Parashat Yitro 5784

Here we are. Standing at the foot of the shaking, smoking, mountain. A shofar is blaring. There is lightning, thunder. A voice. We stand aback in shock, begging Moshe not to make us speak to Hashem face to face lest we perish. This is our “receiving” of the Torah. I put receiving in quotes because, the Rabbis of the Talmud, as well as myself and maybe you all, pick up on the fact that, even though the Israelites later say שהֶׂ֥ עֲַנ עֽמָשְׁ ִונְ , nothing about this scene creates the conditions for the full bodied yes we would hope to feel when making a life and tribe-altering decision. Nothing about this scene feels, for lack of a better word, consensual. To risk being sacreligious, in some ways it feels like a big scary male God telling us what to do, with as many theatrics as He could muster. The rabbis of the Talmud draw an even more theatrical picture, via Midrash: 

“and they stood at the lowermost part of the mount” (Exodus 19:17). Rabbi Avdimi bar Ḥama bar Ḥasa said: this verse teaches that the Holy One, Blessed be G!d, overturned the mountain above them like a tub, and said to them: If you accept the Torah, excellent, and if not, there will be your burial. 

I picked up (what I thought was) a completely non-Jewishly related book at the library recently called Reclaiming Body Trust: a Path to Healing and Liberation, and was shocked to read the following in the first chapter, “The Hebrew language has two words for fear: pachad and yirah. Pachad is the fear we experience when there is a threat of danger (fight, flight, freeze). Yirah is the fear we have when we are about to take up more space than we are comfortable with.” It’s curious to me, with this interpretation of these two words, that the word repeated over and over again in our Parsha is not pachad but yirah. The Rabbis of the Talmud are definitely painting a picture of Pachad. They are saying that no–this was not a consensual experience. It was forced on us, and we only accepted the Torah because we feared for our lives. As we see in the Midrash, this creates a halachic problem,

Rav Aḥa bar Ya’akov said: From here there is a substantial caveat to the obligation to fulfill the Torah. The Jewish people can claim that they were coerced into accepting the Torah, and it is therefore not binding. 

Part of why I love the Talmud is that it is so chutzpadik, as illustrated by our Midrash which is laying out a claim we have against Hashem. We don’t have to keep the Torah, it’s saying, because it was forced on us, and if something is forced on us–it’s not binding. This is a religion where consent is central. It continues: 

Rava said: Even so, they again/later accepted it willingly in the time of Ahasuerus, as it is written: “The Jews ordained, and took upon them, and upon their seed, and upon all such as joined themselves unto them” (Esther 9:27), and he taught: The Jews ordained what they had already taken upon themselves through coercion at Sinai. 

I find it fascinating that with this Midrash, the Rabbis create a completely different narrative than the one we have known our whole lives. The Torah wasn’t accepted on Mt. Sinai–that was coercive. It was accepted at the time of Achashverosh, a time when we were pretty much completely assimilated, and in a story which doesn’t mention God by name even once. It’s completely our story, which is what made the full-bodied yes accessible to us. 

Through this Midrash, the rabbis rebalance the relationship between us and the Divine, healing the relationship and making it one of mutuality rather than force. 

All of this makes me think of my dear friend Ditty, zichrona l’vracha, who grew up Haredi in London, was coerced to marry a man even though she knew her whole life that she was a lesbian. A secret relationship with her love Emily, also Haredi, married, and closeted, got her through years of an abusive marriage. I met her here in Brooklyn in 2009 when she was still married. I saw her through her divorce, custody battle (which she won), cancer diagnoses, and eventual death. The last time I saw her, we were right here at Ginger’s in Park Slope, she shared how wonderful it felt to be free–to be out as gay, to be out of the religious world. And, she also shared her bitterness, saying how badly she wanted to “eat a bacon cheeseburger on Yom Kippur at the Kotel.” 

As funny as Ditty was, the pain underneath her words was palpable. So much of her life was a result of coercion, her own agency was like a long lost cousin that she was introduced to much later in life. 

Let us keep in mind that the Israelites stood at the foot of Mt. Sinai only seven weeks after the Exodus from Egypt. Only seven weeks into their lives as free people, having never had true agency until this moment. While we can criticize God for forcing the Torah on them, we can also acknowledge the state the Israelites were in– unable to make their own decisions, so unfamiliar with freedom. 

With Adar on its way, and the commemoration of, as our Midrash says, the true receiving of the Torah on Purim, how can we reclaim our agency? In a world that feels more and more overwhelming, disheartening and disempowering, may we be blessed to give a full-bodied yes to the things we can, and continue to fight for the agency and freedom of others. 

Shabbat Shalom

Parshat Mishpatim 5785

I started reading a book about healing trauma, uniquely titled “Healing Trauma,” by Peter Levine. In this surprisingly short manual on healing, he gives twelve exercises for getting back into our bodies again after a troubling experience. “Love sweeps us off our feet,” he says, “but trauma pulls our legs out from under us.” Feeling safety in our bodies and grounded on the earth, he says, are the keys that open up our body’s innate ability to heal from distress. 

The first exercise he outlines is shockingly simple and powerful. With your right hand, begin tapping your left hand, feeling the contact between your two hands and the sensations of the tapping. “This is my hand,” you say out loud, “it is connected to my body. My body belongs to me.” You continue this with your entire body, claiming the skin barrier that separates you from others and the world. The next level is squeezing each muscle, claiming the next layer of your body as yours. In this way, with each layer, a person is claiming their autonomy, claiming the incredible power and resources they have within their body, that we all have within our bodies. 

In the Mishna, Masechet Yoma, there is a discussion about a sick person eating on Yom Kippur. The rabbis say, “With regard to a holeh (sick person) [on Yom Kippur], they feed him according to experts. If there are not experts present, they feed him according to himself, until he says ‘enough’”. (Mishnah Yoma 8:5)” 

In the Gemara, the rabbis go on to dissect what/who is an expert? And is it really true that if a sick person feels they need to eat on Yom Kippur they need to wait for a group of experts to approve? The stamma brings a verse from Proverbs that repeats like a mantra throughout the sugya, “lev yodea marat nafsho, “the heart alone knows its own bitterness” (Proverbs 14:10) 

In short, the Gemara concludes, the sick person is the expert on their body, they do not need doctors or other professionals to give them permission to listen to their heart/body. 

On this Reproductive Rights Shabbat, as we read the case our parsha brings about two people ghting, one of them pushing a pregnant woman, resulting in a miscarriage. The one responsible is fined but it is not treated as murder. Leading to the conclusion that the Torah thinks fetal life doesn’t equate full personhood, supporting reproductive rights. 

Connecting this back to our other text in the Mishna, we are in a time in history in our country where the “experts” do not have our best interests in mind, especially when it comes to women and trans people. So, this lev yodea marat nafsho, this body awareness, and knowing of our own hearts and bodies and souls is more important than ever. Trusting one another, trusting women and trans people to know the inner workings of their own minds and bodies, trusting them and us to make our own decisions with our bodies, should be so obvious and yet– as we can see all too clearly- is not. 

As I did the tapping exercise on my hand, saying “this is my hand, it is connected to my body, my body belongs to me,” I couldn’t help but think of the Bibas family. These were our beautiful red headed children and mother, they belonged to us– they belonged to Israel and to the Jewish people’s body. Just as they belonged to us and they are no longer here, like a phantom limb we can still feel them, can still feel our longing for them to come home safe and whole and alive. 

May their memories be for a blessing, may we know that our endless longing for them and prayers for them have not been for nothing. May we trust that they were felt and received. 

And on this reproductive rights shabbat, may we lift up and trust not only women– but ourselves, knowing that we have the innate wisdom and ability to heal from the traumas of the past 500+ days, and anything else that we have had to endure.

Rosh Hashana Day Two 5784

Ever since my early 20s, I have had this recurring dream. The dream opens with me on an airplane, sitting in my seat, seatbelt fastened, when suddenly I realize that I have absolutely no idea where we are headed. Usually, as we are taking off, the wheels just lifting from the runway, I learn our destination. 

It doesn’t take a Jungian dream analyst to understand what this dream is about, and it is no mistake that it arises in times of elevated uncertainty and fear of losing control. One small detail is that nine times out of ten, as we are lifting off into the air, I learn that we are headed to… the Philippines. That is where a dream analyst could come in handy. 

Fear of the unknown is core to our psyche, it’s natural and normal. And yet, when we zoom just an inch out of our predictable, scheduled lives, we see just how much of the unknown we face each day, even each moment. We have a famous and often misunderstood song about facing the unknown, also known as a narrow bridge, the words adapted from a teaching by the Hasidic master Rebbe Nachman of Breslov: Kol haOlam Kulo, gesher tzar me’od. The translation of the song being: the entire world is a very narrow bridge, and the ikar, the main thing, is to not be afraid at all. However, what Rebbe Nachman actually taught is slightly but powerfully dierent: 

, ְוַדע, ֶש ָהאָָדם ָצ ִרי ַל ֲעבֹר ַעל ֶג שׁר ַצר ְמאֹד ְמאֹד 

And know, that a human being needs to cross a very, very narrow bridge

ְו ַהְּכ ָלל ְו ָה ִעָּקר ֶׁשא יִ ְתַּפ ֵחד ְּכ ָלל 

And what is essential is that this person should not be consumed by fear completely. 

I like to read Rebbe Nachman, who was no stranger to fear, depression and despair, as a fellow traveler on the path, not an expert. As someone who knew the fear of this narrow bridge, the fear of the precarious unknown that, as he says, is a necessity in our lives, it would be hypocritical for him to demand that we banish our fear all together. The hitpa’el form of the word חדֵפַּ changes the meaning from the active, “do not be afraid” to the passive, “do not be consumed by fear.” A small but notable distinction that illuminates what Rebbe Nachman is actually teaching us–that the true bravery is in making room for the fear, but not letting it completely consume us. 

A few months ago, I was asked to walk on what felt like a very narrow bridge, the hallway to the operating room. In my many months of mentally rehearsing a play by play of what would be my first ever surgery, I had missed this small but powerful detail–that I was going to have to walk myself to the operating room, lay myself down on the operating table, fully surrendering to the hands of the doctors and nurses around me. When I shared my surprise with the surgeon, having imagined I would be wheeled in like they do in the movies, she shared stories of previous patients who had walked in, taken one look at the table, turned around and walked out. Not wanting to be yet another hilarious story for my surgeon to tell her future patients, one step at a time, in my blue gown I walked into the operating room and laid myself on the table. 

Each one of us has taken literal or metaphorical steps like these before. Steps into something that terrified us immensely, steps into the wild unknown. 

In this year of destruction and mourning for our people and the world, each day we have been wading in the wild unknown. While this is nothing new for us– having survived the presidential election of 2016, the pandemic, 5784 demanded an extra level of mastery of the unknown, an ability to walk through seemingly unbearable darkness and uncertainty. And 5785– with an ongoing war, extremism rising, climate change becoming ever more visible, and a presidential election that is destined to impact our future, we are being asked even more so to walk headfirst into the unknown. To be masters of it.

Another word for a master of the unknown is a Shaman. I want to pause and recognize that last year I talked about compost, this year I’m talking about shamanism. While it all may seem a bit out there, I ask that you go along with me if you are able. 

The word Shaman, now wildly overused to sell different services and experiences, originates from the Tungus people of Siberia. The word literally means, “one who knows,” which seems quite ironic given that, as Matthew Wood writes, “The path of the shaman is pointed in the opposite direction from the known.” The Shaman is the knower in the unknown, or perhaps the one who knowingly walks into the unknown, specifically the unknown territory of the soul. In our tradition, this might be equivalent to the baal shem, the healer and mystic who knows the way. 

We have many examples of this archetype within our tradition, starting with Avraham who, with only a few words of instruction from the Divine, sets out on his journey away from his home, family, and everything he has known before. The rabbis of the Talmud describe in detail Avraham’s shamanic vibes, “Rabbi Elazar HaModa’i says: Avraham our forefather was so knowledgeable in astrology that all the kings of the East and the West would come early to his door due to his wisdom.” This same sugya even describes Avraham’s attire similar to our modern day stereotypical Shaman, the kind that might be wandering around Park Slope today: “Rabbi Shimon bar Yoḥai says: A precious stone hung around the neck of Avraham our forefather; any sick person who looked at it would immediately be healed.” (I think they sell these at the Tibetan shop on 7th ave). 

This past year has demanded of us a Shamanic level of bravery, and this coming year is demanding just as much if not more. Knowingly or unknowingly, your inner baal shem, your inner Shaman, has carried you through. It has helped you face unbearable news in the world, challenges in your lives, and has gotten you through this crisis, maybe not in one piece– but through nevertheless.

In this year of 5785, how can we intentionally live from this part within us– the part of us that knows the way, the part of us that knows we have everything we need to face even the hardest things, the part of us that– as R’ Nachman encourages us– can feel the fear and do it anyway, not letting fear consume us. 

I want to end with words from one of my Rebbes, Mary Oliver: 

The Kookaburras 

In every heart there is a coward and a procrastinator. 

In every heart there is a god of flowers, just waiting 

to stride out of a cloud and lift its wings. 

The kookaburras, pressed against the edge of their cage, 

asked me to open the door. 

Years later I remember how I didn't do it, 

how instead I walked away. 

They had the brown eyes of soft-hearted dogs. 

They didn't want to do anything so extraordinary, only to fly 

home to their river. 

By now I suppose the great darkness has covered them. 

As for myself, I am not yet a god of even the palest flowers. 

Nothing else has changed either. 

Someone tosses their white bones to the dung-heap. 

The sun shines on the latch of their cage. 

I lie in the dark, my heart pounding. 

On this Yom haZikaron, this day of remembrance, may we remember and claim our inner guide, the god of flowers within us, donning it with whatever magical healing stones and amulets we need to wade through the dark. May it enable us to open the cage to free ourselves and others.

And, when we are, inevitably–as our poem concludes–lying in the dark with our hearts pounding, may we know that we are so much bigger than our fear. 

Shanah Tovah.

Parashiot Behar-Bechukotai 5785

25 years ago this Shabbat, I stood up on the Bima for the first time. This may surprise some of you, but I was not particularly inspired around my parasha (Bechukotai), or motivated around my Bat Mitzvah as a whole. The Rabbi, very well meaning, tried to help me and get me excited about it, but my teenage angst and ennui triumphed over her efforts. I gave a drash that I cannot repeat here, because it was honestly kind of offensive, but the essence was that—this parasha is about blessings and curses, and sometimes things aren’t always so clear. Sometimes, I said in my drash 25 years ago, something can seem like a blessing but actually be a curse, or seem like a curse and lead to a blessing. 

Now, 25 years later with at least a little more wisdom, I can say that sometimes blessings are just blessings. The flowers blooming towards the sky, laughter with friends, really good coffee, dancing. And, sometimes, as we experienced this week with the murder of a young couple outside of the Jewish Museum in DC, curses are just curses. The ways I have seen people use this murder, fueled by hatred, to lift up their own cause, or justify oppression in either direction, is simply a distraction. If we cut away all the noise, all of the pointing fingers, the justications, the desire for revenge—we find the raw simplicity of grief and pain. 

Martin Prechtel—an indigenous writer and scholar—writes in his book The Smell of Rain on Dust, “Grief expressed out loud, whether in or out of character, unchoreographed and honest, for someone we have lost, or a country or home we have lost, is in itself the greatest praise we could ever give them. Grief is praise, because it is the natural way love honors what it misses.”

Expression of our grief, he writes, is the biggest gift we can give those we have lost. In his book, he describes in detail a grief ritual we are to do when we are wrecked by grief, when it feels like we can’t go on. “Go to the sea or a body of water,” he instructs, with a companion who is the designated non-griever. This person is to keep you company for 1-3 days as you cry, pray, tell stories about what you have loved and lost, and offer your prayers to the sea. This person makes sure you are fed, warm, and comfortable during this time. 

As you do this ritual, he writes bluntly about how to relate to the water. “The sea, the lake, the river, steam or spring is not a piece of land or waterscape; they are Holy and alive and listening.” He writes, “Get that firm inside of you, so you don’t come and go as if the natural world was just a dead inanimate prop for your therapy. That’s no different than mining. Yuck.” 

Our parasha similarly speaks of a land that is alive, listening, desiring and deserving of rest. It speaks of Shmita—release and letting go that we are commanded to do every seven years, as well as the Yovel—Jubilee—year. In a sense, our parasha is full of the reminders that we are guests here, and we need to treat our home with deep care and reverence. Our Parasha speaks of a land that is Holy, and one that will lash out if not treated properly, leading to devastation and exile. 

Meor Eynayim writes on the first pasuk of our parasha, which instructs the Israelites to observe Shmita, “Here God promises Israel that when they come to the land of Israel their hearts will be at peace. ‘Land’ teaches of the heart. This is ‘let the land rest,’ that their hearts shall be at peace.” The Meor Eynayim—even writing from the diaspora—is touching on the innate connection between land and heart. That when the land is at peace, our hearts are at peace.

When the land is not at peace, as it has not been for almost 600 days, our hearts cannot be fully at peace. And yet, we still have Shabbat, a microcosm of Shmita. A dedicated day each week to release—or intend to release. A day to reach for peace, abundance, and wholeness. 

Today I approach the Bima with less ennui and teenage angst, but instead with the truth that blessings are blessings and curses are sometimes simply curses. Our ability to grieve the loss of the blessings—and grieve them together—is the biggest gift of praise, the most profound demonstration of our love. 

May we be blessed with land and hearts that are at peace—and when they are not at peace, may we be blessed with the ability to grieve fully and deeply, turning our pain into the most beautiful gift of praise for the thing, person, people, land we have loved so deeply. 

Shabbat Shalom.

Rosh Hashanah 5784

Feeding the Worms 

by Danusha Laméris 

Ever since I found out that earthworms have taste buds 

all over the delicate pink strings of their bodies, 

I pause dropping apple peels into the compost bin, imagine 

the dark, writhing ecstasy, the sweetness of apples 

permeating their pores. I offer beets and parsley, 

avocado, and melon, the feathery tops of carrots. 

I’d always thought theirs a menial life, eyeless and hidden, 

almost vulgar—though now, it seems, they bear a pleasure 

so sublime, so decadent, I want to contribute however I can, 

forgetting, a moment, my place on the menu. 

I figured, if there's a place that would appreciate a poem about the beautiful symbiosis of compost, it’s here in Park Slope. This poem embodies the duality of this Holy day. It is Yom Harat Olam, the birthday of the world. Really, the day that human beings were created to perceive, take part in, protect, enjoy, and relish in this place we call home. The first day of creation, according to our tradition, was on the 25th of Elul, six days ago. What we call the birthday of the world–this day of Rosh Hashanah–is the day that we were created. It’s the day that our relationship with this planet began, our anniversary with the earthworms, trees and plants, the sun, moon and stars. It’s our Interdependence Day. 

The Gemara, in Sanhedrin 38a asks, “Why was humankind created on the 6th day?” So late in the week, so close to Shabbat. There are four answers given: The rst, so that heretics wouldn’t be able to say that the Holy One had a (human) partner in the act of creation. The second answer, so that if a person becomes haughty, they can know that even the mosquito preceded them in the acts of creation. The third answer, so that the human being enters into the mitzvah of keeping Shabbos immediately. The fourth answer, in order that the human being enter into a (Shabbat) feast immediately, as the whole world was prepared for them. 

Our own Rabbi Carie Carter taught, usually when the Rabbis have many reasons for something, it means that they don’t really know. This is a good thing. It’s a very Jewish thing. It leaves us room to bring ourselves into the dance of questioning, noticing which reasons resonate and which repel us. We could spend at least an hour unpacking each of the Gemara’s speculations, but the one that jumps at me is the second–so that if a person becomes haughty, they can know that even the mosquito preceded them. In other words, in order to remind us that we are dependent on every single living thing. That, just as the trees inhale our carbon dioxide and exhale our oxygen, in a beautiful, alive, symbiotic relationship, thus is the case with all life. Which today, Yom Harat Olam, celebrates. 

Another question leaves the Rabbis puzzled. (Shocking, I know) Throughout the centuries, they have asked why the Torah begins with the birth of the world and not with the rst Mitzvah, which was the birth of the Jewish people. Another teacher of mine who I am privileged to be with today, my mentor Rabbi Victor Reinstein, introduced me to the Netivot Shalom–the Slonimer Rebbe–who died in the year 2000 in Jerusalem. 

On this question, in the very opening of his book, the Slonimer answers with a quote from Tehilim: 

ּ֣כַֹח ַ֭מֲע ָׂשיו ִה ִּ֣גיד ְל ַעּ֑מֹו ָלֵ֥תת֝ ָל ֶ֗הם נֲַחַ֥לת ּגֹו ִיֽם׃ 

God revealed to God’s people God’s powerful works, in giving them the heritage of nations. 

The Slonimer explains that the creation of the world needed to be first in the Torah in order for us to know deeply that the earth belongs to Hashem. That nobody can truly own it. That if anything, the earth owns us. We are forever in relationship with her seasons, cycles, foods, and even her bursts of anger as are manifested through climate change.

In perhaps my favorite book about interdependence, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, she writes, “Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.” This day celebrates our relationship with the world, and our dependence on her. 

In the same breath, this day of celebrating our interdependence, Yom Harat Olam, is also Yom haDin, the day of Judgement, the day that we examine our actions and our fragility, a day where we begin to remember, for a moment, as our poem says, “our place on the menu”. 

I sometimes struggle with a fear of flying. Though it’s gotten much better over the years, something just doesn’t feel quite right to me about being 35,000 feet in the air, hurled across the globe in a metal tube. It highlights my fragility and vulnerability in a way that forces me to confront my biggest fears. Recently, before a flight that I was feeling particularly nervous about, I called my friend Leeza. We all need a friend who just says it like it is, who doesn’t always coddle us or indulge our fears. “But, Leeza,” I said, “what if I die on the plane?” “Well,” she said, “then you’ll be dead. I don’t think you’ll care.” We laughed together, knowing how right she was, how vulnerable we are, and how little control we actually have over our future. To hold both Yom Harat Olam and Yom haDin on this day, is to celebrate our humanness, our vulnerability, and our dependence on one another. 

To speak of interdependence is, in a way, to speak of its not so distant cousin, codependence. I think of codependence like the vine that attaches to the tree, draining its life slowly. Codependence, in human relationships, is when one or both parties give up their needs on behalf of the other. The unfortunate result is that one or both people feel as if they have no self, no worth, no confidence, no roots without the other person. Perhaps I am not alone in this sanctuary in knowing the experience of codependence deeply. When a vine wraps itself around a tree, it’s not doing so maliciously, even if the end result is the tree ceding her strength and power, her essence, herself, to the vine. 

I smiled when I read recently that there are certain plants that need fire to sprout. Among them are bockbrush and manzanita, found on the west coast and in Mexico. They carry seeds that are encapsulated by a hard shell. Only the heat of fire can break them open so they can sprout new life. This has been true in my life, and perhaps I’m not alone with that as well. Sometimes, in order to burst forth into the next chapter, a metaphorical fire is needed to loosen the hard shell around us. 

The more I’ve studied the Torah of nature, the more I have learned that birth and death are not two distinct concepts, but a continuous and interdependent process. Like this day, with its seemingly different themes models for us, the cycles of life and death, while seemingly binary, are completely intertwined. In this way, I feel less alone, a part of a bigger cycle in which death, decomposition, and rebirth are woven together. 

In my short time at PSJC, getting coffee at various coffee shops around town, I have been struck by the amount of people who have described their relationships here as “chosen family.” A beautiful web of interdependence is palpable here. In the davvening, in the shmoozing at kiddush, in the way I have seen people show up for simchas and shivas alike, knowing that like a permaculture garden, we support one another to grow, heal, and flourish. 

My role here is Associate Rabbi of PSJC. Associate coming from the Latin ad, meaning “to” and socius, meaning “sharing, allied.” I’m thinking of my role as being in an allied partnership, an interdependent relationship, with Rabbi Carie, the staff at PSJC, and the community as a whole. I feel deeply grateful to get to partner in this beautifully connected, deep, diverse, and garden of souls. 

May we be blessed to be written and sealed in the book of Life, the book of presence to the miracles of this life. May we be blessed to be written in the book of interdependence, deep and supportive relationship to one another, the earth, and the Divine. May we be blessed with the strength and vulnerability to hold and celebrate our humanness, our fragility, and our resilience. Shanah Tovah.

Parshat Korach 5785

There is a new trend on Tiktok that is very wholesome, and perhaps less of a trend than a very niche type of video that only certain types of people see on their algorithm. The trend is people talking to trees and, shockingly, the trees responding in pretty unbelievable ways. It started with this woman Asia Noel, who started talking to the tree in her backyard in 2022, telling it that it was beautiful, saying thank you to it, etc. Eventually, she started finding ways to test if the tree was listening back to her. “If you’re listening, touch my left shoulder,” she would say sweetly, and without much of a breeze and without Asia moving her body, within less than a minute a branch would bend and bow sometimes an entire foot to touch exactly the spot she had pointed to on her left shoulder. This kept going, and she (with permission from the Tree) started recording herself, showing that indeed nobody was nearby manipulating the branch and the wind was nearly nonexistent. “If you’re listening, touch my nose” and on and on.

These videos started a movement of people trying this at home, speaking to their trees and being shocked when the tree responded. There have been scientific studies that talking to plants helps them grow, whether it be because of the loving content or the the sound vibrations and carbon dioxide, side by side comparisons of plants who have been spoken to vs. not showed measurable differences.

This week’s Parsha, Korach, is full of examples of a living earth that is listening. Most notably, when the Earth opens its mouth to swallow Korach and his mutiny who were protesting the lack of egalitarianism in the Priesthood. We could call this opening of the Earth simply an act of God, like any of the plagues in Egypt–but we would still need to admit that sometimes–if not often–God works Godself through the Earth, speaks to us through the Earth, and is perhaps listening to us through the Earth.

Another word for this is animism, the idea that there is a spiritual essence in all of nature, and that each thing– a rock or a tree included–has a spirit or a soul. The parallel in our tradition might be the Kabbalistic idea that everything has a holy spark that needs to be redeemed, and therefore it is our job to see the divinity in each thing.

In a time that– through our little and big screens, AI, and the ever increasing multitude of distractions, including the overwhelming chaos in the world–is trying to pull us up and away from the Earth more and more, what would it mean, and how might it help us, to connect to God through the earth, the listening, breathing, divine earth that we call our home? How might it be a resistance to the forces that are wanting to move us upwards–towards the intellectual, towards the ethereal, towards the virtual reality instead of reality?

On this Pride Shabbat, when thinking about animism, I couldn’t help thinking about indigenous cultures and the roles that LGBTQ+ people have played. In many cultures that are more connected to the earth, not only are there many ancient and varied terms for LGBTQ people (like two-spirit), but they were and are often revered and believed to hold a special spiritual role in the community. Perhaps when you are deeply connected to the earth, just as you would never tell a flower or a fruit that it needed to be a different way, it might not occur to you that there would be a correct way for a human to be. Each thing– flower, petal, fruit, blade of grass– is divinely created, and it would be quite arrogant for us to say that Divine made a mistake.

We have another example of God working through the Earth in this Parsha when, in order to reiterate God’s choice of Aaron to serve in the Sanctuary as the representative of the Jewish nation, G‐d instructed Moses:

“Take . . . a staff from each of [the tribes’] leaders . . . and write each one’s name on his staff. Write the name of Aaron on the staff of Levi . . . and the man whom I shall choose, his staff will blossom . . .”

Moses placed each staff before G‐d in the Sanctuary. On the next day . . . behold, the sta

of Aaron was blossoming: it brought forth blossoms, produced fruit and bore ripe almonds.

(Numbers 17:16–24)

What would it mean to live as if we were intrinsically connected to a living, breathing, speaking and listening earth? Even without the mouth of the earth opening up and almond blossoms sprouting out of nowhere, we can still listen to what God is communicating to us through the earth, such as with this week’s historic heat wave, wildfires becoming ever too common, and the list goes on. As the world tries to pull us into the virtual and the unreal, may we have the strength to not only stay tethered to this Earth, but to find the Divine there, and to listen. And on this Pride Shabbat, may we use that rootedness to uproot any shame within us about our own differences–whether part of the LGBTQ community or not–and may we know that we are all perfectly imperfect divinely created adornments to this already sacred and beautiful world.

Shabbat Shalom

Parshat Balak 5785

My Senior Rabbi, Carie and I have very different Dvar Torah writing processes, and hearing about mine stresses her out. I write mine, 90% of the time, on Friday mornings. This is not because I am a slacker, or because I don’t take the task seriously. Quite the contrary. This used to cause me incredible tzuris week after week during my internships in Rabbinical school. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I would be anxiously pacing in front of my computer, several holy books open on the table, with absolutely nothing to say about the coming Shabbat’s parsha. But, on Friday morning, after spending days wringing my hands, it would flow effortlessly, and I would have to discard multiple documents that I had started, the final product titled, for example, “Copy of Balak Dvar Torah 4.” 

In my experience, there is a tangible wall blocking my creative juices from flowing until there is enough time pressure to force them to flow. I felt comforted when I learned in Pirkei Avot that God, too, works best under pressure:

עֲשָׂרָה דְבָרִים נִבְרְאוּ בְּעֶרֶב שַׁבָּת בֵּין הַשְּׁמָשׁוֹת, וְאֵלּוּ הֵן

Ten things were created on the eve of the Sabbath at twilight, and these are they: [1] the mouth of the earth, [2] the mouth of the well, [3] the mouth of the donkey, [4] the rainbow, [5] the manna, [6] the staff [of Moses], [7] the shamir, [8] the letters, [9] the writing, [10] and the tablets. And some say: also the demons, the grave of Moses, and the ram of Abraham, our father. And some say: and also tongs, made with tongs.

Right before Shabbat, just as many of us do, God is rushing around to create some pretty wild things–some of God’s best work. We could talk for hours about why each of these things belong or don’t belong on this list, but what is it about twilight that created the right conditions for God to create these particular things, and specific to our parsha this week–the third item: the mouth of Bilaam’s donkey?

Balak, the king of Moav, hears that the Israelites are coming and is terrified. In an effort to protect himself and his people, he summons one of the chief Diviners, Balaam, to put a curse on the people. Before he is to set off on his journey to curse the Israelites, Balaam receives a direct message from the Divine, who tells him:

לֹ֤א תָאֹר֙ אֶת־הָעָ֔ם כִּ֥י בָר֖וּךְ הֽוּא׃ 

You must not curse that people, for they are blessed. 

Balak, presumably enraged, forces Balaam to go on this mission to curse the Israelites. He saddled his donkey–the famous donkey from Pirkei Avot–and went on his way. The donkey, first swerving out of the way of an angel blocking the path, then laying down in the middle of the road, is beaten by Balaam. She cries out, “What have I done to you that you have beaten me these three times?”

What is it about twilight that made for the right conditions for the mouth of this magical, God fearing donkey to come into existence? Twilight, in Hebrew, is beyn hashmashot, between the suns, the in between day and night time that embodies liminality.

When walking recently in the park at twilight, I saw something else–like the mouth of our talking donkey– that only emerges during this magical in between time of day-night: fireflies. In the tall grasses of the park and in the tunnels up by Grand Army, you can see them lighting up almost rhythmically by the dozens. Why only at twilight? Any earlier, and the mates they are trying to attract won't see them. Any later, and predators will see them. This magical in-between time allows for the safest conditions for them to shine their light.

One of the terms for our people is Hebrews, or Ivrim. Literally, this means the people who pass over, who wander, who move through. It is connected to the word Erev, evening, among many others. We are a twilight people. As Jewish people, we know liminality and wandering like the back of our hand, as well as the power and beauty of the in between, the magic that can only be birthed in the twilight. It is one of our primary and primal strengths as a people, so much so that it actually gives us a name.  Like fireflies, liminality provides the right conditions for us to shine our light. 

This week, as we enter a time in the calendar known as beyn hametzarim, between the narrows, may we remember our people’s comfort with navigating the in betweens. We learn that this time of contraction allows for the birth of Messianic times. In that vein, may the pressure of the narrowness be the right conditions to birth something unexpected, beautiful and real in our world. Perhaps something as small as a Dvar Torah or large as a speaking, God fearing donkey, but likely something in between. 

And, in a time in our country and the world where people are  getting more and more polarized, how might we use this ancient ancestral skill of ours to shine our light in the world, guiding  others who are  less versed in the in-between twilight times, helping them to not be afraid of the unknown, to face it one step at a time.

Shabbat Shalom.

Vayeitze 5782: We're Gonna Be Okay

About three years ago, during Pesach of 2019, Lizzie and I came to Ithaca. Not to live quite yet, but to look for a house to call our home, our Bayit, our Base. As all of you know, but we had not yet understood, trying to find a place in April to live the following September in Collegetown is...nearly impossible. Things book out a year in Collegetown, hence the perpetual “For Rent” signs all year long on every house. 

It was a grey April day, snow still dusting the ground and the trees still bare, when we started our search. I had set up some places for us to see from craigslist and facebook marketplace. One on Dryden, the building that looks like it could be owned and inhabited by Ronald McDonald himself, bright yellow with red trim. What had been advertised as a “three bedroom apartment” was a series of small rooms, joined together by a living room that could hold maybe four people comfortably. Looking around, Lizzie and I squeezed each other's hand. A perfect place for studying, for getting through college, but not a place to host raucous Shabbos meals. It’s okay, we thought, we have a few more places to see. The day was full of ups and downs, a roller coaster of emotions. One place was gorgeous, with an acre of land and a literal jacuzzi, but it was a mile and a half from campus. Nobody would ever walk that long to come to Shabbos in the cold, Ithaca winter. Another was clearly an abandoned frat house, with 7 bedrooms and two kitchens. The filth felt like it was generations deep, as if it would be wrong somehow to clean it, like we’d upset the ghosts of past tenants. Paint was peeling off the walls, and when asked if we could repaint the walls, we were met with a hearty “no.” At this point is when we decided to go back to the drawing board. We started driving around and calling the numbers on the “For Rent” signs all around Collegetown. Most were already taken for the fall, and in the midst of a moment of despair, we drove down Linden Ave.

In this week’s Parsha, Jacob leaves his hometown of Be’er Sheva and goes to Haran. There, in the night, he sleeps on a stone and dreams a magical dream. Angels ascend and descend a ladder, connecting heaven and earth. G!d appears to Jacob and tells him, essentially, that everything is going to be okay. That he and his descendants will be blessed. That he is not alone. That he’s gonna make it. He wakes up, literally and figuratively, and says, “Surely haShem is present in this place, and I did not know it!” 

Back in Ithaca in April 2019, Lizzie and I drove by our future home, and while on the phone with our now landlord Ezra Cornell, we headed to Fall Creek to the bottom of Cascadilla gorge. To say I was anxious at that moment is an understatement. I was about to graduate from Rabbinical School, move to the middle of nowhere (no offense, Ithaca), and we didn’t have a place to live. I couldn’t envision things going well, much less the kinds of epic parties, shabbos meals, havdalah, talent shows, and more that would fill our space. I walked up to the base of Cascadilla Gorge, full of anxiety, and looked up. The water flowing gracefully over the stones, the way the gorge seemed to twist and turn for eternity, the way the rock walls were decorated with brightly colored moss in all different shades of green, it woke me up. Like Jacob awoke from his dream and knew, I knew. I knew that we were going to be okay. That we were going to find a home, that Hashem would take care of us and that we would get to create a joyous community for so many Jewish students here at Cornell. 

When we are in moments of darkness, like now with the increasing darkness of winter, and feel scared or anxious, may we be blessed with moments like this. It doesn’t have to be as epic as a prophetic dream and vision of the Divine. It can be as small as hearing a bird sing or seeing the leaves illuminated by the sun. It can be laughing with a friend on your way to class, or getting a good night’s sleep. May we be blessed to hear the voice of Hashem in those moments, calling to us and reminding us that we are going to be okay. 

Shabbat Shalom.

Lech Lecha 5781: Why Pray?

I want to take you all back to one lonely night in November, 2004. It was the Presidential Election and the two candidates were George Bush (for a second term) and John Kerry. I was in high school, and in the height of my ”spiritual bender” days--studying the world’s religions and their esoteric and mystical practices, in desperation to feel connected to God at all times. I wasn’t so politically involved, but I knew which candidate I wanted to win, and I believed that the world’s existence depended on that candidate winning. The night of the election, I stayed up all night praying, learning Zohar, meditating, and trying to make an impact on our metaphysical reality which I thought, in turn, would impact the election. I was a chutzpadik kid, as is evident from what I wrote in my journal the night before, when I was organizing my plan for election night. I wrote, “I believe I am a warrior for peace, and that my prayers and actions Do (capital D) indeed make a difference.”

The election didn’t go the way I had been praying, and I remember thinking that perhaps I just hadn’t prayed hard enough, believed enough. Or, maybe if there had been more people praying and believing, it would have gone in my favor. This year, this election season, I noticed my resistance to praying for a particular outcome for the election. Scarred from my experience in 2004, I think deep down, for many of us, there is a question of why pray, when the Listener may not answer, or may not demonstrate listening in the way we would hope. 

In our JLF class, Lizzie and I explored with our students quotes from multiple writers on the question, “Why do you write?” One writer, Francis Picabia, answered, “I don’t really know and I hope I never know.” Perhaps the answer to why pray, why pray anyway when things may or may not turn out the way we are hoping is this. I don’t know, and I hope I never know. Because to know would mean to end the mystery, the questioning, the wrestling that is so core to our tradition. 

In this week’s Parsha, Lech Lecha, we meet our ancestor Avram, who is told by G!d to go--lech--lecha--to yourself, for yourself, from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, And I will bless you; I will make your name great, And you shall be a blessing. The Mei Hashiloach explains that, in addition to instructing Avram to leave his native land, he was also being instructed to look within himself for the answers. He explains that the “question in itself is enough of an answer.”

So, why pray? Why lech lecha--go within ourselves? I don’t know, and I hope I never find out. But, one thing I do know, is that by continuing to pray, to pour our souls out to G!d, we experience G!d’s promise to Avram. G!d doesn’t only say “I will bless you,” G!d says “and you will be a blessing.” Our very life, our day to day existence, will be a blessing through being in relationship to G!d. Through filling our mouths with prayer, through turning our attention to what is inherently good and beautiful in the world, and continuing to long for healing, justice, freedom, and peace, we bring blessing into our lives, we remember our resilience, and--regardless of what happens in the election--nobody can take that away from us. 

Shabbat Shalom.

Noach 5781: Vandalism and Healing

Raise your hand if you ever look at social media, read the news, or think about the political moment we are in and think, “let’s just….start over.” Let’s start humanity over again. Let’s return to more intelligent ways of being, of caring for the earth, of caring for one another. What we have now isn’t working, let’s throw the world as we know it in the garbage. If you’ve had these thoughts or feelings, you and G!d have something in common. In this week’s parsha, Noach, we read, “G!d saw how great human corruption was on earth, and how every plan devised by people was nothing but evil all of the time. And G!d regretted making humans on earth, and G!d’s heart was saddened.” Just one week ago, the world was created, now it is destined to be destroyed by a grieving G!d and a flood.

Personally, I have these feelings often. And, I felt them more acutely this past week when I learned of the anti-Semitic graffiti that defaced a sign downtown. The sign, outside of a chiropractic office, reads “End White Silence” a sign made by a Jewish woman as a call for white people to wake up and speak up in the face of racial injustice. Within the word silence was written a horribly four letters: k-i-k-e. A word that my father was called regularly having grown up in suburban Minnesota in the late 40s and 50s. A word that many of our parents and grandparents were called simply for being Jews. A word that symbolizes the ignorance and hatred that still so many people feel towards our people. An unwanted reminder of the flip side of our status as chosen people, that oftentimes it feels as if we are chosen to suffer.

With our history of suffering comes an enormous amount of resilience, often in the form of humor. Lizzie, the resident comedienne at Base, likes to say that every time you see a swastika spray painted somewhere, you’ll likely see 3 or 4 trial runs next to it. First it’s just an x, then it’s an x with the things pointing the wrong way, and then finally they get it right. I thought of this joke when I saw the defacement in downtown Ithaca this week. After my initial response of horror and disgust, I thought… “but what the f#$% is skikece?”

In this week’s parsha, after the flood destroys the world around Noach and his family (and the animals), a rainbow emerges in the sky. A reminder of the covenant between us and G!d. A reminder that we will not be destroyed again. And, a reminder of the color and life that fills the world. A reminder so needed in times like these, when things feel bleak and colorless. A reminder that in truth our world, regardless of it’s defacements, is beautiful and that reality is benign. On a walk on one of my favorite trails the other day, on a bench I saw another kind of graffiti. Unlike the one downtown, this one made my heart soar and my head tilt in curiosity of who this vandal might be and if I could befriend them. It was a poem by the Puerto Rican Jewish poet and activist, Aurora Levins Morales, titled “V’ahavta.” Here’s an excerpt:

Say these words when you lie down and when you rise up,

when you go out and when you return. In times of mourning

and in times of joy. Inscribe them on your doorposts,

embroider them on your garments, tattoo them on your shoulders,

teach them to your children, your neighbors, your enemies,

recite them in your sleep, here in the cruel shadow of empire:

Another world is possible.

Thus spoke the prophet Roque Dalton:

All together they have more death than we,

but all together, we have more life than they.

There is more bloody death in their hands

than we could ever wield, unless

we lay down our souls to become them,

and then we will lose everything. So instead,

imagine winning. This is your sacred task.

This is your power. Imagine

every detail of winning, the exact smell of the summer streets

in which no one has been shot, the muscles you have never

unclenched from worry, gone soft as newborn skin,

the sparkling taste of food when we know

that no one on earth is hungry, that the beggars are fed,

that the old man under the bridge and the woman

wrapping herself in thin sheets in the back seat of a car,

and the children who suck on stones,

nest under a flock of roofs that keep multiplying their shelter.

Lean with all your being towards that day

when the poor of the world shake down a rain of good fortune

out of the heavy clouds, and justice rolls down like waters.

Defend the world in which we win as if it were your child.

It is your child.

Defend it as if it were your lover.

It is your lover.

When you inhale and when you exhale

breathe the possibility of another world

into the 37.2 trillion cells of your body

until it shines with hope.

Then imagine more.

May we be blessed to find the rainbows in our lives, the glimmering reminders that there is beauty in this world, and that another world--the world of our dreams--is possible. Shabbat Shalom