Old Man Rabbi & Chayei Sarah

You know that you’ve made it on Social Media when people start insulting you.

Recently, I started making YouTube videos (@Juliet the Rabbi is my channel).

As a backdrop for the videos, I sit in front of a large painting on the wall of my office. I guess you could say it’s a family heirloom.

The painting is called, “The Rabbi.” The artist is Ben Zion, a famous Jewish painter. It depicts an old man with a long white beard. He’s sitting barefoot on the floor with a tallit, a prayer shawl, draped over his head and shoulders as he gazes down at a Torah scroll he’s holding in his gigantic, male hands.

I used to see him hanging in my aunt and uncle’s house growing up. As the child of Communists, I had absolutely no context for this old man, so I had no idea what it was about.

Last week, my viewership for my Spanish YouTube videos exploded, and I started getting subscribers. I even got some beautiful comments.

But one comment was typical of the license people take on Social Media to express any insulting, stupid thought that comes into their minds.

It said, “The painting behind you is really ugly and you should sell it at its liquidation price”—with a thumbs up emoji.

I just had to laugh, it was so ridiculous.

I was telling some friends, a group of women I got together to form a group of Jewish clergy comprised solely of women. This was a final “capstone” project for my rabbinic studies.

The idea came as a counterpoint to the overwhelming representation of male clergy in the world.

I had personally experienced this dominance, and the competition among women that results from it, especially in the tiny Jewish world.

My group is an effort to support and empower each other as women clergy while offering something unique.

Yesterday during our weekly meeting, I told the group about what had happened with the YouTube comment.

One of the women said strongly, “You’re going to have to change your backdrop, Juliet. That painting doesn’t represent who you are as a rabbi. It’s a leftover image from the past that we’re trying to change.”

Others agreed. I listened, my heart sinking.

“Or maybe you should put a band across it,” someone else said, “like you’re banning this antiquated image.” (I’m paraphrasing.)

I was disturbed, partly because I’m attached to the painting.

But the more I thought about it overnight, the more I realized it felt like “Cancel Culture.”

The truth is, by sitting in front of Old Man Rabbi, I actually feel like I’m defying the wider culture and Jewish stereotypes.

I also don’t feel the need to erase the past.

The past is a part of my story, like my grandfather lovingly laughing at my desire to wear a yarmulke as a girl child, something beyond his imagination.

Though my grandfather wasn’t a rabbi, there’s a sense that he’s watching over me, marveling at the fact that I am carrying out his cherished desire for me to love Judaism by becoming a rabbi myself.

I bet he’s laughing at the irony of it now.

But I’m sure he’s also marveling at the fact that, as a woman, I have that choice.

Every year when I read the parsha, Chayei Sarah, The Life of Sarah, I marvel at the character of Rebecca.

I wonder how she had the strength—and the faith—to agree to marry a man she’d never seen, knew nothing about, in a far off place, and to leave by the very next morning, without even flinching.

Though she had little choice in her life’s trajectory, she might have protested in some way: begged for more time, pleaded with her brother and mother not to be sent away forever.

She might have cried.

But none of this happens. In fact, it’s her family that begs for a little more time with her.

When she leaves, she simply takes her maid, her personal belongings, and her family’s blessings with her, and goes on her way, perhaps never to see them again.

Perhaps she started with a good solid sense of faith.

Perhaps Abraham’s servant’s faith also feeds hers.

The servant sent by Abraham is on a mission to seek a wife for his son Isaac.

He has strict instructions to find a woman from among his family, not from the local Canaanites.

He must swear to Abraham that he will secure one who will agree to return with him; under no uncertain terms is Isaac to go live in her land.

The servant takes his oath very seriously, and prays to the god of Abraham to help him.

At the same time, he knows that Abraham’s god has sent an angel before him to lead the way and help him—because Abraham has told him so, and he believes it without question.

The servant imagines the kind of girl he is looking for and the conversation that will ensue—one generous and kind, quick to help a thirsty man and his camels after a long trek in the desert.

And when his prayers are fulfilled, he marvels that what he had imagined is exactly what comes true. So excited is he that he refuses to eat until he has told the tale of his mission to his hosts.

This servant has a deep faith.

He knows he is not alone on this journey—that there is a god who cares.

I was listening a few days ago to Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks talking about the importance of faith.

He says that as humans, we are made to have faith, just like we are made for connection to each other; without faith in something greater than ourselves—something that cares about us—there is no hope, and life has no meaning.

Faith, he says, is closely tied to religion, and our modern American society is also founded on religion’s (specifically Judaism’s) moral principles.

Although religion can and has been manipulated, abused and abusive (my words), Sacks says that when we lose a collective sense of faith, and there are no agreed upon moral principles, when everyone is on their own to make and find meaning in life, personal and collective tragedies increase, as in suicide rates (and mass shootings).

—Because meaning is not something we do on our own.

We are like individual letters that have no meaning except if joined together to become words, that likewise come together to form sentences, then paragraphs, in order to make meaning.

We can not make meaning alone.

Thus, society can not live healthily without a shared understanding and purpose. This is called anomie.

In the same way, though many would like us to believe it, science can not stand alone, without religion.

Sacks says that the skepticism that science has promoted, and that has infected our society, is a “very bad mistake.”

Moreover, it has become a widespread idea that religion is a way of explaining things we couldn’t explain before.

But-—"Science can tell us how things work, though not why; technology gives power, but doesn’t tell us how to use that power; democratically elected governments can stop us from harming other people, but they do not/can not tell us how to live; the market gives us choices, but doesn’t tell us what the good choices to make are, and what are bad.”

And—“There are three questions that science can not answer: Who am I? Why am I here? and How then shall I live?”

Sacks continues: “We have affluence and choices our grandparents couldn’t have imagined. Yet, the despair has increased.”

He is amused by those he likes call, “the angry atheists,” who argue that there “probably” is no God, and wrote as much in ads posted all over London buses some time ago.

I ask: what was the probability that Abraham’s servant would find exactly what he was looking for, and that it would happen exactly as he imagined and hoped?

Our tradition teaches, from Psalm 23, "I will not be afraid, for You are with me.”

When Rebecca approaches the place of her future home, she sees Isaac. Without knowing who he is, she falls off her camel—obviously overcome simply by the sight of him.

And Isaac loved her—only the second reference to love in the Bible.

Rebecca didn’t have many choices—they were either marriage or harlotry.

What she did have was faith.

Yet, what was the probability that Rebecca would find love with a man she’d never even seen—or that he was would be handsome to boot?!

Still, the possibility of love gives us hope.

Love and connection bring meaning to life.

We don’t know why. These things belong to the part of life whose explanation defies logic or science.

And they are part of our story.

My inheritance is part of my story—a story I am playing a part in changing.

If I didn’t have faith that I could make a difference in making Judaism less dogmatic, more inclusive and egalitarian, I wouldn’t have bothered investing so much in studying for the past seven years.

In itself, having faith is counter-cultural to the United States.

That faith is rooted in something that I believe cares about me, about us, and, as my tradition teaches through our prayers, I should never be ashamed of that faith, or of Judaism.

Tragedy, a Greek word that has no equivalent in Hebrew, means “bad things happen because of the way the world is; the Universe is blind to our existence, deaf to our prayers, it couldn’t care less whether we exist or not. But Judaism says otherwise”—as Rabbi Sacks says.

As I said last week, all the great leaders of social movements have shared a deep faith.

Atheists who look to them for guidance tend to disregard or forget this fact. Meanwhile, it is this faith that drove them to fight for the possible, not the probable.

I love the following letters and words strung together by Rabbi Sacks:

“Jews have proved in every age that faith is the defeat of probability by the power of possibility…

“Judaism, through its great heroes and heroins, has shown us what we might achieve, and by challenging us to great heights, lifted us to greatness. May we be lifted to greatness, and may [God] bless all that we do.”

I add to this blessing:

May we each continue to strengthen our faith through our ancient stories; may we find strength in our faith, and may we play a part in the counterculture of faith for the good of all humanity.

And say Amen.

My Tummy Hurts & Va-yera

I couldn’t stomach going out into the “gorgeous weather” yet again yesterday.

While it seems so many people are enjoying it, I find it hard not to think of when the next devastating hurricane will hit.

The temperature went to a humid upper 70’s on Sunday for the New York City Marathon—in November!

I stayed inside as a protest—what a lot of difference that made in the world!

Meanwhile, conspiracy theories abound in the political arena. Day after day, what fills the news is how crucial this time of mid-term elections is, and the “threat to our democracy.”

Many boundaries are crossed as “volunteers” would like to “help count votes,” interfering in the election process—some of the same people, I suspect, who would do something like, say, storm the Capitol and cause chaos and destruction.

Our country is one big hot mess.

The world is one big hot mess.

And since the world is One, I am also One Big Hot Mess.

I could go on. Are you sure you want me to? It’s hard to stomach.

But this week’s Torah portion is also hard to stomach, with its own chaos, destruction, and crossing of boundaries.

For instance:

1. A mob of townsmen in Sodom breaking down a door and invading Lot’s house in the effort to rape two male visitors/angels in human form (terrifying and curious);

2. Lot’s offering of his virgin daughters in their stead—to do with whatever they want (outrageous);

3. Lot’s family fleeing from the fire and brimstone that God sets upon Sodom, and his wife turning into a pillar of salt when she looks back (all horrifying);

4. Lot’s daughters getting him drunk and “lying with him” in order to get pregnant and continue the species (gross);

5. Sarah—again—posing as Abraham’s sister with yet another king in another palace (outrageous);

6. Sarah giving birth at ninety (don’t want to imagine that one);

7. God commanding Abraham to sacrifice his son as a test (outrageous);

8. Abraham tying his son to an altar and raising a knife to him until God/angels tell him to stop (again…).

All contain boundaries that should never be crossed, and violence and destruction that doesn’t need to happen.

It’s One Big Hot Mess.

What do we do with it all? How to protect our personal boundaries so we can participate in healing the world while also staying active and abreast of what’s happening?

It comforts me to hear life-long meditation teacher, Tara Brach, talk about sleepless nights of panic and anxiety over the mid-term elections and the state of the world.

Over so many decades of teaching spiritual practice, she says that what she’s learned is that the more trust or hope a person has, the more a person gets engaged—and the more change actually happens.

“Wise hope," is what she calls it: to trust in possibility.

Which extends beyond the personal to the entire world.

As she says, the spiritual leaders that have inspired transformational movements, all had a revolutionary vision that included a sense of possibility for our collective potential.

And they all believed in rooting activism in love and compassion.

The more each of us has a vision, she says, the more we energize that unfolding.

In the words of her friend, poet Dana Faulds:

Where there’s love, there’s possibility.

And where there’s possibility, there’s energy.

And where there’s energy, anything at all can happen.

And where anything can happen, surely something good will come of it.

If at any point things seem to be going awry, that’s when I begin again with love.

Tara Brach beseeches us: rekindle Wise Hope. It connects us with all others who have love for life and want to serve life—with all those alive feeling our great concern, wanting to be part of the healing.

This week, I read something beautiful and inspiring in the book, A River Flows From Eden, by Melila Hellner-Eshed, a book about the Zohar, which belongs to the mystical teachings of Judaism.

Hellner-Eshed explains that, according to the Zohar, mystics are those who taste the sweet amid the bitter. The mystic “knows that an envelope of bitterness encases the divine sweetness, yet knows how to reach the sweet, divine essence hidden within the layers of the world’s bitterness (p.83).”

In addition, the mystic is one who turns darkness into light, subdues evil, and transforms evil into good: “There is no light except that which emerges from darkness…and there is no good except that which comes from evil. (Zohar 2:184a, p.82).”

She explains further, “In the Zohar, the light of (the) moments of love is the light of dawn, prior to the world’s inundation with the strong light of the sun.

I will end with a story from a friend of her experience watching the lunar eclipse a couple of nights ago.

It was the middle of the night, she couldn’t sleep, and she saw the full moon shining bright in the sky.

Over the next couple of hours, each time she checked, the moon was slowly entering into darkness, until it was but a sliver.

Finally, all she could see was a murky blackness.

This created terrible anxiety in her. She wanted to see the moon revealed again, but it was setting.

But just as that was happening, the sky was beginning to brighten as the day dawned.

In that moment, what was revealed to her is that the light is always there, even in the murkiest moments.

May we all be like mystics, seeing the light in the darkness, tasting the sweet in the bitter, and transforming evil into good through our love.

Black, Jewish, Religious, Gay & Lech Lecha

Everyone wants to be famous.

Or at least be recognized for their gifts and contributions.

Last week, I threw myself entirely into Instagram. In a really big way.

This is very unlike me.

Until now, I have refused, especially during the pandemic, to be sucked into the vortex of social media.

I have protested when told I needed to get moving on Tik Tok and Instagram to get my name out there.

Not only was I intimidated by it, I also didn’t want to have to play this game everyone is playing! It feels like you’re in this impossible sea, all vying for the big fish.

Not to mention—it’s a lot of work, and for very little return.

But last week, I spent hours studying it, watching intently to understand the types of content people post.

I was appalled at the end of the week when I got my screen-time report from my phone!

Exactly when I wrote, “put away the iphone, close out Instagram, Facebook…” I was doing exactly the opposite—even when I was with family! (Are you laughing now?)

“For what?” I protested to my daughters.

“To get a lot of viewers.”

“But why?”

“To become famous.”

“What for?” I insisted.

Finally, all they could do was laugh at me.

Back in September, I was visiting a friend on the Long Island Sound, enjoying the sand and the sea.

There were mounds of shells washed up on the beach, and I decided to try walking in them.

Yes, it was painful. But a good massage, as they say.

My friend, amazed, said, “let me film this!"

So I did a cute little walk for her through the shells.

Then I posted it on Instagram for the fun of it.

And I’ve gotten over 9,000 views! I was shocked! Here I was, just being my silly self, not trying at all!

Last week in Torah, before Abraham appeared on the scene, the people built a tower reaching all the way to the heavens. They wanted to “make a name” for themselves.

In this week’s Torah portion, God tells Abraham (still going by Abram), to go forth (Lech Lecha), leave his family and the place of his birth—and God will make his name great; and like the stars in the sky—or grains of sand on a beach—Abraham’s offspring will be so numerous, they are beyond counting.

But as soon as God singles Abram out, Abram proceeds to act in a way that no leader should act.

He goes down to Egypt and, for his own personal gain, wrongs his wife Sarai (soon to be Sarah), by asking her to tell a lie for him; she is so pretty, he fears the Egyptians will kill him—and keep her. Thus, she poses as his sister, and ends up in Pharaoh’s palace (for purposes we can easily imagine) for what might be years; it is enough time for Abram to become a very wealthy man.

Abram’s ego, and his disregard for another’s—a woman/his wife’s (!) life, are so great that he only cares for his own welfare (his name!), never thinking of the suffering he is causing—not even, it seems, when God brings a plague upon Pharaoh’s house, and Abram is forced to take Sarai and leave—with all his wealth! (Has he learned anything??)

Later, Sarai, unable to conceive, falls into a competition with her maidservant, Hagar. Hagar becomes pregnant by Abram, and Sarai fears she will lose recognition—her name—as the woman of the house, which leads her to treat Hagar cruelly. 

She understands how society is set up, and she falls into the same game as Abram, but on a woman’s level.

Further on, there is a battle between various kings, and Abram triumphs.

After the battle, they break bread, drink wine, and the king of Sodom offers Abram spoils of war in exchange for “the soul.” תֶּן־לִ֣י הַנֶּ֔פֶשׁ וְהָרְכֻ֖שׁ קַֽח־לָֽךְ׃/ten-li ha’nefesh v’harkhush kakh lakh/Give me the soul and you take the riches (Gen.14:21).

The “soul” often refers to a “person” in Hebrew. While being translated in the plural, as in “Give me the persons,” it actually appears in the singular, as shown above.

Previous commentary on this has suggested that the singular, “nefesh/soul,” implies that Abram would be selling his soul in exchange for wealth.

Abram absolutely refuses, saying, God forbid the king should be known as the one who made Abram rich.

In this instance, as opposed to earlier, Abram makes the right decision.

Later, when Abram is ninety-nine years old, God comes to solidify the covenant with the Israelites. God says to Abram, “walk before me and you will be tamim.” (Gen.17:1) הִתְהַלֵּ֥ךְ לְפָנַ֖י וֶהְיֵ֥ה תָמִֽים/hit’halekh l’fanai ve’h’ye tamim.

The word tamim can be understood as “pure,” or “blameless.”

But it also carries the understanding of “wholeness”—meaning walk before me with all of you—the good and the less desirable parts.

Perhaps Torah’s message is that we are not expected to be perfect, but to walk before God completely and fully as we are: our authentic selves.

Yet, what we mostly see on social media is not this. Each one out there is trying to make their name great, appearing beautiful, young, and purely happy, fulfilled, and confident. I see millions of people, strangers to me, dancing in front of the camera, trying desperately to be noticed in the sea of people.

Their ability to perform makes the rest of us feel like we shouldn’t even try; we could never live up to such a thing.

I don’t think many would deny that they’re selling an image—and sometimes willing to sell their soul in exchange.

I recently came across a guy named Tony Westbrook on Instagram who goes by the name of “Frum Jewish Black Boy.” Being Black and gay as an Orthodox Jew makes him very unusual. One can imagine his struggles walking in the world.

Yet he has made it his mission to put his whole, authentic self out there for everyone to see.

I heard him talking on a podcast about authenticity and how important it is to fight against the desire to hide behind a facade. Interestingly, he became famous on Tik Tok, just wanting to connect with others during the pandemic by lightening up the heaviness. He became famous by being his authentic self—and he wasn’t even trying!

He was just being his authentic self.

In exploring social media as a way to publicize my wares, I’ve had to really ask myself, what is it I actually want from all this? Why do it? How do I remain authentic while also getting my name out there?

How do I bring my whole self along, and not sell my soul while I’m at it?

The answer I've come up with is, I’m doing it because I’m passionate. I’m passionate about Judaism.

I have spent many years now developing myself in the spiritual realm, and it has saved me from despair, and so, I want to bring this to other people.

Also true is that I want to be noticed so I can make a living on this new path.

Remember Zach Bush? I talked him about last week. The “non-empathic presence” doctor who wants to save the world?

Well, he told of this amazing experience of swimming in the sea and being surrounded by a huge school of sardines. The sardines were clearly able to see him and sense his every movement as they moved in perfect harmony.

Suddenly, bubbles appeared, and as they cleared, he could see that some pelicans had plunged into the water for a meal.

Zach’s first reaction was “Oh, no, they’ve come to eat my friends!”

But then he heard and sensed from the fish, “NOOO! Wrong!”

He realized in that moment that the sardines had a knowing that they are an integral part of the cycle of life, and that all together, they make a contribution to life on Earth; they understand that they are part of a much larger cause.

Capitalism has caused us to forget our collective responsibility to each other and our environment. Our society is set up so that we are all scrambling for a living—and a name.

In order to make it, we need to compete and be better, funnier, more known, more beautiful, than the next person.

One of our greatest assets as humans is our individual ability to make unique contributions to society. But we need to remember that we are like the sardines in the sea, here to help our greater society flourish—to contribute to the whole.

We each need to ask ourselves what messages we are sending out into the world with our work. Is it for a cause that is authentically us?

And what is the impact on the whole?

So, when we say, Lekh lekha—go out into the world—let’s make sure we mean: find your own way, but with the greater good in mind.

My blessing for the week is, may we humans be like one big school of sardines, learning from and teaching each other, recognizing each other’s individual gifts, yet moving in synchronicity, making our individual contributions for the sake of the collective and all of Creation.

And say Amen.

Numbness, Knowing, & Noach

I’m always embarrassed to say it, but I’ve basically stopped listening to the news. Maybe I’m trying to numb myself to the pain.

I don’t want to hear daily about all the climate disasters. I don’t want to hear about all the gerrymandering and redistricting to capture votes. I know how messed up our system is.

And I’m tired of feeling hopeless. And of screaming. It just hurts my throat.

I also cringe as I walk past the ever-growing, overwhelming number of people competing for storefront sidewalk space on my street corner, begging for some coins.

I cringe as I walk by, and don’t give them money anymore.

I feel guilty, despite the complex issue of giving money on the street, because I’m supposed to be able to look the suffering square in the face and feel it.

I’m supposed to empathize and offer something. I’m supposed to be Mother Teresa.

It could be argued that developing empathy is the center of all religious and spiritual practice.

“Love your neighbor as yourself,” is a major tenet of Judaism, to be sure—no matter how annoying your neighbor may be.

What a terrible rabbi I will make, I think to myself in those moments.

But the truth is, I do feel the suffering. So very deeply.

Then I hear this doctor guy, Zach Bush, M.D., and he blows my mind.

“One of the worst things is empathy,” he says.

What???

What he wants us to go for is “non-empathic presence.” When someone is sick, suffering, in pain, don’t feel their pain with them. Empathy drains the suffering person’s energy. “I’m a caring person,” is a story we’ve written about who we are as good, empathetic beings. It just makes us feel better about ourselves as humans.

Instead, he says, just be present with them. Don’t try to distract them from their pain, or to numb them with drugs. Skip the empathy. Just connect and communicate with them through touch, which is the best pain reliever ever.

This week in Torah, God destroys all human and animal life on Earth, save the one famous man (and his family) that has shown up in coloring books the world over— along with samples of all the animals on Earth.

God is deeply disappointed by the wayward humans he has created, and chooses one amongst them all: the “only righteous person of his generation,” to start again.

After the flood, when God sees the terrible destruction God has wrought on Earth, God regrets God’s actions. Thus God promises to never destroy the Earth in its entirety again. Now that his anger has passed, he is no longer numb to the pain he has brought.

As Noah’s family begins to reproduce, and new generations appear, the people become very numerous, and they use their unique intelligence and dexterity, along with their communal, tribal bent, to work together to build a tower. This tower reaches all the way to the sky/heavens: the Tower of Babel.

As God is watching this unfold, God fears that these humans have forgotten that there is a much greater, Infinite Intelligence out there, a great mystery we call “God.” God fears that the height of the tower, all the way to the heavens, signals their belief they are just as powerful as Infinite Power.

So God brings them down a notch, confounds their speech so they no longer share a common language. Communication becomes more difficult.

As we ponder the imminent destruction of life on Earth, of the real possibility of the extinction of human and non-human species, this story strikes a little too close to home.

Many of us are way too aware of the havoc our species has wreaked on Earth.

We are frustrated by our inability to communicate with those we disagree with, even when we literally speak the same language and share the same culture. Yet—we must convince all those non-believers in order to save us from doom!

On the one hand, we appreciate our species’ beautiful and unique intelligence that allows us to create and build truly awe-inspiring structures—including this new technology that allows us communication across the globe.

On the other, we are appalled at how selfish and greedy we can be. We want everyone to understand that we must learn to share our resources. And we weep as we see how the technology we’ve built is used to kill and spread hatred.

Imperfect, contradictory beings, full of so much love and hatred. Thus the Mystery made us—a strange mixture.

We might wonder if God was right to be so deeply disappointed in humanity as to destroy everything.

Yet, there was one thing God couldn’t destroy, and God must have known this: though all plant life is underwater for a long time, it revives and returns to health without any help at all!

God somehow knew that the Earth could heal herself.

There’s an amazing piece of science Zach Bush shares. He says that, with only a tiny percentage of farms changing their practices, the Earth can regain her balance.

Just as beautiful and hopeful as this, the same goes for human consciousness; we don’t need to change everyone’s mind, just a tiny number in relation to the entire human population! We humans, like plants, communicate across space without even knowing it!

So if you’re involved in politics, trying desperately to do whatever it is you think will save our country or the world, do it with kindness and love.

And stop screaming. It only hurts your voice.

If you’re on Social Media, be kind, and don’t engage with those who are full of rage.

Just stop.

Stop and be present.

Put down the iphone.

Stop “death-scrolling” on Facebook.

Close out the Instagram—at least while you’re with family or friends.

Or even when you’re by yourself. Be present for and with yourself.

Just be present, and stop trying to avoid the pain you feel.

If you’re in nature, tell the birds and the trees and the plants how you love them. Touch them. Cry with them. Tell them you’re sorry. They have the intelligence to feel you. They are much better at communicating than we are. Watch Fantastic Fungi, if you’re not convinced.

And when you mess up and lose it or yell, don’t beat yourself up. Try to repair it. Do teshuvah. And forgive yourself. Remember we’re all that weird mixture of humanity.

When someone else acts in a way you find difficult, remind yourself that maybe you’ve done that, too. Try to understand where they’re coming from. Be loving. Forgive them.

The Earth is very forgiving.

We can be, too.

And together we can heal the world.

And say Amen.

Babies & B’reishit

This past Sunday, I led a baby naming for a newborn girl.

Such a perfect way to start the new year.

New baby. New Year. (Or the other way around.)

The father had told me he had no idea what a baby naming entailed. 

That’s because we’re making it up as we go, bringing attention to girls as we strive to gain equal recognition for females upon entering the Covenant. (This is not to mention what to do for an intersex child, or how interesting that the rabbis of the Talmud recognized the reality of many genders.)

Adding to the complication of a make-it-up-as-you-go approach, the father is of Jewish Eastern European ancestry while the mother is Chinese Malaysian and Christian.

It’s another one of those situations with an interfaith couple where the Jewishness of the baby might be called into question in the majority of the Jewish world. (Patrilineal descent is not yet widely accepted, you may know.)

People will most certainly (and sadly, in my opinion), ask, “To which tribe does this beautiful new being truly belong?”

The couple seems to live a secular life for the most part, and when I asked the mother how she felt about having a Jewish naming ceremony, she shrugged and said that bringing her Christian faith into it was of no consequence to her or her family; thankfully, everyone had been very accepting.

I thought it was important to dig a little more into her spiritual journey, just to make sure.

She shared that she’d been intensely involved in her church ministry as a teenager, but when she came to the U.S. and met her husband, all that had changed.

Why, I asked?

They looked at each other thoughtfully, and simultaneously said, with a cute, shared laugh, that he had “messed it all up” for her.

Meanwhile, the father has become quite nostalgic for his Jewish childhood and bar mitzvah training and, despite how boring it had been, wants that for their child.

The mother mostly cares about finding and recreating the kind of community she’d had back home with her church. If that’s through a synagogue, she said she’d be perfectly happy.

Fast forward to a week later, and extended family were gathered in a small dining room area. Far away, Malaysian family were on Zoom.

And right from the beginning of the ceremony, the mother started to cry.

Oy. That had not been my intention.

I’d opened with a little niggun/wordless melody from psalm 118, which is part of the Songs of Praise/Hallel, during Sukkot. It seemed appropriate, considering it was the last day of the holiday. 

“Open the gates of Righteousness, so that we may enter, and thank you,” the psalm says.

“Because we have to be the ones to open those ‘gates’ and set so many things right in this precious world.” (Lots of nods in agreement.)

I talked about how all the holidays, from Rosh Hashanah through Simchat Torah, bring in joy, but also tears and nostalgia as we remember our ancestors with more than one Yizkor service sprinkled in:

“We’re here to celebrate this new baby with joy, and also to remember ancestors for whom this beautiful baby is being named.”

“Also, Sukkot, when we pray for rain, reminds us of the precariousness of life through the temporary shelters we put up; from the onset of pregnancy through the birth, and on and on…do we ever stop worrying?

That’s when I looked over at the mother and saw the tears.

Because it was all so true!

But we were here to bless this baby, to lend support and love to these new parents. to begin to lay the foundation of community the couple needs to bring up a child in such precarious times.

We each put our hands over our heart, the most powerful organ of the body whose energy connects us all, absorbed the loving, healing energy into our palms, and spread it out to the family and the world.

Everyone took turns shaking the lulav, raining down blessings on the baby and the world, holding the etrog, the citrus fruit, often interpreted as a representation of the heart, against our chest. 

The great grandfather held the baby and gently sang her songs in Yiddish. 

When the moment came for naming this child, she received names that honored both her Chinese and her Jewish ancestry.

As the mother explained the Chinese name, she apologetically said something about male lineage—and I thought, “My people have the same problem.”

This week, after many false starts to the New Year (three weeks!), we finally begin Genesis/B’reishit.

We begin at the beginning of the world, as our creation story goes.

In the very first chapter, second verse, the Earth is described as a kind of unformed void, a sort of chaos/וְהָאָ֗רֶץ הָיְתָ֥ה תֹ֙הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ/v’ha’aretz hayta tohu va’vohu.

After creating light, and the sky, the water and the land, God said, we will make “adam” (literally meaning creature of earth) in our image, with our likeness: וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֔ים נַֽעֲשֶׂ֥ה אָדָ֛ם בְּצַלְמֵ֖נוּ כִּדְמוּתֵ֑נוּ/Va’yomer Elohim na’ase adam b’tzalmeynu, kidmoteynu (Gen.1:26)

The next verse says, “And Elohim made Adam/earth being, in his image; in their image Elohim made them; male and female he made them: וַיִּבְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים ׀ אֶת־הָֽאָדָם֙ בְּצַלְמ֔וֹ בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹהִ֖ים בָּרָ֣א אֹת֑וֹ זָכָ֥ר וּנְקֵבָ֖ה בָּרָ֥א אֹתָֽם׃: Va’yivra Elohim et ha-adam b’tzalmo; b’tzalam Elohim bara oto zachar u’n’keyva bara otam (Gen.1:27)

What does it mean that Elohim, the first name given for God, is plural? Who’s the “we” that makes humans in “our” likeness?

And if God has no image, then how can we be made in that image?

And how is it that the first impulse is to make man and woman at the same time, as equals, only to change the story later so women know that men have dominion over them—and over all other creatures?

We have a lot of work to do to return to that first impulse to proclaim “We” and “Ours,” instead of “Me” and “Mine.”

We have a lot of work to do to return to a place of equal respect for females—and for all genders—yes, return to that too, perhaps.

It will take a lot of work to get back in touch directly with the land and our food sources.

But, as we know from science, the Earth is constantly correcting the mistakes we humans make as we try so desperately to gain dominion over her—and fail so miserably.

Seeing the way this family cradled and blessed and reveled in the beauty of this new life, welcoming her with open arms, putting aside any possible concerns about each others’ tribes, was a little window into a world where everyone is recognized as created in Elohim’s image–-a world of We, connected to the earth, as we naturally are, living in synchronicity with her—a world where we might leave nature to do its thing of healing in these very chaotic times.

So we ask for the gates of righteousness to open for us, so that we may enter, and make what’s wrong right again–and we will say thank you. And Amen. 

A Simcha & V’zot Ha'bracha

I remember how confused I was when I first learned that the Jewish New Year does not mark the beginning of a new Torah cycle.

In fact, the preparation for the new year, and the ending of the old, seem to blend in to each other, like a watercolor painting where you can’t see the edges of objects clearly, or like concentric circles that overlap in so many places.

All the talk of transformation starts with Elul, a whole lunar month before Rosh Hashanah. Then comes Yom Kippur, and suddenly (yes, that’s how it feels) we’re in the week of Sukkot. We’re overwhelmed by what feels like a barrage of holidays.

It’s not until the end of Sukkot, marked by two days of communal prayer, Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, that we read the last parsha of Torah—and the first, in the same day.

Torah ends with blessings in the form of a poem given over by Moses to the Israelites as they are about to cross over into the Promised Land—and finally with Moses’ death.

Joshua, who has now been handed the mantle, will be their new leader. Yet, what will his leadership bring?

It is a combination of sadness, joy, and uncertainty.

And isn’t it a little bit ironic that we read about Moses’ death, our beloved leader, on a day when we joyfully dance into the night, twirling and stomping and jumping with a Torah scroll—a holiday literally named “The Joy of Torah”?

It’s also true that Moses has been preparing to die for a long, long time.

How many times has he announced that he will not be allowed to cross over the Jordan into the Promised Land?

How many times has he repeated the teachings from God to the Israelites as he prepares them for their new life across the river, like a nervous parent who can’t let go?

How many times has he said that he will soon die?

I wonder if Moses is afraid to die—afraid to leave all this undone stuff to someone else, and this annoying, stiff-necked people he has led for so many decades, behind.

Because, even if Moses, unlike the Israelites, has complete faith at this point, he’s still going into the unknown.

And maybe that’s how life always goes, whether we’re the one leaving, like Moses, or entering, like Joshua.

We are excited about a new path we have been pursuing for years, the moment arrives, and we’re stepping into the unknown. No matter how much preparation we’ve had, we still wonder, “Do I know this stuff? Am I fully prepared?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my own rabbinic ordination—an occasion of simcha, of joy—and the fact that I will be officially stepping into a new role in my life in just a few months.

What am I stepping into? How much more do I need to learn? How much time do I have to develop this role? Whom am I meant to serve?

I cried about this to a friend the other day.

“You have your whole life to do this!” is what she said.

To which I replied, “No, not my whole life! I’m already 60!”

To which she replied, “You have the whole rest of your life.”

To which I replied, “Yes, and I don’t know how long that will be; it could be decades, or a year, or a month, or a day.”

The fact is, we never know, even if we start out younger.

I was talking to someone else today who shared her anxiety around her parents’ impending deaths and their refusal to deal with their house. They regularly joke about the proximity of the cemetery where they will be buried; “When we die, all you’ll have to do is roll us down the hill!” Hahahaha.

But they have become angry, threatening to leave the room, when she has tried to talk about death in a serious way.

Instead, they like to give the example of the previous owners of their house whose family got a dumpster and literally threw everything out the windows into the garbage.

“They act like it will be simple to bury them, but they’re leaving an entire house full of stuff. It’s not only thoughtless, it’s wasteful and ecologically irresponsible.” (I paraphrase her words.)

When I asked if they might be afraid of dying, even though they are deeply religious, she considered this for a moment; as much as her mother joked about “coming back” to give her “lots of signs!” and to “watch over her” (more like watching her, with a comical wag of the finger), I wondered how deep their faith was at the core.

What did they really think would happen after they died?

Maybe nothing?

Maybe they would completely cease to exist?

If they knew for sure that they would be back and visit, wouldn’t it be easier to face leaving?

When someone moves away, don’t we promise we’ll come visit, just to lighten the blow, even when we know in our heart that we won’t?

Just as hard, we don’t know how long we have. We constantly gauge decisions based on the expected time limits.

During Sukkot, we are “commanded” to eat and sleep in a Sukkah, a precarious structure that remembers the days in the desert, when we could see the sky at night through our temporary homes.

It’s a joyful time of awareness that we have solid structures to live in now, that we are “free,” mixed with sadness of the memory of hard times—though those living with housing insecurity today would disagree; they’re living a precarious present!

It’s also interesting that a Yizkor service, when we remember those who have gone before us, is worked into the end of Sukkot—and we immediately enter into the new Torah cycle with Simchat Torah, with a sense of great joy and celebration!

Joy and sadness mix together.

In a Yizkor service, we recite psalm 90, with the phrase, לִמְנוֹת יָמֵינוּ, כֵּן הוֹדַע; וְנָבִא, לְבַב חָכְמָה/limnot yameyu, ken hoda; v’navi lavev chochma.

It’s a little complicated to translate with its short phrases strung ungrammatically together, but it basically says, “Teach us to count our days, so that we know, like a prophet, and (or to know, like a prophet who has) a heart of wisdom.”

Basically, we should measure our days, and be smart about how we use our time.

We ask for a heart of wisdom, one that knows how to treasure the present, because, unlike a prophet, we can not see into the end of our days.

We need these reminders because it’s hard to let go.

As the Torah and Moses show us, the past mixes with the present and the future. It goes in cycles, like concentric circles, blending into and overlapping with each other.

The new is not always, or only, joyful. Sometimes we dread it.

The end is not always, or only, sad. Sometimes we can’t wait for it.

The end is not only the end, and the beginning is not only the beginning.

And we are each at the center, barely knowing where we are, and certainly not knowing where we’re going.

I’m leading a baby naming this Sunday, for a baby born right in the middle of this cycle of holidays, when the past and the future, the sadness and the joy, all mix together, reminding us of the continuous cycle of life and death and love that never ends.

This beautiful baby has come into a very precarious world of many unknowns for the future.

But the fact that her family will be gathered around to support her on her journey, carrying with them a heritage of deep faith and culture, is significant. This is the grounding we all seek, whether we have “faith” or not.

My blessing for today is that she, and we all, acquire a heart of wisdom to understand how to appreciate and make the most of our numbered days, and to know in what ways we can serve to ensure a joyful future for all on Earth.

And may we deepen our faith that we can handle this unknown, just as our ancestors did.

Don’t Change/Surely Change (Ha-Azinu & Yom Kippur)

I got some important messages yesterday from Yom Kippur.


I spent the day at home, with services coming through livestream.


As much as I wanted so badly to be in community with friends, my head was very sharply telling me, “No!” (migraine)


On the flip side, despite the migraine, I got up in the morning, showered, and dressed all in white, like I was going to synagogue.


I sank down onto the living room floor, and into the cocoon of my tallis/prayer shawl, which I sometimes think of as “God’s wings” holding me, to pray/daven and try to be cleansed.


The first part of the message I got was about Azazel.


This reading from Leviticus is where we get the idea of the “scapegoat.” This was a special ritual during Temple times to send a goat out into the desert to repent for our sins on Yom Kippur—to take on the responsibility for us--and thus cleanse us of our sins without us having to do much of anything.


During Yom Kippur services, the prayer leader does some of the pleading for us. But we’re supposed to join in as well, in a serious way, taking responsibility for ourselves.


We ask forgiveness for the ways we have wronged, and ways we have hurt each other.


Because when we hurt another, it has long, and wide-reaching repercussions.


I ask, who do we each blame when we don’t want to take responsibility for our own actions—or even our feelings and thoughts?


To take this further; when we are the people hurt by others, do we allow ourselves to feel whatever we feel for as long as we feel it—because hurts have long, wide-reaching repercussions?


And do we take responsibility for working through these feelings, so we can be cleansed of them?


Or do we tell ourselves it’s time to get over it because, "That was a long time ago”?


How harsh is our voice to ourselves?

Another message I got was from two poems by the famous Israeli poet, Yehuda Amichai, about his parents.


His mother “was a prophet” without knowing it.


She brought the voice of love and support through harsh judgement, and her many “little predictions came together in one big prophecy that will last until the Vision of the End of Days,” says Yehuda Amichai.

His father was the softer voice of love.

According to Amichai, His father was “God,” who gave him the eleventh and twelfth commandments:


“Don’t change.”


And, “You must surely change.”

On Yom Kippur, we face our own death, thinking of how we would like to be remembered, and we remember those who have died—the harsh and the kind voices that gave us love, withdrew it—or never gave it at all.


On Yom Kippur, we also repeatedly recite the thirteen attributes of God as stated in Exodus: compassionate, gracious, slow to anger…


Yet, as we come to the end of the year’s Torah cycle, these attributes couldn’t seem farther from the truth as represented by Moses.


The parsha Ha-Azinu begins with Moses calling out:

הַאֲזִ֥ינוּ הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וַאֲדַבֵּ֑רָה וְתִשְׁמַ֥ע הָאָ֖רֶץ אִמְרֵי־פִֽ’׃

Ha-Azinu Ha-shamayim va’adabeira v’timshma ha’aretz imrei’fi:

Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; let the Earth hear the words I utter!”

Moses communicates his own and God’s love for the Israelites—but unfortunately, with his harsh voice.


And what follows is a poem that comes out more like damnation (remember last week, when God told Moses to write down a poem?) than love and blessing.


It’s a poem that repeats all the mistakes we’ve made as a people—yet God caught us under God’s wings each time.


On Yom Kippur, we stated our shortcomings repeatedly throughout the day.


We called out, and begged forgiveness—for what we have done to each other—and the Earth (prayers do get updated!)


According to our tradition, we have been cleansed. And I actually did feel cleansed after all that calling out and begging.


But that’s only for today.


Going forward, we must keep up the work—of awareness, so we don’t continue to hurt other.


Going forward, we need to keep up the work of fighting for justice—for people, animals, and the Earth, which only has so much forgiveness in her; the harm we have caused has had far-reaching repercussions.


As a species, we need to preserve the beauty and the health of the world we live in. (Don’t change.)


As individuals, we need to stay grounded in who we are, appreciating our own particular gifts and speaking to ourselves in a kind voice. (Don’t change.)


And we also must evolve in the ways we move in the world, becoming kinder to all beings, even those we disagree with. (Surely change.)


Each one of us. And all of us together.


Don’t change. Surely Change.


Because we don’t want the prophecy of the End of Days to be one of death and destruction on Earth.


The End of Days should be a time when we bring Mashiach/the Messiah into the world through our own actions--taking responsibility.


And as we continue to stumble as a species and as a world, let us make the intention to be the wings of God that catch each other.


May the Heavens and the Earth hear us.

And say Amen. 

Judgement, Jury Duty, & Yom Kippur (& Va-Yeilech)

We never know what the holidays will bring until we have experienced them.

That’s true for life in general. But every year I approach the Holy Days wondering and looking to see what might happen.

This year, something happened on the very first night of Rosh Hashanah.

There had been a sadness, especially for me and my younger daughter.

For me, it was around my mother, and forgiveness—a common theme of the Holy Days. Feelings of guilt for having disconnected from her at the end of her life filled my heart.

The house was filled with delicious smells of Rosh Hashanah food I had worked so hard to prepare.

But soon before lighting the candles, I went into a kind of panic, with literal pain around my heart.

I went into my room to cry, which helped me calm down, but didn’t take away the pain.

Then I went to greet my daughters who had come for the holiday, and my husband (he’s a side note here, yet central to my life).

The transition happened for me soon after, when we all stood around the candles, one flame lit for each of us.

In a moment of tenderness, before saying the blessings, we all held hands.

My younger daughter stated an intention of allowing for pain (so young, so wise—I have to take a little credit).

In that moment, looking at the candles burning brightly, I felt the closing of a circle—a broken link repaired—as we invited in the light.

After we sat down, we blessed the new year and each other, and suddenly that pain in my chest was gone.

We sang, held hands and cried in gratitude for having made it through Covid alive. Though the pandemic is not over, it was a real Shehekhianu (thank you for bringing us to this season again) moment.

The next two days brought more singing, out in the park, and at home.

Sadness and joy mixed together—and lots of good food.

Then I had to transition to Jury Duty.

Let me start by saying, nobody looks forward to Jury Duty, and just about everyone tries to find ways to get out of it.

But then I was surprised to feel awe as I approached the grand building of the municipal district of New York City. And I was in awe to have the privilege of seeing the inside of a beautiful, grand, old courthouse, with its columns and painted, vaulted ceilings: a powerful symbol of our “Great, American Democracy.”

It’s meant to fill us with awe. And it did.

On the way there, as the sun was coming up over these grand buildings, I passed a man wearing a large sign that simply said: “Can the schools just teach children to read?”

Then I passed some people with a huge banner calling out our city’s heritage of corruption among our mayors.

As I was waiting on line to get into the courthouse, a man on a bicycle at the bottom of the stairs screamed out to us, “When will it be enough? How much is too much?”

After that, the day was uneventful, other than worrying about getting assigned to a case.

We didn’t get called until late in the afternoon, and as we were shuffled to a courtroom, all I could think about was how to let the judge know I would be observing Yom Kippur, and couldn’t be on a case.

I never had to get that far.

First, he introduced the case as criminal, and gave a little speech about our service, about bias, and judging fairly based on the evidence, “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

As we stood up to vow with our right hand that we would be truthful in all our answers as potential jurors, I wondered when would be my chance.

At the second question, I froze: “Based on religious belief, does anyone here feel they do not have the right to judge another person?”

My heart started pounding as I wrestled unexpectedly.

Did I?

Would I have to say I was Jewish?

Was Jewishness enough?

Would I be a weird Jew to state this?

Would they even believe me?

Yet, my beliefs do come from my Jewish practice, which has been to catch myself when I’m judging, and try to put myself in someone else’s shoes;

What do I know of their life, their circumstances?

Who am I to judge?

Who am I?

Silence all around me.

Before I could decide whether to be the outlier, the judge moved on:

Who among us felt they could not judge a police officer’s testimony fairly?

That was easy! I’d stated this in the past—as the outlier—the last time I went for Jury Duty: “I don’t trust the criminal justice system,” I’d said.

It was hard, being the only one to stand, but I’d done it. Why was I afraid now?

I stared at the floor, still wrestling with my feelings around the first question, and started to slowly raise my hand for this one.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the person next to me also raising their hand. As I looked up, gathering strength, I was shocked to realize that half of the potential jurors had done the same!

Were others using this as a potential “out” for Jury Duty, or were we just a reflection of our times—and gathering strength from each other?

We were told to rise, and they dismissed us, one by one, no more questions asked.

The High Holy Days, and especially Yom Kippur, are all about forgiveness, and recognizing the True Judge.

They are all about awe: making ourselves small in the grand scheme of things, and allowing for vulnerability.

They are about facing our potential death, and vowing to live from a place of awareness of our actions and thoughts going forward.

Too much brow-beating can be harmful, but this is an opportunity to put things and ourselves into perspective. It’s about gratitude for having had more time, and vowing not to squander the future.

The Torah reading that transitions us into Yom Kippur this week is Va-Yeilekh. Moses tells the people again that he is about to die. God reminds Moses of this fact again, too. God and Moses both pass on the message: “do not be afraid, for you are not alone.”

And God has Moses write down a song for the people, a poem, a “sefer ha-torah,” a written teaching, to place beside the Ark of the Covenant.

This written teaching will be a witness to the people when they stray in the future.

As we approach Yom Kippur, some of us may need another person to forgive us.

Some of us may need to forgive ourselves.

Some of us may need to have another person witness our stumbling, and gently support us as we grow.

We may also ask, for the world, for our country, how much is too much and when will it be enough?

We may be filled with awe as we approach this work and these questions.

But even as we do these things, we can know that, even when we feel like outliers, we are never alone.

May Yom Kippur carry meaning—and the surprise of broken links repaired.

Tears of Gratitude & Nitzavim

Something happened this week that brought tears of gratitude to my eyes.

During our weekly Zoom meeting with my fellow ordination cohort, the new dean, Rabbi Darren Kleinberg, was talking about inclusiveness in Judaism (and yes, my ordination from ALEPH is coming in January!) 

Rabbi Darren told us that he’d been “publicly disowned” by the Orthodox institution that ordained him. The problem was that he participated in a beit din with rabbis that didn’t fit into the “correct” (my word) category of both Orthodox and male. This was for the conversion of an adopted child.

He talked about how many people have been hurt by Judaism’s rules around who can be considered a Jew and who cannot.

And I can tell you of just two very close examples in my life:

One is my husband, who has passionately embraced Judaism since before we were married thirty-four years ago.

Though he feels Jewish, certain barriers he cannot overcome would make many state that he is not a “real Jew.” 

Though I have argued and protested and defended his right, even wrote about it, I have sadly participated in passing on some of the hurtful ideas I had inherited about who could “pass the Jewish test” (and for this I have told him, I am very, very sorry).

Another example is my nephew, who was born to a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother.

He recently was on a Birthright trip to Israel with his Jewish girlfriend.

According to them, my nephew was the only participant in his cohort endlessly asking questions, full of curiosity around Judaism, which he knows so little about but wants so much to learn.

And the leaders of his group told him that he’s not Jewish because his mother isn’t. He was so upset, so hurt, and can’t stop talking about it.

My brother’s reaction was, “What would the Nazis say?”

My reaction was, “Not according to the Bible; patrilineal descent is all there is in Torah!

So, here’s what made me cry: 

While acknowledging the significance of rituals of transition, which might be a matter of personal choice, Dean Darren said that he was not interested in making people jump through hoops to become Jewish; if they feel Jewish, and want to participate in Jewish ritual and community, that’s good enough for him. 

There has been so much pain for both me and my husband over the years regarding this issue, and to hear Darren say this—the tears of gratitude say it all.

He went on to tell us of a recent scandal of a German cantor who spoke about the “problem” of too many converts to Judaism.

Then I heard a podcast episode on Identity/Crisis called Yeshiva vs. Pride. Yeshiva University sued the Supreme Court in order to refuse to recognize an LGBTQ club for students—and won.

Yet, after years of Reparative Therapy to “cure” queer people of their “mental disorder,” some Orthodox institutions have been forced to recognize its utter failure, and the fact that queer people are not going away—as much as they wish they would. Being queer is just part of the human condition.

I want to tell you about the name of my website, lnegditamid.us.

I took the phrase, “L’negdi Tamid,” from Psalm 16, and the famous line, “שִׁוִּ֬יתִי יְהֹוָ֣ה לְנֶגְדִּ֣י תָמִ֑יד–Shiviti YHVH l’negdi tamid: I set God (which for me represents the sacred) before me continually, or over and over again.

I chose this name because it is the intention with which I want to live. I want to commit over and over to living a holy life.

What does it mean to commit over and over? And what is a holy life?

Let’s start with inclusivity.

When I was looking for a website domain, I found that “.com” was already taken, but “.us” was available.

“Perfect!” my daughter said as she helped me; “‘Us’ includes everyone, and isn’t that what you’re all about?”

This week’s parsha begins with Moses telling the people that, as they stand (nitzavim) before God today, they are about to “cross over,” or into, God’s Covenant—with all who dwell among them, stranger/foreigner/outsider included!

It is stated throughout the Torah, again and again, that the Israelites are in covenant with God.

Yet, time and again, God expresses immense disappointment with God’s people, flaring with anger, threatening to destroy them or cut them off.

Many instances in Torah, God does, in fact, kill thousands of God’s “own people.” 

And time and again, God is convinced (by Moses) to calm down and give the people another chance—to try again.

Still, God’s Covenant is conditional on the stipulations enumerated throughout the Torah. 

And if we should think it too baffling to fulfill them, it says in this week’s parsha–too much of a wonder/niflayt for us, too out of reach…no, it says in Nitzavim, it is not in the heavens, nor across the sea; it is right here in front of us, in our mouth and in our heart. 

The continuing frustration is clear; why do we make this so difficult?

Still, if we can manage to fulfill them, then God will restore, or return, our fortunes to us (literally, that which we have captured–ugh), and return the compassion and love God has for us. 

And God will gather us together again (from the other peoples among whom we have been scattered—ugh again).

In Hebrew:

וְשָׁ֨ב יְהֹוָ֧ה אֱלֹהֶ֛יךָ אֶת־שְׁבוּתְךָ֖ וְרִחֲמֶ֑ךָ וְשָׁ֗ב וְקִבֶּצְךָ֙ מִכׇּל־הָ֣עַמִּ֔ים אֲשֶׁ֧ר הֱפִֽיצְךָ֛ יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֶ֖יךָ שָֽׁמָּה׃–V’shav YHVH elohecha et sh’vut’cha v’richamecha v’shav v’kibetz’cha mi kol ha’amim asher hefitz’cha adonai eloheicha shama (Deut. 30:3)

In this phrase, the Hebrew word return, also meaning again, שָׁ֨ב/shav, is used in each instance, over and over. 

There are many reasons people give for leaving “organized religion,” and for leaving Judaism, or for not joining a Jewish community.

Among these are; feeling unwelcome; the idea of chosenness, or being special, singled out from the rest of the world; a violent, punishing God; and the idea that God can take God’s love away from us. Plus all the horrible ways our forefathers and mothers act, those whom we are to emulate.

I agree with all of these reasons, and didn’t participate in Judaism for many years as a result. 

The Torah is an ancient book for which I make no excuses. 

Yet, it reflects the human condition, and our present-day society in ways many of us would like to deny, like when we hear politicians say, “That’s not us.”

Well, it is us, because we just did that thing!

Judaism is my heritage, and I choose to play an active role in it, and argue and fight to defend those excluded. 

Because there are still so many messages that need to be heard from it, like that we are the ones to do the deep spiritual work of being able to see all other human beings as equally sacred. It’s not up to some deity we can’t see.

No one can do it for us.

And we are to do it with our hearts and with our mouths, which means seeing others through our hearts, with love, and speaking in ways that bring peace. 

That’s not easy work. We don’t make it hard. It just is. Because we’re human. We suffer from the condition of being human!

So we need to keep coming back to it, over and over again.

The word “return/T’shuva” is an important part of the High Holy Days. This is the big time of year to examine ourselves and “return to God,” to recommit to living a holy and sacred life.

As we approach Rosh Hashanah in just a few days, at a time when so many people are being told they are not welcome in our country and in our communities, let us enter with the commitment to commit–over and over–to live a holy life, setting the sacred before us every day, seeing each human being as sacred, opening our hearts to love and take action that shows that all are welcome—as is commanded in the Torah—and maybe bring tears of gratitude to some one else’s eyes.

L’Shana Tova to all, and to all a good Shabbos!

Milk, Honey & Curses (Ki Tavo)

This week I have had the privilege to be on the beach on the Long Island Sound—to be in nature for a second time this summer as it comes to a close.

The ocean, rain, sun, clouds, the gentle sway of the tide, the feel of my feet sinking into the sand, walking through the crunch of shells, seeing the moon rise, the sun set.

I’ve seen so many wonders, felt the restorative power of them strengthening my body—and felt the blessing of being with an old friend who has brought so much blessing into my life over three decades.

Together, we have felt the blessing of having lived so many decades.

I keep thinking, I will have to store these many blessings up to bring back with me to the city.

But then I remind myself that I must continue to look for and find them there when I get back.

In contrast, the parsha this week is full of curses. The dire warnings seem to never stop.

Ki Tavo, “when you come” into the land, a land of milk and honey, this is how you should act, and the faith you must have.

If you don’t, says Moses of God, instead of delighting in our abundance and numbers, like stars in the sky, or grains of sand on a beach…

Well, we know the drill: plagues, chronic disease, uncertainty, panic, scorching heat, drought, starvation, infertility, death.

And being scattered throughout the world.

After each curse, we are to say, Amen.

There are some blessings in the parsha as well, if we follow in God’s ways, taking care not to lead the blind astray, for instance.

Towards the very end of the reading, Moses reminds the people that they have seen the wonders that God made happen before their very eyes.

“Yet, to this day, God has not given you a heart to understand, eyes to see, and ears to hear.”

(וְלֹא־נָתַן֩ יְהֹוָ֨ה לָכֶ֥ם לֵב֙ לָדַ֔עַת וְעֵינַ֥יִם לִרְא֖וֹת וְאׇזְנַ֣יִם לִשְׁמֹ֑עַ עַ֖ד הַיּ֥וֹם הַזֶּֽה׃—v’lo natan adonai lakhem lev la’da’at, v’eynei lir’ot, v’azna’yim lish’mo’ah ad hayom hazeh.)

I guess God left this work to us.

As we approach the High Holy Days, and work on these in ourselves, I send out the blessings from the parsha:

May we be blessed in the city, and blessed in the country.

May we be blessed by the produce of our land.

May we be blessed in our basket and our kneeding bowl.

May we be blessed in our comings and blessed in our goings.

And may we be blessed with open hearts that understand, with eyes that see, and ears that hear.

May we take the time to notice the marvels all around us, in each person and place where we are, wherever we find ourselves, every day.

May we each participate in increasing the abundance of blessing in the world, creating a land of milk and honey for all, a world where we are not dispersed, but walking together, hand in hand.

And may our blessings be strong enough to overcome the curses with our resounding "Amen!"

Till Death Do Us Part, Ki Teitzei, & Fences

You’ll excuse me if I don’t talk about the dead queen, or about the new prime minister who says it’s time to end the monarchy, while also ending the moratorium on fracking.

All while, as a world, we have just experienced the hottest summer in history, and drought is being followed by torrential, dangerous rains.

You’ll excuse me if I just want to talk about the wedding (if you’ve been following…).

Maybe you, too, would rather hear about a wedding.

There was actually a brief but torrential downpour at the wedding, but not until we were under a roof at the party. It didn’t relieve the extreme humidity, but it did feel cleansing. My sister-in-law said it was a good sign, that this marriage was bringing blessing to the world.

And it was wonderful.

Perfect, in fact.

It turned out exactly the way my daughter wanted and imagined it. The best DIY (Do-It-Yourself) wedding ever (in my estimation).

Of course, that was after a good bit of drama over the previous weeks: certain family members who (in the couple’s estimation), "didn’t care.”

This drama played out partly in their cutting almost all traditional religious elements from the ceremony—just two days before the wedding!

When I spoke to my daughter, she explained how upset and hurt she and her fiance were by various family members.

My role was to help them change perspective; those who showed up, were showing up because of their love and joy at the occasion. We would surround them in a bubble of love, and forget about the “don’t cares.” It would be intimate and meaningful, and this would add to their own joy.

Through our talking and listening, the elements they had taken out in anger and frustration, made their way back into the ceremony.

Essentially, the wedding was a Jewish one, performed in a traditional way, with some Catholic elements.

There was one thing decidedly “modern” that the officiant asked for: to write their own personal vows—but the couple did not deliver.

In a moment of confidence, I asked my daughter about this: no, she said, they were doing the old-fashioned vows like you see in the movies; this had always been her dream.

What traditions to keep in? Which ones to change?

There are still many rabbis who refuse to even perform an interfaith ceremony. “Build a fence around the Torah,” is what they say; protect Jewish ways from “infiltration” by “foreign” elements and “corruption.” Keep it “pure.”

I’ve been thinking about my own fences since the wedding, and then over the last couple of days since reading this week’s Torah portion, Ki Teitzei.

As I thoughtfully made choices leading up to and throughout the day of the wedding, I realized how much stronger my own boundaries have become.

Personally, I decided that, if the choices I made responded to or acknowledged someone else’s generosity and love, or increased joy and love in general, that was the choice to make.

I had to balance this with making sure not to exert excess energy that would send me over the edge to another long “crash.”

So, for instance, I was going to wholeheartedly welcome a houseful of sleepover guests, two of whom were doing my daughter’s hair and make-up (something I worked through a couple of week back, if you read my blog).

And I was going to welcome an extra, very-last-minute sleepover guest; this would bring my son-in-law love and joy—but ended up doing it for us, as well!

I was also going to buy the variety of celebratory foods I wanted for the house, not just bagels and cream cheese, which would have been the easiest and cheapest way. And I was going to serve them myself, despite one daughter’s protest to let people take care of themselves.

These all added to the festivities, made my guests feel welcome and cared for, and brought joy all around.

The foods would be typically Jewish, like my mother would have gotten from Zabar’s, no matter the cost. Such generosity around food had been a positive aspect she’d possessed; it was an important part of my family tradition.

Thus, I “invited her in,” and it brought not only joy, but healing.

At the wedding venue, where the party was, I continued to make choices that put myself and my children at the top of the list.

I chose to converse with those that brought me joy, I did not stop to take care of those to whom I normally would have felt an obligation. Instead, I let others take care of them, and others take care of me.

I remember noticing, as I consciously walked past certain people and circumstances, “That was the ‘old me.’”

Yes, I put up some fences—but very consciously and mindfully.

This week in Torah, we have examples of women who are lusted after and “taken” by men, then rejected.

What to do?

We have examples of newly married women accused of not being virgins by their husbands.

How to prove it one way or the other, and what to do with them?

We have examples of women whose husbands have died. What to do with them?

The answers make an effort to lie in favor of the women, probably revolutionary for their time, but manage to keep the women guilty or vulnerable.

The woman taken and rejected remains possibly cared for and most definitely unhappy; the test for virginity is basically a medieval witch trial.

The widow is given her dead husband’s brother as a substitute, (good for protection, perhaps, but most likely an unhappy choice for both of them). If he refuses, her only option is to publicly spit in his face and throw a sandal at him; she remains out in the cold.

These are very much based on cultural norms of the Ancient World, and the need to change them.

There are other messages from the parsha that are more timeless, like the commandment to provide for the stranger amongst us, to pay your laborer before nightfall so they can eat, and to remember what it feels like to be a slave.

These are universal messages of love and caring, not dependent on cultural norms of a certain time and place.

Thankfully, my daughter didn’t have to worry about being a virgin, or any of the other things mentioned above.

How lucky that she had the option to say, “Till death do us part,” not out of obligation, but as a real choice of commitment to her own personal choice of a husband.

When we say we want a fence around the Torah to protect our traditions, we must think carefully which traditions we are upholding, and which need revamping.

If we stick to the Bible only as literal law passed down from God and our prophets, we act as though the world has not changed. We do not allow for evolution in the world.

We each personally, like the world, evolve.

Though my daughter and son-in-law did not personalize their vows with their own interpretation, and they were definitely not from Jewish tradition, it was a profound moment when I heard them each say, “Till death do us part.”

The timeless and universal truths are what bring us closer to the kind of world we want to live in.

In general, I think this is a good test for our boundaries. We should always ask ourselves: do they bring more generosity into the world, likewise increasing joy and love within and around us?

As we continue to do our personal work of Elul, getting ourselves ready for the High Holy Days, thinking about the vows we may take for the coming year, may we carefully consider the kinds of fences we put up, and how high they need to be.

May we also consider the fences that need taking down.

May we each be conduits for generosity and joy.

And say Amen.

From Bloody Guilt to Mazel Tov & Shoftim

At the end of this week’s parsha, Shoftim, there’s a very strange ritual.

Its purpose is to cleanse the Israelite community of any bloodguilt incurred in the case of a homicide whose perpetrator is unknown or unfound.

It involves a heifer (a young female calf too young to work or give birth), the elders of the town, the local Levite priests, and an everflowing nearby stream. The elders break the Heifer’s neck by the stream, wash their hands with blood over the animal, and make a declaration of innocence.

Thus, they are free of guilt before God.

This ritual seems strange to us, but each element had meaning for people of its time.

Over the next five weeks or so, the Jewish community will be finishing an entire year of Torah readings. The weekly Torah reading is a ritual in itself.

We have also just entered the month of Elul, the month before Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, and Yom Kippur, when we atone for our “sins,” washing away our guilt.

It is a time of transition, when we prepare for these “high” holy days by looking inward, examining our thoughts and behavior over the past year, considering ways in which we can do better in the coming year.

One of our rituals is to hear the blowing of the Shofar, the ram’s horn, every day during this month. It is a reminder to “wake up.”

The Israelites of the Ancient World of the Bible have also been in a transition period, preparing to enter their new land. Weekly, there has been a review of the laws God gave them as a recipe for how to live a righteous life as a people in their Holy Land going forward.

Transitions take a lot of work, both inner and outer.

Even joyful ones.

And I have so many happening in my family this week.

Most importantly, my elder daughter is getting married. Preparing for the wedding, cleaning the house for guests, shopping for food…

My younger daughter, too, is going through big changes. Having just begun fall classes in her (almost) last year of college, she is moving to a new apartment, with new roommates, saying goodbye to old friends. It’s joyful, sad, and full of unknowns.

I am also turning 60 (a happy birthday shout-out to my twin brother!), a birthday that both American and Jewish cultures give importance to, and I hardly have time to mark or celebrate it.

All in one week!

Lots of transitions, not the least of which is preparing for this New Year, which is also the year I complete my rabbinical studies.

Even the world is going through big transitions, hopefully for the greater good over time, but it’s painful in the meantime.

As I said, transitions are challenging. While they may signify growth, entering into a new phase, they can also carry some sadness and loss—of youth, of parenting in the same way, of things as we knew them before. There is always a saying goodbye to the old, and with that comes varying degrees of grief.

Rituals help us through these periods of transition and any accompanying grief. They may be prescribed by the traditions of our community, often from religion, and are a way of making meaning.

Weddings are rituals signifying commitment between two people, while also involving family and community. We laugh, and we also cry.

The Jewish High Holy Days are a time of re-commitment to making changes in ourselves for the sake of relationships and community, a time for admitting that we are merely humans who will continue to make mistakes.

They are a time of connecting with regret and remorse, both emotions and tools that helps us re-commit to changes.

May we each commit or re-commit to finding ways of integrating ritual, old and new, into our lives, to help us through challenging times.

May we wake up and connect and re-connect to our fellow humans.

May we wake up and re-commit to ourselves and our relationships with each other and the Earth.

And in the Jewish tradition of joyful occasions, even when tinged with a little sadness: Mazel Tov to all!

And let us say Amen.

Seeing with Generous Eyes: R’eih

Yesterday morning I woke up to a phone text from my daughter: two more teenagers will be sleeping over on the weekend of the wedding (next week, not this)—in addition to the others, who will already be spread out throughout the apartment, filling all floor space.

I could see it all before my very eyes: the partying late into the night before the wedding, the slamming of doors and toilet seats heard easily through my paper-thin walls.

As it is, I’m still struggling to get back to my old, bouncy, energetic self, measuring my progress day by day. It could spell disaster for me.

So I kind of lost it, and started crying—not that my daughter knew! I didn’t make that mistake!

But while acknowledging the need to take care of myself, I also felt ungenerous.

In my reaction, I was reminded of my mother, the “party pooper.” I don’t want to be that person! Why couldn’t I just let go and get excited about the excitement? It’s a rare gift to see your child get married. And it will be a gift to have all the cousins here. Just the fact that they love us so much and want to be such an integral part of this! I want to be a generous host!

In the week’s parsha, R’eih (See!), there’s a long section on generosity.

The Israelites, still getting reminders on how they should behave upon entering the Promised Land, are told how to handle the needy. They will have great abundance, and should not harden their hearts to the less fortunate among them. Rather, they should be careful to open their hands and give sufficiently to meet the needs of the needy.

They are reminded of the Shmita year, every seventh year, when slaves are freed and the land lies fallow; despite any concerns about scarcity as that year approaches, they must continue to be generous.

In fact, even thinking about holding back, Torah tells us, is a lower, “base” form of thought. And our eyes are evil (v’ra’ah eynkha/וְרָעָ֣ה עֵֽינְךָ֗) when we see our fellow person in need and close our hand. God will hear the cries of the poor, and those who withheld will stand guilty. If, on the other hand, we give with an open hand and heart, we will be rewarded.

There are even specific stipulations around slave ownership (that, unfortunately, give greater benefits for the “fellow Hebrew” slave):

1. No one should serve more than six years (a message lost on supposed-God-fearing American slaveholders, including, sadly, Jewish slaveholders)

2. The owner should not resent having to set the slave free, for they have gotten double the work they would have if paying a laborer

3. The owner should send them off with provisions (from the flock, threshing floor, and vat)

4. If they had a wife of their own when they came, they should be allowed to leave together, children included (this, from Exodus, which has more on the subject)

5. And perhaps most importantly and shockingly, if the slave refuses to go (because they love their owner and things have gone well for them), their ear must be pierced to the doorpost with an awl (a much debated subject), and they shall remain in servitude forevermore.

If we look at this last one honestly, we might to ask the question, “How many options were there out in the not-so-wide world for the newly-freed slave?” Maybe staying with a non-abusive owner would be better than…who knows what!

But the intended lesson is still about taking freedom when the opportunity presents itself.

How often do we turn away from opportunities because it’s too hard or painful, incurring some loss?

For me, the impact on my health might take me back a few weeks. That’s a painful thought for me.

But taking freedom right now might look like letting go of my worries about it for the sake of that one night—and for love in and of the family.

It might also look like redirecting my thoughts towards the joys of a once-in-a-lifetime sleepover with fun surprises. (Didn’t I just say a few weeks ago that the only thing that matters is the love in my family?)

Can I stay positive of mind, and be generous of heart? Can I take this opportunity to change old, hurtful patterns in my family? I have so many memories of hurt feelings because of lack of generosity coming from family members.

Also, the cousins are not exactly needy, but hotels in New York are astronomically expensive, and my husband’s family hardly have unlimited means.

But that’s not even what it’s about in the end. These are the moments that matter most in life, and good memories of joy keep us going.

No one should need a reward for being generous, but the rewards come from all of this.

So, let’s say Amen (and I’ll let you know how it goes…).

Look in the Mirror (Eikev)

One of the main critiques of religion, especially the Abrahamic ones (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), is how patriarchal they are.

This couldn’t be more true.

Thus, rejection of it. “I’m spiritual, but I don’t buy into this patriarchal stuff of organized religion.”

This week’s parsha abounds with perfect examples, as our (male) God tells the Israelites they are about to enter the Promised Land. [He] also tells them how they will be rewarded if they follow [His] laws (with abundance, fertility, good life)—and how they will be punished (with scarcity, sterility, death) if they don’t.

God reminds the people that [He] has tested their loyalty along the way.

[He] beseeches them to remember how [He] made them walk through the desert for forty years. [He} put them through hardships as a trial for them to see where their hearts lay.

The very Hebrew word for “trial” or “test” is the same as the word used for “answer.” It’s like they have to “answer to” God.

The same word in a different form, as used here, means that they have been afflicted, forced to humble themselves before God—on purpose, as in, “I did it for your own good.” (and we all know the damage that’s done to children through the millennia.)

The goal of this, God says, is so they will know that (famous lines), “It is not by bread alone that [man] lives, but by whatever comes out of God’s mouth” (i.e. God’s decrees).

God explains: “Lest you think, ‘My own power and the might of my own hand have won this wealth for me.’”

God declares we should not be afraid, for [He] will be the very one leading us into this new land, driving out, expelling the current residents, not because “you are so virtuous, wise, or righteous,” but because the others are worse; they’re wicked.

In other words, “Don’t be so grandiose; you didn’t do it by yourself. You had a lot of help! From Me!" (Capital M)

It’s true that the message of an all-powerful god, one who rescues us, can be comforting—and it’s an idea many of us no longer believe. We have known too much suffering to believe the opposite, and are tired of taking all the blame for what goes wrong in our lives; it is damning and damaging.

But what is also true is that this message to humble ourselves a little is one we need to hear, especially in our American culture where we are taught that we make or break our own success.

Both messages from Torah and our society are so very clearly patriarchal, based entirely on a male model of reward and punishment—and the Bible is here to remind us that it is not by our own hand if we are “successful.”

Even the word “success” is problematic, as it is based on how powerful a job we have, or how much money we make. As we know, many wealthy people love to say they created their wealth all by themselves, thus forgetting or disregarding the privileges they had along the way, often since birth.

The message is so strong that we feel proud and puffed up when we have money, and full of shame when we struggle.

Later in this parsha, Moses reminds the people that it was God’s love for this people that caused [Him] to do all the [He’s] done for them; all [He] asks in return is their steadfast love and loyalty.

While it’s understandable that one who loves another can hope to be loved in return, this is a controlling god who demands total love and loyalty.

You can’t get more patriarchal than that.

It’s also true that when we reject our holy books because they are patriarchal, we are rejecting patriarchy. That’s a good thing if we want to move forward to a time when we can live more or less as equals, in peace, on Earth.

But in the same rejection of our holy books, there may also be an unwillingness to look at ourselves in the mirror.

Because, as much as we like to think otherwise, we reflect the patriarchy we claim to reject in the very thoughts we have, in our relationship with ourselves, and with others.

Thus says Terry Real who created what is called Relational Life Therapy, which he describes in his interview with Tami Simon on the podcast, Insights From the Edge.

The way we live now, as always in the past, says Terry Real, is by constantly comparing ourselves to others. When we compare, we judge, and when we judge, we hold power.

Either we feel good, and proud, or we feel shame—because someone else has a better job, is thinner, more fit, richer, smarter, has more accomplished children, etc.—even when our circumstances are completely beyond our control.

Either way, one of us is superior while the other, inferior.

Real describes this as grandiosity vs. shame.

Underlying both, he says, is the same emotion: contempt.

He goes on: As understood in our society, either we are feminine/affiliative/connected/accommodating, or we are masculine/powerful/assertive; you can be powerful or connected, but never both at the same time.

Further, in a patriarchy we have power over others.

Such an attitude, he says, is even popular in activist (feminist, anti-racist) and spiritual circles. Who hasn’t heard this one: “I was weak. I’ve found my voice. Now I’m strong. So stand back!”

The fact is, of course, as human beings we are all essentially equal, which is what we’re fighting for.

But by holding on to this attitude, we are perpetuating the very patriarchal way of living that we are trying to change.

The alternative, says Terry Real, is “Soft Power.”

Soft Power is an art to be learned that translates into standing up for oneself while simultaneously cherishing the other person or people in the same breath.

Real guides partners in intimate relationships, but applies his philosophy to all of society; the goal is to truly understand that we are not only connected, we are of the same stuff—to Earth and everything in it and on it.

As humans, we are truly all the same underneath the trauma. Nothing separates us except our lack of awareness.

Therefore, we must be able to look in the mirror.

Only by closely examining how we live out the patriarchy in our daily thoughts and actions will we be able to change our way of living from power over to power with others.

The only way God and Moses knew how to teach us to care (about the widow, the orphan, the stranger in our midst) was by clobbering the people over their heads.

Now that we know differently, does it mean we never get angry when we talk about dismantling patriarchy and racism?

That would be impossible, and sometimes anger is appropriate.

But here’s a start:

Towards the end of this week’s reading, the people are beseeched to “cut away the thickening around their hearts and stiffen their necks no more. וּמַלְתֶּ֕ם אֵ֖ת עׇרְלַ֣ת לְבַבְכֶ֑ם וְעׇ֨רְפְּכֶ֔ם לֹ֥א תַקְשׁ֖וּ עֽוֹד׃

Along with awareness, and a desire to repair any damage we’ve done in the process, the first step is always a softening.

Let’s try it. Again.

Let’s try looking in the mirror.

Let’s increase our practice of examining our thoughts, words, and actions.

Let’s notice when we are judging ourselves or others, putting one of us in a position of shame or grandiosity.

It’s a good time for this work, as we approach the month of Elul and the High Holidays.

Because getting beyond patriarchy starts with each of us.

And say Amen.

Panic, Prayer, & Va’etchanan

Here’s how I usually get my blog going; I read the Torah portion for the week on Sunday first thing. As I’m reading, I’m noticing what stands out for me out of all the elements and stories, in Hebrew and in English.

As the days pass, I become very mindful of what’s going on in my life and the world, looking for connections.

About mid-week I start to panic a little if I haven’t had any inspiration.

And here I am, Thursday afternoon, and I’ve got nothing! I’ve listened to tons of podcasts, the news, learned so much about so many interesting, wonderful, and horrible things, but still, nothing (and I’m definitely panicking now).

All I’ve got is prayer.

Is this the crowd to talk to about prayer? Some of you, maybe. I am becoming a rabbi, so you all must know that I’m into prayer, but…well, you know how I grew up: “There is no God, and prayer is for the ignorant.”

But that’s how the parsha starts this week. It begins with the word for which it is named, Va’etchanan, which is Moses’ telling of his plea to God. (That’s a prayer, when you’re talking to God directly.)

But we all do that, too, don’t we? Who among us hasn’t pleaded with the air around us, to some invisible thing, when we are in a state of desperation, even when we know we’re probably not going to hear an answer. (And if we claimed to hear one, and told a friend, or our therapist, they might panic a little and want to probe further and make sure—God forbid—we’re not hearing voices in general, right?)

But when we say please to God, are our pleas always the right ones? Don’t we sometimes imagine that something would be just perfect—if only—and we later realize it was all wrong?

This week in Torah, Moses continues with his life review as he retells the story of the Israelites’ treck towards freedom. Of course, Moses’ story is very much intertwined with their story.

Right at the beginning, he retells word for word, in a heart-wrenching way, of a conversation with God; “I begged, I pleaded (va’etchanan); have mercy, take pity on me, You, oh amazing God who let me see so many wonders and miracles; You, who have no equal in power on Earth or in heaven, please, please, please let me cross over and see the Promised Land…just this one last thing.”

One might sense a bit of panic in Moses’ desperate plea; he seems to feel he absolutely needs to, at least, step into the land before he dies.

Doesn’t your heart just break for Moses, after all he’s been through? To be cut off from the one thing he’s worked so hard for?

But God was angry at Moses, and yelled, “You’re too much! Stop! Never speak of this to me again!”

Moses blames the people for God’s anger at him; it’s their fault, for being so stubborn and not having enough faith.

One can almost understand why Moses passes off the blame. He’s in pain. And for God to be so angry with him? It’s gotta hurt.

Still, in my opinion, Moses is not being introspective enough; we’ve seen many times when Moses didn’t have enough faith, either. And, frankly, God could use some Anger Management classes or therapy. I mean! To talk to your child in such a way!

And let’s be real; who hasn’t struggled with faith—whether in God or our fellow human beings?

God does make a concession, though, to allow Moses to go up on a mountain and at least see the land before he dies.

But the question remains: is Moses praying for the right thing? Sure, it’s sad that he can’t see the end result of all his work. But does he really need to? Maybe his work is done, and that’s that. Maybe he needs to accept what is. Maybe, too, Moses is not meant to see the end results of all his work. Big deal; he looks out at the land, and all he can do is imagine the future. Does he get the high he was expecting? I wonder.

But maybe sometimes our imaginations are enough. Perhaps our imagination is our power at times. If we imagine things will turn out alright, that we will solve the problems plaguing us, then it means we haven’t given up hope—that we still have faith.

So I guess I did come up with something to write, after all. No need for panic—even a little bit. The stakes aren’t so high here.

But the stakes are very high for a lot of other things that I don’t need to enumerate. And I think many of us are in a panic about these very things.

So, let us pray for equilibrium in everyday life; to know when it’s time to panic, and when it’s not.

Let us not only use the power of our imagination to help us keep our faith alive that we do in fact have the power to fix the problems in our lives and in our world.

And, from a teaching I heard on Tisha B’Av on Sunday this week with Hadar, let us have clarity that we’re praying for the right things.

And let us say, Amen.

Words, Miracles, Life Expectancy, (and other things)

It seems like everyone else is “coming out” these days, so I might as well, too. I always struggle with how much to share of my personal life, especially when it comes to my health.

I have often felt very alone in my health challenges. It’s embarrassing because people often don’t understand, especially if it’s an invisible illness like migraines or fatigue. In subtle and not so subtle ways, our culture teaches that illness is a personal deficiency; if we do all the right things, it’s in our power, whether it’s conventional, non-conventional medicine, or a combination.

The other part that’s hard is that everyone wants to offer their words of wisdom and a miracle cure.

You try, you hope, you put all your faith in it, but still your expectations of how things (and life) should work out…they mostly just don’t.

Before the pandemic, I had chronic fatigue for almost 20 years.

Just when I thought I was done with it, I got Covid—twice now!

That didn’t help my expectations for my health (and life) to change for the better.

Then, in order to finish with my last year of seminary (I expect to be ordained this coming January!), I pushed hard and crammed a lot in.

After I finally handed in my final coursework and completed the last two intensive weeks of study in early July, I crashed.

If you have experience being bedridden fairly often or for long periods of time, you understand. You don’t want to tell people yet again that you are too fatigued, have a migraine, whatever…you come up with some other excuse, maybe.

Even more than that, you just want to get on with life in the “usual” way—get on with all your accomplishments (like becoming a rabbi), but you don’t know when that will be.

Often the symptoms are inconsistent, so you start wondering if it could be something else—maybe worse. Like with the pandemic, there are lots of unanswered questions and expectations for Covid’s trajectory, and for how your life “should” be after you recover.

If we didn’t have a miracle cure for Covid, then the vaccine was supposed to be a miracle prevention.

I heard two fascinating episodes on Insights at the Edge, a podcast from Sounds True.

One is The Life-Changing Science of Spontaneous Healing. The answer here is, it’s actually not spontaneous, though is very exciting.

The other episode is called, Is There a Holy Grail of Healing? The answer is—no. There are no miracles. Though, again, that doesn’t mean there’s no hope. It just means it’s more complicated.

And since it’s more complicated, you still end up in bed.

If you’ve spent long periods of time in bed, you know that your mind goes in all different directions.

This time for me, I was doing a lot of “life review.” Of course, that was after I stopped catastrophizing, and finally sunk into acceptance of where I was.

Then, something wonderful happened.

My mind started going back over my life. I started to think of how incredibly lucky I’ve been, and what a truly amazing life I’ve had so far. The thought came that, if I were to die tomorrow (or today), I would be satisfied. I cried in gratitude.

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t want to die. I want to be healthy and strong when my daughter gets married in September, for instance, and in my darker moments, I begin to worry that I won’t be. And there are so many other things I still want to do and experience.

But the place I ended up was, I have had so much love in my life, and that’s really all that matters. My dreams of what else I want to do don’t matter at all, really. All the accomplishments…the competition…the envy…none of it matters. It’s just our stupid, petty, human stuff.

Only the love matters.

I have to keep that in mind because I don’t know when I will die. But Moses does—sort of. He knows that he will not enter the Promised Land. God has told him so.

In the parsha this week, the first readings of Deuteronomy/Devarim, which translates properly as “things” or “words,” Moses does a life review. He knows that he will go up on a mountain and die, just like his brother Aaron did, directed by God.

Most of the parsha is in Moses’ voice, as he talks to the Israelites and reviews their journey, step by step, from slavery into and through the desert over the past almost-forty years.

He reminds them how bad they’ve been, not having faith in God’s miracles. God has shown them so many miracles, yet they still have so little faith.

Moses speaks in frustration; the current generation will not enter the Promised Land because of this. God is angry with this stiff-necked people.

But in the same breath, Moses says, “You know what? Me, too. I won’t enter the Promised Land, either, because God was angry at me, too.” Moses reminds them of one of the miracles God performed for the people, when Moses himself showed a lack of faith; the people were thirsty, and God told him to speak to a rock, and water would come forth. Instead, Moses hit the rock.

“So, yeah. Me, too,” Moses says.

Now that this current living generation has experienced a pandemic, more people understand what I’m going through, though now it’s transformed to “Long Covid.”

As much as I don’t draw pleasure from other people’s suffering, it’s nice to be understood better. It’s nice to hear, “Me, too.” People no longer offer me miracle cures. They just commiserate. With love and affection.

The challenge for me, like Moses, I suppose, and like everyone else out there, is to retain that feeling of, “All that matters is love, and I’m so lucky to have it in my life. All the rest is bonus.”

I want to keep the flow of love front and center in my awareness.

I want to keep reminding myself that no miracle is greater than the type of conversations that keep love flowing.

Because for all our thirst, the thing that quenches it most is love.

Russian Dolls, Mattot-Mas’ei, and Tisha b’Av

This morning I picked up my necklace with all its charms to put it on. I wear these charms hoping that somehow my superstitions will add an extra layer of protection.

The chain was tangled, and looking closely as I struggled with it, I realized that if I just loosened my grip, it would untangle easily.

Those of us who were born around the 1960’s grew up thinking we were of the generation that would change the future of the world—if only we tightened our grip.

Major diseases had been overcome and modern medicine would save us all—eventually. Women were being liberated and would have control over their bodies. The same for Black people, who were learning to love their skin color and hair. Everyone would decide to lay down their sword and shield, and we would have war no more. Equality and justice would prevail and soon we’d all live in peace on Earth.

Many of us vowed to never give up the fight.

In this week’s parsha, we are taught about vows at length. Vows are not to be taken lightly, as they are a serious thing indeed.

Also, the five daughters of Zelophehad, who showed up in Pinchas last week, come back this week to conclude the story.

It is a story of female heroism and fairness.

First, these women stand up for their right to their father’s inheritance—and they are heard! They win (yay)!

Then, this week, the patriarchy demands its share. As the land the Israelites will inherit is being assigned to each tribe, the men protest; if these women marry outside their tribe, they will take their inheritance with them. The land will not be evenly divided as God assigned it. It wouldn’t be fair, they say.

What is fair? There are so many layers to this question.

Is it fair that these women must marry their cousins or lose their inheritance? Is it fair that the people previously living in The Promised Land are slaughtered? That the Moabite and Midianite women are blamed for luring the Israelite men?

I could go on, but I’d rather tell you about the show I’ve been watching called Russian Doll. It’s brilliant, funny and profound, and if you haven’t seen it, go watch it.

Like a Russian doll, the show uncovers deep layers of the human psyche. It’s about a woman who keeps dying. Over and over, she is (frustratingly) brought back to the same moment again and again—until she learns her lesson.

If you vow to see it, I won’t spoil it for you. But I will tell you that it’s about our desire to change life and make it fair.

It begs the question, “How are we supposed to live while we’re alive?” Should we try to turn back the clock, change the past, if only we had the power? Wouldn’t it make everything more fair—to get back the money someone stole from your family, kill all the Nazis, etc…?

If only…

If only we had fought harder, had a different administration, made a revolution…so many things would be different: coronavirus, abortion, gun violence, drug addiction, poverty, global warming…

If only we had been more politically active, raised our voices, not become complacent…

Tisha B’Av, which commemorates the Destruction of the Temple, is a time for mourning, and it’s coming next week. It’s one of those times in Judaism that allows us to simply mourn. We are not to try and change anything, or wonder how we could have done things differently.

We simply mourn. We read the Book of Lamentations and imagine the destruction, bloodshed and death.

I feel like that’s all I’ve been doing lately: imagining the destruction, bloodshed and death. Mental health professionals say we need to allow for that. I believe in that.

Political activists with a spiritual bent also tell us to grieve our losses, regain our balance, then use the energy of the pain and rage for the sake of change—take hold again, grab on tightly, make a vow to never give up.

I believe in that, too.

Look, I don’t have any of this figured out. I’m just journeying along in this life, trying to figure it out like the rest of you.

And what keeps coming up for me is that humans have always struggled for justice, equality and peace.

And at the heart of that is love.

Love for the land, our fellow humans, our families, our communities. And we’ve been taught that if we could divvy things up“just so,” making sure we all have our fair share of power and land, all our problems would be solved.

Conquer disease, and then we will all be protected, with no need for special charms around our necks.

But we know in our hearts that all disease will never be conquered. And we know that, come what may, we must all die in the end.

With Tisha b’Av we mourn the end of an era, and with this week’s parsha, we come to the end of the book of Numbers.

With these endings, maybe it isn’t a time for making vows or tightening our grip.

Maybe it’s a time to uncover the layers of our grief and figure out what lessons we each need to learn while we still live on this Earth.

And let us say Amen.

God’s Image in Pinchas?

Perhaps like you, I struggle to see the good in some people. You know what I’m talking about.

What about everyone being made in God’s image/B’tzelem Elohim?

Yet God is violent, flying into rages, sending plagues upon God’s own people again and again.


Do we want to be made in that image?

Maybe you remember the story of Pinchas at the end of last week’s parsha; Pinchas shows his passion for the Israelite God by putting his sword through a Midianite woman and her Israelite lover.

The pagan Midianites and Moabites are seen as using their women to lure the Israelites away from their own all-powerful “God” back towards pagan gods and practices.

In God’s fury at seeing the Israelites cavorting with the local pagans, God sends a plague upon the Israelites.

The plague ends with Pinchas’ horrific act. And—God makes Pinchas a priest!

“How can God reward such violence??!” we say.

Indeed, Pinchas is seen as a hero by many Jews. His story has been used as a license toward similar violence in today’s time against Jewish and Israeli “enemies.”

Some of this can be understood by looking at history. Paganism throughout the ancient world was a constant threat to the newly forming Israelite religion of monotheism. Thus, the repeated reminders in the Bible that we are different and must keep ourselves apart.

Fear of the stranger has been compounded by millennia of violent Anti-Judiasm.

But there’s another way of looking at this story, writes Arthur Waskow of the Shalom Center.

True that “The plague of violence ends the plague of sickness.”

But maybe God sees Godself in Pinchas, and  realizes that God’s own rage and violence are the wrong example to be setting.

Perhaps, as Waskow puts it, God is “shocked into shame.”

God’s covenant with Pinchas as a priest, is one of peace; literally, “I give him my Pact of Peace/Noteyn lo et briti shalom.”

Maybe this is God's way of saying, by making you a priest, you take a vow never to use violence again.

This may be a generous reading, but doesn’t it often come down to how we read—and look at—things?

I heard a recent episode of This American Life called The Possum Experiment. It investigates the basic question, “Are most of us bad or good?” Its authors wonder whether it’s better to stay on guard most of the time; having been burned, isn’t mistrust the better way to go?


Mistrust protects us, after all.

Act One is an interview with comedian and writer, Darryl Lenox (who is very funny—listen here).

Lenox has gone blind as a mature adult, giving him the privilege of being able to compare the “before and after.”

A tall, imposing, Black man who has lived with the kind of prejudice a man like him would in the U.S., Lenox is now forced to put his trust in strangers.

What he finds is that, when people discover he is blind, they are suddenly no longer afraid of him. Total strangers share intimate secrets and make him listen to confessions of all sorts.

There’s a priest who likes to have sex with men; a white cop who recognizes how his work has changed him by being on the look-out for danger always.


But mostly they’re older, white women—women who might be afraid of him under different circumstances, and now pour their hearts out to him.

The interviewer wonders, don’t these experiences make Lenox more cynical and distrustful?

No, he says, they've actually given him more faith in humanity.

Because to him, it means that we are all just “this small thing away from being exactly the same.”

May we read goodness and trust into our neighbors. 

Whenever possible, may we follow the way of peace in our dealings with those we disagree with and those who threaten us.

May we retain our faith in humanity.

And may we say Amen. 

Curses to Blessings & Balaam

I don’t want to talk about Balak.

Or his mission to get Balaam to curse the Israelites.

Or about Balaam’s curses that turn into blessings because the only words that can come out of his mouth are the words that God wants him to say.

Or about Balaam’s donkey and the angel with the drawn sword that blocks their way.

Or how Balaam beats his faithful donkey because he can’t see what his donkey can.

I don’t want to talk about how God finally gives the donkey the ability to speak, and how Balaam proceeds to have a conversation with him as if it’s the most ordinary thing in the world.

Or about Balaam’s inability to see despite, ironically, being a seer, which is why he is hired by Balak to curse the people Israel in the first place.

Or how it makes no sense that God gets angry at Balaam for going with Balak’s people even though God gave him permission just a minute ago.

I especially don’t want to talk about the bloody scene at the end of the parsha of Pinhas putting his sword through a “whoring” Midianite woman and her Israelite lover, and the contradictions in that story.

I just want to talk about the gratitude I have to be writing to you from “the country” where I am visiting a friend for a few days.

I want to tell you about the hammock hanging on her porch and how I’ve been gazing out at the woods, sleeping in a tiny tent, listening to the night sounds of the surrounding woods, the rushing water of a stream behind her house, and the rain on the leaves.

I want to tell you how grateful I am to be escaping the oppressive city heat, the garbage on the ground, and the incessant noise.

I want to tell you about the woods we lay down in, and the sparkling pond we went swimming in, the water so clear you can see the little stones at the bottom. And how I floated on my back and just listened to the silence of the water filling my ears as I stared up at the sky. And how healing it’s been.

I want to say that, even though I was “escaping the city" and its dirt, I still found garbage strewn in the woods. And somebody was playing loud music at the edge of the pond.

And I wished I could ignore the garbage and close my ears to the noise and escape the negative.

I want to say that, although sometimes we see things we wish we could close our eyes to, and go on our merry way, we can’t.

And there are times we try to see things, but we don’t, because we all have our blind spots.

May we be blessed with clear sight, with enjoying and loving this world while we’re in it, despite its imperfections.

May the curses that come from our frustrations turn to blessings, despite everything.

And may we be blessed with healing.

And let us say, amen.

Law of the Land: Hukkat

I’m just coming out of two weeks of immersive classes on Zoom through my seminary.

This past week, we studied Jewish funerals and baby welcoming/covenanting.

We created rituals to honor these two important ends of life in ways perhaps never done before—for individuals and populations that past generations could have never imagined in our rapidly changing world.

While endings can be sad, do we fight and deny them, and only welcome the new with open arms and delight?

Can we honor both?

It felt very apropos to what is happening in our country and world today.

Front and center in my mind are the Jan. 6th Insurrection hearings, and all the new Supreme Court rulings on abortion, climate, guns.

How they will change our lives.

How many more people will die.

Whether our Democracy is dying.

Whether our Democracy was ever really alive, or was it just an illusion.

These decisions have been like an unstoppable waterfall over the past weeks.

Are these waters causing death, or cleansing? Or both?

Speaking of water, over the past month, the water coming out of my tap has been very smelly--a really dirty, sewage smell. I began to wonder if there was something dead and rotting in the tank.

The building finally got a plumber in this week to clean it. It was filthy. Who knows how long it had been since the last cleaning.

This week’s parsha, Hukkat, is named for the laws of ritual purification regarding those who come into contact with the dead.

Niddah is the word used to denote impurity.

It’s the same word used to describe a woman in the middle of her menstrual period.

The root meaning of niddah (Hebrew letters, nun-dalet-hey), implies distancing, pushing away, excluding; a menstruating woman is considered impure and must be distanced from the camp.

But menstruation is about fluid cleansing her body of that which has died, so the cycle can begin again and new possibilities can be born. 

Humans are not good at accepting this cycle of life. We fight it. We’re afraid of it. We push it away. We keep it at a distance.

But death has to happen; it is what feeds new life as the old literally becomes compost to nourish the new.

Maybe that’s what’s happening in our country right now.

It’s been a long time since the American Republic began.

Since the Revolution, our democracy has expanded towards greater inclusivity, while recent trends have taken us in the opposite direction, towards greater exclusivity.

The old is wreaking havoc before it goes out, fighting its death to the very end.

Here is my prayer for the week:

While we honor that which may have started out as an improvement to the old, may new waters wash away that which is rotten.

And may the dying nourish new life and possibilities that come forth from it. 


And please say Amen.