Congregation Dor Hadash — Inspiring Today's Diverse Jewish Community

Early May 2012

Dear friends,

I'm a sucker for clever sayings - or meaningful  sayings - quotes and witticisms - just the sheer joy of words that are put together in a way that makes me think.  Most often the words are significant - but sometimes they're just fun. I keep a  folder full of phrases and quotations that trigger word-think in me. This strange obsession dates back to high school when I discovered Bartlett'sQuotations,  a thick book that spanned centuries and attitudes. I read it a lot. I discovered essayists I'd never heard of, but soon would come to love. I was amazed by the cynicism of Dorothy Parker and the power of Voltaire. Bartlett's helped make me sensitive not just to ideas, but also to the power of words.  Words can move you, remind you, tickle you, and comfort you. Almost any idea in the world has an appropriate series of quotations that enrich it. Fortunately, my husband is also a lover of words, and so our house has pictures with quotes I've imbedded in them as well as word art I have purchased.Michael's Aunt Audrey (who once told me she loved reading our house) made a wonderful banner for Michael that has been part of our home decor forever. She made it in the early 70's when pushing the envelope was a lifestyle for many of us. Audrey didn't necessarily agree with all that was going on in the world, but she believed in Michael. She loved her nephew,  and made the banner with that in mind. She appliquéd the words "Tell It Like It Can Be" and she nudged the dream along. The support that lives in that banner is palpable.  Another favorite has been part of my life for about twenty years.  It's attributed to a writer named Brian Andreas. It goes as follows:   "Most people don't know that there are angels whose only job is to make sure you don't get too comfortable and fall asleep and miss your life." These angels, of course, counteract the urge to not engage the world. This reinforces the importance of "staying awake" - of paying attention - of being part of the world around us.  I love it. There have been many times that those angels have been on my case, and I'm grateful for them.

A few weeks ago I wandered in to one of those wonderful shops full of creative hand-crafted art. On the wall were a series of folk art wooden paintings with quotes on them.  I bought one of the smallest ones because not only did I love the quote, I could afford to buy it.  It is a painting of a bird with hearts  drawn inside it and then one simple phrase: "Become a possibilitarian."  I stood there for the longest time thinking about what that really meant. I think it may be the definition of who I want to be and the kind of hope that attitude demands of me.

To believe that anything is possible is the ultimate kind of hope.  es, bad things are possible, too - but acknowledging that is not the point - we all know things that are less than what we dreamed of, that can kick us in the teeth and make us feel like the world is only dark.  ut to believe in the possible is to believe that anything good can also happen - that the world may get back on track (it's possible) - that the right wing will suddenly become a version of The Emperor's New Clothes and the lack of substance of single issue candidates will be exposed (it's possible).  It's possible that people who quote the Constitution incorrectly will someday actually read it and understand the Bill of Rights.  t's possible that service to others will become a given in people's lives.  It's even possible that those who throw religion into the political arena will withdraw and realize that they cannot mix without diminishing both.

Of course, this can be considered a naive approach to the world.  But I'm getting tired of all the cynicism. I want both the world of politics and the world of faith to remember their purpose. I want civil rights - human rights - all rights we, as Americans, were promised in our founding documents.  he evolution of rights tore down so many walls of bigotry and narrow-mindedness that the hateful words that are now thrown around are jarring and shocking.  hen I hear a bigot who proclaims that our founding documents as well as our religious documents are proof that narrowness and bigotry are God given or Founding Fathers given, I want to beg them to stop lying to the people.  The things they say are not true and anyone who has taken a civics course or really read the Bible would know that they are lying.  ut as people have done throughout history, by repeating a lie over and over makes it seem true.  It is so incredibly dangerous, but there is the possibility that the majority will someday realize that and the world will change.

It is possible, you know. Things do change.  hey often change for the better as well - whether it be acknowledging that slavery was a mistake of enormous proportions to understanding that women should be able to vote (and make their own decisions about their bodies).  For my generation it was working to end the Viet Nam war and ensuring civil rights and voting rights and the right to live freely without fear.  Some of it was possible. Some of it actually happened. It happened because people began to talk.  People began to assess their own attitudes. People began to embrace the possible and it became real.

In the intervening years, change happened quickly. The boomers, as we are unfortunately called, changed the world in unexpected ways. It didn't happen as a plan.  It happened as an inevitability. We made mistakes, but overall our hearts and minds were in the right place. We see the product of our efforts in the amazingly open-minded next generation. 

The best part of this possibilitarian idea is that you are forced to ask yourself, what is possible? What can change? What can I do to possibly make life better? The one thing that is not permitted (my idea therefore my rules) is to imply the negative. To say it is not possible is a fallacy. Think about it - it wasn't possible to cross the Atlantic by boat - it wasn't possible that the earth was merely a small planet rotating around the sun - it wasn't possible to see and talk to people all over the world through computing miracles - it wasn't possible to identify our genetic makeup...so many "we can'ts" but we could and we did.

To be a possibilitarian is to be hopeful - to look at how far we've come and know that more good may lie around the corner. It's always an iffy proposition but that's the reality of living in a diverse world. So our job, as members of this new hopeful cult, is to believe in ourselves and our fellow human beings. We need to educate ourselves so we can present fact to counter fraud. We need to believe that we make a difference by opening our hearts and minds to all the new thinkers, the new writers, the new creators - anyone who makes us better and therefore makes the world better. We will become experts in the possible.

Still dreaming of peace,

Barbara

© Barbara R. Carr

Late April 2012

Dear friends,

After the heavy weight teaching of my last letter, this one is going to be a little less dense. It also will be earlier than normal because we're heading off to visit my son and daughter-in-law and I am sure I won't feel like writing while we're with them.

So I thought I'd play with an idea that has grown into a reality for me and I want to share it with you. I do that frequently just to get my own thinking more in touch with what is possible.  For example, I often wonder why so many people believe in a literal interpretation of parts of the bible, but when you say to them that if you take part of it literally, doesn't logic require you to take all of it literally? If you want to believe that God really delivered the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai, how can you reject the idea that stoning your child to death for being rude to you is not equally commanded.  The literal Bible means you take it all... no pick and choose.  Hence, my Bible is story - and I like some stories better than others.  They teach more and touch more. That's what I embrace and it keeps me from being a hypocrite.

Judaism has changed dramatically over the years as it responded to the changing social and religious norms. We were able to remove the priestly requirements because the Temple was destroyed. In exile the rabbinic scholars became our teachers, and study became our path to God. We evolved in exile. From my perspective, the diaspora  (the dispersing of Jews to all corners of the world) was probably the most significant event in the creation of the Jewish religion (a separate concept from ethnicity). Not only were the biblical injunctions on behavior changed to reflect a religion without the Temple, the basic concept of evolving became legitimate.  Substitute practices suddenly became valid. The Amidah became the substitute for sacrifice. The Torah and other sacred writings became a core for individual learning.  Rabbis opened schools to study texts. Each school reflected the teachings of the scholars who ran them, so different approaches to what being Jewish actually required of us depended on who was doing the teaching. The Rabbinic period, as this time is known, was dynamic and creative. Debate on the meaning of Torah was vibrant.  It was perhaps the most amazing time in Jewish thought. The early Rabbinic period made the diaspora possible  and the legitimacy of Judaism apart from the land where it first flourished became real.

So what happened after that? There were other great evolutionary moments–from eastern Europe came the incredibly impactful Hasidic movement and from Palestine came the mystics of Sfad. Spain, Western Europe and North Africa all gave new flavor and practices to Judaism. Germany led the way in developing formal movements with the radical concept of Reform Judaism, breaking away from what we now call Orthodoxy, which had been the only kind of Judaism practiced. The biggest impact from this development was also the most subtle. The people began to see Judaism as more flexible and we could find our path within Judaism because options were available. There were traditionalists who changed as little as possible, acknowledging that in exile things were different but the return to Jerusalem and the restoration of the Temple was a core goal–and for many it still is. The Reform movement, as I said previously, was a complete rejection of the old and its leaders' greatest desire was to be intellectually and religiously modern. Of course there was a reaction against the Reform movement when some felt it had gone too far so in the middle of the spectrum, the Conservative movement began. Reconstructionist Judaism (the movement I support) grew out of the Conservative movement, and was envisioned by Mordecai Kaplan, a professor at the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. His vision was to Americanize all the Jewish movements. The political vision of America, one which allowed freedom of religion, speech and other liberated values, seemed a perfect model for Kaplan. He looked at our ancient texts and how Judaism had evolved over the centuries and another evolution made perfect sense to him. He had no desire to start a fourth movement. His desire was to modernize all of Judaism.  However, the other movements weren't ready for such a radical change, where the concept of "tradition has a vote, not a veto" ran counter to too many concepts in Judaism that required us to embrace tradition without change.

So with the encouragement and support of his son-in-law, Rabbi Ira Eisenstein, the Reconstructionist movement was born. Kaplan had influenced so many rabbis in both the Conservative and Reform movements that many welcomed the small movement which they hoped would bring together various modern thinkers and allow Judaism to move on to a more liberated and creative model. Unfortunately, because of the small size of the movement, it made a tremendous impact on scholarly thought, but was not well known by the laity, the members of the three major movements who were not asking the same questions as Kaplan and his followers were asking.

For example here are some questions that were asked and thankfully are being answered:

• Why in the twentieth century were young women not permitted to have a ceremony to become a Bat Mitzvah (daughter of the commandment)? We were educating our daughters side by side with our sons, but making them feel less Jewish by denying them this rite of passage. Kaplan's daughter was scandalously called to Torah by her father and became the first American Bat Mitzvah.  Since then, every movement but the Orthodox permit women to read from the Torah at services.
• Why were women excluded from the rabbinate?  Again, gender became a non-issue, except for the Orthodox.
• Why were gays and lesbians unwelcome in our synagogues?  No longer.
• Why is a personal God so unrealistic in today's world?  Why can't the concept of Godly be a substitute. Then we can truly attempt to live a life that is Godly.
• Why are we not allowed the creative powers of music, art, poetry and prose to enrich our services?
  
• Why aren't we writing new liturgy? 
  
• Why aren't we creating new ways to find our way to the God idea... to the power that makes for  salvation?
• Finally, why were we bound by old traditions and edicts that made us feel like failures in our practice? Why did so many Jews give up their relationship with a God concept and settle for cultural Judaism? Why did folk dancing, music and ethnic food make you a Jew? What happened to the First Commandment (that's the one that commands us to accept the One God) as time went on?

These questions, and many more, were triggered by the idea that evolving Judaism is necessary in order for it to thrive.  Questions have been our method of growth and understanding since Talmudic times.

Judaism today is at a very major crossroads.  As we become more and more able to find religious places to stand that make sense to us, but may be different from our parents' practice, we are evolving.  We feel the connections to our history but our religious practice is in the here and now. 

We are all Jews by choice. Our passports don't identify us as Jews, just as Americans.  With a few exceptions, the world is totally open to us–holidays are shared–new readings fill our prayer books–new ideas on worship and education are being openly debated and explored. We are finally reaching Kaplan's dream of an American Judaism.

If we accept the Reconstructionist challenge to study, to question, and to determine which way Jewish evolution is to go, great things may happen. If we sit with what we've got–we will eventually find it lacking. We are the people of the Book. Our ancestors understood that what worked in the desert, what worked in the Temple, what worked in the shtetls of eastern Europe all were stages of our growth. We may not be able to complete the task, but as Rabbi Tarfon told us in the Talmud, we cannot abstain from it. We have to accept our responsibility to make it better. We have to search our own souls to find out what we are capable of doing and pass along our efforts to our descendants so they too can struggle to find their religious voice.

It's work. It requires study. It requires self-examination. It requires community.

It also is phenomenally worthwhile.  Empower yourself.

Still dreaming of peace,

Barbara
 
©Barbara Carr

Early April 2012

Dear friends,

We once again had a soul-filling (and heart-filling) seder and I hope, for those of you who participated, that yours was a joy as well. I usually reflect on a holiday ahead of time and then leave it until next year. Today I feel differently. I want to reflect on this Passover experience in terms of what it obligates me to do.  his is not to be confused with the High Holy days which are designed for reflection and redemption.  assover is about freedom. Moses becomes more than a life sized hero – he is our giant – our teacher without peer. There's a lot to think about beyond our liberation from Egypt.

If we come to the table open to whatever may happen, sometimes there are moments that will become memories that will then become stories. That's how we learn best.  Story is the way things stick. Abstract thought is distant. There is no emotional content because it isn't supposed to touch the "feelings" button that the story of Passover demands. The cry that is repeated again and again in the Haggadah is simple "remember that you were once slaves in Egypt." In Jewish study, repetition imparts importance. The admonition to remember our own slavery is clearly one of the most important in our learning.

The enslavement in Egypt is too ancient for me to really feel – to take it in and let it break my heart – the way the stories of American slavery do. But I know what the charge to me is. I just need to put it in a context that says to me, this is Truth. That's capital T truth, not lowercase truth. As I've written before, lowercase truth is factual – provable – real. Capital T truth is emotionally real, but not necessarily factual or provable. 

For example, John Lennon's line "life is what happens when you're making other plans" is a capital T kind of Truth. Anyone who has had their life altered unexpectedly understands that concept. You go along with plans and expectations and suddenly something happens – and you are forced to look hard at your expectations and either lament or reorganize. Lamenting unexpected change is really a waste of time. We have to expect the unexpected. Having something wonderful happen can also cause dramatic change. The real issue is simply unexpected change, incomprehensible change, dramatic change or wonderful change. Whatever it is, we must learn to cope.

So, what is the capital T Truth in our biblical story of slavery? Why are we told to remember ourselves as victims? Why are we called, again and again, a "stiff-necked people"? (That's an interesting repetition to think about, as well.)

For me, the message I find in our liberation is not one of unfettered joy. It is a call to empathy – to compassion – to the resonance we feel when people are in need – we've suffered and we are obligated to work at making sure no one else has to go through what we did. When I was a child I was taught that Jews understood discrimination and hatred and had an obligation to do what we could to heal the darkness that many still felt. We were "a light unto the nations" – not in a way that enriched us, but in a way that obligated us. We were supposed to model the teachings of the Torah and thus change the world. That never meant the teachings were all capital T Truth or even lowercase t truth.  I was taught that Torah was a guide but an ancient one, requiring new translations of intent as time went on. Literalism was never a part of my education, formal or otherwise, but the unexplored path was always there for me.

That modeling and healing became for me the contemporary message of Passover.  We have not fulfilled that obligation but our seder tells us clearly that the responsibility is ours. The work is ours. Others are free to share our labors but we cannot shirk our responsibility to either the stranger or the friend.

We are now at the time of year leading up to Sinai when each day is counted ritually – we are counting the Omer – the daily gift of harvested barley. We do this from the second day of Passover until Shavuot – the moment when Torah is gifted to us as a people. We no longer literally take barley to priests in Jerusalem, as we are told our ancestors once did. Now we simply count, to remember the 49 days between the two holidays. Each of those days, in the story, are days of fear, days of hunger, days of doubt. Moses is being questioned. Even freedom is being questioned because it is the biggest challenge we can ever face. This story tells how the Israelites become followers of the One God – the Source of our teaching. The people end up spending forty years trying to be worthy of the gift of Torah. We do not accept our responsibility with grace, but we do accept it. Aha, we are a stiff-necked people.

Today, in the 21st century, the story is told and retold, but no longer is treated as history. There are too many scholars reminding us that this or that piece of Torah cannot be true. History doesn't make room for the capital T – Truth.  History therefore allows us to read these stories and look for the teaching, not the details. If Torah were a history text there would be no need to keep going back to it.  Remembering we were slaves means we remember all the horrors that slaves throughout history have had to endure. Remembering we were led out of Egypt means that freedom for all the oppressed in the world is the eternal task before us. Remembering that living a life enriched with religious values that make us human and caring tells us that all people should be free to find their path to the place where they are whole. The time of counting the Omer is a time to understand what just happened and what we are supposed to do about it.

We have 49 days to prepare for Sinai – another moment we are supposed to experience as if we were there. Becoming our best self is a life-long task, but this time of year gives us an extra motivation to figure out how to keep working on our stories and turn them to good.

So pick up a Bible and read about the Exodus. Try and figure out your relationship to the tale that you are reading. Try and figure out what works for you in the process of hearing the call to remember.  Figure out who you need to become.

In the Book of Deuteronomy (10:12 - 10:13), Moses instructs the people as follows:  And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God demand of you?  Only this:  to revere the Lord your God, to walk only on His paths, to love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, keeping the Lord's commandments and laws, which I enjoin upon you today, for your good. The Prophet Micah in his book (6:8) is a little more soothing:  He has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord require of you:  Only to do justice and to love goodness and to walk modestly with your God.

I apologize for the gender specific language concerning God, but since I was quoting from the JPS Tanakh, I feel obligated to use their words, no matter how itchy I am to change them.

So wonder what God, whatever you envision God to be, wants of you now. Millennia after these words were written, we must realize that there is a reason we are here... there is a reason our biggest questions are the silent ones...and our stories may help us find our own answers. 

Today is nine days, or one week and two days, of the Omer.
 
Still dreaming of peace,

Barbara
© Barbara Carr

Early March 2012

Dear friends,

With no intention of sounding self-satisfied about living in San Diego, spring has sprung in our yard (other yards too).  The birds are back with spring birdsong that makes the heart swell. Their sound changes the whole sense of season to one of musical and aesthetic pleasure. Our flowering season has begun in earnest as well. Even without the forsythia I grew up with, I know without doubt it is spring.

When I was in elementary school, part of the curriculum was memorization of poetry. No Langston Hughes for us...we memorized the classics. Strangely enough, some of the lines of those poems stick with me.  One that always recalls spring is from The Vision of Sir Launfel by James Russell Lowell. Despite the passage of time I have about ten lines I remember when blessed by the change of season. That probably means that's all we learned – but it was enough. Let me share those lines with you:

And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune
And over it softly her warm ear lays;
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
 
For me, the only other poem that touches (and surpasses) it is:

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

There's a reason I'm sharing these two poems with you, besides wanting to poke at the poetry bone we all have but often overlook. The reason has to do with the annual "Rites of Spring" which grew from ancient rituals of sybaritic delight ending with a boomlet of babies nine months later; through the worship of the gods of rain and crops and sun to ensure a good harvest; to the taking of cultivated  grain and the first born lamb to sacrifice in gratitude, first to the many gods and then to the One God on a festival we called Pesach. When Stravinsky and Nijinsky wrote and choreographed the ballet, The Rite of Spring, they probably didn't have Passover in mind, but for the faithful, the rites were passed down in the Haggadah – retelling our story and celebrating with gratitude. The other rituals of ancient times are gone, but not the seder.

Both poems, Lowell's written in the 19th century and Cumming's written in the 20th, are overwhelming in their sense of gratitude and sheer joy yet with very different approaches. The romantic Lowell gives us a visual poem in many ways, but with an underpinning of the physical.  There is movement upward...breaking free from the earth to the light. It is generic in that way, but the imagery is exquisite. The language is in itself beautiful – evoking a feeling of birdsong, the sweet smell of lilacs, or the lapping of water against the shore. Lowell is telling us what he perceives of as a universal truth that is in front of our very eyes and we, of course, agree.

Cummings, on the other hand, uses language almost as a stick (the pokey schoolmaster kind). In his printed books, the words to his poems are often scattered on the page – giving us a visual challenge to really pay attention to the words. This is a very active, very physical poem indeed.  Most important for me, is that the poem is personal. This is Cummin's writing about what the amazing day has done for him...and if you want to jump into the swirl of his experience, you're welcome...but not required...to participate. He is owning his poem. He has awakened to the most glorious of moments and he grants us permission to love his language and his ideas but on his terms, with randomness required.

So, why I have written this just a month or so before Pesach?  What does this have to do with Moses and the Israelites escaping Pharaoh and becoming a people? 

First:  Pesach, in all probability, grew out of the spring sacrifices (and parties) of the pre-Israelite world. Our sacrifices which we took to the Temple in Jerusalem thousands of years ago, were also adopted from the pagan world. Paganism has many meanings, but I use it in its most biblical sense – as a polytheistic ancient religion that was not connected in any way to our sense of monotheism since it existed long before Judaism took form. However, I'm sure we would all be amazed to know how much modern religions owe to pagan rituals that we modified to our liking. 

Second:  in the Exodus story  as we are brokenhearted at the slaying of children on both sides, our rituals remind us that human sacrifice is unacceptable. It is  grain and lamb and birds and other products of our labor that were sacrificed for hundreds of years as a concrete demonstration that human sacrifice was truly ended. This was both a connection and a dramatic change from previous practice.

Third:  Our ancient texts, the Mishnah, Gemara and Talmud all debate and discuss exactly how the Seder should be performed, never doubting the need to celebrate the coming of spring and our liberation from Egypt...but how to do it was a seemingly endless argument. It wasn't until the 12th century that a separate Haggadah was developed. We move very slowly as a people.

Then about 800 years later things changed again. The meaning of the Seder became more than the story of the redemption of the Israelites from Egypt. Haggadot began to be developed using freedom and redemption in new ways. Personalized Haggadot for women, for Soviet Jewry, for peace, for racial harmony, for political change, all began to be written and adopted – group by group and family by family. The Reconstructionist and Reform movements also wrote modern seder formats as we began to realize that it was the core truth of the story that was universal and timeless.  How we told our truth was up to us.

We don't know the truth about our redemption.  We have no idea if Moses really existed. The midrashic stories are fun, but not history. Even if we have counted on this man we call our greatest teacher to be part of our documented history – there is no proof. In reality, the story of Moses reminds us that each of us have a narrow place (Mitzrayim /Egypt) that we have escaped or wish to escape. Each of us wants a motivation as well as the strength to squeeze our way to the other side. When we retell this ancient story, we are told to imagine actually being there. Our Haggadah asks, why is this night different from all other nights – and the answer is not really about reclining at the table or eating matzah. The night is different because we set it aside. We take the time to make it different, powerful and true. We celebrate liberation. We celebrate values. We celebrate the story that, as I've said before, is the primary Jewish myth. It is ours. We have shared it with the world.  We have denounced slavery for all time. We believe in the importance of human freedom with the memories of millions who came before us.  The story is each of ours to tell.

So, back to Lowell and Cummings. Think of them as two Jews told to write a prayer about the joy of spring. Each prayer/poem is clear and beautiful and evokes emotion in us all. They are very different, though. Lowell is absolutely the poet for some of us and Cummings meets the needs of others. There are hundreds of haggadot out in the world of Jewish thought. Perhaps this is the year you try a different approach to the story. That's the real requirement, you know. Tell the story with truth, with emet.  Not all haggadot speak to all of us. Find your voice for liberation and freedom and see how beautiful it is. Listen to the birdsong.

Still dreaming of peace,
 
Barbara
© Barbara R Carr

Late February 2012

Dear friends,
 
My trigger for this letter was a short podcast on Slate.com called "Manners for the Digital Age."  It blends the changing behavior brought on by being "on" and the loss that many feel from the lack of guidelines as to when it is just not o.k. to be texting your boyfriend while having coffee with a friend. The two hosts – Farhad Manjoo, Slate's Technology Editor, a young man who clearly has never lived in a world without interactive electronics and Emily Yoffe, who writes a "manners" column entitled Dear Prudence. Emily is not at all stuffy, but represents those of us who use (and love) technology, but still cling to the hope that the world will eventually realize that connectivity outside the workplace can be a choice. The two of them laugh a lot.
              
This week I listened to them discuss the topic of taking pictures with your smart phone during a wedding service. The person who wrote in believed it was inappropriate, since guests are there to witness and honor a powerful event, which doesn't mean recording the event for posterity. Ms. Yoffe had no doubt that guests should stay in their seats during the wedding ceremony and keep their attention focused on the couple standing in front of them and taking vows. Mr. Manjoo really saw no problem with this new behavior and it's gotten more common with the advent of smart phones which, among other things, now allow us to talk (loudly) to anyone in inappropriate places (public restrooms are the worst)  and take pictures whenever it strikes our fancy. He did draw the line at disrupting the service or putting the wedding pictures on your Facebook page. His point was that the attendees wanted a visual way to remember what was going on. Ms. Yoffe countered with the position that the picture taking by guests is fine at the reception but totally out of line during a service.  As is often the case, they came to no resolution but the discussion was intense.
               
The question and the difference of opinion stayed with me. I believe in the concept of bearing witness. I think that any event that involves promises that will be lived out in community demands a two way commitment – guests are there for that reason.  Whether it is a wedding, a funeral, a baby naming - any major life cycle event – attention must be paid. The community of attendees have a responsibility. They need to honor the experience and hold it in their hearts. They are there representing the world at large. Even if the event is not a religious one – it is still one that is life changing for the participants.
               
I will confess that when I was working as the Education Director of our synagogue, I was well known for a simple instruction to the Bar/Bat Mitzvah students and their families. The line was short and to the point. I would say at every possible opportunity "It's not about the party, it's about the service."  Ultimately the students began to get it. The focus shifted a bit. Not all the families bought my line, but enough did to make a difference and warm my heart. It almost became a joke (and during a skit by our teenagers, it was a joke) but it also stuck. I would get apologies from families who knew they were losing focus, but were stuck in the 1980's model of over the top spending for parties and under the top involvement with the experience that should have been a life-changer. In a broad sense, that's what disconnecting yourself from the experience does as well. While focusing your camera you are losing focus in the moment.
              
So if someone asked me the question posed to the hosts of the podcast, my answer would be simple. No, you don't take pictures when you're supposed to be paying attention. If someone politely asks at the beginning of an experience of any kind, to please turn off your cell phones, there is an understanding that also includes not taking pictures, not watching a video or even showing your family pictures to the person sitting next to you. Serious events require serious attention. Every time you take a spontaneous picture of anything significant you have to disconnect from the experience to get your eye on the viewfinder, make sure your settings are appropriate, and then wait...wait for the right moment...and while you are doing all that, a magnificent and meaningful life-changer is going on and you don't know it.  You are taking a picture of something that isn't happening for you because you have left it to do something else. I believe that disconnecting from the experience is  truly insulting the moment. It is disruptive to those around you who may disconnect involuntarily because of your actions and then lose a precious and irreplaceable memory. Finally and most seriously, you are losing any chance of fulfilling your responsibility to the people who asked you to bear witness. You are not there.
              
There will be time for pictures. There will be time for conversation. There may be drinking and dancing and laughter. What there won't be is another opportunity to be totally in the moment you have been asked to share. The unique feeling of presence is a gift both for you and for the people who have invited you to "be here now." Think back on the times you have been truly moved by something and I bet you didn't have a camera blocking your senses. You were open to the feelings because you were paying attention. You were letting in whatever was floating in the air and you were changed – if only for the moment.
              
I love my smart phone. I take pictures with it all the time. I'm still learning all the amazing things it can do. I have never, though, had the urge to take pictures at a service of any kind. I will take pictures when they don't cause disruption for anyone, including myself. Technology give us great things – both for work and for play.  However, it seems to be the case that we are always catching up with our new toys, letting them control our behavior. The opportunities to use our miraculous tech often can  test our values – our ethics – and yes, our manners. There are not yet rules that are imprinted on us as to what is right or wrong in the technological age. We have to depend on our own sense of right or wrong as tech temptations, whether in social media or simply in looking down at our text messages, cause mistakes that can have enormous repercussions. How many times do we hear horror stories of things posted on a social web site? How many times have we overheard phone conversations that should have been private? How many times have ringtones interrupted a performance or presentation that causes a break in attention that takes time to recover? And "reply all" is a nightmare we've all shared.
              
I'm not a priss about this. I've gotten used to the voice in the public restroom not talking to me and I no longer think texting is a bad idea. However, I am often taken aback by the lack of sensitivity these new tools can cause. We disappear into the internet without thinking that we are really disappearing. We are taking our intellectual and emotional selves and removing them from the place we were, just a moment before. I am guilty of this as well. I confess to an addiction to games. I pretend that they have a use – as therapy for my dysfunctional fingers. I know that they just are a place to hide. They are a voluntary disconnect which I try hard to control.
              
So I need this letter as much as you do. Being In the moment is always my intent. I know how wonderful it feels to put my whole self in, as the hokey pokey says so simply. Distraction forces a part of me to stay outside the circle and I need to fight that urge to play one more game, or check my email or texts, or even open up the great star map and see what Mars and Venus are doing at the moment.

Once again I am reminded of the importance of the moments that take our breath away – as well as the moments we are responsible for protecting. When someone you care about asks for your presence it isn't the body that matters – it's your heart and your soul and your mind. If you bring them all into that amazing hokey pokey circle everyone will be better for it.

Still dreaming of peace,

Barbara
© Barbara Carr

Early February 2012
Dear friends,

You have been so gracious in your responses to some of my recent letters that I want to say a general thank you. These letters have always been intended to move in one direction...to you and then to wherever you choose to put them. They can be dumped in the trash or printed out or forwarded to friends. I consciously have chosen to lurk silently in your inbox, waiting to see if you feel like engaging or not, and never really knowing what happens from that point onward. I ask for nothing back, since I am very aware that some of my ideas resonate...and some don't...and I never want you to think I have your truth – that is hubris beyond my capacity. All I want to do is poke at you. We spend far too much time avoiding big ideas because the little day to day issues are noisier as well as easier to resolve. My vision is simple. After my letters percolate for a while, I hope  you feel soothed or uncomfortable or challenged or even annoyed. The key is to have you feel something different. When I do hear from you it is received with gratitude because it tells me i touched you, for good or bad. Touching is movement...challenge...joy...and growth.

Some of you are active searchers and others just read the letters to see what I'm ranting about at the moment. Deciding each time I sit down to write as to what button I feel like pushing is not an easy task. For example, today I want to write about pink ribbons, the Republican party, the slow disintegration of mainstream religions, the beauty of art glass, the birth of an elephant seal I witnessed on the central coast, and my passion for the Arthurian legends I read as a teenager. I want to write about magic, my Labrador puppy, marriage, aging, and my faith struggle. Narrowing these things down is my challenge. I often accomplish it by browsing through my books that are full of sticky notes – looking for the "aha" moment.

Today I have three books on my desk. One is The Portable Life 101 by Peter McWilliams, one is A Guide for the Advanced Soul: A Book of Insight by Susan Hayward, and the last is The Book of Qualities by J. Ruth Gendler. As I pulled them off the shelves it was obvious I was looking for some ideas myself. The books are full of quotable sections. They are not specifically religious, but are profoundly moving on levels that can be wrapped in to our religious lives or left to stand in the large arena we now call "spirituality."  Frankly, it doesn't matter where they sit...but they are all "pokers" – words that make us think whether from the ancients or our contemporaries.

We wonder why someone else's words seem to encapsulate our feelings in ways we don't seem able to replicate. I don't think it is the words – I think it is the amazement that someone else, no matter how ancient or foreign or unknown, could make us see something that had lived within but had never been examined before. We look at words but what we receive is content. The words are merely the transmitters. I won't deny that a good writer can transmit with a power that makes the content connect with us which is why they are in my library. However, we all have to find our own transmitters because our need for content differs.

For example, when J. Ruth Gendler writes about Wisdom (one of the many qualities she transmits through imagery that is wonderful for me) she says the following:

Wisdom has a quiet mind. She likes to think about the edges where things spill into each other and become their opposites. She knows how to look at things inside and out. Sometimes her eyes go out to the thing she is looking at and sometimes  the thing she is looking at enters through her eyes. Questions of time, depth and balance interest her. She is not looking for answers.

That last sentence is what stays with me. I am a "why" person struggling to let the question go. Wisdom has already done that and it is a place I both envy and hope someday to achieve. Far too many things in our lives are inexplicable and we are unable to accept that – especially today in this time of data overload
.
Relaxing in to the place where there are some answers – but not every answer – seems to be a powerful place to discover. There have been moments in my life when it seems achievable but then I lose the quiet and I return to the questions that have no answers. So I'm going to work on this wisdom thing. Give up the agitating why's and just live with the answers that come quietly when I don't even know I'm asking. It feels like the wise place to be. You might want to try it, too.
 
Still dreaming of peace,
 
Barbara
©Barbara Carr

Late January 2012

Dear friends,

I confess to having written a totally different letter to you that was about the changing attitudes that are being demonstrated by the members of mainstream religious organizations. They are walking away, either to live without a religious community or join one of the many non-denominational mega-churches or mini-churches (or Chabad or another synagogue tied to a charismatic practitioner or practice) that seem to have an attraction I am unable to understand. As I wrote about it, with great concern, I realized I was also boring myself. If my own words don't please me...the reality is that they will rarely please anyone else. So I've dumped it and want to quickly write you about a show we saw Saturday night with a group of dear friends.

The production is called A Hammer, A Bell, and a Song to Sing. Inspired by the music and persona of Pete Seeger, it presented narrative and photographic links to the history of protest in this country. What was truly special was that they defined these historic moments with the extraordinary music that dated from the Revolutionary War through the Occupy Wall Street movement. These "folk" songs often were the connecting tissue that allowed action – a common purpose and a sense of community. After holding hands and singing many of these inspiring pieces, one felt that anything was possible. The playwright also used one of my favorite quotes from the anthropologist Margaret Mead:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

That sentiment dominated my life as a teenager – through college – and into my young adulthood.  My "awareness years" carried me from the Civil Rights Movement through the Anti-War Movement and on into the Women's Movement. Although I attended marches with over 100,000 people, I always knew that in order to truly change the world, it had to grow everywhere, driven by those small groups of citizens who had earned the trust and support of their neighbors and friends. Moral clarity most often comes from story, whether it is through photographs of fire hoses and police dogs attacking children in the south in the 1950's or the raunchy lyrics of Country Joe and the Fish at Woodstock singing about Viet Nam.

The power of the three actors who sang and narrated the 90 minute production was incredible.  They were able to make real for me once again the energy of change. The three men truly "brought it home" as they used to say. Memories stirred. People who I once shared floors with and loved collectively flashed through my mind. I remembered. I also remembered the clergy operating with a kind of moral and poetic clarity that is far too rare today. War is bad. Racism is bad. It wasn't a complicated message but when our folk singers put it to music – the world did change.

Even more incredible were two very distinct experiences this play gave to those of us lucky enough to see it. First, the entire audience sang along with the actors (with the exception of a couple of more obscure pieces that were older then our memories permitted us to find). Second, it became clear to me that music carries energy and inspiration in a way that words or pictures alone cannot do. As part of my "education" at the theater there were many things I learned as well as two I wanted to pass on.

First Learning:  In one of the most beautiful American anthems written by Woody Guthrie called This Land is Your Land there are five verses. Until Saturday night I thought there were three. The first three are celebratory and were the only ones taught and shared in the 50's. There was that nasty black list thing going on that limited all the arts, but  folk music became downright un-American. Too few knew the difference between Communism and feeding the hungry. These last two verses demonstrate how Guthrie spoke truth to power and therefore why he was blacklisted:

As I was walkin' – I saw a sign there -– and that sign said – no tress passin'
But on the other side.. it didn't say nothin! Now that side was made for you and me!

Chorus
In the squares of the city – in the shadow of the steeple – Near the relief office –
I see my people – And some are grumblin" and some are wonderin"
If this land's still made for you and me.

When the song and the applause ended, I felt  a surge of well remembered  that we as a country, with supposed First Amendment Rights, were unable or unwilling to demand that those words be learned  and understood. Guthrie (and we) deserved that much.

Second Learning:  The song Waist Deep in the Big Muddy, written by Pete Seeger in 1967 tells the story of a WWII platoon training in 1942 being forced to cross a deep river by an incompetent captain. As the water rises, the chorus rises too – "We were knee deep, then we were waist deep, then we were neck deep in the Big Muddy and the big fool said to push on"  Fortunately for the platoon, the captain drowns and the platoon retreats. An allegory of Viet Nam, the networks initially banned both Seeger and the song, but thanks to the efforts of the Smothers Brothers, eventually the song was heard with the following verse summing up so many of our feelings.

"Well, I'm not going to point any moral, I'll leave that for yourself  –  Maybe your' still walking, you're still talking -– You'd like to keep your health.

But every time I read the papers that old feeling comes on: We're waist deep in the Big Muddy and the big fool says to push on."

Music that teaches as well as touches is the way to create change – to change our norms.  With our ear buds in and our podcasts or music isolating us, the chance to share a rousing chorus or two with the family is long gone. With music programs cut in schools, the "Great American Songbook" is disappearing (replaced by the ITunes store, I'm afraid). This isn't classical music, this is easy to sing, easy to remember, and by extension, easy to learn from – whether it be We Shall Overcome or Something's Happening Here.  The world of American protest music is worth a re-engagement. It raises questions and it raises hope. It teaches us that those before us granted us great gifts – not just the founders of our country, but the musicians who gave voice to the reality of our circumstance and gave us the real soundtrack of our lives.

So take a moment to clear out the cobwebs and sing America's songs. It was wonderful to have that chance and it was a gift of memory, of pride and of honor. The people's music is worth sharing
.
Still dreaming of peace,

Barbara
©Barbara Carr

Early January 2012

Dear friends,

I've been spending a lot of time talking to friends about the use of faith as a proof text.  With the Republican party caught up in its battle between moderates and extremists, I thought it was a good time to talk about why Judaism, as well as many other mainstream religions, seems to be struggling with a growing group of literalists.  They are appearing in all the major religions and it doesn't seem to matter to the believers that their faith and behavior do not reflect their religion's core teachings.  As with the political far right (and far left, to be fair) the believers are absolutely certain that only they know where truth resides.

Today in the paper I read a story about how the role of women in Israel is at serious risk because the ultra-Orthodox are limiting the place of women more and more. They will not allow women to speak alongside men, they are intolerant of modern dress and the mixing of men and women is being rejected in more and more settings. Israel drafts women as well as men to serve in the military, but the split in attitude over this and other gender neutral laws and values are growing.  The Jewish fundamentalists are doing what too many other "religious" folks are doing – they are longing for the past when they believe life was more in keeping with God's commands.

Now I am certainly not a literalist when it comes to the Torah and I cringe at the out of context quotations that some use to prove a point. Some call this buffet Judaism (or any other organized religion you wish to substitute for Judaism as you read this). This means that you, as the consumer, are free to pick and choose what commandments or rules or behavior you wish without any consideration of the big picture– the whole– the package of writings from ancient times that were written for the readers and listeners of the time. 

Those writings  tell a story of our history. They allow us to visit our roots intellectually and morally. Those roots have given rise to the Etz Chayim – the tree of life – which is not a stagnant thing.  That imagery is important to remember. It lives on today and gives us strength.

The tree has many branches – some sturdy and some weak. Some branches grow quickly, aiming for the sunlight. Others, in the shadows, are slower to reach for the sky. However, if nurtured well, the tree offers us the most important part of its teaching – growth. The Bible contains our cradle stories as well as our theoretical history. It also changes and grows – not by editing or rewriting, but by those of us who bring who we are to the text. It is not a static document because we are not a static people, and  what we read and understand is very different today than it was 2,000 years ago.  That is how the meaning of the teachings change as well. Our filters, as we read the words of our ancestors, are far different then when the great thinker, Ezra the Scribe, read the Torah aloud in Jerusalem. We are told that most Jews didn't understand Hebrew at that time. So Ezra had someone translate into the Aramaic vernacular. Understanding and owning the text seem to have been Ezra's two goals. That is as important today as it was then.

Ezra's goals still exist today. This is a book that doesn't become irrelevant just because parts of it are no longer being undertaken by its followers. Huge portions of the text lost relevance when the priesthood was ended. Medical practices allowed some of the requirements of purification to fall into disuse. Multiple wives, slavery, stoning as punishment, definitions of "the stranger," miraculous happenings such as the splitting of the Sea of Reeds or God's conversations with the prophets and judges all are no longer part of our literal religious experience. The underlying message of Torah, however, is as relevant today as when it was written.

The prophets understood the teachings in both poetic and meaningful ways.  They offer us a path.

From Isaiah:  "...they shall  beat their swords into plowshares, and their spear into pruning hooks.  Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they know war anymore."

From Amos:  "But let justice well up like water, righteousness like a mighty stream."

From Micah:  "He has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you:  only to do justice, and to love goodness and to walk humbly with your God."

From Zechariah:  "Execute true justice; deal kindly and compassionately with one another.  Do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the stranger and the poor.  Do not set your heart to plotting evil."

Finally, another Isaiah writing:  "Seek justice, undo oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow."

The genius of the Bible is only understood in the context of its time and the continued relevance of its underlying message for us today. I don't know where the roots truly are, but I do know that its shade calms me, its fruit feeds me, and its beauty is like no other. I am able to look, not at the buffet of choices, but at the singular truth I find in it. The Book is ancient and so its punishments and rewards are ancient as well. The literalists are unable to accept the changes we have undergone over time. They seem to only subscribe to the teachings they select and yet still declare it God's entire truth. You have to take the whole package if you want to believe the text is the word of God. Who could possibly say that God meant x but not y. To teach that is to deny two thousand years of human development.

And the package has had thousands of explicators. The Talmud was written to explain intent and guide us to an understanding that differences of opinion, when done respectfully and lovingly, are part of the growth of the Tree. The later commentators also taught that lessons are often parables, not concrete, immovable law. Today, many reject the whole book because they hear it misused.  Many declare as absolute laws that have been evolving for centuries because we have been evolving as well. The absolutists do not live as our ancestors did, but they want us to believe that their understanding of the values of Torah are unchanging. They believe they speak the real truth.  There is no such thing.

My Torah teaches peace and justice and compassion. It teaches me to love those who are different from me and to give to those who are in need. It does not ask me to reject modern life. It asks me to carry its truth through my filters and in to my soul.  I will never understand how people find hate within its pages. 

So my tree will flower each year and it will be different each year. Its branches will sway and grow and become more as time passes and if I'm lucky, I will sit in its shade and feel the gratitude.

Find your tree...just look around...it's there...

Still dreaming of peace,

Barbara
©Barbara Carr

Late December 2011

Dear friends,

"If the only prayer you say in your whole life is 'thank you,' that would suffice." – Meister Eckhart

Today I want to write about the turning of the secular year. Jews have a multitude of new years as well as a lunar calendar, so our holidays show up fixed by their Hebrew date, but can vary dramatically on the secular calendar. The religious calendar and the secular calendar often exist on separate planes as their naming implies. For example, December 31st is always New Year's Eve—fixed in time. But just because a holiday is secular, there is no reason to ignore the collective spiritual power we can find within it.

On the religious calendar there are three significant "beginnings" that we celebrate. We have the big one, Rosh Hashanah, when our year changes. We have the new year of the trees, Tu B'Shevat that usually shows up in January or February. We have the first month of the year, Nissan, which strangely doesn't coincide with Rosh Hashanah—but is in the spring. Rosh Hashanah occurs in the seventh month and celebrates the creation of the world, but the first month, Nissan, is when Moses is said to have led the Jews out of Egypt and began the creation of a Jewish "nation." Tu b'Shevat is a little stranger, but it is actually quite intriguing. The Torah gives us very specific ecological instructions about caring for trees. We are told that there are certain ages when the fruit of the trees can be eaten but that requires knowing when they were planted (or just started growing). So the 15th of Shevat was declared every tree's date of birth. Who knew Earth Day had biblical origins?

But the turn of the secular New Year, December 31st, has its own power if we let it out. It is a ritual, just by its repetition and expectation of something happening, whether it be raucous or quiet—the year turns and that is a significant event.

I have used the word ritual with great intention. We have many times in our year when we do things that are repetitive and therefore ripe for ritual enrichment. Each year we celebrate birthdays and anniversaries. Each year we make sure we get to the mountains to see the snow and the desert to see the spring flowers. We take road trips each winter (we are in  southern California after all) and each summer we go someplace farther away to visit family or someplace on our personal bucket lists. I find these rituals almost as spiritually powerful as the High Holy Days because they define my life in ways that the prayer book can't capture.

I have said the Shehecheyanu prayer in a multitude of places. This is what I refer to as the "yay, God" prayer since it is about gratitude for allowing us to be in the moment, and for me, awareness of those moments occurs spontaneously and often unexpectedly. I also use Modah Ani (I give thanks) as well as offering up a "brava" to nature. Remembering those moments is part of my New Year's ritual.  I like to think back to spending time with people I love and recalling the warmth of ties renewed. I like to remember the heat of the sun as I looked at the red rocks of Sedona with friends surrounding me this past year. I like to envision the flocks of pelicans soaring low over the ocean along the central coast, clearly on a mission that I can feel as well as see. Sitting at dinner with my family all together can be overwhelmingly wonderful. We all have moments from this past year that deserve applause. Our shame is in forgetting them.

All these memories can be revisited and celebrated each new year. All these memories are part of my personal ritual to ring in the new year and I offer it up to you to share. The year, 2011, is almost gone, but the gifts it brought to me and mine require acknowledgement somehow. Spiritual life is part of who I am. It is part of who you are as well, even if you call it something else. The turning of the year is a wonderful time to recall those moments that are gratitude-filled. Even moments of sadness allow us to be grateful that we got through whatever obstacle we faced. If those obstacles still exist, we then can work towards finding the strength to either live with them or fix them this coming year.

New Year's Eve is also considered a propitious time to make resolutions. Too often they are about very secular things, such as losing weight or calling your parents more often or reading The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.  My resolutions are easier to make and easier to keep. I resolve to free myself to find more "yay, God" moments. I resolve to let my need to bring people I care about, closer to me. I resolve to keep going. I resolve to say "i love you," "thank you," "could you help," "how are you, really" more often. I want to make my inner life and my outer life blend more effectively. I want to continue to find joy in unexpected places. Maybe some of these work for you—maybe you need to find your own resolve—but if you make New Year's Eve a time not just for stupid hats and too much wine all you need is to pause.  You need to be ready for the feeling that life is good, the new year will be better, and all it may take is a conversation that allows you to look at who you are at your core.

Blessed are you.... who has brought me to this moment.

Still dreaming of peace,
Barbara

P.S.  Thanks to all of you who inquired about my health. I am on the mend and can't wait to get my toe splint off.

© Barbara Carr
 

Early December 2011

Dear friends,

In the song John Lennon wrote for his son, Beautiful Boy, there is a line that has come to be my saving grace, keeping me from getting too angry or depressed about my body going awry. It is (slightly modified) "Life is what happens when you're making other plans..."  It makes me smile with the same sense of irony that I find in "God always answers your prayers...it's just that sometimes the answer is no..." I don't have a single source for that one, however. It's almost universal.

All of us make plans that are unfulfilled...from the little girl waiting for prince charming to the young man who is looking for the perfect 10. Prince Charming and Bo Derek (declared a 10 in the movie of the same name) are not available to us all. In reality, they are simply fantasies – fairy tales that allow us to dream of what lies around the corner. I'll  add one more to the fantasy list...in the movie Bull Durham, Kevin Costner is listening to Susan Sarandon talking about reincarnation. She says something about being nobility in a former life. Costner gets a little agitated and asks why everyone was someone significant in their past lives...no one believes they could have been a janitor or a stable boy. Yet, janitors and maids and stable boys had to exist so that nobility could ignore the people who made their lifestyle possible.

Thirteen years ago my body began to break down leaving me, over the ensuing years, with a series of neurological illnesses, too many prescriptions, a successful but destructive radiation treatment, and plans that were no longer accessible. I went through the various stages of grief, as if my body had died but I was still watching it try to be what it once was. In truth, my body thankfully didn't die but it sure stopped doing a lot that it once did. It also started doing things that it had never done before. Life happens...no matter what your plans.

This is all to say that on Monday afternoon I had a slow motion fall that has left me with a fractured big toe and sprained ligaments in my foot and back pain that burns due to a pinched L5 nerve. I've fallen before – between the Parkinson's and the epilepsy, falling is just part of what happens while I'm often making other plans. (like trying to get a glass of water...)

I'm still trying to figure out if it was worth it...having to ask a dear friend to drive me around and wait for "the professionals" to get done with me, which is always tough for me. Then finding out that there was some minor damage which was not part of my plans for this time of year. I have a lot of stuff to do and I'm not going to be able to do it...which is why this letter seems to be all about me.

Today is the 15th – which is my arbitrary cutoff date for my "early" letter. I could have just asked for a medical excuse, but that didn't seem right. I wanted you to understand that coming up with a topic of profound meaning and then sharing it with you wasn't going to happen.

But then I realized that what has happened is profound and happens to us all.  We all make plans that get shelved due to "extenuating circumstances" and we beat ourselves up about it. We all dream big dreams and see them slip away because taking care of a family member (or ourselves) make those dreams become simply dreams and not reality. But we forget that new plans take their place. I won't hike the John Muir trail, but I can still hike a shorter route. I can't wander the desert but we can drive to exquisite overlooks and not feel deprived. Right now I can't bend over to put socks on, but I will be able to again. Somehow plans that evolve often are better than plans you had at 18.

The ideas of a prince charming or a 10 are fun when you're young. As we mature we realize that those fantasies are not how we really want to live our lives.  As we grow older and adapt to real life –  with its bittersweet truths that tell us we can never know what lies around the corner, there's also a certain comfort. We realize that we may get knocked down but we will also probably get up.  That's never in a teenager's plans.

It is in mine, though. The gratitude of getting up...of moving forward...of coping...is a gift that isn't tied up with ribbon but lasts a lot longer.  I'll feel stronger soon...and I know that's what life has given me while I was making other plans.

Still dreaming of peace,
 
Barbara
©Barbara Carr

Dear friends,

I am once again struggling with the confluence of Hanukkah and Christmas and the massive number of trees that have given up their lives to fill my mailbox with catalogues. (Although I confess that some are a guilty pleasure.) As a partner in an interfaith marriage for 34 years I have welcomed the addition of family holidays shared with my husband and his "side" of the family and we have learned an enormous amount about sensitivity to others in the process. When I was teaching and the question of interfaith celebrations would come up, my response was always the same. If you are invited to a birthday party you go joyfully and participate in the festivities but you know, without a doubt, that it isn't your birthday – it belongs to someone else.  This is how we need to learn to celebrate with each other when religious holidays occur. We each can suggest modifications to our partners/families/friends... but the person who has their name on the birthday cake also gets final say on how the day plays out. This is not always easy but the learning is incredible.

What made me feel the need to reopen this conversation was an item in a catalogue. It was a Star of David Christmas tree topper – specifically designed for interfaith families who share the holidays together. They even referred to using it to top your "Hanukkah Bush"...

Our home is decorated every year with both Christmas and Hanukkah "stuff"….We put up lights (Hanukkah is the Festival of Lights, after all) and we are very clear that both of our holidays have very little religious power for us but are fun during a time of darkness and cold. We do not attempt to "cross–pollinate" – or in simpler words, make one holiday out of two. Other than the lights stuff which is almost universal throughout the world – the two holidays are totally different. One is about a military victory that got transformed into a religious event many years after the fact. The other is about the birth of the Christian messiah, full of joy and song and tradition but this particular birth story is in all probability mythic. What they have in common is not a sacred time but instead a time that has become one of gift giving and energy wasting (all those lights...).

Christians and Jews today know that the long ago events that we celebrate are certainly iffy in their origins. They know that the gifts of the Magi (which are perhaps the origin of Christmas gift giving) are part of a rich and wonderful story but the historical truth of the event is unsupported. The same is true of the Miracle of the Oil that brought God into the Maccabean revolt – which was certainly not a godly place to be. We have solemn holidays – but Hanukkah is not one of them. Christianity has far fewer holidays and festivals – they are less tied to the calendar than are Jews. However they too have their solemn moments where they invoke the Other... but Christmas has certainly not evolved in that direction.

What we have in common this time of year is what used to be called profligacy. We overindulge, not just for our children – but for ourselves as well. We create reasons for this behavior that somehow justify the enormous expense and time we invest in this season.  At this time of year the addition of  all the "have to's" start to overwhelm us – not just with preparing our personal celebrations  but with all the parties, the gift lists, the mailing deadlines and the number of people who wish us a Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays and we realize we forgot to get them something.

I'm not being a Scrooge this year as I admit to being in the past – but I can't help thinking that somehow this seasonal experience is getting out of hand. So many people, including my two sons, prefer the family friendly Thanksgiving holiday to any other. It is shared by all Americans, its content of gratitude and time to think about it is universal and there are no presents. That says something very important to me about what we are doing to ourselves and our families.  If most of us prefer the quality of Thanksgiving to the extravagance of the December festivities – what are we doing buying, wrapping, mailing and over–eating?

I know there must be ways to celebrate this season with some meaning. I don't think it's a matter of reasserting the religious content – because there isn't much to it, even if we go back to being literalists (unlikely). However, since almost every culture has a "lights" experience around the winter solstice – maybe we can explore that idea. What is light?  Why is it so necessary to our existence? Why is dark considered bad and light considered good? Why do we use the concept of light in so much of the spiritual sides of ourselves?  We follow the light. We envision the light. We cherish the light.

Yet, in San Diego a couple of months ago we lost power across the city and everything went dark. In homes and neighborhoods across the county people had incredibly wonderful experiences with the loss of power. Candles were lit. Neighbors shared time with each other. The stars were clearer than ever and there was a full moon lighting our yard in a magical and gentle bath of luminescence.  Once we all realized that we had to slow down, that we couldn't use our electronics, that we were lucky we weren't the few caught in elevators...time slowed...voices talked more quietly...and the light we did have, from the moon and from flickering  candles was gentle and soothing and quite wonderful. Light is nuanced...we should remember that all things are.
So this year, maybe we can pause and think about our own light. Whether it relates to the star in the east that the wise men followed or the eight candles we light to remind us of our history...light is our common ground. Gift giving and party going may now seem to have taken over the month of December – but if we look within and without for the illumination that is always there, if we're lucky, it will allow us to see things we have never seen before...That reflection may make the chaos of the season a little less difficult for us all.

Here is another idea – spend your holiday thinking about this quote of Albert Schweitzer's – maybe even make a list for yourself of those who saw your need for just a spark that became enough to light your way...

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.  – Albert Schweitzer

So take a lot of deep breaths – talk a lot with each other – and have an illuminated holiday season.

Still dreaming of peace,

Barbara

© Barbara Carr

Early November 2011

Dear friends,

The overlap of gratitude to God and the secular but wonderful Thanksgiving that lies ahead gives me pause for thought. Thus you are about to be paused as well. This is about America and the melting pot that puts us in a magical category all its own – the great experiment.

I love the actual Thanksgiving holiday.  I love the fact that the only gifts we receive are food, and it is most often, as our family grace goes "food lovingly prepared".  I love the fact that almost all Americans who have the pleasure of sitting down to a Thanksgiving meal do pray in some way or another - whether it be just listing the things they are thankful to have in their lives or an actual more organized prayer where prose becomes poetry. Despite the hustle and bustle in the kitchen, this is a day to say thank you – to give each other the blessings of our company – and to talk about our history –both ours and our country's. This is the inverted image of July 4th with its fireworks and self-congratulation. This is about thanks without ego. Together these two holidays are the yin and the yang of this amazing experiment in living collectively for the greater good.

Of course, as with all historical events, the winners write the history.  I am grateful that we, as a nation, have begun to acknowledge the darker side of Thanksgiving...which in reality marked the beginning of our domination and decimation of the native population.  We all know the history of European/American domination of all who weren't like them. 

But while all this killing and hatred were going on, there were others who came to the new world with no issue with anyone or anything but the people and places they were leaving.  For example, The Religious Society of Friends – the formal name of the Quaker movement, was a powerful actor in the civilizing of the conquering class and still today models behavior that puts life and liberty ahead of national power.  They took this respect for human life and turned it into a way to act – whether it was helping slaves escape to the north during the civil war or advising young men about their right to be a conscientious objector during the Viet Nam war.

Time passed and things changed.  That sentence should be remembered because there has never in recorded history been a time that wasn't true. People also escaped to America just seeking something better for themselves and their families. They had no issue with those who were already here...  these were people who just wanted to sleep at night without fear. That is also a constant of history.  Somewhere at this very moment people are going to sleep afraid – afraid for their lives -– afraid for their future.

Most of us have an immigrant history. When my grandparents came to this country from Russia over 100 years ago, all they needed was someone to sponsor them and show they had enough skills to make a living. That was it and they were in.  Without them there would be no me...a strange thought but one that makes me think of all the twists and turns that bring us to our Thanksgiving moments.  Our personal history is so full of chance encounters and paths both taken and passed by. This is true of America as well. The right person in the right place at the right time has the entirety of life's history to thank for creating the character that will act in the right way

But  then we also must stop to gather inspiration from the pause that is Thanksgiving.  No matter what is going on outside the door – for a moment we all share the dreams of our ancestors – not just the dreams of the family we know, but alsoof the people who dreamed the big dream and somehow wrote a declaration of independence, fought a guerrilla war against a stronger force and won, created a new kind of government, fought for the country they helped grow strong, watched it teeter on the edge of disaster and dissolution and then recover slowly. They fought world wars and small wars - wars that were inevitable and too many that weren't. Through it all we kept our eye on the prize - survival of the great experiment called America. 

We also had those who served the good of the people in quieter ways.  Jane Addams, the creator of the settlement movement, Florence Nightingale, who was the first nurse, as she volunteered on the battlefields, and Helen Keller who showed the world that if you have the right support you can do amazing things.  I have a much longer list of men to thank (remember who wrote history) and I would be wrong without thinking of them as well – Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR , honorary American citizen, Winston Churchill (true thing) Booker T. Washington, James Meredith, and Martin Luther King, Jr.  The writers, the thinkers, the do-ers – those who had great ideas that failed and those who had success of unbelievable proportions – from Bill Gates and Steve Jobs back to Alexander Graham Bell and Eli Whitney... Americans not only had created a place to live free –they also created a place to think freely.

So when you are praying literally or in some other way this Thanksgiving – remember how lucky you are. Put on an old Woody Guthrie song and sing along...you don't have to sing Kumbaya, but This Land is Your Land works pretty well for me.

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.

As I went walking that ribbon of  highway
I saw above me that endless skyway
I saw below me that golden valley
This land was made for you and me.

I roamed and I rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
While all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
A voice was chanting, As the fog was lifting,
This land was made for you and me.

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.

I am thankful...  once you start thinking about it, you will be too.

Still dreaming of peace,

Barbara
© Barbara Carr

Late October 2011

Dear friends,

Every once in a while we find ourselves in a moment that has a special power.  It's a struggle to define since it is both spiritual and intellectual – both visceral and ephemeral – and it leaves a mark, a mark unique to each of us. Rabbi Lawrence Kushner wrote a wonderful book of essays about times like those, which he calls, as well as titles his book Invisible Lines of Connection: Sacred Stories of the Ordinary. These moments can never be planned - although in our own different ways, we need to be open to them.

I had one of those moments at a dinner party a few days ago. We were a group with visible lines connecting us going back many years. For one reason or another some of us stayed in touch and some of us didn't...but the friendships were deep and lasting for us all. Extraordinarily, of the nine of us involved with each other that evening, four of us were sent unexpected forks in the road that were dark and threatening and each of us had found our way out of that place. We could never deny we'd been there but we also shared the power to make us keep looking for joy, even if it wasn't the joy we had planned to share.

Sitting with us, of course, were the people who saw us through diagnosis, treatments and physical changes – took on extra tasks without being asked – helped us fake it with people who sincerely cared but we couldn't talk to - and loved us and made us feel safe. And in that unique moment, all nine of us were able to speak of the unspeakable. We were able to laugh about each of us wanting to protect the other.  We shared frustration and anger and also joy. The joy is always the hardest for those outside our defensive bubble to understand.  It's real though. We knew. The moment – well far more than a moment – was in my language, sacred. Not all of us are comfortable with those kinds of words.

I know that each of us around the table felt blessed as well. It could be so much worse. We could have lived in anger. We could have failed each other. We could have died. But we didn't, and each of us had made our peace with what we had. That's not to say we were never angry – but all of us had consciously decided that anger was truly a waste of time. What is the purpose of anger when you know it could have been worse?  Why feel sorry for ourselves, care givers as well as receivers, when we know that each of us is trying as hard as we can to make it easier for the other. Why not stand back and give thanks that we have someone in our lives who is giving more than we ever thought would be asked?

Not all of us around the table were "God" people although that easier word, spirituality, was frequently mentioned.  My form of spirituality enters my life as a powerful addition to how I live, but it isn't the whole package.  Without a belief that faith, of whatever kind, is what permits spirituality, I'm at a loss as to what people mean by the word. My half full glass always assumes that people who don't acknowledge some sort of relationship with an Other yet call themselves spiritual are kind of playing intellectual games with themselves. If you allow yourself to feel the transcendence that comes in those special moments, from my perspective, you are letting the/an Other into your life. You are free to deny it – but I think it is an attempt to intellectualize what you feel. God is irrational. Spirituality has easier answers.

But I no longer know for sure what I mean by God – this Power that Makes for Salvation. I feel like I have re-engaged the search. I have no doubt that something beyond myself has always existed.  I have no doubt that something godly occurred when our friends sat together and acknowledged the marathon we each were running, sometimes alone and sometimes together. I have no doubt that I have felt the presence of something that is what I call God. However the more times I feel that power, the less it fits into a definable space.

Transcendence occurs. Moments when we look outward or inward and feel the power of something beyond our intellectual understanding can either make us stronger or more uncertain It doesn't matter really as long as you are aware that something is altering your perception of the world. It may last a moment or your entire life. But the world has shifted - and whether you call it God or spirit or nature or some other words that work for you – the shift is real and life-altering. The world shifted for me that night as we shared what we rarely acknowledge with others.

These moments don't always make a huge difference in your life condition but they can make a huge difference in your life.  Over the years I've seen it happen again and again.    These moments give you a reason for gratitude.  They give an awareness  that no matter how dark life may look at the moment, there are invisible lines of connection that remind us of all the joy that still remains.  The closing words of Rabbi Kushner's wonderful book that I cited at the start of this letter has stayed with me since I first read them years ago.  He says simply:  All theology is autobiography.

Each of us walks a path that is unique to us.  We have the personal power to make that a source of wonder or a source of despair. I choose wonder. I choose asking why.  I choose celebrating life and nature and the people who remind me why I'm here.  I choose looking at the world with fresh eyes every day. I am here for a reason – and although I have had many ideas as to what that reason may be – I also am aware that I may never know with certainty.

So I do my best. I fight anger and fear and welcome love and laughter. So do the people I know who have looked into the abyss and rejected it. The Chasidic Rebbe, Nachman of Breslov taught:  A person walks in life on a very narrow bridge. The most important thing is not to be afraid. We fight our fear by sharing it. That narrow bridge is wide enough.

I cannot find words to express the gratitude I feel to have friends that bring me such gifts. I wish the same for all of you.
 
Still dreaming of peace,
 
Barbara
 
©Barbara Carr

October 2011

Dear friends,

As you may have noticed, my letters to you have been a little off schedule –but the High Holy Days and the preparation of a talk on the Book of Jonah for Yom Kippur afternoon got me off schedule.  I know that the failure of discipline is mine – and I'll be more on track as we head on through the year.

One of the things I have shared in my teaching is the sheer joy I find in Torah study.  I am also aware that if I had stopped learning about Judaism at age 13 and then was asked, as an adult, about Torah (or God, Judaism, ritual, etc.) I probably would have shrugged, talked about monotheism a little bit, pulled in some world religions stuff and felt uncomfortable.  Now, in my sixties, i'm able to answer people's questions in some areas, but as with many things, adult religious study in Judaism is a practice – you don't complete the task..  Without bringing adult sensibilities and questions to our study, our understanding of Judaism – or any religion – would leave us at the least dissatisfied, often cynical and frequently impatient.  This is why so many people are searchers as adults.  What they know about the path of belief they once were shown as children is frozen in an adolescent mindset that offers adults little that seems appealing.

Fortuitously, the Book of Jonah is a perfect example of this duality – since on the surface it has been a story for children.  Hundreds of worksheets have gone to the landfill with pictures of Jonah in the belly of a whale (which is in reality a fish - not a whale - read the book).  The story for children is focused on Jonah's moment of major excitement from a child's perspective –  and we have not returned to it to wonder why it is considered a sacred text.  Think about what you remember about the story.  Try and figure out why it is the last reading from the Tanakh on Yom Kippur afternoon.  Then, please, take a look at what I shared  with the congregation.  I hope it will invite you to take a look at all the "stories" you may remember and see their depths through your adult eyes.  You may be surprised.

D'var Torah for Yom Kippur 2011 - Jonah

The Book of Jonah can be frustrating to explore but as with all readings designated for the High Holy Days and Festivals it has unexpected weight. This book contains a voice that is so unlike the other great prophetic books that it challenges our  comfort zone. But there is no denying that Jonah is a prophet, instructed to warn -  (prophets always warn...) and instructed to tell the people what to do to save themselves. But on this most holy day of the Jewish year, we learn that Jonah's call is not for the Israelites but for a gentile people that God is intent on saving.   Jonah is clearly not interested in saving the people of Nineveh - he only wants to serve his own.  His self-centeredness is at the core of the entire reading.

For those of us who think the choice of Jonah should offer more than a classic adventure story during these final hours of our ten days of awe, there is subtext to be found. Many think that Rabbi Susan Lippe's humorous  answer to the question of "why Jonah?" may be sufficient.  She tells us " it's a straightforward story.  It's only four chapters. It's message is simple. God cares about all the people. Jonah only cares about himself. God wins."

It's tempting to leave it at that, especially as our hunger grows and our chairs seem less comfortable then they were this morning. We wrestle and wonder about this book, nonetheless, because the self-centered Jonah is the only successful prophet in the Tanakh and yet he is also the least willing to speak God's words.  Rejecting the initial call from God is not an unusual response.  Even Moses said no to the first call – but soon accepted his burden.  As we are told again and again, we are a stiff-necked people.  Jonah's neck was stiffer than most.

We also see in Jonah a man who didn't appear to have the strength of character to do what was required of him.  That word – required – is the prophetic absolute. You don't say no to God no matter how frightened you feel or how frightening the call. Prophetic calls often require that the people must be told they are behaving badly and if they don't change their ways, God will abandon them. With a bizarre (and some say satirical) twist, only Jonah, of all the prophets, has his words believed without question and an entire people, the evil Ninevites,. repent and pray to both their gods and the one God...even the King donned sackcloth and changed his ways.

Everything changes for Nineveh when Jonah accepts his call.  So when I say Jonah is considered the only successful prophet in the Tanakh, I mean it both literally and with some dismay.  Our other Biblical prophets do what is asked of them - yet the ancient Israelite people, the ambivalent wrestlers with God, rarely respond the way the prophets demand.  Our prophets are voices of warning and voices of vision.  They set high bars and are honored for their efforts but not their message.  What they ask for is often too difficult and painful to obey.  Again and again we fail to listen... but the words have been preserved for us as lessons.  The lessons of Jonah are profound.

Jonah only wanted to stay where he was.  He had no interest in saving the gentiles.  He said no to God and fled, somehow believing that he could escape the All-Seeing One.  We know that never works .  So we get the big storm, we get the sailors, also gentiles, who behave with honor and courage. With the ship about to be destroyed, we see Jonah perform one selfless act.  He accepts responsibility for the storm and knows that the only thing he can do to stop the devastation is to be thrown overboard.  The sailors beg for other options but Jonah convinces them there are none.  So Jonah is thrown into the sea and the storm ceases

Unfortunately, from Jonah's (or anyone's) perspective, he is then swallowed by a big fish and "spit up" on the shores of Nineveh - the one place he didn't want to be.  He had prayed with sincerity for deliverance while within the fish, and he is saved, in order to complete his work of prophecy. So with a heavy heart he warns the people of Nineveh that if they do not change their ways, they will be destroyed.  Clearly he has finally understood that a call from God is not something you can refuse without consequence.

You can almost understand Jonah.  He's not feeling "required" to answer his call. He is angry. Why he rejects the call is fascinating. He is afraid he will be successful. He doesn't want to succeed with the gentiles. He doesn't understand why God isn't letting him stay in Jerusalem among his own people.  He is not willing to acknowledge that all the world is God's and all its creatures are loved and offered mercy if they truly repent and turn to a life of godly behavior.

As Jonah's unwilling voice, echoing the words of God, turns the people of Nineveh from their evil ways, Jonah feels no joy in his success. He has no concern for the people he has saved.  If he has to save anyone, why has he been asked to save the gentiles?  He wants to be honored only by his own, which may be why he is given the charge to be a prophet to the Ninevites – people he doesn't respect or want to save.

God answers Jonah's spoken and unspoken questions with a plant that lives and dies in one day, giving Jonah a chance to cherish the shade it brings and mourn when it is no longer there.  This plant is like the people of Nineveh – capable of  goodness – but unless they are cared for (or instructed) they will die as well.   We are being reminded that although we have accepted the responsibility to attempt to be godly, that doesn't mean that other lives have less value. We are being taught that we are not the only people God cares for – despite what might be called our special relationship. God's concerns are clearly for the entire world.

So it is not Jonah who is the only key to understanding this portion today as the gates begin to close.  It is also the people of Nineveh who hear and do what God asks of them. This requires nothing more than Jonah telling them the plans and promises of God.  There is no argument – there is no cry to Jonah to prove what he is saying.  These are believers of a different kind than the Israelites, but they are believers nonetheless.  They are called to repent and change their ways. They do. They are saved.

The  "why Jonah?" answer for me is not the easy one - the one that says a person called by God must repent and return.  My comfort zone with the choice of Jonah is the clarity we are given about God's love for all people.  Jonah is merely the actor who teaches us this lesson by rejecting it.  This story contains what I call the great capital T Truth but not the lower case literal t.  Today our skepticism needs to be put aside as we are asked to find relevance in the teaching. The Book of Jonah calls us to teshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah:  repentance and return, prayer and righteousness – we can ask for no more.

God listens to all – Jew and non-Jew alike.  God sees (today, metaphorically – in the story, literally), and God knows our intent.  This is perhaps our clearest call to personal repentance, not simply because this is our day of atonement but also because it is our day of commitment to finding the godly path within.  Without that, all our efforts leave us in the darkness of the belly of the fish.

Still dreaming of peace,

Barbara

© Barbara Carr

Early September 2011 - Elul part two

Dear friends,

This year, a wonderful gift has been given to our congregation by our Rabbi, Yael Ridberg. Each morning in our email inboxes we find a different Elul meditation from her.  This is something I learned about from Rabbi Rami Shapiro in his Elul Journal published by the Simply Jewish Foundation.  We all need a gentle reminder of how to focus our thinking, and a "trigger" is often needed to get us going. I am so grateful to have a rabbi who is meeting a need so many of us have,  lending us a hand as we prepare for our self-assessment and atonement.

The month of Elul is a long version of the attempt to return to our better selves that we hope occurs on Yom Kippur.  We know that not all words, no matter how meaningful in the abstract, touch us with the kind of power we need to make a change.  The words of the High Holy Day services don't always open our hearts with the intent that we desire.  In the same way that poets find their inspiration from varied experiences - those who seek real redemption and repair don't always find it on those three long days of ritual and prayer.

Elul is the time to search out those words, the inspiration that allows us to believe that change is possible. Elul is the month we are given to think about where we are on the journey to a life of substance. Elul is the time we define what that substance means to us. Elul is the time of repair--of realizing that we too often just let things happen without realizing that we might have made a difference for the better. All it would have taken was attention. All it would have required is an action. Now is our time to reflect on those missed opportunities to be a changer. The change might have been as simple as a kind word spoken or a deed of goodness that would have cost us little but given much.

The Rabbi's gifts of meditative thoughts have been primarily from the Jewish tradition which I honor and use often in my own self-reflection. I find that I need additional pokes and prods, however. For the last few days I've been searching dozens of books, folders from my teaching, quotes I have tucked away in a computer file for some future work and ultimately discovered that I needed to look elsewhere. I pulled out a book someone gave to one of us a number of years ago. The title is pretentious but the content is full of meditative triggers from writers of all backgrounds. The book is called A Guide for the Advanced Soul:  A Book of Insight collected and designed by a woman called Susan Hayward.  She is Australian--and clearly a searcher.

The following words are all from her book and for me tie into my own search for teshuvah, turning back to the religious path I have found works for me. These words will be part of my preparation and I want to share them with you. They are short and hit the mark I can only aspire to hit. I hope they will inspire you to look for the words that might help your own reflections--whether they be from your own tradition, a favorite writer or a song with lyrics that say what you mean in your heart.

Inner peace can be reached only when we practice forgiveness.
Forgiveness is the letting go of the past and is, therefore, the means for correcting our  misperceptions.—Gerald G. Jampolsky in Love is Letting Go of Fear

It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters in the end.— Ursula Le Guin in The Left Hand of Darkness

Your questions indicate the depth of your belief. Look at the depth of your questions.—John and Lyn St. Clair Thomas in Eyes of the Beholder

Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her. But once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.—Voltaire

I know I'm not seeing things as they are. I'm seeing things as I am.—Laurel Lee

The difference between a flower and a weed is a judgment.—Susan Hayward

We are called to judgment both by our tradition and by ourselves.  I hope I am ready.  I hope you are as well.

Still dreaming of peace,

Barbara

©Barbara R. Carr

Late August 2011

Dear Friends,

On August 30th at sundown we celebrate Rosh Chodesh Elul...the beginning of what is a month of reflection, review, and repair. It is the month that leads to Rosh Hashanah - our spiritual new year.  This is the time when we judge ourselves and metaphorically are judged as to how we are living our lives.  We traditionally listen to the shofar each day (except Shabbat) from the 1st of Elul until our "gates" close at sundown on Yom Kippur. The shofar calls us, awakens our heart, reminds  us of the work we need to do for the betterment of our souls and draws us to what we call in English, the High Holy Days and in Hebrew, Yamim Noraim which translates as The Days of Awe.  There isn't a time of year that has a more powerful pull on us.  In many ways, though, the shofar is also a call to arms - and the battle is between our good and bad selves - not two armies. Our weapons are only within - and victory is only and always temporary but peace is always within reach. What an amazing month lies ahead.

For many years I searched (and am still searching) for a way to understand why this time of year is the most powerful (and traditional) of seasons. I found much to dislike in my memory bank.  I was not blessed with teachers who were able to explain this time of year for me.  They told me how but not why.

So this was what I remember from childhood:

The services were so long as to be unbearable for a child, but we sat quietly, went to the ladies' room a lot and stood when the cantor lifted his arms. We had our own prayer books which we brought from home, unlike the Shabbat prayer books at the synagogue. We had pews with little slots for name tags and seats were assigned only for these services. Those seats were also bought at various prices - and I learned the social and financial status of our community based on where people were sitting. We always had new clothes and they were always too hot, since winter was coming. All the women in the front wore fur it seemed, despite the heat. Needless to say, until I got old enough to become a member of the eight voice choir and had to pay attention, the High Holy Days didn't have much spiritual content for me.

Things have obviously changed and improved. Although Passover is the most celebrated Jewish holiday and I love it, the purest religious encounters I have with the Other occur during the High Holy Days , or the preparatory month of Elul. This is when I spend a lot of time reading, thinking and reminding myself that for me, Judaism rises or fall because of this holy time.  This time has nothing to do with history but everything to do with our teachings. We are challenged to look inside our souls, not outside at the actions of others. I really do, both consciously and unconsciously, prepare for the Awe.  Although it may be difficult for you to open yourself up this way, experimenting with preparing yourself for the Holy Days makes a difference. The services become culminations of a long and fascinating process of self-awareness and assessment.

The themes of the Holy Days are the themes of our lives. Forgiveness, awareness of missing the mark, remembering both the people and the moments that changed our lives, finding the changes we look to make in ourselves, promising that things that can be fixed, will be fixed - all take time to think about.  You can't just show up, listen to the prayers, sing a few familiar songs and think you get a clean slate.  Although you must reflect, you also must act.  You also must look backwards to the last time you made promises and commitments and see how they held up. Did you make a sincere effort to change?  Missing the mark is not a sin, failing to try, failing to even know what mark your aiming for - is the sin.

Despite the many tribunals and judges that confront us in the liturgy as the services go on, you know who the real judge is. You are the only one who knows what your heart and mind accomplished over the past year.  Elul gives us all the chance to be honest with ourselves, to let the piercing cries of the shofar awaken us to our obligations, and it permits us to walk in to our places of worship on Rosh Hashanah ready to begin our formal acknowledgement of this most holy time.  After all the work we have done to prepare for the moment , we can literally or metaphorically stand before God and say that we know we could have done more - done better - been more generous - more loving - but with the deepest sincerity, we know we tried.

If you've never intentionally looked inward at this time of year, maybe you would like to try. If so, I want to share a Franciscan blessing with you to use as one way to begin your personal Elul meditations.  I love the challenges it lays out for us.

God's Blessings

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, superficial relationships, so that you will live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people so that you will work for justice, equality and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that you will reach out your hand to comfort them and change their pain into joy.

And may God bless you with the foolishness to think that you can make a difference in the world, so that you will do the things that others tell you cannot be done.

Still dreaming of peace,

Barbara

©Barbara Carr

Early August 2011

Dear friends,

I'm back from my mental vacation, and when I'm not doing these two letters a month, I find that I live my religious/spiritual life a little differently. I have deeper internal dialogues about my "beliefs."  I also feel a slight disconnect from my religious/spiritual/questioning path that is Judaism and find myself feeling more generically religious -- because many non-Jewish writings take me wonderful new places.  My language about faith changes but not my commitment to being a Jew. Then, as always, I return. Judaism, as I know and love it, is my language of faith.

I came of age in the 60's when not just politics, but religion too, exploded with new ideas and more importantly, new questions. The time was transformative, and in retrospect, was probably the most religious time of my life.Political activism in the 60's found its soul among clergy of all faiths, and people were able to talk about what God/the Other wanted from us whether they were Muslim, Christian or Jew.  We had common cause and the chutzpah to think we had been "called" to change the world.  This was an opportunity to heal the world as partners who had  distinct and different God ideas.  Many of us shared joy at our found common ground as well as developing an appreciation of our differences. It was a complicated and amazing world where no one was the stranger. When I was growing up the religious community was at the forefront of change. Whether Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Jew, people of faith were leading us on holy paths. There were so many things to fix... and so many risks taken to fix them.

I saw people of faith risk their lives for the civil rights movement. The movement grew from the courage of southern Black churches spreading the reality of how so many of our own American citizens were being treated as literally second class.  These moral calls for justice were finally heard, and they inspired people across the country to take a stand, together, to end one of the most horrific legal and moral nightmares in our history. The Freedom Summer -- and the Freedom Riders -- who endured beatings and jail and for some, death -- were modeling a Gandhi-like path that required strong belief, a shared cry for freedom, no matter how it was framed. To integrate the south -- to register voters -- to stand in solidarity with people who actually knew the difference between right and wrong -- began an almost twenty year battle to move Americans to a better and more ethical place.  We shared paths.  We learned each others ways. We sang each others songs.

There is no way to measure what the impact of television images did for the movement. All of a sudden, as we comfortably sat around the evening news, there were  fire hoses and police dogs being used against children, right there in front of us. This was America -- the land of the free...the home of the brave. This was, for many, our first real encounter with the ugly story of American racism. We could hear voices shouting bleeped out words -- see adults punching children for trying to go to school -- and the police were the bad guys. This was more than forty years ago but I can still remember my disbelief and my grief.  There is no way to know what our country would have become if "separate but equal" was still the law of the land. Proudly, I think the people of faith who were brave enough to sing We Shall Overcome as the police hauled them off to jail, gave us a new purpose. This was the path of civil disobedience.  This was the path of making faith an inspiration to action. This was a path that asked us to be in the moment because the moment called us all. It was a shared American path. We were looking to heal America because it was our country and we each have a responsibility to fix it. We had questions about our moral/ethical/spiritual lives as well. We were seeking answers to all the questions we all ask...the why's, the how's and the what's. We needed answers from somewhere and suddenly religion became the answer -- even if some of the answers were in complete conflict with each other and some were just wrong. And we read and shared everything in those days...and religious writing and poetry allowed us to say yes or no in the quiet moments. The power of being searchers created new ideas and new ways to be. There was so much energy in the movements...whether it was civil rights, the women's movement or the anti-war movement. People were there for each other and the greater good.

So we looked at a far larger menu to find answers then before... and lo and behold I found myself picking and choosing as well. A little Buddhism, a little Jewish Orthodoxy, but only as taught by the Ba'al Shem Tov, some quality peace stuff from Christianity, a little non-denominational poetry and at my core the practice and language of Judaism.

Right now I feel some urgency to stand up again for religion...not the traditions but the simple rules and truths they give us. We are commanded to be kind to the stranger. We are commanded to not put obstacles before the blind. We are commanded to be holy. Yet what I see from far too many people who declare themselves religious, has nothing to do with their souls -- but way too much to do with mine. Pay attention, please...another call may be coming in to save our inner selves.

Soon it will be the month of Elul. This is the month prior to the High Holy Days when we begin our self-assessment before the gates metaphorically close on Yom Kippur.  I know that there isn't a ledger of my sins (a childhood belief I struggled to abandon) but I know that there is more available to my practice then what I have done lately. I know that our country is struggling to redefine itself. I know that the schism between people of tolerance and people who see only one path is growing and that is a bad thing for our country. I don't yet know what I can do about it, but Elul is a great time to struggle to find some answers.

I invite you in to the struggle as well. As a nation we have become less. We are allowing people who are unable to understand the goals of our founders to redefine what these brilliant thinkers created. We are stumbling on our old paths and unwilling to try new ones. We need to ask more of ourselves.

Welcome back to my busy mind...

Still dreaming of peace,

Barbara

©Barbara Carr

Late June 2011

Dear friends,

As you might have figured out by now, I am a lover of words. I love poetry  I love a good essay whether it be Voltaire's or Anna Quindlen's. I find the complexity of an e.e. cummings poem a way to separate myself from the commonplace and wonder at the way his vision of the world changed me forever.  I love finding new poets who are drawing pictures with language that is powerful and new.  Nothing moves me in quite the same way.

I say this because a group of us were involved in a discussion about praying in the vernacular (English) as opposed to Hebrew (or Latin or Greek or whatever language your religion requires). We have very few prayers that we say in English but we are still asked to be intentional in our Hebrew conversation with the Other by chanting words we know how to pronounce but don't understand. We frequently know what the prayer is intended to do -- but still we find ourselves unable to make the words work. Even when we decide to carefully read the "translation" -- the words too often evoke a sense of history and ancient approaches to God that speak to our past, but not our present. This is true, I'm sorry to say, even in the Reconstructionist prayer book -- although as I've said before, the below the line commentary in the Kol Haneshemah series is the best I've ever seen.

I have had this discussion with numerous rabbis, educators and lay people. I find that the first response from the pro-Hebrew prayer camp is that if we learned Hebrew we wouldn't feel so disconnected from the prayer book. The number of people I know who actually understand ancient Hebrew, much less the few prayers in Aramaic, is very small. I am able to understand key words in Hebrew -- and many have fascinating origins -- but I am mostly sounding things out and not taking them in. However, most of the prayers, even when translated, are far too often out of our comfort zone. Certainly the Shema and its surrounding blessings have resonance -- both as mantras and as statements about what Judaism demands of us at its core. The Amidah, on the other hand, which is so critical to our ritual it is called simply The Prayer still carries ancient baggage in its translation that I do not relate to at all. If I ruled the world, as Judith Viorst's book put it so simply, I would frankly dump the current Amidah and come up with something that meets my criteria for words powerful enough to be called The Prayer.  (I'd also make it shorter.)

Then there are those who know the prayers through repetition, not understanding the words but feeling them. They cling to our history -- not our future. They aren't hypocrites - they just are connected to their Judaism through tradition. They also were probably told, as I was, that you can walk into any synagogue in the world and pray because Hebrew is the universal language of prayer. When I was a child I thought that was amazingly cool. As an adult, that's not enough of a justification for having a meaningful conversation/prayer experience. It is a justification, instead, for the vision of a temporary  diaspora. On some level, there is still the dream of returning to Jerusalem, and if we're all still praying the same prayers, we will reconnect with our international community more easily. This is a post-World War II mindset that still believes we are only in our current countries  because we haven't yet "returned."  As you can imagine, that position doesn't work for me at all.

There are many new prayer books filled with supplemental readings and prayers that are powerful and important to our understanding of modern Jewish life. They are too often in the back of the book and many people don't even know they exist. There are alternative versions of key prayers that speak to the essence of the ancient Hebrew prayers while moving us in modern ways that make sense. Rabbi Rami Shapiro has transformed many key prayers into language that gives us "aha" moments that Hebrew doesn't offer. He has written a Shabbat evening prayer book that combines English and Hebrew prayer that to me may be the first step in finding words that work. How can we be honest in our reflections when we are using words that are familiar but in reality are unknown to us. Nuance of language makes all the difference. Mantras are very important -- but we are intended to do more than meditate on the words of the Shema. Our service tells our story -- our history - our teachings - and few of us leave services with that awareness. 

It is a hot button issue for many of us. What would we teach our children if we dropped Hebrew from the curriculum? How would it feel to remove the hypocrisy of a Bar/Bat Mitzvah supposedly chanting Hebrew but who is in reality reading transliteration? Even if the young person can read the words, few know what they're saying. How much more meaningful it would be for a 13 year old to lead a service, read from Torah and commit to their religious community in words that resonate for all of us, including the adolescent standing on the bima? These are tough questions but they need to be part of our conversation without repeating again and again that our obligations to our ancestors are the reason for it all. Our obligations are to God -- to our family -- and to our path to spiritual understanding -- and how we fulfill those needs requires an honest appraisal of what helps us on that journey.

The following version of the Shema by Rami Shapiro in his siddur, Words of Fire, is certainly a start:

Listen, Israel, listen!
Still the mind's chatter, quiet the heart's desire.
The rush of life flows through me.
The heart of eternity beats in my own chest.  Listen.
I am the fingers of a divine and infinite hand.
I am the thoughts of a divine and infinite mind.
There is only one reality.
The Singular Source and Substance
of all diversity. 
This one alone is God.
Shema Yisrael Adonai eloheinu Adonai echad.
Baruch sheim k'vod malchuto l'olam va'ed.
Blessed is the One who manifests the Many.

As I do every year, I take the month of July as my "down time," so I try to leave you at the end of June with something to think about and discuss, either internally or with friends. This year I ask you to think about my urge for words that work as I speak to God -- and as you speak to whatever Other you may have in your lives. Find your connections. Evaluate what matters to you and what matters to our future. You may surprise yourself with the ideas you come  up with...

And I am still dreaming of peace....

I'll be back in August....

Barbara

©Barbara Carr

Early June 2011

Dear friends,

Now that I am no longer employed as a Jewish educator, I find myself having more internal debates about how to answer questions about Judaism in ways that are both honest and ethical. The traditional teaching (and I don't mean teachings from the traditional movements, but the way Judaism is taught)  seems to me to have a structural underpinning that is a little shaky for  seekers today. This feeling  overwhelmed me recently when a friend began to talk with me about unanswered questions regarding the Ten Commandments. These are powerful and all-encompassing values that were supposed to have been given to Moses and the people Israel a little less than two months after they left Egypt. This is perhaps the most sacred moment in Torah. It certainly is the most dramatic. 

But as I was talking about them to my friend I found myself having to add my own commentary. Sinai and its unanswered questions were so complex and confusing and also essential in the development of Judaism, I found myself rambling on about  all the various things we are told about this time. The waiting and the story itself are full of contradictory things, confusing things, and rational and irrational things. The time, the culture, the context are all part of why and how the Sinai experience is so powerful. Out of context, the event is either too childish in its teaching or raises too many questions to teach in isolation. 

What first puzzled me in my adult study was the basic question about ethical monotheism versus Judaism. If Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are the patriarchs of our people (and Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah our mothers) -- what did they believe? What was their religious practice? How did they get their instructions? Abraham and God had a powerful and unique relationship without guidelines or rules.  Only character, and the values that surround it, seems to be the the language used to identify our "leaders.” There were clearly rules in existence, but they were not the rules of Judaism. We were developing as a people (if Torah is telling us any historical truth) but we were not developing faith/religion. The encounters with the One God were limited to the few selected for leadership and it isn't until Sinai that the people actually encounter the Voice. Prior to that we had leadership, but not a life path.  

Then came Sinai, the Ten Commandments, and according to some, the whole Torah. Those three things turned our tribe into a people with a common belief system and rules that were said to be given by God and required of us if we wanted to be part of the people. In reality, the Torah was a document that was put together from oral history, story, and human interpretation. The text was written down and organized hundreds of years after it was supposed to have been given to us.

In a strange way our ancient texts do set the stage for the complexity of Judaism today. Our two other "holy"  books, the Mishnah and the Talmud, were the texts that created Judaism as the model we have today. The Mishnah was the first compilation of Rabbinic laws that developed in order to take the oral story that evolved into Torah and turn it into the "rules" that were found within it. The Mishnah was edited around 200 C.E. and except for the section Pirke Avot, the Sayings of the Fathers, it is considered halachic, or legal. It grew out of the Oral Law -- the repetition of our story and our commandments that had been passed down from generation to generation.

The Talmud became the culminating text. It is considered the final holy book -- the one that has both the questions and the answers. Talmud means "learning" as opposed to Torah which means "teaching," and the study of Talmud is a lifework. This is a book containing the discussions of the rabbis around the meaning of the Mishnah. In other words, when you read Talmud you are being given the opportunity to read the discussions (and arguments) about the meaning of our story -- our laws -- our way of being Jews. The Talmud was written in exile. It's good to remember the stressors of the time.   

Most important for me, the Talmud shows that there are no absolute truths in Torah. The arguments among the various schools of thought about what is meant by this commandment or that behavior are delightful, although often difficult to follow. The Talmudic debates are critical to my belief that we all have permission to rethink what was delivered to us on Sinai. The debates tell me that even in the third century C.E. our religious teachers were not literalists. Because of that conviction, I believe Judaism has survived to this day, but we must not fail in our responsibility to keep the conversation going. If Torah isn't taught as story but as history, if the Mishnah and the Talmud open up our behavior to questions without answers, we will never get settled in to our Judaism.

The commandments evolve. The reality of today demands modification of yesterday. Yet for many who have yet to see this pattern, Judaism can be stagnant and frankly, boring. Our prayers are from a time we do not know. Our life rules are confusing and for many, either irrelevant or without any religious power. But they still are considered Jewish practice and for many, the way to fulfill our responsibilities as Jews. Evolution of practice has occurred in bits and pieces since the destruction of the Temple and the liturgical changes that required soon followed. We didn't have to stop.                

I still wait for a way to be religious Jewishly that doesn't require me to follow rules that I both understand and reject. I cannot be a literalist about a lifestyle developed thousands of years ago. I am comfortable with the intentions of the practice, but often not the practices themselves. I need to speak my faith in a language I understand, in the world I live in today, and with respect for our history but hunger for a path I can follow with integrity today. 

I once again say comfortably that I am Israel (Jacob in transition -- not the country). I struggle -- and I will take that as the gift Judaism has presented to me. The vastness of time leaves us room for the search.  

Still dreaming of peace,

Barbara

©Barbara Carr

Late May 2011

Dear friends,

Life changes.  Another cliché that is also a truism. Almost two weeks ago we brought home an 8 week old lab puppy.  For those of you who have been reading my letters for a long time, you know we are "lab people" but after our last dog died we waited a long time to get another. In the time since we've had the puppy, our lives have turned upside down.  However, we're smiling as we find ourselves recovering "stolen" shoes -- trying to keep the puppy from eating my favorite rocking chair -- and sharing the sheer joy that a puppy can bring into our lives. 

I'm not writing this to fill in my biography -- but to talk about the importance of finding that silly joy that some things can bring into our lives. Puppies are high on the list. I realized that one of the things we lose as we mature is the appreciation of silliness.  I don't know whether it's because we just have too much serious work to do as adults or if we suppress the appreciation of silliness because it seems immature.  What I do know is that I've missed it and need to find ways to bring it back into my life.

There are hundreds of ways to find joy -- the overarching feeling of pleasure, love, contentment and peace that we seek in so many ways. Joy is found in both the serious moments of life, when you look at a loved one and feel the rush of gratitude that they are in our lives or when you watch a child on a swing knowing she can touch the sky. Joy happens with awareness. It happens when you open yourself to the moment and find it rich and powerful and worthy of your attention.  Laughter at the stupid joke someone tells or the puppy chewing away at the sock treasure she has found or even a road sign that requires a second look (in Sedona on a small side street is a road sign that says "Speed Hump", on a path at the Oregon coast is a "Caution Pedestrains") are unexpected gifts. I've decided that laughter is a part of our emotional well-being that we too often ignore.

I've spent a lot of time working on the joy thing but have slowly come to realize that laughter is difficult to consciously seek .  I do a lot of reading to get prompts to write these letters to you. Prayer books, commentaries, philosophy, inspirational reading all feed the joy part of my life. Stories that touch me, make me smile, and most importantly,  teach me - rarely make me laugh. They enrich my life - but it is no t enough.  It's taken me a long time to realize that and also to realize that religion doesn't much care about laughter.  Blessings are most often about gratitude and joy.  Prayers are inspirational (sometimes) and acknowledge the glories of the world around us - but don't make us laugh.  Even the great Chasidic stories which often have a touch of humor are more committed to the lesson then the laugh.  But laughter heals in a way that nothing else does. It's almost as if when you laugh you exhale the dark and inhale the light.  You feel it in your body in a way that nothing else can make you feel. 

I sometimes regret that I present as a fairly serious person.  I know some people who just are walking smiles. They make me feel better just by being around them. I have no idea if they know the gift they bring or not. I just know that I see them as gifts.  But because I seem serious to so many people, the general approach to me is serious as well.  People want to talk to me about faith and values and the meaning of life -- all of which are important and are things I have spent a lot of time studying. I want to be also seen as someone who wants to laugh as well. When I was younger, being an well-read, being a mentor, seeming wise were my personal goals. I loved being a teacher -- mostly because it demanded that I learn.  Now, however, I feel as if the checklist of my life is in pretty good shape except for the silly part.  I'm just starting to learn how to do that and feel that and maybe even teach that by sharing my search with others.

The late Norman Cousins, who was editor of the magazine Psychology Today, was the first person I knew of who believed that laughter could heal. I'm ignoring Reader's Digest's "laughter is the best medicine" jokes. The intellectual snob in me makes Norman Cousins the better source. I don't know if laughter heals -- but it certainly makes getting through the rough spots a lot easier. I know that when I spend time with someone who makes me laugh or feel silly or want to do something fun for the sheer pleasure of the experience, for that brief time I am a different person and that person is someone I'm coming to like a lot.  A sense of humor may be our real sixth sense. It allows us to not take ourselves too seriously. It allows us to take a break from the seriousness of living a life that sometimes weighs us down. It reminds us that it's not all about the cosmic -- but is also about the puppy chasing a butterfly.

So I want you to try and let that part of yourself out in the open for a little bit.  It doesn't matter how dark you may feel right now - open yourself to the possibility that irrelevant humor makes you feel good. One of the ways I do that is to make choices to put myself in a position where laughter may be possible. I only read books with happy endings  I won't watch a movie with children or animals at risk.  I try to bring people into my life who do make me laugh. My podcast list is full of commentary that at least makes me smile. I no longer read the Padres coverage. I defend all these choices based on the fact that I'm a grown up and I can do what I want.

No matter what is going on in your lives, laughter -- light and spontaneous -- is one of the best feelings you can have.  And I will close with the only joke I can remember -- it is stupid and makes no sense which is probably why I remember it. My college roommate told it to me many years ago and if you laugh...well, you'll be in a very elite and very small minority.

So the question is:  What's the difference between a duck?  






And the answer is: One of its feet are both the same.  

but I am still...

dreaming of peace,

Barbara

©Barbara Carr

Early May 2011

Dear friends,

A very unusual confluence of event has occurred in my life and it caused me to wonder about all the clichés (or alternatively, truisms)  that we use to figure out things occurring in our life that we don't understand. We always want answers. Even more,  we want proof from a "reliable source" which is why cliché and truism are used interchangeably.  One person's reliable source is usually not someone else's.

The triggering circumstances that started this thought process were a) the decision to buy a new labrador  who will be brought home this week at the ripe old age of 8 weeks;  b) the decision by one son and his significant other to purchase an australian shepherd puppy who will be slightly older and probably a little more energetic than our puppy -- but he's adorable. Meanwhile, on the east coast  c) my other son and his significant other purchased a small condo acceptable puppy at approximately the same time.  Now the odds on these three puppies becoming family members (without any real discussion but at the same time) must be astronomical.

To be frank, I just think that's peculiar, I don't believe that it happens a lot and so it doesn't fall into the category of "truism." I've never heard of a whole family spontaneously purchasing dogs during the same month but we did it. This allows me to say therefore, that coincidence exists in my universe. Other unusual things happen as well, though, and with hindsight, they do not appear to be coincidence - they are life altering and need more weight. These experiences or teachings change us in ways that coincidence does not.   So I offer up the following for you to explore for yourselves.
Now, these are some of my truisms which may not work for you...  but they work for me.

a) You get what you give.  Now this certainly doesn't mean you get exactly what you give. If you volunteer at your child's elementary school, there is no way to have exactly that be given back to you. But by doing this kind of mitzvah, friendships are formed - children see that you take their education seriously - you learn how the system works...  I'm sure you get my point. Something does come back to you and makes your life different.

b) Life is what happens when you're making other plans. With a tip of my hat to John Lennon, this truism echoes in my mind endlessly. Once I got past the princess fantasy stage (about age 8) as a relatively normal girl I moved on to prince charming and then of course to weddings. The marriage part -- all the time after the wedding - was for later fantasies.  I knew I was going to be a lawyer -- work in government -- and save the world. Prince Charming became a vague partner who would support me and that was the extent of my awareness of him. However, I did work in government for a while (and I married my Prince Charming) but the rest of my plans changed dramatically. Life happened. It happened in wonderful ways and in quite terrible ways. Plans made no difference. They were fun to make but they were never guaranteed. This truism has a taste of irony - but so does life.

c) God answers our prayers.  This is a tough one because I know the incredible desire to turn to someone or something to fix us or help someone we love or change something we can't change alone.

Dear friends of mine once had a sign on their refrigerator that said something like "God always answers our prayers, but sometimes the answer is no." I used that in class all the time.  I also use it internally as well.

I also turn to some truisms that actually are quotes, but have withstood my scrutiny and are keepers.

d) "We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are." -Anais Nin. Well, of course, I said to myself as I read that - but all of a sudden a rush of frustration hit me. The media is a perfect example. Rachel Madow tells the truth and Glenn Beck doesn't. A truism - but only for me and like-minded progressives.  However, too many of us are unable to really evaluate our source material, whether it be from Torah or Tina Fey. We are too set on things being the way we are comfortable and it's incredibly important that we make intellectual room (and emotional room) for people and ideas that push our buttons. This doesn't mean that we need to embrace hate speech or violations of the first amendment...but there is sound reasoning behind the ACLU defending those who would see them run out of town.  I'm a card carrying member of the ACLU and I have often felt the godliness of their actions - especially when they defend that which I find reprehensible.
 
e) Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."  - Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy. We find truisms of this type everywhere.  Tolstoy is simply reminding us of our responsibility to heal the world by stepping up and doing it -- even if it requires changing ourselves. A brief Torah reminder that goes along with this - You shall be holy because I, your God, am holy.  When we are told we are created in the divine image -- we are being told that is a gift that we are given to fulfill. We must change ourselves to complete the task of world healing.
 
f) "True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness."- Albert Einstein. Undeniably true although difficult to accomplish.  To feel the sense of weightlessness of heart which creeps up on us unexpectedly is when we have another hokey pokey moment. We're putting our whole selves in.
 
g) "Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it." - Buddha  This sounds very much like our Reconstructionist process and I find that another coincidence but also profoundly true and it's nice to have my truisms end with the Buddha.

So have some fun finding those quotes and sayings that enrich your lives. Think about what we take for granted. Think about the gifts we are given. Smile at the coincidence and absorb the teachings that last. Most of all, do something that will change a tiny bit of the world and feel how wonderful that is.
 
Still dreaming of peace,

Barbara
 
©Barbara Carr

Late April 201

Dear friends,

Once again we are caught up in the contemporary religious conflict of history versus inspiration.  We have celebrated our liberation from slavery and if the Torah is history (even oral history which is always shaded), we are now trekking across the north African desert heading towards the promised land.  We are still untutored in the ways of Judaism, we are still a people of the "One God," but we have no why answers, just a belief that the way Moses is leading us is the way we should go.  Many leave Egypt with the simple understanding that anything is better than slavery. No one (not even Moses) is sure of what lies ahead. Our ancestors are taking the big leap -- the faith leap -- but not  for faith in God but for faith in the journey.

The people Israel will follow Moses for forty years before they get to the Promised Land but according to our "history" the first fifty  days are truly the most important. According to Torah, this is the time between our redemption and our revelation.  On the 50th day (starting with the second day of Pesach) Moses and the people receive the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai.  The 50th day is the holiday of Shavuot -- the day we accept the gift of Torah from God.  This is the only time that God "speaks" directly to all the people. This is the moment.

Now, in reality, the Ten Commandments are not the whole Torah, although some ancient scholars say when Moses went back up the mountain for his forty day conversation with God, he got the other teachings...but that is a fairly unlikely proposition. One can see the Ten Commandments being given, or inspired, or figured out - but having the story of the future - of the forty years that lie ahead -- seems unlikely.  Scholars still argue about that today. Some say Moses just got the ten statements (not commandments -- that idea came later) -- others say he got all 613 mitzvot listed in Torah -- still others say he got the book of Genesis so he could connect  the people to their history. Frankly, that's the least important question about the Sinai story for me.

So as a given, the story is parable. Once again we are challenged to find a contemporary place to stand as we acknowledge what is so critical to the development of Judaism -- the creation of ethical monotheism. We celebrate the fifty days with an ancient ritual called "Counting the Omer" so we can keep track of how many days we must wait for revelation. The Omer were sheaves of barley taken as gifts to the Temple in Jerusalem. Its ritual was a constant reminder of the passage of time -- of anticipation. We know what's coming, but as with the Passover celebration, the giving of the Torah on Shavuot is supposed to be felt by us today as our own personal revelation...that we are at the base of the mountain awaiting the return of Moses. We are not even sure he will return, but we have put our complete trust in him.  We trust him to show us where to go...to help us survive...and to act as the interpreter of what is going on while we grumble about food and uncertainty and the need for some proof that the invisible God is real.

Our revelation will come with tablets of stone and ten simple rules. But now, before Sinai, we are redeemed but still unsure as to why. We have been freed but we don't know what is next. All that being an Israelite means to the people is suffering. There is no real Jewish practice. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are long gone and their relationship with God is lost in the mists of time. Only Moses and Aaron carry belief along with a sense of purpose. 

As contemporary Jews we once again have to struggle with a ritual designed to celebrate both an historical and religious event.  We once again may feel that this Omer thing has no validity for modern practice. Fifty days of preparation for revelation is not such a bad thing, however. Opening ourselves to anticipation is another way of paying attention. We don't need to believe in the literal truth of the journey but we know that a journey is required of us all. We can't find truth (whatever that means for us) without effort. We all make wrong turns and we all wish we had a map (or a gps with a sweeter voice).  

The counting of the Omer is one of the brilliant connections in Torah. It definitively joins our redemption and revelation. It makes sure we know that there is some kind of truth awaiting us all when we complete this stage of our journey. 

For most of us, revelation is a gift that takes far more than fifty  days and it is sometimes more a process than a single event. Little bits unfold for us as we struggle with who we are and what we believe. Sometimes we even change our minds -- deciding we need to rethink what we once knew as truth. The revelation on Sinai is different.  In a way it is totally impersonal because it is designed as "one size fits all".  It sets a standard.  It sets a high bar. What we do with it, however, is totally up to us. It gives us the struggle. That to me is the best part of Jewish practice as a progressive.  

I am Israel -- the one who struggles with God -- and struggles with all the people who seem to know without hesitation what is truth - and struggles with all who say that the divine parable is divine truth. So when I am counting off the days until revelation, I am always anticipating an unknown. I am ready to accept my/our gift with the sincerity with which it is given and accept the struggle as the most important part of the gift. I hope you can share that with me. 

Still dreaming of peace,

Barbara
© Barbara Carr

Early April 2011

Dear Friends,

With Passover fast approaching, which is the most celebrated of Jewish holidays, I thought I would share some thoughts on the holiday.  Although this is a Jewish holiday, it has a universal message of freedom and redemption that has been adopted by almost all oppressed people around the world.  I have modified our personal seder over the years, but it is important that we understand why we are making changes. Some parts are just necessary to tell the story with an honest connection to its roots.  The way we can do that with integrity is to understand the history of the tradition and find where we can fit ourselves into the story and its surrounding rituals.

Judaism offers us two words to help us understand how we pray. The words are keva and kavanah.  Keva means the fixed order of ritual/prayer— it guarantees that blessings begin with the signature acknowledgment of God and conclude with an amen—a word that means, appropriately enough, “I agree with everything just said.”  Keva is what allows us to enter a synagogue anywhere in the world and know what is going on.  Keva is the underpinning for the far more individual kavanah — the intention with which we say and feel and comprehend why we are praying. Without that intention there is no real prayer.

The Passover seder is built on keva  — the seder plate, the matzah, the wine — all are the comforting repetitions we know so well. But the mitzvah (commandment) of Passover is not really about keva — it is about telling the story in ways we each can understand.

So as we enter into the festival, please try and open your hearts to the kavanah of this extraordinary telling — place yourselves in Egypt, whatever your Egypt may be — and re-live this story that not only is our history and our soul as a people, but also belongs to all humankind.

The following two readings are now part of our seder... and I share them with you as a way to help trigger contemporary truths about our ancient stories:

I first encountered the following reading by Michael Walzer in the Reconstructionist prayerbook Kol Haneshemah.  I have found myself using it, in various contexts, again and again.  If you aren't familiar with it, I hope it touches you as much as it touches me.

So pharaonic oppression, deliverance, Sinai, and Canaan are still with us, powerful memories shaping our perceptions of the political world.  The “door of hope” is still open; things are not what they might be — even when what they might be isn’t totally different from what they are. We still believe, or many of us do, what the Exodus first taught, or what it has commonly been taken to teach, about the meaning and possibility of politics and about its proper form:

• first, that wherever you live, it is probably Egypt;
  
• second, that there is a better place, a world more attractive, a promised land;
  
• and third, that “the way to the land is through the wilderness.” There is no way to get from here to there except by joining together and marching.

Last year we added the following reading at the time of dipping the parsley into salt water. It acknowledges the truth that we are a people who have partners and friends from all faiths and backgrounds and they are now as much a part of our seder ritual as those who grew up in the tradition.

This was written by Rabbi Geela Rayzel Raphael <http://tiny.cc/interfaithreading>

We take this time to honor others who travel with us from other faiths and cultural traditions. We acknowledge the fact that they bring a new perspective to our lives and a legacy of their own that enriches ours.  We are grateful for the growth that we have experienced because they are in our lives.

As a plant bursts forth with new energy to bloom, so too we recognize that at this time of Jewish history we are blossoming in different ways.  As the garden needs tending so, too, do our relationships with spouses, in-laws and families of other traditions.  Weeding out all that is not necessary and loving, we make room for fresh insight and respect.  Welcome those who sit around this table for the first time or the twentieth, bringing new understanding to our discussion.

And with that, I close with a wish for all of us to have a joyous Pesach - to find your place on the road to freedom, and to spare a moment of prayer for those who are suffering around the world and are in desperate need.  We identify.

Still dreaming of peace,

Barbara

© Barbara Carr

Late March 2011

Dear friends,

I've been thinking a lot about the core values of our various approaches to Judaism and the diverse ways we've come to live them. What has been even more demanding for me now is learning the distinction, as the hokey pokey says, between putting your whole self in or your whole self out.  I realize that most of us are somewhere in between – but we usually have some things we put our whole selves into.  One of the things that Michael and I have put our whole selves into for almost 30 years is having a Passover Seder with a group that has grown from 6 people to 32 (with a waiting list).  It is a phenomenal amount of work - but it would leave a gigantic hole in my heart if we ever stopped. Upon reflection, I realize that my attitude towards my understanding of what it means to be a Jew can be found on almost every page of our Haggadah, the book that guides our Passover service.

I grew up in a home that had the intellectual integrity to use Mordecai Kaplan's The New Haggadah almost as soon as it was published. Unfortunately, we also had the usual chaos of too many1950's and early '60's seders – a children's table where behavior was not intimidated by our dress-up clothes – and an adult table that unfortunately seemed to bore easily.  So, as is often the case, I knew how I didn't want the Seder in our home to happen. Rather than worrying about how to keep everyone quiet we chose to edit  the book in order to keep its content substantive – to fulfill the command to "tell the story" – and to figure out what exactly that meant to us. The changes forced attention to be paid.

Our first round of guests included our family and a few Jewish friends who didn't have family in town. It was lovely and everyone contributed food while I took on the ritual stuff and Michael moved furniture, helped wherever he could and learned the ritual quickly – we've co-led the service for years.  Slowly, we added other friends and family until now responsibility belongs to all of us.  Without that attitude, our Seder wouldn't be what it is. For example, a few friends come early since we basically take all our furniture out of the living and dining rooms – they help us set up rented tables and chairs in a giant  L and we're off – friends bring flowers for the table the day before and we fill a dozen vases with spring. Another friend comes and fills all the tiny dishes with horseradish, salt water, parsley... well, i  hope you have the picture. And then, it begins. Each guest brings a piece of the main meal (I do the ritual parts, still) and even though some people only see each other once a year, on Pesach, it is a "family reunion"...We also still use the old Kaplan Haggadah.  He probably wouldn't recognize it but I like to think he would approve. My first brave action was to change the gender specific language to gender neutral. Every once in a while as someone is reading they'll come across a "he" without "or she" and they just automatically change it without skipping a beat. I love that sense of ownership and comfort that implies. Then I started paper clipping supplemental readings into the book. Another year I realized that many of our guests weren't exactly up on the blessing for parsley... so i wrote out transliterations and translations of all the blessings we said together. Then there were some parts I realized I didn't like very much – so while leaving the story intact I arbitrarily dumped the four sons (as well as some other parts that didn't impact "the story"). These editing choices were always guided by the command that all at the table understand the telling of this foundation myth that powers who we are and what values we share.

I was very excited a number of years ago when Behrman House Publishing put out The New American Haggadah, which was a revision of the Kaplan original.  (In the meanwhile, the Reconstructionist Movement was publishing its own wonderful but very different Haggadah called A Night of Questions. I studied them both and ended up not buying either, but sticking to the Kaplan original. What made the difference for me, strangely enough, is the original ends with the singing of America – the song shared by all who went through their own Egypt – mitzrayim – the narrow place – and found safety and a real homeland in the United States. It doesn't matter when you sing that song whether you came over on the Mayflower (fleeing religious persecution) or in the hold of an immigrant ship from Central Europe or Ireland or even in chains from Africa. America is what makes the story complete.  Passover is about freedom, about the courage to pick up and go.  We may not identify with the Israelites and Moses – but we know our families "arrival" stories and most of them make us shake our heads in wonder that our ancestors were brave enough and strong enough  to leave everything behind and begin again. And for me, that's the universal story, and Kaplan knew it.

The new Haggadot (pl. for Haggadah) have dropped the singing of America. The one we use, wine stained and often wrapped in a rubber band so the pages don't fall out, is Kaplan's. The man who believed that there could be a distinctly American Judaism and he left his mark on me and my Seder family. It's not over until we sing America. We tell the story, we eat the ritual foods, we say the blessings – there is no lack of religious and spiritual content. When the seder is over, however, all of us are aware of the fundamental truth that redemption, the point of the whole experience, continues  throughout all time. Yes, it is our tradition but it is a universal truth – and we add and subtract to allow us to feel as well as know that each of us, in our own way, is in search of that feeling. We seek paths to freedom. We seek ways to acknowledge that search.  We need to do it so that we feel it.  Without understanding, we are wasting our time.

So this year, find a poem or a prayer or a song that speaks to you about freedom now... about liberation now... about your own slavery and your own search for liberation. Tuck it in to your haggadah and see what a difference it makes. Kris Kristofferson has a great song called The Last Thing to Go.  For me that may be the celebration of getting through that narrow place into the promised land, however I choose to define it.  

Still dreaming of peace,

Barbara

©Barbara Carr

Early March 2011

Dear friends,

I want to write about prayer today.  The disaster in Japan was certainly a big part of my motivation.  We pray for those who have died, those who have lost loved ones, and those who are still alive but trapped, waiting for rescue.  We turn to prayer in times of stress as well as in times of great joy.  Religious communities around the world  are leading special prayer services for the people of Japan.  We do this instinctively.  We respond , if we have the opportunity, with words of comfort and support.  Those words are prayers. We use prayer  in many ways but at this catastrophic time the words of Abraham Joshua Heschel help me get in touch with  my inner voice:  "The focus of prayer is not the self...  It is the momentary disregard of our personal concerns, the absence of self-centered thoughts, which constitute the art of prayer..."

When we pray there is always more going on than what we say.  When we pray, we know that on some level it is about being better, more holy, more present.  However, when we make the transition from what may seem like an unfocused series of words to real prayer language, it only becomes clear if you know where your words/thoughts are being focused.  A prayer is a call to something or someone.  It doesn't just fly out of your mouth and hover around.  Focus gives it power.

That may seem strange because our spontaneous prayers often come from a personal need... let me be well, help me be strong, let me find true friends...  but the entity that we are talking to is not a magic genie in a lantern - it is the source of guidance, the giver of many paths and the guide to the way that may work.  There is no abracadabra in this story - not for us nor the people in Japan.   Creating the answer to our prayers requires us to focus in dozens of ways.

So many of us struggle with the idea of talking to God in a ritualized way (and to write a prayer?  oy gevalt).  It's especially difficult for those of us who aren't even sure there is a God.  I have always felt (my personal opinion) that it is close to impossible to utter a prayer of any sort if you don't have a little bit of faith that there's a point to it all.  To say words that are clearly directed to an Other and still think the Other doesn't exist must create an emotional and spiritual whirlpool of doubt.  That doubt leads to the defensive response of many Jews that we don't have to believe in God to be Jewish.  I have always been puzzled by that statement since without God there is no Jewish story to hang on to, or learn from or to cherish.  There is also no focus for our prayers.

So, with the assumption that prayer requires at least a two way conversation, what do we do if we don't believe there is a Power that makes for salvation?  Where do we send our words when we say them?  Who or What are we talking to and most importantly, if we don't believe there is a Who or What, why even bother to have the conversation at all?  What is the need that generates prayer?  Why is prayer a part of so many cultures?  The agnostic would say it is an anodyne for the needy.  We all want answers to profound questions, and a God idea allows us to ask for some answers, both in private and public.  I also find that far from dulling my edges, a sense of the Other keeps me on my toes, alert and ready for ... well whatever comes at me.

The great problem for most of us is that forming a God idea happens too early in our lives and we rarely push ourselves to let the Other grow up with us.  I smile as I write that because the childhood imagery of the Other is much like that guy on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome.  He (definitely he) is an old guy.  He is fully grown and he clearly has the physicality of a human.  However, that God image is for the child in us.  That God image is our grandfather with the power of a superhero.  That God image makes children feel secure and adults feel dissatisfied.  But if we look at the Torah, God manifests as fire and smoke.  Nowhere in Torah are we told that God looks like man.  We are told that we are created in God's image - but that is not necessarily our physical selves.  We are all potentially godly... and that is what those words in Genesis  mean to me.  I am created in God's image but I am not completed.  That part is up to me and prayer is the tutorial I'm taking to work on that part.

So I pray for the people of Japan to recover quickly... to mourn deeply... to heal rapidly... to feel the strength of heart that is being sent to them from all over the world... and to know that they are not alone.

Still dreaming of peace,

Barbara

Late February 2011

Dear friends,

I've been struggling with my relationship to Judaism lately, and I think it is only fair to share some of  it - since writing about things like this help me clarify my own position and sometimes it works for you, too.  Over the years I've found myself asking again and again, where are the new Jewish teachers?  Where are the changers?  Where are the people who can make Judaism a path that speaks to today as well as yesterday?  Who is in charge and how can change happen?

If you are familiar with the Reconstructionist Prayer book Series, Kol  Haneshemah, you probably know the expression "below the line".  In our siddurim (daily, Shabbat & festivals, and High Holy Days) there is a richness of commentary, explanation, poems and prayers - all designed to give us an entry into what we are doing - that often makes you want to go "aha" on a regular basis.  This all exists below a literal line on the page that separates "then" and "now".

The writings below the line are from some of the giants of our movement - but also  from poets and scholars and teachers who have something to say that helps explain what we're doing.  Some of the writings are by non-Jews, but it all enlightens and makes stronger our relationship to our liturgy.  I know some people who confess to never reading above the line during services because the contemporary commentary is much more meaningful.  I have been tempted over the years to do that, but I've yet to give up on some of our prayers that are old but still resonate with me.

I've taught our liturgy and I had to therefore learn a lot about it.  I also believe with all my heart Mordecai Kaplan's assertion that Judaism evolves.  If I look at our long ago history I see the evolution clearly.  I see Temple sacrifice turn into the Amidah.  I see the Torah service teaching us our history and values.  I see the Kaddish  comforting those in need.  I see the mystics of Sfat as we sing the Lecha Dodi and bring into our midst the feminine aspect of Shabbat.  I've learned about the Shechinah, the gentle, loving female power of God that equalizes some of the anti-female attitudes of our ancestors in terms of the role of women is ritual life.

I see the wonderful Chasids of Central Europe, especially the Ba'al Shem Tov, bringing story to our ritual, making us even more accepting of those who question.  In fact the role of the Chasidim of the 18th century had an enormous impact on Judaism, as a source of joy and openness and evolution about how we practice and what we believe.
Since that time, though, as formal movements were created with hierarchy's that made decisions for the rest of us, Judaism has begun to stagnate.  Once a formal structure is set up to "help" us, our individuality and our search becomes less relevant.  Part of it is because of the ability we now have to communicate with each other.  The mystics, the Chasidim, the teachers from the diaspora, were all working/creating on their own.  They were finding ways to worship that differed from the ancient ways while still preserving what worked for them.  Not everything they developed stuck.  Not every practice  they engaged in worked.  However, they modeled what I want to see now but wonder if it is impossible.

I want to know who will now poke at Judaism and acknowledge the static  practices we follow and have the capacity to move them (just a little).  I want to know who understands that new resources that move us must surface and allow us to find a new way "in".  I have had so many teachers who creatively  rewrite our prayers so that when I read them there is a sense of shared understanding.  I read Rami  Shapiro and Lawrence Kushner and Arthur Green and I want them to be in charge.  I don't want to pray with just the words, I want to pray with my heart.

I confess I often do that kind of praying while the chanting is going on around me.  I admit that I often am unable to pray in community because of my health, but despite the  rules that say you shouldn't do that, it works for me.  I also admit that my choice of prayers often come from outside the siddur - but always feel appropriately Jewish.
So I guess what I'm throwing out there for you to chew on is the question  I frequently struggle with:  What is this thing we call Judaism?  I know generally what it is for me but I'm not sure what it is for you.  I'm a total pro-faith kind of Jew and I need to believe (and do believe) in an Other and I love being challenged by the new kind of Jewish thinkers who deserve a place in our liturgy.

The first rabbi who broke the rote pattern of Jewish prayer for me always said that our prayer books should be in three ring binders so that we could add and subtract readings and prayers  as our spirits/souls/hearts needed.  I love the Kol Haneshemah series, but if I ruled the world, it would be unbound - with room for all the prayers I've discovered over the years that make my path more compelling.

I know that many of you find the unchanging ritual meaningful and powerful.  For you, a bound volume may suffice.  There is nothing wrong with that choice - it just isn't mine, despite having lived with it and loved it for many years.  But if I could sit at the feet of the Ba'al Shem Tov for just a day - telling him how the role of women has changed, so could he put a few girls in his stories... well, that's what I hope we all would want to do.  Choose well, and with knowledge of the why's, answers come.

Still dreaming (extra prayers) of peace,

Barbara

©Barbara R. Carr

Early February 2011

Dear friends,

We just got back from a week in Sedona, Arizona - one of our most favorite "feed our souls" destinations. We escape there often, in order to more easily search for our inner stillness, as well as to hike to the silent places that have an unmatched godly power for me.  I know that sounds a little over the top, but I  find it a place where talking to the Other is easier than in most other places  and hearing the still small voice within is almost a given.

I do have an issue now with spending money in Arizona, a state that has demonstrated its racial insensitivity often  - from their initial refusal to acknowledge the national holiday honoring Martin Luther King, jr. to their current policies on gun carrying and immigration.  That doesn't stop Sedona from being what it is for us.  The enormous intense red rock, the valleys that embrace you, the ancient cliff dwellings that leave you with more questions than answers,  and the sense that there is truly an unnamed power available to you, demands that you open yourself and receive whatever comes.  This power can take you away from the political and economic doom and gloom stories and surround you with beauty and for a time, forgetfulness.  It allows you both  the internal search and the internal silence that we too often ignore.  We become busier and noisier than we should be when we are going about our normal tasks - but in Sedona the noise within ebbs and you can hear and feel and see in a different way.

We stayed in a rental house with my cousins who had arranged to meet us there and we had no television and no newspaper.  We followed the news  only intermittently on our computers and so  the amazing people power being demonstrated in the Middle East came as somewhat of a shock to us.  While most of the world watched  regime changes taking place all around this amazingly important part of the world - we were both literally and figuratively somewhere else.

Being in a place like Sedona, where artists and old hippies and the wealthy retired live together with a vision of calm and quiet,  the issues of the Middle East surprisingly gnawed at me.  They gnawed not because it is extremely worrisome for Israel as these other countries try to find their new voices, but because the Western world fails to acknowledge frequently enough what we owe to Egypt for teaching us and giving us so much.  We ignore what was and only see what is.  We forget that they once were our teachers.

Before Moses, before Jesus, before Mohammed - the brilliant scientists and mathematicians of the fertile crescent were creating order, discovering mathematics  and  using physics to develop their unique architecture.   The Library at Alexandria was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.   This part of the world gave birth to some of the most important intellectual developments in human history.  Western civilization was born in north Africa in the same way that humans stood up and walked from Africa to populate the rest of the world.

Maybe it was the star filled skies of Sedona that are making me think on a grander scale, but we can't ignore the character that is developed from a country's history and its mythology.  We  are a young country with a lot of growing up still  to do.  We don't know enough world history (or even our own history) to look at what is going on in Egypt and see a people that for thousands of years gave birth to learning  far more than violence.  Unfortunately , they also, along with the other Middle Eastern countries, live in a place that  is a gatekeeper for east and west - and the Suez Canal is one of the most important pieces of real estate in the world.  Too often others have marched across their borders "to get to the other side" leaving death and destruction behind them.

So, today, back from Sedona and waiting to see how things unfold - I pray that we can resist getting involved and we let this play out the way the people of Egypt wish it to play out.  I want us to look backward and forward and then stand very still.  The cultures of the Middle East gave us a tremendous amount...  we need to give back by watching them teach us that regime change, when necessary, must always come from within.

Still dreaming of peace,

Barbara

©Barbara R. Carr

Late January 2011

Dear friends,

We've just returned from a visit to Miami Beach - staying with my son and his significant other (sorry, but English needs a new word for committed partners that isn't "girlfriend" or "boyfriend") which made me feel both thrilled and poignant. It's been 34 years since I've been to Miami and I was just about my son's age when we were there last. The time together was wonderful  but it made me unusually reflective about my age and how quickly both cultural and personal change can take place.

I tried very hard to not draw comparisons - to not remember what it was like to stay with my grandparents every winter vacation - to eat deli food and swim in December and fly back and forth with my sister while the flight attendants fussed over us. It was a time of genteel travel...of matching shoes and purses...of life being organized for me. This trip was totally different. I was there to see my family, not to be pampered by my grandparents. I was there to learn about the new Miami - the sophisticated multi-cultural city that was nothing like the city I remembered. Times and places change and seeing it through the eyes of my son made it his city now - not my vacation destination.

What I struggled with was my own need for the "awe-some" place. Certainly there were moments - we were on the 19th floor with water on both sides and glass walls from floor to ceiling.  One morning Michael was on the balcony and next to him, hovering in the wind, not more than 10 feet away, was a black vulture, just hanging there in the air, checking out the human who was watching. It was a "wow" moment rather than a shehecheyanu (thanks God or whatever makes for salvation) moment.  I didn't have enough time to let the bird's unique presence fill me. I'm sorry about that.

We took an airboat through the Everglades and the birds were amazing - as were the alligators. Alligators are my number one animal nightmare and there I was, taking pictures that I can't imagine living with, but took because I could. The gratitude I found was the confidence our guide had that we wouldn't be eaten. Frankly, I might have preferred not seeing them gliding so close to the boat, with their eyes and snouts out of the water. Their eyes are hypnotic.

We saw sand cranes and ibis and a magnificent great blue heron.  We had lunch in the Keys and watched pelicans clustered around fishing boats, hoping for the best. The awe-some moments were over too soon though. Birds fly away. Boats sail away.  Everything was in motion, including my life as I looked at my 31 year old son and felt the speed of time.

I've come to realize, as I get older, that my priorities have changed.  I am more in need of what Michael and I often call "recovery time" and I've been blessed with  places that are beautiful and still and full of the presence of the Other where recovery happens quickly. I realized how distinct my needs as an individual versus my needs as mother/family member/guest have become. I want to see both my sons happy and living lives that satisfy them. The line "you are only as happy as your saddest child" is true no matter their age. I am blessed  that so far they have allowed me real happiness by making lives for themselves that work most of the time. The importance of being in touch with my own joy as well as my family's  has pushed on me for years and now, as I feel my age becoming an overt part of my daily life, I am also more aware of what heals me and it can't be postponed.

There is quiet time that allows one to rest and quiet time that allows us to explore our inner selves. The energy of an urban life style no longer affords me either kind of time.  I live in one of the largest cities in the U.S. but our yard is designed for the kind of stillness I'm talking about. We can choose to engage the energy but also choose to let it go. One of the gifts of being a woman of a certain age is that I can choose. I am happy my son loves what he does and where he is - but I am clear that his choices are his and mine can now be mine.

So I am grateful too for the aging - for being at a stage of life where my top "joy priority" is my life and how it is shared with my husband. So many things take a long time to learn but there is no regret as long as I learn it. I am grateful for so many things - even the understanding of what I need, even if I've never needed it before.

At this time in my life I do feel blessed to still be able to make choices, to go to the quiet places, to visit with family, and to keep learning about who I am and what I'm capable of becoming.  I hope you feel the same way.  Stopping in the outer world we live in also stops the growth within.

It's too much fun to grow - even if it's sometimes very hard.

Still dreaming of peace,

Barbara

©Barbara R. Carr

Early January 2011

Dear friends,

There are many things in Jewish learning that we never come across unless we continue our study as adults.  Our children (in the macro sense) have so much to learn far too quickly - practices of ritual; relationship to our peoplehood and a strong sense of the Other; Torah; and Hebrew, at least enough to sound out letters and words.  Unfortunately, for most of us, that's what we think of when we think of Jewish education.  The other day a woman of superior intellect and commitment to Judaism asked, in a heartfelt way, when we learn the "other stuff."  By that she meant the insights, the post Moses readings, the why of our prayers.

For me, it was a conscious choice to learn.  I began to teach and so had no choice - our curriculum and our community required that children be able to ask good questions and therefore I had to find at least adequate answers.  I certainly didn't get what I needed to know in my religious school - and I didn't get it at home.  I was lucky, though.  I reintroduced myself to my Judaism as an adult and found a place to stand, a path to follow and great questions to ask my mentors.  It's much harder to do if you don't have to do it or have a place within which to struggle.

We build our understanding on a rather shaky structure that ended when we walked away in our teens thinking that our Jewish learning was complete.  Then, if we were curious, we confronted hundreds of years of teaching, from all parts of the world, from all perspectives and felt the ground underneath our feet begin to move. Where did all this stuff come from?  Who were these people?  Why does their teaching seem so different?  Who were the Chasidic masters?  What did the Sanhedrin really do?  Was Jesus really the first Reconstructionist but there was no one around who knew it?  If the Ten Commandments didn't come until Sinai, how could the patriarchs and matriarchs know that they had obligations and responsibilities to God?  Why is story so critical to seeing Judaism as alive and vibrant?  The teachings are there and the answers diverse.  It's a joy to discover.

We don't have to read it all.  There are no tests or papers due.  We get to pick and choose what intrigues us  - maybe for a day but maybe for a lifetime.

But if we had stopped at 13 or 16 , we wouldn't have read the words of the Song of Songs with an adult mind (and heart).  We would maybe know some history but Holocaust education has become so important to Jews today that it often squeezes out other learning.   I'm in no way implying that our schools can teach it all - nor do I think they should. We'd forget, as we've forgotten much of what we were taught as children. What I want us to wonder about is why we consider ourselves done if we can say the Shabbat blessings and remember the order of the ancestors in the Amidah.

When I say a prayer I want to know not only why... but when...  I love knowing that the Amidah was a substitute for the sacrifice in the Temple...  there had to be something that could invoke the same kind of power and prayer and so during the week we ask for all different kinds of things as well as raising up our voices in praise of God.  The substitution is much more obvious once you start with that little tidbit of knowledge.  Now, thinking about non-literal sacrifice enriches my prayer as I struggle to bring it into my contemporary life.

I couldn't practice Judaism without the formal and informal adult learning I've done and the conversations I've had with friends, colleagues and my wonderful students.  At 16 I had read the Tanakh through Kings (skipping the begats, of course)... and then as far as I knew... nothing much happened until the Holocaust.  I knew my prayers but nothing about where they came from or who decided what we pray.  I knew I wasn't supposed to put the "o" in the middle of G-d, but it wasn't until I was an adult that I realized that English was certainly not the language with which one spelled the  real word  that is God - and since God's name is unpronounceable, and God certainly can be pronounced - well, I slid the "o" back in and so far, so good.

Adult learning is like no other.  It's free choice.  It also taught me to look at the brilliant minds of our history - some through their own words and others through interpretations.  Without my adult curiosity I wouldn't have begun the search I'm still on.  I stumble across new writers and celebrate their creativity.  They push the envelope and empower me to do the same. That is part of the wonder of Judaism.  We are so old we can't possibly practice as we once did.  The world has evolved so much, it is obvious Judaism has had to evolve as well.  Most important... a lot of things really happened between Kings and the Holocaust that I never really explored until I was an adult - and by then, I was old enough to begin to understand and evolve myself.

Off the top of my head, here are some of the thinkers/teachers that I've encountered that I don't remember from religious school.  I acknowledge that some are younger then I am, so I couldn't have had them in class - and my traditional educators probably wouldn't have taught them even if they could.  Some I disagreed with and some I wanted to have as a best friend - but they all moved me along the road... wrestling all the way.  I hope you've encountered some of them on your own path.

Maimonides, Hillel, the Ba'al Shem Tov, Nachman of Breslav, Isaac Luria, Abba Silver, Mordecai Kaplan, Ira  Eisenstein, Debbie Perlman,  Abraham Joshua Heschel, Martin Buber, the two unrelated Kushners: Lawrence and Harold, Joseph Telushkin, Rami Shapiro, Ruth Brin,  Marc Gellman, Harold Shulweis, Marge Piercy, Goldie Milgram and all the other divinely inspired I haven't yet encountered.

Find one thinker you love and read the introductions to their books.  I promise you there will be names listed that you can explore as well.  Find a friend to study with or just meet for coffee and be amazed together.  Don't ever stop.  We hold the potential for satisfying ourselves (or beginning to satisfy ourselves) with just a tiny push into the unknown.

It's worth a try...

Let our kaddish prayers this week go out to the loved ones of those lost in the horrific shooting in Arizona and our prayers for healing to those who have bodies that survived but who will suffer with unanswered questions the rest of their lives.

Still dreaming of peace,

Barbara