What is God? Praying to One

More than at any other time of year, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, demand that we grapple with our understanding of God. This week, Rabbi Larry Bach of Temple Mount Sinai, in El Paso TX, writes about his struggles with the liturgy and the evolution of his understanding of the Divine.

Rabbi Larry Bach

As we move into Yamim Hanora’im, some of us will find ourselves face-to-face with a familiar dilemma: the challenge of praying “face-to-face” with a God who is so intensely personalized in our liturgy. “God as Person,” it seems to me, is even more present in the machzor than the siddur. This is certainly true for North American Reform Judaism today, where experiencing the polyvocality of Mishkan T’filah year-round sets us up for a jarring experience upon returning to Gates of Repentance, so thoroughly (almost uniformly) couched in the language of dialogue.

My own struggles with saying “You” while in prayer are an outcome of my explorations in the world of Jewish mindfulness. Through meditation, prayer, study, and observation, I’ve come to experience God not as other, but as All. Ein od – there is nothing else. How then, to speak to a separate being, a “You” when experience tells me that it’s all One?

One option, which has worked for me up to a point, is to mentally “translate into monist.” While speaking to God as Other, I attempt to offer a running, internal commentary, hearing kavvanot in my head that allow me to reflect on the theme of that  particular prayer through the lens of my own theology. Often, these kavvonot present themselves in the Bronx-inflected lilt of my teacher, Sheila Peltz-Weinberg, a master at praying aloud in this way. As I speak the words, “Cause us, O Eternal God, to lie down in peace, and raise us up, O Sovereign, to life renewed…” my mind might be offering this prayer: “May this evening be one of attunement to YHWH, the Breath of All Life, and may that attunement manifest in me as a sense of peacefulness. Resting peacefully, may I be restored in body and spirit, so that I can stand up tomorrow with energy and strength to meet the day.” This practice works well for me on many levels, not the least of which is “keeping my head in the game” and not drifting toward a mindless rehearsal of words, disguised as religious leadership.

And yet, what is so satisfying intellectually can sometimes leave me cold, emotionally. And since I believe that prayer is as much about the heart as the head, I’m going to try something very different each year. I’m going to offer up each “You” with all my heart and soul, and see what arises. My kavvanot as I take on this practice will come from two teachers, Alexander Susskind of Grodno (d. 1793) and Kalonymous Kalman Shapira (1889-1943).

Susskind, a Lithuanian Kabbalist, wrote Yesod Veshoresh Ha’avodah, which explores various aspects of prayer and mindfulness. The selection below is anthologized in Yissachar Dov Rubin’s T’lalei Orot:

When you say baruch atah imagine that the Creator is actually standing there, in your presence. That’s what’s implied in the second-person singular form, atah. This intention is an important part of praying, praising, and offering thanks. Don’t just “go through the motions!” Have it in mind when you say “Blessed are You…” that there really is a “You” confronting you. After all, “The fullness of the whole earth is God’s glory” (Isaiah 6:3).

The second text comes to us by way of the Warsaw Ghetto, and is from Sefer Aish Kodesh, the Shoah-era commentary of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira of Piaseczno (1889-1943). On the opening verse of Ki Tezei, Shapira offers a beautiful and creative Hasidic rereading.

“When you go to war against your enemies…” When you are in a bad place, in “wartime”…

“..put ‘YHWH, your God’ in your hands…” Pray “You” from the depths of your heart. Take refuge in the fact that “YHWH is your God,” and that divinity is present to you, personally…

“…and return, come back.” We pray, “Bring us back, O YHWH, to You,” and God says, “Return to me.” How is that accomplished? When we make God present in our prayers, we and God are returned to each other.

Together, these teachings have helped me to recontextualize my struggle against saying “You” when I pray. I find in them – particularly in the Piaseczner – an invitation to be more imaginative at prayer. These mystics understood ein od just as I do (l’havdil….they understood it far more deeply!), and yet they invest their “You” with power and meaning. With their teachings in my repertoire, I find myself less concerned with reinterpreting my way toward some “theological correctness” when I encounter the metaphor of God as Other. Instead, see it for what it is: a metaphor.

In saying “Blessed are You” to some Other, I no longer feel as though I’m denying reality as I understand it in light of my meditation cushion; rather I am affirming it in a new and profound way.

Why Judaism? Loving Kindness

Rabbi Joseph Meszler

As we approach the High Holidays, the question of why Judaism lurks behind many sermons and clergy conversations. This week, guest blogger, Rabbi Josesph Meszler of Temple Sinai in Sharon, MA provides an answer to that question. The author of a Facing Illness, Finding God, he draws on Jewish text and personal experience to help us understand why Judaism matters.

When the prophet Micah told us to “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God,” he may have been summarizing what could be characterized as a Reform halacha. Rabbi Rami Shapiro once wrote that many of our commandments could be divided up into one of these three categories: doing justice in the world by engaging in tikkun olam, facing the inevitable pain of life through loving kindness, and walking humbly with God through our ritual observance. But it is the middle injunction, to love kindness, that I think draws more and more people to the synagogue today. The main function of our religion seems to be to help us cope.

I believe Jewish people are looking to their Judaism as a source of solace. Healing services have become commonplace. Debbie Friedman’s Mishebeirach has long been something of an anthem. Rabbis are no longer sought after to be towering figures in robes speaking from high pulpits or deciders of halacha but rather a compassionate person with empathy. Congregants will forgive a rabbi a bad sermon; they will not do so if we are not there in their time of need. Jews today want rabbis to embody the Judaism that they need, a dependable human touch.

My hometown rabbi, Gustav Buchdahl, once remarked to me that today people seem to look for “therapeutic Judaism.” We want our Judaism to help make us whole and to help us heal. While this refocusing of Judaism cannot be at the expense of social justice or vibrant prayer – the other two parts of the verse from Micah – I believe he is accurate in that we crave shleimut: peace of mind/wholeness/completeness. Something in our age seems broken, and we are trying mend not only our world but ourselves.

As I’ve discussed elsewhere, I have had my own experience with illness and faith. Now completely healthy, my wife (and our colleague) Julie was once ill and had to have a scary operation. As I was sitting in the waiting room, surrounded by strangers who were preoccupied with their own thoughts, I was overflowing with anxiety. I began to pray in a way that Rabbi Nachman of Breslov taught – to scream silently in my mind. I didn’t know how loud thoughts could be until I was mentally screaming to God to please help my wife. It was in that moment that I needed a human touch the most, and I was fortunate that my Judaism was there for me.

I believe the Judaism of the future is going to be as a spiritual practice, and its central function is going to be to be as a source of comfort.

The Ordination of Women: A Reform Debate from 1922

Jenny Mannheimer Received B.H.L. HUC 1892

Just a short post to provide a link to a wonderful resource. While it is always possible to go to the archives to find jewels of Jewish history, the blog On the Main Line has connected us to a series of  responsa from a 1922 CCAR discussion on the ordination of women. The issue of women’s place in Judaism long predates the advent of Reform Judaism but there is much to be learned from reading these sources carefully. Not only do they highlight a moment in the history of Reform Judaism and provide an excellent resource for deepening our own knowledge and teaching but the discussion from the early years of the last century continues to resonate today. While the debate about the place of women in the Reform rabbinate has long been settled (thank God!) it is still under consideration among our Orthodox brothers and sisters. It is notable that while the historical circumstances differ greatly, there is much that still resonates with attitudes towards women and the LGBT community in some quarters of the Jewish world.

Today the women who graduate HUC-JIR go one step further than Jenny Mannheimer when they receive a Masters in Hebrew Letters and the wives club of HUC includes people of all gender identities.

HUC's Wives Club 1952

Photo credits American Jewish Archives

Communal Teshuvah: 12 Step Programs, Community Organizing and the Jewish Way

by Ruth Abusch-Magder

What would it look like if a community really undertook teshuvah? And where would god sit in the process?

These were the questions that puzzled my chevrutah and I, a short while ago, as we prepared for the Yamim Noraim.  As I wrote before Rosh Hashana, I struggle with the process of teshuvah, often wondering how it happens in reality. At this time of year rabbis, cantors and educators, teach, preach and sing about teshuvah in community. But what does success really look like? In reaching for answers, we gained some insight into nature of teshuvah and God’s place in the process of change.

The Jewish tradition presents us with an odd sort of tension when it comes to repentance. On the one hand teshuvah is a highly personal act. Each person needs to undertake the process of soul searching, remorse and redirection in a way that fits with their own challenges and failings. Much of the language found in rabbinic sources points to individual responsibility. Indeed the power of personal teshuva is so great according to Rabbi Meir (BT Yoma 86) that “one individual who vows penitence, pardon is given to him as well as to the entire world.”

But there is also an important role for the community in the process of teshuvah. Our liturgy speaks in the plural, Avinu Malkainu Ashamnu. We have sinned. Our prayer, for forgiveness are offered not in private, but in community as our tradition acknowledges that no individual is alone in their transgression. There are even examples of group repentance such as the hooligans who were befriended by Rabbi Zera and after his death reconsidered their actions and chose to repent. (BT Sanhedrin 37a)

It was easy to of think of stories of how individuals have changed their lives based on a deep experience during this season. But these were so personal that it was hard to know what they meant for us as individuals struggling with our own demons. By working to imagine communal teshuvah we hoped to gain more universal insight. Read the rest of this entry »

A Generous form of Teshuvah

by Ruth Abusch-Magder

Teshuvah poses a big challenge for me. The act of phoning around and asking forgiveness from all those who you know, as I was taught to do as a child, seems superficial; a pro forma rituals fix that misses the real work. Yet it can be daunting to sit down with just one person and go back over the missteps of the previous year, let alone address all the wrongs in which we have participated. Moreover, while I believe in the process of teshuvah, I am not always sure exactly how to accomplish the long list of repairs that might need tending.

So I was glad to come by a text by Rav Nachman of  Bratslav that deals not only with the importance of teshuvah. His take on teshuvah opened up some new ways of thinking challenging me in new and important ways and reminding us that teshuvah is both a tremendous responsibility and a truly gentle loving process.

The text comes from Likkutei MoHaRa’N 282 and the translation here is by Arthur Green in his book Ehyeh: a Kabbalah for Tomorrow.

Rav Nachman’s thoughts on teshuvah are set within the familiar context of the kabbalistic and hassidic idea that a holy spark resides within everything. Internalizing this concept will guide our path to teshuvah:

He writes:

“You have to judge every person generously. Even if you have reason to think that that person is completely wicked, it’s your job to look hard and seek out some bit of goodness, someplace in that person where he is not evil. When you find that bit of goodness and judge the person that way, you may raise her up to goodness. Treating people this way allows them to be restored, to come to teshuvah.”

It is notable that the text does not deny the wickedness of those people or excuse malevolence. Instead Rav Nachman pushes us to see the holy spark of goodness that might be hidden by the evil we encounter. Looking for the spark of goodness when confronted with difficult behavior is no easy task but it is easy for me to see how achieving such a generosity of spirit could transform me. Just as internalizing the directive in Pirkei Avot to learn from everyone can make us wise, learning to seek out the holiness in the places where we least expect to find it has the potential to make us more compassionate.

Rav Nachman, however, focuses his attention not on what happens to those who pass judgment, but rather on the power of a generous judgment to transform the evil ones. Our generosity paves the way for their transformation.

While I remain a little concerned that overlooking the bad and focusing on the good might give a pass to those who engage in negative behavior, Rav Nachman turns our attention back to the self. He encourages us to cultivate the same generosity of spirit towards ourselves:

“So now, my clever friend, now that you know how to treat the wicked and find some bit of good in them – now go do it for yourself as well! …You too must have done some good for someone sometime. Now go look for it! But you find it and discover that it is too full of holes. You know yourself too well to be fooled: “Even the good things I did,” you say, “were all for the wrong reasons. Impure motives! Lousy deeds!” “Then keep digging!” I tell you, “Keep digging, because somewhere inside that now-tarnished mitzvah, somewhere in it there was indeed a little bit of good.”  That’s all you need to find: just the smallest bit: a dot of goodness. That should be enough to give you life, to bring you back to joy. By seeking out that little bit even in yourself that way, showing yourself that that is who you are. You can change your whole life and bring yourself back to teshuvah.”

As our fellow College-Institute alum, Rabbi Misha Zinkow, remarked recently, “With an examination of this sort, the judgments we make about ourselves should reveal “dots of goodness,” or push down our darker impulses, allowing the brighter ones to surface.” Teshuvah is still not an easy process, but the method and the manner are shifted in an important way. Teshuvah is achieved through kindness, not only to others but to ourselves. The less judgmental we are of ourselves, the more our own goodness will shine through and we will be transformed.

It is this refocused understanding of teshuvah that I take as the challenge for myself this season; one that I hope that I will be gentle and compassionate enough to fully embrace.

Making Time for Learning

This week we are excited to have Rabbi Judith Siegal as our guest blogger. In the first of a series of posts following her adventures in learning this summer, Rabbi Siegal provides us both with a reminder of the importance of making time for study and the joy and inspiration that we as professionals working in the Jewish community can find in Torah study.

Joy in Study

I sincerely feel blessed to have the opportunity to study, Torah Lishmah!  Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to do this nearly enough during the rest of the year.  To be able to sit at the table and in the room with so many others who, like me, came here to Jerusalem to find some spiritual nourishment, is energizing and exciting.

I arrived in Tel Aviv this afternoon, and took the sherut straight to our apartment that we are renting off Emek Refayim (with a beautiful mirpeset) to drop off my bags and get right to Hartman to start the learning!  I will be here for eleven days.

Tonight, there was an award ceremony recognizing the Rabbinic Fellows of the Shalom Hartman Institute, rabbis who have been coming to this seminar for more than ten years (good inspiration for us newbies)!  It was wonderful to see the collegiality and to be in a room with so many rabbis out of their regular busy lives, sitting at the tables ready to learn.  One rabbi leaned over to me during a powerful session to say, “wow, rabbis just don’t get the chance to do this when we are running congregations, taking care of our families, and doing all the things we do.”  So true!

The main speaker tonight was David Hartman.  His lecture was titled, “The Contingent Feature of the Jewish View of History – Reflections on Biblical and Rabbinic text”
The main idea was that some philosophers would argue that there is an imminent thrust and structure to where this is all going (a set course for history, leading to a messianic time), but Hartman wants to undermine that idea.  His theory is that there is NO certainty and anything is possible.  That is what we have learned and continue to learn from Jewish history.

He taught from a text from BT Sanhedrin 7:2 that there is no predictive history to determine the future and no formula to predict messianism.  He called the idea a tragedy in Jewish history that we think we know when the messianic time will come or that it is connected to our behavior.

He proposed that dreaming of potential is what moves history forward.  The knowledge that anything is possible, both good and bad is what we get when we have no certainty.  This idea came to Hartman after Entebbe, where it was clear to him that we Jews, had no special protection because we were Jewish.  The possibility of anything happening is his messianism, a norm telling what is the social structure of reality, where hunger is overcome, for example.

The will of our people to live after Auschwitz, THAT is the messianic spirit.

The belief that human beings can change is Hartman’s messianism,  If you believe in your own ability to change and grow, now THAT is living!

What a great message for all of us.  Laila Tov!

P.S.

My favorite David Hartman quote of the evening was “I believe in God, but I don’t trust Him!”