Thursday, February 02, 2006
Drought and Death, A Season of Grief
Baruch Dayan HaEmet. Blessed be the true Judge. We have blessings for everything in every moment. These words we have said upon hearing of Leslie's death remain mysterious as I absorb the remarkable journey I was blessed to witness with her. Because Leslie was so open in her updates about the cancer, despite her characteristic doubt that she was doing the right thing--do people find it overkill? she'd ask me--I feel that she would not regard what I'm about to write as an invasion of privacy.
Leslie did not want to die. She ultimately accepted what had to be, yet was never resigned, and I confess, I felt the same. She held hope until the last breath. Last Shabbat morning, a few people from the the current B'not Mitzvah class, along with the Torah, went up to visit her. When we arrived, we found Bill and her children on her bed weeping, and Leslie comatose. Her breath came unevenly, with her not breathing for a minute and then a sharp intake of air. An hour before, she had entered this final stage of life. We quickly and quietly unfurled the Torah around her bed and softly sang the last verse of Adon Olam: "Into Your hand I entrust my body and spirit, When I sleep and wake, God is with me, I shall not fear." We had talked about the class coming up, she had said she looked forward to it, and now it was too late.
We stayed for an hour and half, listening to her breath and waiting, as one waits for a birth. We left, as did hospiece, , surprised that Leslie was still on the planet. But then, they didn't know Leslie's fierce life force. I returned at six and by then the "rattle" had appeared in her breath. The Shabbos light was gone, it was growing cold, and although it isn't regularly my practice, wished to do havdalah. I remembered that a year ago that Leslie spoke to me about doing this ritual to separate the holy from the ordinary at the close of Shabbat. Leslie wanted this ritual to separate her mother's life from hers: her mother had died of the same ovarian cancer ten years before, and Leslie had begun to see things happening to her that reminded her of her mother.
About a dozen of us entered her room, lit by two candles, and sang the Havdalah prayers. I was hoping that we might be able to allow the separation of life from death to be smoother for Leslie, who seemed no more at ease in unconsciousness than she did the day before, when pain aborbed much of her energy and will to live. Every time she received a little surcease, she'd say, "Maybe I can hang on. I can do this." In the last weeks and days, she also asked, "What have I done with my life?" "Who exactly am I?" "I don't think I've done this cancer journey as well as I could have. I should have looked for alternative medicines sooner," Her doubts were difficult to hear and yet they were part of her gift. That's why she did everything so well. What broke my heart was that her self-criticism ran so deep I never saw her rejoice in her gift.
As we let the ironic last words of the ritual, "Shavua Tov", "a good week," fall to a whisper, Leslie sat up! The prayers had revived her!Her eyes were open and she said, "MIchael." Her friend Michael drew near but she was unseeing, like a sleep walker. Later, I wondered if she was called for the angel Michael by her right hand. She and I had often sung the niggun of the bedtime prayer that refers to the angels, Michael on the right, Raphael behind, Gabriel on the left, Uriel in front, and Shechinah over head.
Friends supported her until she began to lie down, gently placed her head on the pillow. Once again she arose, offering a last gift of seeing her move when we thought we'd never recover any of her presence again. We went on singing to her softly as she returned to her final difficult task of leaving us. Boy, did she want to be singing the Havdalah with her friends! I think her face and breath seemed easier afterwards. I left soon afterwards, rocked by what had just happened, trying not to make up a story about it, knowing I'd probably never see anything like it again in my life. How much she wanted to live, how unable she was to give up, how much she remained Leslie to her last breath.
At one a.m. Billy called me to say that Leslie had died fifteen minutes before. After wrestling with, "What now?" and getting Gay's input that the rabbi is supposed to go to the family, even in the middle of the night, I grabbed my manual and kippah, and drove in the starry darkness, praying I'd know what to do when I got there. Billy, God bless him, took me to her, put his arm around me and sighed, "We have to stop meeting like this." We had met when his father died almost four years ago, and we buried his mother a year after that. Now this.
I knew of a rarely observed custom that takes place twenty minutes after death, I suppose, because 18 signifies life. Just as Havdalah came to me, maybe from Leslie who often gave me great ideas, so this ritual's power spoke to my imagination. Who is now here when the breath leaves? What do we do while we wait for hospice to arrive, and what will they do except tell us what we already know?
The ritual, hashkavah, gave direction to this moment of nexus, between life and death. Leslie was naked under the sheet. We opened the windows to release her spirit, emptied still water in the house that was holding the energy at the moment of death,and then replacing it with fresh water. Bill, her sister, Patty, close friend Alix, and I lifted her from the bed onto the floor, laying her beside the bed with her feet facing an eastern door. Her eyes and mouth had been opened, now they were closed, and her face was in repose. We covered her face, covered the mirrors, asked to be forgiven by her for any harm or hurt we may have caused her. I read words that spoke of God's light, sunrise and sunset, peace, rest, and righteousness, and the dust of our beginning and end. I came home and fell asleep until I was awakened by a dream.
I heard Leslie's voice, not gentle and a little challenging, ask me, "When did you start?" I knew she meant when I started my spiritual work, and that she was feeling characteristically self-critical and not well enough prepared. Suddenly my little dog Harry barked once sharply and loud, like a lion. Then he barked again, conscious of the presence too close to me in my life. I took a Valium and slept until daylight. I awakened with a sensation in my chest as if someone was squeezing my heart.
The next morning, Monday, I participated in the taharah, at Leslie's request. As I read the prayers, I sensed not only her spirit hovering but that she, with a little smile, was actually beginning to let go of life and enter another realm. Her beauty was radiant as we dressed her for the casket. My God! she had to have been a high priest once. Her being was like a newborn's, not like any human I've ever seen before, somehow connected to mystery and translucent to divinity.
Two hundred wept a few hours later before her coffin in the sanctuary. Later many spoke of her amazing rapport with children, her caring notes and little gifts of gratitude, appreciation and consolation. Her great competence and compassion. For me, it was all that, and that with her, like a lover, I got to create something and be something with her that I never could have done without her. I don't pretend to be closer to her than her dozens of lifelong friends, another testimony of her character. But I do know that I loved her, ached in her suffering, and wished I could have been God to heal her. She was awesome, sometimes scary, rarely funny, but always regal. We both wept when I promised that we'd see each other again on the other side and really whip this world into shape. Ken Y'hi ratzon. May it be Your will. Zichronah l'vrachah. Her memory will be blessing.
So many have offered concern for my well-being. God bless them all for their understanding of how wearing it is to grieve and hold responsibility for the community. For the sake of heaven, and Leslie, I ask God's help for strength and guidance.
Leslie did not want to die. She ultimately accepted what had to be, yet was never resigned, and I confess, I felt the same. She held hope until the last breath. Last Shabbat morning, a few people from the the current B'not Mitzvah class, along with the Torah, went up to visit her. When we arrived, we found Bill and her children on her bed weeping, and Leslie comatose. Her breath came unevenly, with her not breathing for a minute and then a sharp intake of air. An hour before, she had entered this final stage of life. We quickly and quietly unfurled the Torah around her bed and softly sang the last verse of Adon Olam: "Into Your hand I entrust my body and spirit, When I sleep and wake, God is with me, I shall not fear." We had talked about the class coming up, she had said she looked forward to it, and now it was too late.
We stayed for an hour and half, listening to her breath and waiting, as one waits for a birth. We left, as did hospiece, , surprised that Leslie was still on the planet. But then, they didn't know Leslie's fierce life force. I returned at six and by then the "rattle" had appeared in her breath. The Shabbos light was gone, it was growing cold, and although it isn't regularly my practice, wished to do havdalah. I remembered that a year ago that Leslie spoke to me about doing this ritual to separate the holy from the ordinary at the close of Shabbat. Leslie wanted this ritual to separate her mother's life from hers: her mother had died of the same ovarian cancer ten years before, and Leslie had begun to see things happening to her that reminded her of her mother.
About a dozen of us entered her room, lit by two candles, and sang the Havdalah prayers. I was hoping that we might be able to allow the separation of life from death to be smoother for Leslie, who seemed no more at ease in unconsciousness than she did the day before, when pain aborbed much of her energy and will to live. Every time she received a little surcease, she'd say, "Maybe I can hang on. I can do this." In the last weeks and days, she also asked, "What have I done with my life?" "Who exactly am I?" "I don't think I've done this cancer journey as well as I could have. I should have looked for alternative medicines sooner," Her doubts were difficult to hear and yet they were part of her gift. That's why she did everything so well. What broke my heart was that her self-criticism ran so deep I never saw her rejoice in her gift.
As we let the ironic last words of the ritual, "Shavua Tov", "a good week," fall to a whisper, Leslie sat up! The prayers had revived her!Her eyes were open and she said, "MIchael." Her friend Michael drew near but she was unseeing, like a sleep walker. Later, I wondered if she was called for the angel Michael by her right hand. She and I had often sung the niggun of the bedtime prayer that refers to the angels, Michael on the right, Raphael behind, Gabriel on the left, Uriel in front, and Shechinah over head.
Friends supported her until she began to lie down, gently placed her head on the pillow. Once again she arose, offering a last gift of seeing her move when we thought we'd never recover any of her presence again. We went on singing to her softly as she returned to her final difficult task of leaving us. Boy, did she want to be singing the Havdalah with her friends! I think her face and breath seemed easier afterwards. I left soon afterwards, rocked by what had just happened, trying not to make up a story about it, knowing I'd probably never see anything like it again in my life. How much she wanted to live, how unable she was to give up, how much she remained Leslie to her last breath.
At one a.m. Billy called me to say that Leslie had died fifteen minutes before. After wrestling with, "What now?" and getting Gay's input that the rabbi is supposed to go to the family, even in the middle of the night, I grabbed my manual and kippah, and drove in the starry darkness, praying I'd know what to do when I got there. Billy, God bless him, took me to her, put his arm around me and sighed, "We have to stop meeting like this." We had met when his father died almost four years ago, and we buried his mother a year after that. Now this.
I knew of a rarely observed custom that takes place twenty minutes after death, I suppose, because 18 signifies life. Just as Havdalah came to me, maybe from Leslie who often gave me great ideas, so this ritual's power spoke to my imagination. Who is now here when the breath leaves? What do we do while we wait for hospice to arrive, and what will they do except tell us what we already know?
The ritual, hashkavah, gave direction to this moment of nexus, between life and death. Leslie was naked under the sheet. We opened the windows to release her spirit, emptied still water in the house that was holding the energy at the moment of death,and then replacing it with fresh water. Bill, her sister, Patty, close friend Alix, and I lifted her from the bed onto the floor, laying her beside the bed with her feet facing an eastern door. Her eyes and mouth had been opened, now they were closed, and her face was in repose. We covered her face, covered the mirrors, asked to be forgiven by her for any harm or hurt we may have caused her. I read words that spoke of God's light, sunrise and sunset, peace, rest, and righteousness, and the dust of our beginning and end. I came home and fell asleep until I was awakened by a dream.
I heard Leslie's voice, not gentle and a little challenging, ask me, "When did you start?" I knew she meant when I started my spiritual work, and that she was feeling characteristically self-critical and not well enough prepared. Suddenly my little dog Harry barked once sharply and loud, like a lion. Then he barked again, conscious of the presence too close to me in my life. I took a Valium and slept until daylight. I awakened with a sensation in my chest as if someone was squeezing my heart.
The next morning, Monday, I participated in the taharah, at Leslie's request. As I read the prayers, I sensed not only her spirit hovering but that she, with a little smile, was actually beginning to let go of life and enter another realm. Her beauty was radiant as we dressed her for the casket. My God! she had to have been a high priest once. Her being was like a newborn's, not like any human I've ever seen before, somehow connected to mystery and translucent to divinity.
Two hundred wept a few hours later before her coffin in the sanctuary. Later many spoke of her amazing rapport with children, her caring notes and little gifts of gratitude, appreciation and consolation. Her great competence and compassion. For me, it was all that, and that with her, like a lover, I got to create something and be something with her that I never could have done without her. I don't pretend to be closer to her than her dozens of lifelong friends, another testimony of her character. But I do know that I loved her, ached in her suffering, and wished I could have been God to heal her. She was awesome, sometimes scary, rarely funny, but always regal. We both wept when I promised that we'd see each other again on the other side and really whip this world into shape. Ken Y'hi ratzon. May it be Your will. Zichronah l'vrachah. Her memory will be blessing.
So many have offered concern for my well-being. God bless them all for their understanding of how wearing it is to grieve and hold responsibility for the community. For the sake of heaven, and Leslie, I ask God's help for strength and guidance.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
My Daughters of the Torah
In the spring of 2004, five members of our community became B'nai Mitzvah. Except for Erika, in her early thirties, the rest were in their fifties when they took on the quixotic quest of learning Hebrew and liturgy. Leslie Davis, our president, was among this group, and her journey was the most heroic and poignant. Two years before, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Not knowing how long she would live, I encouraged a fast six-month curriculum for the class, but it was Leslie who wanted to go slower and deeper. With Yafa Chase's patient and demanding training, this class learned to read Torah and lead the entire morning Shabbat service.
Basking in pride and relief that the long, 18 month gestation was over, Leslie broke my reverie by suggesting that we do it again. I, who never like to commit to doing anything again, was resistant, but when she came up with five names of people who definitely wanted to do this, I couldn't say no. We began studying in the fall of 2004 with eleven students, who, with God's help, will become B'not MItzvah on the Shabbat during Hol HaMoed Pesach.
This is a diverse group of women as any I can imagine, and their reasons for study are breathtaking. We have one who davened in a Sikh ashram for years before returning to Judaism, another who was a Jew for Jesus until she lost her only child to a violent crime, an artist with a Fulbright who lived in Germany for most of her adult life, a yogi, a singer who was raised in Latin America and has found her Jewish root, another singer who found her way back to Judaism after singing professionally in churches, a woman whose father died when she was 13 and Jewish observance died with him, and two passionate Jews by choice.
I teach them with great humility, for their collective experience teaches me more than they could ever know. May I be worthy.
Basking in pride and relief that the long, 18 month gestation was over, Leslie broke my reverie by suggesting that we do it again. I, who never like to commit to doing anything again, was resistant, but when she came up with five names of people who definitely wanted to do this, I couldn't say no. We began studying in the fall of 2004 with eleven students, who, with God's help, will become B'not MItzvah on the Shabbat during Hol HaMoed Pesach.
This is a diverse group of women as any I can imagine, and their reasons for study are breathtaking. We have one who davened in a Sikh ashram for years before returning to Judaism, another who was a Jew for Jesus until she lost her only child to a violent crime, an artist with a Fulbright who lived in Germany for most of her adult life, a yogi, a singer who was raised in Latin America and has found her Jewish root, another singer who found her way back to Judaism after singing professionally in churches, a woman whose father died when she was 13 and Jewish observance died with him, and two passionate Jews by choice.
I teach them with great humility, for their collective experience teaches me more than they could ever know. May I be worthy.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Is Larry David Our Generation's Lenny Bruce?
Larry David is a very funny guy with a persona that revels in paranoia, parsimony, and remarkable insensitivity to others. Despite being totally disconnected from Jewish practice, his show is obsessed with cultural superiority over Christians. In one episode, he "borrows" Christ's nail from his sleeping father-in-law's necklace to afix a mezuzah on his door. He explains later that his father was coming for a visit, and he had to do it.
All the principal characters, except for his wife, are Jews, and they are, like Larry, offensive in their lack of generosity, boorishness, and general hostility towards the world. These small-minded and small-hearted people live in big houses, drive new cars, and represent absolute materialism without even a veneer of grace let alone gratitude. They are all very smart, selfish, and self-involved. The very outrageousness of people with no conscience or spirit somehow is often hilarious. The only exception to this portrayal of American Judaism was a very helpful and ethical man named Lefkowitz who happened to be a child molester.
The season's finale was superbly funny and disturbing. Larry's father, who is Shelley Berman, is somewhat senile and has once mentioned that Larry was adopted. Larry becomes obsessed with finding his birth parents, hires a Farrakhan-like black Muslim P.I., and he finds Larry's parents who are named Cone and live in Bisbee, Arizona. Thrilled with the information, he immediately arranges to meet them. Another sub-plot is that his best friend needs a kidney and Larry is a perfect match; naturally he doesn't want to give him his kidney but feels guilty.
When Larry meets with his presumed birth parents, they turn out to be very nice, very white people who have a picture of Jesus in their living room. His new dad takes him fishing, hunting, horseback riding, and drinking. Larry is having the time of his life. In Bisbee he sees a Prius for sale, the same one he sold to his manager and friend. It is $5000 more than he sold the car for, and he realizes that his friend cheated him. His new mom tells him that all he can do is forgive and love his friend.
They all go to church on Sunday and Larry feels amazingly at home singing his heart out proclaiming his love for Jesus. Suddenly he turns to his parents and tells them that he must go home. He rushes to his sick friend and tells him that he will give him his kidney. He asks his friend if he can borrow his putter while he is recuperating and the friend refuses, saying he doesn't like to lend his golf clubs. Larry is taken aback but smiles and says he understands.
As they are being wheeled into the surgery, the P.I. arrives breathless, and tells Larry that it is all a terrible mistake, the Cones are not his parents after all. In an instant, he reverts to his original character and goes kicking and screaming into the operating room. His friend recovers beautifully but Larry nearly dies of complications. His deathbed scene is appalling as he says horrible, petty things to those closest to him.
What are we to infer from this episode? That the only way to be a good and sane person is to be "gentile", the word Larry whispers when he realizes that the Cones are not Cohens? At first I thought this was just a comic rant of a self-hating Jew, but as my mind kept returning to the narrative, I realized that David had hit my button. I know Larry and his friends only too well and that's why the show is so funny. It's horribly true. Despite our reputation for philanthopy and love of family, I have seen family members cheat one another, behave in the same unkind ways in daily life, and have little practice of love and forgiveness.
If the Jewish community is to survive and thrive, it must begin to behave with more fear and love of God. If we don't behave, forget believe, in God, then we are no different from Larry and his friends. We've worked hard to be socially acceptable, but the price we've paid may be the demise of the intention of our tradition. To be in the image of God is to clothe the naked, and feed the hungry. We are to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. Yet our sons have become money-making machines and our daughters relentless consumers. No wonder intermarriage is 52 percent. What Jewish woman wants to marry Larry David or his friend's shrewish, fearful wife? I know that this is a dark assessment and this is the worst of who we are. But it is an aspect of our identity that we cannot ignore. God help us if we cede kindness and wholesomeness to Christianity.
May God guide us back to the ideals of our ancestors and closer to the One who created us to repair the injustice and coldness of this world.
All the principal characters, except for his wife, are Jews, and they are, like Larry, offensive in their lack of generosity, boorishness, and general hostility towards the world. These small-minded and small-hearted people live in big houses, drive new cars, and represent absolute materialism without even a veneer of grace let alone gratitude. They are all very smart, selfish, and self-involved. The very outrageousness of people with no conscience or spirit somehow is often hilarious. The only exception to this portrayal of American Judaism was a very helpful and ethical man named Lefkowitz who happened to be a child molester.
The season's finale was superbly funny and disturbing. Larry's father, who is Shelley Berman, is somewhat senile and has once mentioned that Larry was adopted. Larry becomes obsessed with finding his birth parents, hires a Farrakhan-like black Muslim P.I., and he finds Larry's parents who are named Cone and live in Bisbee, Arizona. Thrilled with the information, he immediately arranges to meet them. Another sub-plot is that his best friend needs a kidney and Larry is a perfect match; naturally he doesn't want to give him his kidney but feels guilty.
When Larry meets with his presumed birth parents, they turn out to be very nice, very white people who have a picture of Jesus in their living room. His new dad takes him fishing, hunting, horseback riding, and drinking. Larry is having the time of his life. In Bisbee he sees a Prius for sale, the same one he sold to his manager and friend. It is $5000 more than he sold the car for, and he realizes that his friend cheated him. His new mom tells him that all he can do is forgive and love his friend.
They all go to church on Sunday and Larry feels amazingly at home singing his heart out proclaiming his love for Jesus. Suddenly he turns to his parents and tells them that he must go home. He rushes to his sick friend and tells him that he will give him his kidney. He asks his friend if he can borrow his putter while he is recuperating and the friend refuses, saying he doesn't like to lend his golf clubs. Larry is taken aback but smiles and says he understands.
As they are being wheeled into the surgery, the P.I. arrives breathless, and tells Larry that it is all a terrible mistake, the Cones are not his parents after all. In an instant, he reverts to his original character and goes kicking and screaming into the operating room. His friend recovers beautifully but Larry nearly dies of complications. His deathbed scene is appalling as he says horrible, petty things to those closest to him.
What are we to infer from this episode? That the only way to be a good and sane person is to be "gentile", the word Larry whispers when he realizes that the Cones are not Cohens? At first I thought this was just a comic rant of a self-hating Jew, but as my mind kept returning to the narrative, I realized that David had hit my button. I know Larry and his friends only too well and that's why the show is so funny. It's horribly true. Despite our reputation for philanthopy and love of family, I have seen family members cheat one another, behave in the same unkind ways in daily life, and have little practice of love and forgiveness.
If the Jewish community is to survive and thrive, it must begin to behave with more fear and love of God. If we don't behave, forget believe, in God, then we are no different from Larry and his friends. We've worked hard to be socially acceptable, but the price we've paid may be the demise of the intention of our tradition. To be in the image of God is to clothe the naked, and feed the hungry. We are to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. Yet our sons have become money-making machines and our daughters relentless consumers. No wonder intermarriage is 52 percent. What Jewish woman wants to marry Larry David or his friend's shrewish, fearful wife? I know that this is a dark assessment and this is the worst of who we are. But it is an aspect of our identity that we cannot ignore. God help us if we cede kindness and wholesomeness to Christianity.
May God guide us back to the ideals of our ancestors and closer to the One who created us to repair the injustice and coldness of this world.
Monday, December 12, 2005
Morning Has Broken and So Has My Heart
I've been away from blogging because I wrote a draft of one that was a little too revealing of the rabbi's darker side. Not only anger but ill will! The medium is so tempting in its ease and anonymity. But a few recent enthusiastic responses is all the writer's ego needs to test the water again, albeit more cautiously.
"To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps face with the sun, the day is perpetual morning." Thus spake Thoreau. For years now I've wanted to awaken early to express my eagerness to live. Last week I finally got myself to get up at 5:45 and carve out a few quiet hours in the morning to begin writing the book I've always wanted to write. I've loved every one of the twenty I've written, a few more than others, and now I'm ready to write everything I know, no doubt a slender volume. It's about becoming a grandparent, and that's about all I can say about it, except that it will contain, as chapter titles, the many sayings I've collected for most of my life, like stepping stones across a creek.
This morning, however, I turn myself from the so intense it's painful love of being a grandmother to the occasionally painful experience of being a rabbi. I went to hear the new Israeli Consul speak at a local temple. Most of the congregation was old, ie. older than me, and nodded sad agreement with every word he said that described the world as us and them. Here is good Israel, there are our enemies who in every generation vow to destroy us. We must defend ourselves against them, peace talks are are naive and a waste of time. The current president of the US had the good sense not to allow to speak to Arafat beofre 9/11, unlike his predecessor who shook hands with him. I had no idea I was going to a talk in favor of the current admininstration.
But I've heard these guys before who come out of Houston to "inform" the Jews in their region. They speak the party line to raise money for Israel, and they're only doing their jingoistic jobs. That they state everything as fact, not a point of view, is disheartening but no surprise.
The surprise for me came afterwards, when speaking with a member of the board and someone I've known for a long time, who expressed enthusiasm for our communities working together. I was delighted and said so. Then this person said that they would never work with "other" congregation, because they don't like Israel. Since both these congregations are Reform and there is no logical reason for there to be two congregations in a small town, they have distinguished themselves as Likud and Labor. Our community is distinguished as different in so many ways that we don't need any more.
I responded by saying that I didn't think it was true. "But they have Tikkun there!" I said that Tikkun loved Israel, too. They simply believe that we have responsibility as Jews to hold Israel's feet to the fire to make peace. I respect them and don't fully agree, as I respect the Consul and don't agree. The response was swift. "Then you're not a supporter of Israel!" Remember, I'm a rabbi. Would this happen if I were a six foot man?
"Look", I said. "I tell everyone that I support, unconditionally, Israel's right to exist. Members of my community know that I don't believe you can be a Jew without supporting Israel, and there are lots of ways to do that--Peace Now, New Israel Fund, Brit Tzedek, AIPAC, and they all have different perspectives. I was told that everyone should support AIPAC. I looked at my watch and said I had to go. I could imagine standing there forever in an argument that would grow hotter.
I have a new rule. Any time I hold an opinion that makes me feel self-righteous and superior, or any time I feel a sinking inside of despair, as I did in the conversation above, I'm on the wrong path. I've veered from the realm of spirit into the realm of politics. Tell me how Jew hating Jew is going to help us individually, collectively, or as a presence in the world. To accuse a rabbi of not supporting Israel hurts me, not only personally, but for the position. I understand that I caught this person by surprise, she thought I'd agree that the other congregation was wrong, and that we were allies. In fact, the whole thing drives me crazy because it's so stupid. I don't know why I've got people who dislike me in these two congregations. I only know that we serve different people and that together we can do good. Making ourselves feel better by demonizing the other is suicide for Jews. We should know better, because we've lived with the longest hatred, antisemitism, for two thousand years. We're not in good shape, and namecalling is only one of our problems.
So, I say, buy rugelach, save a little for yourself and share. It will add to the world's well-being. Behave with the wisdom of generosity and joy, light the Hanukkah candles and remember how one little light can ignite another, until we have a great blaze of warming, enlightening, radiance in which to see God's light in one another. Darkness is always there, never more so than this time of year. Look for the light, look for the good, look for that which opens and softens the heart. Do what feels good, and don't tell me acrimony is fun.
On another subject but everything is one...We went to the film festival this past weekend and saw movies about two heroic Jews that I bet you've never heard of. Tess Goell was born in 1901 in Brooklyn, married and had a child, but God had another plan for her, despite her wealthy parents' objections. She studied to be an archeologist and went to Nemrud Dagh, supposedly where Antiochus I is buried. Seeing footage of this zaftig woman riding a mule up the mountain in 1953 surrounded by exquisite ruins that were unexplored was atonishing and inspiring. The second film was about Norman Corwin, born a few years younger in Boston to an impoverished family. He describes discovering the miracle of a library that would let you borrow books! In the forties, Corwin's radion programs kept Americans remembering why they were fighting a war by reminding them what America's promise was. He was a patriot who warned at the war's end that if we didn't keep working for the ideals of freedom and equality, then the war and its dead would have been futile. Studs Terkel spoke about Corwin's courage to speak the truth and the need in our time for such a person. God bless the filmmakers and their subjects.
"To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps face with the sun, the day is perpetual morning." Thus spake Thoreau. For years now I've wanted to awaken early to express my eagerness to live. Last week I finally got myself to get up at 5:45 and carve out a few quiet hours in the morning to begin writing the book I've always wanted to write. I've loved every one of the twenty I've written, a few more than others, and now I'm ready to write everything I know, no doubt a slender volume. It's about becoming a grandparent, and that's about all I can say about it, except that it will contain, as chapter titles, the many sayings I've collected for most of my life, like stepping stones across a creek.
This morning, however, I turn myself from the so intense it's painful love of being a grandmother to the occasionally painful experience of being a rabbi. I went to hear the new Israeli Consul speak at a local temple. Most of the congregation was old, ie. older than me, and nodded sad agreement with every word he said that described the world as us and them. Here is good Israel, there are our enemies who in every generation vow to destroy us. We must defend ourselves against them, peace talks are are naive and a waste of time. The current president of the US had the good sense not to allow to speak to Arafat beofre 9/11, unlike his predecessor who shook hands with him. I had no idea I was going to a talk in favor of the current admininstration.
But I've heard these guys before who come out of Houston to "inform" the Jews in their region. They speak the party line to raise money for Israel, and they're only doing their jingoistic jobs. That they state everything as fact, not a point of view, is disheartening but no surprise.
The surprise for me came afterwards, when speaking with a member of the board and someone I've known for a long time, who expressed enthusiasm for our communities working together. I was delighted and said so. Then this person said that they would never work with "other" congregation, because they don't like Israel. Since both these congregations are Reform and there is no logical reason for there to be two congregations in a small town, they have distinguished themselves as Likud and Labor. Our community is distinguished as different in so many ways that we don't need any more.
I responded by saying that I didn't think it was true. "But they have Tikkun there!" I said that Tikkun loved Israel, too. They simply believe that we have responsibility as Jews to hold Israel's feet to the fire to make peace. I respect them and don't fully agree, as I respect the Consul and don't agree. The response was swift. "Then you're not a supporter of Israel!" Remember, I'm a rabbi. Would this happen if I were a six foot man?
"Look", I said. "I tell everyone that I support, unconditionally, Israel's right to exist. Members of my community know that I don't believe you can be a Jew without supporting Israel, and there are lots of ways to do that--Peace Now, New Israel Fund, Brit Tzedek, AIPAC, and they all have different perspectives. I was told that everyone should support AIPAC. I looked at my watch and said I had to go. I could imagine standing there forever in an argument that would grow hotter.
I have a new rule. Any time I hold an opinion that makes me feel self-righteous and superior, or any time I feel a sinking inside of despair, as I did in the conversation above, I'm on the wrong path. I've veered from the realm of spirit into the realm of politics. Tell me how Jew hating Jew is going to help us individually, collectively, or as a presence in the world. To accuse a rabbi of not supporting Israel hurts me, not only personally, but for the position. I understand that I caught this person by surprise, she thought I'd agree that the other congregation was wrong, and that we were allies. In fact, the whole thing drives me crazy because it's so stupid. I don't know why I've got people who dislike me in these two congregations. I only know that we serve different people and that together we can do good. Making ourselves feel better by demonizing the other is suicide for Jews. We should know better, because we've lived with the longest hatred, antisemitism, for two thousand years. We're not in good shape, and namecalling is only one of our problems.
So, I say, buy rugelach, save a little for yourself and share. It will add to the world's well-being. Behave with the wisdom of generosity and joy, light the Hanukkah candles and remember how one little light can ignite another, until we have a great blaze of warming, enlightening, radiance in which to see God's light in one another. Darkness is always there, never more so than this time of year. Look for the light, look for the good, look for that which opens and softens the heart. Do what feels good, and don't tell me acrimony is fun.
On another subject but everything is one...We went to the film festival this past weekend and saw movies about two heroic Jews that I bet you've never heard of. Tess Goell was born in 1901 in Brooklyn, married and had a child, but God had another plan for her, despite her wealthy parents' objections. She studied to be an archeologist and went to Nemrud Dagh, supposedly where Antiochus I is buried. Seeing footage of this zaftig woman riding a mule up the mountain in 1953 surrounded by exquisite ruins that were unexplored was atonishing and inspiring. The second film was about Norman Corwin, born a few years younger in Boston to an impoverished family. He describes discovering the miracle of a library that would let you borrow books! In the forties, Corwin's radion programs kept Americans remembering why they were fighting a war by reminding them what America's promise was. He was a patriot who warned at the war's end that if we didn't keep working for the ideals of freedom and equality, then the war and its dead would have been futile. Studs Terkel spoke about Corwin's courage to speak the truth and the need in our time for such a person. God bless the filmmakers and their subjects.
Monday, September 19, 2005
Oklahoma, you're OK
Gay and I created Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust 15 years ago. The book is in its fifth printing and the exhibit has been to over 50 venues. We've seen it hung in libraries, synagogues, and museums. Oklahoma City saw it in 1994, and now it has returned in a wondrous gallery and paired with a traveling exhibition from the U.S. Holocaust Museum about the persecution of homosexuals under Nazism. To be a Jew or a homosexual in Oklahoma means that you have to remind yourself daily that you're not a sinner, that God loves you, too. This is a place where grocery bags catch your eye with a picture of a high steeple church and the suggestion, "Go to church this Sunday". Any mention that some of us may feel excluded labels you a spoilsport or worse. At the same time, when I softly pray before a meal, they know that I'm not talking to my food. I like their warmth, politeness, and humility.
The combined shows earned a spectacular amount of press on TV, radio, and newspapers. There was even an approving editorial in the Oklahoman. You can't imagine what this meant to the gay/lesbian community that has learned the best way to survive is to be affable and preferably invisible. The opening on Saturday night was a new day for two communities meeting in shared pain. Those who came to see one exhibit learned from two, and those who came to bear witness made new friends. For Gay and me, it was the first time that it was appropriate for us to tell people that we have been partners for twenty years.
Over the weekend we met many in exile. A Colombian Jewish artist told of her flight to Oklahoma eleven years ago, a Brazilian neurosurgeon, also Jewish, told us of how she has found a home in the heartland. And the gallery owner, a native Oklahoman whose Indian grandmother walked the Trail of Tears gave us a glimpse of what it is like growing up with an artist's spirit in socially conservative society. Only when she opened the gallery did she finally find a community that understood her. God is in exile on earth and stays close to us. The Jew, in exile for two thousand years, now have different challenges in their own land. Exile keeps us sympathetic to others who are outside; being home may make us less grateful and aware of what goes on beyond our walls. There are drawbacks to everything. Heroism is on my mind a lot these days. Being a stranger in a strange land requires heroism not to lose one's identity and to make friends with our neighbors.
The gallery in the old downtown section of the city was once an old brick factory of two floors that were each 10,000 square feet. The show looked beautiful in the high-ceilinged space with charcoal walls for the art. The homosexual exhibit was not art or artifact but rather a history of Paragraph 175, a law passed in 1871 that pronounced male homosexual behavior as illegal. We've never been thanked so many times by so many different people for doing the work as we were this weekend.
We also met a man born in Germany in 1938 who told us that it was a shame that Israelis were doing the same thing that Germans had done to the Jews. I softly questioned if it was the same thing and he said that it was. I asked if six million had been murdered because of who their grandparents were, and his daughter, who worked in the gallery, patted him on the back sympathetically, perhaps embarrassed by his remark.
We stayed above the gallery in a tremendous loft furnished for visiting artists. Corrugated aluminum that went up halfway to the ceiling marked the bed and bath area. Books, art, collectibles, a pool table, a kitchen with an expresso maker, and a 24 foot conference table made from a loading dock convinced Gay to live without air conditioning, despite the mosquitoes and train that ran about twenty feet from the building. It was another adventure that we credit to the eighteen year odyssey we've experienced because of this project. Someday I'll write about how meeting over one hundred rescuers changed my life.
The combined shows earned a spectacular amount of press on TV, radio, and newspapers. There was even an approving editorial in the Oklahoman. You can't imagine what this meant to the gay/lesbian community that has learned the best way to survive is to be affable and preferably invisible. The opening on Saturday night was a new day for two communities meeting in shared pain. Those who came to see one exhibit learned from two, and those who came to bear witness made new friends. For Gay and me, it was the first time that it was appropriate for us to tell people that we have been partners for twenty years.
Over the weekend we met many in exile. A Colombian Jewish artist told of her flight to Oklahoma eleven years ago, a Brazilian neurosurgeon, also Jewish, told us of how she has found a home in the heartland. And the gallery owner, a native Oklahoman whose Indian grandmother walked the Trail of Tears gave us a glimpse of what it is like growing up with an artist's spirit in socially conservative society. Only when she opened the gallery did she finally find a community that understood her. God is in exile on earth and stays close to us. The Jew, in exile for two thousand years, now have different challenges in their own land. Exile keeps us sympathetic to others who are outside; being home may make us less grateful and aware of what goes on beyond our walls. There are drawbacks to everything. Heroism is on my mind a lot these days. Being a stranger in a strange land requires heroism not to lose one's identity and to make friends with our neighbors.
The gallery in the old downtown section of the city was once an old brick factory of two floors that were each 10,000 square feet. The show looked beautiful in the high-ceilinged space with charcoal walls for the art. The homosexual exhibit was not art or artifact but rather a history of Paragraph 175, a law passed in 1871 that pronounced male homosexual behavior as illegal. We've never been thanked so many times by so many different people for doing the work as we were this weekend.
We also met a man born in Germany in 1938 who told us that it was a shame that Israelis were doing the same thing that Germans had done to the Jews. I softly questioned if it was the same thing and he said that it was. I asked if six million had been murdered because of who their grandparents were, and his daughter, who worked in the gallery, patted him on the back sympathetically, perhaps embarrassed by his remark.
We stayed above the gallery in a tremendous loft furnished for visiting artists. Corrugated aluminum that went up halfway to the ceiling marked the bed and bath area. Books, art, collectibles, a pool table, a kitchen with an expresso maker, and a 24 foot conference table made from a loading dock convinced Gay to live without air conditioning, despite the mosquitoes and train that ran about twenty feet from the building. It was another adventure that we credit to the eighteen year odyssey we've experienced because of this project. Someday I'll write about how meeting over one hundred rescuers changed my life.
Friday, August 26, 2005
Being a rabbi is a wild ride
8-26-05
I didn't begin this work until I was in my fifties-it's a profession where age may be an asset. My first pulpit was a fly-by; once a month and High Holidays, plus three Sunday teachings. No life cycle rituals, no dark nights of someone's soul, no structural details, and in two years no one got sick. I loved them and they loved me; they taught me how to be a rabbi.
HaMakom, the child of my old age, is another story. Here in Santa Fe, I've met a different Jew, the wounded and marginalized, the lesbian, the single mother, the mother who has lost her only child through violence, singles who do not swing but sigh, hard workers without employment and terrified of how they will survive, people with chronic or life-threatening illness, and we all have this in common: we're dying for connection, which is the meaning of the Latin root, religio.
Such a community is more demanding of time and energy, and sometimes I feel seriously unworthy. What do I know? My people teach me humility with what they have learned. They know me well, sometimes too well, and they let me know them.
I meet a woman with an interesting request. Do I have any ideas about where she can contribute a few thousand dollars to a Jewish organization? Her parents, who are dead, stipulated in their will that she give a portion of a modest trust fund to a Jewish organization. Let me think about that. She shares with me over lunch that she was born into a prominent Jewish family that is well-known in the city of her birth. Despite being respected and powerful, it was a dangerous place for a child seeking the light. Sexual and ritual abuse was its secret. The speaker separated herself in her early twenties from the family and joined a spiritual human empowerment community. Now she is in her late sixties, looks vigorous and equanimous, with a trace of rawness.
I make my suggestion of where her money could best serve the world and go home fascinated with my naivete. I'm shocked. I know of the family, had heard years ago from a grateful recipient of more than 20 million dollars for a very big building what teshuvah had taken place between the generations.
Actually, I feel sick afterwards. Her story of spiritual betrayal shakes my own connection. These were practicing, committed Jews. How does this happen? I thought that the study, practice, and good deeds were a failsafe against evil. My sense of justice was also shattered. Here this family's name is plastered on buildings with mezuzahs all over town and no one knows their violence, shame, and madness. Ah well, God judges. Seeing how this woman recovered and created a healthy life is some redemption, and I wish she was on our team. There are so many like her that I've met with less horrible stories but with the theme of abounding lack of compassion, irrelevance, or offensiveness. They all bring regret of missed opportunities, and we've lost many great people in this generation.
But--the same day I meet with a Hispanic woman raised in Raton who is in her sixties. Her mother is Hispanic Catholic, her father from the Picuris pueblo. She's always thought that it was odd her mother lit candles on Friday night and when she lay dying and asked forgiveness all whom she had harmed and forgave all who harmed her, she turned her academic mind towards Judaism. After attending High Holidays last year with us, she spent the year making a decision to begin her studies for conversion. We now have a new member in HaMakom.
On Tuesday, I sat with a young Palestinian peace activist who had grown up in the West Bank. We were to speak about how two with different views might find a bridge. The rule was no politics or polemic. He was handsome and charming, very well-spoken. He described how his father, the first imam to invite Israeli Jews into his mosque, was visited by a rabbi. Yaqub, the young man, said that he welcomed a Hasidic Jew and his family into their home, and the family ate with them. This was a challenge, he said, because his experience with Israeli soldiers was so painful. No politics? And I wonder about the truth of the story; I know that a Hasidic family wouldn't have eaten with them. Although most of his remarks were peaceable, little slides like this gave the impression that he was a man of peace despite the injustice of the Israelis. I don't care what your religion is as long as you're ashamed of it. I too can speak about how Jews are nervous about feeling safe with neighbors who have never accepted the concept of a Jewish state. And I can understand that I've never lived in occupied territory and don't know what it takes to be a peacemaker from such a place.
I didn't begin this work until I was in my fifties-it's a profession where age may be an asset. My first pulpit was a fly-by; once a month and High Holidays, plus three Sunday teachings. No life cycle rituals, no dark nights of someone's soul, no structural details, and in two years no one got sick. I loved them and they loved me; they taught me how to be a rabbi.
HaMakom, the child of my old age, is another story. Here in Santa Fe, I've met a different Jew, the wounded and marginalized, the lesbian, the single mother, the mother who has lost her only child through violence, singles who do not swing but sigh, hard workers without employment and terrified of how they will survive, people with chronic or life-threatening illness, and we all have this in common: we're dying for connection, which is the meaning of the Latin root, religio.
Such a community is more demanding of time and energy, and sometimes I feel seriously unworthy. What do I know? My people teach me humility with what they have learned. They know me well, sometimes too well, and they let me know them.
I meet a woman with an interesting request. Do I have any ideas about where she can contribute a few thousand dollars to a Jewish organization? Her parents, who are dead, stipulated in their will that she give a portion of a modest trust fund to a Jewish organization. Let me think about that. She shares with me over lunch that she was born into a prominent Jewish family that is well-known in the city of her birth. Despite being respected and powerful, it was a dangerous place for a child seeking the light. Sexual and ritual abuse was its secret. The speaker separated herself in her early twenties from the family and joined a spiritual human empowerment community. Now she is in her late sixties, looks vigorous and equanimous, with a trace of rawness.
I make my suggestion of where her money could best serve the world and go home fascinated with my naivete. I'm shocked. I know of the family, had heard years ago from a grateful recipient of more than 20 million dollars for a very big building what teshuvah had taken place between the generations.
Actually, I feel sick afterwards. Her story of spiritual betrayal shakes my own connection. These were practicing, committed Jews. How does this happen? I thought that the study, practice, and good deeds were a failsafe against evil. My sense of justice was also shattered. Here this family's name is plastered on buildings with mezuzahs all over town and no one knows their violence, shame, and madness. Ah well, God judges. Seeing how this woman recovered and created a healthy life is some redemption, and I wish she was on our team. There are so many like her that I've met with less horrible stories but with the theme of abounding lack of compassion, irrelevance, or offensiveness. They all bring regret of missed opportunities, and we've lost many great people in this generation.
But--the same day I meet with a Hispanic woman raised in Raton who is in her sixties. Her mother is Hispanic Catholic, her father from the Picuris pueblo. She's always thought that it was odd her mother lit candles on Friday night and when she lay dying and asked forgiveness all whom she had harmed and forgave all who harmed her, she turned her academic mind towards Judaism. After attending High Holidays last year with us, she spent the year making a decision to begin her studies for conversion. We now have a new member in HaMakom.
On Tuesday, I sat with a young Palestinian peace activist who had grown up in the West Bank. We were to speak about how two with different views might find a bridge. The rule was no politics or polemic. He was handsome and charming, very well-spoken. He described how his father, the first imam to invite Israeli Jews into his mosque, was visited by a rabbi. Yaqub, the young man, said that he welcomed a Hasidic Jew and his family into their home, and the family ate with them. This was a challenge, he said, because his experience with Israeli soldiers was so painful. No politics? And I wonder about the truth of the story; I know that a Hasidic family wouldn't have eaten with them. Although most of his remarks were peaceable, little slides like this gave the impression that he was a man of peace despite the injustice of the Israelis. I don't care what your religion is as long as you're ashamed of it. I too can speak about how Jews are nervous about feeling safe with neighbors who have never accepted the concept of a Jewish state. And I can understand that I've never lived in occupied territory and don't know what it takes to be a peacemaker from such a place.
Sunday, August 07, 2005
Fellowship at HaMakom
Our blog offers a new way to communicate. You will be able to add your comments soon.-Rabbi Drucker
This is a strange way to begin a blog-- about a Jewish community that is holding its Shabbat service at Los Alamos tomorrow, August 6, 2005, to remember that 60 years ago 100,000 civilians in Hiroshima were killed by the first of two atomic bombs dropped by the United States. Nagasaki was hit three days later. And we're there to pray that such a day never happens again. We're there thanks to my Buddhist friends who will be meditating all day in the shadow of the factory that produced the bombs.
I'm wondering why when I Google Hiroshima remembrance there are no Jewish groups doing anything. Lots of churches, some Christian leaders speaking out, but the Jews are quiet. When I invited other Jewish groups to join us at Los Alamos, no one accepted. Is it because we signed a call for nuclear disarmament?
Of all people, we who end every prayer with a plea for shalom, we who also live with the memory of burning flesh, we who remember the end of the dark night sixty years ago, it should be the Jewish people who say Kaddish for the innocent. Who knows better than we what it means for civilians to targeted as enemies?
And look when it falls, when our calendar is in the Three Weeks of semi-mourning. It's when we have three Sabbaths of Rebuke, with the stinging words of Jeremiah screaming what his eyes won't let him avert, the terror of his times. Shabbat is the first of Av, the saddest month of the year because it contains the saddest day, Tisha B'Av. It's an ironic Rosh Hodesh, a new moon festival that is celebrated a little mutely.
HaMakom: The Place for Passionate and Progressive Judaism, will add peace to its alliterative portfolio tomorrow morning. After services, we'll draw upon the tradition of taking the Torah out of the sanctuary and into the center of the town in times of emergency. We'll be part of the pageant of sun flowers that are the universal symbol of nuclear disarmament. What could be brighter that our Torah Ora, Torah of Light, to offer a Jewish presence on such a day.
Why it's only us I don't know. But it is certainly in keeping with our radically amazing community of seekers who have found a home where none existed before. Depending upon who is counting, we began four years ago, right after 9/11, which offered a bit of redemption in helping to clarify for many of us what we wanted our mission to be. We wanted to create a community that would bring out our best, i.e. our most loving selves, a place where we could learn and practice Judaism, a place where we could become Jews together (this is always a becoming for our generation; the days of being are over).
We do regular things like have weekly Shabbat morning services, but they are moments unlike any minyan I've attended. Although I'm usually there--hi, I'm Rabbi Malka Drucker--they are led excellently and heartfully as only those who have come back or have come to it freshly can offer. Here is the fervor of a 12-step that loves the program, here are Jews who didn't know an aleph from an alpha a few years ago singing like the angels facing each other over the Temple ark. Here are Jews who were passionate devotees of many traditions other than the one they were born into, and now that they are mid-aged and can see the other end of things, have come home. Praise God aka Halleluyah!
There are lots of HaMakom stories--mikvehs at Ojo Caliente, our local hot springs spa; serving as peacekeepers for our Episcopalian friends who have given us a makom.... more will be revealed because I love to tell stories that reveal who we are. Is Torah a blog?
This is a strange way to begin a blog-- about a Jewish community that is holding its Shabbat service at Los Alamos tomorrow, August 6, 2005, to remember that 60 years ago 100,000 civilians in Hiroshima were killed by the first of two atomic bombs dropped by the United States. Nagasaki was hit three days later. And we're there to pray that such a day never happens again. We're there thanks to my Buddhist friends who will be meditating all day in the shadow of the factory that produced the bombs.
I'm wondering why when I Google Hiroshima remembrance there are no Jewish groups doing anything. Lots of churches, some Christian leaders speaking out, but the Jews are quiet. When I invited other Jewish groups to join us at Los Alamos, no one accepted. Is it because we signed a call for nuclear disarmament?
Of all people, we who end every prayer with a plea for shalom, we who also live with the memory of burning flesh, we who remember the end of the dark night sixty years ago, it should be the Jewish people who say Kaddish for the innocent. Who knows better than we what it means for civilians to targeted as enemies?
And look when it falls, when our calendar is in the Three Weeks of semi-mourning. It's when we have three Sabbaths of Rebuke, with the stinging words of Jeremiah screaming what his eyes won't let him avert, the terror of his times. Shabbat is the first of Av, the saddest month of the year because it contains the saddest day, Tisha B'Av. It's an ironic Rosh Hodesh, a new moon festival that is celebrated a little mutely.
HaMakom: The Place for Passionate and Progressive Judaism, will add peace to its alliterative portfolio tomorrow morning. After services, we'll draw upon the tradition of taking the Torah out of the sanctuary and into the center of the town in times of emergency. We'll be part of the pageant of sun flowers that are the universal symbol of nuclear disarmament. What could be brighter that our Torah Ora, Torah of Light, to offer a Jewish presence on such a day.
Why it's only us I don't know. But it is certainly in keeping with our radically amazing community of seekers who have found a home where none existed before. Depending upon who is counting, we began four years ago, right after 9/11, which offered a bit of redemption in helping to clarify for many of us what we wanted our mission to be. We wanted to create a community that would bring out our best, i.e. our most loving selves, a place where we could learn and practice Judaism, a place where we could become Jews together (this is always a becoming for our generation; the days of being are over).
We do regular things like have weekly Shabbat morning services, but they are moments unlike any minyan I've attended. Although I'm usually there--hi, I'm Rabbi Malka Drucker--they are led excellently and heartfully as only those who have come back or have come to it freshly can offer. Here is the fervor of a 12-step that loves the program, here are Jews who didn't know an aleph from an alpha a few years ago singing like the angels facing each other over the Temple ark. Here are Jews who were passionate devotees of many traditions other than the one they were born into, and now that they are mid-aged and can see the other end of things, have come home. Praise God aka Halleluyah!
There are lots of HaMakom stories--mikvehs at Ojo Caliente, our local hot springs spa; serving as peacekeepers for our Episcopalian friends who have given us a makom.... more will be revealed because I love to tell stories that reveal who we are. Is Torah a blog?
