The December Dilemma - My Jewish Learning

The December Dilemma - My Jewish Learning

Continuing the discussion regarding Hanukkah and Christmas. I appreciate the author's dialetic framework as opposed to the usual dichotomous one as our cultural script reads...

Happy 7th Night of Hanukkah

Post Mikvah Hanukkah Musings

29 Kislev 5772

This you have to know: my first go-around with Hanukkah went very badly.

Despite it coming early on the secular calendar I still suffered from a severe cultural dysphoria. For example, I went looking for Happy Hanukkah cards, only to be told this was a minor Jewish holiday that did not require a Hallmark rhyme. I was invited to a friend’s house for First Night of Hanukkah, a tremendously special event, but was deeply disappointed to find it not celebrated at work or school. Gift-giving was an aspect of both Hanukkah and Christmas – I could understand the latter’s reasoning but not the former’s. I became irritated. If this was truly just a lesser Jewish holiday than why was a giant menorah planted in Boston Common and why did its lighting make the local news? Conversely, if this was a major holiday worthy of sales at various online and brick-and-mortar Judaic stores then why wasn’t it more grandly celebrated?

My growing disorientation was further compounded by Hanukkah 5771 being my first holiday season outside-the-dominant-belief-system-looking-in.  I was aware – okay, ridiculously hyper-aware - of just how Christmas-oriented this country is in December. Of course, being dragged up Roman Catholic and then celebrating Yule for decades as a practicing pagan I had been so long indoctrinated in this truth that it became like breathing, invisible in its reflexive ubiquitous quality. Now I could appreciate the difference between knowing this and having it slapped across the back of my head. Every carol on the radio drew nails across my internal chalkboard; every other commercial reminded me someone else’s holiday was going on; every “Merry Christmas!” became a notice that in this land based upon religious freedom there was an unspoken Christian-normativity at work. (That my “Happy Holidays!” were sometimes met with angry, defiant, “No, it’s Merry Christmas!” retorts just evidenced this even more.) It felt like on every house hung a wreath-wrapped sign that said I was now a cultural foreigner.

An acquaintance said, It’s not about you. She was right, of course - there was no great holiday conspiracy going on. Yet to give my emotions their due I admit feeling horribly isolated and on unsure footing, and why not? I was still in the middle of my conversion, my family-of-origin was still wishing me a Merry Christmas, more of my friends at the time celebrated the birth of Jesus rather than a Maccabean victory over the Hellenistic Greeks and by the time Christmas Eve arrived my menorah’s candle-lights had long since burned down to waxy stubs.

December 26th came like the breaking of a month-long fever.

***

But that was then and this is now.

Or, more specifically 6:25 a.m., December 24^th/29 Kislev 5772.  My Boston neighborhood is steeped in sleep around me, the echoes of last night’s Christmas parties long faded away. Even the ghosts of gift-bearing revelers have dissipated. I sip at my coffee; breakfast snaps and scolds me from the kitchen’s burners. Later today I will journeying south for a friend’s Christmas party. I am at peace with the knowledge I will probably be the only Jew in the room.

Same Hanukkah celebrations and Christmas season in these United States, although this year they overlapped. I thought that would cause a repeat of last year’s angst but the anguish never came. Why not? 

Turns out it wasn't the holidays that had changed but in fact me.

Now being post mikvah, I feel that my Jewish identity is more firmly established and continues to grow and solidify. Additionally there has been the lighting of the Hanukkah candles over prayers, connecting me to traditions stretching back centuries. Standing on such a mountaintop foundation, I feel there isn’t a Christmas commercial or carol that could knock me off.

Thirdly I no longer feel so secluded. On Shabbat Hanukkah my rabbis engaged in some very creative ‘Mad Yids’ to tell the Hanukkah story, and last night found me dining with a friend over Kung Pao Vegetables and stir fry, next to the restaurant’s Christmas tree. My FB friends having been wishing me Happy Hanukkah as I leave Merry Christmas and Winter Solstice messages on their pages.

Finally, there is the music. 

Silence is no longer my only alternative to the onslaught of Christmas carols. Pandora’s Hanukkah channel has opened a large door to a vast range of Jewish holiday music, from traditional scores to their modern interpretations to a chorus of original tunes. So yes, I have been chair-dancing to The LeeVees' “Goyim Friends” and “Gelt Melts” and Kenny Ellis’s Hanukkah Swings album. My heart skips beats over Blackmore's Night and Erran Baron Cohen’s  versions of “Ma-O-Tzur”, smiles over TheodoreBikel’s “Kitaltas”, laughs over Tom Lehrer’s “Hanukkah In Santa Monica”, and rocks to the organic beats of Shira Kline’s “Nes Gadol Haya Sham”.

The irony is that I have now heard Hava Nagila in its various versions to actually be tired of it.

Welcome to the holidays, 5772.

Miracle - Matisyahu Hanukkah Song Music Video

With or without the beard, he still delivers a great message...

The Hebrew Mamita speaks אֱמֶת

5 kislev 5772

Dip Your Apple - Fountainheads Rosh Hashanah

Really hard to feel anything but happy and dancy after listening to this...

Shana Tova!

Rosh Hashanah Rock Anthem

LShana Tova!

"Ani Ziva Devorah bat Avarham Avinu v’ Sarah Imanu..."

25 Elul, 5771

"Ani Ziva Devorah bat Avarham Avinu v’ Sarah Imanu..."

In light of both Keshet's beautiful Naming Ceremony which I recently took part in, and of Elul,I ponder the above-mentioned as declaration, statement of identity, song of my spirit and soul.

Ziva – old, Hebrew, “menstrual flow, bleeding”, implied cyclic, decidedly woman, remarkably female. And now new, modern, Israeli, “splendid, bright, radiant, brilliance, glow.”  Smiling from the middle of the bridge that now connects the two. Describing for me that which glows from within when in darkness, a beacon to keep the shadows (of doubt? Of loneliness? Of oppression?) at bay.

(Little known fact: I first heard the name Ziva from the TV show “NCIS”. The character – formally Ziva David - is a Mossad assassin who through unlikely machinations and convolutions only script writers can dream up becomes an American citizen and NCIS agent. What I found so intriguing and endearing is that Ziva is so flawed and struggles with her shortcomings – just like so many characters in the Tanakh. 

Now honestly I did not think I had found my Hebrew name when I first caught sight of this fictional character. But something about “Ziva” sowed seeds within me that took deep root long after the end credits rolled. And when I finally looked up the etymology of the name, true understanding began to sprout.

Still, even as I write this I wonder how silly it probably sounds. Don’t judge. Greater events had more humble beginnings than this. I hope.)

And Devorah.  “Mother in Israel. Prophetess, Leader, Judge.” Uri, uri, dabri shir. Another beacon to look to in the real world, perhaps when lost in the questions and chaos.

And Avarham Avinu v’Sarah Imanu. Elders. Family. Community. Tribe. Here. Knowing some protest this tag as too telling, too identifying, even derogatory? Yet I think of family that would have me and can only be warmed by this truth.

So in meditating, I sit back and think, simply, proudly - yes. 

When the Rabbi Finds Your Vibrator - Kveller, Jewish Family & Children

During this serious month of reflection, Elul, a moment to smile. (Well, laugh really. A lot.)


When the Rabbi Finds Your Vibrator - Kveller, Jewish Family & Children

Putting Stones on Jewish Graves - My Jewish Learning

Back in NY, every other morning, I would jog through a graveyard across the street where I lived (http://www.kensico.org). The service road would wind its way through different sections of this sprawling city of the dead and after a mile or so end up in the neighboring Jewish cemetery. If I had the time I would stop to wander amongst the simple tombstones, leave shallow footprints in the dewy grass between the foot markers. It always struck me how this was clearly not a place of vengeful ghosts, brain-sucking zombies, or other stories that reflected our society's unhealthy fear of death - nor was it some massive metropolis of outlandish mausoleums, sword wielding guardian angels, fenced-in family plots, towering obelisks or other markers of crass pride and/or postmortem class entitlement.

There was something else going on here. Without all the distracting funereal window-dressing these headstones spoke quiet stories of life and loss and love, memory and meaning. Somehow it was always a relief to spend some time there before turning around and engaging with the rest of the day..

I did always wonder about the stones left behind. This is the most reasonable and lucid explanation I've heard so far.

Putting Stones on Jewish Graves - My Jewish Learning

Feeling Jewish - Reform Judaism

I can relate. For me there came a point where such things as my relationship with my Higher Power, my personal and public ethics, how I choose to spend my Friday nights/Saturday mornings, or how I view repairing the world, just made more emotional, spiritual and intellectual sense through a Judaic lens.

Feeling Jewish - Reform Judaism

Parashah Pinchas

14 Tammuz, 5771

While there are multiple interconnected story-lines going on here this week – another census with an eye on an upcoming battle(?), the Daughters of Zelophehad stepping up for some gender equality, and sensing his time is nigh, Moses picks a successor in Joshua – it’s the continuation of the Pinchas story that leaves a leaden ‘ugh’ in the pit of my stomach. I am not sure what bothers me more, that an over-zealous Jew thought the best way to handle sexual dalliances with another tribe was to get all pre-medieval on the offenders and, um, er, ah, well kill them or that God could look down upon this spontaneous summary execution and give it a thumbs-up blessing. Dude, good deal! Let’s talk priesthood for you and yours. Call me!

Here’s another disturbing detail – or lack thereof: We have no idea exactly what Simeon Zimri or his Midianite girl Cozbi were actually doing, do we? Had he brought her to the Tent of Meeting to meet the parents or were they working their way through the Kama Sutra inside that tent when they were interrupted? Either way, it’s disturbing to think that the most functional way to reach some sort of conflict resolution here was for Pinchas to shove a spear through their bellies. Nice.

I have found some discussions that spin Pinchas’ act as so much reactionary righteousness that not only manages to satisfy the indignant God (who just last week ordered mass impaling and sent down a plague that wipes out tens of thousands) but manages to keep the burgeoning nation from falling apart as they are about to enter Canaan. Um, really? Redemption through murder and execution?

But then I am examining an ancient text about an ancient people with modern eyes and sensibilities, which is no way to appreciate their topics, themes, and tones. While I have no way of really knowing why the Torah’s editors ultimately included this story, the functionalism-minded sociologist in me sees how the inclusion of Pinchas imparts to the ancient reader (and ancient critic) the passion HaShem can invoke in the Israelites. Dude, do *not* mess with us or we’ll get all Pinchas on you!   

**********************************************************************************

Meanwhile, from around the internet:

Tablet Magazine: In which columnist-blogger Liel Leibowitz deftly ties together the Daughters of Zelophehad and Queer activists who recently won Marriage Equality in NY and has to ask, if God can change God’s mind what is the irony that supposedly devout Republicans can’t. 

G-dcast: Have I mentioned here before how much I love this site? If I have a dozen times, I need to a dozen times more. So often they find not only a satisfying discussion on the week’s parshat but find the best voices amongst the Jewish community to be the weekly storyteller – or singer. (I was humming Naomi Less’s “The Ten Commandments – A Song of Shavuot”  for weeks.) This week they also focused on Mahlah, Noa, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah 

Punk Torah also discusses the fearless five.

On the other side of the miqveh

8 Tammuz, 5771

Darkness has descended on Boston now, like a comforter that falls gently unto a waiting bed. Night never falls hard here on the Massachusetts coast; it arrives in ever-darkening waves off the water, lulling the city to sleep. I tell friends back in New York what is so amazing (to me at least) about Boston is that, unlike Manhattan with its endless canyons of concrete and glass, the Hub never tries to overwhelm the skyline. In the evening, even when its electric glow is at its brightest, you can still pick out the stars in the sky.

If you are reading this then there are at least three hanging over my head. Shavua tov! I hope you had a blessed Shabbat, whatever that might mean to you. My first as a converted Jew has now ended. I am sitting out here on my back porch thinking about a question asked me before I entered the miqveh: What do you think will be different tomorrow than today? For a moment thousands of clever answers surfaced in my brain (writers always search for the perfect reply) but in the end I decided to go with the most authentic: I didn’t know. I mean, really, would I be more spiritually Jewish in the next few minutes than I was now? What would that even mean? I thought I had been feeling that way for many months now, in the reverence for Torah and observing Shabbat and applying Jewish texts and beliefs and love to my own life. Would that be intensified now? But what if it wasn’t? What if I toweled off and felt no sense of having arrived? Would things sound different, look differently, smell and taste different? What if they didn’t? Ugh, expectations can so clog up the synapses.

What I ended up saying was, I would step out of the miqveh without anticipation, and hope in this way I could encompass and appreciate it all. I am so glad that was my answer, because in the end it made every moment that followed more precious, more sensuous, more heightened, more wondrous, more. I can still remember the feel of my toes on those seven steps as I entered the welcoming warmth waters which enveloped me in a way no other pool or pond or ocean had before; the sound of my own voice as I surfaced each time with Hebrew prayers on my lips; the joy as I rejoined the gathered to their heartfelt  ‘mazel-tovs’. Then later, back at Temple Israel as I received my rabbi’s blessing, my heart moved by the surprise friends in attendance, who listened as I recited a beautiful poem about the faith and people I now consciously and lovingly belonged to, and sang the Shema solo before the opened Ark. Then my rabbi took my hands and blessed me, speaking of my Hebrew name for the first time. That I felt resonate down to my soul

Did the Shabbat service that followed seem any, well, different? Yes, yes it did - although I’m not sure the thesaurus could provide the adjectives to accurately describe how. I said the same prayers as I always did, bowed with the same love as before, took in the sermon with the same hungry curiosity as always – yet this time I felt more present in the moment, more a part of the gathered voices and more of the good energy we were raising. Shalom Rav (one of my favorite prayers) and the Aleinu seem to come from a deeper place and expand more into the evening. More.

Was there a sense of belonging that wasn’t there a week ago, a day hour, just a few hours before? No – and yes. I was still in my same seat (Shabbat regulars always know where to look for me, ha), surrounded by the same congregational family…and yet there was now a sense of being more being present with them, more a part of them, more We than ever before. For someone who has spent most of her life as a wandering lone wolf, that’s quite an amazing feeling to have. Scary and frightening yet warmendearingsafelovely, all in the same deep breath.

Is it any surprise then by the end of the service I felt exhausted – but in a good way, like finally crossing the finish line of a marathon you’ve trained for, finally touching the wall after a meet in the pool, taking away the last dish of a dinner you cooked for those you love. I had meant to stay for some Riverway Unplugged/Soul Food, the later monthly service, and what I know would have been another great sermon by Matt, but knew then I would just be pushing myself and probably would have embarrassingly nodded off. (Next month, for sure.)

Added bonus: this morning at Torah study the rabbi called me up for my first aliyah. I tend to quake whenever I get up before people (ironic since I love doing public readings and spoken word) so hopefully that wasn’t too obvious. I imagined my first aliyah would be a stuttering off-keyed mess but (at least in my ears) the words rang true. I’m not even sure what that means, exactly – again, a moment that defies mundane description. Perhaps that is best. Like kisses, I think, these are snapshots not meant to be dissected but rather 

experienced at the edge of loving lips.

The neighbors have their Saturday night bonfire burning now, the smell of woodfire smoke a lingering summer perfume. I can hear dishes clatter and glasses clink, laughter floating up from their yard. Sometimes at sunset they’ve been known to blow a shofar. Off in the distance The Pru is lit up like a beacon. The lights of incoming flights skirt the horizon on their way to Logan. Fenway remains dark – no game tonight, apparently. Still, I’m told, hopes for the pennant are running high. Welcome to Boston.

A beautiful evening breeze is gently running its fingers through the neighborhood trees. For some the day is ending and for others it is just beginning. Endings, beginnings, light and darkness, sunrises and sunsets, befores and afters. It’s hard not to muse over what separates and what distinguishes, what’s holy and what’s profane, what remains the same and what changes, what’s on either side of havdalah, or a miqveh.

Especially now as a Jew

Shavua tov.

Upon 'Becoming' (My Conversion Song)

6 Tammuz, 5771

Shabbat Shalom.

In the Mishkan T’filah there is a poem that has stayed with me since the first time I randomly opened to its page. It is called “Becoming”:

“Once or twice in a lifetime

A man or woman may choose

A radical leaving, having heard

Lech lecha — Go forth.

God disturbs us toward our destiny

By hard events

And by freedom's now urgent voice

Which explode and confirm who we are.

We don't like leaving,

But God loves becoming.”

     As its footnote in the siddur points out, Rabbi Norman Hirsch’s poem is based on the Genesis passage in which HaShem tells Abram (soon to be Abraham, arguably Judaism’s first convert) that it is time to go forth and take the first of many small and probably frightening steps that would become the journey to all Jewish people.

     Now I did not know the meaning of Lech Lecha when I first started out on the path that would lead me here today. I hadn’t read that Genesis passage - let alone any passage from the Bible - for a good number of years. Decades even. Yet I did hear something - a wind outside my door that knew my name, a song from a dream I had never heard before but somehow knew every word to – tempting me to look beyond the walls of my work cubicle and my NY apartment. And while I didn’t think my decision to move was all that ‘radical’ a good number of friends did, sharing with me their well-intended concerns. I will always love them for that. I have no doubt Abram would have considered himself lucky to have known such good people.

     Just how drastic was my path did not become apparent (at least to me) until I found myself out in the concrete wilderness of the urban desert. I wish I could tell you it was a burning bush, unconsumed, that sent me on my way but no, the reasons appeared much more profane – a bad economy, a fruitless job search, an unsteady paycheck – hard circumstances to be sure. But – and I did not understand nor appreciate this at the time – we cannot escape what enslaves us (or perhaps even know we’re enslaved to begin with) without first walking the walk of our own personal exodus.

     Luckily, I came to realize you cannot have an exodus without a few miracles along the way. No, the dirty waters of the Riverway did not part for me nor did I have manna rain down but that did not mean the wonders I encountered were any less profound. A kind stranger’s offered couch, a co-worker’s shared lunch, my employer’s support, a best friend’s surprise visit, the smile from a passing stranger…and a community that was there every week with open doors, open hearts, a safe space for a weary body and ragged spirit. These then became the waters from the well that followed me and kept my thirst slaked, enabling me to keep on keeping on.  

     I realize now this journey of mine was less about needing to arrive at a destination than finally finding a place of heart and hearth. For whether it is the musical prayers of praise during a Friday night Shabbat service or the lively discussions on a Saturday morning Torah study, the activism embedded within Tikkun Olam, or simply the Simcha that makes one want to dance in the streets, so much of Judaism has felt intimately familiar to me, like a remembered love ballad. Look, I have never been a blindly obedient acolyte but rather someone who has always questioned the answer, even if that meant wrestling with angels; I have not been one to wait on the redemption of lottery-ticket miracles but rather someone who needs to learn what it takes to help herself, her community and others; I have never been one to foster anesthetic and unrealistic expectations about human nature but rather has striven to plumb the depths of its untidy sensuous mystery. And finally I have never been one to shy away from shaking timbrels on the far shores of parted waters, singing unto wells, or climbing mountains to meet my ever-patient, ever-loving Higher Power.

     This is for me what ‘becoming’ a Jew feels like, then - a homecoming.

     Like coming home.

     Shabbat Shalom     

Mi Chamocha - Theme Song for Day?

Woke up with this in my head. Theme song for the day? Considering I now have a confirmed date at the mikvah (water, redemption, praise) makes sense to me...

URJ Hukkat: Remembering Miriam - My Jewish Learning

URJ Hukkat: Remembering Miriam - My Jewish Learning

So glad and thankful someone is remembering Miriam during this Parshah

The Ten Commandments - A Song for Shavuot

Happy Shavuot!

Re-surfacing

18 Iyar 5771: 

      1.  Re-Surfacing

If you are reading these words it means I have finally re-surfaced from the bottom of that bottomless ocean otherwise known as a college semester, in which light does not truly dawn on the new day until the final final has been, well, finalized and handed in. This semester it was three major papers all dropped one after the other, plus presentations and debates, all following a heart-stopping computer crash thanks to a nasty virus.

During this academic drama I have managed to continue with my conversion - the learning, the questioning, the reading, and yes the celebrating.   

      

      2.       Yes, the celebrating

Just a few weeks ago I was invited to my first Pesach, which at first I was sure would end up being some sort of a social disaster. Although I had read up on the holiday and went through the Maxwell House Haggadah twice (I am told it’s a classic) it still seemed so new and huge and therefore terribly complex. There are readings, there are songs, there are four sons (?) and four glasses of wine at appointed times and bitter herbs and charoset. The first night of Passover seemed fraught with a thousand different ways for me to surely embarrass myself and inadvertently switch the CONVERT light on my forehead to on. (Hmmm, maybe it’s 

time to start leaving that at home?)

As you have probably already figured, in the end I had nothing to fear. (Note to self: Nothing. To Fear.) I had been invited to the sweet and friendly home of some friends whose table was adorned with all of the above, plus helpings of humor and melody (if you knew them neither of these adjectives would surprise.)

Yes, I did get a reading and yes, I did sing songs I only half knew, and no, I was not the only non-Jew (at the moment) in the room; no, I did not spill a single drop of wine (as far as I know) or talk out of turn or munch away on a matzo before I was supposed to. Yes, there was a Miriam’s Cup next to Elijah’s, hopping frogs and I believe an orange on the Seder plate. (If you don’t know its meaning check out its her-story via Susannah Herschel).

The story I knew. What I didn’t was this version of it, recited so richly, so sensuously, through food and drink and story and song. And community, always community. But then, what else should I expect in the home that is Judaism?

3. Parshat Bechukotai

It being 18 Iyar, 5771 the Torah study this week was all Parshat Bechukotai, the chapter which closes the Book of Leviticus. It was one of those challenging portions for me. Just like Terumah (in which Moses gets away with some unchallenged misogynist editorial license after descending Sinai), Ki Tisa (God wants to smite the fledging nation for the Golden Calf, but Moses says no, remember the covenant – but then he smites half of them anyway?) and Shemini (Avihu and Nadav take a hit for, er, um, what exactly again? Strange fire? Wait, isn’t that an Indigo Girls’ song? And Aaron says nothing as they are dragged away? Whoa, and I thought my father had issues ), this parshat left me initially unsettled with disturbing images. God decides to list for the new nation of Israel all the positives and negatives of remaining true to the covenant - follow the rules, your fields will yield such harvests that your stomachs will not know what hunger is. Great! Awesome! But wait, hold on there cowboy. Because if you stray from the covenant I will not only evict you from the land like a group of hung-over frat boys late on their rent but I will make things so miserable through famine, desolation, etc., that eating your own children will seem like the only alternative.

Like, really, HaShem? The threat of hunger and anguish and exile from the Your land isn’t frightening enough, so You just had to add cannibalism of children as extra incentive? Nice.

Every time I hit this kind of surprise (or at least a surprise to me) theological pothole I force myself to stop, climb out and re-examine what it is I have driven into. Because no one said this Torah business would be easy, linear, simple or even explainable. If all I wanted was a smooth trip I could always hop on the Orange Line. (Or not.) The Torah is a different kind of ride all together. It makes no promises of comfort, only to confound, contradict, challenge, confront and perhaps proffer contemplation. All of which is fine by me. Indisputable answers tend to end conversations and offer no growth in its solutions. Torah study fosters discussions and even debates and in the heat of those colliding thoughts and words something happens – sparks in the dark, real light and warmth, the energy that animates. I forgot who said it but things in this Universe grow only through some sort of friction. Welcome to Judaism.  

In embracing this particular mission statement, I turn to an Introduction to Judaism class in which one of the rabbis reminded us that the Torah does not concern itself with a nation’s history but rather a people’s collective memory via myth and metaphor. (Add in that there were multiple authors over different time spans and all that implies.) I am also grateful for this Rosh Hashanah sermon during last year’s High Holy Days at Temple Israel.

All of this continues to make space for my questions as a Torah studier to be asked and subsequent ideas to expand, overlap, synthesize and develop. For me this is no small thing but rather the difference between stretching your limbs in a sun-steeped meadow up toward the clear blue, and banging those same limbs against the sides of a closed dark airless box.

May I continue to grow in that field.

Preserving The Covenant - My Jewish Learning

Preserving The Covenant - My Jewish Learning

"Is Israel an Apartheid State?" Debate on Campus (and why I did not go)

23 Nisan 5771,

So last night on my campus a debate was held that drew 100+ people. Take what you will from this number - our college supposedly has anything between 12.5k to 15k students roaming its hallowed halls, which one could then conclude this is a rather small fraction. On the other hand we are also a commuter college, so to draw a crowd of three digits (and one where food is non prominently featured) is no small accomplishment.

Was it the subject matter then? The implications of the answer chill. The name of the debate was "Is Israel an Apartheid State?". That alone was off-setting to me for it already implies bias in my mind, an implicit/explicit slant that immediately grants one side an offensive posture and another the defensive. Political debates (and how was this one not?) would be thought less than objective if they were similarly renamed (e.g.: "Is Kennedy more Charming Than Nixon?", "Is Reagan a Great Communicator?", "Is McCain Just Bush 2.0?")

So that the debate wasn't called "Middle East Conflicts" or even "Is Israel an Apartheid State and is Hezbollah a Terrorist Organization?" kinda clued me in. Here's some other background you should know about my campus. It has a strong anti-Israel sentiment vibrating in the air, caused in part by a heavy and aggressive socialist presence and a distinct lack of any countering organized Jewish voice. Now not all socialists are anti-Israel although many American socialists that I have heard and read are, and it has been my experience that while not all anti-Israel sentiment is anti-Semitic, a lot of it slips into that nasty realm.

Also, it disturbs me greatly that this anti-Israel stance is rarely nuanced. Critics never seem to say, okay, let's talk about the oppression of the settlements (where, IMO, one might bring up the apartheid comparison) or the way a fundamentalist government seems to generate and justify continued human rights violations. Instead they demand - loudly, argumentatively - that the entire state of Israel either be disbanded or overrun via a one-state solution.

Of course, this only makes sense from a revolutionary point of view, because if you do argue from a nuanced p.o.v. then you have to allow that your opponent has some worthwhile aspects, and these critics will never admit to that. It is not in their scripts (and yes, they repeat just as many regurgitated bullet points ad-nauseam  as the other side). But then, scripts are not about discussions but rather debates and demands. They often say that they refuse to dialogue because of what they see as the inherent imbalance of the power dynamics between the two parties. So: discussion bad, but missile and bombings good! (One activist once told me that in his opinion there was "an acceptable level of violence" against Israel.)

(I do want to point out that my roommate, who is a funny person and experienced socialist activist also takes this stand, but she and some others have made room for talk and to hear my thoughts. It is my opinion though that they are not what drives today's anti-Israel engine.)

Then there is the invisibility of any Jewish voice, pro-Israel or otherwise. Oh, we have a Hillel group but its members don't always know when and where events are. It has tried to mount a pro-Israel event here or there but notices were sparse and generally unorganized. In fact, in our student centers the socialists made sure to mount a pro-Palestinian sign right over the Hillel desk space. That kind of intimidation sets what passes for discourse, which of course is no discourse at all. It is hard if not impossible to strike up discussions in a setting of fear and intimidation (and yes, when being pro-Israel automatically makes one a "Zionist racist piece of shit" is a threatening strong-arm tactic worthy of Mussolini. Irony is obviously not appreciated at my school.)

* * *
I am a student here who also is a converting Jew with pro-Israel yet anti-occupation sentiments. Do I feel guilty about not being there last night? Yes. Should I have gone? Would it have made a difference? Don't know. Will I be taking down my Israel flag from my desk where I am a student coordinator any time soon? No. Will I be stating my displeasure to the organizers today? Definitely.

But is this enough?

I do not know. And I think that bothers me most of all.

Best Seder in the USA (The Passover Song)

Michael Jackson's Judaism- Temple Israel, Purim 5771

Purim, Temple Israel Boston-style

We Jews Know How to Do Joy

13 Adar II

So I’m just getting back from my first Purim party and a couple of thoughts keep slow-rolling around my head like so many loose marbles. A quick sampling: cosmopolitans on a Saturday night will be an awesome match until the end of time; I never want to live in an era when dancing to Michael Jackson grows old; Temple Israel rabbis have this great sense of humor and rhythm; and finally, Jews know how to do joy.

I've been thinking a lot about that last item. Between Simchot Torah and Purim, there is some awesome delight going on in the Jewish calendar. And that’s not even considering Shabbat itself, that weekly release of the profane so we can embrace the spiritual. This so moved the mystics that it inspired them to pen odes to its arrival every Friday night at sunset and run into the fields to greet her.  

There is also elation underlining so many of the prayers and songs, IMO. For instance, Mi Chamochah, giving thanks to crossing a parted Red Sea, has always struck me as being jubilant. The same with “Am Yisrael Chai”, which sings about the tenacity (if not the audacity) of the people Israel. It’s hard not to dance a little in my space whenever this is played.

Here’s the thing I realized while walking home last night: I myself do not do joy very well. I tend to hold it awkwardly, in fingers too stiff from disuse, with no sense of its innate delicacy. That’s a hard thing to fess up to, can I tell you? Oh, I can publicly do some many other emotions well , have the whole righteous indignation/anger thing down pat for rallies and protests, can weep with empathy over the cruelties of the world, have enough pointed sarcasm to fence with the best of cynics. But I have trouble expressing this whole unfettered happiness thing.

There are many reasons for that. Some are trust issues that are rooted in past events that I will not detail here. Suffice it to say that exist and I acknowledge their presence and influence on me. I think however large my reservoir for joy was when I was a child has shrunk considerably. I picture that capacity as a glass that now has so many cracks in it. It may be a large but tends to leak out a lot. It cannot hold water for a very long time. Actually I’ve gotten much better over the years. There was a time when I would isolate because that glass was just so many shards on the floor. I’ve managed to glue most of the larger pieces and still work at the smaller slivers (thank G-d for therapy) but you know, it’s never quite the same. Realizing that, I am acutely aware when that glass is running dry. So if I end up leaving your party early it is not because I don’t know how to play Pictionary, the music’s bad or because of the guacamole dip. (Well, honestly, it might be because of the guacamole dip.)

As this is a spiritual blog I think about how different my experience has been celebrating joy inside a church or a Wiccan circle. Of the former I can remember these songs in Latin that voluminous enough to fill the pews with reverence and some serious awe yet never seemed to lift me up. Christmas was either a birthday I always felt self-conscious in celebrating (um, I’m singing happy birthday and blowing out candles for whom? Reaalllly???) or an overwhelming  and stringently enforced gift-laden month long commercial. Easter also capitalized on sensationalism while jettisoning its pagan roots. No one could explain how coloring eggs or bunnies related to resurrection or even how being raised from the dead wasn’t in fact an act of magick (or just flat-out zombie-ism). You were just supposed to be happy. Be happy, dammit. Don’t make me come over there to make you happy!!!

I always thought that given its liberal leanings and underground culture, Paganism made a lot more space for potential happiness but somehow never capitalized on it (at least in the literal and figurative circles I broomsticked through). There seemed to be this undue seriousness interwoven through all endeavors whether it was lighting the Winter Solstice candles, going into deep meditation or making sure to dance widdershins (and how annoyed people would get if you accidentally headed in the wrong direction). While some rituals led to ecstasy (which I think is true of any religion) very few ever seemed to result in joyous laughter. Perhaps that’s just what happens when you’re dealing with such heavy metaphysics, those large concepts of life and death and cosmic energies. Maybe it’s hard to hold a smile when The Crone looks you in the eye.

Like with so many other aspects of this Judaic path I still feel a little unprepared, finding so little in my experiential backpack applies. Is that typical of converts? I would think so (and hope so) to some extent. Who gets it all correctly or feels completely at peace their first time around any non-secular calendar? More power to those folk but personally I can’t relate to that dynamic. I need to acknowledge holding the leaky glass to ever learn just how to keep the water in it.   

   

The Song of My Elders

13 Adar II

Yes, it’s true. As a forty something woman I am one of the youngest people in the room for Torah Study every Saturday morning at my temple. Not always - but usually. And surprisingly (at least for me) I am at peace with that. Actually it is more than that, actually. Most Saturday mornings I am actually left a little awed.
Now I may not know how they act outside of temple but I do know Life has teeth and some days can bite down hard, especially for the elderly. But in that room these women and men are fearless in their discussion/debate of Torah. From my back corner seat I watch in no small admiration as they get right in the face of the conundrums found within the mysteries. There is rarely any hesitation as they answer the rabbi’s questions, sometimes with deep insightful and sometimes to humorous effect.

This being my first official go-around with the Torah on the dance floor, I feel like I am still trying to learn the rhythm of the music and all the intricate steps. As I have written before, I come from two spiritual backgrounds that never encouraged this kind of spiritual questioning. Speaking only from my own experience, I found Roman Catholicism never encouraged this sort of spiritual searching. You were taught the ‘New Testament’ early on with the expectation that you will memorize the psalms, could recite them for tests and live them without question. Space was never made for examination. Raising your hand in class was a sure way to court trouble. We were led to believe that someone else (I always imagined some lonely priest locked in the highest room of a tower of a far removed kingdom) was doing the hard thinking for you. All you had to do as a good Christian was follow his God-inspired tenets. Or, in other words, obey.

Modern Paganism is different in that its books are highly individualized journals of micro and macro examinations of one’s relationship with the more mystical realms of the cosmos. These Books of Shadows are highly personalized diaries so there was very little group discussion going on. There was very little reliance on any foundational texts for obvious reasons - lack of centralized resources, lack of authenticity, lack of any historical models. Many of the texts used were either written in the last one hundred years or so years or are being written now even as you read this. If not destroyed by the dominant culture might they one day be synthesized and used and debated and discussed? I’d like to think so. Like the Jews, many Pagans don’t shy from entering the misty veils of spirituality. Being the underground spiritual rebels they, they rarely have a problem questioning the answers.

When I started coming to Torah Study I felt duly unprepared. Not only had it been decades since I last cracked open a Bible (let alone the first five books of it) but I felt inexperienced in challenging what I had been taught to leave unchallenged. So it is refreshing, if not a little inspiring, to listen and watch these Saturday morning folks take on the Torah. (It is a loving battle they wage. Hmm - comparisons to fighting don’t quite work here. I don’t think any of us come to Torah too win or lose but rather to listen, to learn, to laugh and yes, even love.) And while I am educated to the Pentateuch I am also learning about the spaces Judaism makes for our queries and ideas, and how secure a religious belief it must be to allow that.
And in this process I am also gifted with something else just as, if not more so, precious: their stories. Some of these women and men have grown up under Temple Israel’s roof, moved to this address a long time ago or converted and stayed here. So deep are their wells of memory that they are rich repositories of experience. Listen carefully and you’ll catch some of this in their shares before study begins, talking of generations passed, the progress the synagogue had made over the years, and hey, remember this rabbi or that lay-person or remember when?

I watch as they chat, seeing smiles slowly overcome the wrinkles and eyes that had perhaps seen too much in their days glow anew with an inner light. For a few blessed minutes the walls softly reverberate with their wise voices singing this animated song of my elders. As a spiritual seeker, I couldn’t have requested a better tune.

How to Deal With Negative Jewish Attitudes About Converts - My Jewish Learning

While waiting to retrieve journal notes from a virus-laden laptop I thought I'd post this from www.myjewishlearning.com.

How to Deal With Negative Jewish Attitudes About Converts - My Jewish Learning

In memory of those gone, turn my mourning into dancing...

Maybe it's the time of year or the depth of stillness but I have been thinking lately of those who lives have touched mine - my father's, my cousins Paul and Claudia, Denise, Paul Woolf - and the letting go of those special relationships I cannot carry today.

May all their memories continue to be a blessing....

You Say You Want A Revolution...*

(*...will that be with a side order of sit-ins or just a beheading?)

For me Boston often feels like a perpetual boiling point for civil rights. Every weekend seems to bring a new rally to The Common or Copley Square or The State House. Tea-Partiers, Immigrant Rights, Queer Rights, Labor Unions, all bump elbows in a town that is small enough to be tucked away in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The streets and campuses here echo with the cries of the righteous, whoever that may be on any given day, to the point where the line between mainstream tolerance and indifference becomes blurred.
That being said, the current anti-Israeli sentiment around here is leaving me uneasy. Many of the tenets of protest I have lived by as a longtime activist seem to have been abandoned like yesterday’s space-saver in snow-buried Southie.

First is that over-used, least understood and much co-opted word ‘peace’. I learned my protesting from the school of Mohandas Gandhi, Alice Paul and Martin Luther King, Jr., where fighting back comes from a place of non-violence as opposed to "an acceptable level of violence", where you raised an open hand, not a clenched fist, you rose above your opponent instead of sinking down to them, you stood up rather than striking out; you disrupted the empire by sitting in, not by setting off bombs.

So it disturbs me greatly when during the recent Egyptian revolution there were calls to take Hosni Mubarak out "17^th Century Revolution style" or that the uprising had reached a level of "CHFHO" (Chop His F**king Head Off") already. For me Peace can never mean, or be obtained by, "acceptable level of violence" nor "preparing for armed conflict." When those onboard raise hands that hold the simplest of weapons, it is no longer a "peace" flotilla but a "protest" flotilla.

Also disturbing is the distinct lack of any real dialogue regarding the discourse. Some anti-Israeli protestors have made no pretense in refusing to come to the middle ground, instead staking claim to the most extreme of fringes (spots I imagine to be crumbling drop-offs that offer little wiggle room.) Instead of coming to a place of discussion they make demands; rather than discuss they debate; rather than actually hear they listen for the opening to make the next clever retort.

I also find it disturbing how easily History is ignored and everything is framed in the context of a few decades, years, weeks, the latest rally, RIGHT NOW!

I guess it should not surprise me (even though it does) to hear such arguments from this encampment as "the only way Palestine could live is if Israel dies", "you should stop being Jewish" or that "Zionists have taken over your police, government, media culture, etc.". It is profoundly distressing to me to hear how easily anti-Semitism is tucked into anti-Israeli protests, how old anti-Jewish myths are resurrected unchallenged in the new age, how extremism is packaged and sold as the new diplomacy, how critical thinking is discarded to embrace the electricity of the newest cause, how one missile can be seen as oppression while another fired in response can be called ‘love letters’ from revolutionaries.

Please make no mistake - I think the Occupation needs to end as of yesterday, the walls between nations need to come down, the term "moral army" is an oxymoron and that the current ultra-conservative Israel government often invokes religion to justify its stream of blatant racism and needs to be called out for any human rights violations. Just as any nation guilty of such grievious acts should be. Except they are not, are they? The French government violates the rights of Muslin women by stripping them of their veils, American Islamophobia continues to run amok., British Muslims are reviled in the country’s popular culture, yet it is Israel that is singled out for this level of demonstration. Hard to ignore the implications of that..

I am reminded of one of my favorite books, Starhawk’s "The Fifth Sacred Thing" in which a post environmental disaster San Francisco resurrects itself as a true socialist haven where Peace overrides Power. So strong is this spirituality that when the military-industrial complex comes rolling into town the citizens fight back through nonviolent protest, literally laying down their lives for that ideal. I can’t help but wonder how many of today’s protestors would follow that example.

Theirs versus ours: (my continuing process with so-called secular holidays)

9 Adar 1

By the "secular" calendar’s reckoning today is Sunday, Feb. 13^th, the day before Valentine’s Day. I posted on that certain social network my own thoughts about the overt and gross commercialization of Love. A friend (who never fails to leave my thoughts provoked and various parts of me tickled) pointed out that V-Day is a "Christian holiday" and to remember, hel-lo, I now have my own through Judaism to enjoy.

True, true, true! But that appreciation isn’t happening in a bubble. There’s a distinct conversion context I am writing from. This being my first round on the Jewish calendar, I am going to continue to see "secular"/Christian holidays in a way I had never before - as theirs, not mine - and begin to embrace Jewish holidays/HHD as my own. (My first Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Simchat Torah and the first night of Hanukkah all remain beautiful memories and gifts unto themselves.) For me this memory-making is a shedding of old rituals to let new Jewish religious/cultural aspects fit true to my form.

As Billy Crystal says, "It’s a process."

One observation from this transitional state is not only seeing how ubiquitous Christian-based holidays are in the United States (which I believe, despite its diversity, can be incredibly theocratic) but keenly feeling their influences. I went through a hard phase back in December during Hanukkah and Christmas. This time around is not so bad, although I do feel the cloying cultural pressure to be with someone, what’s wrong with me for being single, find someone who will take you out to dinner already, who will buy you flowers and chocolates NOW, who will have sex with you RIGHT NOW?

Obviously capitalism informs the over-arching commercial imperative to please be a good citizen and buy and consume, buy and consumer but there’s no escaping the truth that this is a Christian, Saintly-named holiday. I am growing a fond appreciation that Jewish holidays have not been co-opted by Mad Ave. and I can still immerse myself in the beauty of their message as opposed to their messaging.

So I’ll just skip over tomorrow’s cut roses and boxed chocolate, thank you very much, and instead focus on my first Purim and Passover. Let the Jewish wheel continue to turn!

Some passing thoughts from along this Judaic path

So yeah, it’s true: I’m bad at giving directions. "Fairly horrible" might be a more accurate descriptor. I tend to mix up right and left when I'm nervous and would carefully explain to you in the most well-meaning tone how to get to the local T stop by way of California.

But if I met someone just starting out along a path of Jewish (or perhaps any religious) conversation, and they asked, I would share with them these few thoughts:

1 - You’re not trying to beat anyone to the mikveh (or whatever dedication ritual ends this process for you.). I’m certain it will still be there, filled with water, when you arrive. So downshift a couple of gears and come out of the passing lane, already! There’s too much beauty, too many desert blooms, along the side of this road to hyper-focus on the finish line. (And if you’re thinking of it in terms of a finish line, you might want to ask yourself if this process is truly a journey or just a means to an end.)

2. - Likewise, respect where other people are, or where they have been, along the conversion time-line, and hopefully they will respect wherever it is you’re at in return. People will rarely, if ever, be at the same place at the same time. Why should they be? Human individuality kinda negates that sort of impossible symmetry, especially for self-driven learning experiences.

3. Does this all seem much larger than you and those things you may hold dear (e.g., - Facebook, iPods, how many cylinders are humming beneath your hood, the holiday office party, the person you rolled over to find in your bed this morning )? That’s probably a good thing. I believe that spirituality should be larger than Steve Jobs’ latest toy, Lindsay Lohan’s latest bust, yesterday’s gossip or tomorrow’s midterm. Hey, we’re talking about how we come to understand Life, The Universe and Everything. This isn’t a set of Ikea instructions. If we’re not even a little overwhelmed and awestruck by that process, then what qualifies as wonder in our lives?

4. - Talk to people. Share your thoughts, your fears, your joys. Grab a coffee and a bagel with a shmear over at Rubin's with someone from your class, hook up with a Shabbos buddy, or ask a Rabbi. (They really like and appreciate that.) This process is experiential. It goes deep and stirs up still waters. It’s supposed to shake your foundations. (See #3). These are huge, far-reaching issues that make our hearts pound and questions that capture our thoughts. I’m not sure anyone could, or should, carry these alone. Maybe you can figure out what you need to in silence but I promise, that bagel tastes better across the table from someone else.
(And, and just so you know, there are no stupid questions. Seriously. And if anyone tells you differently, go find someone else to talk to.)

5. - Finally, I truly believe we all practice our own form of religion every day (if by religion you mean a way of relating to ourselves, each other and the cosmos). (And I do.) I see Socialism as a religion and Parenting is a religion, Sex for sure, Politics, too, Academia definitely, and even, paradoxically enough, Atheism. Each claims its own set of scriptures per se, qualified (or not) leaders, a specialized lexicon and time-tested rituals, an agreed-upon code of ethics, and settings. I remember this every time someone looks at me as a converting Jew a wee bit askance.

We all have a calling down some road. May it end up taking us to where we need to go.

Remembering Debbie Friedman at Temple Israel, Boston

Remembering Debbie Friedman Concert at Temple Israel, Boston. Including "Water in The Well", "Miriam's Song", "Mourning into Dancing" to a most beautiful and stirring "L'chi Lach", with local cantors and singers. 

The Call of Jewish Ethics

3 Adar, 5771

So Thursday night’s Intro to Judaism lesson touched upon a topic I had been waiting to delve into ever since Day One when I spotted it on my syllabus: Jewish ethics.

Does this sound dry, dull, perhaps even sleep-inducing? Not in the hands of the Temple Israel rabbi who led the class. (I am not mentioning his name only because I have not asked permission to do so yet. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t mind but I am trying to keep some blogging ethics here. Note the emerging theme) His amicable lesson, interwoven with humor, kept us all engaged.. Throughout the evening we found ourselves splashing through ideas of justice and fairness, justice versus fairness, digging up definitions of charity and mishpat and squishing some tzedakah between our toes. It was muddy and messy and fun. Were you expecting something else?

I was excited about this because Jewish ethics was one of the reasons (Reform) Judaism had called to me. Remember, I had found this path after my prior spiritual G.P.S. stopped working and I ended up lost, wandering in the desert of civilization. Not that I was on the verge of committing any grievous moral sins but I was in need of some serious course correction to turn myself around. Not just an arrow-shaped signpost either (as any and every religion offers those up in abundance) but a whole new compass, a new understanding of how to read the terrain of Life.

European-based Paganism (which, post Constantine, arguably became a socio-political underground reaction to the totalitarian dogma of rising Christianity) did not come with a lot of built-in ethics. Oh, I found some motivation to do good in the framework of karma, some earnest Scott Cunningham writings, some underlying socialist values (as found Starhawk’s beautiful and beautifully written paean "The Fifth Sacred Thing") and, of course, a definitive pro-Gaia environmental responsibility (which I still try to practice.). None of this was particularly helpful though as my know world began collapsing on itself. The fact that there was no real Pagan canon on the topic more than a few decades’ old was all the more frustrating. Steelwork wasn’t exactly getting me a job to help pay the mounting bills or simply get some food.

As for Roman Catholicism/Christianity (which, for better or worse, I will lump together here), its moral code had given justification for various relatives and friends to believe 1) I was somehow handicapped, or a pariah, as transgender, or 2) doomed to Hell for being my gender expression and sexual orientation or 3) some combination thereof. It was difficult - okay, damn impossible - to sidle up to any notion of right or wrong based on a belief system that automatically marginalized me.

Why would I have thought that Judaism offered a user-friendly, far-reaching moral consciousness, especially since I had never stepped into a synagogue or cracked open the Torah before in my life? To this day I am not sure. I think what started me thinking along those terms was how, when things started to fall apart around me, it was my Jewish friends who put deed before creed and stepped up to help, offering not just prayers but real-world and real-life actions. Now to be fair, some of my non-Jewish friends, including my BFF, who is Buddhist and possesses one of the kindest hearts I know, also helped out. And not all of my Gentile family and friends even knew the true depth of my troubles. But for many who did, their offering of copious prayers for miracles, although very appreciated, was not always practical. Personally I blame the God-dispensing-miracles mind set that leads many of us into moral cul-de-sacs, going around and around looking for any egress.

And unlike Paganism, Judaic ethics had oh, a couple of thousand years history of trial and tribulation to fall back on. Its roots run all the way back to the base of Mt. Sinai. If that covenant didn’t wed the laws to the Children of Israel then the codifying of them generations later would. These laws (arguably the inspiration for The Constitution of The United, at least in part) seemed to have remarkable staying power.
That is not a coincidence. I think one of the reasons Jewish ethics have stood the test of time, I think, is that they are based in reality in both deed and creed. They are not checkmarks to be tallied up outside the fabled pearly gates by some halo-wearing bouncer the day after you die. They also aren’t based on some metaphysical boomerang that will always return to sender. (Which, by the way, I still believe in, just not as the basis for a spiritual morality.)

Does any of this mean because they are commanded, if not inspired, by mitzvot that Jews are less prone to do wrong than anyone else? I doubt it. It doesn’t matter in the end if you represent with a Star of David, a hijab, or a crucifix - human is human is human. But I think it is difficult to discount a set of ethics which first came into being (however you want to believe that happened) before two of three major world religions even existed.

And it was upon that solid foundation (carved from Mt. Sinai, perhaps) that I instinctively knew I needed to re-plant myself upon.

Standing there still - Stephanie

"40 Yiddish Words You Should Know"

40 Yiddish Words You Should Know

As a native New Yorker this brings me right back to corners of Manhattan and of course Brooklyn. For me Yiddish added such spice to the local dialect and lexicon, I could not imagine a world that was not colored by its rich hues.

Shalom!

How To Never Forget On International Holocaust Remembrance Day by | Jewcy.com

Because, to paraphrase, to forget is to repeat. And not just to Jews...

How To Never Forget On International Holocaust Remembrance Day by Jewcy.com

Witches & Witchcraft - My Jewish Learning

Witches & Witchcraft - My Jewish Learning

The literal demonizing of women, sometimes to the point of death. Apparently the Jews of olde were not immune to this. (Cue weary feminist sigh.)

Catching up 5: Elul, 5771 - Selichot:

(In which I start off with my first HHDs with awe . . . )

On the desk next to me is a yellow ticket. Its heading reads: "We invite you to celebrate the 5771 High Holy Day Season". Below my name is inscribed this passage from Isaiah: "The Gates of Return are Always Open."

This is my comp ticket to the High Holy Days 5771 at Temple Israel, BostonTemple Israel, Boston. I did not think I would get to celebrate Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur at the synagogue where I was actively converting. I had made my peace with the fact that I would need to find a more suitable venue that reflected my (at the time) current life circumstances somewhere else. For this I held no animosity; how could I? This is where I was in life - just starting two part-time jobs after a hard stretch, struggling with new rent and old bills. I might as well rally against the wind.

But then my rabbi sent me a letter regarding my conversion, which included this comp ticket. Although she might not have known what this gift meant, I certainly did. I exaggerate only slightly when I say my heart cried a little out of thanks at the sight of it. I could now share my first HHD with the people I had been going to Shabbat service and Torah study with. I could be in the place I was starting to think of as my spiritual home.

Two new friends from the temple invited me to go with them to Slichot. I accepted and proceeded to bombard them with questions. What was this? Like a midnight mass? Uh, not quite, they replied, wisely saying nothing else so that experience could fill in my blanks.

The first part of the evening was a discussion on the six questions (according to the Babylonian Talmud) you will be asked on the way to heaven. We split up according to what question called to us. I ended up in the room where we tried to discern what is meant by dealing honestly with people in our business practices. If I thought, it was going to be some tinder-dry conversation I was quickly corrected. The topic may have been "business practices" but the theme of ethics quickly spread out over many facts of everyday life. Soon everyone was adding their experiences into the mix and all I could do was sit back and smile (of course, after adding my own .02). Here was this wonderful give-and-take, two-Jews-in-a-room-with-three-opinions dialogue that I loved about Judaism. After decades of unchallenged Roman Catholic-obedience to scripture and then, later, Pagan wanderings in search of its own Book of Shadows, I had finally come home to a circle where spiritual Truth was vigorously sought after - even if no definitive answer was ever found.

After a break we ended up in the Temple’s main hall which had been transformed into a sanctuary. We were given candles and programs. "Leil Slichot," read the cover. "Beginning the Inward Journey to Forgiveness" its subtitle. I searched through my mental files for any Catholic and Pagan experiences with a similar philosophy but could find none. It was hard not to tremble in my seat. I felt as though I was standing on that razor-fine edge that separates the old and the new, the mundane from the unexplored. Whatever this was going to be tonight, for me it would be an absolutely new dawn.

The lights were lowered and the rabbis began reading from the program text. Torahs were solenly brought in, heralded by the hallowed sound of the shofar. It was a calling that stood my spine straight up. As each scroll was "clothed . . . in light"(Leil Slichot 4) the rabbis spoke of being a community before God, a family coming back to Sinai, a people following the footsteps of their ancestors back in time to a definitive moment. This stirred me in deepplaces I had long forgotten. Although I had heard the word before only briefly in song and did not know its dictionary meaning, I was beginning to feel the true resonance of the Hebrew word, Am.

Next came Havdalah. Rabbi Freedman stepped forward to mark the distinction between the end of Shabbat, the separation of the holy from the profane. "From this one Havdalah candle we light the candle of Memory . . . that helps us find a path back to you . . . " (6)

Now that we had come together, it was time to start turning, turning back, returning. "O Merciful One, I am afraid to look at all the times I have turned away . . . I am sorry, forgive me, help me begin to return to myself . . . " (10)

The words left me in a warm state of wonder. Return, return to what? Me, myself...my Self? Well, what was that, anyway? Roman Catholicism would have me believe that was an eternal sinner forever pleading on bended knee for salvation. Modern-day tenets confirmed this, painting me as abhorrent for being queer and to be shunned as handicapped for being trans. I was not to be celebrated or advocated for; I was to be pitied, kept from sight and reminded to be ashamed as often as possible.

I wish I could tell you that Paganism left me feeling more empowered but I had run into door-slamming fundamentalists there, too. One priestess dis-invited me from an all-women ritual after learning of my trans status, confessing she was doing was ‘probably wrong’ but kept the door closed all the same. (As a friend once wisely observed, "a fundie is a fundie is a fundie.")

So what was Reform Judaism saying via Selichot? I heard that night that my queer trans soul was actually worth coming back to; that I wasn’t some sort of cosmic mistake or social leper to be shunned at the door; that my presence there wasn’t embarrassing to this congregation and those leading it; that, like everyone else gathered there, I had been "drawn from the reservoir of the Holy. (Mishkan T’filah 35)

Now came "Sho.fa.rot...Awakening". More shofar blasts. "T’ki.ah! Wake Up! Sh’va.rim! Look! Tru.ah! Return! And the shofar signals my turning to You. (10)"

This night ended much as it had began, with select voices singing Shlomo Carlebach’s Return Again, uging us to "return again/to the land of your soul." I left the temple that evening thinking about that deep topography, seeing it with my gladdened heart as a true land of beauty, wonder, goodness and purity.

What a way to start my first High Holy Days

Israel as Redemption

Between last night's lesson on the Eretz/Am/Medinah aspects of Israel at my Introduction to Judaism class at Temple Israel, Boston and Leon Uris' Exodus, which I am currently in the middle of, one word keeps surfacing: redemption, as in to redeem.

Merriam/Webster Online has some interesting definitions for redeem , including but not limited to: "to buy back", "to get or win back", "to free from what distresses or harms", and "to change for the better". All of which makes for an intense focal point, especially from a religious point-of-view and a historical context. (For as many have pointed out, and rightly so IMO, you cannot contemplate the current nation-state of Israel or its founding in 1948 without taking into account the millennium old persecution of the Jews, right through the Balfour Declaration and the Holocaust. And, I would add, the legal purchasing of the land in Palestine during the early days of Zionism.)

How much does this concept in all its meanings actually define and ultimately justify in the end? An ongoing discussion that needs to continue.

My Shabbat State of Mind

Wait, I remember thinking when I first started to read up on Shabbat early on in my Jewish odyssey. Hold up, hang on. You expect me to give up Friday nights? That traditional kick-off to the weekend, the frothy just reward every Monday-through-Friday nine-to-fiver suffers through a workweek to chug down with both hands? That happiest of happy hours, the evening of long dinners out, of movie dates and dancing late, bowling teams in smoky lanes and football games under the fabled bright lights?

Not that I ever rallied for the home team from the stands and I can’t remember the last time I had drunk my way to a Saturday morning hangover. All the same I still felt very possessive of my Friday evenings. The thought of surrendering all those long held oft-praised adolescent-based glories - or at least the potential of them - seemed unthinkable, unreasonable, impossible.

Worse, as a Jew who would practice Shabbat I was also expected to ‘keep’ Shabbat from Friday sundown to Saturday evening. Granted, Reform Judaism did not insist on the same prohibitions as Conservative and Orthodoxy streams but it did strongly suggest that there be some restraint of those distractions that define the rest of the week - for a whole twenty four hours, no less.

Really? I thought. Look, I was already going to Shabbat studies on Saturday morning. I tried to spend some
time in a natural setting afterwards, whether it be a stroll through the greenery of the Riverway (a.k.a. that ‘dirty water’) or a meditative stroll along the Harborwalk contemplating the ‘world of creation’. Wasn’t that something? Wasn’t that enough?

At this time I had just started going to temple for Shabbat regularly - but only with the escape clause in my purse that said I could stop any time I wanted. Because I have to confess it felt weird to be going into a house of worship on a Friday - every Friday - especially as the rest of Boston headed off to the movies at Lowe’s, another round at Ned Devine’s or packed the ‘D’ or Riverside cars (not coincidentally, the same Green Line train I took to get to Temple Israel) for the game over at Fenway.

Of course, I was still thinking in a post-Catholic mindset, counting time on the Christian clock, turning the page of the Gregorian calendar. In the United States and other Catholic theocracies the world always revolves around Sundays. The week starts on Monday, slogs through Wednesday, quickens on Thursday. Once the whistle blows on the assembly line Friday at 5:00 p.m. you’re allowed two nights and a day of debauch (whether that debauch is defined as drinking, dancing, drugging, sex or shopping, or some combination thereof) squeezed into about 32 hours...40 if you’re really adventurous.

Then comes Sunday, worship day. Dress in your fineries, cue the organ music and incense, sunlight through stained glass, priestly intonations and confessing of all your hard-earned sins. Stop by the bakery on the way home, pick up The Globe or The Times, cook the day-long meal, kick back on the couch to watch the game.

Not so much on the Jewish clock. If you are going to Shabbat then it’s a Friday night that brings you through the synagogue’s doors. And guess what? The world outside is not going to stop for you. Restaurants, bakeries, baseball teams do not care. The Red Sox are still going to play that double-header, your non-Jewish or non-observant Jewish friends are still going to par-tay. Shabbat is pretty non-negotiable. You can catch one of a half-dozen possible Catholic masses to fit into your Sunday schedule but there is only one sunset on a Friday.

That seemed huge to me and perhaps rightly so. As author Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg points out in her book "Surprised By God," religion is supposed to be larger than the practitioner of it. What’s the use of any belief system that allows us to be equal with our Higher Power, and therefore can barter with, mold and shape to our own needs and fears?

Religion washes over us like a wave from the sea, not a stream from a showerhead we can turn on and off. Spirituality contains this hidden non-negotiable element of surrender in this respect. It says if you want to have a relationship with your Higher Power then you are going to have to pay attention. It kindly, lovingly demands a laying down of our arms (if not our pride and iPods, too). It just won’t work if we’re constantly checking our cell phones, thinking about tomorrow’s staff meeting or downloading the latest Lady Gaga or Justin Timberlake.
                                                                       * * *
So I thought, okay, I can do this. Judaism wants just twenty-four hours, a single day out of the week. Is it really that so much to ask? Beside, I was starting to really connect with my spirituality again through Shabbat services and Torah studies in a way I hadn’t in decades. This was beginning to have real meaning for me, an emotional and intellectual investment. Did I really want to do anything that would intrude on this ongoing meditation, this love affair I was fostering with the universe and its Creator?

Then September came around - a new season, a new semester. I had a course problem. The only way I could get the minimum credits for financial aid was to take a Saturday afternoon class. Okay, I thought, I can do this. It didn’t impede on my Friday night services or my Torah studies. This was workable.
Only it wasn’t. The class was a three-hour lecture from noon into the middle of the afternoon. I had just enough time to wrap up Torah Study and bail on oneg to go catch the Green Line T to make the Red Line south to JFK/UMass and then race to grab the shuttle to the campus. On the good days I managed to land at my desk with literally minutes to spare. Most times it was five or ten minutes late. The class - Ancient and Medieval Art History - was engrossing and challenging, demanding my full attention and fostering critical thought. Which of course is what any good course should do.

But it also picked me up of my Shabbat and unceremoniously dropped me in the middle of a classroom. My weekly love affair now ended hours earlier than I wanted it too. Soon I began to resent it. Then I remembered I had made this choice and therefore needed to deal with its consequences. It was only for a few months, right? Dammit I could do this.

And I did, too, although not without some serious pangs. I’m pretty sure no one was happier than me the following Saturday morning at oneg. I was back, I had returned with some new lessons learned, not only in how to tell the difference between Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Etruscan columns but in gauging the true depth of my Shabbat experience and my need to stay connected to the universe, give thanks and continue to have that beautiful wave wash over me.
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Here’s what I found out - the more I went to Shabbat, the more I wanted to go. The more time I spent on a Saturday wandering the Harborwalk or along The Riverway, the more I wanted to look at nature through Shabbat-steeped eyes. The more I entered that Shabbat space the less I wanted to leave it. I began politely turning down friends’ invites to coffee chats or the movies and especially any Saturday protests. Hey, this is Boston - weekend protests in the Common is almost a given. Yet I knew to participate in one would totally shatter whatever Shabbat meditation I found myself in. Hard to keep an appreciation of God and The Torah and the gift of this world while screaming some clever political slogans.

Nowadays I schedule my Fridays so that I have the afternoon-leading-into-evening off. I try to do all my cleaning, food shopping and cooking done beforehand. I like the idea of being presentable in house, dress, body and mind to greet and invite the Shabbat bride via "L’Cha Dodi"into my Life for the day.

Does this mean I won’t buy food if I need to, or clean a plate I have dirtied (or shovel snow, as this *is* Boston in winter right now)? No...but I am trying very hard to keep from doing any extraneous activity which would tear me out of my Shabbat state of mind, rip me away from that special guest. No, twenty-four hours doesn’t seem enough now, not nearly enough.

I’ll end with this thought. Recently someone else new to this process admitted she wasn’t going to be able to make it to Shabbat. "I just can’t get out of work to make it there on time."

I totally respect where she is at. There was a time I thought I could live without Shabbat services. And with no disrespect to her, but these days I feel I would have a very hard time living without it.

Jews in the Civil Rights Movement - My Jewish Learning

When I was studying which religious structures aligned best with my social-activist spirit, I kept coming across stories like this.
In a world all too ready to embrace the latest anti-semitic tall tale, may these never be forgotten.

Jews in the Civil Rights Movement - My Jewish Learning