thinking jewish

Shabbos Gift

The point is, simply, are you capable of thinking creatively and outside of the box - no need to recreate the wheel, but can you repackage it for the 21st century?

Shabbat shalom!

Ultimate Thinker Showdown.

In my theological ponderings, I come across the teachings of two great men (sorry ladies) who both in their day revolutionized modern Jewish theology.

On my left sits Mordecai Kaplan. He begs me to realize that Judaism is a civilization, and that Jewish expression is a means for brimlnging together individuals - that only though our interpersonal celebration of life and Jewish identity do we begin to understand, let alone relate to, God. Folk ritual is what defines Jewish religious obligation.

Ony right sits Martin Buber, the man for whom Godly relationships were specifically an individual expression. We must relate with God, the public within which we do this becomes nearly irrelevant.

For so long I have struggled with these two thinkers. Kaplan leaves me with a very ireligious understanding of God, but Buber, as much as I try to think otherwise, makes little sense to me. I want to believe otherwise, but I can't.

And so I'm left stuck. I believe, and involve myself, and practice because I seek some Kaplanian sense of community. But my spiritual altruism won't allow me to accept anything short of a Buberian relationship with the Divine. And out of the corner yells Heschel, who turns everything on its side as he speaks about awe and obligation and Prophets and Torah and time.

And then, in moments of solitude I want to rebel againgst them all. Without the the community's presence around me Kaplan's walls come crumbling down, and this leaves me so bitter that Buber seems nothing more than a cook. At that point there is no use in giving Heschel even a minute of my time.

I sit and I think and I come to no conclusions. Afterall, I did get a 'C' in Modern Jewish Thought.

And then the phone rings, a friend calls from Israel. We talk for a few minutes as the Atlantic seems to shrink to the size of the Hudson. There are no answers, but there are memories and ideas and, most importantly, hope.

Hope is what will guide us through the darkness. That certainly isn't a new realization. Hope was the rock of Zionism, afterall.

Sorry Heschel, too bad Buber, step aside Kaplan. Now's the time for Hertzl.

Shaken, Not Stirred

There's something about the sites and smells of Sukkot that always hits a special place in my heart. The scent of the woodsy lulav, against the sweetness of the etrog evoke a mix between fall and summer - it's still warm out, but the days are getting shorter, the cold will come, and with it the dark.

Better go outside and live in huts for a week, better take advantage of it all while we still have it!

And as I sit away a few hours of my Thursday morning at the neighborhood shul, I try to take in everything going on around me: the kids running up and down the aisles, the painful lack of air-conditioning in this room, and these funny things that the Jews are doing. In the friendly, close-knit shul that I've only so recently grown to love, a dry unmoving ritual is taking place - them Jews with their rain sticks are walking step by step around the sanctuary.

Really? Are you serious? You've got to be kidding me.

The lack of motivation is infectious, the bad singing begins to hurt my ears. Three hours of my morning? Why? My passion and drive and love for all that this Jewish experience is made of take their daily dive downward; I begin to question it all, to do circles in my mind over the meaning of everything, the right path, how to make it all make sense.

Only a few months ago I thought I had everything figured out: the world, my life, my path. Me and a little cadre were sure we could change the world, or at least a small part of it. But decks of cards can come crashing down.

Just like the frailty of the lulav, the stick of vegetation powerful enough to bring the rains, but able to wither away into a dry-out mess within days, things can take a turn in untold directions so quickly. And you have to reassess, and figure things out - you do all you can to think things through and then you wait.

Waiting is the hardest part.

But the moments of pain come and pass. A friend calls after work wanting to study. Another IMs with a plan of a covert operation. We think and we try and we hope. And, in the meanwhile, hopefully we have a hell of a lot of fun doing it all; hopefully we eat good food and meet good people, and laugh and cry and change the world.

Hopefully.

Success

What does it mean to succeeed?
What does it mean to be good at what you do?

In a time of uncertainty, change, growth trial and error, I keep running into the same key question: what does success look like? When do you know that you're good enough?

Is it all a matter of knowing when you're happy?

In this city of neon lights the pressure builds to never stop, to excel at it all, to be an all star.

But you can't. No one can.

So I take a good look at the window of possibilities and yell, "I can't do that! Here is what I'm good at. Here's what I like. And that doesn't say anything about me, it's actually a sign of strength that I know what I don't do well!"

The impetus for this heart-felt cry? I had to admit that elementary school education, and the lesson plans, behavior control, excessive planning and headaches that go with it are not my forte.

Because, similar to that perenial desire to just be a "simple Jew," I just want to gather together a group of teens or adults and learn, teach and move forward in our communal pursuit of Torah. I don't want to think about enduring understandings. I just want to move on and "get Jews doing Jewish," without so much focus on the process.

At the end of the day, I guess success looks like the smiling faces of students who know they've accomplished something big. Success looks like what I can be happy doing.

I can't hope to please everyone. Finally learning that will take some time.

I sit here, in a local coffee shop, preparing to expose Jews for the first time to the wisdom of the Mishnah. I finish writing my first blog post on my iPhone.

In some weird way, I feel pretty damn successful.

Ready or Not, Here I Come

Standing on plush, carpeted rug, I couldn't help but compare the differences between my current situation and that in which I'd found myself only 48 hours prior. T

wo days before I was 20 yards east, 20 yards closer to Jerusalem, starving, tired and sweaty. The ground there was hard wood.

But there were more differences too.

Saturday night, I stood at a nice amud and faced two hundred strangers as I led them in the conclusion of the day-long fast's prayers. The majority had little idea about the prayer service in which they were involved. Some had not stepped foot in a synagogue for the last 365 days. So many stared at me with blank faces, expecting, waiting for the magic. They looked at me, I looked back at them, and in that unending moment of awkwardness, I remembered just how much I love the High Holy Days.

But this time, tonight, as I stood in my shorts, t-shirt and flip-flop sandals, as I held on to the edges of the 100-year-old shtender from which I led, I faced a blank white wall, literally six inches from my face. Behind me was the hodge-podge of middle-aged women who rounded out my minyan.

What a difference a day makes.

In the parlance of Reform retreats and events, there is the oft-used terminology of "Optional Tefilah," most often referring to Shacharit .
"Optional" in this case is a clear declaration on the community's understanding of the commandedness of prayer and the term "mitzvah" entirely. The community commands - "We pray on Shabbat," for example - God merely provides options.

But I digress.

It is always those "optional" Shacharits that I, and many others who partake in their splendor, find the most meaningful and moving. Gone are the communal concerns for aesthetics and order and decorum, instead a group gathers in an area at a time to daven and, Ready - Set - PRAY!

Uniformity, passivity and disinterest give way to spontaneity, creativity and passion. Such was always the case this summer on the farm - in pagodas at 7 in the morning, or in art rooms at the wee hours of the night - such is the case in the basements and apartments and social halls where group after group of twenty-something Jews are slowly taking over the scene of active Jewish prayer in New York City - and such was the case this evening, with David and his cadre of women older than his mother.

And I wore shorts, and a t-shirt, and flip flops. And was still deserving of the title "Rabbi."

Cringe. But fine.

All other times I would correct the slip-of-toungue ("Thanks, but I'm not"), but this time I let it go. I let it go because I was happy enough that she decided to stop her Monday night to come to the shul and pray with her community. I let it go because when I tried to begin Ma'ariv by reading in unison the first prayer, the rest of the group mumbled off into their own davening daze; I knew we were going to good places.

And I let it go because if a kid can go eat Sushi at Whole Foods, then hop on a subway to show up a minute early at a synagogue founded by a Reverend during the days of Abraham Lincoln, lead Ma'ariv in flip-flops and shorts with no preparation while facing a blank wall and enveloping himself in his own prayerful rant, then anything can happen.

Anything at all.

My Heart, On a Platter

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, Shabbat haShabatot. We come together, old faces and new of this community alike, to, as one, ask for forgiveness. For twenty-five more hours we will fast, we will not bathe, we will meditate and beseech our Creator to pardon our misdeeds. Today we try our best to act like the angels on high: we purify our bodies and our souls in our persistent aim of return, of teshuva, return to God, return to a more righteous path, return to those we love.

There is the old Chasidic tale of a man with two pockets in his pants, and, in each one, he keeps a piece of paper. Two pockets, two papers, each separate from the other. On one he has carefully written, “Bishvili nivra ha’Olam. For my sake the world was created.” And on the other he scribed, “Ani afar v’ever. I am ashes and dust.” His pocket reminders teach him daily the dual-reality that is the world in which we live. He matters, he is important, his actions count. He can change this world for the better, or the worse. God cares about him, as an individual, as a person who loves and feels and cares. But, in the face of eons of human history, standing face to face with the Almighty, he is nothing. He is just one little speck in a giant universe of rocks and stars.

This day of Repentance we are torn between these two world-views.

On the one hand, our liturgy pushes us to accept that we are important. We have been given a day apart from all others - one on which we are forgiven, one in which God sets aside our misdeeds and allows us to move on with a clean slate. If we are sorry for our actions, if we truly regret the myriad of ways that we have strayed from the path, then we come forth from this day absolved.

But, lest we forget, our fate has already been scribed. “B’rosh Hashanah yikateivun uv yom tsom Kipur yechateimun. On Rosh Hashanah it was written. Today it will be sealed.” Our tradition teaches us that it is already a done deal, we already have, or have not, found our place in the Book of Life. On this night, are we no different than the student begging his teacher to alter an already-recorded grade? Why bother? Is our existence so pathetic that we must grovel and beg for a change of heart?

No! That second piece of paper cries from our pockets, you don’t matter. “Avinu Malkeinu, chaneinu va’aneinu ki ein banu ma’asim. Our Father, our King, be merciful with us and answer us, even though we have no merit.” We have nothing! We are worthless. So we pray, and we fast, and we plead before God. Ana haShem hoshia na! Please God, save us!

I don’t matter. The world was made for me. I am all that counts. I am nothing.

Two world-views, ever present throughout the year, and tonight and this day coming at each other in an epic battle over the very nature of what it means to be a human. Can I truly make up for the bad things I have done? I’m sorry. I won’t do them again. I’ll try.

Such is the human condition. We made mistakes this year. I am sorry. We won’t do it again. I promise. I swear. The addiction is over. I won’t speak like that anymore. I will let God’s presence into my life.

But, let’s be honest with ourselves, we are going to screw up again this year. And the next. And the one after that. Yom Kippur, 5769 is already on the calendar. Between today and October 9, 2009 we have three hundred and eighty three days on which we will lie, cheat, deceive, and evade. We are locked in a persistent existence of mediocrity. We will never be good enough. We will never be all that God wants of us. We are but pieces of dust and ash floating around in this world trying to act like we are all that matter.

This can leave us feeling very alone. The solitude of regret is painful. We feel stuck in Egypt, by ourselves, while the rest of Israel has gone on to a better place. We imagine ourselves as Moses, standing high atop the mountain in Moav, knowing that he alone would not get to enter the Land of Israel - he would not be forgiven for his misdeeds. He would die on a barren hill in the wilderness, just outside the Land of Milk and Honey, a failed leader. His apologies were not good enough. Consequences for his actions were long-since decreed and sealed.

As were ours.

B’rosh Hashanah ykateivun uv Yom tsom Kipur yechteimun. It may not be too late to change our fates, but nine days ago things were already written down. Today, we remind ourselves that our only solace will come from teshuva, tefilah u’tsdakah - from prayer and repentance and charity - things that will lessen, but not absolve, the severity of our decree. We are all sinners. We are all facing judgement by our Creator. It is a done deal. We have lived this year not as the tsadikim we once promised we would be, but as something far less.

In the face of this reality, I could show up Erev Yom Kippur pessimistic of the worth of the next day’s fast. Sure, I’ll cleanse my soul. I’ll pray, I’ll learn, I’ll push myself to do better next year. But why? If I know that next year will have a Yom Kippur too, if I know that I will transgress again, if I know that my God has already decreed whether or not I am to be forgiven for my wrong-doings, then why bother? Why participate in this last-minute plea for absolution as the gates of Heaven slowly close shut for another year. If perfection is never an achievable goal, why spend one day pretending otherwise?

And yet, deep in my heart, I know just how moving the meaningful the whole process is. I know that, tomorrow night at the end of Neilah, I will feel better. I will feel cleansed. Despite the difficulty that is involved in this twenty-five hour project, it is something that, year after year, I come back to. We all come back to. All of us.

And then I look up. I see a room full of faces of others, my peers, my elders, my students my teachers, strangers, friends, a community of other Jews all looking for the same thing. Just as much as I am pressed to believe on this day that I am alone, that I am worthless, that, just like that piece of paper in my pocket teaches I am ashes and dust, the presence of everyone else in this room provides precisely the comfort that I need to be at ease with this reality. In a Kaplanian moment of clarity, I begin to appreciate so much of the meaning of this day through the community of people that celebrates it. Because everyone in this room was not good enough this year. Each of us was dishonest, each of us did not try hard enough, each of us missed the mark.

The final words of Mishna Yoma, the first rabbinic thoughts on the Day of Atonement, describe a teaching from Rabbi Eliezer: “Aveirot sh’bein adam l’Makom, Yom haKipurim mechaper. Transgressions between a person and God, the Day of Atonement atones. Aveirot sh’bein Adam l’haveiro ein Yom haKipurim mechaper, ad sh’yeratsei et chaveiro. Transgressions between one person and another, the Day of Atonement does not atone, until the offended has been placated.” Rabbi Eliezer teaches us that, for sins against the Master of the Universe, God will always be willing to forgive. But Rabbi Eliezer understands people, and he knows well enough that a community cannot move on, that spiritual atonement is of little use without reconciliation between individuals. We come first to seek forgiveness from other people.

And this humbling act of coming together on this night gives comfort to the afflicted. We stand together and confess that “Ashamnu, bagadnu, gazalnu, dibarnu dofi. We have been guilty, we have betrayed, we have stolen, we have spoken falsely.”

We cry out to the rest of our community - I know you did wrong this year, and so did I.

We say loudly to one another - I screwed up, here’s what I did, help me make up for it.

None of us is blameless, no one here is tsadik.

And in that moment of community, that moment of human-to-human interaction, when we feel so worthless and helpless, we can come together before our Creator; standing side-by-side with our loved ones we can have the strength then to cry out to God: I am sorry, truly sorry. And I should have known what I was doing was wrong, but I didn’t. And I know I’ll probably be back right here in this same spot a year from now, asking again for forgiveness, but I’m sorry. I am human, and all I can do is try.

I will devote this year trying ever harder to be like You God, to be like the angels on high who serve and praise you all day, to be like the tsadikim of lore, the blameless righteous soles. But I’m going to demand something of You God, too. I need you to be here next year, when I feel terrible again for committing new wrongs. I need you to have compassion and mercy, and be slow to judge. In your dealings with me, show me the way to treat others when they hurt me. When I hurt you, guide me to a better path. Help me to make things right.

This is our task this Yom Kippur Eve. To try. To try a little harder than last year. To open up. To let it all out. And to do so within the context of this holy community, to support each other in this difficult process and, in doing so, be ourselves supported.

Tomorrow night we will emerge from this process exhausted and hungry and mentally spent. But so too will we emerge better people - people rededicated and convicted in our passion to live a good life, working to make this world a better place. We will walk down the street each day navigating between the two extremes of those strips of paper in our pockets. I am but ashes and dust: there is more to this world than me and myself, I cannot live selfishly, I must constantly care for others. For me alone the world was created: I matter, I have worth, I have the power to change the world. And we will remember that, as many times as we mess up, as we miss the mark, as we sin and as we fail to meet our own expectations, it is never to early to start seeking forgiveness, never too early to turn to those we have hurt, to turn to God, and apologize.

May this be the labor of our hearts, for the next year, and forever.

May we all be inscribed in the Book of Life, for long life, a life of meaning and happiness and growth, a life of trial, and some error, and a constant labor of teshuva.

G’mar chatimah tovah. Shabbat shalom.

A Tale of Two Cities

It's been said, "If you build it, they will come."

Down the street, just around the corner, an old industrial warehouse sits on the corner of Bond and Union. It is little better than decrepit, except that this month it received a new paint job. The entire building is bright lime green.

It has two windows, both covered with dark black bars, and a garage door. It is the ugliest building in the neighborhood that I have any recollection of receiving media attention - in the last week, a lot of it.

I took a walk there this afternoon. From a block away, it becomes visible. Past the tree-lined brownstones of Cobble Hill, it welcomes you to the wastelands of Gowanas, Brooklyn's next "it" neighborhood. It has no signage, there is nothing advertising the building's purpose.

Except, if you get close, and look at the corner of one little alcove in the front facade, you see a postcard. Just one little postcard. And on that little postcard there is a shofar. That is all. No writing. No signs. Not even a noticeable door. Just a postcard with a shofar on a bright lime green industrial building.

And this one little building, in but two weeks time, has revolutionized the face of Judaism in the area. A local Chabad offshoot, Iyyun, moved into town. With them came open High Holiday services, classes, food, the like.

OK. Fine. Chabad does there nice, paganistic, in-your-face thing all over the place, especially Brooklyn.

But this green warehouse brought with it a new flare.

Sitting in a Starbucks down the street today, meeting with locals about revolutionizing the future, a woman leans over to ask about the namesake of the postcards we're discussing: Brooklyn Jews. Oh, she says, are you guys connected with the new stuff happening in the Green Building?

No. We're not. We're just a wee bit different. But now we're similarly run groups in the same 'hood. It's a turf war, and someone's going to go home with their tale in between their legs.

That said, it's time to go. I'm off to reach RamBam at the Tea Lounge. Here goes nothing...

Options

It was the best of times...

Standing in a sun-drenched pavilion, in the center of a park in the center of the world. I'm surrounded by fellow Jews; some I know, some I have just met. We are all there with a purpose. We come to welcome the new year, we come to celebrate. We sing, we read, we pray, all in the beauty of the most gorgeous day of the year.

...it was the worst of times...

Somehow the High Holidays in America have become an exercise in awkwardness, a ritual in absurdity. Three hundred faces sit in their seats. Three hundred faces sit and look at me. Yes? Can I help you? Are you looking for something? Meanwhile, I try to pray.

And I do.

And those that get it are appreciative of my efforts, my authenticity, my passion. And there are those who don't. Those who stare. Those who spent more time worrying about the recipe for their kugel than their recipe for teshuva.

For a few days of awe-inspiring, humbling and utterly belittling liturgy, the longest prayer-days of the Jewish year, we have brought together the most far-flung members of our community to sit, and stare, and count pages.

...it was the age of wisdom...

I sit at a table with fellow learners. Our subject: Rambam's Hilchot Teshuva. Services of Day 2 have concluded. Everyone present is there solely out of a passion for Jewish learning. Old familiar faces fill the room. I teach, I study, I learn.

Yet within minutes, a gaping whole in the entire teshuva project, an unattended gap in Maimonides' schedule of repentance, is noticed. A woman, only two-minutes into her life as a Torah scholar, turns to me and asks, "When another person is mad at you for your action, but in all of your soul-searching and studying you still don't believe that you did anything wrong in the first place, is there teshuva to be done, are there apologies to offer, wrongs to right?"

I sit, and I listen, and I take it all in. I have no answer. But I smile. I smile because her ability to find holes in the text has proven itself immediately. I smile because I have been asking myself that very question for qeeks.

...it was the age of foolishness...

I feel stuck in a pinball game of life. I bounce from one obstacle to another, one cage, one restriction, one artificial construct to another. I see through the abstract creations and know them for what they are: empty existences no more real than the computer-code numbers seen through by Neo. So recently I thought I could blast through all these walls - place dynamite in their seams and break them apart into oblivion. And I've begun to wonder. Why not just stop the fight? Why not just leave behind the barriers altogether?

For years I abstractly considered this. Only finally, in this season of teshuva, this season of gorgeous days in the park and empty faces staring me down while I pray, this season of reflection and learning and growing and pushing and holding back, of feeling, feeling more than I care to at times, only now has it all begun to be so clear.

...it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair...

So many competing views on the same thing. So many choices. So many views.

Quote of the Day

"Labels are meant for soup cans."

-Rachel Wolman

Ready, Maestro

I look outside my window, past the buildings and the rivers and the people, so many people. And over the rooftops, shining in defiance of the black night sky, are two lights - two pillars of white nothingness, fighting the emptiness below them.

It is, after all, September 11.

And just the sight of these two bright columns brings me hope. They unleash emotions I did not know I felt. They represent hope, a future, something to be had in light of the bleak reality of the day. They call out to all who see them - I'm here! Don't forget me!

They say, blatantly, it is time to start anew, to move on, to rebuild.

Some message. It sure hits home.

And so, with the light of those two faceless pillars guiding my research, I think through the year past - the highs, the lows, the in-betweens. What made me happy? What made me mad? Where was I comfortable? What brought meaning?

So much to figure out. I once thought I'd already worked it all out... so wrong I was.

I remember, one Shabbat eve, I stood in a dining hall with friends long-since gone their own ways, and debated לשם שמיים the ins and outs of the world - what was right, what was wrong, how do we move forward.

And my argument was that there was no right. There was no path. There were no boundaries. But my Islander friend found this uncomfortable. And so we debated. Debated what it meant to be "post-modern." What it meant for you to be you and me to be me. And I knew so adamantly that I was right. But maybe not.

Maybe he had some truth himself as well. Maybe this world can contain "truths" and certain paths. Maybe pluralism, the idea for which I fought for for so long until it blew up in my face, is actually just a disguise - a disguise for other ambitions, a cry for acceptance, an appeal for change. Maybe "post-modern" is just an ideological charade. Maybe all these ideas that I thought were the crux of everything I knew and cared for are actually no more real than the two beacons of light in the night's sky - moving, life-changing, but, in the end, substance-less.

Because, in the end, what maters is what will be built in their place, the physical facts on the ground where people will live, where people will work, where people will play. We can talk all we want about ideas, but in the end, the physical realities of life are what will live on throughout the ages.

The burning columns of light, then, are something like the shofar blasts coming all too soon - they break apart the silent calm of the ordinary, and leave an imprint in the minds of those who hear them; but do they spur you to action? If the shofar is sounded but it does not open the gates of heaven this year, then was it worth being blown in the first place?

So I take all of this in, sitting at my desk, looking out at the almost-dark night's sky, and attempt to asses where to go from here. I look at the year ahead, and wonder where it might lead. On Rosh Hashanah it is written, on Yom Kippur it is sealed. The decisions will be made, with or without me, all too soon.

But today, tomorrow really, is a new beginning. היום הרת עולם! The slates are wiped clean. What happened before no longer matters. What does matter is where to go from here. What does matter is what we make of the world that we have today. There is a time for remembering what was, a time for pillars of light in the sky, but the focus must be on what will be.

And today, on the last day of 5767, I am ready. Ready to renew. Ready to try. Ready to stumble. Ready to be written. I am ready for the orchestra to begin its ensemble. Ready to go, ready to be, ready to live. Ready to succeed.

Let's roll.