Rachel Barenblat's Blog, page 87

New Torah commentary at My Jewish Learning

Earlier this year I was delighted to contribute a d'var Torah to My Jewish Learning for the first Torah portion in the book of Leviticus: Vayikra - What Silence Conceals and Reveals. They've asked me to write a few more commentaries for them, and one of them has just been published. This one's for the Torah portion called Korach, which we'll be reading later this summer.

Here's a taste of what I wrote:

... It’s easy for moderns to empathize with Korach. Maybe we too have chafed against leadership, religious or otherwise, that has seemed too top-down. The modern-day legal system under which we live says that every citizen is equal in the eyes of the law, and the ancient priestly system that placed Aaron and his sons at the top of the hierarchy may offend our democratic sensibilities.

Most of all, Korach’s cry — “all of the community are holy, and God is in their midst” — speaks to us on a spiritual level. Torah teaches that when we build a space in our lives for God, God dwells among us (or within us). Being a leader doesn’t make one closer to God, and any leader who thinks that it does is in need of doing some serious internal work.

But this story isn’t as simple as it may initially seem. Korach is identified as a son of Levi — part of the “secondary” priestly caste in the ancient system that placed Kohanim (priests) at the top of the ladder, Levi’im (Levites, or secondary priests) beneath them, and Yisrael (ordinary Israelites) at the bottom. It’s possible that his rebellion wasn’t motivated by the kind of communitarian impulse that moderns might admire, but by the desire to depose Aaron and his sons so that Korach and his sons could be at the top of the hierarchy instead. Seen through that lens, Korach and his followers attempted a coup that would have replicated the same top-down use of power against which we want to think they are rebelling.

I’m also struck by the language the Torah uses to describe the incident: Korach and his followers “assemble against” Moses and Aaron. This isn’t a friendly conversation, a heart-to-heart about the direction the Israelites are taking in their wilderness wandering, or a question about leadership style and priorities. This is rebellion. ...

I hope you'll click through and read the whole thing: A Failed Rebellion.

Deep thanks to the editors at MJL for publishing my work.

My latest for The Wisdom Daily

My latest essay has been published at The Wisdom Daily. It's about divorce, and life changes, and the difference between rebuilding and starting something entirely new. Here's a taste:

...From the matrix of community relationships into which I remain woven, to the reality of the child my ex and I are still committed to co-parenting, I haven’t completely left my old life behind. To be sure, large parts of that life have been gutted and await restoration. (Parts of my heart occasionally still feel gutted and in need of restoration.) But the structures I’m building in this new chapter have to dovetail with the old ones...

Read the whole thing: Life After Divorce Is About Repairing, Not Building Anew.

Open to me

My breasts are full and tender:
I ache to give to you.

Say yes and I will bathe you
in flowing milk and honey.

Taste and see that I am good.
How I yearn for you to know me!

I want to quench the thirsts
that keep your heart from resting.

I crave your gasp of surprise
and your sigh of completion.

My heart's desire
is to share myself with you.

Open to me, beloved
so my precious words can let down.

 

 

This is another poem arising out of my study and reflection on the relationship between yearning and the revelation at Sinai. (See also I want.) 

My breasts are full and tender. The Hebrew word for "breasts" is shadayim; one of Torah's names for God is "El Shaddai," which can be understood to depict God as a nursing mother.

I ache to give to you. See Pesachim 221a: "More than the calf wants to suckle, the cow yearns to give milk." (See also "El Shaddai (Nursing Poem)," the first poem I wrote after my son was born -- now published in Waiting to Unfold.)

Flowing milk and honey. Song of Songs 4:11 speaks of "honey and milk under your tongue." One traditional interpretation holds that this is a description of Torah's sweetness. Just as milk has the ability to fully sustain a newborn, so Torah is considered to provide all of the spiritual nourishment that we need.

(Reb Zalman z"l taught that this isn't necessarily so -- sometimes there are spiritual "vitamins" we can most readily receive from other traditions, rather than our own -- but the tradition's likening of Torah to milk is one of the reasons why it's customary to eat dairy at Shavuot when we celebrate revelation.)

Taste and see. See psalm 34:8: "Taste and see that God is good."

My heart's desire. This riffs off of a line from the Kabbalat Shabbat love song "Yedid Nefesh" -- in Reb Zalman z"l's singable English translation, "My heart's desire is to harmonize with yours." Here I imagine that God's heart's desire is to share God's-self with us.

When you cry out

You think I'm not listening.
You can't feel my hand
on your shoulderblade, my lips

pressed to your forehead
my heart, ground down with yours
into the dust of the earth.

Sweet one, I feel your grief
like a black hole inside my chest
strong enough to swallow galaxies.

I can't lift it from you.
All I can do is cry with you
until I struggle for breath

all I can do is love you
with a force as limitless as gravity,
endless as the uncountable stars.

 

 

[E]ndless as the uncountable stars. See Shir Yaakov's Broken-hearted (psalm 147.)

This is another poem in my current series -- aspiring to speak in the voice of the Beloved, responding to us. (Previous poems in the series: Missing you, Because, Always, God says yes.)

Passing the Flame Forward: A Letter from Rachel and David

In early 2015 that we would serve as the next co-chairs of ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal.  Today we announce that we are stepping down. Our term will end in July.

When we began, we saw four key goals.  First, to help steward ALEPH through the complex aftermath of the death of Reb Zalman z”l, whose third yahrzeit soon approaches.  Second, to offer hundreds of people around the world ways to express hopes, dreams and longings – and bring their hearts and ideas back to ALEPH for integration.  Third, to support in tangible ways the continuing flow of Jewish Renewal for today and tomorrow.  Fourth, to model a stewardship that saw our roles as temporary and sought our successors quickly.

We did much that we came to do.  Along with Board colleagues and staff, we spent 15 months on the ALEPH / Jewish Renewal Listening Tour, taking stock of who and where ALEPH and Renewal are -- how the renewal of Judaism has spread and matured, what is cherished, what should change and what must never change.  It was a tremendous blessing to journey into those deep places together.  We took hundreds of pages of notes, and brought what we learned back to ALEPH, the Ordination Program and OHALAH (the association of Jewish Renewal clergy).  Some of those ideas are starting to take root now.

Behind the scenes, ALEPH evolved a new governance system aspiring to be more inclusive.  We established an Advisory Council to harness the wisdom of elders, teachers and visionaries across the Jewish landscape to support Judaism’s ongoing renewal.  ALEPH laid the foundation for a Communities Council so that ALEPH Network members -- communities, organizations, and individuals -- could help set a new bottom-up agenda for how to support ALEPH communities in the future.  ALEPH began strategic planning with Reverend Bill Kondrath, a consultant specializing in midwifing faith-based organizations through major transitions, including and especially the death of a charismatic founder.  

In the public realm, the magic of the 2016 Kallah happened at Colorado State University: 37% of attendees were first-timers, and brought the joy and “juice” of Jewish Renewal home with them. ALEPH began planning the 2018 Kallah.  (Stay tuned for more information soon.)  New spiritual communities joined ALEPH – both “new” ones (started from scratch), and existing ones rooted in Reform and Conservative denominational contexts.  New programs and projects sought ALEPH affiliation.  ALEPH was featured in a variety of publications and podcasts.  ALEPH began developing new initiatives, including Clergy Camp and Tikshoret (an education platform to bring tastes of Jewish Renewal to a broad online audience), while also better supporting beloved ALEPH stalwart programs and initiatives.  Finances improved, and funds were invested wisely and securely.

Perhaps most importantly, as co-chairs, we said from the start that we wanted to model stewardship that flows in ways we learned from our teachers.  We created a Nominations Circle, on which we did not serve, and asked that it immediately seek successors for the Board and its leadership.  We felt that, especially in this era after Reb Zalman’s life on this plane, it would be important for many reasons to fulfill this intention to serve with all our hearts while making way for the next turning.  The time for that next turning has now come.

For the confidence, volunteerism, and support ALEPH received during our time of service, we are grateful beyond measure: these are tremendous gifts, and we thank you for them.  We are especially grateful to ALEPH’s executive director Shoshanna Schechter-Shaffin, ALEPH’s deputy directors Tamy Jacobs and Steve Weinberg, their predecessor David Brown, Lynda Simons, and Ming Shem-Lu, who have nourished ALEPH and have done the very hard work of bringing ideas and relationships to life.  They are ALEPH’s unsung heroes, and they deserve wild applause for their dedication and hard work.  We are grateful to our teachers, and their teachers, and their students, and the students of their students – both within and beyond ALEPH – for so very much that has come through them over the years.

The work of renewing Judaism, by its nature, is never complete (Pirkei Avot has something to say about that).  The next phase of this ongoing journey now is for our successors, to keep that flame burning bright in ways that perhaps today can scarcely be imagined.  We wish them every success and blessing as they dream and lead forward.

With blessings on this Omer day of chesed sheba yesod (lovingkindness in foundation),

Rachel and David

 

 (Cross-posted to David's website and to Kol ALEPH.)

 

I want

I want with all my might
to give you milk and honey

aspire only to feed you
(look: you're skin and bones,

the Jewish mother in me
aches to fill your plate)

but not just nutrients:
like manna that took on

each person's yearned-for flavor
I want my offering to you

to meet your every need
balm your every sorrow

fill your mouth with sweetness
you didn't know you didn't have

I want to give you my heart
but all I can offer are words

you'll misunderstand them
sometimes you'll resent them

often you'll resent me
for the neverending letters

that I can't stop pouring
because I can't stop loving you

 

 

I've been thinking a lot lately about God giving Torah at Mount Sinai, which we'll re-experience at Shavuot in a few short weeks. One of my favorite teachings about creation is that God brought creation into being because God yearned to be in relationship with us. I've been reflecting on how we might extend that teaching to say something about the revelation of Torah, also. What if God yearns to give us Torah, the way one yearns to give the gift of one's heart to a beloved? That's the question that sparked this poem. (And also a couple of other poems still in early draft form -- stay tuned for those.)

 

Notes:

To give you milk and honey. Torah is often compared to milk and honey; this is one reason why it's traditional to eat cheesecake at Shavuot.

Like manna that took on / each person's yearned-for flavor. See Exodus Rabbah 5:9: "Rabbi Jose ben Hanina says: ... the manna that descended had a taste varying according to the needs of each individual Israelite. To young men, it tasted like bread...to the old, like wafers made with honey...to infants, it tasted like the milk from their mothers’ breasts...to the sick, it was like fine flour mingled with honey."

For the neverending letters // that I can't stop pouring. I learned from Reb Zalman z"l that the revelation of Torah wasn't just a onetime thing that happened to "them" back "then" -- it's something that continues even now.

As Reb Zalman used to say, God broadcasts on every channel; we receive revelation based on where and how we are attuned. The flow of revelation into the world -- the flow of Torah into the world -- is for me first and foremost an act of divine love. 

When Mother's Day hurts

In the United States today is Mother's Day. We're reminded of that in a million little ways: from television commercials for Hallmark cards, to ads for Mother's Day brunch deals, to countless social media postings about mothers and motherhood.

I'm always aware that days like these can be fraught and painful, for all kinds of reasons. Maybe you had a difficult relationship with your mother. There are mothers who are neglectful, narcissistic, and/or abusive; maybe yours was one. Maybe this day reminds you of everything you wish your relationship with your mother could have been but wasn't. Or maybe you had a wonderful relationship with your mother, and now she has died and this day reminds you of how much you miss her. 

Maybe you yearned to become a mother, and faced infertility. Maybe you yearned to be a mother but your marriage has ended. Maybe you've had a miscarriage, or an abortion. Maybe you are a mother, and you have a painful relationship with one or more of your children. Or maybe you are a mother and your child has died -- the English language offers us a word for a child whose parents have died, and a word for a person whose spouse has died, but we don't have a word that means a parent who has lost a child.

All of these are land mines hidden among the greeting cards, the commercials, and the friends on social media posting photographs of their happy families and hand-drawn mother's day cards. There are endless social and cultural messages telling us how we are "supposed" to feel today. And it can be extra-isolating to feel out-of-step with the way we think we're "supposed" to feel on a birthday or an anniversary or a holiday like this one. Days like today can evoke, trigger, and intensify feelings of loss. 

If you are someone for whom today is purely sweet, I am glad for you. May you be blessed to always experience this day as a source of sweetness. 

If you are someone for whom today contains bitterness or sorrow, I am holding you in my heart. Be gentle with yourself today in all the ways that you can. 

 

Other resources:

When Mother's Day Hurts, Psychology Today
How To Deal With Mother's Day When Mother's Day Hurts, Lifehacker
How do you handle mother's day when your mother was abusive? The Invisible Scar
7 ways to remember the hurting mothers this mother's day (on mothers whose children have died), Still Standing

A crack in everything

In this week's Torah portion, Emor, we read that no one who has a defect may draw near to God through offering sacrifices on the altar. And then Torah goes into exquisite detail about all of the different kinds of physical defects that would disqualify a priest from serving.

Fortunately for us, we live in a post-sacrificial paradigm. When the Temple was destroyed, we engaged in an act of radical reinterpretation. We no longer talk with God through burnt offerings: we talk with God through prayer, the "service of the heart."

In the old paradigm, anyone with a "defect" was disqualified from service. I want to turn that on its head: anyone who thinks they are perfect should be disqualified from serving the community, because they are so full of themselves that there's no room to let God in.

We all have imperfections. We all have broken places. We all have bodies that will age and will someday not work as well as they do now. (I suspect that for most of you, that truth is not yet a reality -- though for others it's old news; even at 20 one can be injured or sick.) We all have hearts that break and ache and grieve. We all have minds that sometimes fail us. We all have souls that sometimes feel lost and lonely.

This is what it means to be human. To be human is to be imperfect, and sometimes to feel broken. Authentic spiritual life calls us to serve not despite our brokenness, but in and with the parts of ourselves that feel most damaged. 

The word קרבן is usually translated as "sacrifice," but it comes from a root that means drawing-near. The English word "sacrifice" connotes giving something up, but that's not what the priests were doing. Their task was to draw near to holiness, to meaning, to what we call God.

That's our task, too. All of us have the opportunity and obligation to take our spiritual lives into our own hands. Spiritual life isn't just what happens on Shabbat or in the sanctuary. All of our life is spiritual life -- or it can be, if we're willing to be real with ourselves and each other.

And that means being real about the places where we feel whole and strong and beautiful, and the places where we feel crushed and ground-down. We draw near to God (and if the G-word doesn't work for you, try "holiness" or "meaning" or "love") not despite our broken places, but in and through them. 

The school year is ending. Some of us are feeling loss: our friends are graduating, or we ourselves are graduating, and our community is going to change. Some of us are feeling sorrow: the year wasn't everything we hoped it would be, or it was everything we hoped for but now it's over and what do we do with that?

My answer is: be real. Be real with yourself and with each other. Don't paper over the broken places. They're not a flaw in our lives or in who we are: they're integral to who we are. The great sage Leonard Cohen wrote, "There is a crack in everything -- that's how the light gets in." May our broken places let in infinite light and comfort, hope and love, now and always.

 

This is the d'varling I offered tonight at the end of Kabbalat Shabbat services at the Williams College Jewish Association.  (Cross-posted to Under the Kippah: Thoughts from the Jewish Chaplain.)

 

Shabbat, renewal, and you

A d'var Torah offered at Congregation Bet Ha'Am in Portland, Maine. Offered aloud by me; jointly written by me and Rabbi David. 

 Welcome home.

Why am I welcoming you home when you live here and I'm the visitor? I don't mean welcome home to Bet Ha'Am; I mean welcome home to Shabbat – or more aptly, welcome home into Shabbat – because Shabbat is a homecoming.

Rabbi David and I are delighted to join you as scholars in residence, or maybe scholars in homecoming. This weekend we hope to share with you tastes of Renewal, starting with the renewal we call Shabbat. For six days we busy in our doings; on the seventh day, we come home to our sense of being human beings. 

When we can "just be," when we really know that we're enough just as we are, we can touch that loving miracle of spirituality that Jewish mystics call the World to Come, right here and now. That's what I mean by coming home.

Now I freely admit to y'all – and I say y'all as a good south Texan transplanted to southern New England, now visiting southern Maine – that not every Shabbat in my life lives up to this ideal of a homecoming. But tonight, singing and praying and being with y'all even for this short while, I feel the supernal Shabbat becoming that feeds my soul – and I feel at home here with you.

This sense of inner homecoming is Renewal – both the lower-case "r" of experiencing the love and joy we call the renewal of spirit, and the capital "R" of Renewing Judaism, and its umbrella organization -- ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal -- that Rabbi David and I call home. And these two Renewals are linked. A Judaism that is vital and vibrant in body, heart, mind and soul – what we call the Four Worlds of Jewish spirituality – is the quest and passion of Jewish Renewal.

Tonight we want to share with you how we see two Renewals as linked with the theme of our weekend together – holiness, for Parshat Kedoshim – and the heart of Parshat Kedoshim, to love our neighbor as ourself / ואהבת לרעך כמוך. How does Renewal relate to holiness and love?

To tell that story, we begin with a simple premise: Judaism is changing, and change is core to who we are. Both the Reform movement and the Renewal movement share this sense of something that moves. Like waves on the ocean, Judaism never stands still. Jewish Renewal does more than merely accept this idea: we put perpetual change in the center of spiritual life. Jewish life inherently changes -- and changes us.

Which raises a paradox, because the comfort of being "at home" isn't the same as "perpetual motion, " unless you live with the perpetual motion machine that is my seven-year-old son. How can we feel at home and also always change? This question is perhaps the Jewish question, because our ancestors had to do just that – wander the desert, wander from nation to nation, navigate constant change in society.

But many of us, myself included, grew up with a Judaism that felt static – little motion, maybe little emotion. Since when did Jewish life stay still? Where did this idea come from that what's most unchanging is "most Jewish?" It dates back to Moshe Sofer of Pressburg, who held in 1800 that Torah forbids anything new: כל חדש אסור מין התורה מכל מקום. He feared the radical changes then sweeping Jewish life as the Industrial Revolution began. He thought he could stop change, but trying to stop change is like trying to stop the sea: you just get wet.

In his perhaps desperate effort to stop sea changes in Jewish life, the Chatam Sofer forgot that the divine name Moses heard at the Burning Bush, אהיה אשר אהיה / "I will be what I will be," is a name that evokes constant change – always becoming. Constant change, perpetual motion: that's core Jewish theology, and core Judaism.

But the Chatam Sofer's idea – that Torah forbids everything new – made a big splash. It sparked what today we call denominations – the Reform Movement that brought the modernity he feared, then Orthodoxy as a retreat from Reform, then the Conservative Movement in response to Reform, then Reconstructionism that saw Jewish life more as civilization than spiritual theology.

Today the tide of history is weakening denominations amidst huge social changes transforming who we are, how we connect and what we value. When we can log onto the internet anywhere, when ideas of identity and community are shifting on their foundations, naturally Jewish life must shift in response. Today, according to the landmark Pew study, a majority of Jews no longer identify with a denomination – and I say this as a rabbi serving a Reform temple like yours. Today a majority of Jews say they're "Just Jewish," without denomination -- or more spiritual than Jewish – and this trend is accelerating among the younger generations.

That's where Jewish Renewal comes in. Renewal is a movement in the sense of moving, responding to the constancy of social change, but not structured as a denomination. Renewal seeks experience and tools to open doors to experience the holy in all its forms.

So what is Renewal like? Well, it's time for a confession: Rabbi David and I began introducing you to some Jewish Renewal this evening without saying so. If you noticed bilingual prayer, attention to pacing, passionate use of words and silence, focus on feeling, fusing the rational with imagery and meditation, that's part of Renewal's toolkit called davvenology. "Davvenology" hails from the Yiddish word davven, to pray actively, in ways that attune within – not saying what's on the page just because it's on the page. Renewal seeks pathways of prayer that deepen experience and connect us more deeply with our inner lives.

In service of this, we experiment, fuse ancient words with modern tunes, change words or sometimes go without words entirely; use meditation, poetry, movement, anything to achieve spiritual experience. Maybe you've seen some of these ideas before; what maybe you don't know is that they trace to the founders of Jewish Renewal, including Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, who died in 2014, and his dear friend, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach.

For us, spiritual experience is the goal, and we develop tools to help reach that goal. Often we think that Judaism is the words, the prayerbook, the building, even the Torah – and I dearly love all of them. But they're tools, not the goal. To confuse one for the other is like confusing a meal with a recipe: we can't eat a recipe. Renewal cares about the spiritual meal more than the recipe. Or as Reb Zalman put it, every religion is a pointer: don't confuse the pointer for the point.

But what if prayer doesn't float your boat? Some Jews aren't davveners, and Judaism is more than liturgy and synagogue life. Renewal says go to whatever sparks experiences of awe, gratitude, and inner transformation: that's where we start. What helps you touch the holy is what we want – because when we touch the holy, we are renewed, and that's the point of the Jewish Renewal we cherish.

So what else is in the Renewal toolkit? For some it's social justice work. Renewal radically commits to tikkun olam, seeing the planet as alive, taking seriously our duty to tend the earth and treat others well in how we live and what we eat. That's our eco-Kashrut movement, planet-conscious eating as a spiritual practice.

For others it's deep ecumenism: not just multi-faith tolerance and acceptance, but living our Judaism in ways that uplift and journey alongside our cousins in faith in radical ways. For some it's using meditation and imagery to engage the mind and heart: we'll offer tastes of that on Sunday when we show how familiar mitzvot we take for granted offer profound mystical practices. For some it's spiritual direction, in Hebrew, hashpa'ah, meaning divine flow, to discern how the sacred flows through the real stuff of our lives. For others it's Sage-ing – not lighting a smudge stick to scent the corners of the room, but harnessing the wisdom that comes with age.

For some it's a mindset, and a heart-set, that emerges in response to adversity. We chose the topic of "Illness and Healing" for our Saturday learning before havdalah to show how Renewal harnesses ancient wisdom to uplift modern life.

These are some of the tools, what we call spiritual technologies, in the Jewish Renewal toolbox. Renewing our individual Judaism means using tools to come home to our inner lives. Renewing Judaism means also seeking the next spiritual technologies, so that Judaism keeps coming home to being ever more alive.

How will we know when we succeed? When these tools are available to all of us, and the next ones flow as easily as rain. When you can take your spiritual life into your own hands, own your Judaism and help make it amazing and new – growing organically from what came before, like a new spring leaf growing from an ancient tree. When spiritual experience transforms us from the inside and helps us feel alive. When we feel in ourselves and each other a quality of love, an inner sense of home, that transcends our words – that we can only call God. When loving another as we love ourselves becomes second nature.

That's our subject for tomorrow morning's Torah study together, and it's our definition of holiness – kedoshim, whose heart is the mitzvah to love our neighbor as ourselves. That's the wellspring always ready to renew us. Drinking from those living waters is the goal of Jewish Renewal, and all spiritual paths of every name and creed.

May you be blessed with a Shabbat that renews your sense of what Judaism can be, and your sense of what you can be. And may this renewal be a living well to nourish you and all whom you love. Thank you for welcoming us, and for learning and being real with us this weekend. Shabbat shalom.

 

A welcome message to Bet Ha'Am

For those who are interested... here's the welcome video we made to introduce ourselves to the community at Bet Ha'Am, where we'll be Bernstein scholars-in-residence this weekend. Over the course of three minutes, we talk a little bit about Jewish Renewal and the tools we've found there for harvesting joy and meaning in Judaism, and we close with the song that will be our musical theme for our weekend together:

(If you can't see the embedded video, it's on YouTube here.)

To everyone at Bet Ha'Am: we're both driving north today, and hope to make it to you safely despite the projected rainstorms. We look forward to being with y'all for Kabbalat Shabbat tonight and for the weekend to come!

And to everyone else, Shabbat shalom and blessings from our hearts to yours.