Sign Me Up for the Good Life

Rosh Hashanah is coming up faster than I expected, just as it does every year. The month of Elul, leading up to Rosh Hashanah, is a time of introspection and preparation. For me, it is a time of beginning to review the prayerbook and remind myself of the prayers we will recite. I begin to study them, and think about what they will mean to me this year. One phrase repeats itself, in a number of minor variations, throughout the liturgy: “Incribe us in the book of life.”

In the Avinu Malkeinu, (Our Father, Our King), we find it in this form: “Our Father, Our King, write us into the book of good life.” This leads me to ask. What do I mean by this? What does it mean to be inscribed in the book of good life?

I know what I don’t mean. I don’t intend that God simply make everything go well for me in the next year. I don’t mean that God should protect me from death over the next year. I don’t mean that I believe there to be any sort of physical book (or physical God, for that matter), and that the presence or absence of my name in it determines my future.

What I do mean, I think, is that it would be nice, if over the next year, I had some sense of what decisions I can make which will lead me to living a good life; a life full of meaning, a life full of joy. It is a plea that I be able to, with Divine providence, see the good in whatever should happen to me over the coming year. It is even the plea, at some deep, pre-rational level of my brain, that good things happen to me over the coming year.

I may not rationally believe in a “wish granting God,” but prayer isn’t always rational and doesn’t always have to be consistent with our theology.  Even if my prayer is incapable of being answered, just praying it may be enough. Being willing to put out there what I would really like, even with no real expectation of possible fulfillment, can be useful.  While talking to a friend about the car you’d really love to own, you don’t expect your friend to give you the car, but it can be nice to talk about it anyway.

So when I pray, “Kotveinu b’sefer chayim tovim (inscribe us for blessing in the book of good life),” I’ll be pouring out my heart, hoping for the good in the coming year. And as always, I’ll be praying, fundamentally, not because I expect God to act on my behalf, but because it feels good to pray as though I do.

Yom Kippur: A Time for Prayer

Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) comes up starting tomorrow (Wednesday) evening. It is a 24 – 25 hour period of fasting and prayer, punctuated by some sleep in between. Yet in some ways it is my favorite of the Jewish holidays.

On Yom Kippur we pray, over and over again, asking forgiveness for all of our sins of the previous year. We name these sins, most often in acrostic (alphabetical) prayers. And we continually remind ourselves (and God) that we are less than nothing, but if there happened to be a little chance to take note of us, that would be great.

We don’t eat, which you might think would interfere with prayer, but I tend to find enahnces prayer. One of the basic problems with prayer is that we get in our own way. Our beliefs, and intellectual understanding of ourselves, makes it difficult to pray to God as though God were listening and cares. Yet it is this ability to pray as though God cares which makes prayer truly effective for the person praying. On Yom Kippur, long about the 23rd hour of the fast, our  blood sugar plummeting, we cease to edit our beliefs quite so hard. We begin to be able to pray like we really mean it, because we feel it.

There are many religious traditions that use hallucinigens to stimulate spiritual experiences. Judaism uses fasting in much the same way. For me, some years, the prayers I pray in those last hours of Yom Kippur are the truest prays I utter all year. Other years, I’m just aware of how much my feet hurt and how hungry I am.

As Yom Kippur comes upon us, may it be a meaningful experience, and a useful fast.

Gmar Hatimah Tova (May you be sealed for a good year).

Rosh Hashanah: Preparing the Soul

After my last post, I figured I ought to produce something a bit more serious about Rosh Hashanah for some balance. So, in a slightly more spiritual vein, here are some thoughts about preparing for Rosh Hashanah. 

One of the prayers we recite on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur speaks of the various fates that may befall us in the year to come. It asks, “Who shall live and who shall die? Who shall be serene, and who shall be troubled?” It does not answer this question, but it does provide us with an important insight: “Teshuvah [repentence] and Teffilah [prayer] and Tzeddakah [righteous acts or charity] avert the harshness of the decree.” We are not taught that our behaviour will change what is fated to happen to us, but rather, that our behavior will change how we are impacted by what happens to us. It is not the decree which can be changed, but who we are.

So what are these three items which can so transform us, which can make unbearable harshness in life seem bearable?

Teshuvah: Literally, turning. Moving away from wrong action to right action. Re-evaluating who we are and making changes. Changing who we are to match up more closely to our ideal vision of ourselves. This is all to say that by acting in a way that we consider more holy, we are better able to withstand the troubles of our lives. When we are comfortable with who we are and how we are acting, we are more secure. We questions ourselves less, and the minor annoyances are easier to bear. We do not become self-righteous (self-righteousness is, if anything, a sign of somone who is so uncomfortable with themselves that they need to project their sense of right behavior onto others). Rather, we become more truly who we should be, and more able to accept life on its own terms. 

Tefillah: Prayer, communing with the Divine. Communing with that part of the self which is most in touch with the Divine. Prayer is not necessarily about speaking specific words (though it can be). It doesn’t have to be a process of asking God for favors, or praising God’s greatness. Prayer is any act which brings you closer to Divinity or holiness in a meaningful way. Sometimes we do that by speaking the words of ancient prayers, finding new meanings in them, new understandings of Divinity as we pray the words. Sometimes the words serve only as a mantra to free our mind to reach out to the Eternal in primal, yet unvocalized, need. Sometimes prayer is about connection to community, all of us standing together and praying the same words. Sometimes it’s about connection to our tradition, praying the same words our ancestors have prayed for thousands of years. Sometimes we pray whatever is on our mind at that moment, using it as a bit of a quiet time between you and God. Any and all of these forms of prayer can quiet the soul. They leave us feeling better, and more ready to accept the world. We see the interconnection of all life when we pray, and are more open to the world around us. 

Tzeddakah: Righteous action, often used to mean giving to charity. The distinction between Tzeddakah and charity comes down to the roots of the two words. “Charity” comes from a root meaning love. “Tzeddakah” comes from a root meaning righteousness. Thus while charity may be done from a place of compassion or love for the one to whom you are giving, tzeddakah is given because it is our responsibility to do so, and doing so is the only way to live life appropriately. While tzeddakah is praisworthy, it is also required. And while it is required, it also benefits the giver. By giving, we are reminded that there always those who are worse off than we are. No matter how badly we are feeling about the way life is treating us, there is someone worse off. And how bad can we feel about our lot in life when there are those who would trade places in an instant?

“Teshuvah, Tefillah and Tzeddakah remove the harshness of the decree.” They contextualize our lives, and help us to understand who we are. They strengthen us and help us to see who we can become. They help us to accept life on its terms, and to make the most of the times of celebration, and weather the storms with Grace. 

Shanah Tova Umetuka: May the New Year be a good and sweet year.

A Coming of Age Ritual

Somehow, I’ve been running pretty hard recently, and though, on paper, I should be getting enough sleep, I’m exhausted. But there’s a bat mitzvah coming up tonight, and I’m getting ready.

A bar or bat mitzvah is always a somewhat strange sort of Shabbat. The service is led mainly by the kids, but somehow that feels more stressful for me as the rabbi, rather than actually a day off. They always do fine (and I’m completely confident in the young lady who will be leading this evening), but I’m always sort of holding my breath through the entire service.

The coming of age ritual is celebratory, and it’s wonderful for the young adult, the congregation, and myself as rabbi and teacher. It’s a privilege to be part of it, but it’s not so much relaxing, and not spiritual as a prayer experience. It’s inspiring in terms of seeing a young man or woman taking their place in community, but I’m too aware of the performance aspect of prayer to pray with intention.

Nonetheless, I’m deeply excited, and will enjoy it. I will also enjoy getting home tomorrow afternoon, at which point I get to collapse.

An Odd Shabbat Service

Tomorrow morning, I will be leading an odd (one might even say queer) shabbat service. It is for the Transforming Faith: Divining Gender conference, which deals with transgender issues from a positive faith perspective. Now, what makes this an odd experience for me is not any of the gender/transgender issues, that’s pretty comfortable for me. What makes it odd is that I’ll be leading a shabbat service for a congregation of about 100, of whom I may be the only Jew.

I’ve spent a lot of time studying how to lead Jewish prayer, thinking about how to lead Jewish prayer and actually leading Jewish prayer in a variety circumstances. However, it is only very rarely that I’ve been dealing with a primarily non-Jewish congregation. Even rarer, this is a circumstance where they have chosen to do “multi-faith” prayer rather than “inter-faith” prayer.

“Inter-faith” prayer is when you get a bunch of religions together, and they construct a service they can all live with, which isn’t really representative of any one religious tradition, but isn’t objectionable to any religious tradition (ideally). They tend to be a bit on the bland side, and often a little uncomfortable as some member of the clergy goes on autopilot and and invokes the blessing of Jesus Christ our savior (“well of course you’re Jewish, that doesn’t mean you don’t believe in Christ, does it?”). I can and do participate in these gatherings because they are important, but tend not to find them particularly satisfying.

“Multi-faith”, on the other hand, is where each faith takes one service, and lead a service which is deliberately particularistic to that faith. So I am leading the Saturday morning service as a Shabbat service (more or less). A Muslim leader is leading the Friday morning service. There are some Christian services, etc. My goal here is to present an authentic Jewish prayer experience which is accessible and meaningful to a non-Jewish congregation.

Often, much of Jewish prayer takes place in Hebrew. It’s hard to create a participatory prayer experience when only the leader has any famiarity with the language being used (note: the Catholic Church, when seeking to make the mass more accessible started using the vernacular instead of Latin). So, I’m mainly doing things that can be done in English. I think the extent of the Hebrew in the service will be 9 words: the Shema (6 words) and a chant for Ahavah Rabbah (3 words), and I’ve transliterated those 9 words.

Otherwise, I think we’ll sing a psalm in English, and do a guided meditation. Oh yes, and do some blessing of God for creation in English. All in all, it should be a nice service, give some taste of Jewish prayer, and, at the same time, come in at under 30 minutes (thereby rendering a completely inauthentic experience of shabbat morning services).

I’m looking forward to this, and think it should be fun. After the service, I go home, and plan to sleep for much of the day, and finally be rid of this cold.

Hat of Healing

I made a hat for a little girl this weekend.

She has a brain tumor (actually, she had one, it is now removed and she is recovering). Her mother works at CubeSpace, which is how I know her. She has a generally positive prognosis, which is great, but we want to do all we can to support the family through this tough time. So I do what I can. I pray and I knit.

I’m not sure how much I believe that prayer has the power to make a difference in the material world. I’m pretty sure it helps the sick person to know that someone is praying for them, but I’m not sure I believe that God will send more or less healing to an individual based on my prayers. I’m not sure that God won’t either. So I pray.

And I knit. I knit because it is a concrete act of caring. Making a hat for a little girl out of the softest yarn (alpaca, merino and silk blend) feels like a concrete way to help. Eva bakes, I knit. And as I knit I think about how I want the hat to warm her as she heals, and on through her life. It’s a knit hat, and children’s heads aren’t that much smaller than adult heads, so I’m hoping it will continue to fit her into adulthood. As I knit, I wondered (hoped) it would become a favorite, something that might see her through good times in life as well as this tough time. It’s blue–maybe she’ll use it for her “something blue” in a hypothetical wedding at some point in the future.

As I knit the hat I tried to knit in all the good thoughts I could. I tried to knit in prayers for healing. If will alone could make a hat an instrument of healing, this hat would be one. As it is, this little girl and her two mommies have lot’s of will, and I hope that the hat will keep her warm, feel like love, and, maybe, convey a little of the Divine presence.

Ripping Back the Knitting

Last week, I stood on the bima (the raised stage at the front of the synagogue) on a Sunday morning, in front of the Sunday school, during our weekly religious school prayer service, ripping back a shawl I was about a third of the way through with. I was ripping back dozens of hours of work. And I asked the kids how they thought I was feeling.

Fortunately I got the expected responsese: “I bet you feel lousy.” “You must be really sad.”

I proceeded to explain that, in fact, I felt quite okay about it. I knit not because I am so invested in the finished garment, but because I like knitting. I was bored with this project, and didn’t think I would find it interesting as a piece of work once it was done. So I was ripping it out. The key aspect, however, is that I knit for the sake of knitting, so by tearing back and using the yarn  for something else, it provided me with even more opportunity to knit.

The reason I was explaining this during a prayer service is that prayer  is just like this. I pray not to get to some desired goal. I do not expect God to directly answer or “grant” my prayers. I do not do it so that I am suffused with a sense of peace and spirituality (though often I am). I pray because I enjoy praying, which is the best reason to pray. When you pray with some other goal in mind, there is always a significant chance of being disappointed. But when you pray because it is something you want to do, even if you don’t get a sense of peace from praying, it has not been wasted time. And even if I don’t enjoy every moment of prayer, like knitting, I continue because I know that, overall, I enjoy it, and sometimes you just have to push through the boring to get to the satisfaction. When you’re knitting a sock, there will be some 2 x 2 ribbing. When you pray, there will be times when it’s going through the motions. But you have to go through the motions to get to the times that you enjoy.