thinking jewish

The Way

The moments when your students teach you are always much more meaningful and moving than when you teach them.

Today, I asked the group of teens with whom I learn each morning to spend some time researching various blessings of the Amidah. When we came back together at the end of class to discuss what had been learned, one of my finest raised his hand to share some wisdom.

Talking about the nature of the petitions of the Amidah, he remarked, "The final blessing may be about returning our focus to the community, since we say all the blessings silently to ourselves." Great point. But key to his comment was what I just italicized - we do this; this is how it is done.

Is it?

In our community, yes. The intermediary blessings of the Amidah are never done out-loud. But, in a liberal post-modern community where there are infinite variations of "right," is it ever appropriate to say we do something such and such way?

In a sense, does that define the halakha of our community?

With all the talk of pluralism and accepting other peoples' ways, we can lose perspective for what I see as the single most pressing issue challenging Reform theology: what is the nature of law in an autonomous society? To what extent can we reform law, rather than just not adhering to it?

If liberal Jews are incapable of reforming halakha, then the reference point for Jewish action is always Orthodoxy - obviously a problem for liberal Judaism's authenticity. But in a pluralistic community, how can we say that something is the way?

I'm lost. I'm tired. And I've not had nearly enough caffeine today.

I'll continue pondering. Maybe you have the solution?

In the Darkness, Light

A man comes upon a child on the beach surrounded by thousands of star fish scattered on the sand. One by one the child picks up a star fish and tosses it back into the water. "What are you doing," asks the man. "There are thousands of star fish out here, you can't possibly make a difference!" The kid looks at the man, then reaches down, picks up another star fish and tosses it into the crashing waves. He looks back up and says, "I just made a difference for that one."

At 4:30 in the morning, the door opened. Two new victims entered the room, ready to join the night in which Torah replaced sleep, energy drinks replaced rest.

We had already been going for five and a half hours strong - we'd covered Mishna and Talmud, Torah and History, Ethics, Philosophy and Poets. Everything under the sun...

It all started a week prior as a somewhat lofty idea. All I wanted to do was give my students something special to look forward too. Why I came up with the idea of an all-night beit midrash instead of, say, donuts, I may never know. But the idea was born and there was no going back.

The room was lined with tables, the coffee pots were filled. Copies were made, books were taken out. Ready, set, learn.

ברוך אתה ה' אלהינו מלך העולם אשר קדשנו במצוותיו
וציונו לעסוק בדברי תורה

A cacophony of voices filled the small room. Teenagers argued over rabbinic laws and regulations - they followed arguments and stories recorded by their people over a thousand years ago, and loved it. Staff, students and faculty alike came together with the same goal.

Talmud Torah k'neged kulam...

I didn't even need to actually teach to basque in the joy of what was going on around me. These texts are yours - get to know them. Listening to my students engage in the process was heroin for the soul. All the rest is commentary - go and learn it. Even so, I cracked open some books and played Rosh Yeshiva: how much of a chapter of Talmud can 20-something teens learn at two in the morning? I figured there was no harm in trying to figure out.

But the true answer to all my questions came at the very beginning of the night, 11:53 PM to be precise. After a rousing dive into the opening debate of the Mishna - from and until when can one say the evening Shema? - we joined together, all of us different people, leading divergent lives on various paths, for Ma'ariv, the evening service. The room was filled with disorder: it was already messy, there were but a few chairs on which to sit. We clumped in an order-less shape on one side of the room, between the twenty of us we had at least three different siddurim. No neat rows of seating, no instruments, no front, no direction. It's time to pray.

And as we reached Mi Chamocha, as I sang the song my ancestors sang at the onset of their redemption combined with the musical notes of Phish, I could not help but feel like I had myself been redeemed as well. Not from slavery, but from not-knowing. In a singular moment of disorder, when our scattered voices came together for a few brief seconds of unison and harmony, I knew what it was I want, for what I yearn, why I labor, what I seek, and where this whole thing is leading me. I'd figured it all out.

And so, four hours later, when the two latest victims came to join our little posse, I assumed there was little more to get from the evening.

But I saw them engaging some of my students in conversation, and I came to listen. At four thirty in the morning, they were discussing the future of this movement of ours, how we can build caring, dedicated and learned communities, and how we can change this world for the better. They were all excited, and ready to start.

So many times this summer, I have crashed rock-bottom. I have hit new lows in my energy to keep up the fight that have made me fundamentally question what it is that I'm doing and why I even try. But in the darkness of early Friday morning, I found it all anew. I figured it out, I was inspired, and I rededicated myself once more.

Dumbledore's Army

Living in the grey is never easy. The extremes always make sense. The world should be either black or white. Things should be a specific way. Always the same. Right and wrong.

Every day of this little life I live as friend and teacher to many, I'm asked questions, sought as a resource for answers. And most of the time, people are looking for the way.

What does Judaism say about this? What am I supposed to do? What's the right answer? Are they allowed to do that?

I'm torn between my conscience as a post-modern, liberal Jew and the two-fold combination of my own ideas of what is right and wrong and the need of those asking me for direct and clear answers.

They don't want to hear "you might do this or you might do that." They want answers. What's the right way?

And everything comes together in one big mishmash of unanswered questions - because I know there are right ways to do things, there are good things and bad things, there is, at least at times, black and white. Not everything is grey.

So there are those for whom the ambivalence of the grey becomes too difficult to handle. They can't stand post-modernism and its relativity, or they're burned out from the struggle, so they revert to a black-and-white world of either religious apathy or binding halakha. They get so fed up with the instability of pluralism and many paths and living with the ignorance of others that finally they give up.

It happens all the time. It even, for fleeting moments here and there, happens to me. Leave me alone. I just want to lead my own Jewish life. I give up. There's no hope for them.

But if this Liberal Jewish experiment truly has any validity and will to survive another generation, we will need individuals who are committed to the fight, no matter how difficult, and enraging it continues to be. If we believe that there really is authentic Judaism outside of Orthodoxy (and the more I interact with liberal Jews here and there, the less I am convinced that our community actually believes that) we need an a cohort of dedicated souls who have their Jewish reality worked out and are committed to the fight; committed to ending ignorance, committed to an end of apathy, committed to a strong future.

I'm still not convinced that it can happen. But I see other soldiers around me. It's time we garner the troupes.

In Case I Forget

I do it because I believe in the end-goal, if it's even possible.
I do it because I want to be a part of the process.
I do it because I get to spend my time with some of my favorite people.
I do it because, at the end of an hour of teaching, I'm on cloud nine.
I do it because it gives me a home outside of the city for the summer.
I do it because it is the most trying test on my patience I could think to endure.
I do it because I couldn't think to be anywhere else.
I do it because I have brand loyalty that I cannot shake off.
I do it because of the relationships I am able to build.
I do it because I believe.
I do it because of the money.
I do it because the food is great, the hours short and the free time plentiful.
I do it because popping Tums at 9:34 in the morning to quell my impending ulcer is my idea of a great morning.

Deathly Hollows

A few years back I lived in a far away town called Jerusalem. There I was part of a community of awkward Americans trying to find their way in this difficult world. And attached to our troop was one especially awkward teenager. Short, lanky and loud. Long hair covering his eyes half the day.

Today I sat with him on the steps to a cabin - the years in between our first interaction hardly could be noticed. Still lanky, still loud, still with long hair covering his eyes at all times, he has learned one thing over the last three years: how to ask questions.

I would be lacking humility if I suggested that I was the one who taught him this over the last two years of our learning together, so I won't. But he certainly has figured out a way to synchronize his question-asking with my own. I ask "why?" he retorts "why not?" He says "what is this?" and I ask "what isn't it?"

He turns to me and remarks, "People don't know they're sheep until you tell them they are."

So true.

He gets me thinking about the artificial fences we all build around our thought capacities - how we constrain our ability to even conceive of new ways of looking at situations and ideas. How the rebellion against this sinister form of apathy is to challenge, and have initiative, and try new things in old ways - to think and experiment and then try again.

You must do this this way. Why?

We think like this. Why?

This is proper. What does that even mean?

Nearly a year ago to the day, frustrated with my peers yet inspired by the youth around me, I left Shabbat morning services to blog - an activity I nearly always reserve for the six days of Creation exclusively - about the pull towards orthodoxy, about the incessant need amongst even the most liberal in our midst for one way, one message, uniform action and the precise same time. That is what orthodoxy is, and that is what I am not.

And so I rebel.

And though sometimes I feel so very alone, thank God I am able to find those around me interested in the rebellion - those who believe in its holy fight, who understand the nature of the post-modern world in which we live and see a pluralistic Jewish future within it. I seek out those not blinded by what is, but prepared to imagine what could-be.

And it makes people scared.

Like the mumblings of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, they talk about the charismatic-right, and the puppets and the minions and the legions. They talk about followers and brainwashing and cult-of-personality.

But it's a ruse. It is no different than the Ministry of Magic's attempts to convince the muggle and magic public that Voldemort has not returned. They are afraid of the change that comes from that realized truth. They are afraid of what happens when, just like my classmate's son, people begin to ask "Why?"

Because asking "why" is only the first step. Asking "why" is the pretext. It leads to something much more sinister. Like my teachers taught me in that liberal zoo called Berkeley, the larger goal is empowerment.

When people feel ownership over something, they suddenly realize that it's theirs also to learn about, to change and to control. They realize that the helm of power held by someone else is but an illusion controlled by their own ignorance.

Tell the sheep that they're not sheep, and suddenly the world changes.

There is one way. Hogglewash.
We cannot do that. Bull.
We don't do that here. Right.
They are not yet ready. No way.

A year ago I taught a class on ritual. On the first day, I sat down with the strangers who called themselves my students and drew a picture of words:

All your life you have walked in the Jewish Museum, looking at exhibit after exhibit. Something looks interesting and so you look more closely, and perhaps you even stay there examining it for a long time. But all the while it's behind a glass encasement. And there's a sign on the wall that says 'DO NOT TOUCH.'

But that's all a lie. The glass doesn't exist. Touch it. Feel it. Play with it. Try it on. Put it down somewhere new for someone else to use.

The museum patrons may be left unhappy, but I say screw it. Show the muggles what's out there. Let the revolution begin.

There and Back Again

I wake up this morning, and, shortly thereafter, find myself at a table with a new group of teenagers, eager to learn. Who are they? They weren't here yesterday. Where did my students go? What have you done with them.

My home of the last month is filled with strangers. Time to meet new people; time to make new friendships; time to begin a new. Time to figure out again what it's all about: Why am I doing this? What do I believe in? What am I trying to create? What is my goal?

And, on this Friday morning, I feel filled with many more questions than answers. My rug has been pulled out from underneath me and suddenly I feel lost. Everything that seemed to have been built up was only made of a deck of cards.

What are we building? Where are we going? What is the goal? What do we want? I do not know.

And so we start anew.

William

Eight years ago, tired, hot, and lugging unnecessarily large bags behind me, I showed up at Newark LIberty International Airport ready for three and a half weeks at a far-away place called Kutz. I did not know what to expect. I did not really know what I was getting myself into. I certainly did not know that my life was about to be changed irreversibly forever.

Today, I sit again at Newark Airport, with a list of teenagers from around the country who, over the next few hours will slowly trickle into the area around me, ready for a life-changing three weeks in Warwick, NY.

One arrives. His name is William. Southern drawl; tall and lanky; basketball shorts. For the next eighteen days I get to learn with him. We'll study together, fast for Tisha B'Av together, enjoy Shabbat together. And I get to watch him grow, meet new people, and have the best time of his life.

Narly.

Does he, or any of the others, know what they're getting into? Are they ready to push walls and boundaries and try new things - to look at the world in a totally new way? Maybe, maybe not.

More teenagers arrive. The battery on my single object of entertainment nears death.

The potential remains high. The excitement mounts. This is what it's all about.

Round two. Ready to start.

Here goes nothing.

Theoretics

Three thousand miles removed from the Far Side and the farm, my head is recovering from a mix of mild jetlag, culture shock and dehydration from an overly-salty can of bloody marry mix while on the five hour flight.

And with a few hours left before the sun sets and my mind rests, I sit down to collect my thoughts, to process and make sense of all that has gone on over the last month of living.

So much thinking, so many ideas. Statements have come and gone, plans drawn and put back in the books for a later time. I can't take this anymore. That was amazing. Let's do it again. Stop the bullshit. Keep up the great work. Let's start a new movement.

At the end of the day, I've been priveledged to be a part of a community of thinkers and doers for three and a half weeks. I wake up every morning and teach and learn and challenge and grow, and then go sit by the pool or drink a diet coke or visit my friends at Dunkin Donuts. Rough life, I know. I have captive audiences of teenagers and adults who want to have fun, who want to learn, who want to teach me, and who want to create something better than the status quo. I could not ask for more.

And there have been the dissapointments, for sure. People are people, afterall. And, worse, organizations are organizations. There have been the theatrics, and there have been the times when you just want to get up and leave it all. There have certainly been enough times when you go to bed scratching your head, trying to figure out how things are how they are. There are those who have been dissolutioned by it all, and I spend my time giving them renewed hope that there is a better way and there will be a better day. Some day...

But, in the end, it is all just a staging ground - it's camp. For two months we come together in a Far Side of its own to create an artificial community of people who are also employees. It's not the real thing. It's a preparation for the rest of the year, in fact. It is all a test ground for ideas that can-be or that have-not-yet-been. It is a lot of talk, and a lot of venting, and a lot of thinking of how things will work out in the real world.

It is an exercise in theoretics.

Just that. Nothing more.

But it is so much more. Because it's thrilling and fun and meaningful and the real thing. And the theoretics are brilliant despite their theoretical nature. Because they will work, and they can work - they have to work. They will work... won't they? They just have to be thought through... and that's where the next few weeks' work begins.

Because theoretics are just theoretical. And, in the real life, they hit walls and problems of their own.

Two and a half hours on the West Coast and I've already hit one. Damn.

It's a rough world, where competing ideas and ways and means constantly fight eachother in the marketplace of ideas and life. And we've got something to sell. It would be a shame to let it go to waste.

That is the task ahead.

But first, Shabbat.

Why I Love the NY Times

"If a tree fell in Brooklyn and nobody bothered to blog the news,
would it make a sound?"

Read and Respond

Eight years ago, at the North American Federation of Temple Youth's biennial convention in Los Angeles, nearly two-thousand teenagers gathered in a hotel ballroom to welcome in Shabbat. I know, because I was there. I sat near the front, on the left side, surrounded by a sea of my peers, most wearing their spiffiest khakhi pants and a polo shirt, or a nice Shabbat dress or skirt.

How cute.

And then the band began to play. Literally. Drummers, electric guitarists, saxophones, timbrels and tambourines. What was ostensibly supposed to be a Kabbalat Shabbat service was, in any understanding of the event, a concert. And some people liked it. And others did not.

So at first it was unsettling. And it was weird. But the band kept playing and kept becoming ever more and more startling in their actions. And finally people hit boiling points. And so they walked out. A mutiny erupted and scores of teenagers took a stand with their feet.

Eight years later, the event is but a blip on the radar screen of history. But the ultimate question still remains: when your sensibilities so off-put by the actions of the community to which you belong, is it appropriate to walk out? Are there times when, like at the Treif Banquet a century ago, it's time to just get up and leave?

My students begin a raucus debate over the meaning of Reform and movementalism and being the Jew that each one of them is in their own unique way in this world of an orthodoxy-of-thought. The post-modern world in which they live tells them to find their own unique way and then find a place for it within their community. The modernist norms of their teachers and parents tell them precisely the opposite: here are the ways you are allowed to think and act in this community; now figure out who and what you are.

And one of my students talks about the difficulty he has identifying with what he calls "read and response" Reform. Some of his classmates nod in agreement. Others argue with his point. And I just sit there, taking it all in, trying to be a teacher but not a preacher, trying to help students walk down their path and not tell them where the path must go.

But I have my own thoughts, and my own struggles. What do you think, David? I won't share. I just keep pushing.

But it's getting more and more difficult to hold it in. And sooner or later it's going to boil over.