Rachel Barenblat's Blog, page 128

Kedoshim: Holiness and Baltimore

This is the d'var Torah I offered yesterday at my shul. (Cross-posted to my From the Rabbi blog.) An abbreviated version of these reflections were published on Friday in The Wisdom Daily.

"Y'all shall be holy, for I -- Adonai your God -- am holy."

At first blush, this seems like a pretty tall order. I get that we're supposed to be holy because God is holy, but to compare ourselves to God seems like a recipe for falling short.

But the Jewish mystical tradition offers a different view. Rabbi Moshe Efraim of Sudlikov teaches that when we're holy, our holiness percolates upward and enlivens God. There's chutzpah for you: to think that our actions and choices give strength and holiness to divinity on high!

In a funny way, it means that God needs us. God needs us to be striving toward holiness, so that the energy of our striving will enliven the highest heavens. And we need God as our beacon, our reminder that holiness is possible. We need God, who needs us, who need God. Holiness unfolds and grows in the space between, that space of relationship.

Whether or not you believe that God's holiness derives from ours, it seems to me that God manifests in the world through our actions and our choices. What should those actions and choices be?

This week's Torah portion gives us some suggestions. Feed the hungry. Treat your parents with reverence. Keep Shabbat. Don't render an unfair decision; treat both rich and poor as equal human beings. Don't hate your fellow in your heart. Love your fellow as yourself.

This week as I've been studying the Torah portion, I've also been reading stories about the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore. Freddie locked eyes with a police officer. Freddie ran, but the officer pursued him and caught him, then radioed for a police van for transport.

By the time the police van reached the police station, Freddie had three broken vertebrae and a fractured voice box. He died of spinal injuries shortly thereafter. It seems clear that the injuries took place while he was in police custody, in the van; his death has been ruled a homicide.

In the wake of Freddie's funeral Baltimore burned, though already a coalition of local leaders, clergy, and even gang members are working together to end the violence. I've seen some people decry the rioting. For my part, I empathize with the viewpoint that riots can be an expression of hopelessness and grief, and that we should be angrier at those responsible for Freddie's death than at those who have smashed windows in despair.

I find myself thinking about Eric Garner, who died in police custody in New York after being placed in a chokehold and gasping "I can't breathe." I find myself thinking of Michael Brown, shot by police while walking down the street in Ferguson, Missouri. I find myself thinking about what it must be like to live in this country without the privileges with which my skin rewards me.

It's facile, and often problematic, to claim that Torah justifies any given political position. People can and do use scripture to justify every political stance. But I do think that this week's Torah portion can speak to us today.

"You shall not pick your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger." Fifty percent of those in Freddie Grey's neighborhood are unemployed. There are whole communities living at or below the poverty line, and a disproportionate number of those living below the poverty line are non-white. Do our social systems provide for them the way the Torah's system of gleaning aimed to do?

"You shall not render an unfair decision: do not favor the poor or show deference to the rich." Do residents of Freddie Grey's neighborhood trust the police and the justice system to live out that instruction?

"Do not stand idly by the blood of your fellow." What can this instruction mean to those who fear that no matter what they do, they and their fellows will still be systemically mistreated and undervalued because of the circumstance of their birth or the color of their skin?

"You shall love your neighbor, your Other, as yourself." This verse is at the heart of the Torah, both metaphorically and literally. This week's Torah portion instructs us to be holy as God is holy. If this passage is a set of instructions for that process, then holiness means loving others as we love ourselves; wanting for them all the things we want for ourselves; ensuring that they live within a social system and a justice system which are as dedicated and lofty as we would want for ourselves.

In the original context of Leviticus, the word רעך -- "neighbor" or "other" -- meant Israelite neighbor, your fellow who is like you and is part of your tribe. But I think this moment calls us to live in a spirit of post-triumphalism. Ours is not the only path to God, and in this interconnected world, we are all neighbors.

Every citizen of this country is my neighbor, deserving of equal rights and equal opportunities. Every citizen of this world is my neighbor, because each of us is enlivened by the same spark of divinity, and because the myth of our separateness has long been dispelled: what happens on this part of the planet impacts that part of the planet, and vice versa.

May the Torah's voice call us to an honest accounting of our obligations to one another, and may we work toward the day when all human beings are truly afforded respect, dignity, and justice. Kein yehi ratzon.

 

Day 26 of the Omer

DAY 26: FOR THE BONES


For the bones we carry along the way,
   the stories our grandparents told us, impressed
      like a seal on the wax of our hearts: give thanks.
For the taste of haroset which lingers for weeks.
   The rhythm of footsteps, the pull to move forward
      though the sea licks our ankles. The waters will part.

When we dance, when we notice the stars overhead
   and draw new constellations: the leader, the timbrel
      then our ancestors' struggles were worth it.
The path from constriction to covenant calls

-- keep on walking.

 

 

Today is the 26th day of the Omer, making three weeks and five days of the Omer. This is the 26th day of our 49-day journey from Pesach to Shavuot, liberation to revelation.

Today's poem was inspired by a prompt from last year's NaPoWriMo, the one for the 26th day of the month (since this is the 26th day of the Omer) -- to write a curtal sonnet.

 

Day 25 of the Omer

DAY 25: EVEN IF


Even if this is the path you're meant to walk
no one promised pedicures and crumpets.
Don't you think the children of Israel struggled
under the weight of not-knowing what lay ahead?
Resting when the cloud of glory paused,
and marching when it lifted, no questions asked?
No door worth opening, no journey worth taking
can be wholly mapped in advance. No one knows
(except for God) what's on the other side.

 

 

This is the 25th day of the Omer, making three weeks and four days of the Omer. This is the 25th day of our 49-day journey from Pesach to Shavuot, liberation to revelation.

In the kabbalistic paradigm this is the day of netzach she'b'netzach, the day of endurance within the week of endurance. This poem is an acrostic; if you read vertically down the first letter of each line, you'll see its theme.

Day 24 of the Omer

DAY 24: STONE WORK


            The only rule I know:
two stones on one,             one stone on two.
                Fit them snug
so they won't topple             after the first cycle
                of freeze and thaw.
If I could fly                 over New England
                low enough to look
through leafless trees             I'd see the earth
                seamed like a baseball,
old walls the stitches             holding her together.
                Some have slumped
over centuries,              granite and gneiss
                sliding gracefully
to the side, but             even in ruin
                the walls endure.
What will I build             in my lifetime
                to last as long?

 

 

Today is the 24th day of the Omer, making three weeks and three days of the Omer. This is the 24th day of our 49-day journey between Pesach and Shavuot, liberation and revelation.

Today's poem was inspired by one of last year's NaPoWriMo prompts -- the invitation to write a poem about stone walls or arches.

The shape of today's poem is inspired by the "two stones on one" rule, and by the calligraphy of the Song at the Sea.

Day 23 of the Omer

DAY 23: EVENING PRAYER


Afternoon's flat hot white
gives way to the electric green
of minarets against evening's blur.

Old city divides: here
crosses, there metal crescents.
Judaism's in the paving stones.

I press against the wall
to let the Land Rover pass,
the bike, the men with sidecurls.

I wish these dusty Coke bottles
were inscribed in two languages.
Harmony's a long way off.

Taste and see:
our story crackles
like pastry drenched with honey.

Torah is a fresh fig
ready to be parted and savored.
There's enough to share.

Long after every border blows away
like chalk dust on the wind
her waters will endure.

 

 

Today is the 23rd day of the Omer, making three weeks and two days of the Omer. This is the 23rd day of our 49-day journey between Pesach and Shavuot, liberation and revelation.

Today's poem was sparked by one of Luisa A. Igloria's prompts from last year - the one from April 22, which suggested stanzas, moving through space, synonyms for light, the words "metal," "electric," and "blur," the present tense, references to two sweets, and a reference to a commercial from my childhood. (Can you find the reference to the commercial?)

In the kabbalistic paradigm, today is the day of gevurah she'b'netzach, the day of boundaries or borders or strength within the week of endurance. As I worked with Luisa's prompt, I found myself thinking about Jerusalem, and borders, and what endures.

Day 22 of the Omer

22: ENDURANCE


They steamed south until pack ice closed in.
Faith in the journey kept spirits high.
Always knew they'd reach the promised land.
They'd trek across the expanse of white.

Faith in the journey kept spirits high.
The continent was a blank page before them.
They'd trek across the expanse of white
scribing holy writ with sledges and skis.

The continent was a blank page before them.
The ship groaned, then buckled.
Scribing holy writ with sledges and skis
they decamped to the ice, watched her go down.

The ship groaned, then buckled.
Any sane man knew they were lost.
They decamped to the ice, watched her go down.
Hauled their lifeboats over mountains of ice.

Any sane man knew they were lost.
But Shackleton wouldn't let them lose hope.
They hauled lifeboats over mountains of ice
and rowed 800 miles in the world's worst seas.

Shackleton wouldn't let them lose hope.
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield!
They rowed 800 miles in the world's worst seas
and he brought every man home alive.

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield!
They'd steamed south until pack ice closed in.
He brought every man home alive.
Always knew they'd reach the promised land.

 

 

Today is the 22nd day of the Omer, making three weeks and one day of the Omer. This is the 22nd day of our 49-day journey between Pesach and Shavuot, between liberation and revelation.

In the kabbalistic paradigm, today begins the week of netzach, endurance. As I've written before, I can't hear the word "endurance" without thinking of Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-17. That's what inspired today's poem.

Day 21 of the Omer

21: GOOD HEART


Five roads diverged. Eliezer chose the path
of vision. Yehoshua chased friendship.
Yossi wanted to be a good neighbor.
Shimon sought to think ahead. But Elazar
craved a good heart, and their teacher said
I prefer the words of Elazar
because his choice includes all of yours.

A good heart. In gematria, good plus heart
-- seventeen plus thirty-two -- equals 49,
the days of the Omer. Three weeks in:
press a metaphysical stethoscope to your ribs
and listen to the lub-dub of your lev.
Tap with your fingers: is its tough exterior
softening like pliable red wax in the sun?

Can you carve grooves of gratitude, trace
the map of this meditation labyrinth
and leave an imprint? Make runnels in the clay
and see what flows through you. Instilling
a new habit takes a month of practice.
Four weeks remain before it's time to harvest.
What grows inside your four chambers?

 

 

Today is the 21st day of the Omer, making three weeks of the Omer. Today is the 21st day of our 49-day journey between Pesach and Shavuot, between liberation and revelation.

Gematria is Jewish number-math. In Hebrew, letters double as numbers, which means that every word also has a numerical meaning.

Lev is the Hebrew word for "heart."

In one Mussar model, today is the day to meditate on the quality of לב טוב, a good heart. That phrase reminded me of a Hasidic teaching about the importance of having a good heart, which I blogged some years ago on Lag b'Omer: The bonfire of the expansive heart.

Becoming Real: Tazria-Metzorah and Being Velveteen

Once there was a stuffed rabbit who yearned to be Real. His Boy loved him so dearly that he became Real in the eyes of the Boy -- but when living bunnies caught sight of him, they laughed, because they knew he was only a toy, unable to run and play with the real rabbits.

Some of you are smiling. You recognize this story, by Margery Williams. Let me continue.

One day the Boy became sick, and the stuffed rabbit stayed with him throughout his illness. It was uncomfortable and hot but the rabbit did not budge, because he knew his Boy needed him.

When the fever broke, the doctor instructed the family to burn everything which had been in contact with the boy -- his sheets, his clothes, anything which might carry the germs of scarlet fever. Of course, this meant the bunny, too.

So the bunny was taken to a place outside the house along with everything else which might be contagious, and set aside for the burning. But before the gardener arrived with the matches and kerosene, the bunny wept a real tear, and from that tear arose a fairy, and the fairy told the bunny that he was truly Real now: not only in the eyes of the Boy who had loved him so dearly, but real now in the eyes of everyone.

Why am I telling you this story today? Because of our Torah portion. Tazria-Metzora is full of blood, childbirth, leprosy, eruptive afflictions, and questions of purity. This week's Torah portion takes us on a deep dive into the binary of tahor and tamei -- usually translated as pure and impure, though I don't like that rendering. I resonate with Rabbi Rachel Adler's interpretation that being tamei means being charged-up, electrified, with a kind of uncanny life-and-death energy.

Have you ever been sick, and felt both physically and spiritually different from the "well" people around you? Have you ever done the holy work of the chevra kadisha, lovingly preparing a body for burial, and come away feeling that the world is in strangely sharp focus for a time? Have you ever given birth, or witnessed a birth, and felt as though you were touching the Infinite? Have you ever visited a hospital ward, and come away feeling that the hospital is a holy place -- and also a place which gives you the shivers, with its reminders of mortality? That's tum'ah: a temporary state of wakefulness to the Mystery of life and death.

This Torah portion speaks frequently of tzara'at -- usually translated as leprosy or as an "eruptive plague." Tzara'at is something with which a human being can be afflicted, and it is also something with which a house can be afflicted. In either case, the priest comes to examine, and there is a quarantine period, and if the house cannot be cleansed, it is torn down and taken to a place of tum'ah outside the city.

Although our Torah text comes from a time many centuries before germ theory, it speaks of contagion, and of whether and how it is possible to shed tum'ah and become tahor again.

Reading this Torah portion this year, I found myself thinking of the Velveteen Rabbit. His Boy contracted scarlet fever, and afterwards the rabbit was deemed contagious and was cast away. He became, in the language of Torah, tamei.

But it was through his encounter with sickness that he was able to become truly Real: not only Real in the eyes of his Boy, but Real in the eyes of the world. It was through the experience of being tamei that he was able to emerge into a state of taharah and to become truly alive.

And the same is true for us. Every life contains encounters with illness, contagion, and death. But when we take the risk of loving one another even though we know that life contains loss -- when we oscillate with one another between sickness and health -- that's how we become Real.

Becoming Real, as the Skin Horse in the nursery reminded the Velveteen Rabbit, is not always comfortable. Usually it involves being loved until one becomes shabby and threadbare. Becoming Real comes at a price, and that price is willingness to be in the world, to age, to have one's sharp edges rubbed off or one's plush fur become tattered.

But once you are Real, you know that your fur growing shabby isn't the most important thing. Once you are Real, says the Skin Horse, you can never be ugly.

Or, phrased a different way: once we are Real, we know deep in our hearts that in the eyes of the One Who made us, we are beautiful; we are perfect; we are loved; just the way we are.

 

Day 20 of the Omer

DAY 20: WINDOWS ON THE WORLD


Imagine a house
where every window
shows a different world.

This one reveals
the root system
of an ancient tree.

This one, a mother
rocking her infant
back down to sleep.

A young man balances
a pallet of green coconuts
on his head.

A child offers
boxes of Chiclets
to stopped cars.

Here, a field
where corn sprouts
emerge, chartreuse.

A violinist busks
in a tiled subway station
and strangers applaud.

A man squeezes
pomegranates by hand,
sells their frothy juice.

Gnarled olive trees
overlook a pitted wall
built by giants...

The house is God's
and we are its windows.
Wash away dirt.

Become transparent.
Look! Such beauty
shines through you.

 

 

Today is the 20th day of the Omer, making two weeks and six days of the Omer. This is the 20th day of our 49-day journey from Pesach to Shavuot, from liberation to revelation.

Today's poem was inspired by an image from the podcast Welcome to Night Vale, of a house in which the windows looked out on another world, and also by teachings I first heard in 2003 (I think from Rabbi Moshe Aharon / Rabbi Miles Krassen) about how we are windows and teshuvah  (repentance or re/turn) is a process of clearing away grime.

Getting excited about Getting It Together

Last summer it occurred to some of us in the Jewish Renewal world that this year, 2015, would mark the 25th anniversary of the trip to Dharamsala chronicled in Rodger Kamenetz's The Jew in the Lotus. Wouldn't it be neat, we thought, if we could bring together people from that trip for a celebratory weekend which could enliven us spiritually and would galvanize us in the holy work of being in community with each other across Jewish denominations and across religious traditions?

From that spark, Getting It...Together was born.

July 3, 2015, will be the anniversary (on the secular / Gregorian calendar) of the date when Reb Zalman z"l (may his memory be a blessing) left this life. I remember last year feeling alone in my sadness because many of my friends and colleagues were together in Oregon when he died and were able to pray and mourn and celebrate him together right then and there, and I was not with them. This year, at the one-year anniversary, I will remember him together with my extended Jewish Renewal community (and with many others) at what promises to be an extraordinary weekend:

The Fourth of July weekend this summer will be a weekend of learning, worship, music and ritual offered by followers of all faiths, culminating in a summit of faith leaders and artists promoting the vision of deep ecumenism through various expressions.

Reb Zalman was fond of saying “The only way to get it together... is together.” An innovator of ecumenical dialogue with practitioners of a wide variety of spiritual paths, Reb Zalman leaves us a legacy of Deep Ecumenism. His deeply personal approach to dialogue led to significant friendships with many of the world’s great philosophers and spiritual teachers.

This summer, we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the remarkable journey of Reb Zalman and a small and varied group of Jewish leaders to Dharamsala, India, at the request of the Dalai Lama, to help Tibetan Buddhist leaders learn how a People survives (and thrives) “in a diaspora.”

Special guest presenters include: Rabbi Yitz and Blu Greenberg, Rabbi Moshe Waldoks, Rodger Kamenetz (author of The Jew in the Lotus, which chronicles the 1990 journey), Rabbi Leah Novick and spiritual leaders from many faith communities.

There's special resonance for me in being able to gather with my Jewish Renewal community and also with a multi-faith community as we celebrate the 25th anniversary of The Jew In The Lotus -- since, as I recently wrote (How I Found Jewish Renewal, And Why I Stayed) there's a direct link between that book and my rabbinate.

The Getting It...Together weekend will run from Friday July 3 through Sunday July 5. We'll begin with some pre-Shabbat activities, including an opportunity for mikveh (ritual immersion) before Shabbat as well as some learning and contemplative practice. Shabbat services will be lively, musical, and intentionally inclusive (especially so, given that this will be a multifaith gathering) and will be facilitated by some of Jewish Renewal's leading lights. I think one of the best ways to experience Jewish Renewal is to daven (pray) with us, and this promises to be fantastic davenen!

Over the course of the weekend, our special guests and others will offer teachings honoring Reb Zalman's vision and contribution to the renewal of Judaism and to the ongoing work of deep ecumenism. Plans call for a concert of Middle Eastern music after havdalah, the ritual which brings Shabbat to a close. Sunday will be a day of art, music and dance performances, and stories from the trip to Dharamsala, culminating in a closing summit which will feature our Jew In The Lotus guests as well as some next-generation visionaries.

It's going to be an amazing weekend, and participants of all faiths are welcome. (And the weekend is followed by a week-long retreat called Ruach Ha-Aretz which I'm not able to attend but which I know will be wonderful, and which will continue the learning about deep ecumenism in some lovely ways.)

Register for Getting It...Together today.