of our lives.  How often do we find ourselves in our relationships, our work, our education, our bodies, thinking “I’ll be satisfied when:”  
*my partner understands or does what I need him/her to
*I get that next promotion or title
*I attain my degree
*I lose that last 5 pounds...
 - only to arrive at that milestone to discover another "I'll be satisfied when" destination marker somewhere yet to be attained in the future? 

An interesting insight comes from what is generally perceived as our ancestors’ culminating moment of true freedom from the grips of Egypt: the Crossing of the Sea.  In a section detailing the various occasions upon which a person should utter a blessing of gratitude, the Talmudic sages point out, “One who sees the abrot/crossings of the Sea [of Reeds]…must give thanks and praise to God.”[ii]  But what does it mean to see the abrot/ crossings of the Sea?  When exactly should one utter gratitude at such an occasion: once safely across when the miracle is complete and finish line crossed or somewhere along the way when the fullness of the miracle is not yet realized?  Nineteenth century scholar Rabbi Naftali Zvi Berlin notes Exodus 14:29, “The Israelites went on dry land into the midst of the sea.”  Picking up on the past-tense phrase “the Israelites went,” Berlin asserts what most tend to think: that it would only make sense to offer praise once completely across the parted sea, safely on the other side. We cannot, after all, offer gratitude for something that is yet to be done, can we?  But Twentieth Century commentator RabbiBaruch HaLevi Epstein, Berlin’s nephew, disagrees.  Noting Rashi’s definition of abrot/ crossings as “the place through which they traversed the sea,”[iii] Epstein asserts that our ancestors offered thanksgiving while walking the entire length of the crossing.  As Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg so masterfully surmises in her book The Particulars of Rapture: “…the Talmud is urging praise and thanksgiving while one is in the midst of the narrative.  Before the tension is resolved, before one has emerged from the undetermined, ominous passage - that is the time for gratitude and song.”[iv]

I don't know from crossing the sea, but I do know that charting the course of our lives can often feel as if we are climbing a mountain, taking each step higher and higher in the hopes of one day reaching the very top.  Which is a noble goal, but that’s just not how mountain climbing works.  When climbing a large mountain, we work to ascend what seems like the tallest peak, only to arrive at that top to gaze on to the vision of a yet taller and grander peak in the distance.  And once we arrive at the tallest point, we don’t get to stay up there forever; the journey back down awaits.  Mountain ranges don’t provide one steady, evenly paced ascent or descent.  They are full of small and large elevations and depths that go on and on, from the smallest foothills to the most majestic highlands, and back down the range again. Think about where a mountain range ends?  It’s not at the height of the tallest peak.  It’s once the larger slopes merge into foothills that merge into flat ground again, back on the road, back on the journey, until arriving at the place where foothills emerge from flatland again. 

Why do we repeat the same story over and over again? Why do we never actually "get there?” Because every place we stand is “there,” if we only allow ourselves to be there.  Every place, every moment has the potential for constriction and release, for fear and hope, for degradation and praise, for brokenness and wholeness.  Our lives are not black and white; our souls are complicated amalgams of all these qualities, sometimes leaning one way, sometimes another; we live somewhere in the middle.  This is the Seder's ultimate lesson: we don’t have to wait until the height of achievement or the perfect moment to express gratitude, to change our own lives or make an impact in the world.  Every place, every moment is the perfect and best time from which to be grateful and catalyze repair.  Indeed, this year we are slaves, next year, free people.  

---

[i] From Ha Lachma Anya – This is the Bread of Affliction

[ii] Brachot 54a

[iii] See Rashi’s comment on the meaning of “abrot” in Brachot 54a

[iv] P. 216, see too Sforno and Nachmanides on Ex 15:1 and 15:19

Bar Mitzvah You Tube Save-the-Date Haters and Internet Bullies

Call me old-fashioned, but I was taught that upon receiving an invitation to a Bar Mitzvah, the ONLY thing one should respond with is "Mazal Tov!"

Over the past week, a certain YouTube video has gone viral on the Jewish net-waves and social media feeds.  The video presumably was intended to serve as the "Save the Date" for the friends and family of a boy who will become Bar Mitzvah this Spring.  I don't know the family or the boy, but I received a link to the video, presumably from someone else who doesn't know the family either, and they likely received it from someone else who doesn't know the family, etc. etc.  The video has drawn much attention. Those on the positive side (I find myself in this camp - a minority from what I can read on the comment feeds) praise the child for finding a creative, fun way to discuss his upcoming experience.  The video is "not all about the party" and even includes some footage at the family's synagogue as well as a cameo appearance of the congregation's rabbi.  Those on the negative side (a clear majority from what I can read on the comment feeds) condemn the "clear lack of purpose or integrity," the "gross misappropriation of financial resources" by the family - funds "that could have been donated to charity," the fact that "the boy didn't even mention his Torah portion," and the list goes on, and on, and on, some even criticizing the child's lack of rhythm and mocking the lyrics to the rap performed by the child.  

And to that, I ask: since when did it become acceptable for adults to speak so critically, negatively, no less   publicly and permanently about a child? After all, this child  is likely reading directly or being forwarded every snarky or judgmental remark ticking down on the feeds and websites of people he does not know and who he certainly did not invite to his family's upcoming simcha, but most of whom seem to feel justified in rendering an opinion or judgement about him and his family's decision about their save-the-date Bar Mitzvah notice.  I'm sure a Bar Mitzvah boy can handle the fact that hundreds of people are standing in judgment over him and his video.  He is, after all, the ripe, mature age of 12 or 13!  NOT!

I don't know how the video spread so quickly, why the family did not designate better privacy settings on the video, or really what their intentions were.  The truth is, I don't think any of that matters.  How can responsible adults (some of whom are my fellow clergy) condemn loudly the devastating impact of youth cyber-bullying, but in the same breath become so blinded by their own judgmental stances on what is or is not "Bar Mitzvah Appropriate" that they themselves become cyber-bullies, freely condemning the actions of a child and his family?  It is one thing to debate non-specifically choices and priorities for religious coming of age events, but it is something entirely different to air one's judgments so publicly and specifically in an arena that we all know can be cruel and where context can easily be lost.  Even if the intention of the family was for the video to go viral, are any of us really willing to assert that this soon-to-be Jewish adult should actually be treated as a real adult and somehow expected to have the capacity to handle the potential "criticism" he could receive knowing that he "put it out there in the first place?"  I would certainly hope not.

Here's what I'm really hoping won't happen, but what I fear will. What likely started off as a wonderfully positive way for a young boy and his family to engage creatively around an important, upcoming moment in his life will now likely become a tarnished, if not traumatic occurrence overshadowing not just his Bar Mitzvah, but his Jewish identity and development as well.  Where's the win in that for this boy, his family, the Jewish people?  Oh right, there isn't one.

Enough with the judgement and bashing.  It is really easy to fall into the trap of passing judgment on others when their choices, both personal and in relation to Judaism, diverge from what we perceive we would do in the same situation.  It is much harder to take a step back, accept that different people make different choices, and try to find the positive, raising up the good instead.  

So, if you happen to see the video pop up in your twitter of FB feed or in your inbox, extend the boy and his family a hearty "Mazal Tov!"  Praise him for his willingness to add his own creativity and community into the process.  Let him know we are proud that he is going to be an adult in the Jewish world and we can't wait to see how he'll invest his talents and self after the big day has come and gone.  Perhaps if enough of us put out positive energy, or at a minimum keep our negative opinions to ourselves, we might send a different, better, more enduring message, to the boy, his family, our own community, and the world.