Rachel Barenblat's Blog, page 126

Day 43 of the Omer

DAY 43: BEYOND NUMBER


Thank God for the gift of another day.
Check the mile marker: what's the number?
We're almost there. One more week
of sifting days like grains to measure
how they fall, and then -- Torah
pouring in like raindrops, too many to count.

The challenge is making each moment count --
sussing out subtle differences in each day.
Through forty-eight qualities we acquire Torah
(according to the sages, who liked to number
everything) -- that's wisdom beyond measure.
Time to manifest Shechina this final week.

What we were withholding made us weak
until we found it was ourselves that count:
not salary or 401K, nothing you can measure
but who we are in the world every day.
Focusing on accomplishments just made us numb(er),
and you need an open heart to receive Torah.

It wasn't just once upon a time that Torah
streamed into creation. It's coming this week.
God broadcasts constantly at every number
on the radio dial, in too many languages to count.
We accept the covenant anew each day
in how we act, how we speak, how we take the measure

of who we want to be. Can you measure
up to the version of yourself who merits Torah?
What would it look like to live each day
with nobility? Everything you do this week
can wake the part of you that's out for the count.
If I ask "how is your soul," could you number

on a scale of one to ten? Number
the qualities you share with God. You measure
up. You matter. Stand up for the count --
you were there at Sinai when we received Torah.
And you'll be there again in one short week.
Torah comes to us on the fiftieth day.

Treasure the numbers that make up Torah.
Take the measure of your heart this final week.
Count reasons for gratitude, every day.

 

 

Today is the forty-third day of the Omer, making six weeks and one day of the Omer. Today is the 43rd day of our 49-day journey between Pesach and Shavuot, liberation and revelation.

In the kabbalistic framework, today we begin the week of malchut, sovereignty / nobility / Shechina. Shechina is the Jewish mystics' term for the immanent, indwelling, feminine presence of the Divine.

The lines "What we were withholding made us weak / until we found it was ourselves that count" are a nod to Robert Frost's The Gift Outright.

We're entering the final week of our journey. What is that like for you?

Childhood cancer: I have no words.

A few years ago I posted about two little boys who were fighting cancer, named Gus and Sam. At the time, Gus was four and had recently undergone brain surgery to remove a tumor; Sam was six and was undergoing treatment for leukemia. Sam -- a.k.a. Superman Sam -- died of his cancer. Gus went into remission.

Until now. Gus' mom Sasha recently posted that the doctors have found more tumors in Gus's brain. They are going to operate again, a few days after he finishes kindergarten.

I have no words to offer in response to the horror which is pediatric cancer. I am holding Gus and his family in my heart and in my prayers. Jewish tradition teaches that prayers are uplifted by our tzedakah, our righteous giving. Perhaps my prayers for Gus will have more "oomph," as it were, because I am accompanying them with a gift of money in his honor / toward his treatment or care.

If you would like to help defray the expenses of Gus's treatment, his family has established a dedicated PayPal account at 10birthdaysforgus@gmail.com -- but they request especially that we donate to the Tanner Seebaum Foundation. His mom writes, "It's run by friends of ours and directly supports research into Gus' cancer, most of which is done by his oncologists. Right now, that research is going to save his life."

If you can spare a few dollars, the Tanner Seebaum foundation is a good place to give them. Give in honor of Gus; give in hopes that the research that foundation is doing will find better ways to help kids like Gus and their families who are dealing with tumors of the brain and spine.

In memory of Sam, donations are also welcomed at the Sam Sommer Fund, established by Rabbi Phyllis Sommer and Rabbi Michael Sommer, Sam's parents. That fund supports pediatric cancer research and pediatric cancer patients and their families. The Sommer family has also supported the St. Baldrick's Shave for the Brave campaign.

On a related note: those who follow me on Facebook may have seen recently that I posted a link to Rabbi Phyllis Sommer's TEDx talk Dead is Dead: Euphemisms and the Power of Words. It's about fifteen minutes long and it is incredibly powerful. (It has also shaped my willingness, in this post, to use real words like "Sam died" instead of euphemisms like "Phyllis and Michael lost their son.") I recommend the video highly.

Please join me in praying for Gus and his family.

May the One who blessed our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, bless those in need of healing of body, mind and spirit.  May the compassion of the Holy One be upon them and watch over them.  Strengthen them with courage in each day, along with all who are ill, now and swiftly.  And let us say: Amen.

 

Day 42 of the Omer

DAY 42: TORAH IS HER NAME


Torah quenches thirst on a hot day.
In space there's no oxygen, but there is Torah.
Remember hearing lightning, seeing thunder?
God invited Moshe ben Amram to climb Horeb
to taste and see that Torah is good, sweet
as honey smeared on parchment. Wait, I misspoke:
at Sinai we heard nothing. All God spoke
was the silent aleph at the very beginning.
Because every soul was at Sinai, we all know
the secrets of creation. There's no before
or after in Torah: it's a Name of God
no matter how the letters are arranged.
Moshe ascended to heaven, watched
as the Holy One handwrote a Torah scroll
painstakingly adorning the letters with crowns.
Adoring the letters is our job—isn't that
what the rabbi would say? Torah is Her name
and if we can't touch the thing itself,
we can sing to the signifier as we waltz.
Yisrael v'oraita v'kudsha brich hu chad hu—
we and Torah and the Holy One of Blessing
are one. God's own letters, building blocks
of creation, are encoded in our DNA.
Take Torah in—spicy as horseradish, crumbly
as a meal offering drenched in fine oil—
and exhale the Name on every breath.

 

 

Today is the 42nd day of the Omer, making six weeks of the Omer. Today is the 42nd day of our 49-day journey from Pesach to Shavuot, liberation to revelation.

Today's poem was inspired by one of last year's NaPoWriMo prompts, which invites the use of twenty little poetry projects.

Horeb is another name for Sinai.

The idea that the only thing God spoke at Sinai was a silent aleph comes from a beautiful teaching of the Ropcyzer rebbe.

Yisrael v'oraita v'kudsha brich hu chad hu is from the Zohar, and is the assertion that we, and the Torah, and God, are all one.

Day 41 of the Omer

DAY 41: FOUNDATION


Whether slab or basement
or crawlspace's neither/nor

in-between, fit intention
to where you'll be rooted.

Know how deep
you need to sink your pilings

how broad a base will hold
what you yearn for.

Imagine the gilded spans,
the dazzling skyscrapers,

the homey octagon
constructed from driftwood...

From this footprint
where will you go?

 

 

Today is the 41st day of the Omer, making five weeks and six days of the Omer. This is the 41st day of our 49-day journey from Pesach to Shavuot, liberation to revelation.

In the kabbalistic paradigm, today is the day of yesod she'b'yesod, the day of foundation within the week of foundation. That's what sparked today's poem.

Day 40 of the Omer

DAY 40: TERUMAH

after the Degel Machaneh Efraim

When Torah says
tell the Israelites to bring Me
gifts for cobbling together
My patchwork residence

(gold, silver, and copper
crimson and cerulean yarns
acacia wood, bolts of linen
tanned leather and dolphin skins)

read instead
tell the Israelites to bring Me wisdom
which takes as long to gestate
as Moshe spent atop the mountain

I want you to bring Me
your wholeness, your completion
the quality of ripeness which accrues
after forty days of growth

each of you is a Torah,
a transcription of My holy name
other names merely reference,
sign pointing to signifier

but I and My Name are One
which means you are too:
you're part of Me
always cherished

even when you wander
in the wilderness
even when Sinai feels
impossible to reach

 

 

Today is the 40th day of the Omer, making five weeks and five days of the Omer. It is the 40th day of our 49-day journey between Pesach and Shavuot, liberation and revelation.

Today's poem is inspired by a teaching from the grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, the Degel Machaneh Efraim, about the Torah portion Terumah. (See Terumah: The Torah of 40.) I am grateful to my hevruta partners Rabbi Cynthia Hoffman and Rabbi David Markus for studying the Degel with me. They keep me learning, and that is a gift beyond words.

Day 39 of the Omer

 

DAY 39: REOPENING THE WELL


The well won't run dry.
You might have to scoop chalky dust
with your hands, remove
the rock that's wedged in the channel

but the water is there.
The water wants to flow.
Can you feel it beating
against your breastbone, urging

you to let it surge free?
Dig the channel again
and drop the plumb line
as far as the string will go.

These are things which have no limit:
the reservoir of blessing
the ocean of Torah
the depths of your human heart.

 

 

Today is the 39th day of the Omer, making five days and four weeks of the Omer. Today is the 39th day of our 49-day journey between Pesach and Shavuot, liberation and revelation.

According to one Mussar paradigm, today's middah or quality to cultivate is "leading others to truth." That made me think of leading others to water, and to the connections between water and Torah. That's what sparked today's poem.

Day 38 of the Omer

DAY 38: BURDEN

a psalm of comfort

Set down your pack.
Wrap your arms around your chest.
Let your shoulderblades unfurl like wings.

Let me rub the knots from your palms,
smooth the shadows from under your eyes.
Lean back: my hands are here.

Your fragile glass heart is safe.
The light which shines through you --
I don't want you to hide it away.

The stones you're lugging, both whole
and broken: they're mine too.
You're mine too. Let me carry you.

 

 

Today is the 38th day of the Omer, which makes five weeks and three days of the Omer. Today is the 38th day of our 49-day journey between Pesach and Shavuot, between liberation and revelation.

Today's poem was inspired by one of the qualities Pirkei Avot says is required for acquiring Torah -- carrying the burden of one's fellow. (It's actually mapped to the 37th day, not the 38th, but yesterday's poem took me in a different direction, so I wrote about it today.)

Can you think of a time when you took on, or wanted, to take on a loved one's burden? What gifts did you find in that act?

Berkshire Jewish Voice: Bringing the Joy

Many thanks to the editors at the Berkshire Jewish Voice  for running such a lovely article! You can read the May 1 to May 31 2015 edition of the Berkshire Jewish Voice at their website [pdf], or -- for those who have difficulty accessing the pdf file -- the text of the interview is included below.

 

Bringing the Joy

Local Rabbi Rachel Barenblat Appointed Co-Chair of ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal

If Didi Gregorius somehow finds himself in need of empathetic pastoral counseling in this his first season stepping in for Derek Jeter as the New York Yankees’ shortstop, he might consider reaching out to Rabbi Rachel Barenblat of Congregation Beth Israel in North Adams. She probably has some idea of what he is going through.

This April, Rabbi Barenblat took on the position of co-chair of ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, the umbrella organization for the Jewish Renewal movement inspired and led by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, who passed in 2014. A larger-than-life figure, Reb Zalman’s long career was marked by many of the major milestones of 20th century Jewish history. A refugee from Eastern Europe, he was ordained by and then broke with the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, was a friend of Shlomo Carelbach, Timothy Leary, Thomas Merton, and Ram Dass, and participated in the countercultural movements of the 1960s and 1970s, psychedelic drugs and all.

Barenblat says Reb Zalman developed a “deep ecumenism that was different from we think of as interfaith dialogue.” While retaining a connection to Judaism informed by his core experiences in the Hasidic world, Reb Zalman recognized “that others were also on a spiritual path,” says Barenblat, “and that Jews can learn from them and even pray with them.”

She shared a quote from Reb Zalman: “If I want to appreciate a stained glass window I don’t look at it from outside into a dark space, then I can’t see what’s going on. A stained glass window is meant to be seen from the inside. If I want to understand what it’s like for a person standing in front of a crucifix, to address God through that image, I have to at least temporarily set aside my own point of view so I can see it from inside that person: what does that person see?”

The Jewish Renewal movement represented by ALEPH, explains Barenblat, is “a trans-denominational effort to revive Judaism and bring back joy. It honors the fact that Judaism has always been about change.” Approximately 50 congregations worldwide identify as Jewish Renewal, but Barenblat says the movement’s influence has permeated even traditional denominations. “Jewish Renewal opened up a toolbox of Jewish contemplative practices,” she says, citing widely adopted innovations such as translating prayers into “davenable” English, incorporating yoga and meditation into services, and employing inclusive God language. Reb Zalman also created the rainbow-colored B’nai Or tallis, which introduced color to prayer shawl fashion that had hitherto been exclusively black or blue and white.

Barenblat first encountered the ideas of Reb Zalman in 1994 as a student at Williams College when she read The Jew in the Lotus, poet Rodger Kamenetz’s account of a historic Buddhist–Jewish dialogue with the Dalai Lama that took place in 1990. “The book showed that we are not the only people on a spiritual journey,” she says, “and we should not delude ourselves by thinking we have nothing to learn.”

Barenblat had grown up in an observant Jewish home and studied religion at Williams, but did not think about becoming a spiritual leader until 2002, when she went on a week-long retreat at Elat Chayyim (now a Hazon program) and first encountered Jewish Renewal teachers.

She attended meditations in the morning, tikkun olam programs in the evening, and was exposed to alternative kinds of services. She recalls that while on retreat, she davened in a yurt (a portable, round tent covered with skins used by Central Asian steppe nomads), where for the first time she saw women wearing tefillin. She remembers thinking: “I want to be a rabbi like these rabbis.” But, she says, “I thought I’d do it later in life.”

She had obtained an MFA from Bennington Writing Seminars, and was immersed in writing poetry and other literary endeavors. But spurred on by her if-not-now-when-Hillel-quoting husband, Barenblat changed course and entered the ALEPH rabbinic program in 2005. Her path to ordination included 60 courses over six years of study; she later received a secondary ordination in spiritual direction as a mashpi’ah from ALEPH. Along the way, she blogged as “The Velveteen Rabbi,” a site Time magazine cited as one of the top 25 blogs in 2008. In 2011, she was appointed the rabbi at CBI (after having served an apprenticeship there), while in 2013, she was named a Rabbis Without Borders fellow by Clal, the Center for Learning and Leadership.

Clearly, though Barenblat has long been engaged with the Jewish world beyond the Berkshires, she says her role as a rabbi and the life of her congregation keeps her grounded. Her ALEPH co-chair, Rabbi David Markus, is also the spiritual leader of a small congregation, his on City Island in the Bronx.

“Both David and I serve small shuls,” she says, and while with ALEPH they “have flights of fancy of what we want to bring to all the world, but we have to balance that with our congregations, which are living laboratories” of what can actually be accomplished. She adds: “I think have the best of both worlds – I have a rural congregation and can also have an impact on the canvas of Jewish life.”

No doubt, many would find carrying on the work of a beloved and world-famous figure like Reb Zalman – who did not name a successor – to be a daunting proposition. (At press time, Yankees shortstop Didi Gregorius was batting .154.) But Barenblat is approaching her new role with confidence and energy, secure that Reb Zalman and his students have left a sound foundation.

“David and I are students of his students,” says Barenblat. “We want to bring Jewish Renewal to new people, to share its wealth of riches. It changed my life, and now I have to figure out how to let other people know what it is.” Their terms run for three years, and their jobs will be to guide ALEPH’s board. Since she and David Markus are the first to jointly hold the position, she says she does not know what to expect. She is starting out with “a listening tour around the country where we can talk to the innovators out there.”

She also sees the Berkshires as a place where Jewish Renewal ideas can flourish. Two rabbinic colleagues in the county received ordination from the two other most prominent Jewish organizations that can be described as trans-denominational – Rabbi Joshua Breindel from Hebrew College and Rabba Kaya Stern-Kaufman from the Academy for Jewish Religion. “We learn together,” Barenblat says, and have explored ways to collaborate. “We are moving into a post-denominational era, where no one is sure one denomination has the whole answer. There are a lot of people out there doing Jewish Renewal work, even if not formally.

“Through ALEPH, we want to get them all working together.”

This article originally appeared in the Iyar/Sivan 5775 / May 1 to May 31 2015 issue [pdf] of the Berkshire Jewish Voice.

 

Day 37 of the Omer

DAY 37: PRAIRIE WEDDING


Driving west from Massachusetts
to Seattle, I noticed
a shift midway through Minnesota.
The beginning of prairie. The skies opened up
like my memories of Texas, sunset
a great splash of watercolors
across the most immense canvas.

There's a tipping point.
The gravitational pull of destination
becomes stronger than the origin story.
Where we're from is old news.
But where we're going -- !
The Goldene Medina, the Wild West
the promised land.

Wheels hum on asphalt like a sruti box.
Roll down your window: can you hear
faraway music at the encampment?
It's your wedding band, and mine. Not
a Moonie mass marriage, the real deal:
God in tuxedo and tails (or white Irish lace)
and you with your heart on your sleeve...

Afterwards we'll each remember
standing face to face with the Holy One
beneath the chuppah of the inverted mountain --
or were those just streaks of painted cloud?
Ketubah handwritten on parchment.
The skies opened up and Torah unfurled
like gentle longed-for rain.

 

 

Today is the 37th day of the Omer, making five weeks and two days of the Omer. This is the 37th day of our 49-day journey between Pesach and Shavuot, liberation and revelation.

Midrash depicts the revelation of Torah at Sinai as a wedding with God as the groom and Israel as the bride. One midrash says that Mount Sinai was held above us -- perhaps as a threat, or perhaps as our wedding canopy.

This poem borrows its title from one of my favorite Mark Knopfler songs of recent years.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow has suggested that one way to understand the name Torah is to relate it to yoreh, the first longed-for rains of the fall season after the long, hot, dry Middle Eastern summer.

Day 36 of the Omer

DAY 36: SIX


Six days of         creation before pausing.
Work-day, week        -day, ordinary time.
Incomplete without the         capstone, the adornment:

silver candlesticks and         braided egg bread,
six sweet psalms        representing the week
then the hymn            welcoming what's holy.

Penultimate. Bridesmaid, never         the Shabbat bride.
Six isn't special        doesn't have meaning
of its own        without what follows.

Here we are        beginning week six
clock not yet        striking midnight's chime
there's still time        to open up

let go and        let God in.
The sixth week        begins right now        
what new gifts            might it bring?

 

 

Today is the 36th day of the Omer, making five weeks and one day of the Omer. Today is the 36th day of our 49-day journey from Pesach to Shavuot, liberation to revelation.