Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
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.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
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.
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.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
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
How to Deal With Negative Jewish Attitudes About Converts - My Jewish Learning
Thursday, February 24, 2011
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....
Friday, February 18, 2011
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 "17th 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.
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 "17th 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.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Theirs versus ours: (my continuing process with so-called secular holidays)
9 Adar 1
By the "secular" calendar’s reckoning today is Sunday, Feb. 13th, 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!
By the "secular" calendar’s reckoning today is Sunday, Feb. 13th, 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!
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