Rachel Barenblat's Blog, page 176

Rick Black's Star of David

I had the good fortune to be asked to contribute a "blurb" for Rick Black's beautiful new poetry chapbook Star of David, winner of the 2012 Poetica Magazine Contemporary Jewish Writing Chapbook Contest, published by Poetica Magazine and distributed by Turtle Light Press, 2013. My paper copy of the book just arrived in my mailbox, and I am so glad to have it.

When asked for a blurb, I replied:

This slim volume wrestles with the angels of our history and brings forth a new name. It's located, in its own words, "at the intersection / of grief and solace[.]" Black understands that his grandfather's prayer book is a box of portkeys to farflung destinations of history and spirit; that when his daughter pushes the empty swings, she is rocking the dead to gentle sleep. Who among us could fail to identify with the poet who wants to sing of horseradish, of toy frogs, of dancing with his daughter until they fall down -- but not of slavery or of the Egyptians drowning in the sea? Black practices observance -- not walking to shul on Saturdays, but noticing the countless wonders of this real and complicated world. We are blessed to be able to see our world through his eyes.

(Only part of that quote appears on the book's webpage, but I wanted to share it here in full, because it's still a fine reflection of how I see the collection.)

I have several favorite poems in the collection, which tells you something about its quality. Two of my favorites are on facing pages: "Hands" and "Observance." In "Hands," we hear the voice of someone who watches people walking by with strollers and tallit bags, clearly on their way to shul, but who prefers to remain in the garden nurturing what he has sowed, "Hunched over / in torn jeans and invisible phylacteries[.]" And "Observance" is so lovely that I'll reproduce it here in full:

Observance

I am not observant

I do not walk to shul or refrain

from cooking on Shabbat.

But I do practice

observance

as often as possible:

watching geese

descend on their wings

into the river,

listening to a red-bellied

woodpecker lunatic

in my backyard

and inhaling the fragrance

of wild lilac

along a forest path.

I've shared Rick's work here before -- I reprinted his poem "Bougainvillea" in the 2002 post Two poems from Before There Is Nowhere to Stand. I admire his willingness to confront that which is unbelievably painful, as he does in "Bougainvillea" -- or, for that matter, as in the first poem of this chapbook, which describes in exquisite language an encounter with a yellow fabric star reading Jude. He wrestles with suffering and emerges with prayer, as in the chapbook's final poem, "Kaddish:" "Even when I am not reciting kaddish, / even when I protest against it, / I am still reciting kaddish."

Star of David costs $15 and can be purchased at the distributor's website. I recommend it.

Becoming Avraham: on names and transformation in Lech-Lecha

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am El Shaddai. Walk in My ways and be blameless. I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will make you exceedingly numerous."

Abram threw himself on his face; and God spoke to him further, "As for Me, this is My covenant with you: You shall be the father of a multitude of nations. And you shall no longer be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I make you the father of a multitude of nations. (Genesis 17:1-5; parashat Lech Lecha.)

Many years ago, a dear friend set out to read the Bible because she felt -- I think rightly -- that it had had a tremendous influence on English-language literature. She chose the King James version, both because she felt it had had the most impact on English lit and because she doesn't speak Hebrew. As she began to work her way through Genesis, and came to this passage, she asked me: what's this name change about? What does it mean?

Most simply, the change from Avram to Avraham involves the addition of one letter: ה, the "h" sound. (We pronounce the name of this letter as heh or hei.) Sarai's name is also changed this week, in a similar way: the י at the end of the name Sarai is changed to the ה at the end of Sarah.

The letter ה is one of our ways of denoting God. ה' means HaShem, "The Name," e.g. the Holy One of Blessing. Some sources in our tradition read the added ה as a symbol of God's presence. Avram becomes Avraham; Sarai becomes Sarah; in both cases, the added letter signifies God. Other sources relate the letter ה to breath (certainly that is how the letter sounds when vocalized), and -- remembering that God breathed the breath of life into the first human only a few weeks ago in our narrative -- see the added ה as a sign of divine spirit.

A change in name can signal a change in destiny. Avraham and Sarah aren't the only ones in Torah to receive new names from God; later in our story we'll encounter Jacob, "the Heel" (his name comes from the word for heel, as he grabbed his twin brother's heel in the womb to ensure that he himself would be born first -- and sure enough, Jacob is kind of a heel as the English colloquial usage would have it!) who wrestles with an angel and becomes Yisrael, "Wrestles-With-God."

An interesting note: the Torah tells us that God said to Avram "Your name shall be Avraham," but of Sarai God says "her name is Sarah." Not "shall be," but already is. We read in Talmud:

Rabbi Huna said, quoting Rabbi Acha: The letter yud which was removed from Sarai's name was divided into two letters; one hei was added to Abram and the other to Sarah." (Talmud Yerushalmi, Sanhedrin 2:6)

Remember that in Hebrew, numbers and letters are the same thing. The letter י equals the number 10; the letter ה equals the number 5. According to this reading, the 10 in Sarai's name was removed and broken into two 5s, two הs; one ה was attached to each name. In this reading, it was Sarai's deep spirituality which was divided and shared between the two of them -- or perhaps her spirituality which made it possible for both of them to experience this added gift of spirit and awareness.

The Zohar offers a different interpretation. Zohar teaches that the ה -- meaning 5 -- represents the 5 books of Moses, e.g. the Torah. As a prooftext, the Zohar offers a creative re-reading of Genesis 2:4:

"These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created [in Hebrew, "beheibaram"] in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens." He made them with [the letter] hei /ה.

The Zohar deconstructs the word "beheibaram" ("when they were created") into b' (which means "with") hei ("the letter ה") baram ("they were created.") The simple surface meaning of "when they were created" is re-interpreted into "The heavens and the earth were created with ה." Remember that the letter ה, which can also mean 5, represents Torah -- so this teaches us that (in the Zohar's opinion) the whole of creation was created by means of the Torah. That's what Avram and Sarai inherited at this moment of blessing and name change: they inherited Torah, which in a deep mystical sense is the blueprint for all of creation.

Jewish tradition places deep importance on names. There's an old saying that when parents name our children, we experience a  frisson of prophecy, since in giving a child a name we create some of that child's destiny. And you've probably heard of (and perhaps even experienced) the old custom of changing someone's name if they are very ill. The folk tradition says it's to fool the Angel of Death, but I think it also has to do with a deep and inchoate sense that when someone's name changes, new possibilities are opened up. (I have many friends in Jewish Renewal who have changed their names, or taken on second Hebrew names, at moments of great personal transformation in their lives for this reason.)

It's worth noting that in the passage I quoted at the start of this d'var Torah, God introduces God's-self as El Shaddai. (Remember that God has many names in Jewish tradition -- even just in the Torah itself.) This name can be understood to be related to the Hebrew root which means breasts, so it can be read as a name of divine mothering and compassion. Can we imagine that in the ה which our ancestors received here was some of that motherly compassion and kindness?

At the start of this week's portion, God commands Avram "Lech-lecha" -- go you forth, or as many of us translate it, go forth into yourself. Maybe it's only once Avram has gone forth into himself -- once he has done the inner work of self-discovery and discernment -- that he becomes ready to receive the changed name which implies a deeper awareness of God's presence, a deeper connection to spirit and soul, a deeper connection to motherly kindness and compassion, a deeper connection to Torah... which he can then pass down to all of us. Kein yehi ratzon, may it be so!

Previous years' commentaries on Lech-Lecha:

2006: Going forth into something new (originally published at Radical Torah)


2008: First step [Torah poem]

2010: On going forth

A Jewish Renewal / Rabbis Without Borders take on the Pew study

In the wake of the recent Pew study on Jews in America today, I can't help wondering: how many "Jews in the pew" jokes can reasonably be made in the span of a week? Okay, that's not really the question. But the editors at Religion Dispatches asked a provocative question in response to the study and in response to the dialogue around that study in the Jewish community thus far: Pew and the Jews: So What?

They asked a handful of smart and thoughtful people to respond in brief, among them J.J. Goldberg, Jay Michaelson, Ruth Messinger and Shaul Magid. I'm honored to be in this company as well. My response begins:

As a Jewish Renewal rabbi, I'm interested in the renewing of Judaism. I
take a post-triumphalist stance toward other traditions even as I seek
to lift up what's beautiful in my own. As a Rabbi Without Borders I aim not to worry about communal dilution, nor to work from a narrative of erosion. (That's part of how RWBs self-define.) Wearing both of these kippot, I find reasons for hope in the Pew study...

You can read my whole response here: Opportunity Knocks in Pew Study. And don't miss the other responses linked from the main page -- all are thought-provoking and add something valuable to the conversation.

Deep Waters: a d'var Torah for parashat Noach

This is the d'var Torah I offered at my shul yesterday during Shabbat services. (Cross-posted to my From the Rabbi blog.)

Deep Waters

"Postpartum depression caused the Flood..."

That's the first line of the first poem in 70 faces (Phoenicia, 2011). It comes out of last week's Torah portion, Bereshit -- which begins with the creation of heavens and earth, and ends with God recognizing that humanity has become wicked, and vowing to wash us off the face of the earth. In this week's Torah portion, Noach, we encounter the flood itself.

Many of you have heard me speak about the "four worlds:" action, emotion, thought, and spirit. In Jewish Renewal we frequently use this idea as a lens for understanding our lives. Sometimes, as in our Tu BiShvat seder, we map each of the four worlds to one of the four seasons, or to one of the four elements. The world of yetzirah, emotion, is represented by water.

Jung wrote that water is a symbol for the unconscious. In Tarot, water represents emotion and intuition. Think of the language we use to speak about strong emotion: emotion poured through me, my heart overflowed with feelings, emotion welled up in me. And, when it gets to be too much: I was afraid my emotions would wash me away. I was flooded with emotion.

The first lines of Torah teach that before creation, God's spirit hovered over the face of the waters -- maybe the waters of the unconscious, the waters of chaos, the waters of what-existed-before. Then God divided between the waters above and the waters below. Our ancestors believed that primordial waters flowed below the earth, and above the heavens; that everything we know and experience is surrounded by cosmic waters which we cannot see.

Before each of us is born, we inhabit a space of living waters -- a mother's womb. Waters above, waters below, waters sustaining us. When we are born, most of our bodies consist of water. Waters run through us and sustain us. Maybe that's one of the deep truths reflected in Torah's metaphors.

And in this week's portion, God stops holding the waters back. The waters become too much. There is an excess of water. And everything that isn't held safely in that little wooden boat is washed away.

For those who struggle with depression, there is often fear of emotional flood. "If I let myself really feel the depth of my sorrow, I will wash away." Or: "If I let myself really feel the depth of my sorrow, I will wash away everyone I love."

We need to trust that we, and our loved ones, can weather our storms. Like Noah, who builds a floating home which can survive even the greatest deluge.

Many years ago at a Shabbat service at the old Elat Chayyim, Rabbi Jeff Roth recounted the following parable. Two waves are hanging out together in the sea, a big wave and a little wave. And the big wave is anxious and scared. The little wave says, "Why are you so afraid?" And the big wave says, "If you could see what I see, you'd be afraid too. Up ahead of us there are some cliffs, and I can see where we're going -- every wave in front of us goes up to those cliffs, and smashes into them, and disappears."

And the little wave smiles and says, "If you could see what I see, you wouldn't be afraid." And the big wave asks, what's that? And the little wave says, "We're not waves -- we're water."

We're not waves: we're water. The essence of who we are is greater than our stormy weather, greater than the rising and falling of any wave or any tide or any life. We aren't just our crests and troughs, our highs and lows. Even when an individual wave shatters on the shore, its water nature remains. Even when an individual life feels shattered -- or comes to its end -- what is eternal in us still flows.

 

INTEGRATION

When the floodgates open

build a boat with many spaces

here in these cubbyholes

stash your scales and feathers

pack provisions for the forty days

required for transformation

push off from the dock and set sail

for wherever the current carries you

don't be surprised if you wobble

back across the gangplank

when you raise the partitions

you'll run like new watercolor

offer yourself on the altar of stone

beneath the varicolored sky

(from 70 faces)

Standing at the edge

 

1.

In Reb Shlomo's parable

the rabbi stands at the edge

of a sea of tears

and refuses heaven

until all are shed.

You have drifted on that sea,

trailed your fingers

in its salt waters

wondering why no one on shore

notices you're gone.

 

2.

The fear says

if you open the porthole

Noah's own floods will pour through

towering like a ziggurat

and wash you away.

And others, innocent.

They might be caught

in the raging waters.

You can't warn them

to build an ark in time.

3.

The problem is (you explain)

you don't trust intuition.

Your dream guide replies

where do you think

the poems come from?

You've spent a life

thinking you had only two eyes.

Now you realize: that's

what that extra tender spot

is for. Press, and tears well up.

 

4.

Take up paleontologists' tools,

tiny pick and fine brush.

Watch the ancient skeleton emerge.

Imagine the impact

which made this impression.

As many times as necessary

tell yourself

no matter how far you dig

you won't burst the capstone

on the primordial seas.

 

5.

Turn a corner, you're

a beginner again.

Relearn how to shore

yourself up, build

a path you can trust will hold.

You want to believe

you can turn emotion's flood

into living waters

from which you'll emerge whole,

dazzling like the sun.

 

This poem arises out of the confluence of this week's Torah portion (Noach) and several conversations. The first section makes reference to a story which Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach used to tell. Re: "primordial seas" in the fourth stanza: in antiquity, it was believed that the earth was suspended between two seas, the waters above and the waters below. (You can see a reflection of that view in the opening lines of Bereshit.)

I would love to see this poem illustrated with accompanying images. I have some photographs which I think might suit, but not one for each section, and I think if one were going to do it, one would want five images. Or maybe this could become a short videopoem. One way or another, I think this poem is particularly ripe for visual (re)interpretation. Perhaps this is a good time to reiterate that I'm always open to remix and transformative work; all I ask is that you let me know if you've used one of my poems as a jumping-off point for creating something new.

Today on the Best American Poetry blog: poems of Noah

And then, tucked into the end of the Torah portion -- after the Flood
-- there's an entirely different story, the wild parable of the Tower
of Babel. Judy Klitsner makes a compelling case
that the sin of the people building that tower was a kind of coercive
groupthink. It's fascinating to notice that that story begins with the
observation "And all the earth was of one language and of one set of
words..." What would our world, what would our poetry, be like if we had
only one language available to us?

The story of Babel's given rise to some great stuff too, like Barbara Hamby's collection of that same name.

What can we take from the juxtaposition of flood and tower? The lens
of poetry is one of the hermeneutics I like best. Read the portion
itself as though it were poetry. Look for repeated words and images, for
surprising turns of phrase...

That's from my final post this week at the Best American Poetry blog: The poetry of Noah [by Rachel Barenblat]. Thanks again to the BAP editors for inviting me to share some ideas there! It's been a lot of fun.

Worth watching: psalm 42 videopoem

Earlier today I posted to the Best American Poetry blog about collaboration and remix. My post includes discussion of and links to some amazing collaborative art and remix / transformative work that's happening in the poetry world today. (If you haven't read that post yet, I hope you will -- there's some incredible work highlighted there.)

I want to share one amazing creative collaboration here which is perhaps better suited to Velveteen Rabbi's readers than to BAP's, and that's the new Psalm 42 video from G-dcast, written and performed by Jina Davidovich and animated by Jeremy Shuback:

(If you can't see the embed, you can go directly to it at Psalm 42: Where is Your God?.)

It's extraordinary. First of all, the words are a beautiful riff off of the themes and motifs of psalm 42 as we know it from Tanakh. Secondly, the reading of the poem aloud gives it new voice and new life. And thirdly, the illustrations and the animation of those illustrations...!

This is exactly the kind of thing I'm excited about: words and art informing each other and together creating something greater than the sum of its parts. And, of course, the Tanakh is always ripe for creative (re)interpretation...

Kol hakavod, y'all.

 

ETA: that video is part of a quartet -- here are all four. Psalm 1, Psalm 23, and Psalm 90 receive the same amazing treatment. Holy wow!

Today on the Best American Poetry blog: collaboration and remix

I love the age of the remix. Remix, transformative work, videos which
build on poetry, composers who borrow our lines for their music, poems
inspired by other poems -- these are my idea of a good time. I've been
talking with the publisher of my next collection about putting the
manuscript online with the intent of making it easy for other writers
and artists to find the poems -- not only so that the poems can be
blogged, Facebooked, tweeted (though I hope that they will be), but also
to explicitly welcome remix and transformative work. Of course I want
to sell copies of the book; who wouldn't? I want to reward my publishers
for spending the coin of their time on my work. But I also want the poems
to be out there in the world, as part of the communal conversation --
and I think that the more we put our poetry out there for remix and
transformation, the more interwoven we and our readers/co-creators
become.

That's from today's post on the Best American Poetry blog: Collaboration and remix [by Rachel Barenblat]. Click through to read the whole thing -- which features quotes from Dave Bonta and Nic Sebastian, as well as some hopefully interesting musings on intersemiotic translation and remix culture.

Today on the Best American Poetry blog: looking for great parenting poems

It's the very opposite of romantic or adventuresome, this parade of
toaster waffles and endless PB&J sandwiches. (Of course there are
orthodoxies. In our house the only acceptable option uses whole wheat
bread and is cut in triangles, featuring nothing but creamy peanut
butter and seedless blackberry jam, and heavens forfend we should call
it "grape" by mistake.)

It could be the stuff of prose poems, I suppose: the voice yelling
"boo!" in our doorway at six-thirty in the morning, then hollering hello
to the moon; negotiations about pyjamas and experiments with rhythm.
When he tries to curl in my lap for our nighttime lullaby, he's all
angled elbows and pointy knees which don't actually fit, like my best
friend's golden retriever attempting to regain the lap dog status he
dimly remembers from puppyhood...

That's from today's post at BAP: Where are the great poems of parenting a four year old? [by Rachel Barenblat]. Click through to read the whole thing.

Today on the Best American Poetry blog: music for this season

Today I'm thinking about these lines from John Berryman: "Fall is
grievy, brisk. / Tears behind the eyes // almost fall. / Fall comes to
us as a prize / to rouse us toward our fate." (From his Dream Song 385,
which someone has put online here.)

I've been listening to Jon Appleton's The Russian Music
this fall. The first disc, mostly: the piano concertos. They ripple and
roll. They're a bit akin to Philip Glass (his Metamorphoses -- also
well-suited to fall, if you ask me.) But this piano music is moodier.
More Russian, I suppose. Though when I ran across the Berryman quote
(above) in my commonplace book, it made me think of Appleton, too...

That's how today's post at the Best American Poetry blog begins. Click through to read the whole thing: Russian music [by Rachel Barenblat] at The Best American Poetry blog.

(I posted about music last time I blogged there, too: Music for fall, 2010. I still like all the stuff I linked to in that post, too.)