Late September

Dear Friends,

Rosh Hashanah begins on Friday night so I’m a little over halfway through my Elul preparations and “check up”. It’s been a fascinating process for me and I think it may be a “keeper.” On Saturday, I will be honored to present a D’var Torah, which is a chance to do a brief “teaching” about the Torah portion we read that morning. During my Elul meditations/contemplations/wonderings, the combining of my internal dialogue and the work that has gone into preparing my talk has made for an amazing and wonderful time. The opportunity for my external life to feed my internal life so intensely and then get the chance to give some of it back is one of the great gifts in my life work.

The Elul work has found me doing a lot of thinking about repentance this year, which is really not a concept I’ve spent much time on outside of the Holy Days themselves. Sin and repentance are so antithetical to my normal world view. I’m a very half-full glass kind of person, but for some reason my road to these holidays has been dark. It hasn’t been morbid or overly depressing. It has been, however, full of thoughts about character and what these holy days tell me I’m supposed to be working on. It’s been a learning time.

There are a number of images that I’ve used to help me get prepared for this season. The first is an image from the Al Chet prayer -- the image of the arrow being shot towards a target. We use this in school all the time to help the students understand the concept of aiming yourself in the right direction and understanding that we don’t always hit the center of the target -- but we know that’s what we should try and hit. I’ve been working on redrawing the target. I’ve been wondering what the target is really supposed to look like and if we’re all looking at the same target. I have comfortably shot at the red center for years, always missing, of course, but aiming for it nonetheless. This year I’ve had some questions about whether or not it’s time to redraw the whole thing or just change the color in the center. I know I still have to shoot -- I know I’m still falling short -- and I definitely know there’s a lot of work I have to do -- but the luxury of the Elul season has raised some intriguing questions about where I’m aiming. I’m sure we’ll play with this image more in the months ahead.

The second image from the liturgy that I’ve used a lot more than usual is part of the choreography of the Ashamnu litany found inside the big confessional called the Vidui (don’t you hate it when I use all this Hebrew?). This is when we take our fists and lightly beat our breasts in rhythm to the chant. Years ago I found this image a little barbaric, since I knew it had to date back to some kind of self-flagellation somewhere, but I decided to reconstruct it. I now believe that it’s a wake-up call to my soul (or heart for those of you who aren’t sure you have a soul -- I know you do, but if you want to call it a heart -- feel free). I believe that with each confession, ashamnu, bagadnu, gazalnu, dibarnu dofi… we are telling our inner selves, listen, we have fallen short, we have done wrong, we need to pay attention, wake up and listen -- no more innocent bystander here--- And then we get the wonderful melodic refrain -- Va’al kulam eloha selichot selach lanu. Mechal lanu. Kaper lanu. (And for them all, God of forgiveness, please forgive us, pardon us, help us atone!) I love it that we rise for this, putting our communal confessional on a par with our most holy prayers. My soul had better wake up and pay attention! So as I prepare myself for chanting this prayer at services I’m spending some time thinking about what I really want my soul to be listening to on these holy days. There’s a lot of meditative time when a little “knock, knock, knocking" on my soul’s door will definitely be in order and I’m working on my list.

But enough teaching…the things I most want to bring in to the High Holy Days are all personal. They’re supposed to be personal. This is the time for accounting. This is the time when our self-examination has got to count. This is the time when we take a good hard look at ourselves and adjust our aim, whether it is in order to be a better partner with God or companion and support to our loved ones -- but there isn’t a person alive who doesn’t need an adjustment. The previous twelve months have eroded our most well-intentioned plans, no matter how much we try to do the best we can. We all have something to fix, to atone for, to apologize for… whether it be to another human being or just to the Power that makes for salvation -- within or without.

I have a story to share before I end. It’s from the tales about the Chasidic master, Israel Ba’al Shem Tov (1700-1760). It’s my way of reminding you that above all, the work you do on the Holy Days is between you and God, however you understand God to be in your life -- you’re the only one keeping score.

When the great Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov saw the misfortune threatening the Jews, it was his custom to go into a certain part of the forest to meditate. There he would light a fire, say a special prayer, and the miracle would be accomplished and the misfortune averted. Later, when his disciple, the celebrated Magid of Mezritch, had occasion, for the same reason, to intercede with heaven, he would go to the same place in the forest and say: " Master of the Universe, listen! I do not know how to light the fire, but I am still able to say the prayer." And again, the miracle would be accomplished.

Still later, Rabbi Moshe-Leib of Sasov, in order to save his people once more, would go into the forest and say:
" I do not know how to light the fire, I do not know the prayer, but I know the place, and this must be sufficient."
It was sufficient, and the miracle was accomplished.

Then it fell to Rabbi Israel of Rizhyn to overcome misfortune. Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands, he spoke to God: " I am unable to light the fire, and I do not know the prayer; I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is to tell the story, and this must be sufficient."

And it was sufficient.

Shanah Tovah – a Good Year – to you and those you love,
Barbara

Early September
 
Dear Friends,
 
It is the month of Elul. This is our traditional month of preparation -- internally and externally -- for the Day of Atonement that lies ahead. For a sophisticated and over-intellectualized people, Jews certainly do retain and cherish some time consuming practices. The month of Elul is part of that practice, and I think it is worth a second look for those of us who may not be familiar with it.

What does the tradition say we are supposed to be doing now? We are supposed to be studying and reflecting on our lives for the forty days from the first of Elul to the tenth of Tishri. (Aha -- not just the ten days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur -- you thought you had time before you started… nope… reflection has already begun). In addition, during Elul the shofar is to be blown every morning except for Shabbat to wake us up to the task. This is serious stuff.

The tradition goes back to Babylonia, to the Talmudic time (100-500 C.E.) when ordinary Jews were beginning to accept responsibility for their own relationship with God as well as their own spiritual development, although they certainly didn’t call it that. There are other rituals around Elul, there are psalms to be read and special services to attend – but what I really want us to focus on is the incredible amount of time our ancestors deemed necessary for us to do an internal review of our lives. Of the twelve (occasionally thirteen if it’s a leap year) months of the year, we are supposed to spend the entire month (plus the Ten Days of Atonement) in self-examination. Of course we don’t stop our lives for a month to do this. We don’t spend all our time in the synagogue as we do on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. However, for the month of Elul, if you were capital O observant, you would begin your weekday life with the sound of the shofar reminding you that accountability was around the corner – that the content of your character, to steal a phrase, was to be assessed -- that time was growing short to make amends, to fix the wrong, to clear things up, to hit the mark you have been missing.

Judaism isn’t for sissies. I’ve told you that before. Jewish practice asks a lot of us if we can get past matzah ball soup and are willing to explore some of the more traditional observances with contemporary filters. I am the first to admit that I don’t do it all, but I am fascinated by its amazing possibilities, and am rarely disappointed when I do dip my toes in the waters of new ritual practices. This year, I’ve taken on the long self-assessment of Elul, and although we’re already 11 days into the month, I hope some of you will jump on board with me for some of the reasons I have -- or for some of your own. It’s been fascinating so far -- and I’ve just begun.

For me, first, there’s an open-ended mindset that forty days gives you that is amazingly liberating. I don’t know about you, but when I’m sitting at Rosh Hashanah services, I am already feeling the pressure of time – the sense that there’s too much to take in, too much to think about, too much content, noise, Hebrew, friends to see, just plain stuff – for me to really feel like I’ve done the kind of internal review I think I need to do before the gates close on me in the final moments of Yom Kippur. There’s no way I can isolate my self enough at services to truly do the work that needs to be done to fulfill my own understanding of teshuvah, literally returning, to the clearer place I want to be spiritually.

Second, I need to have an annual wrestling match with God. I know that sounds peculiar but it’s my way of checking on my current spiritual location. I need to ask some hard questions about my year, my self, whether or not I’m still on a path that’s working, who I’ve failed, who I’ve served well, whether the language still works, even whether the conversation is still relevant. That needs a lot of time and although it frequently happens for me on Yom Kippur, it’s occasionally not happened and I always feel a profound loss when it doesn’t. I’m hoping that by starting now I can open up a broader field of opportunity for the match. I’ll keep you posted on that one.

Third, I love the chance to try something different in the hope that something different may happen religiously/spiritually/intellectually/emotionally. Otherwise, what’s the point of getting up in the morning?

So, why am I sharing all this with you? I guess because this holy season, which is almost upon us, is the one time when it isn’t about what we cook and it isn’t about what we buy and it isn’t even about whether or not we know the blessings. This season is about making it right with ourselves so that when we look at ourselves in the mirror we know we are living the lives we are supposed to live. Judaism has always shied away from talking too much about character and sin and soul. We pride ourselves on being a neck up religion. We pride ourselves on being a religion of doing, of mitzvot, of acting in the world. Well, folks, that’s all true but it doesn’t mean a thing unless you are hitting the mark internally as well. Character does count. Being a good person who reflects the values of our tradition in thought as well as deed is where the bar is set and we forget it all too often. The practices of the month of Elul demand that we look inward -- and I think that’s pretty important.
 
You have time to think about all this…
 
More soon as I continue to pray for peace,
 
Barbara

Late August 2003

Dear Friends,

I am obviously a person who loves words. I love words individually, put together in poems, in phrases, in songs and in prayers. I love Bartlett's quotations. I love word games. So, our last two conversations about prayer have gotten me thinking a lot about the limitations of those words I love because I believe that in many cases we struggle with prayer because prayer language fails us. Then, in one of those delightful moments that the word serendipity was created to describe, I thought of some wonderful words that I now think may have helped open the door to prayer for me. Here they are:

I thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(I who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e.e. cummings

I was in seventh grade, I think, when I first encountered this poem. I was about to dive into a schizophrenic adolescence where I was sometimes the perfect student and sometimes singing folk songs in Greenwich Village with fake i.d. I would be permanently altered by e.e. cummings (and this poem and its companions were the direct cause of all my lost capital letters -- in case you ever wondered why notes from me are often signed with a lower case b). However, the point of all this is to share this incredible poem I now know was, by my definition, a prayer. I wanted to tell you that it is imbedded in my soul and still sings in me along with the shehecheyanu at magic moments in my life. This was my first "every particle of my being" prayer -- even though I didn't know it at the time. I wanted you to understand that prayers appear in many shapes and sizes, not always in the formats we expect. I share it with you because I think it was the baby step I first took towards a prayer practice and I didn’t know enough to know it at the time.

I don't know if e.e. cummings thought of this poem as a prayer. I didn't call it a prayer for many years afterward. I would find myself having shehecheyanu moments (didn’t know what they were but knew what they felt like) and unbidden I would find myself saying "I thank you God for most this amazing day." It's all about recognition. If someone had asked me if I were praying, I would have paused for a minute -- and maybe agreed that I was. I would have put all kinds of disclaimers around it -- said I was just feeling so incredibly alive and the cummings' poem just put into words how "the ears of my ears" were awake and "the eyes of my eyes" were open. Those moments demanded words. The poem gave them to me. They were exactly what I wanted to feel when I was most engaged with all my self in God's world and completely aware of it. When I look back this poem was my first real encounter with personal prayer. This poem gave me the power to be in the moment completely. It taught me how to practice awareness. It taught me how to look for "the leaping greenly spirits of trees and the blue true dream of sky."

So, why am I writing about this? I guess because I worry that many of us want to run before we walk. I've spent the last month thinking about prayer practice and the struggles many of you have expressed about communicating with an Other. I started trying to work backwards on my own search. I started trying to figure out when I threw out the stereotypes and the templates and began to find answers that worked for me. I believe that the first step for me was determining that the journey was mine to map and this poem was one of my first signposts.

Next weekend begins the month of Elul. This is the month in the Jewish calendar when we are supposed to be preparing ourselves for the rigorous internal review that occurs during the High Holy Days. Each year I find the task more meaningful in the same way that I find the study of Torah more meaningful -- I've had one more year of experience to bring to the process. I think we have that same opportunity with prayer.

I hope you will take some time in the next week or so, before I start poking you with Elul-related thoughts, to find some words that may work for you as a cornerstone for building a personal prayer practice. You see they may already be part of your life, as the cummings' poem was for me -- but you just don't know it. They may be lyrics to an old Beatles tune or a traditional prayer from our prayer book or a psalm that you remember or even a song from camp, but they should be words that allow you to acknowledge the moment (or words you already use at special moments but don’t call prayer). Search the web, there are some great inspirational quote collections that can get you going -- or write something yourself. If you’re not a collector of songs, poems or prayers, try the names of those you love or a single word -- "Shalom," "Peace," "Thanks," "Yes" -- can do the trick.

That's all it takes to start… a deep breath… Use your special words and you're praying. Take a small step and see how it feels. Don't worry about where the word is directed -- the conversation is really within -- you are tuning your instrument of prayer. All the rest is just the rest and some of it works part of the time for some people and some of it works most of the time for some people. But we keep coming back to it because sometimes we feel as if "this is the birthday of life and love and wings" and sometimes just saying it makes it so.

Dreaming still of peace,
 
Barbara

Early August
 
Dear Friends,
 
We’re back from an extraordinary vacation, and although I am brimming with thoughts that I want to share about why it is so important that we be reminded that nature can always bring us to our knees in awe and humility (or is that too Christian an image? I don’t think so… nature transcends faith paths) I promised myself two vacation letters….

So…
 
First, the letter about struggling with prayer moved several of you and so I will weave your responses together. I know if some of you took the time to write that means others of you felt the writers’ concerns, but just were not able to write about it yourselves. So, here’s what some of you had to say.

First is a rather straightforward response from a woman who I admire a great deal. She is learned Jewishly – someone I consider observant in both the lower and uppercase sense of the word – but also a continual searcher – I listen when she talks – and know that her replies never represent a static position. She shares her own feelings about where she is when she prays:

My answer to the question about prayer is that:  When I pray, I am using the time to be thankful for what I have, to express my hopes for those I love and for the world - whether they will be answered with exactly what I want or not (because I believe that sometimes our prayers are answered, but we don't understand how), and to use the time to stop and think about the world instead of constantly running through it.

The second response is more about place, but I promise it will tie together….

There is nothing like getting away from your home and into the heart of nature to make your spirit soar. I just came back from a week in Belize on a tiny Cay in the sea. There is magic all around us, but I have come to the conclusion that "gratitude" is a key. It is all so fleeting in this life, and SO MUCH to be grateful for. In addition, it all comes from very deep within ones self. One needs to go deep within ones own soul through meditation to find the heights of what God means for them. The power and flow needs to be tapped into from deep within.

Then the final piece I want to share is a kind of rumination -- from a long time searcher who has walked a path with many twists and turns in it. As with many of you, she continues to challenge herself with the “how did I get here and where am I going next?” questions. Where would we be without those questions?

The person who spoke about their confusion about prayer caught my attention, so I would like to write about the "evolution" of prayer in my life. I grew up in a somewhat rural area.  My family was very involved in a small conservative congregation, where my mother was a Hebrew teacher and we all attended Friday evening services religiously (I didn't have a choice).  While in High School I began teaching a pre-kindergarten class in our Hebrew school. In retrospect, I recall feeling disassociated from the "praying" on Friday night as if I was only mouthing the words, but on Sunday when I routinely took my adorable little "charges" on our weekly "prayer walks" (NOT what I called them at that time) I felt totally connected to God. I would explain to these pre-schoolers that God was everywhere -- in the flowers, the birds, the warm sunshine, and in "you & me" -- and that wherever they were they could pray and feel God's blessings bestowed upon them (not in those words, but you get the point!)  At 16 I certainly had never heard of Reconstructionism and probably couldn't have honestly explained the above phenomena the way I do now, but this concept was certainly imbedded in my heart. The other aspect that I "got" from growing up in my small congregation was the specialness of "belonging" and praying together with people who cared about my values and me. Despite the fact that I left organized Judaism after I graduated High School, I now love praying in our community, especially on Friday evening, and most often envision during the Amidah the same gratitude not only for "god's creations" but for the special community I have found!

A little addendum:  two weeks ago I attended my first formal Saturday morning service outside.  I went to camp  (not Jewish) every summer and "scouts own" -- a weekly girls scout meditation beside a creek, or overlooking a magnificent vista -- was my favorite activity).  Rabbinic student Nathan Martin choreographed a "nature walk" and Shabbat service at Torrey Pines State Park.  As we recited the Shema on the highest spot in the park overlooking the magnificent ocean vista, I felt in my heart and soul, that I was praying in gratitude for all that was around me (including the members of my community) and that God was everywhere.

What sticks out for me is the ease with which we often can communicate (pray?) with/to the Other in nature -- and our inability to have that same connection in our synagogues becomes even more painful. I’ll add a favorite story -- this time from the Chasidim.
 
A Rebbe in a small village was beginning to worry about his son who would disappear every day into the woods behind their cottage. Each day his son would head out into the woods alone, not saying why or where he was going. Finally, the Rebbe could stand it no longer.

"Son," he asked. “Why do you go off into the woods each day?”
"I go to find God," his son replied simply.
"But, son,” the Rebbe responded, “Don’t you know that God is the same everywhere?”
"Yes,” said the boy. “I know that, father. God is the same everywhere, but I am not.”

My wish for us is that someday we can feel the wonder of God’s gifts to us within with the same amazement that we observe the gifts that are without…

Shabbat Shalom,

Barbara

Late July
 
Dear Friends,

Well it’s vacation letter time -- your turn to write. Although you didn’t exactly jam my mail box with commentaries to share, some of you pulled through, and I thank you. You have one more letter to write for me (early August) so keep it coming.

First from someone who does respond to me every time I write, there’s a query that I’ve gotten from others. I know that for many of you, the beauty of this experience is its anonymity. And for those of you who read this in Oregon and Massachusetts and New York, the medium is ideal. However, in San Diego, there may be a few of you who feel the way she does --so here’s her idea:

I share with you every time I reply to your amazing letters- - you always hit the spot! I struggle
with how to fit into a community and get myself in action soooo my thought for the month that I would like to share is taking the step of communicating with all the readers and -- Let's get together to start a group of Monthly Sharers in person!

Let me know if folks are interested - and I’ll try to arrange something.

Now more on the struggle with the God idea, the prayer idea, the general struggle idea...

I completely relate to the dilemma you describe. Been there. My own personal "god" definition helps. I see it as that part of each of us that strives to be better...to repair the world...to reach the unattainable. So we all contain god-ness, we all are able to reach and stretch. Maybe today I can only reach a little bit...but who knows about tomorrow or the next day.

HOWEVER, I still don't really get the prayer part (as you also know). Is it the expression of what we reach for? If so, who are we expressing it to? Is it the attempt to internalize the reaching? So far it just doesn't resonate for me (today). But I'm always willing to reach.

Any of you out there game enough to try an answer for early August?

And a reminder that sometimes just a little word can make an enormous difference...
 
Hi Barbara, and anyone else listening in,

I think your idea of adding "today" to the "don't believe in God" people is an excellent one. It is especially useful when the "don't believers" are young. I remember when my eldest son entered fourth grade at Dor Hadash. It was his first year in a formal religious school setting and he had all the obstinancy of a nine year old demanding he knew it all. He was firmly convinced he did not believe in God. His teacher (Lisa) and I both gave him free reign to believe or disbelieve whatever he was comfortable with, but we went on letting him know what we saw that was beautiful and "Godly" in our lives, Lisa within the realm of Torah and her teachings, and me at home. We did not judge him to be right or wrong; we did not put our feelings on him at all. We just let him know that everyone changes what they think and feel, and that he did not need to establish a lifelong belief system at the age of nine (or at any age, for that matter). By the end of that year, my son came to me and said that perhaps, just perhaps there might be something to this "God" idea. It is a concept that I know he will wrestle with on and off throughout life, as most of us do. But, as long as we know that it is just a "today" belief (whether today lasts one day or many years), that there is freedom to see and feel and experience God in our lives as much or as little as we are ready for... today.

And finally, one that has been sticking with me since I got it and may be food for a whole letter down the road but if your game to take it on for early August, go for it....

One of your previous letters started me and my daughters talking. My children are perfectly comfortable with everyone knowing they are Jewish. Is it their youth or the times or just a personality trait? What is it that makes them feel so comfortable with being a minority while I am not?

I love these questions -- I think this is why our children don’t understand "exclusivity" -- the fear of assimilation -- the worries about interfaith marriage -- they don’t see themselves as different... Have we done too good a job? Great stuff...

However, I have to send this off and start packing for my vacation.... but I thank you all for sharing your thoughts with me and our other friends "out there"... But before I close I want to share with you a wonderful blessing from a book called The Book of Sacred Jewish Practices, CLAL’s Guide to Everyday & Holiday Rituals & Blessings published by Jewish Lights. In it are contemporary rituals for all kinds of wonderful things, including journeys. We are about to take off on a wonderful road trip to Utah, Wyoming and Montana to wonder at nature’s and God’s glory... I will certainly have more to say about it when we return...

So here’s the prayer - feel free to use it on your journeys as well.

Ye’hi ratzon, may it be Your will, my God, to lead me on the way of peace, and guide and direct my steps in peace, so that You will bring me happily to my destination, safe and sound. Save me from danger on the way. Give me good grace, kindness, and favor both in Your eyes and in the eyes of all whom I may meet. Hear this, my prayer, for You are a God who listens to the heart’s supplication and communion. Blessed are You, our God, who hears prayer.

With continued prayers for peace,

Barbara

Early July
 
Dear Friends,
 
I want to share a late night sit up in bed and write it down thought with you, and see where it goes. It began as a strange medical thought, not a religious one. I was considering the phrase “referred pain”. I have spent the last few months with a bad shoulder. However my hand and elbow are also in pain as a result of this injury. When I mentioned this to the doctor, she smiled and said “there’s nothing wrong with them, that’s just referred pain -- the injury is in your shoulder”. At that moment I realized that to her the fact that it was referred meant that I should ignore the pain in my elbow and hand. That pain was irrelevant. To her the key word was “referred” -- but to me the key word was “pain”. It wasn’t going away just because it was referred – it was not irrelevant. No matter how rational a being I am, I just wanted the pain to stop. The doctor did not please me. We spoke different languages. Attitude is everything.

On the spiritual front when we say “pray to God” the key word to me is “pray”, but to a questioner, the key word has to be “God”. I can joyously get caught up in teaching the how or when of prayer while the questioner is standing there stubbornly saying, “Wait a minute, you haven’t been listening to me… I’m still waiting to figure out who or what I’m talking to in this prayer thing. How am I supposed to develop a spiritual prayer life on your terms if I’m not even sure there’s an Other I’m praying to?”  Barbara’s blissed out on prayer and the spiritual questioner can’t be moved because they haven’t gotten past the great big obstacle of the God idea. They have their arms folded and their souls blocked and I didn’t notice because I’m completely comfortable with the words and am moving along talking about various prayer ideas. What a disconnect!

So the doctor and I share a common chutzpah. We make “professional” assumptions about our work that need some rethinking. We need to remember whom we talk with and whom we care for and whom we learn from and whom we teach.

I need to help others become comfortable with an enormous range of definitions of God. That’s the advantage of having studied Judaism as an adult. It’s all right not to be sure about the God idea. The person who struggles most with finding a comfortable adult definition of God is usually the person who last studied Judaism as a child and is stuck with those irrational childlike images. We are the people Israel, literally the people who struggle with God. I tell my students that the definition is also an obligation. We cannot ignore God. We must engage in the struggle.  The relationship is an active one. You should never say, “I don’t believe in God.” You are certainly free to say “I don’t believe in God today.” Try it. It opens up enormous possibilities!

So although I know that there are many Jews who take some pride in saying you don’t have to believe in God to be Jewish, whenever I hear that it makes me twitch. I wonder about that a lot. I wonder how you can celebrate Shabbat and our Holy Days and our festivals and not at least be engaged in the struggle with the God idea. I think I’m going to start poking at the “don’t believe in God” folks and requesting that they add “today” to their statements.

Now on another front:
 
Last summer I struggled for a long time on how to take a vacation from these letters. They are not very hard work because they bring me great joy, but they do take a tremendous amount of time. They are really quite a meaningful form of discipline. I do need to regroup every once in a while though. My solution last summer was to share with you some writings from other Jewish thinkers who have helped my own search for meaning within Judaism’s very wide embrace. 
 
This summer I want to try something else, though, and see if it works. Since as I have told you before, you are an amazingly eclectic and wonderful group of readers out there -- I think it would be fun if some of you would share your thoughts -- questions -- challenges -- with each other. Why should I be the only one who benefits from your wonderful insights and wisdom? Now, I’m not asking you to write two page letters… A paragraph -- a sentence -- a simple question about what makes you nuts about your own spiritual search or an answer that you have stumbled across that gave you an “aha” moment that you want to share… all would be wonderful. Let’s give each other some new voices to ponder for late July and early August… let’s listen to each other… let me take a back seat in the auditorium, put my feet up and be challenged by you. Let’s wander into new areas of interest. Let’s struggle with new ideas. Bring it on! You can email your comments to me at work or you can just hit reply when you get this letter and let me know whether or not you want your comments to be anonymous or signed and I’ll compile them and send them back out to everyone on the list. The cut-off for late July is soon, because we’re heading off on vacation the 19th -- so if you’re later then that, you’re comments will roll over into the early August letter. 
 
I think this will be fun!
 
Still dreaming of peace,
 
Barbara

Late June 2003
 
Dear Friends,
 
It has been cloudy in San Diego for a very long time. I am aware that I have readers who live in places where that statement may generate a sarcastic “oh, poor baby,” but for those of us addicted to the weather here, it’s been bad for the psyche. On the news they were discussing whether or not there could be a true addiction to the sunshine and the consensus was yes, we are sunshine junkies and that’s why everyone has been wandering around a little depressed lately. I’m sure I’m not as depressed as the tourists who thought they were coming here to lie on the beach (water temperature is 64 degrees, folks), but it has been a dreary time.

So, I’ve decided to pull out all stops and generate a spiritually positive email letter today with no academic content at all. School is out. First, for the sake of honesty, I must confess that this is the fifth letter I’ve started. The previous four matched the weather and depressed even me so they have been deleted. I’ve decided to write about gratitude -- a topic that always inspires me because I think it may be the emotion that brings us closest to the command to be holy than any other one we have. I also think it is the first emotion we lose when we start down the slippery slope to mean-spiritedness.

The dictionary defines gratitude as: quality or feeling of being grateful or thankful -- so we turn to the definition of grateful which is warmly or deeply appreciative of kindness or benefits received… pleasing to the mind or senses… refreshing….

Doesn’t that sound wonderful? Don’t you want to be there? Really, when you feel all the tensions in your body on a day-to-day basis -- when you think about all the things that make you angry or upset or frustrated -- doesn’t the idea of being in a state that is pleasing to the mind or senses sound heavenly? The really cool thing about this is that you can do this all by yourself at any age and at any level of intellectual attainment. You don’t need a teacher, a rabbi, a synagogue or an ashram -- you can get into this anywhere and anytime -- just whenever you feel the need for a little shot of refreshing, pleasing gratitude. (And it’s free, too)
 
We all know the cliché, “I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.” But as with all clichés, it is one because it carries a fundamental truth. I know how easy it is to believe that the world has overwhelmed you and there isn’t time to think about the positives in life, but we let ourselves be overwhelmed at a horrible cost. It is so easy to let things pile up until we can’t see anything good. It is so easy to push aside the good stuff, to take it for granted, to assume it will be there tomorrow because right now we have to deal with the bad stuff. This is such a terrible mistake. I really believe that gratitude almost acts like a vaccination against the bad stuff. However, like any vaccination, it needs booster shots. We can get them in many different ways.
 
We each have certain constants that we can be grateful for. My neurosurgeon has an ongoing one with me -- “You’re walking and talking -- right?” and in his world of neurosurgery, that’s a gratitude statement. (Remember the man with no feet?). I have my own very long list of constants, my husband, my children, my life (I’m walking and talking, right?), my extended family, etc… I could go on for a long time. When I think about it, we’ve probably “decorated” our house as an unintentional gratitude trigger -- we have photographs from family trips all over the house -- mementos from special occasions -- old desks from each of our grandfathers -- china that belonged to both my grandmothers-- books that mirror our various hobbies (read passions) -- collectables (read worthless junk) that mean something only to us… See what I mean? Finding gratitude triggers is a great exercise (well, you have to also find the gratitude).
 
I’d love you to try it. Maybe make it a summer project. Write down your gratitude constants. Think about all the things you may have forgotten to acknowledge with a thank you. I mean there’s no one to write a thank you note to for your shelter, but God knows (aha) you should be grateful for the roof over your head. There’s no one to receive a dozen roses in thanks for the marriage/partnership that has nourished you all these years, but God knows you should be grateful. The child or grandchild asleep dreaming of a trip to the fair is worth a shouted thanks to the heavens, don’t you think? The trip to Hawaii? Thanks… The memory of the camping trip to Joshua Tree? Thanks again… Reflect alone or with your family or friends -- it’s a guaranteed joy builder.

You then are ready for the spontaneous gratitude moments, because you have trained yourself to look for them. How many times in our lives have we had moments when we could pause, take a deep breath and remind ourselves how grateful we are -- and then felt that refreshing cleansing sense of gratitude? It’s almost as if we’ve completed a necessary circle. It’s the amen without which the prayer is incomplete. It’s the booster shot -- the necessary additional help our souls are given so that we can withstand the difficulties that we face in the world “out there.” 
 
If the world within is calm and sure, we can deal with whatever problems come at us from the world out there. The bad stuff starts to get us when we haven’t given our inner life the sustenance it needs to stay strong.
 
Have fun...and know that you are all on my gratitude list (especially after writing this letter).
 
With prayers for peace,
 
Barbara

Early June

Dear Friends,

I don't often have a topic carry over from one letter to another, but so many of you responded to last month's letter that I think I need to write a little bit more on the topic of being a Jew by choice. For those of you who know me well, you know I think that phrase includes anyone who practices Judaism, as opposed to folks who just happen to have been born Jewish but don't do anything about it - but last letter I talked specifically about conversion. I think I need to add a little bit more to the discussion.

(If you missed last month and want to catch up, all the letters are available on our website, www.dorhadash.org - just click on the icon that says, "What's On Our Education Director's Mind This Week". You'll find the last two letters posted as well as archives of all the past letters if you really want to catch up.)

What I found fascinating about all your responses was that they were another case of what I am beginning to call Blind Men and Elephant Syndrome. So many of us appear to have the same surface issues that push our buttons, but when we dig down just a little bit, the squirming is caused by totally different things. The issue of conversion appears to be one of those great big elephant issues, and we're all blind men describing what we feel.

I talked last time with some disparagement about how hard it is to convert to Judaism, but didn't really explain the rationale for why it is so difficult. So, to be fair, here it is. The classic reason given as to why we make it so hard to convert is simply that it is very hard to be Jewish, so the process to become Jewish should be hard as well. It is not something to enter into casually or without thought. History certainly defends this position. I'm sure that my non-Jewish family members all have had moments when they worried about the choice my husband and I made to raise Jewish children, worried that they would face anti-Semitism, and who knew what else, as they grew up. Certainly it is easier to be part of the majority culture. So throughout history when a conversion candidate approached a Rabbi, the obligation on the Rabbi was to try and dissuade the candidate by pointing out all the drawbacks of becoming one of us. It's hard for us to imagine that as we sit comfortably in our twenty-first century American culture, but Hitler's camps are not that long ago and our whole history is riddled with pogroms and violence and death. We have not had it easy. But America is not Germany or Poland or Russia -- and the risks to American Jews, thank God, seem far away -- as unlikely as a repeal of the 13th Amendment banning slavery. (This is where the Central European bubbes spit three times to the side -- who says I'm not a cultural Jew?)

But I don't think becoming Jewish should be a simple matter of just showing up, either. Some of you thought that being Jewish should require merely an "I am"... and I can't go there. When I talked about Ruth's commitment to Naomi, and the simplicity of her conversion, the simplicity did not imply lack of effort. Ruth gave her entire self to Naomi's love and Naomi's lifestyle. The folks who want to make no effort, engage in no study, whether they be born Jews or from some other background, miss the point. They are skimming the surface of something that is miles deep and miles wide. The effort of real engagement pays off ten-fold at the times when we are tested. That is when we need to turn inward and find spiritual support and if we haven't already taken the time to erect a spiritual bulwark to lean against or haven't found a religious community to shelter within, we can feel lost and cast adrift. If all we have is a name to call ourselves, in the words of the psalm, we may well ask "from where will my help come"?

Obviously, I seek a middle ground. I fantasize a place where we all choose our Judaism. Where we all, as adults, take some time to rethink our relationship to Judaism, to our peoplehood, to God, to the faith idea, to where we stand in history. I fantasize that we all spend some time each year in Jewish study -- whether it be actually picking up a Tanakh and browsing through it to look at one of the stories I talk about or look at one of the books I mention or we just wander into Barnes and Noble and stand in front of their Judaica section (they have one, you know) and buy something that looks interesting. I fantasize that none of us feels diminished by how little we know and all of us feel empowered to learn more. I fantasize that each of us realizes that we are good enough for now but are always a work in progress.

My husband and I do a vow renewal every five years. We do it for many reasons, but one is to remind ourselves that our marriage is a living thing and who we were when we married is not who we were when we birthed our first child, or our second, or bought our house, or. well, you get the idea. I think that "Born Again Christians" may have something to be said for them in this area. (Are you all scratching your heads here?) How many of us would re-up as a Jew if we had a choice? Wouldn't it be interesting if Judaism created an adult opportunity to make a commitment to membership in the tribe? Christians may do this better than us and we can learn from them here, folks. I think it's an idea worth exploring. I also think if we did that, the lines between a born Jew and a Jew by choice would disappear -- which would be a very intriguing thing to contemplate -- and probably a tough enough idea to get me thrown out of Judaism by the "them" I'm always talking about.
Beyond that, I have a fantasy that in the rapidly changing world of American Judaism we should start speaking out about who we are and not let someone else define who is a Jew and what makes a Jew. I'm sick and tired of traditional Judaism thinking they have legitimacy on their side when the vast majority of American Jews do not practice the way they practice and do not believe what they believe. I refuse to be intimidated by Orthodoxy. I refuse to be considered second class. We are the future of Judaism. If one thing touched me most from the responses to my last letter, it was the number of people who have been hurt or angered by "organized Judaism" because of what they perceived of as insurmountable and arbitrary barriers to inclusion.
We need to open our doors and teach about who we are and what we have to offer. If we are able to teach our children that there are many paths to God, how can we not say there are many paths to living a Jewish life and becoming a Jew by choice?

There's a lot of room in a religion that is miles wide and miles deep and plenty of time and space to explore it …we can do it together because we are a work in progress -- after all we've been around for thousands of years evolving and evolving and evolving.

School's out… this letter feels a little more rambunctious then usual… that must be why.

Praying for peace everywhere today,

Barbara

Late May
 
Dear Friends,
 
Sometimes I come across a story in our tradition that triggers both quiet reflection and philosophical twitching and I just can’t resist sharing.  It helps, certainly, if the story has merit on its own and fits into the holiday calendar in a timely way. The story of Ruth and Naomi is one of those stories. The Book of Ruth, found in what we call “The Writings” section of the Bible, is a celebration of one of the greatest friendships of all time, the friendship of a Jewish mother-in-law and her Moabite daughter-in-law. This is the friendship that brings us the classic King James translated line, “Whither thou goest, I will go…” which in my youth I was very surprised to discover was not said by one lover to another (should have been, don’t you think?).

The holiday that brings us this story is Shavuot, which begins on the night of the 5th of June. The Rabbinic stretch that has us reading the Megillah (scroll) of Ruth on this holiday is as follows: Ruth is said to be the ancestor of David. David is said to have both been born and died on Shavuot. That’s reason one. If that isn’t good enough for you (I’m being a little sarcastic here) reason two is supposed to be that Ruth’s decision to “convert” or more realistically, live as a Jew, indicates her acceptance of Torah, which parallels the people’s acceptance of Torah at Sinai, which is what supposedly happened on Shavuot -- hence the connection.

Today I’m pondering the conversion issue. I’ve been thinking about Ruth’s conversion and all the conversions that have followed hers. The abbreviated story that leads to her conversion goes like this: A women named Naomi and her husband Elimelech had moved to Moab during a famine in Judah. They had two sons named Mahlon and Chilion.  Mahlon and Chilion married Moabite women named Orpah and Ruth (read non-Jews). In a relatively short time all three men died. Naomi, as the head of the family, decided to return to Judah where she heard things had improved, but told her daughters-in-law that although she loved them dearly, they should return to their own mothers’ homes to find new husbands. Orpah, weeping in sadness agreed to go but Ruth refused, saying she would cast her lot with Naomi and Naomi’s people. In the version of the Tanakh I prefer, Ruth’s speech goes as follows “Do not urge me to leave you, to turn back and not follow you. For wherever you go, I will go, wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus and more may the Lord do to me if anything but death parts me from you.” (Ruth I: 16-17)

And that is called the first conversion. The story of course goes on, because if King David is to be descended from Ruth, she has to marry -- and she does (read the book -- it’s short). The issue for me is once again those wise old Rabbis who from that pure moment went on to develop the convoluted “mine is better than yours” conversion rules that we now see today.
 
I’ve been following with some interest the increasingly dark pronouncements on interfaith issues coming from the traditionalists in the organized Jewish community and I am struck again by the brilliance of Mordecai Kaplan’s constant reminder that we are an “evolving” religious civilization. I think the growing number of interfaith families we see knocking on Judaism’s door wondering what we have to offer them may force us to take another look at the Book of Ruth. Kaplan was right to remind us that the process of change cannot stop. We have got to keep addressing these issues and not look backward for answers -- but for inspiration. Our roots are our strength.
 
I’m starting to observe a fascinating phenomenon within Jewish circles. I’m starting to see a real schism between those who are absolutely committed to doing it the way it’s always been done because that is the way to preserve Jewish identity and those who are starting to wonder if the Jewish identity they are preserving has any relationship at all to the identity of Jews today. I find the phenomenon both refreshing and long overdue and I think the purity of Ruth’s conversion offers some help to those of us struggling to find some answers “in the tradition” for where our “evolution” needs to go. 

Naomi offered Ruth some very fundamental but essential things. She offered Ruth a connection to a people. She offered Ruth grounding -- an understanding about how to be and act in the world. She offered Ruth love. Ruth returned it all tenfold.

Now I admit I’m being overly simplistic here. After all the Tanakh is an ancient text and times are different -- and certainly we want people to choose Judaism with intentionality. I’m a firm believer in the statement that we are all Jews by choice. But I also think that the disputes over what makes a “kosher” conversion are as much an embarrassment to Judaism as the discussions over who is a Jew (that’s for another letter home). We need to start putting aside these arguments and start focusing on the far more important issues that the writers of the Book of Ruth understood instinctively. They knew what the bottom line was and we seem to have forgotten it in our urge to protect ourselves. How high do we need our hurdles to be? How closed off should our communities seem? How isolated? How different? Is it time to evolve into a more inclusive worldview where peoplehood is defined by a personal choice that is more accessible? 
 
I believe we should welcome the stranger with love as Naomi welcomed Ruth and Orpah. When the stranger enters wholeheartedly into our lives and becomes one with us, that stranger must be a stranger no longer. He or she becomes us as Ruth did. That should be sufficient. Who knows, the next King David or Albert Schweitzer or Albert Einstein or Julius Lester or Debbie Friedman or Mordecai Kaplan or who knows who could be descended from that person we have welcomed into our midst…. And if we don’t, who knows what we might lose? If we don’t, what does it say about who we are?

So as Shavuot approaches and we think of this great gift of Torah – this incredible book of wisdom that has been passed down through thousands of years and holds within it such enormous wisdom if we are willing to take the time to study it… we also need to think about the simple story of Ruth and Naomi -- two women who understood the core teachings of the Tanakh and did what we all hope we can do and pass on to those we love -- they walked the walk -- they didn’t just talk the talk…
 
What do you think?

Chag Sameach (a good festival),
Barbara
 

Early May
 
Dear Friends,

It's the season of Bar and Bat Mitzvah celebrations at Dor Hadash. Shabbat after Shabbat we find young men and women standing before the Torah scrolls chanting beautifully, nervously, thrillingly while relatives and friends smile from ear to ear or wipe tears from their eyes. When my oldest son was called to Torah almost 11 years ago I remember a non-Jewish friend saying how amazing it was that Jews celebrate the transition into adolescence -- the most difficult and often dreaded time in a person's life. Right when our children are about to become hormonally crazed tenants in our household whom we barely see (and rarely want to see because when we do see them we're always fighting with them) we have a mammoth religious celebration to get the whole thing started. It's certainly an interesting point to ponder. However, that's not where I'm going with this.
 
Where I'm going is down a slightly different path. I want to talk about the permanence of the title Bar or Bat Mitzvah. We never think about that or really mention that during the services we attend for our teenagers. In reality any Jewish adult past the age of 13 who understands and accepts the responsibilities of being a Jew is a Bar or Bat Mitzvah -- a son or daughter of the commandments. Legally, there is no requirement for a formal ritual, although the service is a public demonstration of a certain level of knowledge and expertise. That's why any Jewish adult is entitled to wear a tallit. You don't have to prove anything to be an adult Jew. You declare you are. You wrap yourself in a tallit and look at the fringes and remind yourself of the 613 commandments that those fringes represent, and you are a Bar or Bat Mitzvah. You see, what I think we too often forget is that once you become a Bar or Bat Mitzvah at age 13, you don't give up the title at the end of the day. I think we forget that every time we acknowledge our ritual lives, our "commanded" lives, we are once again fulfilling our responsibilities to be sons and daughters of the commandments. I wonder how much our lives would change if every Jew above the age of 13 really understood that and carried that awareness with them. 
 
Yesterday was Mothers’ Day. As all of us know, you never stop being the son or daughter of your parents. The baggage that entails is enormous. It varies in weight -- sometimes light -- sometimes heavy -- but there is always baggage. If we’re lucky and wise we can find the gifts in our parents’ teachings soon enough to thank them (thanks, Mom) and the analogy kind of works for this Bar/Bat Mitzvah thing too. Our Avot/V’Imot -- our Fathers and Mothers -- are not called that casually. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah are supposed to be our parents symbolically and our Judaism, our faith, is the path that they began for us. The mitzvot, the commandments, are on a grand scale simply the lessons that our parents taught us, and they stay with us and echo in our hearts for all time. How many of us hear our parents' words coming out of our mouths or see us doing something “just like our parents” and are taken aback by the experience? Well, why couldn’t/shouldn’t becoming a Bar or Bat Mitzvah have the same imprinting effect? And why shouldn’t we celebrate it? Why can’t we rejoice in the fact that we are descendants of many parents -- and their voices echo through time because we acknowledge their connection to us? So if we never stop being our parents’ children, why not the children of the commandments? We just never thought of it, right?
 
Certainly as with the lessons my mother taught me, there are many lessons from the commandments that are no longer valid. That’s the joy of being a Jewish woman in a Reconstructionist synagogue in 2003. In another time and place I wouldn’t have that freedom. We are working our way through Leviticus right now in the synagogue and for every great commandment there are three or four that I would gladly delete. However, the ideas in Leviticus -- the ideas that a pagan society could attempt to establish a religious, ethical and civil code of behavior because it was the right thing to do -- just knocks my socks off. Being in a movement that is not wedded to the literal meaning of Torah helps a lot, too. This allows me to be awestruck by the conceptual brilliance of the book, without getting angry with God (also important when you interact with your parents).
 
So, where am I going with this? I’m thinking that my spiritual practice can always use some refreshing and so I’m going to try to more actively think of myself as a Bat Mitzvah along with all the other categories that define me (spouse, mother, friend, worker, etc…) and revisit some of the teachings my “other parents” gave me. I like the imagery. I like to think of myself as part of a huge chain of learning -- far more complex then my bloodline. When I stood on the bima at my sons’ celebrations and handed them the Torah there was almost a sense of “turning it over” -- as if my part had ended. Now, as I revel in my declared status as a permanent Bat Mitzvah, I realize that I wasn’t letting go of anything -- I was letting them in on something -- something wonderful and something permanent -- and something that will stay with them forever -- as it has stayed with me. They are now and forever sons of the commandments, even if they don’t think about it every day.
 
So with a tip of the hat to the teenagers standing before the ark, I invite you to join them in your hearts. I invite you to let the teachings of all your ancestors inform your thoughts and actions. I invite you to declare yourselves sons and daughters of the commandments, whether or not you received a fountain pen or a $25 savings bond from Uncle Sol on your thirteenth birthday. I invite you to wrestle, to poke and to prod all the teachings of Torah with the same daily awareness that allowed you to learn the teachings of your own families -- perhaps not knowing that you would hold dear what worked for you -- pass on what worked for you -- and give thanks for what worked for you. (Thanks again, Mom). Mazel tov!
 
With dreams of peace,
 
Barbara

Late April 2003
 
Dear Friends,
 
Passover is over for this year and it was, once again, a powerful and wonderful time, as I hope it was for you. We had twenty-nine people around our table - a group of family and friends who have been coming together to celebrate for many years. It was an evening full of love and gratitude. But despite the joy of Pesach filling my heart, when I turn to look at the calendar I feel the coming pain of Yom HaShoah (literally The Day of the Great Burning - or Holocaust Remembrance Day, which begins Monday night).  The bright light of liberation is dimmed before the metaphorical flames of the Shoah.

For those of you who are either not Jewish or not as wedded to the ritual calendar as we "professional" Jews are, this feels kind of like whiplash. We have just celebrated our most redemptive moment -- our great liberation from slavery -- and then our religious calendar says -- wait a minute -- before you start feeling too cocky -- too proud of yourselves -- too uppity and free -- take a look at what's around the corner. The darkest moment of our history is about to be observed. The most overt demonstration of evil in modern times is about to be revisited all over the world. On bimas and in classrooms the cry of “never again” will resound. Can any of us not close our eyes and see the pictures? Can any of us forget? If there is one common visceral memory for at least two generations of Jews, it is the Holocaust. Those two generations are the Jews who survived the 1940’s and their children -- the children who were taught of their incredible responsibility to those who died.

I remember someone telling me that the Jewish catechism was our calendar -- that if we lived it -- observed all our holidays (especially Shabbat) we would learn all we really needed to know to be a "basic Jew." On the one hand, I agree. When I was still teaching in the classroom on a regular basis and spending a lot of time on the Shabbat liturgy as textbook, I was amazed at how much it taught about Jewish history. When I taught holidays, so many of them were stepping-stones to understanding who we Jews are and even more importantly, who we were. But this "yom" -- this day -- stands apart on the calendar. No matter what liturgy we have, this is a day with no healing words of explanation.

I am so ambivalent about how to acknowledge and remember that dark and evil time. As an educator I have always felt that when we teach it we have to clean it up somehow -- and the hook for children should always be on the rescuers. Otherwise it’s just too awful -- too nightmarish -- too unbearable. Children must know that in the midst of evil there were people who were good. I've been thrilled to see more and more work coming out on the rescuers -- because they do represent hope. My own childhood education about the Holocaust made me feel that there was absolutely no one who stood up for the Jews. That's a terrifying message to deliver. That’s the message I received as a child. That’s the message that dances behind my eyelids when I close my eyes and see the pictures of the camps that were shown to me as a child in my religious school in the 1950’s and early 60’s. I still am amazed that they got away with that -- the times were different then. 
 
However, in keeping with the age-old premise of “teacher, teach thyself,” over the years I have been working hard on educating myself, too. I’ve spent a lot of time learning from what the Israelis at Yad Vashem (“An Everlasting Name” from Isaiah 55:5), their Holocaust Memorial, have been doing. They have included a powerful memorial to what they call the Righteous Among the Nations, the rescuers. In the last ten or fifteen years we have learned a lot more about the thousands of people who stood up to the evil of genocide during World War II. Certainly we know about the big names -- the Wallenbergs, the Schindlers and the like. The amazing thing is that more and more stories are slowly emerging about everyday people who did unimaginable things in order to save a neighbor or a stranger from certain death. At the current time, Yad Vashem has 19,706 people documented as rescuers from that evil time (The entire Danish Underground asked to be counted as 1 – what a wonderful country.) That may not sound like many -- but from where I’m sitting -- that’s a lot better than the “no one cared” I was taught.

So let me tell you a story about one. I tell this story a lot because it is so fundamental to what I believe is God’s greatest gift to human beings -- and we ignore it at our peril. We hear about it on the High Holy Days and daily in the Amidah -- we are given a choice between good and evil. We are the only creatures on earth who have that choice.  It is humankind's gift alone.
 
The story took place on a farm in France during the German occupation. A Jewish family had employed a developmentally disabled non-Jewish farmhand for a number of years and it was clear that the Nazis would soon be moving into their village. All the other farmhands but this one had abandoned the family. The Jewish family called him in and explained as simply as they could what was happening and how he should leave them. They told him that they didn’t know what they would do, but the quicker he found other work, the safer he would be. The farmhand asked what would happen to the family. They said they would probably be arrested, but he needed to take care of himself. He was running a risk just working for them at all. He was already being tormented as a Jew-lover.

Then an amazing thing happened. This uneducated and mentally challenged man made an incredible decision. He told the family that he would hide them. He told them that they had always taken care of him and that he would now take care of them. He hid them away for the duration of the war. He brought them food. He sheltered them. He was taken in for questioning by the Nazis several times as they tried to find out what happened to the family. He never broke. He never gave them away. He was tortured. He never said a word. The family survived.

When the war was over he was interviewed and asked why he did what he did for this family. Had they been especially kind to him? Had they offered him extra money? Had they done something, anything that would justify this extraordinary effort on his part?

His answer? He did it because it was the right thing to do.

Shabbat Shalom,
 
Barbara

Early April
 
 
Dear Friends,

In just a week we will be celebrating Passover. It is hard to think about this most dramatic and joyous of Jewish holidays while the war in Iraq is still being fought, the American character is under fire and children are dying - but Passover is a multi-layered experience and I think I can find some common themes to share. As many of you know, Passover is the most celebrated of all Jewish holidays - even more than the High Holy Days (or Channukah!). I think one of the key reasons we love it so much is because it is a home-based ritual which we make our own, without fear of someone judging us or questioning our skills.

The first recorded Seder (order) dates back to about 50 C.E. and took place in the Second Temple but the first outline of a home ritual was written down in the Mishnah in 200 C.E. Then in the 9th century a Babylonian rabbi named Amram ben Sheshnah actually wrote out a Passover service. In the 10th century Sephardic Jews called the Passover celebration the Haggadah (the telling) and around the 13th century the book we now know as the Haggadah appeared as a stand-alone prayerbook. Today there are over 3000 published versions of the Haggadah and probably thousands more that are published informally. I often take our rituals for granted until I stop and think about how ancient they are - we change the words - but the form we use today varies little from the one celebrated almost 2000 years ago. Pretty incredible, I think.

An interesting sidelight for those of you not raised in a traditional home is that Rabbi Amram left out all mention of Moses in that first Haggadah and even today traditional Jews don't mention Moses in their services. By leaving Moses out of the Haggadah Amram avoided making the Passover story literal and causing Moses to become a godlike figure. Moses, by his absence, becomes more an archetype and not the prime mover. He is great but fallible; faithful but capable of wavering; patient but capable of rage, as are we all. I’m glad he’s present in my family Seder because I need him these days. I’m feeling a lack of heroes. I want to talk about that.

When I was growing up I loved to read biographies. There was a great series of books called Children’s Classics, or something like that, that I devoured. It was how I became a lover of history. I learned history through biography. Today I am struck by how little history children seem to know. I am also struck by how few real heroes they have as well. Part of the problem is how easily we throw the word around. I may be getting a little crotchety in my old age, but it seems to me that if every person who dies in combat is a hero, how does one differentiate between the person bombed in their sleep (still tragic) from the medic who under fire refuses to duck while giving aid to a wounded soldier and dies saving the soldier's life? Does that medic become a super hero? This feels like the slippery slope that education got into with pushing "self-esteem" and "everyone’s a winner." This is not a good thing where developing character is concerned.

In the Passover story there are two midwives, Shifrah and Puah, who are among many midwives commanded to kill all the newborn Israelite baby boys. Only these two women refuse to kill the babies. These two women tell the Pharaoh that strangely enough, every time they are called out to the homes of the laboring Israelite women, lo and behold, the babies are born before they get there! These women face death by refusing the Pharaoh's orders, but they cannot kill the babies. They were heroes.

In the Passover story Moses, raised as a prince with all the sense of entitlement that must have given him, confronts a slave being beaten and kills the taskmaster. There is absolutely nothing in his upbringing that would have taught him that this was wrong. Yet his character is strong and he chooses to put his life at risk to save a slave. He was a hero.

In the Passover story Moses and Aaron, knowing that the Pharaoh can have them killed with a nod of the head, confront him again and again, because they believe that their cause is just and their people must be freed. They were heroes.

In the Passover story, thousands of nameless men and women looked at each other and said, this life is hell and it can be better somewhere else. We will trust in this man Moses, and in this unseen God and in ourselves and leave everything we know because we deserve to be free - and even more - our children deserve to be free. They were heroes.

To be a hero requires something more of us then just waking up and going to work. To be a hero requires that a choice be made to take a stand -- to risk it all -- because it is the right thing to do. Our history, both as Jews and as Americans, are full of stories of real heroes. Maybe this Passover we can begin to recall the importance of character by retelling the stories of these heroes, the midwives, Miriam, Aaron, Moses, the children of Israel, Pharaoh’s daughter, and all the other great heroes and heroines throughout time who knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there was a cause greater than themselves to live for.

We owe it to our children because we are told "that in years to come when our children ask us ‘why is this night different then all other nights?’"... it was because of the character of an amazing group of people... lesser people would have disappeared from the pages of history long ago... Why are we still here? Perhaps it is our character.... or our heroes...

Chag Sameach (a good festival) to you and yours,

Barbara

Late March 2003

Dear Friends,

Well, I had intended to write on another topic besides the war. I had intended to write about Pesach. But as is frequently the case, planning ahead makes the gods angry. So despite the shining sun and the chirping birds, the joys of the season seem for the moment to be hidden from sight. For those of you desperate for a Pesach fix, I do have an article on the holiday in the April HaKesher and it will also be on line at www.dorhadash.org if you’re not on the mailing list. 

As is often the case in this brave new world of Internet communication, I have been inundated with material on how to teach, process, handle and present the war to children and families. I have learned a great deal over the last few weeks about Judaism's teachings on war and peace. I can give you wonderful citations and texts on how sophisticated Torah and Talmud are on war and peace. I have poems. I have songs. I have prayers. I also have a breaking heart because none of it stops the bombs and bullets from killing our children and their children. I can’t shake the feelings of despair and helplessness that all the resources in the world do nothing to alleviate.

This war puts me in a difficult and completely non-intellectual place. When I was a young hippie anti-war protester it was easy for me to march down broad avenues in Washington D.C. and New York chanting anti-war slogans and shouting about bringing the troops home. I had friends who went to Vietnam. I had friends who came home and joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. I had friends who didn't come home. What I didn't have was any responsibility to anyone who might think or feel differently than me about the war. I do now. The world is no longer black and white. There are families I have responsibilities for who think differently than I do about the war, and I am obligated by the nature of my job and my own sense of human responsibility to comfort them as best I can. Not only that, I must make sure they are treated well by those who oppose the war, as I do. I cannot permit them to be harassed or demeaned. I must teach people to hate the deed, but not the deed do-er. That’s the painful lesson learned from the Vietnam era protests.

I listened closely the other night as my husband spent a half hour on the phone with a 23-year-old Marine Lance Corporal we have known since he was 5 years old. Ryan is about to ship out to Okinawa fortunately, not the Gulf. However, when I look at the faces of the dead Marines in the paper, I see Ryan at age 5 scrambling up a tree in our back yard pretending to be a Koala - at age 8 playing the Prince in Snow White or insisting on eating dry cereal without milk and peanut butter without jelly. He could be my son. He could be dead. It makes it harder to think in black and white.

I worry about the children in our school who have fathers and mothers in the military and who desperately need to believe that if their lives are being turned upside down, it's for a good reason. I worry about our country trying to adjust to the idea that we're the bad guys. I worry that we will adjust to the idea that we're the bad guys. I worry that we are all walking around with a mild case of depression (how could we not be) and the children in our care are missing out on hugs and laughter and kite flying and birds singing because we're not paying attention to them.

I know that there will be an end to this, although as I am writing, the end is looking farther and farther away. I am sure that we will find our spiritual footing in the days and weeks ahead and figure out a way to live with what is going on. Right now, the newness of this awful war is making it a little hard for everyone.

There is an important message from the Passover story that may help ground us in the days and weeks ahead. We are taught clearly in two different parts of the Exodus saga that we are not to rejoice in the deaths of the Egyptians. First, during the recitation of the plagues, we remove a drop of wine from our glasses as we mention each plague in order to reduce our joy because of the tragedy that befell the Egyptians on our behalf. Second, the midrash tells us that when the Israelites were rejoicing over the drowning of the Egyptians at the Sea of Reeds, God admonishes them because the Egyptians are also God's children. So as we watch the bombings and the shooting as this war goes on, we too must remember that there can be no rejoicing in the deaths that result from war. War is always the result of a failure in diplomacy, and that is a cause for grief. Even our ancestors knew that any war’s victory comes at an awful cost and the joy of winning is always tempered with sadness. This is a tragic time for the entire world.

May we all pray for a rapid end to the war,

Barbara

Despite my overwhelmed mailbox, the following guidelines are truly useful if you are looking for some help on talking to children about the world situation. 

10 Simple Guidelines for Talking with Children in Time of War
Prepared by Steven Brion-Meisels
Lesley University's Center for Peaceable Schools

1. Be clear about your own values, questions, concerns and fears. Take a personal inventory and start from where we feel most clear and strong. Children can read our fears and unease on our faces and in our voices. Clarity will help us listen and speak.
2. Listen and watch before and while we speak. Children will tell us about their fears, concerns and questions - in their words and their actions. Try not to jump in with complex explanations that meet our adult needs but are not appropriate for children. Children at different ages need different kinds of information, guidance and support.
3. Understand children's ideas and feelings before we try to change or fix them. As adults, we often feel a responsibility to protect, solve and fix. The first step is to understand; from that understanding, solutions and resolutions will become clear.
4. Keep the door open, but don't force conversation. Give children opportunities to express themselves, even when their ideas are confused or troubling. Expression may take many forms: writing, drawing, good night talks, bedtime prayer, lunchroom conversation, tears and even anger.
5. Help students understand the realties of war from many different perspectives. In a time of war, complexity is often sacrificed to simplistic solutions - whether these are political or more generally connected to stereotypes about "the Enemy." Taking and holding multiple perspectives is extremely difficult in times of stress. However, life in a multi-ethnic democracy, as well as the healing that needs to follow war, all depend on this ability. We can support soldiers and victims as well. This is tough ground to hold, but well worth it.
6. Stand against stereotypes, bullying and harassment. War brings demonization of those who look like "the Enemy." The treatment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, and of Middle Eastern people after September 11, are both powerful examples.
7. Avoid over-exposure to media. Repeated viewing of war-related violence can traumatize children. It helps to limit exposure, and to be with children when they do see it.
8. Find concrete actions that can help. Children want to help, and like all of us, actions to help can often ease our own fears. Helping can include reaching out to the victims of war, to soldiers or their families, to children and families who are targeted by ethnicity or religion, or by donations to civilian relief agencies.
9. Think preventively, maintain routines, but be alert for signs of trauma. If children around you seem especially fearful, worried or isolated, don't hesitate to use local resources. Some of these include help hotlines, pediatricians, community mental health agencies and specialists in trauma response. This is especially true in contexts where children are closely connected to the war - whether by ethnicity or because they are from military families.
10. Model peaceful resolutions to personal conflict. Children watch adults, including their civic leaders. They watch how we act even more than they listen to our words. And they watch us especially closely when we are upset, angry, frightened or stressed. It is crucial to model peaceful resolutions, if we want our children to help create a world where war is less likely.

Early March 2003

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the party season of Adar, actually Adar II since it’s a leap year. This is the time of Purim, one of the most complex of all our holiday stories, because it is so complete in its detail it keeps us "reconstructionist types" from getting too creative with it. It reads like a soap opera script and offers us innumerable opportunities to wander far afield, wondering why it is included in the Tanakh at all. It is a tale of betrayal, of sexual innuendo, of plots and counterplots. We have exotic queens and palace intrigue. We have deep-rooted anti-Semitism and violence and death. We have no God presence in this story and practically no spiritual content at all. When I was still in the classroom I struggled mightily to teach this holiday as something more than a cultural phenomenon - something other than the Jewish Mardi Gras, which cynics often label it. Purim is more than that - but we need to be very careful when we unwrap the package it lives in.

Yesterday I sat in the school courtyard talking to three of our B’nai Mitzvah students after class. They had talked about the Book of Esther that day and one student was feeling a sense of loss -- for the first time she realized that the Purim story was not primarily a love story. The comment stayed with me all day. I realized that I wish the Purim story was a true love story as well. If it had been one, the awful ending of the story might be different. When I mentioned that to the students they looked at me strangely. They didn’t know how the story ended. It ends horribly if we look at it through contemporary eyes. When the story is told we often don’t bother to look past the death of Haman, but we must. We can’t pretend it doesn’t end the way it does -- because that may be where the real Purim message rests.

After Haman’s plot to kill all the Jews of Persia is thwarted by Queen Esther’s willingness to expose herself as a Jew, she begs the King to stop the edict from being carried out. Ahasuerus reminds her that a King’s order cannot be rescinded. The horrific solution is that the Jews are warned of the upcoming massacre and proceed to kill thousands upon thousands of their "enemies" and the story therefore has a "happy" ending. The Jews are victorious. The JPS Tanakh translation says: "So the Jews struck at their enemies with the sword, slaying and destroying; they wreaked their will upon their enemies." This goes on for two days and then there are two days of feasting and rejoicing and thus we have Purim.

Makes you feel like putting on a costume and dancing, doesn’t it? However, through centuries of oppression, the fantasy of being able to do just that, to rise up and strike down our stronger enemies, has been a Jewish dream. The Purim story was told and retold in ghettos and concentration camps. The concept of mini-Purims -- of communities that were saved by the actions of brave souls, fills our history. It’s hard to imagine as we sit in our comfortable assimilated American homes, but there was a time that the end of the Purim story, those last chapters in the Book of Esther, instilled a flame of hope in Jews around the world. I don’t relate... but I know it’s true.

There’s also a lot to be said for the Mardi Gras atmosphere of Purim. The connection with the Spring solstice -- the end of the dark winter days -- the costumes and foolishness -- all have a place in our cultural lives. However, if we have any interest in looking for religious meaning in Purim -- beyond the noisemakers and hamentaschen -- try and hang in with me for a minute as I try and find some spiritual substance in the Megillah (scroll).

When I taught Purim to children I talked a lot about the heroism of Queen Vashti braving the King’s wrath by refusing to dance naked before him. I emphasized Mordecai’s vision and Esther’s incredible bravery and willingness to risk everything to save her people. Each of these characters in the story made personal choices that had enormous risks because they were the right thing to do. These are powerful lessons for children. They are also powerful lessons for adults trying to understand why this holiday was so important to our ancestors. They aren’t really players in the spiritual lesson, though. I think the critical spiritual piece is in God’s lack of a role in the story.

My personal struggle for meaning around the Purim story centers around the fact that maybe God’s absence is the point. (I’m really stretching here, but why not?) Maybe without God, or the Power that Makes for Salvation thing, we aren’t able to see alternative ways to resolve our differences short of killing each other. Maybe violence is humankind’s irrational resolution of conflict. Nowhere in the story is there regret for the loss of life. Nowhere is there a reminder that the poor people of Shushan are just pawns in a power struggle between Mordecai and Haman. Even though the Book of Esther is chronologically much newer then Genesis, Abraham was civilized enough to negotiate with God for the lives of the poor people of Sodom more intensely then anyone advocated for the people of Persia.

So with Abraham’s precedent clearly in mind, and with Purim right around the corner, my spiritual search requires answers to two key questions:

Didn’t anyone care about the innocent victims?
Why weren’t the deaths of Haman and his ten sons enough?

And the only answer I’ve come up with so far is that the absence of God’s presence kept the questions from being asked.... What do you think?

With dreams of peace...

Barbara

Late February (in under the wire - hate these short months)
 
Dear Friends,

We’ve bought a new computer at home, which means transferring address books, which means this may have arrived in your computers via an old address or it has reappeared after a long absence or some other amazing glitch… Be patient… the technology is wonderful -- but this humble writer is still wandering around saying things like, "I think she wanted it sent to her office email" or "How about I send it to every email address I have for him and then whichever one doesn’t bounce back will be the right address?." If you’ve gotten this and aren’t wondering why, I guess it’s all ok.

On a more meaningful note, I want to talk about why "place" seems to have such power even though our inner selves are where the power really resides. More simply, I want to revisit a favorite quotation of mine taken from Abraham Joshua Heschel which hung on my office wall for years. It goes like this: "For there to be a sense of significant being, one needs three things: A God; a soul; and a moment; and all three are always present." Now, you will notice that nowhere in that quote is there a mention of place. In reality we can have what, for want of a more profound vocabulary, philosophers and theologians call "aha moments" anywhere we are. We can have them washing dishes or stuck in traffic. Unfortunately, we rarely do.

A more likely "aha" location is one Michael and I just visited. We recently returned from a long weekend in Sedona, Arizona -- a small town created by Mother Nature to force your inner voice to repeat the word "aha" so often it begins to sound like "om." Sedona is certainly a place that demands spiritual attention. I will be the first to admit that it