Rachel Barenblat's Blog, page 107

Taking the leap: on spiritual housecleaning, the ALEPH Listening Tour, and making God's Presence real

(A Listening Tour d'var Torah for Shabbat HaGadol and Shabbat Metzora at Kehilla Community Synagogue)

 

Shabbat Shalom.  I come bearing perhaps surprising news: Pesach is almost upon us. This is Shabbat haGadol, the "Great Shabbat" immediately before Passover. Traditionally, as Reb David mentioned last night, this is the day when rabbis are supposed to give sermons about preparations for Pesach.

Preparations for Pesach take many forms. For some of us this is a season of intensive physical house-cleaning, when we strive to remove every crumb of חמץ / hametz (leaven) from our homes. For many of us, this is a season of intensive spiritual house-cleaning, when we strive to clear the spiritual hametz from our hearts so that we may walk ever more upright into a future of renewal opening right before us. I don't much enjoy the physical housecleaning, but the spiritual housecleaning is my idea of a good time. I love that our tradition gives us this opportunity for reflection as Pesach draws near.

If I believed in coincidences, maybe I’d believe that our visit to Kehilla for the ALEPH Listening Tour just happened to coincide with this season of renewal.  But I think it's no coincidence that our time with you here, in this city which is one of Jewish Renewal's beating hearts, comes at this sacred season.

We set out on this year of listening to invite self-reflection – and reflection by all who care about ALEPH and Jewish Renewal -- about where our movement came from, where it's been, and where we might want to take it next.  We did so knowing that a future of renewal, all that this movement can be, is starting to open right before us -- and also knowing that it wasn’t yet clear what that future would be or how we’d get there.  There’s a certain leap of faith that we’re all taking -- being here in such a self-reflective way, visioning a future perhaps difficult to see, making ourselves vulnerable to the truths of what needs fixing, and going forward before our plans are ready.

In a nutshell, that’s the story of Passover -- going before we’re ready, not yet knowing how or where, trusting the way forward for transformation and renewal, and taking a leap of faith not despite not-knowing but precisely into the not-knowing.

Our people have done this before.  Our ancestors left a familiar enslavement with no idea where God would take them or how their lives might unfold. With the Exodus we reboot the story of Jewish peoplehood, the story of becoming who we most deeply are. Each year we're called to rededicate ourselves to taking the risk of leaving enslavement and choosing to become.

That's exactly the spiritual challenge that Jewish Renewal places in front of us. Are we willing to take the risk of reshaping Judaism so that it truly speaks to this moment of such profound social, generational and planetary change? Are we willing to take the risk of co-creating that kind of Judaism, risking that we might fail? Reb David and I, and everyone at ALEPH, are taking the risk to trust that your answer is yes. 

For me, one of the most powerful moments in the Pesach story happens after the part we retell during the seder each year: the parting of the Sea of Reeds. Midrash teaches that the waters didn't part until a man named Nachshon walked into the sea -- in fact, the sea didn't part until the waters were up to his neck. Nachshon stepped forward into the future even though he couldn't have known for certain that the waters would part. That's where spirit calls us to go – into the future we can't yet see. The future of Jewish Renewal is one we will co-create with the Holy One of Blessing. Our task is to trust that the waters will part when we take the plunge, and then to leap in.

Last night Reb David offered a teaching from the Slonimer Rebbe, Shalom Noach Beresovzky. Here's another. The Slonimer teaches that there are different levels of אמונה / emunah, faith. There's emunah of the heart, there's emunah of the mind, and there's emunah of the body. Perhaps paradoxically, for the Slonimer the highest form of faith is emunah of the body. When we're able to fully embody our faith in God, to literally leap into the sea before it parts, then the divine Presence dwells within us.  That’s when we can sing a new song of redemption.

We need to cultivate faith in the future: not just with our hearts, not just with our minds, but in all that we are. Cultivating that faith is the work of this Listening Tour. Imagine the Judaism the world most needs: what does that Judaism look like, and what do you want ALEPH to do to help bring it about? How should Kehilla and ALEPH partner in the work of weaving the Judaism you most want to see? What matters most to you about spiritual life, about Judaism, about Jewish Renewal? What do you yearn for?  What would it take for you to leap with us into recommitting to build that kind of Judaism together?

* * *

This week isn't just Shabbat HaGadol; it's also Shabbat Metzora, which means that this week's Torah portion features cures for צרעת / tzara'at, a disease which can arise both in people and in homes. "Tzara'at" is frequently translated as leprosy, though the tradition tends to view it as a spiritual ailment, not a physical one. My favorite interpretation of what tzara'at might mean comes from Nachmanides, who viewed tzara'at as a withdrawal of godliness from the world.

According to Torah, the cure for tzara'at in a human being involves painting first blood, and then anointing oil, on the ear and thumb and big toe. It's striking that these are the same places anointed with blood on Aaron and his sons when they received smicha as priests, the parsha we read just a few weeks ago when Reb David and I were on our Listening Tour visit to Vancouver.

If tzara'at is a sign of God's presence withdrawing from the world, then the cure must be a tool for restoring the Presence. The anointing of ear and thumb and toe -- making holy our listening, and the work of our hands in the world, and the paths we walk -- isn't just for the priestly class anymore.  For us in Jewish Renewal, it's for anyone who has experienced God's absence. It's for anyone who has longed, anyone whose heart has yearned. It's for all of us.

Jewish Renewal offers tools for restoring our awareness of God's presence. As Rabbi Burt taught me many years ago, לית אתר פנוי מיניה / leit atar panui mineih, there is no place devoid of God -- but we might not see it, or know it in our bones, unless we open our hearts to noticing that holiness was always already here.  Our tradition teaches that God beckons even in the mis-steps, in missed opportunities and the 'hametz' of the past whatever we imagine them to be.  It's our task to find that spark of God hidden in all things, and make that Presence real among us.  That’s what it means to walk upright into the future of renewal opening right before our eyes.

I pray that the holy work of listening and dreaming the future will heal and empower.  May we clean out any hametz we find to make space for what's new.  May we be inspired to cultivate the next turning of a renewed Jewish future of embodied faith, so that together we can sing the song of our redemption.  May what we do here help to make this possible here, and for all who thirst, now and always.

 

Attuning to the Presence

The verse which leapt out at me this year when I sat down to study this week's parsha is this one (Leviticus 9:6): 

ויאמר משה זה הדבר אשר צוה הויה תעשו וירא אליכם כבוד הויה

The JPS translation renders that verse as follows:

Moses said: "This is what the Lord has commanded that you do, that the Presence of the Lord may appear to you."

And then the text goes on to share the details of ancient sacrificial practices designed for that purpose. What struck me this year was that final clause, the one that speaks about us seeing the Presence of the Divine.

Here's another way of rendering those same Hebrew words:

And Moses said: "This is the thing that Havayah (the One Who Accompanies) offers as a connective-commandment, in order that y'all may be attuned to the Glorious Presence of the Divine."

We may imagine that seeing God's Presence was something which was only available to our ancestors in Biblical times. Torah tells us that as they wandered in the wilderness they saw a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, but we don't get that kind of assurance. We don't get that kind of connection.

Except that we do. Or we can. That's what the mitzvot are for. The mitzvot are like tuning forks. The musicians among us know that when you strike a tuning fork it resonates at a particular frequency. The mitzvot help us attune ourselves to the presence of God, to the presence of something beyond ourselves. 

The purpose of lighting Shabbat candles isn't just to kindle a couple of pretty lights on a Friday night -- it's to arouse our ability to be conscious of God's light in the world.

The purpose of making havdalah isn't just to give us a nice bookend for the end of Shabbat -- it's to tune our inner instrument so that as we enter into the new week we resonate at God's frequency.

The purpose of blessing our food before we eat isn't just to remind us to be grateful -- it's to awaken our awareness of the sparks of divinity even in the thiings we consume.

The purpose of feeding the hungry isn't just to relieve their suffering -- it's to recognize that God's Presence is present in those who hunger.

The purpose of studying Torah isn't just to learn about our tradition -- it's to tune our inner radios to the divine broadcast which is still ongoing.

God's Presence is all around us. Every moment can be infused with awareness of divinity. That's the lesson of hashpa'ah, spiritual direction, which asks: where is God in what is unfolding in your life right now? 

Spiritual direction is a tool for becoming attuned to God's presence.* Prayer is a tool for becoming attuned to God's presence, and it's one which is available to us here every week in community -- and is available to each of us on our own every day.

And every mitzvah is a tool for becoming attuned to God's presence, a tuning fork which rings out a sweet, clear note. When our hearts resonate with that note, when our hearts are attuned to God, then we can find the Divine Presence in everything we do. 

 

This is the d'var Torah I offered at my shul during our contemplative Shabbat morning service yesterday.

 

*and it's one which I'm blessed to be able to offer to our community because of the three years I spent in ALEPH's hashpa'ah program.

After every funeral

Every time I am called to do a funeral for someone who had grown children, I notice my own emotions arising in response to what I witness in the emotional landscape of the mourners. I'm blessed that my parents are still alive... and when I preside over a funeral where adults mourn their parents, I can't help thinking about the day when I will be in the mourner's shoes instead of the rabbi's. I'll come to it with countless funerals under my belt, and surely they'll inform how I experience my own journey -- and yet I know as well as anyone that there's a vast chasm between experiencing someone else's grief from the rabbi's vantage, and experiencing one's own grief without the comfort of the rabbinic role. 

I often ride to the cemetery with one of the lovely gentlemen from the local funeral home with which we work. And every time, as we drive to my synagogue's cemetery in the hilltowns, as we chat about their kids and mine and what it's like to serve in their role and mine in a community of this size, some part of me is thinking: I should call my parents. Just to say I love you. Because I can. Often, afterwards, I do. And I wonder what goes through their minds when I mention that I've just done a funeral. Are they thinking of the friends they have buried? Are they thinking of their own mortality?

Across every axis of difference in the world, death is the thing we all have in common: every life ends. Everyone someday says goodbye to their parents or to those who reared them. Everyone someday says goodbye to loved ones and peers. Everyone someday says goodbye to this life and moves on to whatever it is that comes next. No two deaths are the same, no two griefs are the same. And yet every grief partakes of a sameness. Grief is like a hologram: every individual grief carries the imprint of the whole universe of grief within it. My prayer is that every grief carries the imprint of healing, too.

When there has been a profound loss, one can feel as though life will never be sweet again. As though the moment one wakes the grief will be crushing again, and it will be crushing until sleep, and then maybe also even in sleep. But it isn't perennial. The day will come when you wake and grief isn't the first thing to arise. The day will come when you wake with ease. With comfort. Even with joy. The crushing weight of grief will lift, and on the other side -- please, let there be gentleness. Let there be gratitude. Let there be the sense that (as our liturgy teaches) God every day renews the work of creation. Let all who grieve reach sweetness. Let all who grieve be renewed.

 

Related:

Good grief, fall 2014.

On the road again: the ALEPH / Jewish Renewal Listening Tour is going west!

We're setting off today for the next stops on the ALEPH / Jewish Renewal Listening Tour! Rabbi David and I are heading in different directions for a few days: I'm going to do a Shabbaton in Las Vegas, he's off to the Spiritual Directors International conference in San Diego. I'll be offering a poetry reading and a facilitated conversation about the future of Jewish Renewal in Las Vegas; he'll be leading Shabbat services and having conversations about Jewish Renewal at SDI. 

We'll meet up in Los Angeles for a Sunday evening event hosted by Rabbi T'mimah Ickovits and Holistic Jew. Plans include a ma’ariv evening service on a deck overlooking the water, a dinner, and an open mike / curated conversation about ALEPH and the future of Jewish Renewal. (To inquire about participation, email lynda@aleph.org.) While in LA we'll also be connecting with folks from B'nai Horin and from two rabbinical seminaries, the Academy for Jewish Religion CA and Ziegler.

Later in the week we'll spend some time in Santa Cruz with folks from Chadesh Yameinu. On April 13th they'll be hosting an event which will feature both a community conversation about the future of Jewish Renewal, and a poetry reading by yours truly -- I'm hoping to highlight both Open My Lips (new from Ben Yehuda Press) and Toward Sinai (my collection of Omer poems), which feels appropriate to the season given that Pesach is right around the corner and the Omer begins on the second night of Pesach.

Then we'll move on to the San Francisco Bay Area, where we'll connect with folks from the Aquarian Minyan,  Wilderness Torah, The Jewish Studio Project, the Kitchen, and other local institutions -- and we'll participate in Shabbat evening and morning services at Kehilla Community Synagogue, and hold a havdalah / Listening Tour open mike at 7:30pm at Chochmat ha-Lev. (If you want to join us for Shabbat davenen or for the havdalah / open mike, there's information on the Kehilla and Chochmat websites.)

It's going to be an action-packed ten days. I'm looking really forward to meeting people in all of these different places, and to hearing their hopes and dreams for the future of ALEPH and their visions of what a renewed Judaism might look like and how we can work together to make those visions real.

 

Photo by Dave Kauffman; taken on our Listening Tour visit to Vancouver.

Announcing Open My Lips

I could not be more delighted to announce this news: Open My Lips, my new collection of Jewish liturgical prayer, has just been published by Ben Yehuda Press! Here's how the publisher describes the book:

This volume of contemporary liturgical poetry is both a poetry collection and an aid to devotional prayer. This collection dips into the deep well of Jewish tradition and brings forth renewed and renewing adaptations of, and riffs on, classical Jewish liturgy. Here are poems for weekday and Shabbat, festival seasons (including the Days of Awe and Passover), and psalms of grief and praise. Intended for those who seek a clear, readable, heartfelt point of access into Jewish tradition or into prayer in general.

For those who seek a prayer practice in English but don't know where to start, this volume offers several starting points (poems for weekday and Sabbath, psalms of grief and of praise.) These poems could be used to augment an existing prayer practice, Jewish or otherwise -- either on a solitary basis or for congregational use. For the reader of poetry unfamiliar with liturgical text, they can serve as an introduction to prayer in general, and Jewish prayer in particular. And for the pray-er unfamiliar with contemporary poetry, these poems can open the door in the other direction.

The publisher and I welcome remix and transformative works. The poems in this collection are available online; feel free to (with attribution) use them in services and share them widely, and also to create your own prayer/poems based on or inspired by them -- as long as you also release your own material under a creative commons license which permits remix and transformative works too. And please support independent publishing and buy a copy of the book: for yourself, your rabbi, your pastor, your roshi, your imam, or anyone else in your life who you think might enjoy it!

Open My Lips, Ben Yehuda Press, April 2016 - $14.95

Advance praise:

“You enfold me in this bathtowel/ You enliven me with coffee,” writes Barenblat in Open My Lips, a collection of accessible and compelling prayer-poems that manages to locate the sacred in the quotidian. After reading these poems, one realizes the ordinary moment is filled with hidden light, and inspiration isn’t as far away as we often assume.

— Yehoshua November, author of God’s Optimism (Main Street Rag Press, 2010)

 

Poet and rabbi Rachel Barenblat is determined neither to surrender her tradition, nor to surrender to it. She creates here a liturgy which is an ongoing struggle with her own tradition. Her project is to find the sacred in every moment, high or low, and to turn towards it without hesitation.

In her meditation on removing leaven for Pesach, she notes that “odds are good there are stale O’s / in the crevices of the car seat.” She does not shy away from them or their implications: they become, surprisingly and delightfully, part of the ritual. And her lesson for us is larger than the lesson of any particular ritual of any particular tradition: that if we have not yet found the sacred meaning of any thing, we have not yet looked hard enough.

— Dale Favier, author of Opening the World (Pindrop Press, 2011)

 

Rabbi Rachel Barenblat’s work is incredibly moving. She takes a traditional prayer, understands its essence, and then recreates it in a way that makes it accessible to anyone.  She opens a path for the reader to feel and understand the traditional Jewish liturgy from a modern feminine perspective. I love it!

— Rabbi Rebecca Sirbu, Director, Rabbis Without Borders

 

Readers from every point along the spiritual spectrum will find poems that appeal and satisfy in Open My Lips, the latest collection of poems from rabbi and poet Rachel Barenblat.  A portion of her poems are firmly rooted in the cycle of Jewish holidays, yet by anchoring them in the rhythms of the year and the seasons, she renders them accessible.  All but the most hardened atheists will understand the desire to pray and to grieve and to celebrate a Sabbath, and Barenblat offers poems for all of these spiritual occasions.  And even hardened atheists will appreciate the deft way she uses science and the natural world.  In short, Rachel Barenblat has achieved a remarkable feat with her latest collection.

—  Kristin Berkey-Abbott, author of Whistling Past the Graveyard (Pudding House, 2004) and I Stand Here Shredding Documents (Finishing Line Press, 2011)

 

Rachel Barenblat’s latest offering is truly beautiful – moving, ethereal, grounded, accessible and profound. Her words will nourish the journeys of anyone who opens the book’s pages, connecting the deeply personal to the larger currents of time and life to the Source Within and Beyond Us All.

— Rabbi Wendi Geffen, Rabbi Without Borders Fellow, North Shore Congregation Israel, Chicago IL

 

Barenblat’s God is a personal God – one who lets her cry on His shoulder, and who rocks her like a colicky baby. These poems bridge the gap between the ineffable and the human. Her writing is clear and pure and the poems are excquisitely executed. This collection will bring comfort to those with a religion of their own, as well as those seeking a relationship with some kind of higher power.

— Satya Robyn, author of The Most Beautiful Thing and Thaw

 

Rabbi Barenblat’s poems are like those rare cover songs that bring new insights to familiar rhythms and melodies. Her interpretations of ancient liturgy turn up the volume and realign the balance on our tradition’s greatest hits.

— Rabbi Elana Zelony, Rabbi Without Borders Fellow, Congregation Beth Torah, Dallas TX

 

With gorgeous language, a profound sensitivity to the yearnings of the soul, and deep knowledge of the power of traditional Jewish prayer, Rabbi Rachel Barenblat has composed this extraordinary collection of liturgical poems. Useful for the expert and novice, seeker and skeptic, believer and doubter alike, Barenblat’s exquisite and powerful verse will enrich your connection to Jewish prayer, enhance your spiritual journey, and encourage your ability to connect to the Divine within and around you.

— Rabbi Michael Knopf, Rabbi Without Borders Fellow, Temple Beth El, Richmond VA

A Listening Tour weekend in Vancouver

Every stop on the ALEPH / Jewish Renewal Listening Tour is different, and every one has been amazing in its own way. But I suspect that our weekend in Vancouver may stand out in memory as one of the most memorable experiences in a year-plus of remarkable experiences.

Maybe that's in part because we traveled such a very long way to be there. Maybe it's in part because we were visiting such a storied community, one of the largest and longest-standing Jewish Renewal communities in the world. Maybe that's in part because the people at Or Shalom welcomed us with such open hearts.

Our visit began with a dinner gathering with members of the host committee, and then after a too-short night of sleep continued with brunch with a group of Or Shalom millennials who spoke to us about their spiritual lives, their hopes, and what "doing Jewish" looks like for them. 

On Friday evening I led a sweet and intimate family Shabbat circle, a few prayers and a few songs and a meditation on the week which was then drawing to its close. Then we davened with the Or Shalom community, savoring a service co-led by Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan and Rabbi Hannah Dresner (along with musicians Charles Kaplan, Martin Gotfrit, Joe Markovitch, David Kauffman, and Nomi Fenson.) We danced around the room, we sang and prayed, and we marveled at the beauty of the clearing evening sky as we opened the door to welcome the Shabbat bride. (And Rabbi David gave a beautiful d'var Torah about keeping our spiritual fires burning.) After davening and dinner we heard origin stories and histories from Or Shalom's almost forty years of existence, starting with the early years as a havurah in Reb Daniel and Reb Hanna's living room.

On Shabbat morning, Rabbi David and I co-led p'sukei d'zimra, the first section of the morning service. (As it turned out, we chose melodies wisely, and the community sang along with spirit.) Then we enjoyed a Shabbat morning service led in turns by Rabbi Hillel Goelman and then by Rabbi Hannah. I was privileged to offer the d'var Torah that morning, on what it means to me to be a nation of priests and how that dovetails with the work we seek to do in ALEPH. After another festive meal we facilitated a community open mike session, harvesting ideas, yearnings, "ouches," dreams, and hopes from the community at large. 

On Sunday we breakfasted with ALEPH Canada colleagues at a vegetarian Vancouver institution, spent the morning with the Or Shalom board of directors, lunched with congregants and clergy, and spent the afternoon with a 2o+ person focus group of involved and invested Or Shalom folks. In between these meetings and meals and meetings-over-meals, we managed to walk a bit by the water; to marvel at the blooming trees and the view of Mount Baker in Queen Elizabeth Park; even, briefly, to see a harbor seal in its natural habitat! Our visit wound down with a final meal, and some debriefing and visioning for the future, with Rabbi Hannah before we regretfully made our way to the airport to begin the three thousand mile journey home.

We have hundreds of pages of notes from the Listening Tour so far -- from the nine stops we've made in person, and also from countless phone calls, zoom videoconference sessions, and emails. And we have many stops yet to go -- we're nowhere near done. We're beginning to see some common themes which are emerging (which are beginning to spark our conversations about what might be in the "Renewing Renewal" report we'll be putting forward before Rosh Hashanah). I'm fascinated by the things which are parallel or similar everywhere we go, and equally fascinated to see things which are different in each place we visit.  I continue to be endlessly grateful that we get to do this work. It's an honor and a privilege to get to sit with people and hear their yearnings and hopes for what ALEPH and Jewish Renewal might become.

 

Dave Kauffman took some terrific photos from the Listening Tour weekend. Thanks, Dave! And deep thanks to the organizing committee and to all of our Or Shalom hosts. 

 

Poems for the Omer

The first seder is four weeks from tonight, which means that four weeks from tomorrow night we'll begin counting the Omer -- mindfully marking the 49 days between Pesach and Shavuot, between liberation and revelation. The Omer is one of my favorite seasons of the Jewish year. Counting the days (and spending some time each day focusing on teachings aimed at deepening my experience of the counting) has become something I look forward to each year.

There are a lot of excellent Omer books which offer teachings or meditations for each day of the seven weeks between these two festivals. I hope you'll consider picking up a copy of mine.

 

The Omer is the period of 49 days between Pesach (Passover) and Shavuot. Through counting the Omer, we link liberation with revelation. Once we counted the days between the Pesach barley offering and the Shavuot wheat offering at the Temple in Jerusalem. Now as we count the days we prepare an internal harvest of reflection, discernment, and readiness. Kabbalistic (mystical) and Mussar (personal refinement) traditions offer lenses through which we can examine ourselves as we prepare ourselves to receive Torah anew at Shavuot. Here are 49 poems, one for each day of the Omer, accompanied by helpful Omer-counting materials. Use these poems to deepen your own practice as we move together through this seven-week corridor of holy time.

Praise for Toward Sinai: Omer Poems

Rachel Barenblat has gifted her readers with a set of insightful poems to accompany our journey through the wilderness during the Counting of the Omer. Deft of image and reference, engaging and provocative, meditative and surprising, this collection is like a small purse of jewels. Each sparkling gem can support and enlighten readers on their paths toward psycho-spiritual Truth.

--Rabbi Min Kantrowitz, author of Counting the Omer: A Kabbalistic Meditation Guide

Rachel Barenblat comes bearing a rich harvest. In Toward Sinai, her series of poems to be read daily during the counting of the Omer, a poem chronicles every step between Exodus and Sinai. The poems exist in the voices of the ancient Hebrews measuring grain each day between Passover and Shavuot, and also in a contemporary voice that explores the meaning of the Omer in our own day. Together, the poems constitute a layered journey that integrates mysticism, nature, and personal growth. As Barenblat writes: “Gratitude, quantified.”

--Rabbi Jill Hammer, author of The Omer Calendar of Biblical Women

Your Torah is transcendent and hits home every time.

-- Rabbi Michael Bernstein, Rabbi Without Borders Fellow

Toward Sinai: Omer poems $12 on Amazon

(If you'd like to explore ordering copies in bulk for your synagogue or Omer group, let me know.)

Haggadah for Pesach... as a slideshow

Earlier this year, ALEPH released a new digital haggadah for Tu BiShvat, the New Year of the Trees. As a manifestation of our commitment to caring for our planet, we released it as a slideshow, designed to be projected on a screen rather than printed and stapled or bound. After that came out, a few people reached out to ask me whether I would make my haggadah for Pesach available the same way. 

 

The Velveteen Rabbi’s Haggadah for Pesach from Rachel Barenblat on SlideShare: 
it can be streamed from there, or downloaded (30 MB PDF file / 174 slides.) 
Alternatively, here's the haggadah as a slideshow on google drive. 
 

The text is the same as in the most recent version of the Velveteen Rabbi's Haggadah for Pesach. Some of the images are the same; others are new, because a file designed to be projected on a screen can feature different kinds of images than a file designed to be copied and staple-bound.

Alternatively, pf course, if you want to print and bind a copy (formatted for vertical 8.5 x 11" pages, not for slide projection), you can find the latest edition of the interior text and the cover on the VR Haggadah page of my website.

Enjoy!

A nation of priests

(A Listening Tour d'var Torah for Shabbat morning at Or Shalom)

 

This week's Torah portion includes a description of the smicha (ordination) of Aaron and his sons -- the first ancient Israelite priests. The word smicha comes from a root meaning "to lean," as in the laying-on of hands. Aaron and his sons place their hands on a ram, which is then slaughtered. Blood from the ram is painted along their ears, thumbs, and big toes, perhaps representing the charge to seek holiness in all that they hear, in all that their hands create, and in every place where they walk.

When I received smicha from ALEPH, my teachers placed their hands on me as they spoke the words which transformed me into a rabbi. I experienced the press of their hands as a conduit for the transmission of wisdom and blessing. Afterward the only thing I could compare it to was the birth of my son: a feeling of yielding to a great transformative process which was rewriting me from the inside out.

My ordination as a rabbi, the seal on years of study, happened on a single day -- but the ordination of Aaron and his sons as priests lasted for seven. Seven is a meaningful number for us. Think of the six days of creation culminating in the seventh day which is Shabbat, or the seven colors of the rainbow, or the seven weeks of the Omer between Pesach and Shavuot. The Hebrew word for seven, שבע, contains the same root letters as the verb meaning to swear an oath or make a covenant. With seven days of ordination, Aaron and his sons entered into a covenant of service to the children of Israel and to God.

Here we are on Shabbat, the seventh day, reading about the ancient priests and their seven-day ritual. And maybe this ritual feels distant and foreign to us, as maybe the priesthood itself feels distant and foreign to us. But Torah also teaches (Exodus 19:6) that the hereditary priesthood of old isn't the only kind of priesthood. The whole community of Israel is instructed to be a ממלכת כהנים, a nation of priests. The priesthood wasn't just for them or for then. All of us are called into holy service. Shabbat, as the seventh day, is the day of smicha for everyone: the completion of readiness for holy service.

The Baal Shem Tov taught that access to God didn't depend on mastery of Talmud. He taught that God is available to all of us, no matter who we are or what we know. For the Baal Shem, connection with God was for everyone. Deep spirituality was for everyone. Jewish joy was for everyone. As the idea of being a nation of priests expands the hereditary priesthood to the whole community, the Baal Shem's teachings expanded God-connection to the community of all who yearn.

That democratizing impulse has always been part of Jewish Renewal, which Reb Zalman described as a new "turning" of Hasidism. Reb Zalman, z"l, reached deep into the treasure trove of our tradition. He translated prayers and teachings and experiences into a vernacular designed to reach people where they are. Today it is his students, and their students, who carry on that holy service of connecting seekers with our tradition and with God. 

And that holy service involves a lot of inner work -- or it should. Reb Zalman taught about this in his workshop on Spiritual Leadership in the summer of 1996. (Coincidentally, summer of 1996 was the last time I was blessed to be here in Vancouver!) That workshop was a weeklong meditation on what he called "rebbecraft." Being a rebbe, he taught, isn't just about the external, visible stuff but about what a rebbe does on the inside, in working on her- or him-self, in order to serve.

For Reb Zalman, rebbe was not a fixed identity, but a relational role. One who serves as rebbe shouldn't be locked into that role -- indeed, it's better both for the rebbe and for the community if the rebbe is also able to slip out of the role and be an ordinary person who eats sushi and watches television, or has a day job, or writes poetry in her spare time. Rebbe is a temporary state. And like the angels in our morning liturgy who give each other permission to pray, we give each other permission to serve in that capacity -- and to serve when we aren't in the rebbe role, too.

There's a great story about how Reb Zalman used to host gatherings around his Shabbes tisch. (Some of you here experienced this; as a student of his students, I know it only as lore.) He would sit in the Rebbe Chair at the head of the table and give over Torah. And then he would rise, and everyone would move one seat to the left, and then someone new would be in the rebbe chair, both literally and metaphorically. Someone else would get to be the rebbe -- and Reb Zalman would get to be the hasid. "These are temporary roles," he said; they are roles "that we assume for the benefit of that mutuality which we try and create."

For the benefit of that mutuality, we are called to be a ממלכת כהנים וגוי קדוש, a nation of priests and a holy people. No less than Aaron, we are called to holy service. Maybe that service takes the form of being rebbe sometimes. Maybe that service takes the form of opening the riches of our tradition to those who thirst. Maybe that service takes the form of leading davenen, or teaching chant, or facilitating a spiritual direction relationship in which divine flow can be discerned. Maybe that service takes the form of tending to our planet as a living Temple where the presence of holiness is manifest. Maybe that service takes the form of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, providing loving care for the sick.

Jewish Renewal, like the expressions of Hasidism which came before us, teaches that direct experience of the Holy One of Blessing is available to all of us. There's no way we can "repay" God for that. But we can respond to that flow of shefa, that flow of blessing and abundance, by keeping our channels open and seeking to pass on that flow to others. We can seek to listen in a way that is holy, to build structures both physical and metaphysical in a way that is holy, to walk on paths of righteousness in a way that is holy.

In this week's Torah portion, Aaron and his sons have their earlobes painted with blood as an embodied bracha for holy listening. David and I are here in Vancouver this weekend to listen to all of you. We're dedicating the first year-and-a-bit of our term as chairs of ALEPH to the holy work of receptive listening. We're doing this listening via zoom videoconference calls and email correspondence, via coffee dates and conference sessions, and via Shabbatonim like this one where we hold open mike sessions to harvest hopes and dreams from the community. We want to know what ALEPH and Jewish Renewal mean to you. We want to know how ALEPH has served you well -- and also how ALEPH has let you down. We want to hear your stories, your frustrations, and your visions for what Jewish Renewal might yet become. 

In this week's Torah portion, Aaron and his sons have their thumbs painted with blood as an embodied bracha for holy building. David and I are here in Vancouver this weekend to dream big and build with all of you. Just a few weeks ago we completed the cycle of Torah readings describing the construction of the mishkan, the place where God's presence dwelled with and within the children of Israel. ALEPH is like that mishkan, built with the freewill offerings and loving craftsmanship of the community. ALEPH can be a holy container for the presence of the Divine. And just as Aaron and his sons were consecrated to serve in that mishkan, all of us here today have the opportunity of dedicating ourselves to sacred service. We want to know what forms that service might take. David spoke last night about keeping our spiritual fires burning: what holy flames are burning in you?

And in this week's Torah portion, Aaron and his sons have their big toes painted with blood as an embodied bracha for holy walking. David and I are here in Vancouver this weekend to walk with all of you. We are blessed this morning with the presence of Rabbi Daniel Siegel, your founding spiritual leader, who taught us halakha when we were in rabbinic school. Halakha doesn't just mean "the law." Halakha is a perennial conversation between past and present, between reality and hope. Halakha is our Jewish way of walking. Just as the feet of Aaron and his sons were consecrated to walk on holy paths, so we seek to consecrate our feet by the act of walking with you for this short time -- and continuing to walk alongside you even once we have returned home again. Because even when we're not physically co-present, we remain fellow travelers. 

The work of his hour -- the work of dreaming, and visioning, and building, the next turning of Jewish Renewal -- belongs to all of us. It always has. That's the nature of התחדשות, renewal: if it isn't constantly being renewed, it fails to live up to its name. We want you to help us renew. 

May we truly be a nation of priests. May we empower each other to be sometimes hasid, and sometimes rebbe. May our shoulders feel the imprint of the generations before us as they transmit their wisdom and their love. May our ears hear for the sake of good, may our hands build for the sake of God, may our feet lead us in paths of righteousness. And may our service bring joy to us, to the Holy One, and to the world. 

 

Deep thanks to the community of Or Shalom for honoring R' David and me with the opportunities to help lead davenen and to offer divrei Torah at Kabbalat Shabbat and Shabbat morning services.

Teaching at the ALEPH Kallah

I've just registered for this summer's ALEPH Kallah in Fort Collins, Colorado! 

Kallah is ALEPH's (usually) biennial week-long gathering. (Last year we held the Getting It... Together retreat instead, so it has now been three years since the last Kallah.) Reading about Jewish Renewal can be interesting and even compelling, but there's nothing like experiencing it for yourself. Kallah is an experiential deep dive into Jewish Renewal. It's an opportunity to spend a week in Jewish Renewal community, sharing learning, meals, heartfelt and innovative davenen (prayer), art and music, spiritual experience, and more.

The class and workshop guide is now online: Kallah 2016 Class and Workshop Guide. ("Class" means a four-day class -- every morning, or every afternoon; "workshop" means a one-day workshop. So you can sign up for a four-day morning class and a four-day afternoon class, or one four-day class plus four one-day workshops, or eight one-day workshops if you truly want the smorgasbord experience.) I highly recommend clicking on the interactive pdf file and reading through the whole catalogue. I'm excited about what I've signed up for, though I also wish I could clone myself so I could experience more!

I'm teaching at the Kallah this year -- or at least, I will be if enough people sign up for my class. For those who are interested, here's the description of what I'll be offering:

TURN IT AND TURN IT (THE MIDRASHIC PROCESS)

Midrash are interpretive stories (the name comes from the Hebrew לדרוש, to interpret). Midrash speak in a multiplicity of voices as they open new facets of Torah... and diving deep into Torah is one of the most perennial “Joys of Jewishing!” In this class we’ll begin by exploring classical midrash to examine how they work, then we’ll delve into contemporary midrash (in a variety of forms: poetry, music, film), then learn the midrashic process from the inside out as we write our own midrashic texts, embroidering our voices onto the ongoing tapestry of interpretation.

If writing your own midrash sounds like fun, I hope you'll join me. Enrollment in my class is limited, so sign up now!

I've also signed my son up for the Kids' Kallah -- a fabulous daycamp offered in conjunction with the Adventure Rabbi. I am so excited at the prospect of introducing him to my Jewish Renewal community, and introducing them to him in return. (I have fond memories of the Kallah seven years ago which I attended whie pregnant; I imagined, then, what it might be like to someday bring my kid to Kallah. And now I finally get to do so!)

Early-bird pricing is still in effect; if you register before April 14, you get 5% off. Read all about it and register now!

 

I've posted a fair amount over the years about different experiences with the ALEPH Kallah; if you're so inclined, you can read those old posts via my ALEPH Kallah tag.