Parshah Sh'lach L'Cha: Afterthoughts or Of Spies, Grapes and Am Yisrael Chai

 - It's not Moses who sends the spies but God who directs Moses. Important distinction, since this means the One who initiates the reconnoiter already know the eventual outcome of the future campaign for Canaan. Therefore this mission is not to inform military strategy (because, grapes?*) but to inform God (and the Israelites?) the measure of the Israelites' faith.

 - (Num. 14: 2): "Why is Adonai taking us to that land to fall by the sword?" "Our wives and children will be carried off!"

How does the spies' fear make any sense to the Israelites? You've seen a slew of plagues in Egypt, a whole sea split in half, dew-dropped manna left for you every morning, followed pillars of fire, the rage of God made manifest in a myriad of delightful ways (sarcasm alert) yet NOW you think you've been brought to this place to die? How does that even make sense?

Of course, it doesn't. The idea of the impossible should have been left on the far shore of the sea you crossed over - ahem, walked through - two years prior. If nothing else, Parasha Sh'lach L'Cha is a powerful sociological case study on the spread of fear as a poisonous contagion. (Note to Great Britain post-Brexit and the United States in this Election Year of 2016.)

 - It occurs to me that the Israelites have a unique blessing in that God has shown them where and what their Promised Land looks like.

This is not always a given.

 - Um, much like the whole Golden Calf "incident", the idea that an enslaved and traumatized people should (never) show no fear seems uniquely obtuse. ow different things might have been if someone had just sat them down and said, Look, it's okay to be afraid; courage isn't the absence of fear but to move forward with it and through it? I'm sorry, we're out of time for this week.
(Psychology FTW!)

(And yes, you could counter with how The Torah isn't concerned with human psychology, modern or otherwise, as much as it is concerned with a particular [masculinist/patriarchal] idea of faith for a particular [masculinist/patriarchal] people at least three thousand years gone.)

 - Wow, can we talk about the resilience of the Israelites and their investment of future generations here for a moment?

Seriously.

God just condemned everyone (with the exception of Caleb and Joshua) to death in the desert. For doubting their eventual claiming of Canaan, they will all die. Now, what I find simply amazing is that, according to The Torah, no one calls God's bluff here. not a single Israelite says, "Oh really, God? Take away the one thing that has kept us alive and going all these miles and years? Fine. Then I quit. Ciao, bella."

No one, not a single one of these very flawed (very human) Israelites acts in a dysfunctional way, as understandable as that may be. Yes, they DO try to storm Canaan anyway, but being spurned so completely (Num. 14: 44) they must have collectively understood their shared fate. Which leaves me to wonder, what is their motive to keep moving forward now? They know they will never enter Canaan, they will never return to Egypt, they will die in the most foreign, strangest and hostile of lands. Why take one more single step?

The one answer - perhaps the only answer? - I can think of is the next generation. To keep going for the future of Israel as a people, as a nation.

That, I think, is amazing. In the face of divine condemnation, to keep moving forward, speaks to a communal resilience that leaves me breathless, stirred, inspired, and continually in love with my people. Am Yisrael Chai, indeed.

And finally, wow, God - you just condemned a whole people to death in their wilderness wandering, and then go on to instruct Moses to tell the Israelites"When you enter the land to which I am taking you..." (Num. 15: 18). So obviously this is a message for the next generation, which You are implicitly directing their parents to givethem.

In other words: I (God) have just condemned all of you to death - but before you die at my command, give this message to your children.

And still the Israelites move forward, step by step...

(* Toda Raba Rabbi Sharon Sobel for pointing out how the grapes are the current symbol for the Israel Ministry of Tourism. What fertile discussion could that lead to?)

(And, as always, an insightful d'var on Sh'Lach L'Cha from BimBam, formerly G-dcast.)

Musing from Parsha Va-eira

1 - "But I did not make Myself known to them by My name Adonai..." Technically true, although many examples exist in which genesis' key players know/respond to God by this name. So what can be gleaned by this technicality? Maybe that this is the first time God makes this introduction, signaling the uniqueness, the importance, even the love behind appearing (va-eria) to Moses. (Mind blown not as much as heart moved.)

2 - I know this has been debated throughout the centuries by many a wiser mind than mine, but the only way I can comprehend God needing to remember (and the corollary, that God can be forgetful) is if I exchanged it with the word "acknowledge" (although the corollary here, that God can be ambivalent, is still disturbing.)

3 - So interesting how the word "redeem" is used here  (6:6) - to free - as opposed to the Christian Bible, where it often (always?) means to forgive.

4 - "And I will take you to be My people and I will be your God" (6:7). Is it just me or does this line just crackle with passion? (Fanning self.)

5. - That the Israelites did not initially listen to Moses, (6:9) "their spirits crushed by cruel bondage", really speaks to their oppression. Good to remember as this informs their later actions (Golden Calf, constant complaints, fears and terrors).

6. - The Women's Commentary notes how the genealogy of Va-eira (used to reaffirm Aaron and moses' lineage?) is unique as it mentions women, which other Torah censuses do not. Toda raba, Women's Commentary!

7. - I personally love that God chooses a representative with a thick tongue and refuses to allow that be an impediment for Moses.

8. - Ugh, the whole I-will-harden-Pharaoh's-heart and the free-will-versus-destiny debate. The only way the Exodus works as the tension-ridden exercise in which God can wield power and work those "wonders" is if Pharaoh is stubborn. If Pharaoh submits early on, then there is no excuse to bring about plagues, there is no Angel of Death, indeed there is even no Pesach - indeed, could it have even been called an Exodus? Would the Israelites have ever become a people/nation?
What bothers me is twofold: 1) if God is constantly hardening Pharaoh's heart, how can we blame Pharaoh at all in what follows? Yes, I know, that God *can* control the actions of a nation's leader speaks to God's awesome power - but if God can control emotions and thoughts, why not just force Pharaoh to say, okey-dokey, y'all can go, don't let the door hit you on the way out? In fact, who is more to blame for the plagues - Pharaoh or God? Perhaps this was a bit of an overreach of The Torah's authors? 2) Why have God harden Pharaoh's heart at all? The beginning of Exodus sets up the ruler as a petty and paranoid tyrant who isn't above overt oppressions to keep a people down. That he would have refused Moses' requests and even challenged God's authority to the point of the last plague would actuallu seem justified by what we already know of his character.
(Question: when God says God will harden Pharaoh's heart, does that mean directly or indirectly through the contest of control which has been initiated through Moses/Aaron?)

9. - "And the Egyptians shall know that I am Adonai..." (7:5) Because the "wonders" are not just for the Israelites but the Eyptians, too. Because no one multi-tasks like God multi-tasks.

10.: Rods turning into snakes which swallow each other - was this the first phallic measuring contest?

11. I guess it speaks to Pharaoh's absolute tyranny that even when Moses/Adonai brings such suffering upon the Egyptians that they cannot force their ruler to acquiesce to Moses?    

12. regarding water turning into blood: There is a lot of academic/Anthropological research/literature on how blood is seen and used - and feared - by ancient people. One theory - which I agree with - is that blood is only seen as purifying/contract binding when it is controlled by a man/men/Man. When we see it under the control of Moses/Aaron or Adonai (such as in 7:19-24) there is no accompanying horror of impurity. yet when blood is not controlled by Man - in other words, when it pertains to Women - it is always seen as impure.
Discuss.

13. Critical to remember, as Rabbi Sharon Sobel of Temple Isaiah of Stony Brook has reminded us, the Torah sees God as connected to the land; within the land there is God (8:18). Whether you believe that or not, or how much you believe that or not, how much this informs everything else is kinda stunning to appreciate.

14: I personally love how, even this early on, the idea of distinction-making is occurring (8:21-23).

(And for the record, I would have linked clips to "The Ten Commandments" or "Gods and Kings" here for kitschy-cool visuals but am still waiting for a telling of a Middle Eastern people that isn't so blindingly white[washed].)

Thoughts on Lech L’Cha

12 Kislev, 5774

It’s taken me a while to catch up with my ongoing thoughts for each week’s Torah study. School is partly to blame – some weeks I have to give more emphasis to those readings which are graded. Some weeks, though, I need to sit with the portion longer than others, not only intellectually and spiritually but emotionally processing it as well. 

“Lech L’cha” is one such parsha.

As I have written here before, coming out as a queer woman (in-transition) I have been questioned numerous times about my choices and actions with demands that I literally explain my Self. Why am I doing this? Who am I to be going against the (socially-constructed) dictates of biological essentialism? Where was my proof that I am who I say I am? 

At first I would earnestly attempt to answer these demands, not realizing that in the end I could offer no reasonable justification, for the speaker was merely projecting their own ignorance and intolerance. At the same time I internalized the message my interrogator implicitly delivered – that I was (being labeled as) abnormal, freakish, (socially) stigmatized and therefore (morally) deviant, and as such was not deserving of the most basic human rights or common courtesies (such as not having to justify who or why I was).

(And please please please do not comment with “But Ziva, just be who you are and don’t worry what other people say.” There is plenty of psychological and sociological research shows that platitude rarely if ever describes social reality. We negotiate many of our identities in accordance to the social, political, economic environments we inhabit, in addition to our biological structure...and this would include other people we encounter, whether in the form of inter-personal encounters, as cohorts, or even as members of aggregates. 

Please don’t misunderstand – I am not saying we should seek and rely solely on external validation to determine who we are. What I am saying is that those who advocate simply "being ourselves" and ignoring all others reveal a passing privilege that is unaware of itself.)

I have written here before how “Lech L’cha” – the idea of being drawn by that small yet powerful and insistent divine/Divine voice inside of us to go forth, whether to another land or  another career or to a new relationship, someone or something beyond the boundaries of our cherished comfort zones – touched me when I first read it. That was 3.5 years ago and my spirit and heart and soul still lurch and dance when I hear the passage. Indeed, when we discussed it in a recent Torah study I had to hold back big fat tears. (This was the second time I have had to do that since Rosh Hashanah 5774. Many around me have suggested I share those tears with my congregation. I am not sure I can do that yet, although it’s an exercise in trust I want to aspire to in this new Jewish year.)

So I end this particular blog post with this one thought:

The Women’s Commentary on The Torah highlights how the title of Debbie Friedman’s empowering,            reflective and haunting musical translation to this portion is actually the feminized command of the                  parsha’s title, the distinction being that instead of meaning “Go forth or “go forth for yourself”, L’chi              Lach translates as “Go forth…go forth to yourself” (82). 

Which, for me, is a beautiful and beautifully fitting interpretation. 

Thoughts on Parashah B'reishit

1 Cheshvan, 5774

And so the joyous music of Simchat Torah calls us Torah studiers back out onto the hardwood floor where we will be rendered near absolute-beginners for another (Jewish) calendar year. Let the dance (and the struggle) begin!

5774 starts my 4th go-around with the five Books of Moses and in acknowledging and celebrating that I have decided to spend the new year not just with The Torah but with “The Torah: A Women’s Commentary”. Sadly, we do not use this book during Torah Study, instead defaulting to either The Tanakh or the Modern Commentary/Plaut version. These are fine but honestly, their obvious male-centric narrative and lack of both a female perspective and feminist examination reveal (sometimes painfully) how deeply immersed in (sometimes oppressive) patriarchy these foundational books are. While this does not escape the attention of the rabbis who lead my Torah study it is not always their weekly focus either (although they would be the first to encourage introducing them relevantly into the discussions). 

Whether it is because of my renewed academic focus on feminism through my MA courses this semester or a need to find a new analytic lens for my Torah study, I am eager to listen and read the Torah through new voices and eyes. (Not only does the Women’s Commentary offer these via its fresh ideas and arguments, it also includes poetic interpretations and inspirations of the text which are for me are just as provocative, and ultimately moving as the editorials themselves.)

With this new directive I have just completed Parshah B’reishit. (Yes, I know I am a week behind, indicative of the amount of reading my MA program leaves on my desk) and am left with these observations and questions in its wake:

-          After eating the apple Adam and Eve’s eyes were opened, yet it does not say they incurred shame from their nakedness (Genesis 3:7) – if I am reading the Hebrew correctly. Then by default is not what they are feeling by realizing their nakedness – which is really just the result of eating the forbidden fruit, the real transgression here – guilt? I think this is critical since guilt attaches itself to action (eating the apple) as opposed to shame, which clings to the person instead.

-          Genesis 3:6 – Wait – Adam was with Eve when the snake suggested a little consciousness-raising for dessert? Whoa, that little detail was de-emphasized in other retellings of the Creation Story I have come across.

-          Genesis 3:9 – God asks Adam - and through him, acknowledging the rest of humanity’s raised awareness – “Where ya at?” And my/your/our answer is…? (From a great Torah lesson with Rabbi Matt Soffer).

-          Genesis 3:16: Ah, so the hetero-normativity begins. (Not surprising given the historical and cultural contect of The Torah.)

-          Genesis 3:22: So God exiled Eve and Adam, not because they had eaten from The Tree of Knowledge but out of fear that because they had they might (inevitably) eat from The Tree of Life next? Which implies…?

-          P. 18’s commentary: “The gateway to the garden is closed, but the world has opened up.” And Eve says, “You’re welcome.”

-          Genesis 5: 1-27: How are we judging the length of time here? Genesis emphasizes the importance of a seven-day week but are we assuming a day is 24 hours? A year cannot be calculated as 365 days (the length of a Gregorian year) yet.

-          Genesis 6:1-4: Um, er, whaaaa….? Not sure if I am reading a Greek myth now, half-expecting Zeus to pop out from behind the curtains and wink at the audience. Of course, the placement of this passage informs the verses that follow – well, kinda maybe, but then, maybe not - but couldn’t that proceeding passage also stand alone?

And so the joyous music of Simchat Torah calls us Torah studiers back out onto the hardwood floor where we will be rendered near absolute-beginners for another (Jewish) calendar year. Let the dance (and the struggle) begin!

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.

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     

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.

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