First french sermon

Hi all: I posted my first effort at a french sermon on my other blog HERE.

I will try to translate and post the english here in the next day or so.

B'shalom!

High Holy Day Sermon, Yom Kippur 2011/5772

I would like to offer two stories today – one true and one that is merely filled with truth.

The first comes from one of my favorite chassidic tales and relates the story of a father with a rather simple son. During the High Holy Days, he would pray in the synagogue of the Baal Shem Tov, but never would bring his boy with him to pray. Finally when the boy reached the age of Bar Mitzvah, his father took him to the synagogue for the first time, but only out of fear that the boy would out of sheer ignorance eat on the holy fast day.

The boy had a flute that he would play while tending the flock. Without his father knowing, he took the flute to shul. All day long the boy sat in silence in the synagogue. During the musaf prayer, the boy whispered to his father, “Father, I want to play my flute.” Terrified, the father spoke sharply and quite harshly to his son and the boy relented. This happened again and again during the minchah service, and each time the father restrained his boy.

Finally, however, during the closing service, the n’ilah, the boy grabbed the flute out of his pocket and blew a blast so loud that all where taken aback. When the Baal Shem Tov, who was acting as the service leader, heard the sound, he shortened his prayer.

At the end, the Baal Shem Tov said: This child’s flute lifted up all our prayers. Through the strength of his yearning he played his heart’s note perfectly. This was very dear to G-d, and all our prayers where accepted for his sake.

The second tale was told to me by a dear friend.

He was at the time in his last year of University, and he had been paying for his lodging by working in the student dormitories. The semester had just started, and students had been arriving for days to check into the dorms. My friend looked up, and in walks Ben. Now, Ben had not only been voted “best looking” in our high school class, he had also been one of my friend’s worst tormentors during a sadly troubled time in high school. My friend’s heart fell.

Everything he had been trying to escape – painful memories, humiliation – came back instantly. Then Ben spoke:

“Hey! Aaron!”

“Ben.”

“Hey man, how are you doing?”

Aaron, very confused, replied flatly. “Um. Ok. How are you?”

“Oh man. You know. It’s been hard. I got a job out of high school and it didn’t work out. I am going to try starting over now – so I am starting school here.”

“Um. That’s nice.”

“Hey. So what’s up with you?”

Aaron reluctantly told him a little of what he had accomplished in the last few years.

Ben listened attentively. “Wow, man. That is awesome. You were always really smart. Hey, you know, we treated you really badly in High School. I just wanted to say that wasn’t right, you know? I’m really sorry.”

And now we return to the present. We have already read and we will continue reading challenging texts as part of our journey through and exploration of the High Holy Days. It can be frightening as we read imagery of judgment, reward and punishment. It can be threatening, as we read about complex theology that we may not be willing to or ready to wrestle with at this moment in our lives. But the beauty of these stories is the beauty of the practical nature that exists behind these prayers and rituals. We are part of a living tradition – an ever-evolving Judaism that is eternally relevant.

It is, however, especially difficult as our complex rituals— the Hebrew, the standing the sitting. . . . am I doing this right or wrong . . . will anyone notice—make our celebration of holidays into something that can be very stressful . . . at times, possibly to the point of getting in the way of our ability to simply be in the moment.

It is perhaps ironic, perhaps even shocking, to read in the Talmud, in Mesechet Taanit, the part of the Talmud that deals with fasting and fast days: “R. SIMEON B. GAMALIEL SAID: THERE NEVER WERE IN ISRAEL GREATER DAYS OF JOY THAN THE FIFTEENTH OF AB (Tu b’av or what we call today Jewish Valentines Day) AND THE DAY OF ATONEMENT.“

The Day of Atonement. Yom Kippur. Today! The day of greatest joy in Israel.

How can that possibly make sense when we fast, when we beat our chests when we read “On Rosh Hashanah it is written and On Yom Kippur it is sealed, who shall live and who shall die.” Have we lost something in the last 2000 years? Or is there a way that we can look at Yom Kippur today that can make that real for us? Can we reconcile the solemnity of the now with this vision from our past?

So if I may, I submit that the entire cycle of the High Holy Days, and the events leading up to them, is a perfect opportunity for psychological, emotional and spiritual health that in turn brings about joy.

Consider an example that I believe to be universal. If we all think hard enough, I am sure that we can think of someone that we have hurt or that has hurt us that we have not yet forgiven or that is waiting for words of apology from us. Most of the time we do not even have to think hard at all – these thoughts are a part of our every day reality.

So then it is tradition in some synagogues on the second day of Elul, the month before the High Holy Days, to hear in our liturgy for the first time the call of the shofar. It is no mere symbol. The sound calls us to engage in our tradition. The sound calls us to the process of teshuvah.

But teshuvah is not one sided. Whether we need to be forgiven or ask forgiveness, teshuvah is our tradition’s word for engaging in the sacred process of forgiveness within all of our relationships.

So picture how this works: We enter Elul with one, five, ten, chas v’shalom 100 people that we need to forgive or that we have never forgiven. It doesn’t even matter which side of this equation we are on – the one that needs to forgive or the one that needs forgiveness – both represent a true burden to the spirit. How much time every day do we spend thinking of these people and these injuries, some of them yesterday and some of them 10, 20 or 60 years in the past that feel as if they were yesterday?

How much of our daily energy do we spend thinking of these injuries?

How much of our energy do we spend walling these thoughts and memories away so that we do not have to think of them?

What does it cost us?

Now we hear the shofar and enter Elul and are required by our tradition to perform a chesbon nefesh – a searching inventory of all these injuries. But here is the trick – we have to do something about it.

Our tradition states that G-d will not forgive our pleas to be forgiven, no matter how sincere, for a transgression against our neighbor. We must engage in teshuvah ourselves with our neighbors.

So on one possible path, we listen to the call of the shofar and our tradition and make this searching inventory. Those that we have been avoiding apologizing to we finally approach and begin the process of healing. To those that have harmed us we say words so simple yet so potent, “I forgive you.”

Yes I know this is brutal. This is far easier said than done. Our pain often seems to be inseparable from our selves. When someone asks how we are doing we filter our answer through our pain and then make decisions based on unhealed memories.

But what price are we willing to pay? If we pray today “on Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed,” what are we writing and what are we sealing?

The gates of repentance being open is our symbol for that limited time when the main focus of our Judaism is to get our attention— to get us to think about and do something about these pains and injuries. And if we engage in this process and do this work we reach n’ilah today and our burdens are indeed lifted. That locked up energy is freed. We are inscribed into life. It is a day of joy for the children of Israel.

Yet if we do not . . . it is the most real and practical and terrible psychological reality for us and for our relationships. If when the doors are open we choose to do nothing, we have pressed the injuries deeper, harder to get at, harder to deal with, harder to even consider approaching next year when we once again hear the shofar. We have sealed them and we ourselves have closed the gates of repentance around us.

We have sealed our wounds but we have not healed them.

The reality is, our traditions – our poems and prayers and songs and sacred texts – our Judaism – do not belong in a museum.

They are relevant. But at the same time, all of those items can get in the way of the work that they are supposed to help us remember to do. In the tale of the Baal Shem Tov and the boy with the flute, the boy’s prayer was accepted and elevated everyone else’s prayer because it was the ideal – avodah sh’balev, the pure worship of the heart. It is a reminder of the simplicity underlying this amazing holiday.

The story of my friend on the other hand is the reality of the healing behind teshuva. Was my friend Aaron’s pain a great pain compared to the horrible injustices in world? Of course not, but it was his pain and his inability to move beyond his memories affected every day of his life. But when we say, “Please forgive me” or “I forgive you,” these are not mere words. Ben changed the entire narrative of my friend’s life with his words, with his teshuvah, and for the very first time my friend was able to stop living in the daily memories of a very real torment, and begin living in that moment with his relationships of that moment instead of the ghosts of his past pain.

Yom Kippur is the most joyful day in Israel?

Think of the true joy that is felt when that one burden we have carried for 20 years has at last been lifted. Now what if we work together to release these burdens, all of us, in all our relationships. What joy indeed!

These stories like our complex liturgy are part of a living breathing ever evolving collective fate. We renew our relationship with our Judaism every time we engage in a dialogue with our tradition, and then more importantly recapture the essence of Judaism – joy, relationship, forgiveness, freeing ourselves from bondage – the actions that our tradition calls us to perform.

We have a choice to write life and health and relation, and then to seal them as the reality under which that we choose to live.

May we be inscribed in – indeed may we cause through our actions and choices that we inscribe ourselves in – the book of life.

Parashat Masei - 5771

I have spent a lot of time this week thinking about the tools of the streams of progressive Judaism—the tools of Wissenschaft des Judentums that have been passed down by our recent sages and handed to us to help redefine how we view our texts and our religious practice. The question I have is if the scientific tools that we have been given – textual and narrative criticism, scientific study of history, archeology, etc. are appropriate parts of the rabbinical tool chest to help elucidate our weekly readings and teachings. Do they have any place in the attempt to address the spiritual and existential needs of a congregation? Can they help at all in the process of tikkun olam – repairing the world?

And then I came to this passage in the current weekly reading from Bamidbar, Parashat Masei:

33:50 The Eternal spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan, across from Jericho. He said: 33:51 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When you have crossed the Jordan into the land of Canaan, 33:52 you must drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you. Destroy all their carved images, all their molten images, and demolish their high places. 33:53 You must dispossess the inhabitants of the land and live in it, for I have given you the land to possess it. . . . 33:55 But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land before you, then those whom you allow to remain will be irritants in your eyes and thorns in your side, and will cause you trouble in the land where you will be living.”

This is not the first time we have heard this theme. The idea that the continuous downfall of the Israelites was the constant exposure to the gods and practices of their neighbors and their inability to resist the temptation of these practices plays as a continuous trope throughout the words of Torah and Prophets. The Israelites returned to the land promised to them by the Eternal, failed to utterly annihilate these tribes, and hence left for themselves an untenable and unsustainable reality. The narrative of the Tanakh seems to cry, “If only they had truly destroyed their temptation. If only they had truly conquered in the manner they had been commanded.” It is like the worst and most devastating story of addiction that you have ever heard – this one ending with the destruction of temples, the deaths of uncounted souls and the dispersion of peoples into the four-corners of the earth to live centuries of desperate uncertainty.

Here is where the progressive tools need to come into play—not as a tool to attack Torah chas v’shalom but rather to use knowledge to put the Torah narrative into new possibilities of perception—not to take away from the holiness of Torah but rather to experience the radical amazement of seeing our story in every possible manner.

The problem is, that although this narrative calling for the destruction of idols and high places presented in Torah may indeed reflect the theological truth of Am Yisrael, it possibly does not reflect the historical truth. Although there are many theories of what historically happened, from an academic standpoint I subscribe to the theory that the Hebrew peoples were native to the Canaanite highlands – indeed, were a part of this people and over the centuries differentiated themselves through ritual customs. After some influx of other peoples, possibly even a literal exodus of what would become the Leviim from Egypt, the synthesis became the group that would eventually become known as the Jews. This horrible over-simplification at least points to one travesty in the traditional narrative – that the internal problems of the Jews were projected on external elements – their neighbors and cousins – the Canaanite tribes.

Here then is the crux of the problem. Our “narrative” was partially an attempt to push Am Yisrael to give up their addiction to the gods of their neighbors, who were in all probability for millennia as well there own gods. “You shall utterly destroy their idols” begins to sound an awful lot like “if you just try hard enough you can give up your heroin addiction.” As far as a practical tool to help individuals or groups personally or collectively overcome their addictions, this narrative has utterly failed.

And then it becomes clear that we have indeed followed the example of the narrative of the Bible. We have indeed in various ways at various times projected all of our vices on society. We have attempted to blame the internal lack on an external cause.

If you are an alcohol addict then it is the fault of the alcohol so prohibit the sale of it and decry the evils of alcohol from the pulpit.

If you are a sex addict then arrest the pornographers and enact legislation against creation, distribution and private consumption of pornography.

If you are a drug addict then declare a grand War Against Drugs. And how has that worked out?

Although these items may even somehow sound reasonable they are only the first step, exactly as is reflected in Torah. If we cannot get rid of the object that causes us to sin then we need to get rid of the people behind it—first the liberals and reformers because they question the society that nostalgia tells us must have once been perfect. Then solve our political problems by dehumanizing and calling for the extermination of the ethnic and political groups that do not fit into our narrative. Finally we make it practical and we go after the individuals whose existence is a daily reminder that our nostalgic narrative simply does not exist and may never have existed. Let’s get rid of the gays, those with darker skin, the poor and oh yes if the entire world decides to think and act upon this type of narrative, then don’t forget the Jews that are behind all this to begin with.

But when it is all gone, if there is anyone left to care they will still find the same emptiness inside. The destruction of external symbols can never fulfill an internal emptiness.

I wish I could bow to the inevitable criticism and say that I am being, as we would say in German, übertrieben. Yet there are clear, tangible and provable examples for the drive to do exactly what I just described – our contemporary “destroy all the altars and high places and ashterot.” When someone says we need to return to traditional marriage I ask “which version do you mean? The one where women had no choices and existed in a type of life-indentured servitude and prayed that her completely autonomous man would not take too much advantage of that? Because that traditional marriage was the one that existed up until a few generations ago in western society.”

I am not presenting a grand solution here—I make no claim to such wisdom. I call instead for one of the central messages of Kabbalah and Chassidism – that we need to be aware, to be awakened and to awake. If our lives are full of the emptiness that causes us to lash out against external causes – if we look in the mirror, consider all that we would wish to be different, and lay the blame for all that is wrong at the feet of others – then we are not awake. Awakening means that our internal tikkun olam begins with awareness and then internal solutions. It means that our cherished narrative, personal and collective, needs to be challenged.

Parashat Terumah 5771 - English Version

(Translated from the German -- original version here.)

It was our great teacher, Rav Indiana Jones, that first taught me and many other members of Beis Hollywood about the Ark of the Covenant. As a matter of fact, the film “Raiders of the Lost Ark” seems to offer a variety of insights into the nature of the Holy Ark. For example—we are taught that it is powerful, that it can destroy entire armies, that it is so mysterious and awesome that it gets a special moment of John Williams soundtrack when the Ark is discussed – and – that the Ark is today hidden away in some secret CIA warehouse.

OK – perhaps all of these points aren’t really to be found in Torah. But there nonetheless seems to be a spark of truth behind the Beis Hollywood drama. We read in Parashat Terumah about the construction of the Ark of the Covenant—its material, its size and so forth, and then we come upon:

(Exodus) 25:18 You are to make two cherubim of gold; you are to make them of hammered metal on the two ends of the atonement lid. 25:19 Make one cherub on one end and one cherub on the other end; from the atonement lid you are to make the cherubim on the two ends. 25:20 The cherubim are to be spreading their wings upward, overshadowing the atonement lid with their wings, and the cherubim are to face each other, looking toward the atonement lid. 25:21 You are to put the atonement lid on top of the ark, and in the ark you are to put the testimony I am giving you. 25:22 I will meet with you there, and from above the atonement lid, from between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you about all that I will command you for the Israelites.

Wait a minute . . . isn’t this just a bit problematic? Didn’t we just two weeks ago in Parashat Yitro read “You shall make not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water below” (Exodus 20:4)? And now it is suddenly OK to carve some angels? And even more bizarre, the voice of G-d is going to be coming out of the space in between the wings of the Cherubim—these special sorts of heavenly guardians?

I am not really sure if the Ark can destroy entire armies—and I doubt, at least for the most part, that the Ark is lying today in some secret CIA warehouse. But truly—one must admit it seems a little mysterious and awesome – perhaps even powerful. What is happening here?

The first thing I want to point out is the pretty clear “relationship” reference. There are two Cherubim that are set across from each other – facing each other. The wings form a sort of covering above the cover of the ark itself. Two beings—or representations of beings—that eternally exist across from and facing the other reaching towards each other and looking at each other– both an interesting metaphor and image.

Yet perhaps even more interesting in this picture is the other description of the Ark of the Covenant in the Tanakh from 2nd Chronicles 3:13. Depending on how you want to translate it, it says that “They stood upright, facing inward—“ or with their faces to the house – or facing the main hall of the Temple. Either way, this means not facing each other.

Naturally this drove our sages crazy—yet their attempt to explain this apparent contradiction acknowledges the “relationship” aspect of the Cherubim. We read in Baba Batra (99a) that when Israel fulfilled the mitzvot, that the Cherubim would face each other. When Israel rebelled against G-d, they would turn “towards the house.”

So what about this empty space? What should we make out of this nothingness between the wings out of which the voice of G-d is supposed to address the Israelites? Let me try two different pictures to try and explain this:

First – those that can read and play music understand that a “rest” has nothing to do with “nothing,” as it were. It looks like a “nothing,” certainly. Here we have notes and here we have none. But in truth, playing this “nothing” is every bit as important – sometimes even more so – than playing the notes. This rest – this pause – this absence of notes is a thing in and of itself. Not a nothing – rather a “something.” But what?

Second – how does one say Ex Nihilo – “out of nothing” – in Hebrew?

Yesh m’Ayin.

But Yesh m’Ayin has specifically intriguing implications in Hebrew and in Judaism. When I want to say, “Here is something” or “I have something” I say “yesh.” Yesh Shulkan? (Is there a table here?) Yesh! Yesh Siddurim? (Are there prayerbooks?) Yesh! Yesh maspik Siddurim? (Are there enough prayerbooks?) Lo! Ayn maspik! (No – there are not enough.) Ayin. It is rather interesting that the word for “there isn’t any” is also a part of a name of G-d. Eyn. Ayin. Eyn Sof. Without end. No possibility to see, hear, touch, understand. Nothing. Ayin. The G-d that exists on the other side of our consciousness—on the other side of our ability to imagine—the “nihilo” out of which everything that we can see and experience is an “ex.”

So . . . the Cherubim are perhaps a metaphor for relationship and the space in between then somehow represents and aspect of G-d. It is an interesting perspective that we can perhaps take further.

Risking utter absurdity and irony for the sake of analogy, let’s imagine for a second that “Eyn Sof” can be represented as something or someone that is observable. From our perspective, Eyn Sof is “Ayin” and we are “Yesh.” But from the perspective of Eyn Sof, Eyn Sof is “Yesh” and we are “Ayin.”

Ok, that is intensely complicated and perhaps too philosophical. Let’s try to formulate this differently . . .

Is there anyone in this congregation that believes that they know the deepest inner thoughts of all the others present here? No? What about just a single person – remember – all the innermost thoughts . . . once again “no?” What about my own thoughts and self – do I have the fantasy that I actually understand all of my own deepest thoughts and motivations? Truly? Also . . . no.

Yet despite this clear answer, we stand almost always directly in the middle point of our own personal perspectives and fight almost always that our perspectives are the ones that are correct—that our yesh is in fact the yesh. In a relationship it is always easier to shout loudly when the other cannot or refuses to acknowledge our yesh. My yesh is yesh and yours is ayin – eyn – nothing.

Why two Cherubim?

Even when the creation of an image is not allowed, Torah nonetheless understands – our tradition nonetheless understands—that we can never begin with “nothing.” We need guidelines and Wikipedia and mentoring and sometimes even wings and cherubs to point us to where we actually need to look—to point us to what is really “yesh.”

Is this really so abstract? We all know – or believe we know – what a relationship is. Yet we cannot see or touch or taste or hear a relationship, only the manifestations of it. The manifestations – how we treat each other – ideally serve to point us to come ever closer to understanding that abstraction called “relationship,” when in fact we almost always become fixated on the details of the manifestations rather that the truth of the relationship – the intangible core that is the reality.

G-d speaks from the emptiness between the wings because this nothingness represents nothing less than reality in its highest and purest form. Our challenge is to unfailingly remember that the opinions and thoughts and struggles with the divine of the “other” in any relationship are just as valid as ours, and to act upon that reality rather than the usual reality – that ours is the only. My yesh is truly not yesh and I need to respect yours—I need to try to hear the voice from the place between the wings that I cannot see—or else we very quickly see the wings turning away from each other until the cherubim can no longer face each other at all.

A relationship – love, friendship, that between teacher and student or even stranger and stranger in a moment of mystical meeting is powerful and mysterious and awesome – and therefore there is so much in Torah that shows us and challenges us to pay attention to the yesh of the other – that is to say, the voice of G-d.

Why no Posting? (or . . . bad BAD Paul)

So -- I finally posted something, just not here. For my German speaking friends, family and colleagues I have set up a sister-blog to post the Drashot that I actually write down. (Oy -- I know -- once again bad BAD Paul.) The fact is, Geiger has a policy that all Drashot are written minimum 8 - days before a pulpit visit, that our Director of Student Placement can review and make suggestions/changes to a sermon. I actually believe this to be a positive idea, I am just not always successful in complying as it takes me ten times as long to formulate my thoughts in written German and I am still much more comfortable with five bullet points and free speaking. That being said, complying with my school's wishes is important, and in an effort to push myself, I will publish any Drashot that I successfully get on paper before a deadline. I have to give here also a huge shout-out to my German coach that has been helping me more than I can say getting this stuff done, and that made the following Drasha readable in my adopted language.

First one HERE

Now -- why no other posting?

I had a chilling experience a while back. I googled myself (yes -- don't look so shocked -- you google yourself too) and saw that on google.de one of the results was not shown and was censored by google. I went to chillingeffects.org to try and figure out the cause -- as -- needless to say -- I had an unpleasant feeling in my stomach. The site described the censoring as "German regulatory body reported illegal material." Cue unpleasant feeling getting worse. I did the same search on google.com, which unless the issue was an interpol issue would show the site, and found that an article about me had been posted to a neo-Nazi website. No comments, simply an article about funding for Abraham Geiger Kolleg that was posted to a neo-Nazi website to let like-minded folks know, I guess, that the government of Brandenburg was involved in funding Jews. Chilling effect indeed. Needless to say, although I truly choose to not live a life of fear-- I felt a significant decline since that time of any desire whatsoever to post thoughts on my blog. I hope I do overcome this, as I still think I have a bit to say-- but for now, I'll let everyone know when a new sermon is up, and continue trying to give my energy to a type of work that-- hopefully -- involves dafka the exact opposite energy of the folks that posted my name.

What I Did (am doing?!) On My Summer "Vacation"

In the course of my rabbinical studies I have already been gifted with amazing opportunities and experiences. This summer as I study in Jerusalem at the Steinsaltz Yeshiva, however, one of the most intense of these experiences has arisen -- I was invited to sing with the choir at the Great Synagogue of Jerusalem for Selichot and the High Holy Days.

Well, streaming vids are worth several terabytes worth of words, so I am posting a link to a video here -- sorry, I cannot imbed it and the site is all Hebrew -- that might help shed a little light on the nature of the experience.

Several groups filmed Selichot this year at the Great Synagogue -- the sound is not great but certainly gives a little idea as to the nature of the music. For those of you that are not Jewish, and maybe even for some that are, this might be a bit of an alien experience. This video is 25 edited minutes from a 3 hour service that lasted until 1 in the morning (and unfortunately does not contain the early part of the service with the best choir music.) The music is about 50% improvised, with the truly brilliant choir director (and composer and/or arranger of much of the music) Elli Jaffe listening to the prayer improvisations on the Cantor and then giving pitch cues to the choir as to how to accompany him. From the vantage of this video, you can easily hear some of the more simple cues that were given. As a choir member, this means that the level of focus that must be maintained is quite high -- even within the written pieces there is a huge amount of improvisation.

Hopefully I'll write more about the choir as the High Holy Days progress. In the meantime, enjoy. For those looking, you can find me to the right of the tall balding bass in the foreground to the right of the conductor -- my black kippah contrasts something fierce with my gray hair -- and yes I am one of those men singing the very low notes.

Shana Tova to all.

Musings from the Yeshiva

I have been thinking a lot recently about the old New Age maxim that we create our own reality. This is a thought form that has existed in many guises throughout history, but hit the global collective conscious in the 60s. The only problem is that we didn’t really create are own reality – all the wonderful energy that went into this seems to have been somehow either misplaced or re-directed into the desire to create the reality of acquisition. Either way, the concept has been nagging at me recently and demanded my consideration.

As one who has struggled my entire life with at times paralyzing amounts of self criticism, I have to lay my own challenge to the maxim. On the one hand, the idea of creating one’s own reality is freeing. It means that once we begin the process of challenging and questioning with the hope of living a conscious life-- as opposed to the birth-default mode of living life purely through the will and pattern of tribe/family/faith into which “chance” brought us—we may have the possibility of willing or imaging ourselves out of the various bondages we find ourselves in. On the other hand, when – as is the usual case – we wake up and find that the bondage has been shifted and renamed rather than obliterated, the temptation to give up on the imaginings is high.

These thoughts are of course nothing more than a horrifyingly simplistic jab at a huge topic. Acknowledging that, let me try bringing in some thoughts from Jewish mystical perspectives and see what happens . . .

One of the great revelations of Lurianic Kabbalah was to describe a two-way affective relationship between the unknowable eternal aspect of G-d (Ayn Sof) and man. The system, admittedly simplified, says that creation is a continual process that manifests more clearly (from humankind’s perspective) as it moves through the archetypal manifestations of G-d – the Sefirot – until at last the full emet (truth) of G-d is hidden behind the physical constructs and shapes of this world that make this world accessible. In essence, if we were able to see the truth of G-d – that is, G-d not hidden on the other side of created physical reality – there could be no free will. Free will is predicated on not existing on the same level as G-d. To put it another way, if we define G-d as pure truth and we were undifferentiated from this pure truth we would not be able to do anything other than that which was defined by pure truth. Once we separate – create a boundary – put something into a shape -- it can act outside of pure truth since it is no longer a part of nothing-more-than-pure-truth.

In the Lurianic cosmology, a result of this process of creation was that an aspect of G-d, the Shekhina – G-d’s presence and the archetypal sacred feminine – was forced into exile. Put another way, in the same way that humankind cannot fully “know” G-d and still be a unique creation, in order for an aspect of G-d to be accessible to creation (present within the boundaries of creation) G-d had to separate an aspect of G-d’s self from G-d’s self. This way of imagining G-d, then, is also key to understanding the answers to Theodicy within mystical Judaism—the distance and separation from G-d that allows for creation also then allows creation to be corruptible—things wear out, break down, become diseased, and through the necessary agency of free will move either closer to or further away from the unknowable Ayn Sof.

A core principle then of Lurianic Kabbalah is that prayer and sacred duties (the mitzvoth) with the proper focus and intention (kavanah) act to re-unify G-d with G-d’s self. An imperfect light from the eternal perfection of the unknowable reaches humankind fractured.

Luria’s revelation, put simply, is that as G-d influences us, we as well influence G-d. This should not necessarily be understood as the equivalent of casting a spell or praying for a new bike, but rather as performing sacred acts – in Jewish tradition epitomized as Torah, Avodah (prayer and sacred effort), and Gemilut Chassidim (acts of loving kindness – ethical behavior – works.) This can be seen very abstractly, for example, as focusing within specific prayers upon the unification of G-d (the details of which deserve a different post.) It could also be understood psychology—daily attempting to reconcile the parts of ourselves that we hide from ourselves and others (Jung’s shadow) in order to create a unified (individuated) whole. It can also, however, be understood very practically. Think simply of the emotional difference of the experience of someone letting you merge in bad traffic and someone making a great show of not letting you merge, although it gains them little more than 5 seconds of drive time. What happens in your body and thoughts and emotions in each experience or any other analogous experience? What are you more likely to do or how are you more likely to behave in each incident and in the moments that follow? And then the people that you affect – what are they more likely to do and pass on to the next with whom they physically or energetically interact? Now take that to the realm of what we pass on in yet more resonant events – raising of children, mourning with the bereaved, celebrating with bride and groom, making sure that in wealthy nations people with no health insurance have access to the healing resources of that wealthy society . . . pass it on, pay it forward – which tangible life activities and focuses and intentions within that activity “unify” society – ourselves – G-d? There really doesn’t have to be anything mystical about this.

So back to the original thought. . . .

Although I may be ultimately limiting myself, and I certainly leave room to change my mind on this, let me try this formulation: We are able to create our own reality within the larger framework of a world that needs healing and unifying. Or—we create our own reality within the limitations—seen and unseen—known and unknown—that we place upon ourselves through not forgiving, through blaming others, through not living in the present, by acting destructively, by not being self-aware, by not acknowledging that the other is as important in divine reality as we are, by creating the “other” in the first place . . .

I think I am trying to say that within the contemplation of my own continuous and numerous failures, the waving of the magic wand and the thought in the morning that I “create my own reality” is not an answer. The answer is, creating my own reality means more clearly seeing the larger reality without illusions – without myself getting in the way. In Jewish tradition, this means working through Torah, Avodah, and Gemilut Chassadim to break down the barriers between me and G-d (that is to say between me and those around me as well as me and the unknowable source.) In practical life that means I create my own reality be everyday participating in the unending act of creation—living each day consciously and deliberately within rational ethical acts that pay forward the constructive rather than the destructive.

Backyard Terror

I haven't known what to write about the latest incident of "tractor terror" in Jerusalem this past week. The first one took place near the open-air market that both Sandra and I frequented, and the violation of one of my "homes" affected me. But the latest one took place one block from HUC in one direction and ended one block from where Sandra and I lived in the other direction. So rather than try to address it, I want to share the words of the Dean of the HUC Jerusalem campus (and one of the finest gentlemen I have ever had the pleasure of learning from) that were posted in the Jerusalem post.

Reform Reflections: Life and death on King David street

Posted by Rabbi Michael Marmur

For much of my adult life I have studied, taught and worked on King David Street in Jerusalem. It is certainly no ordinary work address. World leaders stay there - in recent months we have played host to Bush, Blair, then Bush again, Blair, Rice, Blair Carter, Sarkozy, Blair (I'm beginning to think that man has nothing better to do), Brown, Mc Cain, Obama - and that doesn't do justice to the tens of less famous officials - Fishing Ministers from Ruritania and Tax Inspectors from Uzbekhistan.

Then there are the Life Cycle Events. Families compete with each other to hold the most opulent and often gaudy events: barmy Bar Mitzvahs, wild weddings, and far from circumspect circumcisions. And let's not forget the welcome crush of tourists, staying in comfort and often returning home with some expensive artifacts purchased at one of our street's many upscale emporia. More hotels are on the way, along with a plethora of swanky apartment buildings aimed at visionaries and speculators.

It is perhaps a surprise that one of the street's most famous and significant landmarks is the YMCA, an oasis of dialogue and culture and encounter and health. If you've never been, you owe it to yourself to drink in the architectural attractions, climb to the top of the tower, and stop off for a Pilates class at the same time. Jews and Arabs (both Muslim and Christian) feel at home at the YMCA.

Over the last years King David Street has also played host to the Annual Gay Pride parade. Visitors to similar events might mistake the throng of men dressed in police uniform walking by the YMCA as some kind of hommage to the Village People, but in our city's parade they are actually policemen, on hand in order to protect the crowd from the taunts of those who combine theological certainty with personal insecurity.

A variety of Jewish institutions grace the street: on avenues nearby some of the most important foundations and philanthropic agencies are to be found. AIPAC is across the street. The Gesher Institute is opposite my own institution, the Hebrew Union College, and our campus plays host to Merkaz Shimshon and Bet Shmuel - the world headquarters of the Reform Movement. In recent years an Ultra-Orthodox Yeshiva has opened up in close proximity. With the international center of Conservative Judaism a couple of blocks away, we are arguably situated in the most denominationally diverse address in the Jewish world. It is truly the High Street of the Jewish People.

The street is no stranger to acts of violence. The most spectacular and deadly event took place back in 1946, with the notorious attack on the street's most famous eponymous hotel. 45 years later, a planned suicide bombing succeeded in killing the man with the explosive jacket, but no innocent victims. And now, earlier this week, King David Street saw the second example in as many weeks of Tractor Terror. A man driving a construction vehicle started ramming and squashing vehicles, although he was killed before he managed to kill anyone else.

Five of my students were in close proximity to the attack this week. Four of the College's Israeli students were enjoying a break at a local café, and were afforded a grandstand view of the grim and swift proceedings. More directly still, one woman recently arrived from the US on our Year in Israel Program found herself directly behind the tractor. As soon as the gunshots began to ring out she took cover behind a tree. Once the emergency was over, she dusted herself off and went to her apartment. When I saw her soon after she was shaken but not stirred, and we spent some time talking about her road to the Rabbinate. For her and hundreds of others, the first Road to the Rabbinate is King David Street.

When I passed the scene of the attack a couple of hours later, an assortment of characters had shown up - a Government Minister in search of a photo opportunity, and some Kahanist crazies in search of a hatred opportunity. Chabad were also there for some reason, with a large banner promising Messianic days. Somehow the bizarre nature of the scene seemed natural in a road in which the incongruous is inevitable.

Those who try to bring death to this place of life will not succeed, even if (Heaven forbid) a future attack yields casualties. Somehow the untidy yet intense drama being played out in the street - Jews and Arabs, locals and tourists, Liberals and Traditionalists, wealthy and modest - must not be curtailed. It may have its tractors and its detractors, but the spirit of King David Street cannot be bulldozed.

A Neat Piece of News

(Picture note: One of my favorite of the Chagall Windows at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem. The inspiration for the windows, other than Chagall's purely amazing creativity, was the section of Torah dealing with Israel/Jacob's blessings to his sons. The blessing that inspires this window starts, "Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a spring; his branches run over the wall." Why is בן פרת, literally "descendant that bears fruit" repeated? I think because Torah, above else, has power by forcing us to ask questions and always examine and move forward in our lives, rather than leaving status quo alone. There is always work to do. As descendants of Israel we continue to ask the questions prompted by a repeated word here, and extra pronoun there. And in those Kleinigkeiten we find G-d because G-d is in the process of making connections much more than any temporary answer that we would wish to stand on and claim to be the only truth. At least that is what I think it means . . . sorry didn't mean to turn a picture note into a word of Torah. I just finished my last final, is all, and am a bit excited.)

I just wanted to share with you all an exciting and complete-surprise piece of news from my last week studying in Jerusalem.

It has been an honor to study at an American rabbinical seminary as an international student. The Michael Klein Prize mentioned in the link above was a humbling exclamation point on what has been year beyond anything I could have imagined it to be. Although I still think that half the people that find out that Sandra and I are emigrating to Germany to be a part of the ongoing re-building and strengthening of Judaism there think we are a little crazy, I also believe that after this year our plans and commitment have begun to be taken very seriously. I may have studied at HUC this year, but I am a student at Abraham Geiger Kolleg -- and very proud to be one.

So much has happened this year, especially the last two months that needs to be written about, but first I have two papers to finish. After that, I promise several long posts in the next two weeks full of details (and maybe even a sound file or two of the most interesting happenings.) My best to you all and thank you for the many ongoing notes of support that you all have sent me this year.

Paul

It's Complicated

(Picture Note -- Sandra and I at the beach in Tel Aviv -- I am really going to miss this place.)

During our first weeks in rabbinical school, we were told that our program was a combination professional school, graduate school, and seminary. Although I believe that there is truth in this analysis (after all, our hours spent in class seem to reflect three programs rather than one) I think that there is also an indefinable fourth school at play—let’s call it the discard-all-preconceived-notions-school— perhaps we might even call it the “pay close attention and you might learn something really valuable” school. HUC chooses to call it the “Israel Seminar,” and for anyone who decided this year to allow for the possibility that someone in Israel might know something more than they about this region, the Israel Seminar provided an education that money simply cannot buy.

I had my own share of preconceptions about Israel. As a self-proclaimed moderate I believed that I possessed an objective and studied position of moral superiority that allowed me to act as critic and apologeticist—that my deep reading of both Dershowitz and Chomsky gave me balance, that my mistrust of main stream media to report on Israel accurately demonstrated my wisdom and that my passion for the subject of Israel gave me legitimacy.

But it is complicated.

This year in the Israel seminar we have been immersed in thoughts and perspectives, readings and voices that crossed every possible spectrum of the debates and challenged any possible preconceived notion. We have run the gauntlet of intellectual challenge through Orthodox, Reform and Secular religious voices, through Arab and Jewish voices, through government and civilian voices, and through voices for and opposed to any subject of the Israel-Palestine continuum of debate that could be dreamed up. We have walked through Haredi neighborhoods and sat in Mosques. We have crossed the green-line and walked through military bases. We have heard the voices of bereaved on both sides of the conflict. We have been challenged with prevarication and uncomfortable directness—with naïve wand-waving solutions and casual non-PC and unselfconscious racism. At the end of the day, we have all learned that it is complicated.

In the past I have debated friends and strangers regarding Israel. My openly-worn kippah in America makes me a target on the street for direct questions or proxy condemnations and my decision to become a rabbi makes me a target for acquaintances to vent in-vogue anti-Israel sentiment. After a year of immersion in the subject I have one answer to offer—it is complicated.

My most strongly held convictions, drawn from both right and left-leaning political, social and religious stances can no longer be offered to counteract the “assurances” of others. What about my own assurance, for example, that ultra-Orthodox Jews represent a monolithic “wrong” in the religious debate? Walk a day in Haredi clothing—long enough to be shoved into the street with non-Shalom based enthusiasm by a non-Heredi, then study in-depth their political motivations and support those beliefs in a political exercise and see how easy it is to continue to arbitrarily other them and deny their own place the larger narrative of Eretz Israel and Am Israel. I may disagree profoundly with the Haradiim regarding many and most subjects, but the blanket condemnation I once held? It is complicated.

How about settlers? When I came here I knew that the settler movement was the root of all evil. As I sit here today I am still against the settlements on principle and for the dismantling of the remaining settlements—at least to Clinton proposed levels from 2000—yet that is a principle that is in many ways nothing more than a counterpoint in a debate. I will argue against settlers and settlements, but my life has still been transformed by meeting settlers and visiting settlements. Demonizing a movement is easy—demonizing real people that are no more or less fully human than the rest of us is much harder. There is simply no monolithic reason that can be given to account for every soul and family that chooses or has chosen to live in these politically, religiously, ethically and sociologically problematic locations. The headline stories of human rights abuses may be real, but they are only a part of a larger story. Blaming one side in an arbitrary fury of self righteousness requires willful ignorance of the larger picture. So is it with the settlements—so is it with the security fence—so is it with any part of the conflict you choose to examine. It is complicated.

Even the one item that I knew could never be overturned—the fact that the majority of the world media is anti-Israel (and on occasion anti-Semitic) on principle cannot stand up to deeper learning. Yes, there is a general and pervasive anti-Israel bias to world reporting, but according to a journalist inside this region such as Matthew Kalman, this is as much due to the willful arrogance of an Israeli government that does nothing to balance the very activist five (to Israel’s zero) Palestinian news agencies. How can Israel’s message be heard—how can the world know anything at all about the “other side” of the most damning issues (and yes I assure you that there is a compelling other side) when the other side has chosen to not even show up at the party?

The final assessment of all these challenges and experiences, if indeed such an assessment is even remotely reasonable, is that I must profoundly distrust anyone that presents a simple answer or a sound-byte sized condemnation of Israel. Out of all the things that I feel I no longer can answer with confidence, I feel that I can stand with great confidence with the statement that anyone offering blanket adulation or condemnation has chosen a path of ignorance. There are no easy answers. This region and the national and religious narratives of all people that exist here and claim this place as their place all have legitimacy and all have a share of responsibility for the very real problems. The us-good/them-bad mentality on any side is much more a part of the problem then it is any useful step towards a solution. Learning about this region takes work, and it takes significant learning to get past any of the dominating us/them understandings of the life and the conflict here. As I prepare to wrap up my studies here, I am still a moderate-leaning progressive religious Zionist, if that statement means anything at all— but I also believe that that identity, thanks to a truly unique and profound educational experience, is tempered with perspective that is the beginning of wisdom—a wisdom that suggests that if I again find myself believing in simple descriptions or easy answers that I have lost that perspective and either need to shut up or come back here and relearn about the beautiful complexities of the land and people. It is complicated, but it is also amazing.