Bitter Cheshvan

Once again, my life spontaneously resembles or reflects the Jewish calendar. The Joyous and spiritually renewing slew of Jewish Holidays is followed by a bitter beginning to a mysterious episode in my life. A precious and valuable friendship has taken a turn for the worse, and I feel like a parent about to watch a child make a horrible decision. I feel at a loss, because it seems no matter what I say, I make no difference, or I make the situation worse.

I feel the only real cause of the situation is the strength of the relationship, and the deep caring and sense of connection that is there. But right now those things are producing strain and distress, not the pleasure and fulfillment they should produce. It is particularly exacerbated by sudden geographic proximity, which is not the norm, which allows for some real possibility of reconcilition, but only if the other party is willing to meet me face to face, which I am in doubt as to his predisposition toward accepting right now.

It's a really painful situation, I think for both of us, but it seems almost insurmountable. I know that means that it probabaly is surmountable - that it is in fact a thing which we can both overcome - but all the same, it feels like grinding sand in my stomach right now, and keeping me up at nights. I want to help, but the one thing I don't want to do is make it worse.

Reading about Cain and Abel in Torah study this week, I was struck by how involved God was with Cain's decision. He doesn't just let Cain go and make his mistake, he instructs him, and tells him what will happen if he doesn't just act cool and accept his lot. But no, he goes ahead and does it anyway! He loses his cool, and therefore he loses all the good things that could have come out of his life. I feel in one way like I am in a position to tell my friend not to go and do something stupid, not to make a decision that both of us will regret. On the other hand, I have a personal stake in the decision, so I am slightly biased in my hopes for what he wants to do. Maybe what I should do is let that go.

Because I also don't want to be like Cain. If Cain gets himself into trouble by wanting some sort of recognition for what he's done, then he can't advocate too much for his own desired. But wait. That's my friend again. Why is he doing this? I know he has his reasons, but they are not good ones. It's just that he really believes them.

And actually, that's where I think my pain is coming from. God says, if you do right, then that is its own reward. But if you do not do right (presumably, either do not make a sacrifice, or else, get upset when your sacrifice is not recognized, and then do something destructive), then sin couches at your door, etc.

So we should all be careful of looking for recognition of our good deeds. It not only sets us wrong with God, but it sets us wrong with the people that we really love and really want to connect with. It makes us adversarial without us even realizing it.

The really surprising thing about this passage is that God is essentially helpless. He has one weakness, and that is Human free will, which he, of course, gave us. So, in essence, he created his own monster. That is his Kryptonite, and it breaks his heart every day.

The good news is, we can always overcome this. Our freedom of choice means we can choose a different course, if only we are open to the suggestion of it, which comes, slyly and subtlely, but it means the difference between life and living Hell. For all of us included.

Pure Joy

My Arms hurt from carrying a Torah Scroll. My first one! It was so exciting. I think, based on what I saw at the Conservative Synagogue I went to for Simchat Torah, that I am considering personally renaming Simchat Torah to "International Day of Silliness." One leader/reader brought up a bunch of hats with him and changed hats every few paragraphs throughout his reading. When they opened the Ark, they had all the children gathered up at the front, and when it was opened, it turned out the whole thing was filled with, in addition to Torah scrolls, balloons and ballooon animals, which they handed out to the kids.

It was a great and beautiful day. We pushed all the chairs back and danced like fools who love their Torah. I even got a chance to carry one. And I danced with a lovely 3-year-old girl named Jessie, as we all went outside in the sunshine for our final Hakafah. Someone even told me what a Hakafah is - a circuit. Which is basically what you do. You dance in a circle. What a great physical manifestation of eternity. Someone asked me to dress the Torah after, but I couldn't do it, owing to the fact that I haven't become officially Jewish yet. But I said I'd be happy to do it once I do have my Beit Din.

Meanwhile, that does not seem to have prevented me in any way from enjoying the Simchat Torah. And I'm happy about that.

Building a Sukkah

I have to admit that Sukkot is one holiday I was not entirely prepared for. I don't know what a Sukkah is - well, basically, I do, but I can't say I understand entirely the concept - and, quite frankly, or, more to the point, it scares me. Which is why I think it is something that I should do, or at least help someone else to do. And yet, I totally failed in causing this to come about.

It was not for lack of opportunity. It was weeks ago that someone first mentioned the idea of helping build a Sukkah, and it came up repeatedly since then, but I found that, on each occasion, I found some excuse not to go. Finally, I spoke to a friend on Friday, and we made some sort of arrangement for me to accompany her to help with a sukkah-building, but bad communication ensued, and I did not get the information I needed to get there.

All I had when I woke up on Sunday (today) October 12th was the knowledge that right then, on that day, thousands of Jews were building Sukkahs on a beautiful day in the East Bay, and a strong desire to join them, but no actual, definitive plans to do so.

So what did I do? I waited for my friend to call me, and she never did. That's because she had left her phone at home, and assumed that I had gotten her email, which I hadn't, because I was waiting for her to call me. So there it goes.

I had to be content with building something, metaphorically, in my own mind. But what I really wanted to be doing was building something with my hands. I wanted to be involved in a group activity that involved several people working together to build a physical structure that eventually would come to mean something. It made me yearn slightly for my college days, working in the theatre, where I enjoyed nothing more than walking around a pile of planks with a power drill, putting pieces of wood together to make a stage set. Or using power saws or a chainsaw to carve pieces of woo into the exact right shape so that someone could come along and say, "I know what that is." It's process and product. It's something you can't do on a computer, and you can't do it alone. It's a communal activity, and the result is something you can't see, but it is evident all the same, and everyone knows its there.

A friend at work made a comment recently that he fasted this past Yom Kippur, which he hadn't done in a while, and even though he hadn't felt strongly about it at the outset, he found that it had some definite effects on his mind, in how it made him think about his actions, his eating, and how it made him aware of controlling his desires for a certain purpose. I had the same feeling. And I think a similar result occurs with building a Sukkah, as with all physical actions we take up in Judaism.

And some of those actions may seem random. I mean, after all, why build a temporary structure in your back yard and live in it for several days? I mean, the Torah can tell us why, and tradition can give us all kinds of reasons, but really, why? The answer is, nobody really knows. All we really know, is that we do it because we are told to do it. But the way I see it, it's kind of like a parent telling a child to do something. Maybe the child doesn't really know why he or she is being told to clean his room. All he knows is that if he doesn't, he won't get his allowance, or some other such bonus. So he does it. And he finds out, later in life, that the real reward was not his allowance in that moment, but rather a sense of duty, of fulfilling obligations, of having discipline, and also having a clean room, or a clean house. And all of these things benefit not just him, but everyone around him. Or her.

It's the same with a Sukkah, I believe. The result is, immediately, a concrete structure. But that in itself is not the only reward. The reward is also the community you build along with it. It's the symbolism of the "four species," and the satisfaction that comes with building something with your own hands, no matter how simple, or how temporary. Because all of our lives our temporary. We build them with our hands, live in them for a while, and after that, our souls go back to a more permanent place, to the eternity from which they came. These bodies are our Sukkahs, this planet a beautiful desert, teeming with life and danger, for which we should be fantastically grateful for the privilege to inhabit for even the shortest period of time. For we are the luckiest we could ever be. Right now. In this moment. No matter how bad things around us may seem. And we must always remember, too, that we do not build our lives alone. It takes many hands, and the help and guidance of others, even as we help them. We must remember to let other people in sometimes, and not shut them out and try to live in our Sukkahs alone. Because when we do that, then we truly become less than we could be, and we don't live up to the commandments to live, to enjoy life, and to be a part of the human community.

So if anyone wants to help me build a Sukkah, this year, or any year, feel free. And thank you to all my friends and neighbors who have been there to help me build this Sukkah of my life, which I am grateful to have for this tiny little time that I am here.

The Backward Omer

One of the more profound things that I have done this year was to count the Omer leading up to Shavuot. And while I was immersed in that process, and memorizing the prayers, and focusing on what I was going to do differently each day, I didn’t have much time to contemplate the logic of the sequence. If anything, I thought it was backwards. Why did we Start with Chesed, and Finish with Malchut? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

My Rabbi told me that, in fact, some Jews do count the Omer backward (Malchut to Chesed) from the time of Tisha B’Av to Rosh Hashanah. I thought that sounded like it made more sense. But, thinking about it, I can see the wisdom in the design of the Chesed-Malchut delineation.

Many of us speak of working “toward” Chesed. As if Chesed were a goal. As if Love were an endpoint, a locus to be reached. But this, we should all know, is not the case. Because if you think of it like that, like some sort of rainbow with a pot of gold, you will be chasing it forever and never find it. The happiness of love is realizing that you’ve already got it. There is no rainbow to hold. Seeing it is what makes it exist.

And so you can't move toward Chesed, because it will always get away from you. But you should start with Chesed. In whatever you are doing, it is the thing, the tool, the energy you take with you that guides you and supports you along the way.

And what is the goal? What is the endpoint? The ending is a state of Majesty. A state of Grace. A state of imperceptible wisdom that comes from the union of two halves.

Which brings me to my logic. The day that comes before Machut, Dignity, is Yesod, Bonding. Unity. It is not the dignity that comes first.

And before Bonding, there is Humility, Hod. In order to submit to Bonding - with ourselves, with others, with God - we must first be humble. We must remove our Selves and Our Stories, and seek to listen instead of speak. We must seek to care and understand, not just be understood and cared for.

And what comes before Hod? It is Victory. It is Eternity. It is strength of conduct. Strength of will. Strength to persevere, even in the face of opposition,and to succeed, despite intimations to the contrary. It means not giving in to those volatile forces that tell us we are not big enough, not good enough, not worthy. It means transcending those merciless ideals, and instead having compassion on ourselves, in order to succeed.

Which is why Tiferet comes immediately before. Because in order to find that victorious state, we need to be capable of being compassionate, both of ourselves and others. To look through to others’ needs, and the needs of ourselves, and fulfilling them, not for self-gratification, but for the gratification of the world. It needs its mouth fed and it’s hands filled. And every empty hand and empty mouth is an opportunity for compassionate action in the interests of justice. Like water filling in the cracks.

But having compassion means we also must have restraint. We can’t be compassionate to every extent, or we will overextend ourselves. We need to protect our boundaries, ourselves, or we are only doing a disservice. Even the one we seek to help will be without the blessing they deserve. No one wants to take more than someone can reasonably give. Your loss is the world’s loss, too.

And that restraint, that Gevurah that we practice on our Chesed, on our overflowing, boundless sense of love, is what gives it shape. It gives it motion, form, and definition. It guides it to a specific place, so that, when we are compassionate, and loving, it is with focus, will, and determination, not merely with a neverending feeling of generosity. If there were no boundaries to love, it would mean nothing. If there was no discrimination, no choosing of where it should be, it would be nowhere, because it would be everywhere. It would be too common to be precious. There is a reason not everyone can spin their straw into gold, or why King Midas starved. When gold is ubiquitous, it is not a blessing, but a curse. But not to have it, means you have nothing to start with and nowhere to go. With the seed of Chesed, you can flower in Malchut.

And, once you reach that place, it turns out not to be an end at all, but leads back to the beginning, and opens the door again to a boundless and strong sense of Chesed.

And so, the sequence is not backward at all. It is the wisest way to practice. Because if you start with Chesed, you will finish where you want to be, and in the end find out that where you wanted to be was always where you were, you just needed to see it, and to be on that Journey. And Life itself is the prize you carry.

Mazal Tov

I thought Judaism would be a good choice for my life. I didn't know it would be a good career move.

And in this case, it was the most organic kind, the best kind. The kind where you are just talking to somebody, and it turns out they have a position open. So you interview for that position, but it's not the right position. But oh, it turns out they have another one open that you are, by the grace of God, well suited for, for whatever reason. And so it goes.

And in the process, you feel not a sense of trepidation, but a sense that it is all somehow working out in your favor. As it always does. Because it should. Because that is the way the world works. Unless you are fighting against it.

And the other thing you feel is that you are supported. When you tell the people you are converting, and they say that is a wonderful thing. They don't turn you down because you're not "real." They see you for what you really are. A person who has free will and can make a choice. And if choosing to be Jewish is a great thing, whether you are Jewish or not to begin with, well, then it's a great thing. Who am I to argue? It makes me happy.

What would he really do?

Christians ask this question all the time - What Would Jesus Do? But I don't think it means what people think it means. Or rather, they say it/ask it, meaning one thing, but they're taking the person out of context. They want to say he would turn the other cheek or wash someone's feet, or something like that. What they really mean is, what would I do if I were Jesus?

Because if they really thought about who Jesus was, they'd have to start with the first order of business, which is that he was a Jewish person. That being the case, any answer to that question would need to be a Jewish answer. As in, he would be doing the Jewish thing of that time, whatever that was, plus that he was being himself. He was both for the community, and for promoting himself and his own beliefs. He was, perhaps, the first Marketing professional of the Common Era, and he had a cohort of followers to further his interests, or so it would seem, if they weren't furthering their own. It was all politics, really.

But basically, Jesus was a Jewish guy, talking to Jewish people. So what would he have done? Rested on the Sabbath, studied Torah, and celebrated Passover. All of these things that Jesus did do.

It's just been brought to my attention that Jesus in fact wore Tzitzit. Amy Jill Levine points out in "the Misunderstood Jew," that this is alluded to in the Gospels. But since Christians hardly know what tzitzit are, nevermind what they are for or why they would be significant, nobody really cares. The "fringe of his garment" I always took to mean just basically the edge of it. And nobody is going to explain this to you, because, to them, it's not important. Any allusion to actually following Jewish practice would be taken as some kind of aberrant blasphemy. So it's silenced and suppressed.

AJL is correct, the Jewishness of Jesus is a scandal, as far as the Church is concerned. Because if Christians knew how Jewish Jesus was, and how Jewish were his teachings, they wouldn't be Christian.

Holidays

As I prepare myself mentally for the High Holy Days in just a few weeks, I am also already dreading a certain other High holiday: Christmas. It dawned on me when I opened to perused the office supply catalogue for the holiday season. Looking at "Season's Greetings," and various other Christmas-related themes, whether religious or not, brought up in me a strange kind of dread, low, in the pit of my stomach. I found myself not entranced, but mildly disturbed by the image of a small girl holding a red and gold wrapped package to her ear.

It's not that I hate Christmas. Well, okay, it is. Perhaps that makes me a Scrooge. But it's not that I don't want to give, it's that I don't want to get. I don't want to get lots of meaningless gifts from friends and family feeling like they have to make me feel better.

That, and the fact that it's meaningless in general. At least for me. This even began last year, before I started this whole conversion process. But the symbols of Christmas really mean nothing to me anymore. What does a star mean, if it's not the thing over Bethlehem? And what's so much more meaningful about that star than another? I'd rather just appreciate each star for what it is. They're all pretty great. And it's good to have a tree in the house. I like that. I might keep up that tradition. But apart from that, I am feeling really disenchanted and not particularly looking forward to the Christmas "Season." But I guess I'll have to get used to it.

Like getting used to seeing Christian radio bulletin boards. Just because I'm not Christian anymore doesn't mean they are going to go away.

On Being Good

I don’t want to be good, I want to be Good. Good is where you only do things to please people. You run around, trying to make everybody happy until they give you a pat on the head and say, ‘oh, you’re so good, little girl.’ But there’s no real satisfaction in that. To truly be Good means you have to be a little bit not good. It means you work hard, but not too hard. You extend yourself, but don’t overextend. You give. But you keep a little for yourself. You can’t be Good by being good all the time. You need to hold back a little. The light needs a little darkness to keep it in check.

Blowing the Shofar

Last night, in a class on Rosh Hashanah and the month of Elul, Estelle Frankel brought us two shofars. One was hers and one was God's. She handed one to each of two students present. I had never heard a shofar before - except as the opening sound in Godspell. But here it was a totally different experience. I imagine it would be very powerful to hear one of these sounded over the desert. It would remind you of your soul being echoed from a distance. But what it sounded like to me was the call of a loon. It had those long wails, the breaking from a low note to a high one. The punctuated trills. And the two shofars sometimes were in unison, sounding a harmony, or creating a tonic or third wave of sound in between them.

As with the shofars, often two loons will be calling to each other over the water in the darkness. That's when we would hear them. In summer, up at Uncle Bud's Cabin on the lake in Maine, at night, with the yellow porch light attracting the moths and mosquitoes. We would sit on the porch, reading, talking, or playing games of cards. And my mother would hear the loon, and she would sit back and retreat into herself. It was like the loon was calling her home. Because, in a way, it was.

There is something comforting about hearing a sense of longing outside yourself. Because that's what a loon makes. That's what a shofar does. It makes the sound of a soul yearning to come home, or, as Inigo Montoya said in The Princess Bride when they hear Wesley's soul-wrenching cry, the "Sound of Ultimate Suffering," and that's how they know it is the Man in Black.

But the shofar, making that sound, brings us home. Because it creates that longing outside us, it gives us permission to feel it inside, where we typically ignore it. And then, once it is felt, it can be released. And we realize that in fact, our soul is not out wandering in the desert somewhere, nor does it want to be. It's right here in our chest. And all we have to do is remember its longing to come home, and give it that space to live here with us, instead of letting our egos push it aside.

The Jewish Dance

On my lunch break, I walked out to get a smoothie. As I walked away from the smoothie shop in the mall, a girl at the cosmetics stand was handing out samples of hand cream. She placed a packet in my hand, and looked intently at my chest, where the Star of David hung below my collar bones. After a little squint, her eyes brightened. You’re Jewish! She smiled. And she did a little dance. So this is what it’s like. When Christians recognize each other, it's like suddenly everybody is miserable under their joy. When people see that you’re Jewish, they don’t just commiserate with you, they get happy. They want to dance. They want to help you. They want to do things for you. This makes me happy. This makes me want to be Jewish even more. This makes me want to do a little dance.