Do

 Once there was a lonely woman.  She went to class by herself.  She did homework alone.  No one wanted anything to do with her.  There was a good reason for it; she was not a nice person.

Feeling isolated, she went to a rabbi seeking advice.  A far as she was concerned she was fine.  Life was treating unfairly (people tend not be able to see personal flaws).  While sitting with the rabbi her personality shone through and he saw the young woman for what she was, selfish and self-centered.

“What should I do?” she wept as she told of her isolation.

The rabbi listened compassionately, waited and then said, “Here is what I want you to do.  Go to the school cafeteria as you usually do at lunch but I want you to look for people to help with their trays, paying for what they cannot, getting them salt, a seat, whatever.”

The young woman went away relieved that she had a specific task to do.  It enabled her to focus on something and slowly, as she performed these helpful duties, she began to see herself differently, and, as a result, others began to view her differently too.

Many programs like Dr. Phil or lots of self-help books emphasize what is wrong with our lives and how to fiddle with it.  They tell us to enroll in step programs or take certain classes which will change our behavior.

The Jewish approach tells us that what we do influences the way we think and behave. That is why we place such a heavy emphasis on mitzvot and tend to minimize creeds or statements of faith.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, “God is more immediately found in the Bible as well as in acts of kindness and worship than in the mountains and forests. It is more meaningful for us to believe in the immanence of God in deedsthan in the immanence of God in nature.”

Heschel teaches us that our actions, mitzvot, as a response to the call of God.  That in addition to the fact that when we act we change our character are strong reason to follow the mitzvoth our faith places before us.

There are always mitzvot to perform  On Shabbat we bless our children, bless our spouse, light candles, make Kiddush.  Pesach follows with its own actions/mitzvot.  Each time we act with God, travel the path of our ancestors we alter some powerful part of our self.

 

 

This is for the thoughts I place at the bottom of my column:

A Jew is asked to take a leap of action rather than a leap of thought- -Abraham Joshua Heschel

Tehillim

Once upon a time, there were Jews known as Tehillim Yidden, “Psalm Jews.”  They were called by that name because they were passionately devoted to the words of the books of Psalms. 

Those passages were forever on their tongues, in their hearts and hands. A teacher of mine was once asked a series of questions by his disciples, “What do you do when death is imminent?”  “What do we do when someone comes to us with psychic pain that torments them?”  “How do you comfort a nervous bride?”  “What words do we utter when Israel is in danger?”

The master simply replied, “Recite Psalms” to each of the questions.

People read Psalms for different reasons and for different ends. Some read it for scholarly nuance that reveals origin and authorship.  Some scan the words for hidden meanings, allusions and rhythms.  Those who in need or pain read for entirely different reasons. They are in search of comfort and hope. In wars and pressure-laden moments Jews recite tehillim daily in the hope that danger across the miles, or in our backyard, would be averted.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel told of a woman who approached him after a lecture.  She said, “Isn’t it a shame that we do not have in our Bible beautiful poems like the psalms?”  

How embarrassing for us all to not know that the treasure is in our Tanakh, our Bible!  It is a vast and rich repository of knowledge and faith in our homes and we never see it.

We recite tehillim every day as a part of our davenning.  They form the backbone of our daily prayers.  Further, we use them for specific needs.  When we need protection from danger psalm 11 is recited; for healing we say psalm 20, success psalm 17, strength to maintain integrity, psalm 38, etc.

A legend:

The angels on high sing praise to the Lord, God. What do they sing? Psalms.

Another legend:

It is said that the king David crafted the Psalms. He was the author. If one looks closely at the words, threads of a lifetime begin to emerge. We can see youthful vigor, unconquerable strength. There are the places we witness a deep sense of dread, even terror. Thankfulness gushes at times and other moments, venom or zeal.  Every kind of emotional state can be found in the books of Tehillim. No wonder they recited the beginning of every morning service. No wonder we savor them and sing them at grace after meals or weddings or funerals. We sing Psalm 29 when feel a storm raging about us with God in the center. Read it. I bet you will not recognize it in the English, despite the fact that we sing it every Sabbath, Friday and Saturday.

Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav believed that tehillim has the power to bring about refuat ha-nefesh, healing of the soul, and refuat ha-guf, healing of the body.  Reciting them causes connections vertically and horizontally. It connects us to God, the universe and one another.

Maybe you are one of the Tehillim Yidden.

A Thought as the Year Draws to a Close

Middle School.  As a child, I intently read George Orwell and wondered if Big Brother would really be watching me in 1984.  I remember watching 2001 A Space Odyssey with rapt attention.  To me it seemed pretty realistic at the time since space exploration was sprinting toward the newest frontier.  I was breathless with anticipation.

Frankly, each New Year does the same thing to me on a slightly smaller scale.  The news magazines list the necrology of the past year while the very next article delineates the coming advances of the techno-age.  Invariably, I forget what year it is for weeks after the change of the last digit.  What this year brings is the turn of all four digits, something humanity has not seen in one thousand years.

When 1984 arrived it was a bit anti-climactic.  We still lived in a democracy.  Nothing even close.

2001 came and went and HAL (that renegade computer in the distant expanses of space) is still he stuff of fantasy (but getting closer every day), I realize that progress is not as novel and frenetic as my imagination would paint it.

My confession: I wanted to be a space cowboy.  As a child I dreamed of rocketing off to the reaches of the universe in pursuit of the great secrets of that dark, diamond-studded universe.  I wrote to NASA and obtained their latest information on lunar probes, the lunar mobile, satellites, the space station and fact sheets on astronauts that I proudly hung on the wall above my bed.  The disappointing reality is that we are on the eve of the second millennium and I am tooling around in a car just like my dad’s 1970 Olds.  Bummer.

I guess my childhood hope was that time was going to create quantum leaps in the way I lived.  I too, have listened to many of my colleagues –both Jewish and Christian – as they revealed their secret belief: with time we become more civilized, better people.  Both our dreams have proved to be nothing more than fantasies.

An ancient belief states that there is no experience that does not contain the kernel of a great truth.  Our task?  To uncover that truth.

What these disappointments have proven is that time is not a vehicle; it is a gift. 

Remember the trips where we invested copious amounts of energy in the planning?  Anticipated for months, we finally embark on our journey only to find that the vacation turns out to be a dud.  The lesson?  Maybe the trip itself wasn’t supposed to be the best part.  Maybe the passage of time is the greatest gift to be celebrated.  Stopping for a drink, seeing the rolling hills, laughing with one another may be better than arriving.

Time is holy.  It is to celebrated.  Whatever happens along the road is simply to be absorbed and enjoyed.  In fact, time is much more holy than space.  Think of it: holy days mark our religious and secular calendars.  They are simply moments set aside.  Abraham Joshua Heschel, a Jewish theologian of the past generation, said that when we appreciate and sanctify time, we build glorious castles out of those moments. Expectations of what will come invariably disappoint.  Reality can never match the creations of the mind.  Instead, our job is to enjoy the holy passages of time.  What happens if we are preoccupied with thinking about what should happen rather than revel in the present?  Time goes and it can never be recovered.  There are no ‘make-ups’ in real life.

Perhaps the greatest blessing of the second millennium is that it has the potential to make us aware of the holiness of time.  I don’t know what will happen on December 31 and January 1 but I am willing to bet it will be a unique event.  As unique as January 2, 2018.

Coming Home

In times of deepest angst we wonder if we are alone.  That would be the final, unbearable indignity.  To be alone in moments of anguish is to feel abandoned.  Perhaps no other sensation is quite so insidious as it gnaws on the bones of insecurity, worthlessness and helplessness.  Who has not cured by the proverbial chicken soup?  Chicken soup is someone’s attempt to cook hearty warm food filled with taam (flavor) for you.  Just for you.  Any gift given so freely contains the seeds of healing.  No wonder chicken soup mends all wounds.  Its delivery says “I care about you.”  You are not alone.

Since we do not know the minute of another person’s anguish we call them often which further indicates our love toward them.  More times than I can count, congregants have told me during the week of their shiva that the most difficult part of mourning was at six pm.  That was the time when they spoke every day.  The utter pain of not hearing their mother’s voice over the telephone at six was terrible.

Reading back over thousands of years the prophet Jeremiah states, "And Zion said Hashem has forsaken and forgotten Me." Jeremiah has taken the “chicken soup” axiom and has found a novel approach to life.  

I have often wondered why God created us at all.  It makes no sense to me that perfection (God) requires anything else.  The only answer to this conundrum is that creation was an act of absolute love.  That God created the world and everything on it must have been an ultimate act of giving.  What happens when we reave ourselves from God?  Perhaps this is what Jeremiah meant.  “We are not alone,” wrote Abraham Joshua Heschel.  But more, tells the prophet, we are not alone in our feelings.

The Rabbis of the Talmud (Brachot 6B) share with us a remarkable insight in a no-less-remarkable tale.  Just as we go to Shul in order to daven, celebrate a simha, or milestone so too, God goes to shul.  God is a part of His people and is present with us in all places and throughout time.  We have services often and publicly announce that they are taking place.  The Rabbis are telling us is that God reads the same announcement.  He comes in anticipation of services.

Question: What happens when the giver finds herself abandoned?  You take the time to make the dinner, prepare the soup, make the call and there is no response?  This is what the Rabbis are indicating to us in this strange passage.  What does God feel?

In the same passage cited above, Jeremiah quotes Hashem as saying, "Can a mother ever forget her child?  Even if she could, I will never forget you!"(49:15).  As if this is not enough he adds, " I have engraved you on My palm." 


So once again the summer closes with cooler breezes and a return to old sensibilities.  Minds turn to less ephemeral things and the beginning of this return is marked by the New Year.  There we will greet old friends, companions and somewhere in the rear of the Sanctuary waits another for the child’s arrival home.

Tu B'Shvat

This month we celebrate the renewal of nature’s cycle. Throughout the past cold, dark weeks of winter we have witnessed death. The leaves have withered and decayed, the grass is turned additional shade of brown, insects and the familiar the creatures of early morning are now burrowed snuggly under the ground.  Tu B’Shvat tells of life, which wells up from the earth. Finding less resistance from the hard crust, tiny heads to begin to push upwards seeking warmth. As if propelled by the giant foundations of the deep, the familiar sprigs of the oncoming season have decided that they have rested long enough from their long winter sleep.

A story: A calf was being lead along the street toward the slaughterhouse. As Rabbi Judah passed by the animal broke loose, sensing that it was going to its death. It ran to Rabbi Judah and nuzzled its head in his cloak, whimpering pathetically.

Gently, Rabbi Judah turned the calf around to where it’s understood waiting. He bent down to speak into it it’s here. “Go,” he said. “This is what you were created for."

On that day, the heavenly court decreed that since Rabbi Judah had shown no compassion, sufferings would be brought upon him.

Truth be told, Judaism seems to forever be concerned with humanity. We have laws governing every action, whether potential for real.  We call this menschlichkeit.  Our relation to our fellow human being is of ultimate consequence. But the heritage of Israel just as strongly advocates care for all life.

According to Torah, a farmer is prohibited from purchasing more animals than he could adequately care for. And if she could not provide for them the basic needs of all her animals, the farmer was forbidden from possessing them. In fact, our tradition go so far as to say that she even had to feed them before sitting down to her own dinner (this law exists until his day: we must feed our animals before feeding ourselves).

Why this level of concern?  After all, animal life is not on the par with humans. Beginning with Noah's Ark and extending through the laws of muzzling an ox with an ass, what does our heritage really want to teach us through the great number of stories and dicta about animal rights?

Is the lesson not this?  Beauty and supernal holiness pulsates through the fabric of all life. Appreciation for the processes of photosynthesis, upholding the natural currents of life, taking care of our oceans and forests; these things bring us a little closer to God.  When we look at a budding leaf or flower and feel wonder, maybe even something close to rapture, we are soulfully uplifted.  That moment connects us with the Source of all life, the Holy One.

Indifference is a cardinal sin for a religious person. Turning a deaf ear to the universe is the surest past to an unfulfilled life. What Heschel called the “Legacy of Wonder” is a God-given gift that we too often ignore.

Tefilah, real prayer, is an act awe and appreciation. It means seeing the world refreshed and replenished as we do when we celebrate Tu B’Shvat. Rabbi Judah’s crime was not recognizing the uniqueness of every fold in nature, let alone an animal. No form of life, however primitive or, is without holiness.

The words God spoke to Job still apply: “Stand still and consider the wondrous works of the Lord."

Stand still and be in awe.

Imitatio Hominus

We make God in our own image.  Ask any child.  They will tell you that God has brown hair, a long beard and sits on a throne.  Kids conceive of God in the only way they can; they look at the universe and draw parallels.  The Ultimate Master probably resembles some powerful patriarchal figure, at once benevolent and stern.

As we grow from children into adults our thinking becomes more abstract.  We know that the Almighty is not physical.  The Holy One is neither make nor female: He is unknowable in any human way.  Our conception morphs from a secure portrait of God to a more fluid, ethereal idea.

As we grow, more mature faith teaches that God is beyond our senses.  Yet, there is another sense which we all posses but do often access.  It goes beyond description, even though everyone knows what it is.

Abraham Joshua Heschel told the tale of the shoemaker.  The old cobbler had a problem with his morning prayers.  If he stopped to daven at Synagogue his morning’s work would be delayed.  Worse, if the shoemaker spent time at the Shul mind would not be on God but getting through his prayers quickly.  On the other hand, as a God-fearing Jew, he knew his responsibility.

With trepidation he brought his problem to God.  “Ribbono Shel Olam, is it enough when I raise my hammer that I sigh?”

Some of the holiest prayers are nothing more than a sigh.  In fact, the greatest prayers originate in the moment when we feel most keenly.  From deep within comes a great wellspring of feeling.  The Hasidim used to say that there are times when a sigh can break the whole universe.  All the prayers in the Siddur are for one purpose; to ignite the internal soul fire.  In other words, we pray in order to express our experience of life, the way we feel it.  A sigh then is a response to feeling life. And that is why a sigh can be so holy. 

To feel life is the entryway to prayer – in fact it is a prerequisite.  Sighing is a great prayer because it expresses wonder.

Prayer is an answer to life.  What then is the question?  It is your name.  The realization that we are called by the One.  It is an expression of profound proportions.  A sigh, a word uttered with genuine conviction, is a prayer for it is a response to God