Before Shabbat

Today is my last entry as Before Shabbat goes into summer mode. I’ll be taking several summer weeks away from the blog, though my idea folder will continue to be open and at the ready. I appreciate the weekly rhythm writing establishes for me. I can communicate with you and share reflections, reactions, and responses. It’s almost never difficult to come up with a theme for the week. The days are so long and so busy. There’s always a plethora of inspiration and news: local, international, Israel-related, good, bad, etc. I appreciate in the deepest and most profound way your readership, your comments, your kindness.
Tonight I will be blessing my son, Jonah, and his wife-to-be, Maggie, on the bimah, in honor of their upcoming July 1st wedding. In this quiet time prior to that big moment, I find myself feeling so full of joy and gratitude. Without being too maudlin, let me just say that I grew up without many expectations that I deserved good things.
Now as a man approaching 60, I find that my cup runneth over. It may just be possible that, as it also says in Psalm 23, “…goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” What a turnaround! What a concept!!
Everyone deserves goodness and mercy. Everyone is due good things. It is equally true that there are no guarantees that we will get them. To live is to know suffering and loss and pain. I used to think like Alvy Singer, Woody Allen’s role in Annie Hall. Remember he said that he would only read books with the word ‘death’ in the title.
But there is more. Yehudah Amichai, the greatest modern 20th century poet of Israel once wrote a book entitled, Beyond All This There Hides a Great Happiness. If we can keep our hearts open, if we end up with the right partner, if we can find work that we love, if we can surround ourselves with family and friends whom we honor and who honor us, then we have a fighting chance. There is a great happiness. Have a healthy summer filled with relaxation, great books, good company, and love.
Shabbat Shalom
rebhayim

I wrote a poem this past week to honor Ruth Neiterman, a long time Hebrew teacher who tragically died of cancer. I read it at her funeral and several folks requested that I reprint it here.

For Ruth
by Keith Stern

Little Jewish kids are afraid of Hebrew
Who can blame them?
The sharp, scary letters
the gutteral challenge of a chaf
The laryngeal mystery of an ayin or a chet
The unnatural buzz of a tzade…
The blinding smear of dots
Flying across the pages like angry bees from a Hebrew hive
direct the destiny
Of random letters
Sussing or shushing
Being or ve-ing…
And all flowing backwards…

Hebrew spins off
Desiccated parchments and
Old rabbis wrinkled hands
Ancient dust devils
Swirling over the heads of little Jewish kids

Surrounded by dark primal sounds
Panicked by walls of alien symbols
They lift their eyes to the mountains
They say help!

And if they are very lucky
There is a teacher – a Hebrew teacher
A woman of patience and virtue
So much more than an eshet hayil
Who is not afraid of the letters
In fact she loves the letters
And she shows them to the children and she says
So calmly,
No don’t be afraid
Here look you can pet this daled
You can hold a final mem
See! You can do it!
The kaf won’t bite.

So they approach her
They look in her kind face
And the little Jewish kids trust her
They come closer
Pulled in by her gentle wisdom
And they know that this teacher
Will challenge the brightest student
And will wait for every ADHD IEP on-the-spectrum kid
Who’s lucky enough to end up in her class

There are little Jewish kids
Scattered all over the world
Grown men and women now in their 30s and 40s and older
Hundreds – thousands
Successful educated people
And if you ask them
Do you remember who guided them through the thicket of aleph-bet
They will say, it was Mrs. Neiterman
Who loved Hebrew letters
But who most of all
Loved us.

The first book I ever bought with my own money was Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man. It was a Bantam Pathfinder paperback with a black framed cover. In the middle was a painting of a man entirely covered with tattoos. I think it cost 50¢, which was 2 weeks of allowance.
I always loved speculating about the stars and the planets and aliens. So when one day, a family friend started talking about science fiction, I was on the lookout. In the little bookstore in Middletown on the corner of Court and Broad Street, I found the tiny Sci-Fi section and struck gold.
Two things really surprised me when I began reading Bradbury’s short story collection. One was how instantly accessible and enjoyable his writing was. The second was that, well, he was breaking the rule my English teachers always gave before any writing assignment: “Write what you know.” I was 10 years old, but I was certainly old enough to know that from the very first story, Bradbury was creating images entirely out of his imagination. I liked that so much!
We are all creators, inventors of narratives that we hatch deep in our unconscious. That’s what it means when the Torah says that we are created in God’s image. Of course it’s not about body type or skin color or the ability to procreate. We are like God because like the Holy One, we create narrative. We are storytellers, just like God.
“From all things that you know and all those you cannot know, you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than anything true and alive.” Hemingway wrote that, and I trust Hemingway to tell the truth about fishing, women, war, and writing. The great short story author, Bret Johnston once wrote, “Stories aren’t about things. Stories are things. Stories aren’t about actions. Stories are, unto themselves, actions.”
Ray Bradbury, who died last week at age 91, taught me to appreciate my own creativity and that of others, too. His best short stories took me into other worlds: flying to Mars, trying to stay sane in the rain forests of Venus, dealing with the loneliness of space, and more. Reading his work, like listening to great music, is entering another person’s universe and luxuriating, like all the people who lined up to enter John Malkovich’s head in the movie, Being John Malkovich. It’s all about amazement and wonder.
One night, at the Regatta Bar in Cambridge, I saw the late, great Michael Brecker. He was playing a tenor sax solo that was truly extraordinary. Deep, rich, complex, captivating, searching, weeping, exalting – it was all those things – and more. In the middle of the 7 minute solo he paused for a breath. I will never forget that moment. As he took his breath he opened his eyes and looked at his horn – his own horn – looked with amazement and awe. He was creating something new and profound that was beyond him. And he was the one creating it!
None of us will ever play the horn like Michael Brecker. None of us will probably ever write with the insight of Ray Bradbury. But each of us has the sacred power of creation. Each one of us, created in God’s image, can create a universe in our art, our sport, our appreciation. We can create space: supportive and loving space for our children, our partners, our friends.
Ray Bradbury once said, “Do what you love and love what you do.”
Amen. Goodbye Ray.

I am hardly a traditionalist, yet I must admit that I have said, more than once, “Some things will never change.” I never imagined that a black man would become president of the United States. I never imagined that I would become an Apple person (“I’ll never leave my PC behind!”). Of course when I was 10 I never imagined that I would eat salad or broccoli or actually anything green. And now I am a vegetable king!
I have remained resolutely certain that some things will never change within the ranks of our ultra-Orthodox brothers and sisters. After all, their mission is to stave off as much innovation and modernity as they can (see last week’s Before Shabbat about the anti-Internet rally) From this perspective, they could do harmony with Christian fundamentalists when they sing, “Give me that old time religion/It’s good enough for me”.
The fact that change is considered anathema for most traditionally religious people guarantees that there will never be women Catholic priests. The same truth guarantees that there will never be a female Orthodox rabbi. Some things will never change.
And yet… Rabbi Avi Weiss, a popular traditional rabbi who propounds what he calls open Orthodoxy created a yeshiva that instructs men and women. One of his brilliant students, Sara Hurwitz, was so distinguished that last year he ordained her. She is called rabba, the female variation of rabbi. He originally chose the title maharat, which is some sort of Hebrew acronym for “scholar” that almost nobody knows. So he changed his mind. “These developments represent a radical and dangerous departure from Jewish tradition,” declared Agudath Israel of America, ultra-Orthodoxy’s most authoritative rabbinic body. “Any congregation with a woman in a rabbinical position of any sort cannot be considered Orthodox.” Weiss, never a favorite among the hard-liners, was accused of sabotaging his community. Steven Pruzansky, a rabbi in Teaneck, New Jersey, wrote on his popular blog, “Those who seek to infiltrate the Torah with the three pillars of modern Western life—feminism, egalitarianism, and humanism—corrupt the Torah, cheapen the word of G-d.” [New York Magazine]
All of which goes to prove that if one is willing to stand the slings and arrows of fanatics, maybe it is possible to move things. Perhaps some things can change. Even amongst Orthodox Jews, albeit open Orthodox Jews, the unthinkable is happening. There lives an Orthodox rabbi who is a female – in my lifetime. Traditional Jews who abhor open Orthodoxy are right to be afraid. When an American Orthodox rabbi like Rabbi Pruzansky writes a blog condemning feminism, egalitarianism and humanism as not only contrary to Judaism, but destructive to it, then you know that Rabbi Weiss has cut too close to the bone. You know that change is going to come, kicking and screaming all the way.
Another huge transformation for female rabbis and for Reform Jews occurred this week in Israel. Now don’t get too excited. Remember, 3 women were arrested last Tuesday at the Kotel for wearing a tallit. No, that’s not a typo. Arrested for wearing a tallit. However, as that injustice was being perpetrated, in an unprecedented move, Israel has announced that it is prepared to recognize Reform and Conservative community leaders as rabbis and fund their salaries. Rabbis belonging to either stream will be classified as “rabbis of non-Orthodox communities.” The attorney general advised the High Court that the state will begin equally financing non-Orthodox rabbis in regional councils and farming communities that are interested in doing so.
The state of Israel, recognizing non-Orthodox rabbis? Men and women?? That will never happen… Only it has happened. Now before we break out the champagne, let’s review the extent of the compromise. The non-Orthodox rabbis will be called “community leaders” and not rabbis. They will have no authority to wed or perform halachic duties. They will however sit on various committees and get paid by the state like their Orthodox counterparts. They will be paid, not by the Religious Affairs department, but rather the Culture and Sports Ministry. Is this ideal? Hardly. But it’s a beginning. The precedent has been set.
Now it’s just a matter of time. And a matter of faith. Instead of proclaiming that some things will never change, it might be wiser and much more positive to repeat Sam Cooke’s lyric: “It’s been a long time coming/But a change is going to come.” And it will come. With God’s help. And with our dedication and hard work.

The drill goes like this: I call the kids and their entourage to the bimah individually.  I ask them about the various pictures on their poster, their favorite colors, etc.  It’s always great fun and it’s a highly anticipated event.  Some of the kids are very shy; others are ready to lead the entire event.

Today there were 3 superstars.  One was very shy, one was comfortable, and one was – well, let me tell you what happened. I called Sarah [not her real name] to the bimah.  As I surveyed her superstar poster I noticed that Sarah had placed in the most prominent position, a photo of her standing with a Disney Cinderella model.  I said to Sarah, “Who’s the beautiful princess in the picture?”  Without hesitation she said, “That’s me!”

Every adult in the sanctuary laughed.  It was a priceless Art Linkletter, “Kids Say the Darndest Things” moment.  I thought to myself, “You go, Sarah!  You are the princess!  Forget the blonde model next to you.  You’re the shining superstar!”

Somehow the kind of feeling Sarah has, that she is a beautiful princess, gets lost to so many of us as we get older.  To know adolescent girls is to know a litany of adjectives, pejorative and so sad, that they use to describe themselves: fat, pimply, gross, awkward, hairy, disgusting, and so forth.  Where does the confidence of a princess go? Men also have moments when as boys we see ourselves as strong, able-bodied jocks or as princes, only to fall victim to our own failing self-confidence. 

In the Torah portion, Shelach Lecha, from Numbers, 12 spies go out to scout the land of Israel.  Ten come back and say that giants lived in the land of milk and honey.  “When we saw them we felt like grasshoppers in comparison to them.”

God gets really angry with these guys.  Why, God wonders, don’t the 10 spies feel more confident?  Why don’t they say to each other, “Hey the inhabitants of the land of Israel are bigger than we are, but God’s sending us in there.  And if God says it’s ok, then we have to have the faith that it will be ok.”

Sarah looks in the mirror and sees a princess.  The spies look in the mirror and grasshoppers looks back.  The mirror isn’t broken.  It’s all about what’s inside the person who’s looking in the mirror.  We are so blessed with so much.  We have this gift of neshama: breath and soul.  Why do we all squander it on self-doubt and self-abnegation?  To see our beauty when we look in the mirror, all of us creations of God, that is a test of faith and confidence. 

I am so grateful for Sarah’s radiance this Shabbat.  I’m going to go look in the mirror now.  I won’t be expecting George Clooney smiling back.  But I will see a man blessed with so much naches. I will see a bald, bearded, big guy who’s so happy to be alive.  Now it’s your turn.  Who do you see?

Roger Sterling, one of the central characters of Madmen, turns to Don Draper, the main character and one of his partners in the ad firm they work for and co-own. Sterling I think is around 60 and Draper just turned 40. It is 1965, and all kinds of things are going on for them professionally and personally. And of course it’s the beginning of the Vietnam War and the blossoming of the civil rights movement. Sterling is a product of the WWII era, a roué and a bon vivant. If it were up to him, nothing would change: the moneyed class would continue to rule the board rooms and the bed rooms. The Jews, the blacks, and the ‘everyone -who -isn’t –rich- white and privileged’, would continue to feed on the scraps left behind by him and his exclusive team.
Don Draper, a Korean War vet straddles Sterling’s world and the Kulturkampf of the 60s. He’s old fashioned, yet realizes the world is surely changing. A part of him loves the drinking and the high life of the ad exec, yet he also sees it for what it truly is: a decadent life of excess.
After a particularly tough experience at the hands of a younger colleague of theirs, Roger turns to Don and asks him, “When are things going to get back to normal around here?” Don rolls his eyes and the episode ends. We the viewers know the answer: things aren’t going to be returning to normal. Ever. Their world is forever in flux.
There is no “normal” anymore. The myth of normal, a time when everything was better and calmer and easier is an old dream. In fact, it’s historically a messianic ideal. Gershom Sholem, the 20th century master of Jewish mysticism studies, called this yearning for the old days ‘restorative messianism.’ This belief suggests that when the Messiah comes the world will return to the glorious past. But what is the past for a downtrodden people? What’s it worth for a woman or an African American or a poor, underprivileged person? One cannot, in the words of Firesign Theatre, go “forward into the past.”
There is no normal anymore. Things are not going to get easier. Things are not going to get less complicated. Things are not going to quiet down. We are all on an E ticket ride, moving ever faster as we live ever longer. Our restorative messianic ideal will forever be a dream. Our technology has changed so much around us. Our compassion and progressive spirit have brought millions of people out of the chains of the past to a present sense of openness and freedom. When President Obama finally spoke in support of gay marriage, I thought it one of the most presidential of announcements he’s ever made. It was not a statement from the past. It could never have been made from inside the past.
We live in a world of change. And even as we Reform Jews revere our ancestors and their lives, we do not and cannot glorify the past. We learn from the past. We admire various things of the past. But we’re right here, right now. Steve Miller once sang, “Time keeps on slipping into the future.” That’s the stream to follow.
There is no normal anymore. That’s nothing to be sad about. It’s something to acknowledge. And celebrate.
Shabbat Shalom
rebhayim

Teresa MacBain is, or at least, was, a Methodist minister in Tallahassee, Florida, at Lake Jackson United Methodist Church.  At some point she began questioning her faith in God.  She wondered how to reconcile the existence of God and evil. The stories of divine intervention and resurrection confused her. “She says she sometimes felt she was serving a taskmaster of a God, whose standards she never quite met.  For years, MacBain set her concerns aside. But when she became a Methodist minister nine years ago, she started asking sharper questions. She thought they’d make her faith stronger.” [NPR, April 30]

Her questions did not lead her to faith-restoring insight.  In fact, as her questions grew more systemic, her faith shrank.  Last month on the way to Sunday services she realized that she had crossed a line: MacBain decided that she was an atheist.  She actually didn’t let anyone else know her decision – it was her secret for a while, until she attended an Atheist convention – yes, there are atheist conventions.  At that convention she publicly declared that she was an atheist too.

The news story: minister comes out as atheist, was prominent in Tallahassee media. MacBain never imagined the response.  Lots of hate mail came her way. Her congregation literally locked her out of the church. Her husband, a police officer, had to go in and pick up her things, which were already packed into boxes.

A crisis of faith, a dark night of the soul, can be shattering.  To lose faith in God can feel profoundly alienating; it can change the warp and woof of the universe.  Sometimes it’s a permanent condition.  Other times it’s indicative of a continual dialectical tension.

For Jews, the God question is enormous.  It is part of our faith to question our faith.  In fact the more questions we ask the more we enter into a deep and thoughtful relationship to the idea of God.  Our relationship to the idea may lead us into a personal relationship with God.  Or it may lead us to reject God.  The point is not to believe for believing’s sake.  The point is to think about God, to challenge ourselves to dig deep and face what we define as the truth of our faith.

I wondered after I heard Teresa MacBain interviewed on NPR; what would happen if I went to an atheist convention somewhere in Boston and then spoke to a local reporter about how I had decided that I was an atheist?  How would my life change?  I imagined coming to the temple on Monday morning.  Would my stuff be in boxes on the curb?  Would the lock be changed on my office door?  Would I receive hate mail?

In fact, I think if I’d been on tv declaring that I was an atheist, when I came in the next morning, folks would say good morning. “Hey!” they’d continue, “I saw you on tv!”  And that would be the extent of the furor.  Sure, some folks would be upset.  A few folks would write angry emails to the Jewish Advocate, no doubt.  But truthfully, for Jews, the whole atheist-agnostic-believer continuum is a matter of private choice, even for Orthodox Jews.  If you live a life of being a mensch, of performing deeds of lovingkindness, of giving tzedakah, your theology is of secondary importance.

What we believe and how we believe is an ongoing complex of age and health and experience.  The point is to be involved in the discussion.  It is not following some script – it is following one’s heart.  How lucky to be Jewish, to be able to speak out loud of one’s doubt and not get castigated for it.  To believe or not to believe in God is not simply a statement.  It’s an ongoing struggle for truth.  It’s a living dynamic filled with tears and pain and exaltation and celebration.  No one’s getting locked out the temple for that.

In February 2010 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division were assigned to check out reports that Afghan police had recovered the mangled remains of an insurgent suicide bomber. They were ordered to get iris scans and fingerprints for identification. 

Soldiers arrived at the police station in Afghanistan’s Zabol province in February 2010. They inspected the body parts.

God knows I can’t imagine what it’s like to be on such a mission, to deal with the gruesome aftermath of a heinous act.  I know someone has to do such things, I’m just glad it’s not me. It’s one of the many modern parts of warfare, logging iris scans of the dead.

After the paratroopers did their work, something happened.  Some deep vortex opened amongst this forensic team.  They decided it would be fun – how else can I put it? – to desecrate the suicide bomber’s corpse.  They posed for photos next to Afghan police, grinning, I might add while some held – and others squatted beside – the corpse’s severed legs.  They next took the upper torso and posed with it, too.

Twelve of the pictures from that day were sent to the LA Times, where 2 of them were published.  I saw the photos, and they are horrible on several different levels.  Morally and legally and professionally they are despicable. 

These two photos are actually the most graphic anti-war statements I’ve seen in a long time.  They depict what war and hatred do to people, who are not otherwise sociopathic or psychopathic.  The photos depict what happens when the ‘Other’, the enemy, is no longer determined as human at all, but rather as an object. 

War and hatred dehumanize us, make us susceptible to our basest instincts.  It can make people mad with power, can twist and distort their ethics.  The poison that ran through the souls of those paratroopers smiling beside a pair of severed legs is a derivative of the same poison that moved a suicide bomber to kill innocent people.

The great Jewish ethics battle is essentially acknowledging the battle between the yetzer tov and the yetzer ha-ra: the impulse for good and the impulse for evil.  As opposed to many forms of Christian ethics, Jewish ethics doesn’t posit evil to be some independent force that’s outside of us, seeking to break in. The yetzer tov and the yetzer ha-ra are both occupants deep inside of us.  We don’t seek to remove the yetzer ha-ra; we can’t remove it.  We seek to master it by appealing to the yetzer tov and subduing our evil impulse.  The struggle between the yetzer tov and the yetzer ha-ra is a daily one.  We cannot be perfect; we strive only to be strong enough to let the inner mensch win out.

It all begins in acknowledging the sacredness of life itself, the notion that every man, woman, and child is endowed with the divine spark.  It is all based on the remarkably trite and true Jewish teaching that we are all God’s children, that when we look at another human being we are not looking at an ‘Other’; we are looking at an extension of our selves.  How we treat the dead, particularly if they are our enemy, is a true moral test.  It is an indication as to the integrity of our yetzer tov.

Those 2 photos are a lasting reminder of how war and prolonged hatred can strengthen the yetzer ha-ra.  They are a sad testimony as to what violence does to the yetzer tov.  Because there is no ‘Other’.  It’s all us.