MarHeshvan

November morphing into December is called by its Hebrew name, Heshvan.  Some call it MarHeshvan (the bitter Heshvan) because this is the only month in the Jewish calendar that does not contain a holy day.  Up in the northern climes the month is as dry and brittle as the earth with its dull brown grass now covered with curled leaves.

Heshvan is almost other-worldly:  it is in-between time.  Summer has passed.  Winter has yet to arrive.  The earth’s verdant hues have disappeared.

As the days pass it is easy to long for the warm sand that flowed though our toes at the warm beach.  Memories of cold nights in front of a warm fireplace are also somehow very distant.  It is Marheshvan, after all.

There is an old tale of a fisherman in his small boat out on an endless sea. Overlooking the ocean stands a high castle. The prince, daily comes out onto his balcony and sees the boat in the distance. 

“I envy him,” the prince thinks. “He has no problems or responsibilities. I wish I could go out in a small boat and just relax with my fishing pole in hand. 

At the same moment, the fisherman contemplates, “Wow! Look at that palace! The prince has servants to bring him all the food he could ever want, whenever he wants.  I wish I were a prince, not a fisherman.”

“More” and “less” is specific to the individual. That is why the Talmud tells us that richness is satisfaction.  If you are happy with what you have you are rich.  If you are unhappy with your lot you are poor, even if you have billions.

Most of us live perpetually wedged between two worlds. One world is the external one where we register our emotional quotient by what others have or say.  The other is independent of anyone except our self-value.  The internal world knows its place, accepts its lot, and does not begrudge others what they have or become envious or self-pitying.  Too often the internal voice passes unheeded.  The two worlds often vie to see which will gain control.

Sometimes worth is correlated to the value others place on it.  Usually we end up losing when we ask: Do we have a nice lawn (while looking across the street)? Do we own an expensive car (eyeing the neighbor’s)? Do our children get the best grades?  Do they have a good education  “I simply have to get my child into that program!)? Does our family radiate find grooming (“I was so embarrassed by your behavior today!”)? 

These are all questions where we are comparing ourselves to others and imagining what they think of us. 

As winter advances it is a comforting thought that we can curl up and listen to some fine music, dink mulled cider, dance in the living room, talk intimately to our God.  It is good to slow down like a bear getting ready to slumber.  Find that place.  Find that peace.

Boo-Boos

We are prone to making boo-boos.  Not the kind where you scrape your knee or hit your head getting out the car too fast but the other kind.  Boo-boos are good.  They mean we are experimenting, taking a chance, stepping beyond our usual habits.  

Take jokes, for example.  Some people seem to naturally funny and others, well, not so much.  Yet we all like to laugh and make other experience the joy of a good chuckle. When they fall flat, do not give up, try telling the joke again until you get it right.

There are many wondrous and difficult aspects to being a child.  One the other former is that we are game for about anything, jumping off a high limb, rolling in the mud, tasting dog biscuits and eating asparagus (that does no usually end up so good).

It is a sad day when we grow up and admit, “We can’t do it.”  And worse, we do not even try.

Y. Peretz, crafter of Hebrew stories wrote, “Nobody trips over a mountain; you trip over a pebble.”  When we fail it is hardly ever disastrous.  Failure is a signal that we need to modify what we did, not stop trying.

On June 2, 2010, Armando Galarraga, 28 pitched what seemed to be a perfect game, a feat only achieved twenty times in Major League Baseball's 130 year history. However, on the very last play of the game, umpire Jim Joyce, 65, mistakenly called the runner safe at first base, ruining the perfect game. After the game, understanding the mistake he had made and the implications to Galarraga, with tears in his eyes, Joyce went over to Galarraga and apologized, admitting his mistake. Galarraga graciously accepted his apology saying, "nobody's perfect. Everybody's human. " They then wrote a book together titled "Nobody's Perfect."

The thing is the pitcher did not retire or give up.  He continued on, having learned an unintended lesson of life.

Mistakes should always be purposeful, never meaningless.  Yogi Berra once commented, “I don’t want to make the wrong mistake.”  He was right, in his inimitable way.  There are some mistakes that are bad choices but even then we learn and grow.

Talmud, which is the judicial and philosophical backbone of our people, is full of trial, error and then more trial.  “Arguments for the sake of truth,” Rabbi Jonathan Sacks labeled it.

The Mei Shiloach, Rabbi Mordechai Yosef of Ishbitz, wrote, “A person can only uphold the teachings of the Torah when he has stumbled in them.”  The sage is telling us, “Go ahead, take a chance, a risk, make mistakes, learn from them, change, and grow.

It’s a New Year.  We are  year older and G-d willing, a year wiser.  Even Torah has Moss and David doing some real bloopers.  Yet their greatness is that they become great through their errors.

Give it your best shot.  Then give it your better shot.

Kippur

It’s all about healing, becoming whole.

We are all pulled and pushed in countless directions. No one is immune from the internal and external demands.  Good people give us sage advice, some of it is contradictory.  What do we do then?  We misstep. We misspeak.  We allow anger to become our voice.  It is hard to make good decisions and to do so with consistency. That is why we need one day to fix the broken parts of our self.

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atoning, is not about being perfect but coming to terms with who we are and making it possible for us to like ourselves more than we do.  Much sadness exists n the world because people are unhappy with themselves. There is an old Talmudic saying that when we misstep (sin, in their words) we feel bad.  What happens next?  We sin again because we know that is what we have become, a sinful, bad person.

  

“He’s the best physician that knows the worthlessness of most medicines,” wrote Benjamin Franklin.   A painkiller will not relive guilt.  That which heals is attending to and mending our broken inner parts.  That does not necessarily mean becoming impeccable in behavior and speech (although we should always strive toward that end) but accepting the brokenness of ourselves and of others. Forgiveness is antidote to most pain. 

Holding on to grudges degrades our lives.  It invades our sleep with nightmares that leave us panting for breath when we wake.   The same is true of holding grudges against ourselves.  We can be most unforgiving with our sins, perhaps even thinking we deserve the bad things that happen to us.

Yom Kippur is the day of reckoning, honesty, facing who we are and letting go of the dross that weighs us down and makes our lives less meaningful.

If you peer at the prayers closely and personally you will feel that the day is punishing.  It is hard to to fast.  It is difficult to remind ourselves that we are xenophobic.  Or that we have hate in our hearts towards certain people.  Or that we are sitting next to people that are at least as guilty as we are!  But God wants us to break our hearts open one day in the hope that we can find healing in the forgiveness that comes in its wake.  

Can you forgive someone who hurt you?  Can you forgive yourself for being unkind? Untruthful?  Abusive? 

What comes after we have beat our breast? Acknowledge our pain and tell God, “Yes I am sinful but I cannot carry this burden any longer.  Heal me.   Lift the load form my back.” 

Hasidic master, Israel of Kozhenitz, prayed, “Master of the Universe I know that the Children of Israel are suffering too much;

They deserve redemption, they need it.

But if, for reasons unknown to me,

You are not willing, no yet, then redeem the other nations, but do it soon!”

I want you to pray for your own healing this Yom Kippur. Pray for the Jewish people here.  In Europe.  Israel.  Stretch out your heart to the bleeding souls that have no one to comfort them.

I want you to pray for those around you who are afflicted with disease.  They are in the next row.  And the one after that.  Then open your heart to your soul in need of healing.  Pray for yourself.  You know what you need.  Ask for it. Then real healing starts to happen. And, then push the boundary further; let go of the bitterness that keeps you awake at night.   Release the anger that visits you every day, each time you see their face, every moment when you miss their presence.

Then the meaning and depth of Yom Kippur carries its transformative power: we are renewed.

Real Wealth

Malcolm Forbes, past editor of Forbes magazine, said that, “anybody who thinks money is everything has never been sick, or is.”   We understand the relative importance of all things when we are frightened, in danger of losing our life.   All extraneous things like prestige, money, upgrading the system diminish in importance compared to what is happening now.  

A wise man once commented, “The two most important days of our lives of the day we were born and the day we discover why we were born.” We spend most of our time conjugating three verbs: to want, to have and to do.  They have no real significance for us, except as they are transcended from the verb to be. The essence of life is tied up in being, not wanting having or doing.

The holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur attempt to bring us back to the original challenge of life, being. Most times we are so occupied with making up for the pain of our past or eking out a vision of the perfect future that we forget to live in the moment.

On these days in the month of Ellul the mind invariably gravitates toward self-doubt (as it should).  Am I who I should be? Are the things that I value real values? Or did they come a close second after “things”?(The Talmud, by the way, says that one of the questions we shall have to answer in the Next World is, were you honest in all your business dealings?)  Have I treated others with kindness and consideration?The answers to these questions inform us about the distance yet to be traveled to become whole.

Living in the moment means, by definition, saying a beracha,a prayer before we eat and taste the food; it means understanding how “they” feel; it means relishing our child’s moral and spiritually religious progress and giving meaning to that learning; it means feeling the full raw power of the shofar and allowing the ancient words to resonate in our bodies and souls; it means filling the hunger with the relational and sacred which have meaning and that are significantly larger than ourselves.

Our wise and ancient tradition holds some remarkable truths for living.  And after all these thousands of years they still say it best. The rabbis once asked the question, “Who is wealthy?” They answered, “The one who is satisfied with what he has.”

A story.  Three people were brought to Olam Haba, the Next Universe.  Greeting at the door was the Malakhay HaSharayt, the Angelic Guardian, who said, “Before you enter I must ask each of you a question.” 

He turned to the first and asked, “Can you please wait?”

”Sure,”  came the reply. “I have lots of time.”

”Well then,” said the angel. “How do you spell “God”?

“G-O-D,” he replied.

“Very well, you may enter.”

The holy messenger then turned to the second one and asked, “Can you please wait?”

”No problem,” said the second.  As the Talmud says, “All this world is but a corridor to the reality that awaits us on the other side.  I can certainly wait.”

”Very well. Can you spell “God”?”

G-O-D,” he replied.

“Very well, you may enter.”

The Malakhay HaSharaytto the final one and asked, “Can you please wait?”

”Wait? Do you want me to wait? I’ve been waiting my whole life. Waiting at the market, waiting at the school, waiting in line at the movies…. When in heaven I need to wait too??? Yes, as a matter fact I do mind waiting!”

”OK. Can you spell Czechoslovakia?”

The essence of life is in being. You had to be there. You have to be here. Be here.  Bring your whole self to the table of life.  God will be waiting.  Three days each year we are summoned by the King to stand with our past actions and ourselves.  It is a time for judgment and real reflection.  He sees and knows our light and shadow.  Question: If you were God judging you, would you like what you see?

He has patiently waited for you to come home these long years.

Listening with the Heart

The woman had blond hair, neatly tied into a bun on the top of her height head. Hands fiddled nervously as she sat down across from the desk and said, “Thank you for making time to meet with me.”

At the time I did not know Sheila.  She was not a member of my congregation and, to my knowledge, had never come to a service.  She simply walked in off the street and asked to talk.

In a very small voice Sheila said that she had trouble with God and that she desperately needed to see a Rabbi.

”My father left when I was child,” she began.  “Mother told me he was a gambler and an alcoholic. For all of my life we struggled to be together and keep it together. My mother worked so hard - she had no time for herself. She was both my mother and father. More, she was my friend, cook, confidante and even my date.  She held me up all those long years.  But I still missed and wanted my father …”

Sheila continued telling that her life was brutish and tough. She had recently come off a relationship with an abusive man.  After taking lots physical and mental pain, he finally walked out on her.  Just got up, left and she has not heard from him since.

She paused. “I do not think God cares about me. He does not help. Where is the kindness he is supposed to give?  I feel so alone.”

Gently, I questioned Sheila. 

God, she revealed, was always a kind and good force that had always sustained her. Now she wanted to know if all those years of trust had been misplaced. Was God uncaring?  Spiteful? Aloof?

Sheila is not unique. Many of us express deep doubts about God and mercy at painful moments in our lives.   At those times we need to hear that our faith, our religion, has not betrayed us and that we have not been fools throughout our lives.

To Sheila, and all those who have filled the terrible white heat of pain I offered a compassionate ear and understanding.  God hears.  He listens. God, being compassionate, feels the intimacy of our internal angst.  He experiences the marvelous uplifting joy of our achievements and the despair of our crushing defeats.

And yet.  He also weeps as his children are bent, wracked by pain. As the good suffer, the Holy One understands their pain intimately in the same measure that they do. In the celestial vault, God is witness to the traumas, injustice, capriciousness and wicked fate of this world.  Can a father not cry when his children are afflicted?

Why, you ask. Why does God only feel your pain and not do anything to assuage the anguish?

The Torah is explicit. Man’s job is to govern in this world, to follow God’s laws and ease the burdens of our fellow.  Were God to intervene in this world, enacting justice, punishing, rewarding the good, healing the sick, we would cease to exist as human beings. God governing our lives, pushing the buttons of existence means, by extension, that we are no longer in charge of our own destiny. We would have lost our independence, our ability to choose right from wrong. If wrong is removed as an option, choice is removed.  We are then no longer free.

For example, if God stopped cars from running over innocent victims we would cross streets without glancing in either direction. After all, God would save us, wouldn’t He?

Or maybe He should just save the pious, the righteous and blameless?  Then when someone was run over we would at least know they deserved it. Should only the pure be saved?  If that were true there would be no opportunity to do teshuvah.

God rescuing the good and punishing the wicked is something we should not want. We aspire and covet the freedom to choose. We want the ability to be able to do wrong. Even it will break God’s heart. Through it all, the door is always open to teshuvah.

In my mind’s eye I can see God dancing when our yetser ha-tov(our good side) makes the world a more wholesome place. I picture God proud as his children become healers and dispensers of goodness. There is also the image of the Holy One, blessed be He, ceaselessly weeping as the innocent are hurt and moral decay consumes the fabric of society.

Sheila touched my hand.  She dabbed her eyes with a tissue, got up from her chair and said, “Thank you,” and then “goodbye.” 

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.

On Abortion

Halakha means “law” specifically Jewish law.  Halakha governs the way we approach God, how our courts function, rules of relations, what we wear, commerce and how to tie tzitzit.  The basic Jewish viewpoint is either nothing matters or everything matters.  Needless to say, we take the second opinion.

Halakha is the practical application of the Written Word.  Now, mind you, we do not rest solely on what is written in the Torah.  We “turn it over and over for everything is in it,” as a second century scholar said. So centuries of erudite scholars examining each nuance of the Torah find halakhot that deal with every practical subject you can imagine.

Through America, especially in the south, we are engaged in determining what the civil law should state about abortion.  Right and left-wingers have stated their polar positions.  

What is the Jewish halakha on abortion?

We believe that therapeutic (as opposed to spontaneous) abortion is never good and sometimes is wrong.  For example, having an abortion because of the sex of the child is incorrect.

The Torah itself is quite clear.  Where the fetus represents a danger to the mother, the mother’s life takes precedence. Termed a “rodef” the fetus is viewed as a pursuer threatening a life much as a would-be murderer chases after a potential victim.

The expansion of this thought is where the mental wellbeing of the mother is concerned.  If the mother experiences immeasurable emotional trauma as a result of the birth that also constitutes a reason for allowing abortion. In that instance the birth would cause emotional wreckage that is not too dissimilar from a “rodef.”

Elsewhere in the Torah (Exodus 21) a pregnant woman has an abortion as a result of being pushed or punched.  In that cited case, the halakha determines that there must be a monetary fine. In other words, an unborn child is a life “in potential,” not a fully realized life.  Otherwise it would have been rendered a capital case. In no instance in Jewish law is abortion murder. 

In arguing for civil law to make concrete legislation banning abortion there are many side issues that arise that make the argument for more complex than the presenters argue.  For example, terminating a pregnancy that is non-viable takes time and may well exceed the so-called six week window, let alone earlier.  Often a woman will not even recognize that she is pregnant before six weeks. And in the instance where there is rape or incest court cases can years.  This presents an unfair burden on the victim.

I hope that clearer minds and visions will prevail among the states that like Alabama are moving toward a virtual outlawing of abortion.  Abortion is not a black and white issue.  It has lots of gray, as the halakha teaches us.