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!   

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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