Minyan is for your sake

היום אחד וארבעים יום, שהם חמשה שבועות וששה ימים, בעמר

Today is forty-one days, which is five weeks and six days, of the omer
יסוד שביסוד
A day of foundation in a week of foundation

Practice has become my theme of this week of foundation. So on this double day of foundation, I honor the most foundational of the foundations of my Jewish practice---minyan. To do that, I once again share the words of my teacher, Rabbi Alan Lew, z"l, who gifted me with this practice.

There have been many times in these past 15+ years, for many different reasons, that I've wanted to just stop going to morning minyan. But each time, I could hear Rabbi Lew in my head, "Marilyn, you can't just give it up because you don't like it now."

Keeping up the practice is the practice. It both renews and strengthens the foundation.

Minyan is for your sake - Rabbi Alan Lew, Nov 1996

Our daily minyan is one of the great treasures of our congregation. It provides our members and people all over Northern California with a place to mourn, to observe yarzheits, or to simply turn to God in the traditional Jewish way at times in their lives when they feel an urgent need to do so. 

But the greatest beneficiaries of the minyan are the people who attend every day. Why is this so? According to the Midrash Ein Yakov, Yehudah HaNasi once asked three of his students, "Mah Hapasuk Hakolel Biyoter Batorah-- what is the most inclusive verse in all the Torah?" Ben Zoma chose the Shema -- "Hear O Israel, The Lord is our God, The Lord Alone!" Ben Azai made another obvious choice -- "Vi-a-havta li-reacha kamocha -- You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Then Ben Pazi, a much more obscure rabbi then either Ben Zoma or Ben Azai, chose a verse which was also much more obscure -- one of the laws of the Temple Sacrifice from the Book of Numbers: "You shall offer up one lamb every morning and one lamb every night."

"I agree with Ben Pazi," Yehudah HaNasi said. His students were dumbfounded. How could he prefer this apparently trivial verse to a fundamental statement of principle like the Shema, or a great ethical concept like the commandment to love one's neighbor. The reason, I think, is precisely because they were principles and concepts. The implicit message of this Midrash is that it isn't principles or concepts which really count-- rather it is what we do every day. "You shall offer up one lamb every morning and one lamb every night." If we express our faith in specific, concrete deeds, and if we do so rain or shine on a regular basis, then we are engaged religiously in a way that mere thoughts and good intentions can never engage us. 

Daily minyan is the modern version of the single lamb our ancestors offered up every morning and every evening. Praying every day we come to know the full range of human spiritual potential; from transcendant exaltation to stultifying boredom; from the frustration of not quite knowing what we're saying to the joy of being swept up in a spiritual energy larger than our own. Praying every day with others we get a very real sense of how difficult it is to join in real communion with others, and how wonderful it feels when we finally manage to do so; praying every day with others we come to explore that tenuous boundary between self and other which is always the real locus of the spiritual experience. 

The holidays are great; they lend a sense of spiritual structure to the cycle of the year. Shabbat is wonderful. Our practice of Judaism deepens precipitously when we begin to take Shabbat seriously. But daily minyan represents another quantum leap altogether. As both Ben Pazi and Yehudah HaNasi affirmed, it's what we do every day that builds a sense of Jewish spirituality into the warp and woof of our lives. And in the Jewish tradition, daily minyan is the principal medium of daily spirituality. 

This is why we have mounted a campaign to get more of you to minyan this year. Not for the minyan's sake; the minyan is doing fine, and will continue to do fine for the foreseeable future. We are mounting this campaign for your sake. We want you to get a taste of what a daily spiritual practice can do for your soul. Judaism, after all, is a religion of life, and life is what happens every day.

The Continuum of Practice

היום תשעה ושלשים יום, שהם חמשה שבועות וארבעה ימים, בעמר
Today is thirty-nine days, which is five weeks and four days, of the omer
נצח שביסוד
A day of perseverance in a week of foundation

While my Jewish practice is always evolving, koshrut continues to be the one that is most challenging. I guess it would be easier to just accept the traditional constraints, but that works for neither my practical nor spiritual life. When asked about my practice, I say, "I eat kosher." Sometimes that is just accepted; sometimes I'm asked what that means. I explain that it means I have my own way to follow the constraints of the practice as set out by the Torah and the rabbis who interpreted the laws as given there.

Once, when talking to someone about my kosher boundaries, I was asked, "So, do you get to pick and choose which 'rules' you follow?" I'd never thought about it that way, so it took me a moment to reply, "Well................yes."

The whole idea of a practice is that it is constantly moving as your perspective changes with knowledge and time and place and circumstance. It is the continual mindfulness and awareness and critical thinking is makes the practice. I learned that from my teacher, Rabbi Alan Lew.

There is no goal in my practice, there is just a continuum of thinking and action. It is a form of perseverance that serves as a foundation for my life.

The Spiritual Mirror of Baseball

היום חמשה ימים בעמר
Today is five days of the omer
הוד שבחסד
A day of humility in a week of loving kindness

One of the bonds I had with my teacher, Rabbi Alan Lew, z"l, was that we were both fervent sports fans. The Warriors were the team closest to his heart. I remember when, with the excited anticipation of a 12-year-old sports geek, he explained exactly which players where going to break out and lead the Warriors to victory. By the middle of the season, he would sheepishly admit that they were, once again, going nowhere. The next season, his excitement returned, and he explained why really, this year was going to be the year that things would be better. Of course, it wasn't.

Rabbi Lew died before the Warriors began this golden era. I think of him often when I watch the games, knowing the joy he would feel. In honor of the Warriors' start to their next championship run and the start of baseball season, I share with you an excerpt from one of Rabbi Lew sermons, given during Rosh Hashanah 5760 in September, 1999. It captures Rabbi Lew's understanding of the spiritual nature of being a true and loyal sports fan.

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I have been a baseball fan all my life. The most vivid memory I have is my first visit to Ebbets Field in 1948. My Uncle Benny, my favorite uncle who died a few years later, took me. It was the day the Dodgers clinched the pennant that year, and after the game the crowds poured out onto the street outside the Dodger dressing room and waited for their heroes to come out. In those days, athletes used to wear sport coats with white shirts -- no ties, collars spread wide open -- and as long as I live, I will never forget the sight of Gil Hodges immense Adam's apple protruding out of the open neck of his white shirt. He was a god.

Another sight I'll never forget; a short while later my father took me to my first night game, also at Ebbets Field. Coming into the park, I caught my first glimpse of that glistening green grass diamond bathed in the arclight. My heart still stops a little whenever I walk into a stadium and see that.

And, of course, in 1948, Jackie Robinson began the civil rights revolution by penetrating baseball, because both he and Branch Rickey seemed to understand that baseball was at the heart of the American psyche, and if America was going to change, it had to change here first. You know, Louis Finkelstein, the great chancellor, perhaps the greatest chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, had the same insight. He used to say, you can't be an American Rabbi unless you know baseball.

And in fact, I learned about social justice and civil rights and racial prejudice, not in school, not in synagogue, but through baseball.

Pee Wee Reese, the little colonel, died the other day. When Pee Wee Reese became the only player on the Dodgers to befriend Jackie Robinson, he also became my favorite player and he remained so until he retired.

Most of the ballplayers then were from the south. Pee Wee Reese was from the south too. Louisville, Kentucky, to be precise. But when the other players got up a petition saying they wouldn't play with Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese refused to sign. And then one afternoon in Cincinnati, when the fans were taunting Robinson mercilessly, and even some of the players were joining in, Pee Wee Reese walked over and put his arm around Jackie Robinson and stood beside him. Later, Jackie Robinson said, I never felt alone on a baseball field after that.

So When Jackie Robinson couldn't find a house to buy, I sent him a letter inviting him to come live in my neighborhood. He wrote me back. He said he was sorry that he couldn't live in my neighborhood, because he and his family had just purchased a house in Stamford, Connecticut.

Baseball mirrors life in a subtle and deeply spiritual way. It has a deep aesthetic and we pour our souls into this mythic diamond and allow our deepest aspirations and conflicts to play out there.

The pitcher gives up two singles in a row and then there is an error and the bases are loaded and gazing down on this pitcher from high up in the stands -- up in the upper deck where God sits so he can see the big picture -- gazing down on this pitcher we recognize his agony, we identify with his sense of impending doom, of endless trouble overwhelming him on all sides. Then it's over in a flash. Someone hits into a double play. הפכת מספדי למחול לי פתכת שקי ותאזרני שמחה – his mourning has turned to singing, his sackcloth and ashes to joy (Psalm 30,verse 12). And sure it had cost him a run, but it could have been worse -- much worse.

Then the next inning, your team leads off with a triple -- man on third, no outs -- infinite possibilities for success. But then they walk the bases full and as the possibilities for success increase, so does the possibility of trouble. Now you could hit into a double play. Now you could squander all this good fortune. Now your success could turn to failure.

Suddenly, the ball squirts away from the catcher. There's a thrill of fear.

And you feel all this inside your kishkes. This is happening to you. This is happening in your soul. Your soul is living out this drama.

When [Major League] Baseball went on strike some years ago, the year before the Ripken record, in fact, the cynical sports writers all said, 'This is a travesty, but the fans deserve it, because as soon as the strike is over they'll all come crawling back and fill the parks again.'

But to everyone's surprise, the fans did not come crawling back. Either they took vows to avenge the injury by not attending any games that year, or they simply lost interest -- they feigned indifference -- the surest sign of a broken heart there is.

Why were we so hurt? Because we felt we had been violated spiritually. We were invited to pour our souls and our hearts into this spiritual world, and our basic assumption in doing so is that this world would go on and on and on, like any good religious cosmos; that it would persist. And then Baseball goes and violates the cardinal rule of any religion. It stops showing up. It doesn't keep going no matter what. They didn't play the World Series the year of the strike for crying out loud. And in doing so, baseball gave us a very clear and a very ugly message; their money was more important than our souls.

We gave them our souls -- they held them in sacred trust -- and then they broke the faith. They didn't show up. They invited us to open our souls and then they failed to support them with their continuing presence. They didn't persist. They weren't there. They weren't present. They left our soul to flounder, like a fish flopping around on the counter at the fish market.

So when people say, Mark Mcguire and Sammy Sosa saved baseball last year with their successful assault on Babe Ruth's cherished record -- with their incredible shower of big, booming home runs -- I respectfully disagree. I think baseball began to be saved the year before, when Cal Ripken broke Lou Gehrig's record. This record -- his performance -- was precisely the antidote for the abomination baseball had committed. Baseball had failed to keep the faith, baseball had failed to show up, baseball had stopped. But Cal Ripken had showed up every day for 2,131 days. Cal Ripken had never failed to show up, and this achievement seemed to me to penetrate right to the marrow of the mysterious spirituality of Baseball and its power to transform us.

Simple human presence -- simply being present, simply persisting in being here -- has a tremendous spiritual power. It has the power to heal. It has the power to nurture.

The Basketballer Rebbe

היום שלשה ועשרים יום שהם שלשה שבועות ושני ימים בעמר
Today is twenty-three days--that is three weeks and two days--of the omer
גבורה שבנצח
A day of strength in a week of perseverance

On this day of strength in perseverance, with the Warriors playing amazing basketball and Steph Curry is another stratosphere, it's hard not to miss Rabbi Lew and wish he could experience the resurgence of his team in this wonderfully huge way.

Rabbi Lew was a true and loyal fan, and understood the spiritual nature contained in that pursuit. Many think of him as a baseball fan, a Giant fan--and that was true. Truth be told, he was very judgmental when it came to what he perceived to be the National League's superiority over the American League, shown in his description of my A's as "that junior league team across the bay :) "

In the years that I was Program Director of Makor Or, I met with Rabbi Lew weekly and there was a certain amount of sports talk included in our discussions. I know it was basketball had his heart. He loved the Warriors, and was active on the Warrior's fan boards--his moniker, "the basketballer rebbe." He had the positive outlook at the start of every season that only a fanboy could manage for a team that just was not good. He  It would take him until February to admit that the team wasn't going anywhere that year. Last year and this would would have been the fulfillment of his dreams.

I can't help but smile as I channel his joy.

It's not a lapse, it's an opportunity

היום שנים ועשרים יום שהם שלשה שבועות ויום אחד בעמר
Today is twenty-two days--that is three weeks and one day--of the omer
חסד שבנצח
A day of loving kindness in a week of perseverance

As we come to the end of this first day of the week of perseverance, a day of loving kindness, I am reminded one aspect of perseverance--to continue even when there is a lapse.

I didn't write a post for yesterday's omer day. Not even a place-holder, a "I don't know what to write but I can continue my practice by making a post." I simply didn't post. I counted--my "official" count is on Facebook, so anyone who is just looking here can check there. But I did not write, and that is what I have set for my omer practice.

Did I fail? Maybe--especially if I don't continue at all, which is something I have done in previous years. But I don't think of that as failure, since there is another year to pick up the practice.

Part of perseverance is taking in the lapses and folding them into the practice. They will happen. But this day of loving kindness gives me the opportunity to not just continue the practice but in some way, begin anew. 

Rabbi Lew would teach that the mind will often, if not always, wonder in meditation. Instead of seeing that as wrong, take the opportunity to take another first breath---and that first breath can be the most satisfying, and the strongest one that keeps you on the path.

Just keep stringing together those first breaths.......

Practice paves the way

היום שני ימים בעמר
Today is two days of the omer
גבורה שבחסד
A day of strength in a week of loving kindness

As part of this year's process, I've made a conscious decision to recycle some old omer posts.

The following thoughts are from 5769/2009 - a couple of years before I found the Kitchen. The years following continued to be tough on my practice--this was only the top of the downhill slide. But I didn't run away, I modified but held on to my practice, and I was able to find someplace to run towards. Now, I get to work on integrating what was to what is into what will be.
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Of the many teachings that I received from my teacher, Rabbi Alan Lew, z"l, I think those that came from seeing how he lived his life touch the deepest. Primary of those teachings is the importance of integrating spiritual practice into your life, not looking at it as something apart from your life. A large part of that integration involves commitment to the practice. It is the commitment that brings the rewards--both when the practice is "working" and when it's not.

As one who loves ritual and needs that time and space to process, I have experienced the joy that spiritual practice can bring. But it's now, when understanding what I'm doing becomes elusive, that the commitment is at it's most potent. I am forced to look at what I'm doing from different angles, different views, to find my way. It is the ultimate in processing, for while I want to run away--I cannot, I will not. For ultimately it is within the processing that I will find the guideposts I need.

First Fruits

היום אחד ששה עשר יום שהם שני שבועות ושני ימים בעמר

Today is sixteen days, which is two weeks and two days of the omer
גבורה שבתפארת
A day of strength in a week of compassion

Shavuot, the feast of the first fruits may be weeks away--4 weeks and 6 days, to be exact :) -- but yesterday I tasted my first fruits of the season--apricots, nectarines, peaches, and cherries. The nectarines and peaches have the tartness of the early season. The apricots are mostly sweet, with more consistancy coming in the weeks ahead. The cherries--sweet, tart--I don't care. I'm eating cherries again, and that makes me very happy.

One of the things I am grateful for in my Jewish practice is the awareness I have cycles in the day, the week, the month, and the year. Rabbi Lew instilled in me how the different ways knowing where I am in that time and space can bring different sets of mindfulness. Concentrating on the aspects of where I am now while being aware of the context of that present moment is a great focus for reflection. Spring is not winter; day is not night; month beginning has a different feel than month end. But as I teach in meditation--the wonder of concentrating on the present moment is that it contains all the moments that have lead to it; and it is a part of every moment that follows.

Which brings me to the joy of these first fruits. Because I eat seasonally, these are my first mouthfuls of this freshness this year. Waiting all year for these tastes, I have an appreciation for the time and energy it takes for them to reach my farmer's market. And I will take a portion of the bounty and freeze it to give me that hint of flavor through the rest of the year.

But the present moment of ripeness, while carrying both that past work and future reminder, is the peak experience. And these first fruits, like the first breath of meditation, feels--and tastes--so good.

Rabbi Lew and Jackie Robinson

היום עשרים  יום שהם שני שבועות וששה ימים בעמר

Today is twenty days, which is two weeks and six days of the omer
יסוד שבתפארת
A day of foundation in a week of compassion

A tough day for our country--for the world. Why anyone wants to make such a huge statement that means lives will be lost is totally beyond my comprehension. Maybe I'll write more about this tomorrow, maybe not. But today, to keep some normality, the topic is baseball.

It was 66 years ago today that Jackie Robinson made his debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers. All the major league players are wearing number 42 today in his honor. One of the best ways I know to pay homage to his memory is to share some words from a big fan--my teacher, Rabbi Alan Lew, z''l. Here is an excerpt from my favorite Rabbi Lew sermon, Yasher Koach,  given on Rosh Hashanah 5760/2000.

I have been a baseball fan all my life. The most vivid memory I have is my first visit to Ebbets Field in 1948. My Uncle Benny, my favorite uncle who died a few years later, took me. It was the day the Dodgers clinched the pennant that year, and after the game the crowds poured out onto the street outside the Dodger dressing room and waited for their heroes to come out. In those days, athletes used to wear sport coats with white shirts -- no ties, collars spread wide open -- and as long as I live, I will never forget the sight of Gil Hodges immense Adam's apple protruding out of the open neck of his white shirt. He was a god. 

Another sight I'll never forget; a short while later my father took me to my first night game, also at Ebbets Field. Coming into the park, I caught my first glimpse of that glistening green grass diamond bathed in the arclight. My heart still stops a little whenever I walk into a stadium and see that 

And, of course, in 1948, Jackie Robinson began the civil rights revolution by penetrating baseball, because both he and Branch Rickey seemed to understand that baseball was at the heart of the American psyche, and if America was going to change, it had to change here first. You know, Louis Finkelstein, the great chancellor, perhaps the greatest chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, had the same insight. He used to say, you can't be an American Rabbi unless you know baseball. 

And in fact, I learned about social justice and civil rights and racial prejudice, not in school, not in synagogue, but through baseball. 

Pee Wee Reese, the little colonel, died the other day. When Pee Wee Reese became the only player on the Dodgers to befriend Jackie Robinson, he also became my favorite player and he remained so until he retired. 

Most of the ballplayers then were from the south. Pee Wee Reese was from the south too. Louisville, Kentucky, to be precise. But when the other players got up a petition saying they wouldn't play with Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese refused to sign. And then one afternoon in Cincinnati, when the fans were taunting Robinson mercilessly, and even some of the players were joining in, Pee Wee Reese walked over and put his arm around Jackie Robinson and stood beside him. Later, Jackie Robinson said, I never felt alone on a baseball field after that. 

So When Jackie Robinson couldn't find a house to buy, I sent him a letter inviting him to come live in my neighborhood. He wrote me back. He said he was sorry that he couldn't live in my neighborhood, because he and his family had just purchased a house in Stamford, Connecticut. 

Baseball mirrors life in a subtle and deeply spiritual way. It has a deep aesthetic and we pour our souls into this mythic diamond and allow our deepest aspirations and conflicts to play out there. 

Zichron'hem l'vracha - the memories of both Rabbi Lew and Jackie Robinson are blessings to us today.

Not just another Shabbat

Judaism is not so much a creed as a series of concrete activities. Shabbat is a vivid spiritual experience if we make Kiddush and Havdalah and fill the space in between with traditional Shabbat activities: study, prayer, singing, dancing and festive meals. If we don’t do these things, Shabbat is just another Saturday.

                 "The Year is like a River" - September, 1996

This Shabbat is certainly not just another Saturday. This Shabbat marks four years since the passing of Rabbi Lew. I share those and other words of his, and I write these words of remembrance to honor this man whose life and teachings taught me and so many of us how the concrete activities of Jewish life can bring us the spiritual experience we seek.

One of my favorite teachings of his, one that comes up for me again and again, is his teaching from the 15th century commentator Don Isaac Abravanel in his description of the Torah, the five books of Moses, as a blueprint for a spiritual life. This teaching echoes the path of Rabbi Lew's life, as well as holding the gifts that he brought us.

Bereshit - Genesis, the stories of our tribal origins, represents the personal spiritual seeking, ending in a leave-taking. Rabbi Lew’s personal spiritual journey is well known, and we were lucky that his path led him here. For he was able to reach out and speak to the spiritual seeker in all of us.  And he was able to show us how the rich traditions of Jewish ritual can act as signposts along the way.

Shemot - Exodus, our formation as a spiritual nation, represents revelation—hearing the words and concepts that will guide our lives and form our community. Through his teachings, Rabbi Lew brought us different meanings and interpretations of those words and concepts, showing us that revelation is not a one-time event of ecstasy, but something that can enrich our daily lives.

Which brings me to Vayikra - Leviticus, the nuts and bolts of the practice. Rabbi Lew was never one to water down practice simply to make it easier to follow. Instead, he inspired us to look to the deeper meanings, opening up the rituals in ways that made us want to participate as fully as we could.

Daily minyan is the modern version of the single lamb our ancestors offered up every morning and every evening. Praying every day we come to know the full range of human spiritual potential; from transcendent exaltation to stultifying boredom; from the frustration of not quite knowing what we're saying to the joy of being swept up in a spiritual energy larger than our own. Praying every day with others we get a very real sense of how difficult it is to join in real communion with others, and how wonderful it feels when we finally manage to do so; praying every day with others we come to explore that tenuous boundary between self and other which is always the real locus of the spiritual experience.

           “The Minyan is for Your Sake” – November 1996

Bamidbar - Numbers, the forging of community as we wander for 40 years, is about bringing the practice into our lives. And that is where, I think, our debt of gratitude to Rabbi Lew is at its greatest. For he made it his mission to share with all of us his love of Judaism and the deep spiritual sense it has brought to his life. That's what made his sermons so special—he didn’t just talk about the practice, he lived it. He didn’t just teach about the benefits of meditating, he was there at 6 a.m. He didn’t just preach the importance of keeping our minyan vibrant, he participated fully. He kept looking for ways to reach us all.

As a case in point, I looked to one of my favorite sermons of his, one given Rosh Hashanah 5760, in 1999. It's a sermon that demonstrates why we will always be filled with respect and love and honor for Rabbi Lew.

He first sets a scene of a news crew filming meditation—"Apparently, this is a thing of great amazement – a bunch of Jews sitting in the room without talking; quick,  get the cameras! Let's run this on the 6 o'clock news." They also film minyan. His description of minyan focuses on the time-honored Beth Sholom tradition of saying "Yasher Koach" – loosely translated, may the force be with you -- to everyone who participates in the slightest manner. Why do we do this? Rabbi Lew said: "We are congratulating you because of all the places you could have put your energy in this world, of all the forces you could have aligned your force with, you freely chose to be here, to put your energy here, to align yourself with the three thousand year old stream of spiritual energy we call Judaism"

Later in the sermon, Rabbi Lew goes on to relate that "Yasher Koach" moment to a moment in this country that demonstrated that same spiritual achievement — that moment in 1995 when Cal Ripken, shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles, played in 2,131 straight games, breaking Lou Gherig's record. Rabbi Lew understood that this achievement of being present and showing up each day made the difference in a world that doesn't always show up as we would wish. Rabbi Lew said "simple human presence – simply being present, simply persisting in being here – has tremendous spiritual power, It has the power to heal. It has the power to nurture."

Which brings us to Devarim - Deuteronomy, Moshe's last words to the people he has guided through the desert. I never heard Rabbi Lew mention Devarim in his Abravanel teaching, so one day I asked him what part of living a spiritual life did that book represent? He answered, “Devarim is about preparing for one’s death.”

Rabbi Lew left us too soon, but in the life he led, he understood that recognizing our mortality is an integral part of living a full life. And we have many of his teachings on this, as he spoke and wrote about Yom Kippur, the day in Jewish practice when we look to the meaning of death in our life. As he wrote in This is Real and You are Completely Unprepared:

This is the only life we have, and we all will lose it. No one gets out alive, but to lose nobly is a beautiful thing. To know the core of our being is to move beyond winning and losing.

It is to enter that moment where life is deep and rich and God is present for us. We all lose, some of us nobly, and all of us with a certain amount of tragedy. But as Rabbi Zimmerman (a.k.a. Bob Dylan) reminds us, “there’s no success like failure,” and any loss that carries us closer to the core of life is no loss at all.

Zichrono L’Vracha

His memory, living on in his teachings, is a blessing

"The river of life is inexorable. It will carry us to the end no matter what we do. Our activities, Jewish or otherwise, are unlikely to effect the outcome very much at all. But they can effect the quality of  the experience very deeply – in fact, they can transform it”

Persevering through the count, Halfway there...

היום חמשה ועשרים יום לעומר שהם שלשה שבועות וארבעה ימים לעומר

Today is twenty-five days, which is three weeks and four days of the omer

נצח שבנצח

A day of perseverance in a week of perseverance

Earlier in the count I noted that it never occurred to me until this year that Yom HaZikaron - the memorial day for all those who died defending Israel's right to exist in peace - always falls on the 18th day of the omer-- a day of הי – of life. Today I noticed that today, the 25th day of the omer, the day we cross into the second half of the omer period, is a day of double perseverance.

That does seem significant, for it's about this time that keeping the count gets harder, the writing practice begins to feel a bit tedious--do I really need to keep this up every day. But yes, I do. Even as I feel the writing is not so compelling, that I have little to say, that I'm just writing for the sake of writing. But that's what practice is about -- any practice. And keeping the count and the posts reminds me of that.

I remember talking to Rabbi Lew about my meditation practice--it just wasn't working for me, and felt flat. He said that's the most important time to keep going, for when the meaning returns, it will be deeper.

And so, I continue.....

And in the vein of community being the theme of this perseverance week, I share two quotes that I have been sharing with my students these days.

A Jew cannot be a Jew on his(her) own.
A Jew needs to be part of a community
   -- Elie Wiesel 

If I am not for myself who will be for me?
If I am only for myself, what am I?
If not now, when?
    --Rabbi Hillel, Pirkei Avot 1:14

Invisible, Intangible

היום אחד עשר יום שהם שבוע אחד וארבעה יומים לעמר

Today is the eleven days, which is one week and four days, of the omer

נצח שבגבורה

A day of perseverance in a week of strength

A couple of days ago I mentioned that I teach Torah to 7th graders. We start each class with a short period of meditation. While I teach them the breath centered practice I learnt from Rabbi Lew and Norman Fisher, I will often give them something to think about while they sit quietly. Staying silent is not easy for 12-year-olds, they need help with focus, and "watching" their breathe is too hard a concept for many of them to grasp at this point in their development.

I start with the basic instructions--sit up, towards the front of the chair; plant your feet on the ground; place your open hands palm down on your thighs or on the table; again, sit up with your shoulders back. I tell them that meditation is simply about being in the present moment--not thinking about what happened in school earlier today or about that soccer game tomorrow--just be here...now. And then we breathe. Of course there's some giggling--as I said, the silence is hard for them. But each week they have a little more comfort with the practice, and a couple have come into the classroom, eagerly asking, "Are we going to meditate today?"

I end the quiet time--which is usually only a minute or so--with a poem, and then we recite the blessing for studying Torah. I try to read something that has a relationship to what we will study that evening. This week, as a prelude to our discussion about God, I read this poem by Ruth Brin, z"l, that is a favorite of mine. They seemed to feel the beauty of it--I hope you do too.

All the invisible things fill our days,

Music and love and laughter;

All the intangible things affects us,

Words and anger and prejudice.

You are invisible and intangible,

A God of moods and relationships.

Within us, you are the spirit of unity.

Beyond us, You are the guide to greatness.

We pray to You with an invisible, intangible prayer.

You answer with a flaming sunset

And the touch of a baby's cheek.

Shabbat Shalom

The First Breath

היום סמנא ימים סהם שבוע אחד ווים אחד לעמר

Today is eight days, which is one week and one day of the omer

חסד שבגבורה

A day of loving kindness in a week of strength

The start of the second week of the omer, and on a certain level, the work of this period really begins. For the first week we're involved in Pesach, when we're reminded of our journey each day as we find different ways to make matzah more palatable. Now that the holiday is over we need to rely on our own commitment to the practice with little ritual to guide us.

Once again, in this time, I often think of Rabbi Lew, z''l. As dedicated as he was to Jewish practice, he found counting the omer a daunting task. By his own admission, he often lost the count in the early going. But each year, he would start again, hopeful that this would be the year he would make it through. Inevitably, he would not, but he didn't look at it as a failure. Failure would be not to try at all. To him, the practice was to start each year and go as far as possible. Think of the feeling in the year that would get finished. It's similar to being a loyal sports fan--an analogy Rabbi Lew would certainly appreciate. Ask die hard Boston Red Sox fans or San Francisco Giants fans how they felt when their team won the World Series after so many years of drought. Their joy, I'm sure, was much sweeter than any who joined the bandwagon just in that year. I know how I felt when, in 1987, my New York (football) Giants won their first Super Bowl.

I teach meditation with the same principle in mind. You have the best intentions. You sit on the cushion, set yourself--legs grounded, chest lifted, mind focused on the breath. You breathe in, you breathe out, and before you know it---your mind has wondered off. That's fine. Just restart. That first breathe is the best one--and the one you will have when things are in a tizzy around you and you need that grounded time the most.

The Spirit is the Struggle

היום המשה ימים לעמר

Today is the five days of the omer

הוד שבחסד

A day of humility in a week of loving kindness

My memory is very vague when it comes to what I learned in my religious school at my synagogue. I can remember some teachings from my time spent in my later teens at an after school Hebrew High School, but those early formative years remain, for the most part, a blank. But there were two messages that came through loud and clear. In Judaism, there are no angels and there is no concept of life after death---period. I suspect I might have some new readers who grew up in the same environment in the same time as I did, and I would appreciate hearing if your experience mirrors mine.

When I told this to my teacher, Rabbi Alan Lew, he was incredulous. "Marilyn, angels are all over the liturgy----'Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh'" he said, quoting from the Kedushah prayer of the Amidah, a section of prayers that is a part of each of the three daily services in Jewish practice. I agree, it's hard to imagine I missed this recounting of the angels praising God, but again, I have no memory of learning anything about the prayers--or even about the Torah, where there is a description of the golden lid of the Ark--with two sculpted "cherubim."

The resurrection issue is the same. Again, it's all over the liturgy, as one of the descriptives of God is that of the one who "brings life to the dead." And in today's haftarah--Ezekiel's vision of "Dry Bones"--those bones are given flesh and receive the breath of life. But in my early years of Jewish learning, belief in life after death was considered to be in the domain of others, non-existent in Judaism.

Part of the problem here is the nature of the times. Friends who grew up within other traditions tell the same story. Any hint of spirituality was stripped from mainstream religious teachings--it seems there was a fear of anything outside the perceived norm. It seemed to many of us that appearance was more important than substance. Questioning, a core of Jewish text study, was not encouraged as much as acceptance.

I am trying to give my students as wide a range of Jewish teachings as I can, while encouraging them to see the lessons in our ancient texts that still speak to us today. I want them to find the questions that are more meaningful than the answers. I want them to know to "see" the angels in our text, to read of the One who brings life to the dead, let them grapple with the unknown. That where the spirituality resides.

It always seem to come down to the struggle. There's a reason we are called the people of Israel--the ones who wrestle with God.........

The Preparation Begins. . .

Tisha B'Av can be a profound experience. We listen to the mournful chanting of Eicha, Lamentations. We grieve for the loss of our center in the commemoration of the destruction of the Temples in ancient Jerusalem. We break down as we take in so many of the calamities that our tribe, the Jewish people, have suffered.

Rabbi Lew, z''l, saw this day of breaking down as the start of the yearly path to the Days of Awe, the High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. As the evening of the 9th of Av draws near, I share some of his teachings from his book This Is Real and You are Completely Unprepared"

"Tisha B'Av comes exactly seven weeks before Rosh Hashanah, beginning the process that culminates on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Tisha B'Av is the moment of turning, the moment when we turn away from denial and begin to face exile and alienation as they manifest themselves in our own lives -- in our alienation of estrangement from God, in our alienation from ourselves and from others. Teshuvah -- turning, repentance -- is the essential gesture of the High Holiday season. It is the gesture by which we seek to heal this alienation and to find at-one-ment: to connect with God, to reconcile with others, and to anchor ourselves in the ground of our actual circumstances, so that it is this reality that shapes our actions and not just the habitual, unconscious momentum of our lives."

"The time between Tisha B'Av and Yom Kippur, this great seven-week time of turning, is the time between the destruction of Jerusalem -- the crumbling of the walls of the Great Temple -- and our own moral and spiritual reconstruction. The year has been building itself up, and now it begins to let go -- the natural cycle of the cosmos, the rise and fall, the impermanence and the continuity, all express themselves i this turning. The walls come down and suddenly we can see, suddenly we recognize the nature of our estrangement from God, and this is the beginning of our reconciliation. We can see the image of the falling Temple -- the burning house -- that Tisha B'Av urges upon us so forcefully, precisely in this light."

"Tisha B'Av is the beginning of Teshuvah, the process of turning that we hope to complete on Yom Kippur, the process of returning to ourselves and to God. And the acknowledgment of the unresolved in our lives, as a people and as individuals, is the beginning of the sacred power the Days of Awe grant us -- to transform our lives in this moment when we feel the pull of both the waning moon and the setting sun; in this place, in this life, here and now."

To help anyone who will continue on the journey of Teshuvah, I recommend reading Rabbi Lew's book in these seven weeks. While we no longer have him with us in body, his spirit lives on in his teachings which remain as powerful as ever.

Zichrono L'vracha - His memory continues to be a blessing for us all.

Missing my teacher and his teachings

היום ששה ושלשים יום שהם חמשה שבועות ויום אכד בעמר
Today is the thirty-sixth day, making five weeks and one day of the omer
חסד שב יסוד
A day of loving kindness in a week of foundation

I'm missing Rabbi Lew these days. There are a couple of things I'd like to share with him, and one thing I'd like to ask.

It was Rabbi Lew who gave me a teaching of Jewish medieval sage, Don Isaac Abravanel, that has been formative for me. I have been doing research on Abravanel for a talk I'm giving at Netivot Shalom's after-kiddish program on May 15. I am fascinated learning how he navigated being a financier, a statesman, and a mystic all in one lifetime. The time and place he lived in--late 15th/early 16th century Portugal/Spain/Italy--leading the Jewish community that was expelled from Spain in 1492 by Ferdinand and Isabella. The book I'm reading, Don Isaac Abravanel: Statesman & Philosopher by Benzion Netanyahu is a thorough biography, but I with I could share my enthusiasm with Rabbi Lew, and I'm sure he would have some tidbits of knowledge that he could share with me.

I also would like to tell him about my teaching, and my participation in the LINK Educator Fellowship program at the Contemporary Jewish Museum. I had talked with him looking for my calling. As with his answer to finding my questions, he said that my calling will find me. I wish he was here to turn to for guidance as I walk towards what I hope will be a path found.

And I wish I could ask him how he came to be a Giants fan, as he grew up a Dodger fan. My friend Robert Rubin is one who decided to remain true to his roots, and wears his Dodger blue with pride--something not so easy in the Bay Area :) Rabbi Lew chose to change his allegiance. This was something I always meant to ask him but never got around to it. There's a story there---one I'll never know.

I will dedicate my talk on May 15 to Rabbi Lew. I will continue to spread the teachings he gave us. It's the best way I can honor his memory. But I will also always feel the loss.

Morning Queries

היום שלשים יום שהם ארבעה שבועות ושני ימים בעמר
Today is the thirtieth day, making four weeks and two days of the omer
גבורה שבהוד
A day of strength in a week of humility

My favorite section of prayer in the Shacharit - morning - service is at the beginning. Starting with the morning blessings, I then check in with my relationship with myself, with others, with God. There's a Shema, the opportunity to study a little Talmud, and a chance to pay homage to the teachers in my life. Then there's a psalm of thanks, and the section ends with mourner's kaddish, taking me from my personal prayers into support for those around me. I've been saying these prayers for ten years, yet I still feel the power of their words, as strong as the first time of realization.

In my first one-on-one meeting with Rabbi Lew at the start of my first Makor Or practice period in 2001, he asked me if I had any questions. I had none. He then asked if I had any answers. No to that as well. He told me that my questions were out there, that they would find me. I felt a bit lost, not knowing how that would happen. But like the thoughts that come up in meditation, I let it go while still keeping it in my memory. And my meditation into minyan practice continued.

By that time, I had been going to minyan for about three months and was used to going with the flow of the service, even if it was too fast for me to concentrate on the meaning of the prayers. But there were those moments when certain words and phrases would catch my mind, bringing my davening momentum to a stop as I contemplate their meaning. Soon after that meeting with Rabbi Lew, I had one of those moments. Saying the prayers right after the litany of morning blessings, these words leapt out to me, seemingly for the first time:

What are we? What are our lives? What is our loving-kindness? What is our righteousness? What is our salvation? What is our strength? What is our might? What shall we say before You . . . ?

I had found my questions--or, I should say, they found me. And they find me each morning, helping me start each day with mindfulness.

Holding on to our Memories

היום שלשה עשר יום שהם שבוע אחד
וששה ימים בעמר
Today is the thirteenth day, making one week
and six days of the omer
יסוד שבגבורה
A day of foundation in a week of strength

I emailed the "Rabbi Alan Lew on Baseball" post to my friend Roger, who has a Zen Buddhist practice and is an avid baseball fan--so I figured he would get many of the nuances of Rabbi Lew's writing. But it turned out he got a nuance that I had been unaware of, even with all the times I've read those words.

Roger liked the sermon, but remarked, "wow--he was really angry about the strike." I had never noticed any anger--to me, he was just describing the feelings of fans at that time, and was vintage Rabbi Lew. But Roger, someone who knew of Rabbi Lew but never met or studied with him, felt the heat of emotion. "Maybe it's a Jewish thing," he concluded. And you know, maybe it is.

As Jews, we have a long history and very full memories which imbue our ritual practice. We relive our past moments as a people--in Passover seders, in Purim schpiels, in reading and studying Torah each week. We relive our past moments in our lives--in taking stock each year on Yom Kippur, in remembering our loved ones on the anniversary of their passing. This rituals hold our memories--they bond us and sustain us through the years, through the centuries.

So in his sermon, Rabbi Lew was invoking that long tradition. Just as we re-enact the liberation from slavery each year, feeling the joy of freedom and the angst of the uncertainty that lies ahead, Rabbi Lew would always remember the hurt caused by the loss of trust in a game he held so dear. But it makes the healing brought by Cal Ripken's record that much more powerful. As he said:

"Cal Ripken had never failed to show up, and this achievement seemed to me to penetrate right to the marrow of the mysterious spirituality of Baseball and its power to transform us."

So thank you Roger, for showing me a nuance I'd never seen. And, of course, thanks always to Rabbi Lew, who would surely appreciate Roger's insight--one fan to another.

Spring ahead, Fall back

היום ששה ימים בעמר
Today is the sixth day of the omer
יסוד שבחסד
A day of foundation in a week of loving kindness

I was glad to be able to share Rabbi Lew's thoughts on baseball in yesterday's post. It's not just our mutual love of baseball that brings him to mind right now. One of the foundations of the practice at Makor Or was to create a spiritual path with the cycle of the Jewish ritual--daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. Rabbi Lew taught us how to take those cycles and use the stopping points along the way to check inward as we move outward in the world.

It was Rabbi Lew who taught me the connection between Pesach and Yom Kippur, positioned halfway through the year from each other. They are both times when we take stock of our lives. Pesach is liberation, looking forward to the rebirth that comes each spring. Yom Kippur is introspective, looking back as we reflect on our lives at the present moment as we face the harvest of autumn.

This year, as I begin this journey of the omer, I see the connection it has with the meditative practice of Elul. They both are a specific period of time when we take a bit of each day in reflection. With the omer, the time starts after the first bursts of celebration--we experience the liberation, then we take the steps to receive the revelations. In Elul, we start by analyzing the realizations of our present, making our teshuvah, our return to our true selves that we offer on Yom Kippur.

I will revisit this idea this coming Elul to see if I still feel this relationship with the omer. I wish I could share this with Rabbi Lew. But I am so grateful to have the benefit of his teachings that continue to guide me on my path. Zichrono L'vrachoh--his memory continues to be a blessing to me.

Rabbi Alan Lew on Baseball

היום המשה ימים בעמר
Today is the fifth day of the omer
הוד שבחסד
A day of humility in a week of loving kindness
It's damp and a bit gloomy in San Francisco today, but I can feel the sunshine that comes with the start of baseball season. There's something magical about this day because no matter what team you root for, whether at the top of the heap or a struggling franchise, everyone can dream of their team going to the World Series.
One of the bonds I had with my teacher, Rabbi Alan Lew, z"l, was that we were both fervent sports fans, although the Warriors were the only team we had in common. As far as baseball was concerned, he was a National League snob and loved to make reference to "that other, bush league team across the bay" that I rooted for. But then again, I could never understand how he could ever root for the Yankees, even during the World Series of 2001.
So on this day when hope springs eternal, I give you an excerpt from one of my favorite Rabbi Lew sermons, given during Rosh Hashanah 5760 in September, 1999. I know he would appreciate me sharing it with all of you today. And I think many of you who knew Rabbi Lew will be able to hear his voice as you read.


---------------

I have been a baseball fan all my life. The most vivid memory I have is my first visit to Ebbets Field in 1948. My Uncle Benny, my favorite uncle who died a few years later, took me. It was the day the Dodgers clinched the pennant that year, and after the game the crowds poured out onto the street outside the Dodger dressing room and waited for their heroes to come out. In those days, athletes used to wear sport coats with white shirts -- no ties, collars spread wide open -- and as long as I live, I will never forget the sight of Gil Hodges immense Adam's apple protruding out of the open neck of his white shirt. He was a god.

Another sight I'll never forget; a short while later my father took me to my first night game, also at Ebbets Field. Coming into the park, I caught my first glimpse of that glistening green grass diamond bathed in the arclight. My heart still stops a little whenever I walk into a stadium and see that.

And, of course, in 1948, Jackie Robinson began the civil rights revolution by penetrating baseball, because both he and Branch Rickey seemed to understand that baseball was at the heart of the American psyche, and if America was going to change, it had to change here first. You know, Louis Finkelstein, the great chancellor, perhaps the greatest chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, had the same insight. He used to say, you can't be an American Rabbi unless you know baseball.

And in fact, I learned about social justice and civil rights and racial prejudice, not in school, not in synagogue, but through baseball.

Pee Wee Reese, the little colonel, died the other day. When Pee Wee Reese became the only player on the Dodgers to befriend Jackie Robinson, he also became my favorite player and he remained so until he retired.

Most of the ballplayers then were from the south. Pee Wee Reese was from the south too. Louisville, Kentucky, to be precise. But when the other players got up a petition saying they wouldn't play with Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese refused to sign. And then one afternoon in Cincinnati, when the fans were taunting Robinson mercilessly, and even some of the players were joining in, Pee Wee Reese walked over and put his arm around Jackie Robinson and stood beside him. Later, Jackie Robinson said, I never felt alone on a baseball field after that.

So When Jackie Robinson couldn't find a house to buy, I sent him a letter inviting him to come live in my neighborhood. He wrote me back. He said he was sorry that he couldn't live in my neighborhood, because he and his family had just purchased a house in Stamford, Connecticut.

Baseball mirrors life in a subtle and deeply spiritual way. It has a deep aesthetic and we pour our souls into this mythic diamond and allow our deepest aspirations and conflicts to play out there.

The pitcher gives up two singles in a row and then there is an error and the bases are loaded and gazing down on this pitcher from high up in the stands -- up in the upper deck where God sits so he can see the big picture -- gazing down on this pitcher we recognize his agony, we identify with his sense of impending doom, of endless trouble overwhelming him on all sides. Then it's over in a flash. Someone hits into a double play. הפכת מספדי למחול לי פתכת שקי ותאזרני שמחה – his mourning has turned to singing, his sackcloth and ashes to joy (Psalm 30,verse 12). And sure it had cost him a run, but it could have been worse -- much worse.

Then the next inning, your team leads off with a triple -- man on third, no outs -- infinite possibilities for success. But then they walk the bases full and as the possibilities for success increase, so does the possibility of trouble. Now you could hit into a double play. Now you could squander all this good fortune. Now your success could turn to failure.

Suddenly, the ball squirts away from the catcher. There's a thrill of fear.

And you feel all this inside your kishkes. This is happening to you. This is happening in your soul. Your soul is living out this drama.

When [Major League] Baseball went on strike some years ago, the year before the Ripken record, in fact, the cynical sports writers all said, 'This is a travesty, but the fans deserve it, because as soon as the strike is over they'll all come crawling back and fill the parks again.'

But to everyone's surprise, the fans did not come crawling back. Either they took vows to avenge the injury by not attending any games that year, or they simply lost interest -- they feigned indifference -- the surest sign of a broken heart there is.

Why were we so hurt? Because we felt we had been violated spiritually. We were invited to pour our souls and our hearts into this spiritual world, and our basic assumption in doing so is that this world would go on and on and on, like any good religious cosmos; that it would persist. And then Baseball goes and violates the cardinal rule of any religion. It stops showing up. It doesn't keep going no matter what. They didn't play the World Series the year of the strike for crying out loud. And in doing so, baseball gave us a very clear and a very ugly message; their money was more important than our souls.

We gave them our souls -- they held them in sacred trust -- and then they broke the faith. They didn't show up. They invited us to open our souls and then they failed to support them with their continuing presence. They didn't persist. They weren't there. They weren't present. They left our soul to flounder, like a fish flopping around on the counter at the fish market.

So when people say, Mark Mcguire and Sammy Sosa saved baseball last year with their successful assault on Babe Ruth's cherished record -- with their incredible shower of big, booming home runs -- I respectfully disagree. I think baseball began to be saved the year before, when Cal Ripken broke Lou Geherig's record. This record -- his performance -- was precisely the antidote for the abomination baseball had committed. Baseball had failed to keep the faith, baseball had failed to show up, baseball had stopped. But Cal Ripken had showed up every day for 2,131 days. Cal Ripken had never failed to show up, and this achievement seemed to me to penetrate right to the marrow of the mysterious spirituality of Baseball and its power to transform us.

Simple human presence -- simply being present, simply persisting in being here -- has a tremendous spiritual power. It has the power to heal. It has the power to nurture.

Practice makes.....more practice

היום אחד עשר יומים שהם שבוע אחד וארבעה יומים לעמר
Today is the eleventh day of the omer - one week and four days
נצך שבגבורה
A day of endurance in a week of strength


Of the many teachings that I received from my teacher, Rabbi Alan Lew, z"l, I think those that came from seeing how he lived his life touch the deepest. Primary of those teachings is the importance of integrating spiritual practice into your life, not looking at it as something apart from your life. A large part of that integration involves commitment to the practice. It is the commitment that brings the rewards--both when the practice is "working" and when it's not.

As one who loves ritual and needs that time and space to process, I have experienced the joy that spiritual practice can bring. But it's now, when understanding what I'm doing becomes elusive, that the commitment is at it's most potent. I am forced to look at what I'm doing from different angles, different views, to find my way. It is the ultimate in processing, for while I want to run away--I cannot, I will not. For ultimately it is within the processing that I will find the guideposts I need.

And there, for me, lies today's message of endurance in strength.