Choosing the Garden

I have been fascinated and enthralled by fruit trees lately. Just walking around my neighborhood, I can see peach trees, lemon trees, fig trees. I see palm trees, fruits, and succulents I have never even seen before. Last weekend, I had the joy and pleasure of visiting an actual vineyard in the country, which was a small vineyard, owned by someone I know, and they blessed us with an invitation to spend time on their beautiful property.

Seeing fruit from a tree reminds me that stores are sometimes unnecessary. If I am hungry, I could walk down to the local market and spend some money. Or I could walk out into my back yard and pick a huge bowl of plums from the heavy branches of our fruiting tree. That's real food. I don't lose any money, and I don't have to worry about whether it is locally grown. It's about as local as it gets. Next I probably want chickens. But the point is, our food and sustenance doesn't actually come from a store, it comes from the earth. And providing for ourselves isn't just about money, it's about how we can avail ourselves of the opportunities at hand.

So my friend from New Zealand and I sat in the back yard last night, drinking tea and occasionally eating plums from the tree. She and I met singing in the choir at church. She is getting ready to leave for England with her husband. I am trying to decide if I will go back to the choir or not. And I shared with her my decision to become Jewish. She is Christian, of course, but she is Christian much in the same way that I was, which is in a broad-minded, non-evangelical sense. She was happy for me.

I find it actually very easy to talk about my choice, even among Christians. I anticipate some opposition from my parents, and I am sure that my grandfather will try to evangelize me, but at this point I really don't care. And how do I know what their reaction will be? I could get all worked up about it, and the next thing I know, I will sit down with them, I'll say, hey, guys, guess what, I'm Jewish. And they'll say, ok. Want to go to the beach?

But that doesn't mean I can't back myself up with plenty of solid arguments for my position beforehand. Which of course is not hard, because I have ultimate faith in what I am doing. I believe it's the right thing for me, and, well, I believe in one G-d, so that's about it really. I am following my belief.

I am also following my gut and intuition, and I feel like I can back that up with reasoning.

I was telling my friend last night that it comes down to choice. If I have the freedom to choose one or another religion, I want to choose the one that makes me happiest and makes me feel like I am living a full life in concert with my beliefs. Freedom of choice is really a big thing in Judaism, if not in other beliefs. (Freedom from choice as well, and that's another story.) But, for a religious argument, if you want to say G-d created the world, then you have to believe that He created the whole world, not just Jews or Christians or Muslims or anybody else. All of it. Even the people with no belief. And part of our being created is our freedom. We have the ability to choose what we want or where to go. This is the essence of the story of the Garden of Eden, which I think is often misconstrued or used for emotional manipulation and guilt tactics, talking about "original sin" that we somehow have to perpetually make up for. But what it is really about, to me, is freedom of choice. G-d gave us all these things, including the freedom and the ability to choose what is not right for us - that shiny thing that promises redemption and release but is ultimately a sham. But we can choose that thing. We can listen to the snake. We have that capacity. It's available to us. We will be punished, and we will be unhappy, of course. But G-d made us that way. It's all part of His plan. Possibly, if not probably, to show us the right way. How do I know I am not choosing the apple now? Is this me trying to taste forbidden fruit? And I say, no, because I've done that already. It was a sham. And now I feel like I am choosing the Garden.

The Omer

I have to say it was a great experience counting the Omer this year. I learned a lot. And I also felt that in a way it's what I've always wanted to get out of therapy and never had. Because it was like homework. Literal, physical, actual emotional homework. I mean, talk therapy is great, but I always get a little bit frustrated after talking for an hour, and then hearing almost nothing back, or just a regurgitation of everything I just said. And then, okay, I'll see you next time. Write a check for $120. But, you see, what I always wanted from my therapists was homework. They never gave it to me, and I never felt like I got anywhere. But this year, I decide to start doing Judaism, and I got what I always wanted - for free!

All I had to do was go home, pray every night, think about the meaning of the specific sefirah I was supposed to concentrate on, and then either do the activity that was suggested, or come up with my own. And I made an effort to do it every time. In fact, sometimes, if the day was coming to an end, I would start to panic a little if I felt I hadn't yet fulfilled my obligation for the day. One day this happened, as I was walking home from choir rehearsal of all places (yes, I still sing in a church choir - at least for the moment). It was a Wednesday, which meant it was the day of Tiferet, and I think it was Tiferet of Yesod, bonding.

I was walking down to Powell Street station, and as I passed the Walgreens window, I thought to myself, I'd really like to give a homeless person a bottle of water. I don't want to give them money, I want to give them something meaningful and sustaining. Something that person actually needs. The thought passed and I kept walking. Less than a block later, as I approached the station, I noticed a young-ish black woman in a wheelchair outside a pizza store. She didn't have a cup or anything, she was just asking for help. There were a lot of people on the street, but she looked right at me, wearing my bright orange coat. Can you help me, ma'am? Please? She looked right into my eyes. It was like she knew what I had just been thinking. And her voice was insistent, desperate, hungry. Buy me a slice of pizza, ma'am? I was a little freaked out. I gave her an apologetic look, kept my hands in my pockets and kept walking. I didn't see how I could possibly buy her a slice of pizza. But then it was also like G-d had heard my thoughts, and here was this person, not just begging for change, but asking for a specific thing, and asking it of me, and it was up to me to say, ok, I'll do it, or no. She didn't know who I was. She didn't know what I was thinking. But there was something about her. Something different. Unabashed. Not trying to get anything. Just hungry. Her voice stayed with me. Echoing in my brain. It was high-pitched. Almost childlike. And I had walked away from her. I could have done it without saying anything. Just given her the pizza and walked away. But oh, no, I was in a hurry. And there I was, in the subway station, waiting for my train. And I waited 10, 15 minutes. No train. Every other line passed by except the one I was waiting for, and crowd was gathering of all the other people waiting for the train. 20 minutes. 25. It was again uncanny. I thought - and I know this isn't really true - but it felt like, I'm responsible. G-d doesn't want me to leave this place until I've done what I set out to do. So I became determined. I left the station and went out to go and find the woman. But when I got there, the pizza place was closed she was gone. What could I do? I walked back up the street and figured I would just give something to the first person I came to. Luckily, in San Francisco, the odds of coming across just such a person are high.

At the next light, there was a frail black woman crumpled at the foot of the light post across the street. I looked in my wallet. All I had was a $5 bill. I took it out, folded it up in my hand and walked with purpose. I gave it to her. Thank you, she mumbled. She looked at what it was. She looked at me, her eyes filled with amazement. Thank you, her toothless mouth said to me again, sincerely. I gave a small smile and a nod and walked away. Just turned around and went back to the station. I waited only a few minutes for the train and I was home. As I approached my door, I felt better. I felt clear. I had done my job. Now I could move on to the next sefirah. But I had done something for the woman. Who knows what she did with those $5, but maybe it will give her a different feeling. Maybe it will be a story she can treasure, having gotten just once, maybe something more than little scraps and pennies. But something that can maybe give her dignity. I have to wonder, what was it like? Was I an orange-coated angel for her?

The next day, when I took some of my paintings to a small store, I sold them, for a total of $50. And even though I know there is no real correlation, it seemed to suggest that when you give, wholeheartedly and purely, with no thought of the cost to you, you open your heart and are more able to receive. In this case, ten-fold, but always more than you give.

And even though I might have done something for her, perhaps in the end, she - and also the young black woman in the wheelchair - was the real angel to me.

Darkness and Light

It is not that there will be no more darkness, no more suffering, that those things shall cease to exist. It will be such an essence-light that darkness itself will become light —-even the darkness and suffering of the past.
(from a letter by the Rebbe)

rendered by Tzvi Freeman on Chabad.org

Chutzpa

What is the opposite of chutzpah?

If chutzpah is this thing where you know you are right, damn the rest, what's the word for the thing where you know you are right but you go along with other stupid things people say anyway? Is there a word for it? Maybe there isn't. Maybe it doesn't deserve a word, because it's really a stupid way to be anyway. And it's annoying. I can't tell you how many times I give people the benefit of the doubt, only to discover that my thinking was correct all along. But why are people so incorrigible? Why do they hold on to their things with such ferocity even when there is another obvious point of view out there waiting for them? I think sometimes there is a point at which you kind of have to trust your gut, even if you don't know why, just to get to where you need to be.

Discipline

I have decided that discipline is not so much about what you don't do as it is about what you do do.

Getting Acquainted

There is that old thing about getting to know people. Can you ever really know anyone? It's a frustrating thing, if knowing someone absolutely, in every aspect is something you try to do. But that's because people are constantly changing. It's like everything. Things sort of "are," but being is in a state of flux. That essence of change is the being and being is the essence of change. Do you follow me? Or have I lost you already. Anyway, my point is, people are hard to get to know. But if you are going to get to know somebody, it's good to do it in small batches, and actually concentrate on getting to know how the person changes, not necessarily how they are at any given moment. Because that moment will soon be gone and you'll have to do the process all over again. But if you figure out the function of a person, you have a much better view, and then you're not worried about the particulars. I think this applies to a lot of life. I don't know yet how this connects, but I was thinking it and it seemed momentous, so here it is.

Mother's Milk

We were talking about the laws of Kashrut in an intro to Judaism class today. Actually, most of the people present were already Jews, either by choice or otherwise. I was the youngest person in the room, second only to the instructor. But anyway. I guess the parts about who and what to eat or not to eat are pretty straightforward. What interests me is the separation of milk and meat. There has traditionally of course been a lot of discussion about this, and a whole spectrum of ways that people choose to practice it. But for me, I go back to the original text, and ask to myself, what does this really say?

Now, I don't know Hebrew well enough to read the original in that way, but I can at least look at the translation. What is it? Don't boil a kid in its mother's milk. Okay. Easy enough. I guess if you are going to cook a young goat, find something else to boil it in besides its mother's milk. Shouldn't be too hard. I don't even eat goat. But, from out of that, we get a whole, complete separation of all that is meat from all that is milk. And I can see the point of it. We want to be really sure that we're following the law. We don't even want to allow for the smallest transgression, if we can avoid it, even if it were done without our knowledge, because we don't want to risk divine severance of existence.

The thing that is always true about ancient text is that we can only infer the intention of the text from the clues that are given. It seems to me a lot of people have read this and gotten really worried about putting cheese on a plate with or even in the same room as beef. But what is milk and what is meat? Milk is something that nourishes. Meat is something that you eat. But the passage does not say "don't mix milk and meat." It doesn't say anything about meat. It says, "don't boil a kid in it's mother's milk." What's the operative word? Boil. There is an action. Who is doing the boiling? You are. And what is the end result of the boiling? It's killing or cooking that poor baby goat who is about to become your dinner.

Okay, but don't get too sad. We still have to eat. It's just that talking about a "kid," and "it's mother's milk" has led people to deal almost exclusively in two categories: milk and meat. But the text does not say "meat." It says "kid." It's talking about a baby goat. It's not a chunk of flesh. It's an animal. And it has a mother. What does a mother do? It wants to feed its child. And so when I hear that phrase, I see it as a larger metaphor. I divide what it's giving me into two different categories. I see "that which is nourishing" and "that which is killed." The killing of a goat is sad, but necessary for our survival. We have to do it, so let's do it in the right way. Let's be nice to the goat, and let's be nice to it's mother. What's the purpose of milk? It feeds. It brings us into life. Boiling or cooking is the act of taking life away, and never the twain shall meet, saith the Lord.

Milk gives us nourishment when we are young and struggling and vulnerable. It is the essence of a mother's care which cannot be expressed in words. And in fact, "express" is the same term used medically to refer to lactation. It is, literally and figuratively, a mother's expression of her love for her child. Even if she never said a word to that child. And if we, as conscientious people, are to take that milk from the mother, which was intended to give her child life, turn around and use it to kill her baby, well, that would be just mean. No wonder we would be given divine severance of existence.

So what that commandment is saying, to me, is, "don't use that which is intended to give life (or nourishment) as an agent of death." And to me that goes way beyond how many dishes I have or whether I put cheese on my hamburger. It means, use everything for its intended purpose. Don't mix things up. You'll get confused. You'll forget what is life and what is death. You won't know what makes you happy and what makes you sad. You will forget the value of life, and that's when you'll be cut off.

And, to take it even one step further, there is a human element. Because we are like the goats. Our mothers also give us milk. When we take a kid and boil it in its mother's milk, it is as if we might as well be boiling our own children in the milk of our breasts. Who could do that? What kind of mother would you be? Not me, you say. I would never do that to my child. But would you? In what other ways do you nourish your child? What other ways do you help them grow and thrive? In what other ways do you express love for your child? Or it could be anyone you love. A husband, a friend, a neighbor. I think what this phrase is saying, on a deeper level, is also, don't use your means of love as a tool for hurt. Don't abuse your love's expression and make it cause pain. Don't kill other people - especially your children who depend on you, but we all depend on each other in one way or another - with your potential for goodness and nourishment. Because it's the same milk one way or the other. It can feed the kid or it can kill it. It all depends on the delivery, and that choice is up to us. That is where the burden of commandment falls upon our shoulders. Know what you are doing and how it is going to affect people. Know when you are feeding and when you are killing, and keep the two far away from each other.

And that's why we need to separate our milk and meat. Not because it is meaningful in and of itself, but because by doing so it reminds us that the part of our lives that nourishes relationships should not be mixed with the part that kills and destroys and takes life away, even as that act is also what feeds us.

The Space Between

I am looking at a plum. I like looking at things. I think that’s why I became an artist. For me, there is this pure pleasure sometimes in just sitting and staring at an object, a scene, a person, a patch of light on the wall. I’m like a cat. Or I can be. Because most of the time, when we are looking at things, we are not really looking. We are seeing it, but we are preoccupied with our thoughts and our internal vision. Our construct of time is telling us what we have done, or what we are going to be doing in the future. Our thoughts might attach layers of meaning to the thing, whether or not that meaning needs to be there. But we hardly ever take the time to engage ourselves purely within the act of seeing.

And as I look at this tiny plum, I realize I never saw before how, even though it is more red on one side, fading to a light green on the other, there are these green-gold speckles all over the skin that are the same throughout. Have all plums always been like this? The seem like marks of the sun, carriers of its energy. They even have little dark borders that set them off from the rest of the skin. But they are not any bumpier than the skin. They are part of it. Smooth, unbroken. Only in that rift from top to bottom do those speckles merge into streaks of color. The line is smooth, but there are streaks. Green, green, and one shot of red. It is the fruit’s center line. It is its scar. It is its badge of authenticity and existence. It means it’s real.

As hold, it, I am captivated by the place where the plum’s red skin rests against my thumb. I see the deep flesh-colored shadow, and the reflection of my thumb on its surface. I see how the light defines the lines on my fingertip. I close one eye. Then the other. Getting the different perspectives. I close both eyes, and open them again, comparing the vision. With each eye, I can see that there are three dimensions, but those dimensions don’t assert themselves until both eyes are open. I think about hologram images and how the superimposition of two slightly different points of view gives us our sense of existing in space. How brilliant to have that every day, without even thinking about it. And by concentrating with both eyes open, I can see that it is in fact the slight discrepancy between each eye that makes the thing look more real. It is not where the visions match but where they don't that gives it depth. It makes the plum's roundness and colors pop. It gives my thumb a sense of life. It’s exciting. I think, an artist who can capture that would be a brilliant artist indeed.

That is what art is after, is it not? But what is it that really needs to be captured? It’s not the image itself. That would be flat. Rather it would be the space between, the missing thing, the discrepancy - that is what would give it life. That disjointed, flexible image created by the space between our eyes. The subtle jarring of two images coming together but not quite matching. And the space between it and you. It and everything else. The negative creates the positive.

This is true in so many ways.

And at the Tikkun Leyl Shavuot that I went to at the beginning of June, there was a teaching on the mystery of the giving of the Torah. And the teacher spoke of three Rabbis who all gave their opinion on how and why and what it was about Moses’ encounter with G-d that gave his face that special radiance as he came down from the mountain. One of the Rabbis said that Moses held the tablets with his two hands and it took up one third of the space to hold the tablets. And G-d held the tablets with His Two Hands, and it took up a third of the space. And the shining that flowed through Moses, the Rabbi said, came from the space between them, that extra third space.

It sounds bizarre, but why couldn't it be true? It seems to me, it is true about the plum. because it is like the space between our eyes. The space between one person and another, one thing and something else. It is the thing we don't see that makes the seen possible. The negative gives us life, breadth and depth, and separation yields connectedness.

Surgery

A friend of mine, who wants to move to my city, emailed me recently, to say she might not be able to as soon as she would like to, because she had to have some surgery. Last year, she did something to her wrist, where it was in a cast, or a splint for a long time. She couldn't write or drive. She had to take time off work. About 8 months later, someone recommended she see a hand specialist. They took an MRI and found out she had a congenital defect with her bone structure. One of her arm bones in the forearm was longer than the other. And so the surgery was done to correct this, to avoid further problems in the future, and she is waiting to see if she has the same problem in her other arm.

The point of all this is to say, isn't that how life is, sometimes? It obviously caused her a lot of pain to have this injury, and surgery is scary. They had to break her bone to shorten it and secure it with a metal plate. But if it had not been for the injury, no one would have looked into her arm with the MRI and found the underlying problem. This is just what life does to us. Sometimes, you can get along just fine with a basic defect. And it doesn't seem that there is anything wrong because you've constructed ways to work around it. It's just how you know to be. But when you suddenly encounter a situation where your structure doesn't hold up, it brings that defect out and shows it to the light. Or you have an injury, mental, physical, emotional, that causes someone - a doctor, a friend, or even yourself - to look closely and see what's been wrong all the time but was hidden from view. And as painful as the experience is, what it really becomes is an opportunity to fix and heal that structure. To put the metal plate in place, and strengthen who you are so that you avoid greater injury in the future.

Passover

This year, I celebrated Passover with some friends in Berkeley. Present: friend I met at a reform synagogue. How we became instant friends, I am not sure. How quickly it dissolved afterward, equally a mystery. But some things just are not meant to be, or are meant to be just what they are. There was the Jewish-Buddhist massage therapist with a sideline practice of dealing Blackjack. Who knew? The hosts: woman of Jewish descent, not highly practiced, and her former-Catholic boyfriend/partner, very enthusiastic about practicing Judaism. And me: self-conscious quasi-Jewish curious convert and interloper.

In the car on the way over, it was me, the Ju-Bu MT, and my reform friend, driving. After we got off the highway, I decided to say it. I hadn't told him yet before that I wasn't really Jewish. I was afraid that if I went into this High Holiday without telling him the truth, that I would be misrepresenting myself and essentially lying. It gave me great conflict to be, on the one hand, in this place, which was where I wanted to be, celebrating these Jewish things, and on the other hand, an active singing member of a choir at a huge cathedral. Some sort of diametrically opposed situation. A double life, so to speak.

So I told him. "Thank you for coming out to me," he said. You're welcome, I guess. It seemed odd. Suddenly I wished I hadn't told him. What did it matter? I was there. I was 100%. What did it matter what my background was? What other part of my existence was significant? And I had the sense, too (which I have had before), that even mentioning it was somehow a missionary thing. Why would I mention it at all, if I didn't want to get people on board with me? Because (as I discovered recently), it even says in scripture, "you shall not mention other gods." And it comes down to a sense to giving attention. You can't mention it, you can't even talk about it, even to say how awful it is, because even by doing so, you give attention, and that draws away from the main thing, the presence, the beauty you are supposed to attend to, and the people you are with. And I think I realized that this is what it did. It poisoned the situation in some small way. I felt like I wanted to be honest. But in truth, as it turns out, it would have been more honest not to say a thing. Because the truth was making itself known already, without my blabbering tongue. And it was making itself known to me. I needed to be present to hear it, not to be making my own assumptions and stating my case and this and that.

Especially since it occurred to me later that in fact what I said to him did not amount to a "coming out" at all. To me, when a person "comes out," as gay, lesbian, transgender, political, whatever, it means that they are coming out with the truth of who they are. What I "came out" to him with was a lie. A lie about who I am. If I was to come out at all, it would be to say, look, I've lived this one particular way all my life, but that's not me, that doesn't represent me or who I am or what I believe. Don't judge me on that. Because at this time in my life, it's the Judaism in me that's coming out. It's been stuck inside me all this time, trying to get free, and I've just been repressing it, for fear of rejection, fear of disapproval, perhaps, fear of my own belief. But the truth is, I don't fear the rejection of my family. I don't rely on their approval. It means nothing to me. If they love me, they will continue, because they know who I am, and I haven't changed. I am just becoming more of me, and I can stand up for this, because it is me, and if anything, my experience has given me ample evidence to back up my case. I fear no opposition. This is solid for me.

It is also possibly the most adult and well-considered choice I have ever made. And it makes me happy.

Converting

It's a weird thing to talk about converting. How do I start? What does it mean?

Well, to me, it almost seems that I am not converting. For one thing, I never believed anything else. I just happened to have been born in a different situation. In college I thought of converting to Judaism, but it seemed to me I couldn't really do that, because I had never been born Jewish, so I would never have that experience of being raised in a Jewish home with Jewish traditions and beliefs. And yet, when I look back at my experience, it almost seems that my life was in some ways preparing me for this nonetheless. Life is what you take out of it. And the things that strike me and resonate with me are things that fit the Jewish spectrum.

And in fact, the fact that there is a kind of Jewish spectrum - of belief, of modes of being, of choices and variety - is another thing that resonates with me. To me, Judaism is just another way of saying "life." They are synonymous. And any other construction of it is just another way of looking at the same story. And even though there are many stories in Judaism, they are all basically the same. Because they are life. They are images of life, of living, of people in all their dirty, grotesque, misbehaving, transgressing, and ultimately loving and glorious existence.

To identify with Judaism is, for me, to glorify my experience. Not in a bad way, or an egotistical way, to say I'm so special, or more special than anyone else. But just that I am special, like anyone else. It's a bit Mr. Rogers, I guess. But it's humility. It's a humbling experience. Because as big as my experience is to me, it is a drop in the sea compared to all that is. But it is my drop. And I can be proud of it and sanctified with it. And when I offer it up to give it to the sea, it adds to the greatness, it mingles with it, and I can share in the experience. Only when I hold onto it and keep it for myself does it become small.

That is why I want to share my experience. That is why I want the world to know what I've done, what I'm doing, and why. Not to glorify myself. And not to be an exhibitionist. But to add to and validate the experience of others.

Baalat Teshuva

From Wikipedia:

The Talmud expresses high regard of Baalei teshuva, by stating that "the position where Baalei teshuva attain; even Tzadikim gemurim (those who were always righteous) cannot attain".

Darkness Limited

Everything has its limits, even darkness.

As the Zohar says,

"When the world was made, a limit was set
how long it will function in confusion."

May 1, 1980

My birthday. I've always thought that even if I could pick a day to be born on, out of any day of the calendar, in any year, I would still pick this day. It seems special to me. And I was a breech baby. I don't know if there is something special to that, but I guess I always go through life with a sense of being somehow slightly different. Not in a bad way. Just in a way that makes me not afraid.