Rachel Barenblat's Blog, page 223

A poem about Orpah

THE ONE WHO TURNED BACK

 

Maybe you envisioned
your husband's grave
choked with weeds

maybe you knew
the Israelites would scorn
your foreign features

the sages say
God gave you four sons
because you wept as you left her

the pundits whisper
once Naomi was gone
you spread your legs for anyone

did the men of Moab
grind your body
like bruised corn

did you birth Goliath
and rend your garments
when you lost him too

did you live for centuries
destined for the sword
of one of David's men --

or did you bathe
your aging parents
and die a quiet spinster

comforted by the scent
of the wild rosemary
outside your childhood home?

In preparation for the lesson I'm going to teach at my shul's Tikkun Leil Shavuot (late-night Torah study gathering -- beginning 9pm, Saturday May 26; let me know if you want to join us!), I've been collecting poems arising out of the Book of Ruth. (Including my own The Handmaid's Tale (Ruth), which I posted here last year.)

To my surprise, no one seems to have written any poetry (contemporary or otherwise) about Ruth's fellow sister-in-law Orpah. So I settled in to see what I could write.

Most of the details in this poem come from classical midrash about Orpah -- there's a good online compilation in English at the Jewish Women's Archive called Orpah: midrash and aggadah. The final two stanzas have no basis in classical tradition, and come purely out of my own imaginings.

I welcome whatever response(s) this poem evokes in you.

Celebrating marriage

Sometimes I think about what might surprise Drew, later in his life, when we tell him stories about before he was born or about his early years. The first time we ever did a video-skype call with my mother in Texas, she told him a story about being a little girl on a party line, and I thought: wow, we have come an incredibly long way, technologically speaking, since his grandma was a girl. To Drew, the fact that we sometimes "have dinner with" his Texas grandparents via Skype is entirely ordinary. He's never lived in a world where that wasn't possible.

Drew isn't old enough to know what a President is, but someday he'll learn that his parents voted in the historic election in which we elected our first African-American president. (I even wrote a Torah poem about it.) Drew has a deck of Presidential cards (like baseball cards, but featuring Presidents; picked up in the dollar bin at Target, I think) and when he scatters them on the floor, they are a sea of white faces -- all except for one. But maybe by the time my grandchildren are ready to vote, it won't be so remarkable anymore to think that this nation could (begin to) overcome its legacy of racism in this way.

Drew also isn't old enough to know what marriage is, though I'm grateful that he's growing up in a state in which gays and lesbians have the same right to marry as male-female couples do. His lesbian aunties on his dad's side were married here some years ago. His mama the rabbi officiates at gay weddings with great delight. And now we have a President who has openly affirmed his support for gay marriage, too.

I hope that by the time Drew is old enough to understand, the notion of a state passing a law against gay marriage will seem as misguided, plainly hurtful, and outdated as the notion of a state passing a law against someone of one race marrying someone of another. (I'm far from the first to note the painful similarities there.) I don't know who Drew will love; right now I'm pretty sure he loves his family and his friends and Thomas the Tank Engine, and that's as it should be. But I hope and pray that by the time he's ready to marry, if and when that day comes, he (and his generation) will have the right to marry, period. And not just in a handful of states, but anywhere in this country.

Because marriage is awesome. Getting married means standing up beside someone you love and speaking words which change your relationship to one another in a magical, powerful, and honest-to-God holy way. And after you get married, you get to be married, which is even better. Being married means loving someone, growing and changing along with someone, meeting the highs and the lows of a lifetime along with someone, navigating the bills and the laundry and the household chores with someone, discovering how lovemaking changes after ten and fifteen and fifty years with someone, learning from someone, giving to someone, for as much of a lifetime as you can manage.

Of course people can do those things without being married. But being married is is one of humanity's most time-honored ways to do them. And I'm grateful to have a President who supports the ability of my queer friends and loved ones to enjoy the same rights and privileges that my husband and I are blessed to receive. Shehecheyanu, v'kiyimanu, v'higianu lazman hazeh!

Dick Jones' "Ancient Lights"

I've been dipping into Ancient Lights: Selected Poems by Dick Jones, newly-released by Phoenicia Publishing (the press which published my 70 faces last year.) Dick blogs at The Patteran Pages, and I have long enjoyed his work, so I'd been eagerly anticipating the release of his collected poems. The collection was well worth the wait!

I find that Jones' poems are so evocative that I don't want to drink the whole book all at once. I pick it up, read a poem or two, stop and let the images settle and percolate. Then I pick it up again.

How could I not love a poem which begins "This hole is a clean wound / in the hill's skull. Turf / whiskers the rim, bedding // stitchwort and herb robert..." ("Lead Mine, Swaledale") Or how about: "Post-coitum, he relaxes back / into rumpled sheets, cat-happy." ("Certainty") Or the entirety of Sea of Stars, which I first read in the pages of Qarrtsiluni and which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2010?

Some of these poems are heart-wrenching in their intimacy. Like "Maisie Sleeping," which begins:

     Your soft clock
      scatters seconds like
      peas on a drum.

      A feather pulse
      stutters in your
      neck...

Anyone who has watched a child sleep will resonate to Jones' words here.

Others sketch their unfolding on a broader canvas:

That was about as close as the war
had come -- censored letters, rumours,
like an invisible tide you can hear at the edge
of the world. Little to see beyond uniforms,

gas masks in boxes, gummed paper stretched
over windows...

("Flightpaths" part 2: "1940: A Dream of Aeroplanes.") What I love in these poems, I think, is some combination of their breadth and their restraint. Although the poems are drawn in fairly spare brushstrokes, their images expand to fill my reader's mind and heart.

I'll close this review by sharing in toto one of my favorite poems in the collection -- perhaps the most natural fit for Velveteen Rabbi readers, since it's a poem about faith. I could mention some of the techniques and turns I love in this poem, the plosives of "mortality / the cricket ticking," the string of ings in "touching, finger to finger / and breath quickening / to mingle"... but ultimately what makes Jones' poems work is his technique's transparency, atop a core of real feeling and real heart.

CREDO

I believe at the root
in breath as a first
principle. Breath --

the intake, the giving
out -- is our signature
onto the air.

Next I believe
in the business
of seeing and hearing,

the processes of light
and sound whereby
we inhabit the cracks

and corners of the earth --
the guarded scrutiny
of strangers, the ear

cocked in a waiting room.
Incidental revelations,
accidental wisdoms.

As for mortality,
the cricket ticking
in the long grass

is timepiece enough
for me. Wound up
by the sun,

his spring uncoils
at night and
he dreams in black.

But, as a final article
of faith, I believe in
the heartbeat certainty

of two adjacent hands
on the parapet of
a bridge somewhere

touching, finger to finger,
and breath quickening
to mingle, and this

causing the sun to rise
and the moon to wax
and all the tides to run.

You can learn more about the collection, hear Dick reading some of the poems, read excerpts and reviews, and if you're so inclined buy the collection, here at Phoenicia.

A few teachings in advance of Lag B'Omer

A Lag B'Omer bonfire.

Today is the 30th day of the Omer. In three more days we'll reach the minor festival of Lag B'Omer -- the 33rd day of the Omer. ("Lag" is how we pronounce the Hebrew number 33, spelled lamed-gimel, ל''ג.) But beyond being the thirty-third day of the counting between Pesach and Shavuot, what's Lag B'Omer?

I'm so glad you asked! The simple answer is, there's no one simple answer. A few years ago I shared the following set of interpretations:

One interpretation of the chronology in Torah holds that on this date, manna first began to fall from the heavens for the Israelites in the desert. Lag B'Omer (celebrated with picnics and rejoicing) can be understood as a commemoration of that happy miracle.

Another story (found in the Talmud) holds that 24,000 of the students of the great sage Rabbi Akiva died from a plague during the counting of the Omer because they failed to give one another proper respect (or, in Reb Zalman's interpretation, they failed to see the chen, divine grace, in one another.) Many traditional Jews observe limited mourning customs during the first 32 days of the Omer, in remembrance of that plague; Lag b'Omer marks the day when the plague came to its end, and hence, we celebrate.

An alternate interpretation holds that the students died as part of the Bar Kokhba revolt against Rome (132-136 C.E.) We spend the first 32 days of the Omer mourning their deaths...until the 33rd day of the Omer, when we rejoice that the massacre finally ended. (The killing may have come to an end, but the outcome of the war was pretty bleak; the name Judea was erased from Roman maps, the study of Torah was prohibited, and Jews were barred from entering Jerusalem. Oy.) Fearing of reprisal from Roman authorities, the sages of the Talmud didn't want to mention the failed rebellion by name, so spoke of a "plague" instead.

Some Jews celebrate the yarzheit (death-anniversary) of the sage Shimon bar Yochai on this day; he was a student of Rabbi Akiva's, and it is to him that the Zohar -- germinal work of Jewish mysticism -- is traditionally attributed. In this understanding, we light bonfires to symbolize the way his teachings illuminated the night.

It interests me that these are the stories we tell about this minor holiday. [Lag B'Omer] is a day for remembering how important it is that we see the grace in one another, and honor one another's learning. It's a day to remember the dangers of following messianic figures into violent rebellion. And it's a day for celebrating illumination: not just the literal illumination of burning sticks and logs, but the metaphysical and spiritual illumination embodied in the wisdom of Torah and the Jewish mystical tradition.

The remainder of that post contains a beautiful Hasidic teaching. You can read it here: The bonfire of the expansive heart. (2009)

This year, Lag B'Omer will begin on Wednesday evening at sundown. Some of the traditional ways of celebrating Lag B'Omer include bonfires and barbecues, archery and ballgames, even getting one's hair cut (some Jews observe a prohibition against hair-cutting during the "semi-mourning" period of the first 32 days of the Omer, and that ban is lifted on Lag B'Omer.) Ifyou're interested in an alternative set of ideas about how to celebrate Lag B'Omer, try the latter half of the post Plagues? Rebellions? May Day? Lag B'Omer. (2007)

How will you be celebrating Lag B'Omer? Even if there are no bonfires or picnics in your plan for this week, can you imagine a way of making the day meaningful for you?

Rumi service PDF

A number of people asked whether I would be willing to share the liturgy for the Rumi Shabbat service which I led at my shul this past Shabbat. I am happy to do so! The service is attached as a pdf. I welcome responses of all kinds!

 

 

Rumi Shabbat

 

interweaving the poems of Sufi mystic

Jalal ad-Din Rumi (d. 1273)

with the Shabbat morning liturgy

 

 

Download Rumi-Service [pdf, 2MB]

This week's portion: on loving our neighbors

Here's the d'var Torah I'm planning to offer at tomorrow morning's Shabbat service...so if you're coming to our Rumi service, you might want to skip this post so you can hear it tomorrow with fresh ears!

On loving our neighbors

הריני מקבל עלי
את מצות הברא
ואהבת לרעך כמוך
לרעך כמוך!

Behold, here I am
accepting upon myself
the mitzvah of the Creator:
to love my neighbor, my "other"
as myself
my other as myself.

I love this verse. It is one of my very favorite verses in the Torah -- and not just because there's a beautiful melody for it. It's the verse in the very middle of the Torah, more or less; the middle of the book of Leviticus, which is the middle book of the five. This is the very heart of the Torah. But the verse doesn't stand alone.

First we get ethical teachings about agriculture. When you harvest your fields and your vineyards, don't go all the way to the edges; leave something there so that the hungry can glean. Leave food for the poor and the stranger.

Few of us are farmers today, though here in northern Berkshire I know that some of us have gardens, and others are members of CSAs like Caretaker Farm. Caretaker gives surplus produce each week to the Berkshire Food Project. But for those of us who garden at home, how many of us could imagine opening our backyards to the needy? Maybe that prospect seemed less scary in Biblical days. Or maybe it didn't -- maybe this teaching was always meant to push a little bit beyond our comfort zone.

Don't steal, Torah says. That's pretty basic. Don't swear falsely. But then Torah urges us not to keep a laborer's wages overnight: if you employ someone, give them their money right away, so that they can sleep and eat and be safe. In the Torah's understanding, keeping someone's paycheck until morning is a kind of theft.

Don't insult the Deaf, Torah tells us. And maybe that means exactly what it says: don't mock someone just because they can't hear. And maybe it also means, just because someone can't hear you -- maybe they're Deaf, or maybe they're hearing but they're out of the room -- don't say unkind things. Don't speak ill of people, whether or not they can hear what you have to say. Act as though Someone were listening, and only say things which you wouldn't mind being overheard.

Don't put a stumbling block before the blind: don't trick people, don't trip people up, don't obstruct. Literal blindness or figurative blindness, the teaching still holds true.

Don't defer to the poor because you feel sorry for them, and don't defer to the rich because you feel awe of their money. Be fair, no matter what someone's wealth or poverty or social standing might be. Whether it's someone who's down on their luck and seems like a victim, or someone who's riding high and seems like a perennial victor, try to relate to them fairly, without letting envy or admiration or contempt color your judgements.

Don't profit by the blood of your fellow. Don't pursue your livelihood in a way which endangers someone else. Don't profit from someone else's suffering.

Don't hate your brother or your sister in your heart. You can give someone a gentle reproof, but don't incur the karmic baggage of holding a grudge. That's not good for you or for the person you're angry at.

It's only after all of these commandments that we reach "Love your neighbor, your other, as yourself."

"Love your neighbor as yourself" isn't a polite pleasantry. It's not a new-age idea we can parrot and feel nice about. This is, our song tells us, "the mitzvah of the Creator" -- this is God's own mitzvah. One Hasidic teaching holds that God created humanity because God needed a "neighbor," an "other," with whom to be in relationship. God created us because God couldn't be whole without being in relationship, without extending love to another. And if we're called to be like God, we need to extend love to our "others" too.

And the way we do that is, we feed the hungry. We don't let ourselves become greedy and harvest every scrap of food in the fields. We act justly toward those who work for us. We treat those who are Deaf, and those who are blind, with respect and admiration and compassion. We relate to one another fairly. Every night, maybe as we say the bedtime shema, we let go of our grudges and our anger with one another. That's how we love our neighbors: through doing all of those things. And that's how we make ourselves like God.

Crossposted to my From the Rabbi blog.

Torah poem: For a Reason

FOR A REASON

 

Everything happens for a reason.
No before or after in Torah.
Happy families are all alike
but every unhappy one's unique.

No before or after in Torah.
When Joseph went down into Egypt --
every unhappy one's unique
but he was not afraid.

When Joseph went down into Egypt
despite the sandy-bottomed pit
he was not afraid
his sons had Egyptian names

despite the sandy-bottomed pit
he flourished where he was planted
his sons had Egyptian names
the first in all the generations

to flourish where he was planted.
Unknown Ephraim and Menashe
the first in all the generations --
may all our sons be like you!

unknown Ephraim and Menashe
who rewrote our family karma
may all our sons be like you
sweet as parchment's honey.

Who rewrote our family karma?
Happy families are all alike.
Sweet as parchment's honey.
Everything happens for a reason.

 

 

This poem came about in a roundabout way. I settled in to respond to the poetry prompt in the latest issue of Diane Lockward's poetry newsletter, which invited me to come up with lists of clichés and advice and to make use of anaphora, a kind of verbal parallelism. By draft three, I could see that there was something there, but the form wasn't quite working for me, so I deleted everything except the lines I liked -- most of which had something to do with Torah and with the Joseph story.

The emerging Joseph focus wasn't all surprising, since I came to work on the poem after spending some time with Avivah Zornberg's take on Joseph (specifically the essay "What if Joseph Hates Us?" in her brilliant The Murmuring Deep: Reflections on the Biblical Unconscious.) So I decided to run with the Joseph idea and see what happened. The desire to use repeated lines led me to the pantoum form. This is the third or fourth draft of the pantoum. It's a long way from the poetry prompt which started the whole journey, but I'm pretty happy with it.

If the names Ephraim and Menashe don't ring a bell, you might enjoy my post This week's portion: the blessings of Ephraim and Menashe. The notion that there's no before or after in Torah (ein mukdam u-muchar ba-Torah) is a classical rabbinic dictum and exegetical tool. (In other words: Torah often operates on levels beyond the linear. As, I suppose, do pantoums.) All thoughts / comments welcome!

Thanks, brother Thầy

This week I've brought a few more of my books to my office at the synagogue. As I add each one to the bookshelves, often I am tempted to open them and remind myself why I wanted to bring them in the first place. This afternoon I picked up Thich Nhat Hanh's Being Peace, and the page to which it opened told me this:

Even though life is hard, even though it is sometimes difficult to smile, we have to try. Just as when we wish each other, "Good morning," it must be a real "Good morning." Recently, one friend asked me, "How can I force myself to smile when I am filled with sorrow? It isn't natural." I told her she must be able to smile to her sorrow, because we are more than our sorrow. A human being is like a television set with millions of channels. If we turn the Buddha on, we are the Buddha. If we turn sorrow on, we are sorrow. If we turn a smile on, we really are the smile. We cannot let just one channel dominate us. We have the seed of everything in us, and we have to seize the situation in our hand, to recover our own sovereignty. When we sit down peacefully, breathing and smiling, with awareness, we are our true selves, we have sovereignty over ourselves.

I'm struck by the notion of smiling to one's sorrow: not despite it, not through it, but to it. And I'm moved by his suggestion that each of us can choose to which emotional channel we turn. I think he's right that we are "more than our sorrow" -- and that even in the midst of sadness or anger, one can choose to try to tune in to the channel of compassion and kindness.

I am not a serious student of Buddhism -- not in the way that many of my friends are -- but I have learned so much from the Buddhist teachers who I have encountered, both in person and in print. I haven't read this book in years, but I'm glad it remains on my shelf. What a lovely teaching to carry with me for the rest of the day and into tomorrow morning's meditation minyan. Thank you, Brother Thầy.

 

On divestment

There's been a great deal of conversation in the American Jewish community about divestment resolutions the United Methodist Church has recently pondered and the Presbyterian Church will soon be pondering. These resolutions would lead each church to divest their funds from three companies -- Motorola Solutions, Hewlett-Packard and Caterpillar -- which profit from Israel's policies in Gaza and the West Bank. (For more: Understanding United Methodist Divestment and Presbyterian investment committee recommends divestment.)

Some two dozen rabbis and Jewish clergy signed a letter in support of these Christian churches' consideration of divestment from Caterpillar et al. Here's an excerpt from that letter:

To advocate for an end to an unjust policy is not anti-Semitic. To criticize Israel is not anti-Semitic. To invest your own resources in corporations which pursue your vision of a just and peaceful world, and to withdraw your resources from those which contradict this vision, is not anti-Semitic. There is a terrible history of actual anti-Semitism perpetrated by Christians at different times throughout the millennia and conscientious Christians today do bear a burden of conscience on that account. We can understand that, with your commitment to paths of peace and justice, it must be terribly painful and inhibiting to be accused of anti-Semitism.

In fact, many of us in the Jewish community recognize that the continuing occupation of Palestine itself presents a great danger to the safety of the Jewish people, not to mention oppressing our spirits and diminishing our honor in the world community.

You can read the whole letter at www.RabbisLetter.org.

Meanwhile, some 1200 rabbis have signed a letter decrying the proposed divestment. I've been able to dig up a JTA news story about the 1200 rabbis signing the anti-divestment letter, but haven't been able to find the letter itself online -- if anyone out there has a link to the actual letter, please let me know.

All of this has piqued the attention of Bishop Desmond Tutu, who wrote a powerful (and saddening) op-ed called Justice requires action to stop subjugation of Palestinians. In responding to the 1200 rabbis who signed the letter opposing this divestment, he writes:

I recall well the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail in which he confesses to his "Christian and Jewish brothers" that he has been "gravely disappointed with the white moderate … who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: 'I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action;' who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom."

He adds a further caution:

If we do not achieve two states in the near future, then the day will certainly arrive when Palestinians move away from seeking a separate state of their own and insist on the right to vote for the government that controls their lives, the Israeli government, in a single, democratic state. Israel finds this option unacceptable and yet is seemingly doing everything in its power to see that it happens...

I understand why many American Jews respond to any talk of BDS (boycott, divestment, and/or sanctions) with instinctive rejection. But these resolutions don't suggest divesting from Israel or from Israeli businesses. The question is one of continuing to invest in major corporations -- Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, and Caterpillar -- whose products are used to create and sustain injustice. That's not a threat to Israel or to Jewish life. Beyond that, I would posit that all of us who are fortunate enough to have investments should strive to be mindful of the implications of where we choose to put our money.

I don't know how much money these churches have invested in these corporations. I suspect that one way or another, this isn't going to make or break Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, or Caterpillar! The divestment would be a symbolic gesture more than a fiscally meaningful one. But we who have chosen to dedicate our lives to serving God and our religious communities tend to be pretty passionate about the value and meaning of "mere" symbols.

In this week's Torah portion we read "Do not profit by the blood of your fellow" (Lev. 19:16) -- often understood to mean "do not pursue your livelihood in a way which endangers another." Reading this verse this week, as this conversation has unfolded, it strikes me that the verse could also be understood to be an injunction against passively permitting one's investments to cause or further bloodshed. I tip my kippah to the clergy and laypeople in these churches who are wrestling with the implications of who profits from their investments.

As it happens, the Methodist church voted this week to pass a different resolution, one which calls instead for positive investment in Palestinian economies rather than divestment from these corporations. (See the New York Times: Methodists Vote Against Ending Investments Tied to Israel.) I think it's arguable that positive investment, however well-intended, may not go far if the bigger picture of the occupation isn't addressed. But I'm glad to see these issues being discussed by some of my Christian colleagues and friends.

 

For further reading:

I Support the Presbyterian Church (USA) Divestment Resolution by Rabbi Brant Rosen
Pro-Israel and Pro-BDS, by Jeremiah Haber (The Magnes Zionist)
The Jews are Going to Florida -- So What's New by Rae Abileah at Jewschool
Demolishing Homes, Demolishing Peace -- a recent report from the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (related, though a few years old now: my post A Day with ICAHD, 2008)

Y'all be holy, now

This week, in our weekly Torah lectionary process, we're reading Acharei Mot-Kedoshim. I wanted to share again a d'var Torah arising out of this Torah portion which I wrote back in 2010, which I offered at my parents' congregation in San Antonio. Here's a taste:

"You shall be holy, for I, Adonai your God, am holy." This instruction is at the heart of this week's Torah portion, Acharei Mot-Kedoshim. The Hebrew word for "holy" is kadosh, קדש kuf / daled/ shin: this is the root of the word kiddush, the sanctification of wine; kaddish, the prayer which sanctifies the name of God; and kiddushin, the ring ceremony through which one partner in a marriage is sanctified to the other. This root is usually understood to mean separation or withdrawal. Something which is kadosh is set-apart.

Torah uses this word to describe Shabbat, the festivals, and the Jubilee year, all set apart from ordinary time; the Temple, a place set apart for God (and Jerusalem, in which the Temple once stood); the Israelite community, set apart from other communities; and God, who is the ultimate in set-apart. And in this week’s Torah portion, we're told that this word needs to apply to us, too.

Many religious traditions call their participants to holiness. But Torah doesn't just tell us to be holy as individuals. We're called to be a mamlechet kohanim and a goy kadosh, a kingdom of priests and holy nation. Specifically, in this week's portion, it says: k'doshim tiyihu -- "Y'all shall be holy." The injunction is in the plural.

Torah isn't just saying that you should be holy, and you, and you—each one of us finding her own path. Torah says "y'all be holy, now." What does it mean to be holy as a community?

Read the whole thing: On Holy Community.

(And if you're so inclined, feel free to check out my VR Divrei Torah index, which contains links to all of the divrei Torah I've posted about this week's Torah portion -- and every other! -- both in prose and in poetry. I'm still particularly proud of the sestina I wrote for parashat Acharei Mot...)