Independent Jewish Spirituality
Click here and take the pledge and help spread our message of hope. It Gets Better.
THE PLEDGE: Everyone deserves to be respected for who they are. I pledge to spread this message to my friends, family and neighbors. I’ll speak up against hate and intolerance whenever I see it, at school and at work. I’ll provide hope for lesbian, gay, bi, trans and other bullied teens by letting them know that “It Gets Better.”
In the midst of a deep spiritual crises, the “golden calf” episode, the Creator revealed to Moses the “Thirteen Attributes of Compassion” (Exodus 34:6,7). Since then, invoking these “Thirteen Attributes” at opportune times have brought about the Creator’s unconditional forgiveness.
The “Date Palm of Deborah” is short book written by the renown Kabbalist Rabbi Moshe Cordovaro (1522 -1570). The main body of this work is a description of how each of the Creator’s “Thirteen Attributes of Compassion” has a human counterpart which can actually be practiced by people to forgive those who have hurt them. All human acts of forgiveness express one or more of these attributes.
For example, it’s commonplace for people who have been hurt by others to feel insulted. The concept underlying the first attribute of compassion addresses the insult cast at the Creator when people knowingly misuse His resources He kindly created to benefit humanity. These people abuse… [Read more…]
Okay, here’s the thing: while I typically possess the organizational skills of an ant with OCD, over this past year my every attempt at organization has been confounded. I believe that this is due, in large part, to my lifestyle becoming increasingly nomadic; and my resistance to this. In an effort to both conserve space and travel lightly, I was forced to consolidate my possessions down to the bare necessities (I mean, I was only able to take, like, ten to twelve pairs of shoes with me. In my world this is nearly equivalent to a social crisis.). Consequently, when high holy days crept up behind me, placed its hands over my eyes, and whispered, “guess who?” I was completely caught off guard. To say I was ill prepared for the most important holidays on the Hebrew calendar would be like saying Henry Ford was a bit put off by the Jews; or that the Middle East has one or two small issues. Shifting into seat-of-my-pants, headless-chicken mode, under which I had been operating to a much greater extent lately, I tried to remember where I had stored the things I would need for the days of awe. More specifically, I wondered when I had last seen my kavanah. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term kavanah, it is a Hebrew word meaning intention or direction of the heart and describes the state of mind one should be in while praying.
Oy gevalt! Was my Kavanah in mothballs somewhere? Where on Earth had I put it? I searched through every closet and box, finding nothing but half-finished projects and mementos of broken vows and unfulfilled oaths. I started to sweat until I remembered that I had already nullified my vows and oaths during Yom Kippur the previous year. Baruch HaShem! At least I didn’t have that to worry about. Also, I distinctly remembered having my Kavanah with me since that time. So where did I put it? Did I leave it at the shul among the prayer shawls and kippot that are provided for those who don’t have them? Perhaps it was buried deep within my storage unit, in the box containing my white Yom Kippur clothes? I was at a complete loss.
Feeling like a complete shmuck, I thought that perhaps I might skip high holy days services this year; then no one would have to know about my lost kavanah. Except that I had already requested, and was granted, a ticket for all of the services for a very meager donation. Even though I attend synagogue services sporadically, at best, the people at this shul have been very good to me, and never make me feel like the village schnorrer (beggar) that I actually am. And once again, by granting me a ticket at a ridiculously generous discount, they were extending the hand of tzedakah to me. No, not attending services was not an option. I needed some advice. In the past, when faced with an untenable situation, I typically asked myself how my dad would advise me in a given scenario. In this instance, I was sure he would have told me to “suit up and show up.” Okay…good…I could do that…probably.
When the first day of Rosh Hashanah arrived, I suited up, showed up, and listened to the beautifully plaintive call of the shofar. Even though I did my best to stay anonymous amidst the sea of people, the rabbi noticed me and proffered, along with his warm greeting, an invitation to the break-the-fast dinner that takes place at the conclusion of Yom Kippur. I accepted the invitation graciously, and hoped my nervous smile didn’t betray me. I wondered if he would have extended the invitation if he had known that my kavanah was still MIA? Sh*t! Where the f@#* was my f@#*ing kavanah? Since I had 10 days until I really needed it, I went home and promptly forgot all about it. You can imagine my horrified shock when I woke up one morning to find Yom Kippur staring me straight in the face.
Bugger! Bugger! Bugger! No kavanah in sight, and my white Yom Kippur clothes were still buried somewhere in the depths of my storage unit. I would have to wing it. In keeping with my decidedly punk personality, I made the ironic choice to wear all black.
I mean:
A) I had plenty of black clothes
B) Hell, I even had black canvas sneakers
C) Being the one black dot in a sea of white is sort of my shtick.
Once I had suited up, I went to the Kol Nidre service for the showing up portion of the evening. Guess who wasn’t with me? That’s right; Ms. Kavanah apparently had a better party to attend. The evening service passed more slowly than the line at the DMV; and the service on the following morning was even slower (it’s not like I could hide my kindle inside my Machzor; there were too many people in attendance. But I totally thought about it). It was all I could do to not run screaming to the nearest exit. That afternoon, as I was heading back to the shul for the concluding service of Neilah, I began to despair of ever seeing my kavanah again. It was during the final moments of Yom Kippur that I became really desperate; and as the gates of Heaven started to close I prayed feverishly, pleading to be written in the book of life. Suddenly, I saw something flutter in my peripheral vision. When I turned to look, guess who was sitting there looking oh-so-convivial? Yup…it was my kavanah. I was so relieved to see her that I decided I could wait until the service was over to discuss the (ahem) problem.
When the service concluded I quietly requested a word with her outside. Once we were out of earshot of the other congregants I turned on her angrily. “Where the hell have you been?” I demanded, “I’ve been looking everywhere for you since before Rosh Hashanah! You sure picked a fine time to disappear. If I don’t get written in the book of life this year, and I die, I am so taking you with me!” She looked at me as though I had lost my mind (and since I was subjecting abstract concepts, like kavanah, to anthropomorphism, perhaps I had). “Nu?” I asked her impatiently, “What do you have to say for yourself?” She contemplated for a moment and then spoke. “Wait,” she began, “you don’t actually think that I’m something that can be carelessly misplaced and forgotten, do you? Like a book or car keys?” Then under her breath she said, “And you think I’m a flake?”
Did I think that? Did I think she was like other commonplace items that are easily misplaced? She looked at me then; looked directly into my eyes, searching expectantly for contrition that wasn’t there. “You are too much!” she said, clearly exasperated. “I can’t believe I have to explain this to you. Um, I actually live inside of you!”.
Okay, that was hurtful.
”Here’s the problem. I can’t engage unless you engage me.” It was at that precise moment that it dawned on me: she was right. It wasn’t until I became desperate enough to try that she appeared. I mean, sure, suiting up and showing up is all well and good; but because I had convinced myself that kavanah was something that existed separately from me, I didn’t even try. I had been faithless and foolish. I did, however, learn something that day: the Creator has endowed each of us with plenty of kavanah. However, in order to engage it we must also have faith; and sadly, faith is in much shorter supply.
Written by Shoshana H. Hogue
Tish b’Av, a holy day of sadness, commemorates the destruction of the first and second Temples, a day when we read the Book of Lamentations and on which many fast. Is there any benefit to living in the past, focusing on tragedy? Or can we perhaps learn a lesson from tragedy?
Rabbi Michael Bernstein of Congregation Gesher L’Torah reminds us that “joy and celebration are intrinsic to the Jewish people’s strength, well-being, and longevity.” Yet there are times, like Tish b’Av when we take on sorrow through recalling the painful experiences of being Jewish and our less than stellar history. One of our great sources of spiritual insight, Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, who himself may be best known for the phrase “It is a great commandment to be joyous at all times,” was reported to have suffered from depression.
However, Rabbi Nachman grew from his depression and really knew the human condition. He provided a profound way of understanding the place of sadness in our lives. Rabbi Nachman said that there is a very real and human susceptibility to sadness as well as anger that brings bitterness, fear, depression, and despair. Those feelings, whether they come from tragic occurrences in our lives or for no conscious reason, cannot be avoided. However, they do us no good to dwell on them or to get lost in them. In the words of a great teacher of mine, Mike Smith, “it is empowering to honor the past – to learn from it and it is disempowering to live in the past –to be stuck there. Living in the past is like carrying a heavy sack of all our past hurt, anger, resentments, despair and then creating the future by tossing forward this heavy sack of the past. Now, try having a powerful life that way”
One of my favorite Jewish Renewal authors and pastoral counselors, Estelle Frankel, wrote in her book, Sacred Therapy, “spiritual awakening begins with learning how to navigate our way through dark times. “Night” is a recurrent theme in Jewish myth, signifying the fertile and transformative power of the unknown – the hidden face of the Divine in the world. After all, Jacob wrestled throughout the night and alone. His transformation to Yisrael could only happen when he struggled with his darkness – what Karl Jung called his shadow – those parts of ourselves that we reject and on which we expend lots and lots of energy hiding from ourselves and the world. Frankel continues, “all life moves in cycles from darkness into light, from contraction into expansion, brokenness into wholeness. … a kind of exile, a state of being disconnected and dislocated from our true place.” However, just like the Israelites, there is the possibility of redemption from our own mitrayim (Egypt).
There are times when we must flail away in the muck of what James Hollis wrote about in his book, The Swamplands of the Soul. Getting stuck in those swamps does us no good. Avoiding them is even worse – we drink, we sex, we work, or we buy our way out of our swamps, trying to fill the inner hole and choosing denial as our method of managing our dark nights of the soul. However, avoiding our darkness leads to addiction, neuroses and even physical illness. Taking the time to explore, to feel, to share, to express and even to get support allows us to traverse these swamplands. Deriving meaning and growth from the swamp is the dry ground onto which we can eventually step.
By being with our pain, there is a sadness which Rabbi Nachman called “the broken heart” –, perhaps triggered by a memory of what was lost, changes that we did not desire, all the endings the befall us in our lives. He said that broken heartedness is free from anger and blame – it is rooted in the humble awareness that all human beings experience sorrow and pain – broken heartedness is a validation of our humanity. Another great teaching by Rabbi Nachman proclaimed “There is nothing so whole as a broken heart”.
Rabbi Alexandri, the third-century Palestinian Talmudist described G-d as the seeker of shattered hearts, writing, “when a man uses a broken vessel he is ashamed of it, but not G-d. All instruments of G-d’s service are broken vessels, as it is written in Psalm 34:19, “G-d is close to the brokenhearted.” All we have to do is share ourselves – with others, with professional counselors, our rabbi and with G-d. G-d then shows up through others.
As we begin the last book of the Torah, Devarim, with the realization that Moses will not enter the promised land, let us look at his broken heartedness and not his depression. Some commentators wrote that Moses really was lamenting that he did not allow the Israelites to grow from their mistakes like a parent who allows his children to skin their knees, following behind with a box of band-aids. Moses was broken hearted that he was not a better leader and that is why he did not get to enter the Promised Land. Let us look back on our own lives at our losses, at our missed opportunities, at our fears, at our humanity. Rather than falling into regret and resentment and anger at ourselves, at others or even at G-d, let us feel the pain. Let us feel it – sit with it – breathe into it – NOT get stuck in it. Then ask, how did I grow from it? Embrace the fact that all of that stuff got you exactly where you are sitting right now. What was the meaning? How did you grow? Then, simply thank G-d for the gift of life, for life is short and can end in a moment. Let us commit ourselves to taking risk, to riding more roller coasters, to playing large and not small or safe – flying by the seat of our pants. Then, when we do leave this life, we can see how we made a difference for just being here. Learning from our mistakes and then teaching others. Loving and being loved. After all, as another teacher once taught me, “life is about loving, connecting and contributing. Everything else is hiding out and wasting time”.
Written by Rabbi Mitch Cohen, director of the Neshama Interfaith Center and part of the Darshan Yeshiva Conversion to Judaism program.
