PunkTorah

Independent Jewish Spirituality

Intertwined

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A few months ago a friend of mine – someone who travels a lot for work – sent me this message from his blackberry as he waited to board a flight:

“Dawn is breaking. A young man a few rows down, nondescript except for a small, almost hidden, Kippah  just wrapped Tefillin and began his morning prayers. He covers his head with his Tallit. Oblivious to the physical world he is immersed in a different place. He takes 3 steps back, sways and moves forward again as he silently recites the Amidah. Surprisingly few people stare. Maybe he really is in a different place. Really beautiful.“

What takes my breath away even more than the wording (which was elegant and eloquent) was how this anonymous davening stranger captured my friend’s attention and imagination, which in turn caught mine. Even more, that this stranger did it without meaning to and in fact to this day may not realize that he did.

Like me, this friend of mine is on his own Jewish journey. Our destinations may not lead us to the same place and our paths are distinctly different. But he and I both are excited by our mutual travels. Almost every week, our families get together and we have a chance to compare notes, share what we’ve learned, bounce ideas around.

It reminds me of two threads that keep crossing, only to swing way out in the other direction before turning back inward to cross again. We go out during the week, do our thing, meet back on Shabbat and reconnect, and then keep rolling through to the following week. In some ways his movement has kept me on track, and I think I’ve had the same effect for him.

His email was one such point of connection. It got us both thinking and – although we didn’t intend it – set us on our own paths.

This week, on my desk, sits an old and worn set of tefillin once owned by someone I knew and respected. And on his desk sits a set that is completely new, the shine barely off the thick straps that still creak when they are wound. We are both looking for a way to take our place next to that anonymous young man in the airport, to find our way to that “different place” he found so effortlessly.

On the mornings when time and confidence combine to allow me to try on this new habit, I look down at the winding on my arm and realize that the overlapping strands of leather are a perfect reminder of our experiences as Jews: sometimes parallel, sometimes overlapping, and always binding.

Connecting us to God, and to each other.

 Originally posted on The Edible Torah

I Am Here, And I Am Not Worthy

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Even after a few years through the yearly cycle of liturgy, “traditional” prayer services are still very new to me. Even so, I’ve already found a few of my favorite moments – things I look forward to hearing and savor as they pass.

If you are in the right state of mind, the Days of Awe present a lot of those moments. For me, one is the prayer “Hineini” (“Here I Stand”), or “The Chazzan’s Prayer”. You can click here for the traditional text, or here for a more poetic interpretation. But it reads, in part:

“Hineini – Here I stand, impoverished of deeds, trembling and frightened with the dread […].

I have come to stand and supplicate before You for Your people Israel, who have sent me although I am unworthy and unqualified to do so.

Therefore, I beg of you, […] Please do not hold them to blame for my sins and do not find them guilty of my iniquities, for I am a careless and willful sinner. Let them not feel humiliated by my willful sins. Let them not be ashamed of me and let me not be ashamed of them. Accept my prayer like the prayers of an experienced elder whose lifetime has been well spent, whose beard is fully grown, whose voice is sweet, and who is friendly with other people. “

I find myself deeply moved by the private, personal and human tone of this prayer. Many prayers – throughout the year as well as on the High Holidays – are written as communal “we ask you… please help us…hear our prayer” types of supplications. But here is a prayer written for the solo voice.

It’s just my interpretation, not anything I’ve learned formally, but I truly believe this is the voice of the Kohain Gadol as he stood in the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur. As he stood in the small boxy room, a nation’s hope riding on his shoulders and a rope around his leg to drag him out if he died for some undetected sin, in that moment what could anyone say except “You and I both know I’m not up to this job. But those people out there, they are good and holy people. Please don’t let me let them down.”

Weirdly, this reminded me of one of my favorite sequences from T.H. White’s story “The Ill-Made Knight“. In it, Lancelot is called upon to heal a fellow knight. The problem is that, because of his failings, he no longer believes he can perform such a feat:

“Miracles, which you wanted to do so long ago, can only be done by the pure in heart. The people outside are waiting for you to do this miracle because you have traded on their belief that your heart was pure – and now, with treachery and adultery and murder wringing the heart like a cloth, you are to go out into the sunlight for the test of honour.

Lancelot stood [waiting his turn], as white as a sheet […] He walked down the curious ranks [of knights], ugly as ever, self-conscious, ashamed, a veteran going to be broken.

“Oh, Sir Urre,” he said, “if only I could help you, how willingly I would. But you don’t understand. you don’t understand.”

“For God’s sake,” said Sir Urre.

Lancelot looked into the East, where he thought God lived, and said something in his mind. “I don’t want glory, but please can you save our honesty? And if you will heal this knight for the knight’s sake, please do.”

[a bit later…]

The cheers which now began, round after round, were like drumfire or thunder, rolling round the turrets of Carlisle. All the field, and all the people in the field and all the towers of the castle seemed to be jumping up and down like the surface of a lake under rain.

In the middle, quite forgotten, Lancelot was kneeling by himself. This lonely and motionless figure knew a secret which was hidden from the others. The miracle was that he had been allowed to do a miracle.”

The days ahead have the potential to transform. There is an opportunity to encounter the Divine and leave our old selves behind us. During the process, keep in mind that the amazing thing might not be that God forgives us, or grants us another year. Maybe the most amazing thing is that we will have the chance to stand before God at all.

Five A.M. and Awesome

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Picking up the “awesome” theme from the other day. This morning I got up before dawn and stumbled over to one of the local synagogues to meet up with a few other bleary-eyed Sephardi guys to pray Selichot.

I’ve been doing this since Sunday (my first Selichot service ever – say a Shehechianu, everyone!) although we started at a more reasonable 7am on that day (as well as Monday since it was Labor Day). Yesterday and today, however, was the “real deal” – the groggy and froggy singing that I’ve heard people talking about for a few weeks.

My contribution, it turns out, was to bring “the awesome”, in the form of my two boys (11 and 8 yrs old).

No, they didn’t count toward the minyan, but believe me when I tell you they COUNTED.

Even though they were unfamiliar with the prayers and the tunes (hey, so was I!); even though they spent half the time watching the other guys instead of looking in the Siddur; even though they shuffled their chairs and tapped on the table and fidgeted their way through 45 minutes like any 2 boys would… Even so, their presence had a palpable impact on the group.

The guy blowing shofar blew louder and longer because he saw the wonder reflected in their eyes. During the “round-robin” readings where each person takes turns singing a verse in Hebrew, the men sang just a bit fancier as they watched the boys heads whip around to see how such a sweet voice could come from our wrinkled and stubbly faces.

It was like a Sephardi version of Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, the story where Mike and MaryAnn could dig just a little bit better the more people watched them.

Before and after the service, several guys incredulously asked me “how did you get them to leave their bed and come?”.

“We get hot chocolate!” they announced, holding up their mugs.

It was a trick I had heard about last year while we were in Israel – synagogues making a community event out of Selichot, waking up together, serving pastries, tea (and yes, hot chocolate) so that rather than struggle through a month of obligation, people looked eagerly forward to (and then wistfully back at) the month of Elul.

In the original “awesome” post, Redefining Girlie asked:

There was a time when you were five years old,
and you woke up full of awesome.
[…]
Do you still have it?
The awesome.
Maybe you just need some hot chocolate.

The Voice

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On Wednesday (Sept 14) Rabbi David Wolpe posted on his Facebook wall:

“American writer Sherwood Anderson was the manager of a small paint factory in Elyria, Ohio. One day, in the very middle of a sentence he was dictating, he walked out of the factory to devote himself to literature. Anderson was forty-five. The mysteries of human nature are endless. Resh Lakish was a robber who became a Rabbi; David a shepherd who became a king. To listen to a voice inside for change inside is a risk. But is ignoring the voice truly safe?”

It got me thinking about the “still small voice” that represents such terrifying (to me, at least) change in people’s life. I am certain it was this same voice which Abram heard sending him and his wife Sarai away from all they knew into the wilderness. It was the voice that told Rebeccah to water that strange man’s camels. It was the voice that called out and stopped Moses in his tracks as he was busy chasing down a wayward lamb.

I remember being both fascinated and horrified when I read the liner notes to Bobby McFerrin‘s second album “The Voice”:

“On July 11, 1977, I distinctly heard a voice inside my mind telling me to be a singer. Soon I began to envision myself on stage, singing, even though I couldn’t hear what I sounded like. […] So, somehow I just naturally began to sing alone and developed my technique out of necessity – exploring ways to produce the sounds I was hearing in my mind.”

I was fascinated because it was a modern-day version of Abraham’s story, moving away from the familiar into the unknown, with only the vaguest notion of where one will end up.

I was horrified, because that could happen to me. In an instant I might hear a voice that would send my life careening off track and who knows where it would end.

I am, you might say, just a little bit risk-averse.

Bobby continues:

“I gave my first solo voice concert [in 1983] in Ashland Oregon. I winged my way through those two hours, and […] improvisation still gives me the greatest challenge and the greatest pleasure. I never know from moment to moment where I’ll end up, and sometimes I’m scared to death. Yet, with all the risks, being on the edge is always the most fulfilling place to be,”

What about you? Would you welcome the voice of change or fear it? Have it already spoken to you? What did it say? What did you do?

Here in the month of Elul, as we prepare to stand before God and accept judgement – we open ourselves to the Voice and can only tremble – some in anticipation, some in fear, but all with the hope that we are equal to the task demanded of us.

(originally posted on The EdibleTorah)

Rethinking Humble

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Yesterday I posted about viewing ourselves as awesome, and how many of us don’t – possibly because of our belief that it’s not humble.

I think, in this month of Elul, we should re-examine what is “humble”. Because Elul is (as I understand it) all about honesty and clarity in our self-examination.

It doesn’t do any good to gloss over our faults. Equally, it doesn’t do any good to hide our successes under false modesty.

Being humble does not mean never admitting we did anything right. It would be frustrating to teach someone a skill, and see them execute it perfectly, only to have them invent reasons why they did it wrong. At best, your excitement would turn to pity at their low self-esteem. At worst, your excitement would turn to apathy in the face of insincere humility.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t particularly want God to feel either way about me. I want God to be cheering me along and to share in the inner radiance we feel when we are successful. After all, God put that there too, right?

Which brings me to another of my favorite quotes:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

– Marianne Williamson

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