Parashat Terumah 5784

We live in a big city, full of so many opportunities and experiences that it’s hard to comprehend it all. It would take us each many lifetimes to even glimpse into the worlds that this city offers. For me personally, it may take even more lifetimes, given that these days I hardly ever leave the small radius of my apartment, the Park Slope Food Coop, and Park Slope Jewish Center. 

If it weren’t for my friends dragging me to different experiences, I would hardly leave that little bubble at all. The other day, my friend Tali dragged me to a movement class on the Lower East Side whose description was so vague that it made me both scared and excited to enter. 

“Forget How to Dance,” was the title. The description was written by the teacher, and left me in deeper confusion and trepidation, “​​This class is a playful and provocative step into my recurring dance nightmare: I am put onstage with a dance company in front of hundreds of people, and everyone except me knows the choreography. We will draw from that fear and learn how to use forgetting to our advantage.”

The class started by having us simply walk around the room and notice things we see. Then, the instructor told us, name them outloud. “Clock,” “Pillar,” “Window,” was being whispered/chanted asynchronously as each of us walked by at a brisk pace. Then, things got weird in a beautiful way. “Now,” she said, “name things that they are not,” In a flash, the clock became pizza, the pillars became two fluffy cats, the windows became tables and on and on. The class continued to be an exercise in forgetting as remembering–we danced as if we had eyes on our hips, then our knees, or perhaps we had eyes under our chin and how would that change the way we moved? It opened up an entire world of untapped potential inside the body and mind. What would it be like to approach our bodies with that level of wonder and curiosity on a daily basis?

This week, in Parashat Terumah, the Israelites step into a new stage in their relationship with God by being commanded to build a home for God. The home they are asked to build--the Mishkan--is portable. In this way their sacred home can accompany them as they wander through the desert for many more years. The Netivot Shalom, also known as the Slonimer Rebbe asks, “How is this mitzvah eternal?” 

Since no less than 13 weeks of Torah portions are devoted to the details of building the Mishkan, something that we cannot literally fulfill in the present time and place, The Slonimer’s question is particularly fitting. Outside of that time and place, how can we possibly fulfill this part of the Torah in our lives?

The Slonimer answers his own question in this way, “Every person is an entire world before God, and thus we are commanded to make a Mishkan inside of us, in our bodies. This is why God says, ‘and I will dwell in them,’ meaning in each and every person.” 

It is quite appropriate, then, that the Mishkan is described in such a vibrant, gorgeous, graceful way. Like our bodies, which are made of so many textures and colors, of bones, sinews, muscles and tendons, the Mishkan was to be made of gold, silver and copper; blue, purple and red-dyed wool; flax, goat hair, animal skins, wood, olive oil, spices and gems. 

If we take a step back, our bodies–like the Mishkan– are vibrant, beautiful, and holy. Blue/red blood that flows through us, hair that grows in different textures and colors, breath that flows into us and is transformed, skin that protects us and allows us to feel, and I could go on and on.

I think we take for granted the fact that in Judaism, we praise the creator through experiencing pleasure and joy, by being in our bodies, by making home for the divine in our bodies and in the mundane, physical world. We are lucky to be a part of a people and a tradition whose goal is not to transcend the body, but to live fully and deeply within it.

How can you build a portable place for God to dwell within you, a Mishkan you can take with you as we move through various transitions in life? What might it feel like to have a sacred home within your body? Or, rather, to tap into the fact that you already do?

At the end of the movement class, the teacher told us that this class was in fact born out of a recurring nightmare of hers. She would get on stage and not know anything. But then, she said she realized she could just move in any which way and it would be beautiful. What a powerful tikkun, remedy, for this nightmare.

A participant in the class raised her hand and said, “I know this is a bit on the nose, but I realized that you really do have to forget in order to remember.” 

May we be blessed to keep remembering and coming home to our bodies, making a sacred space for the Divine within us that can take us through all of life’s wanderings. 

Shabbat Shalom

Parashat Yitro 5773

There is a midrash that teaches that there are שבעים פנים בתורה, seventy faces of the Torah. For many of us Rabbis, I think that means that we have one core piece of Torah that we can teach in seventy different ways. We may teach it in relation to different current events, or like a gem, we may turn it to see different facets of it depending on where we are in our lives, or what the community needs. For me, this core Torah is emunah. Loosely translated as faith, emunah is much richer than that–sharing a root with the words אומנות (art), אמן (artist), אֵמוּן (confidence), and (my personal favorite) לְהִתְאַמֵן to practice. Embodying emunah takes deep and committed practice throughout our lives. Like art, emunah is not about reaching toward perfection but toward expression. 

For me, my struggle with emunah often manifests in difficulty making decisions. In my work as a rabbi and teacher, I feel grateful that clarity and decision making comes easily. In my personal life however, I am not always so lucky. The act of simply buying a plane ticket for a personal trip recently sent me into a mild frenzy. Am I sure I want to go to this destination? What time is the best time to fly? How long of a trip is too long? In the end, I bought the ticket, but I paid more for it to be refundable because I didn’t quite trust my choice. At its core, this fear sounds something like,“What if I make the wrong choice?” Going even deeper, there is a fear that I won’t be able to handle the outcome if I do make the “wrong” choice. More often than not, there is no wrong or right choice to be made, because, as the word emunah points us to, life is like art. A lack of emunah is just a loss of touch with the art of life–which is often messy.

This week, the Israelites get their collective plane ticket, so to speak, and it is nonrefundable. After preparing for three days, as they approach the fiery, thunderous Mount Sinai they are swept up in an immersive and all-encompassing experience of the divine. They can see the sounds, a blending of senses called synesthesia. Freshly freed from their shackles in Egypt, they hear and see the aseret hadibrot, the ten commandments, entering into a covenant with Hashem.

The 19th Century Hasidic master the Sfat Emet explains this synesthesia, 

“All the people saw the voices.” The voice was that which said, “I am the Lord your God.” in the singular. Each one of Israel saw the root of their own life-force. With their very eyes each one saw the part of the divine soul above that lives within. They had no need to “believe” the commandments, because they saw the voices. That’s the way it is when God speaks.

When God speaks to us, it is like our own soul speaking to us. The Israelites saw their own soul-root reflected to them through the sights and sounds at Mt. Sinai. The Sfat Emet is teaching us that they didn't have to "believe" in anything outside of themselves. God was within them. So too in our own lives when we are able to trust ourselves, it is akin to trusting the divine. It's not an external leap. It's an internal affirmation of the godliness in us all.

Perhaps another way to translate emunah would be radical acceptance. Contemporary meditation and mindfulness teacher Tara Brach writes in her book titled Radical Acceptance, “We practice radical acceptance by pausing and then meeting whatever is happening inside us with [a] kind of unconditional friendliness.” Radical acceptance is embracing the messiness of life, embracing the paint that is on our hands and jeans as the artist and craftsperson of our own experience.

And yet, sometimes (or maybe always) embracing life in this way is challenging. Moses’ father-in-law Yitro reminds us, through his tough love of Moshe, that as leaders of our own lives we sometimes need help. 

Sometimes, to use Yitro’s words, 

כִּֽי־כָבֵ֤ד מִמְּךָ֙ הַדָּבָ֔ר לֹא־תוּכַ֥ל עֲשֹׂ֖הוּ לְבַדֶּֽךָ׃

“The matter is too heavy for you and you cannot do it alone.”

May we be blessed with the ability to hold and befriend our own life experiences, trusting ourselves that even if and when we make the “wrong” decision, we will be okay. May we keep practicing the art emunah, slowly learning how to play in the gray. And, when holding the messiness of life feels unbearable, may we be able to borrow some emunah from one another, Shabbat Shalom.

Parashat Bo 5785

On January 20th of this year, the strangely and eerily coinciding events of MLK day and the inauguration of Donald Trump, I–like many of us–had a choice to make. Watch and despair, or fight to stay grounded in a reality in which some things–if not all things–are good. In an effort to fill ourselves with wonder (or at least distraction), my friend Sonia and I took the Q train all the way down to the New York Aquarium. In our exhausted and despairing state, we lovingly forced ourselves and each other to marvel at the giant neon red octopus and its thousands of suction cups gripping the glass. To laugh at the sea lions playfully gliding on their backs through the water. At the furry topped sea anemones that looked like cartoons. At jellyfish that undulated through the water with such grace and ease–the opposite of how our nervous systems were feeling in that moment, an aspirational state of safety and ease. And we walked by the ocean, on the snow covered beach, listening to the waves and watching the snow blow in the wind down the shore, trying to remember that–like the snow and the wind demonstrated so beautifully–gam zeh ya'avor–this too will pass.

This week, as the Israelites are in their darkest moment before the dawn, they too are given a choice. As they are about to cross their threshold from slaves to free people, with no sense of what freedom even feels like, it would be natural for them to despair (as they do throughout their time in the desert). Hashem gives them another option, or rather command, the first Mitzvah, which is to create a calendar, observe festivals, observe Passover for generations to come. 

This month shall mark for you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you.

Before I share my take on why this is the first mitzvah, I’m curious to hear what you think—why do you think this is the first mitzvah the Israelites are given, and why do you think it’s given in this moment of liminal darkness, before they are freed from Egypt?

***

One explanation that makes sense to me is that, in this fearful place, when plagues are befalling the Egyptians all around, as they encounter not knowing whether they will live or die, G!d is reassuring them through this commandment; you will survive. Not only will you survive, you will celebrate. You will thrive. Or, perhaps even, you must celebrate, you must thrive.

Another explanation that my Aramaic Grammar teacher from Rabbinical school very much dislikes–is that the word Mitzvah is connected to the Aramaic word Tzavta–meaning connection. This isn’t technically correct, grammatically, but the Talmud itself makes the connection between the two words, even if just by sound, so I think we can trust there is some wisdom there. This mitzvah–like all mitzvahs–is meant to connect the Israelites to each other, to Hashem, and to the cycles and seasons of the earth. In this scary time, as they are about to cross an identity defining threshold, they are being offered a hand to hold in the form of a mitzvah. Here, God is saying, hold on to me, hold onto this. 

In this time of darkness and chaos for our country and our world, when many of us want to escape our reality in some way or another–our Parsha is begging us instead to root more deeply into our reality, to our seasons, to community with one another. May we be blessed to hold onto the hands–literally and metaphorically–that are available to us to hold onto right now, in this way we will make it through the darkness and the chaos, one step at a time. 

Shabbat Shalom.

Parashat Bo 5784

20 years old is a strange time to live with a Kabbalist. But there I was, a college Junior, living in the Old City with Sarah Yehudit Schneider, author of many books including the famous (in my circles) Kabbalistic Nature of Masculine and Feminine. As I was searching for a place to live  before heading to Israel for my year abroad, someone at my shul in Boulder, CO put me in contact with SY (as I now call her), who has an extra room in her airy, Jerusalem Stone apartment on Rechov Chabad in the Old City. At the same time, while I was waiting for a response to the introductory email, I went onto Craigslist (for context, this was 2007) and searched there for housing. I responded to a post for a room in the old city, not knowing that all roads led to SY.

I thought of this two weeks ago, when I was walking up the path to Zion gate to SY’s apartment, my feet on the slippery Jerusalem stone that I had thought about at least daily for the last three months. Longing to be there, to touch the land, to breathe the air, to hug the people. 

As some of you know, and I will be giving a more full debrief this coming Tuesday evening, I was there on a mission trip with other Associate Rabbis and synagogue educators. We were there to help with agriculture, see the destruction from 10/7, and to meet with people on the ground–Israeli intelligence officers, pilots, Arab-Israeli coalition groups, activist groups like Standing Together, and so much more. 

But, on the Shabbat before, I wandered up to SY’s place for Seudat Shlishit and learning, desperate for some piece of Torah that I could hold onto as I ventured into this trip.

It was a small, throwaway comment, a little Kabbalistic letter jumbling from the Tanya that carried me through my trip. The Tanya, written by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi (the founder of Chabad) says that Chochma, the word for wisdom, is made up of two words: koach and ma. Strength and What. 

True wisdom, he writes and SY shared, is the power to ask a question, the power to be in the unknown, the power to admit your not-knowing. As I embarked on my journey, I brought this Torah with me. What would it mean for me, for us, to truly admit my not knowing? In what ways could that be the wisest thing? Perhaps wisdom is the ability to stay open, to keep our hearts flexible and curious towards one another and the world.

In this week’s Parsha Bo, the last three of ten plagues befall Egypt. After the horror of the final plague, the death of the firstborn, Pharoah’s resistance has worn, and he tells the Jewish people to leave. In this liminal space before their departure, G!d instructs the Israelites in mitzvot, structured ways to connect to G!d during this scary time. Included in the mitzvot that are given is sacrificing a lamb and putting its blood on their doorposts. 

The Sfat Emet writes so beautifully: “The Exodus from Egypt was only the beginning, the time when they came out from under Pharaoh’s hand...this is hinted at in the smearing of blood on the lintel and the doorposts: so that they know this is only the beginning.” 

There is nothing that symbolizes both life and death as much as blood.

When reading of blood, it’s hard for me not to think of the blood that I saw in Sderot, still freshly stained on the pavement and the outer wall of the bomb shelter by the police station. Blood of elders who were brutally murdered there, merely three months ago, their blood still visible to our eyes, the feeling of their unjust death in the air all around us.

In some ways this blood, like all blood, and like the blood on the doorpost, symbolizes an enormous transition for our people. Similar to our parsha, we do not know where we are headed, what comes next. But, we know that we will never be the same as we were before this blood was spilled.

In times of liminality, of change, of not knowing where we are going, how can we keep our hearts wise in the way the Tanya defines wisdom, strong in our questioning, in our curiosity, in our awareness of how much we do not know? 

May we be blessed with the strength to lean into the questions, letting the place of not-knowing bring us towards greater truth, justice, and peace.

Shabbat Shalom.

Parashat Vayera 5785

On January 21st, 2016 was, at the time, the largest single day protest in the history of the United States. Between 3 and 5 million people participated in Women’s Marches across the country, filling the streets with pink hats and signs. Signs primarily with messages against misogyny, because the then newly inaugurated president flaunted and still flaunts a deep disdain for women. There was a sense that this was more than just about women, though. It was about our democracy. As Gloria Steinem spoke at the march in DC, “Our constitution does not begin with 'I, the President'. It begins with 'We, the People'. I am proud to be one of thousands who have come to Washington to make clear that we will keep working for a democracy in which we are linked as human beings, not ranked by race or gender or class or any other label.”

I showed up at the march in Boston alone yet surrounded by thousands of people of all ages. Trying to find my friends in the crowd was a lost cause, so I gave into the sense of togetherness, the sense of connection I felt with the crowd, the sense that alongside the despair I was feeling, I was not alone. I was in the midst of a truly historic moment, marching with millions across the country and even the world. 

This past Saturday, the New York Times reported that there was an attempt at a Women’s march in Washington D.C, about 200 people showed up. 

There were and are many rightful critiques of the women’s march, its mission and organizers. Some mention antisemitism, which popped up there as it does so many unexpected or unwanted places. Some mention the fact that it was mainly organized and led by white women, who suddenly realized there was a problem with this country. Similarly, some noted that there was a lack of intersectionality, the knowledge that multiple struggles were and are connected to one another–that perhaps what we as white women are experiencing now with this misogynist president is just a taste of the burden that black women and women of color have been shouldering since the violent beginning of this country. What would these marches or this movement have been like–how strong could it have been–had that been different? What might last Saturday’s protest have looked like, if the foundations of the movement had been stronger?

And yet, even with its major shortcomings, the women’s march–and the many protests that following year, at airports, borders, and more–were one positive sign of our country’s vitals. Like a stethoscope–it showed us that our heart was still beating, that we could still feel anger and channel it into peaceful protest. That despair hadn’t completely taken us.

In this week’s Parsha, three guests visit Avraham in the heat of the day to inform him that he and his wife Sarah are to have a child in their old age. Sarah, hearing this from the tent, laughs in disbelief.

וַתִּצְחַ֥ק שָׂרָ֖ה בְּקִרְבָּ֣הּ לֵאמֹ֑ר אַחֲרֵ֤י בְלֹתִי֙ הָֽיְתָה־לִּ֣י עֶדְנָ֔ה וַֽאדֹנִ֖י זָקֵֽן׃ 

And Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “Now that I’ve lost the ability, am I to have enjoyment—with my husband so old?”

Sarah laughed b’kirbah in her insides, at her core, at the idea that she could have edna–enjoyment. We might have expected the word ha’na’ah or ta’anug–both words we and the Torah more commonly use to describe pleasure. This word edna is connected to Eden, or the garden of Eden. It describes a type of joy that comes from total abundance, of having everything you need, of feeling totally and completely at home, and of having no shame whatsoever. 

With this in mind, Sarah’s laugh becomes not simply a sign that she doesn’t have enough faith in God, as she is accused of in the next verse. Rather, this laugh points to her despair and shame, how preposterous it seemed to her that she could ever again have the feeling of abundance and freedom from shame that is connected to Eden. And the fact that she laughs to herself, alone in the tent, is telling as well. Despair isolates us, it keeps us distant from other human beings, including the struggles of other human beings. We don’t need to know exactly why Sarah was feeling despair in order to relate to her experience at this moment–the ways in which we have collectively seem on the verge of being taken by despair and disbelief that anything good can happen. A loss of our collective imagination.

Israeli activist Elad Nehorai writes about this time, “So the age of anger has passed. We have now entered the age of exhaustion and, as a result, cynicism. While some have been able to sustain their anger, the vast majority are beginning to tune out.” He explains that this exhaustion, this despair and hopelessness, is exactly what this type of leader wants. That the true and ultimate weapon against fascism is our hope and our imagination. 

There will, fortunately and unfortunately, be many times in the next 4+ years where we are called to action in big and powerful ways. And I hope and know that we will be arm and arm in that as a community. In this specific time of very understandable exhaustion and cynicism, I have a seemingly simple call to action for myself and for us which is just to put down your phone and look up. Look at the sky, at babies, at flowers, look at the way the sun hits the brownstones and the shadows of the leaves waving. Allow yourself even one percent more Edna, Eden-like enjoyment per day. Allow your senses to take in the simple magic of life as much as possible, so that when it’s time for us to act–to create a world that is more like Eden–we will have a deep familiarity with it, and will then be able to create it from that place of knowing.

Writer and activist Rebecca Solnit wrote these viral words this week, "They want you to feel powerless and to surrender and to let them trample everything and you are not going to let them. You are not giving up, and neither am I. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving…Take care of yourself and remember that taking care of something else is an important part of taking care of yourself, because you are interwoven with the ten trillion things in this single garment of destiny that has been stained and torn, but is still being woven and mended and washed.”

May we know that we are not alone in our strivings towards creating a more Eden like world–a world of abundance and freedom from shame. On this Shabbat and every Shabbat, may we be able to keep our imagination alive, imagining and then creating the world we so desperately want and deserve. 

Shabbat Shalom.

Parashat Vaera 5779

During my first week in Jerusalem last year, feeling tight from the 15 hour plane ride, I decided to set out on a mission to find a yoga studio. Not knowing exactly where to start I turned on my phone, opened my google maps and simply typed in “yoga” in english into the search area. Completely to my delight and surprise, there lay a place on the map only one block from my house called “Flow Power Yoga Studio.” The next morning, I set out to see what the place was like. I approached the spot on the map, which didn’t look like a yoga studio at all, but a run-down white building with a big fence around it. 

The gate was open, and I walked in. “Shalom?” I called, as I wandered around the outside of the building, looking through the open doors to empty rooms with various knicknacks and supplies of all kinds--but nothing that would indicate “Flow Power Yoga Studio.” 

I called again, “hello?” This time, I heard a voice. “Ken? Yes?” Out from one of the rooms came a big Israeli guy with a friendly face. In my broken Hebrew I hadn’t used in ten years I asked, “Shalom...ze studio shel yoga?” The man’s face morphed to match my confusion, and he motioned for me to follow him. Our conversation switched to English as we walked towards what seemed like an office,“There is a yoga teacher here, yes...I don’t know if she is teaching now. You do yoga?” “Yes, well I actually used to teach yoga. But I just want to take some classes now.” As we approached the office I asked, “What...is this place?” “Community Center,” he said. “And...who runs it?” I asked. “I do!” He said emphatically. He then handed me a small piece of paper and a pen and said “I will email you, what is your email?” I wrote down my email for him, and we parted ways. I left just as confused as I had arrived.

Days later, I got an email:

“Hi. How are you. Do you want to come to the club and talk of your position as yoga teacher that maybe will be good for club. If it is ok with you. Please connect with me. Thanks, Yoav.” 

I never ended up meeting with Yoav, nor did I figure out what Flow Power Yoga was, or if it existed, but I learned something. I finally understood the ambiguity of the famous line in Pirkei Avot “Aseh lecha Rav” “Make yourself, or for yourself, a teacher.” Is the text asking us to make ourselves a teacher, or make a teacher for ourselves? I think the ambiguity is intentional. There are times we need to make ourselves a Rav, to stand in our power and confidence as leaders and teachers. And, there are other times we need to make someone else a Rav, humbling ourselves before another’s brilliance and leadership. 

In my new role here as intern at Nehar, the place that I’ve been lucky enough to call my home shul for the past 4 years, I am excited to live out this line from Pirkei Avot--being both a leader and teacher, and humbling myself before the wisdom of this community. I am excited to stand here and lead prayer some Friday nights and shabbos mornings, and to sing together. I’m excited to bring what I’m learning as a Svara Queer Talmud Teaching Fellow to Nehar Shalom through a “Traditionally Radical” Beit Midrash that is in the works, where we will be each others’ teacher through hevruta study, finding our place within the text. And I’m excited to lead mid-week Kabbalat Shabbat workshops to help people feel empowered to lead and facilitate (what I believe to be) the healing power of Shabbos. And, with that vision as strong as it is, the truth is that you all are my teachers, and I can’t wait to keep learning from you.

There is another way that I feel called to humble myself right now--and that’s regarding the horrific and inhumane statements that our current administration has unleashed this week against the Transgender community. Sarah Warbelow, the legal director of the Human Rights Campaign, was quoted in the NYTimes saying, “Transgender people are frightened, at every step where the administration has had the choice, they’ve opted to turn their back on transgender people.” 

As a cis-gendered person I offer myself as an ally, lovingly bearing witness to the pain that many in our community are experiencing.  Holding this teaching “Aseh lecha Rav/make for yourself a teacher” tightly, I am making you my teachers, eagerly ready to follow your lead and walk by your side as we fight. I am ready to protect you fiercely, to vote, to work hard.  I do believe that together, making rabbaim (rabbis) out of each other and truly listening and learning, we can protect each other and work towards a day that is “yom shekulo tov”--a time that is completely good, where the world reflects our goodness, and we can see the goodness in the world.
Shabbat Shalom.

Parashat Vayigash 5784

Last year, one of my students at Luria named Judah looked up from his snack one day and just blankly said to me, in a way only a third grader can, “Hayley, did you know that all doors are portals?” Without knowing Judah, and only hearing this story, you might think that Judah was a kid into the esoteric, mystical sides of life, as many kids are at that age (magic, harry potter, etc). But, Judah is not. Which made the moment all the more powerful and palpable and…random. It was the type of delivery only a third grader could muster, the kind of delivery that just hangs in the air, without any context whatsoever, the kind of delivery that makes you think deeply about the fact that, he’s right, every door is a portal. While the word portal literally means a gate or entrance (particularly a large and imposing one), we generally use it to mean something more mystical than that, something that transports you–literally or figuratively. 

In this Parsha, we have another Judah, the original Judah. וַיִּגַּ֨שׁ אֵלָ֜יו יְהוּדָ֗ה, the first words of our parsha meaning, and Judah approached/drew near to Joseph. This word וַיִּגַּ֨שׁ, our Parsha’s namesake, the BDB dictionary tells us, is a less frequent synonym of the root קרב, which makes up the word Korban–an offering used to draw ourselves close to Hashem. Also the word Kiruv–reaching out to another Jew to bring them close to community, tradition, and God. 

Judah didn’t merely step towards Joseph, he drew close to him in truth and vulnerability, allowing for Joseph to show his true self, as we learn וְלֹֽא־יָכֹ֨ל יוֹסֵ֜ף לְהִתְאַפֵּ֗ק, Joseph could no longer hold back. He cried a cry so loud that all of Egypt could hear.

19th Century Hasidic Master, Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter, also known as the Sfat Emet notes the connection between these two moments, saying:

“Joseph was no longer able to hold back.” For it is written: “Judah approached him” (gen. 44:18). The “him” here refers to Joseph, to Judah’s own self, and also to God. The meaning is as follows: Judah offered nothing new in his words, nor did he have a good claim with which to approach Joseph. But as he clarified the truth of the matter, salvation came to him. “Truth grows from the earth” (psalm 85:12).

Judah, both my 3rd grader friend and the one in our Parsha, is the one who draws forth truth through radically and honestly approaching himself, God, and Joseph. Perhaps it is only in this threefold connection that the space was made for Joseph to let go, eventually bringing healing to all the brothers and the entire family lineage.

It’s the vulnerability in our story that is the portal, the portal to healing, growth, and understanding.

Last week, my best friend since third grade came to visit me from Minnesota. In our almost 30 years of friendship, we have been through a lot together. When we get together, it’s the type of familiarity you have with family, no need to clean your apartment before each other arrives, no need to “host” in a particular way. We’re just…together, and it’s beautiful, laughter-filled, and soul-nourishing.

This visit, however, there was stuff. Stuff to talk about, to work through, regarding our perspectives and experiences of October 7th. Molly, though being raised around Jews and thoroughly steeped in my family, isn’t Jewish herself. I noticed a silence from her after October 7th, and though I didn’t realize it until we were face to face, I was deeply hurt about that silence. Like a stream bubbling forth, this upset kept creeping out of me. I kept bringing up things about October 7th, about the antisemitism on that day and since, about how as a Jew and a Rabbi, I do sometimes fear for my safety. 

Molly approached these conversations like any of the countless conversations we’ve had throughout our lives, conversations where we throw our ideas back and forth, sometimes debate, sometimes ponder together. She was trying to comfort me, saying that not all non-Jews feel the way about Jews that I am fearing, or that I am seeing on the internet. That maybe I am safer than it seems. But, this wasn’t like any of our countless conversations in the past, I kept responding with anger, with shut down. 

Later, she looked at me, tears in her eyes, and said, “I love you but I feel like you aren’t really open to hearing me,” and I looked at her, also crying, and said, “You are absolutely right. I’m not open to hearing you right now.” It was a sad truth, but one that felt deeply important to acknowledge. In that moment, with vulnerability as our portal, we ventured into a completely different terrain than we had in our almost 30 years of friendship. I explained to her the way that antisemitism impacts many Jews’ inner lives. The way that, on some deep level, many of us have had the feeling that it wasn’t quite safe to trust others, whether or not rational. I explained that October 7th (and the response from many afterwards) was, for many of us, a confirmation of that thought/fear. 

Molly heard me, and I could see and feel that, like the brothers’ seeing and hearing Joseph’s pain for the first time, that she heard and saw my pain–our pain– in a new way. The vulnerability we both shared was, like in our parsha, a portal towards healing. 

In this time of extreme pain, grief, tenderness and anger, may we still muster the courage to approach one another, come close to one another with truth and vulnerability. Knowing that, it is only through being connected to ourselves and our experience that we can make space for others to do the same. 

Shabbat Shalom.

Vayetze 5782

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 by 119 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 119 Linden Ave, 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.

Parashat Vayetze 5783

Dreams tell you a lot about a person’s psyche. They are personal, private. So perhaps it's strange that I am about to share with you one of the recurring dreams I’ve had throughout my life, but here we go. One of my recurring dreams is that I go out and get a wildly shitty tattoo. In one dream, I casually told the tattoo artist to do whatever she wanted on my entire arm, which ended up looking like a kid took a crayon to me, leaving the multi-colored scribbles on my skin forever. Another time, at the joking advice of a friend, I went out and got a slough of really interesting tattoos all over my body. A frog. A Nike symbol. A cowboy hat. The dreams, though different in content, all share a similar arc: I feel whimsical and decide to get a tattoo, I get the tattoo, and at some point the panic sets in and I start thinking about how to remove the tattoo (in one dream I even opened my phone to google the closest tattoo removal place). 

In this week’s parsha we have the first of 9 dreams we will read about in this month of Kislev, which are 9 out of 10 total dreams mentioned in the Torah. Jacob, with his head on a very comfy rock, dreams of angels ascending and descending a ladder that reaches from the heavens to the earth.

If we were to take a Freudian approach to this dream, we would start by asking ourselves what unfulfilled wish Jacob has that is being expressed through this dream. Since he was fleeing his brother, perhaps Jacob did have a desire for an escape, a ladder where angels could escort him from his frightening situation.

If we were to take an Jungian approach, we would start by asking ourselves what this dream is expressing about not only Jacob’s personal unconscious, but the collective unconscious. Marie Louis von Franz, a Jungian psychologist said of Jacob’s dream, “The ladder symbolized a continuous, constant connection with the divine powers of the unconscious.” Every rung on the ladder, she explains, is a level of the psyche. And every dream we have is a rung of the ladder. 

Regardless of which of these approaches we take, Jacob’s comment when he wakes up seems a bit out of the blue, “God was in this place and I, I did not know.” On the surface at least, the dream didn’t seem to be place specific, nor did it give Jacob any information about God being in the particular place he was sleeping. Lawrence Kushner’s book with Jacob’s quote as the title is a midrash of its own. He puts a comma between the two I’s, capitalizing the first and keeping the second lowercase (God was in this place and I, i did not know) implying that Jacob is in awe of his own higher self, which he had not known prior to the dream.

Dreams can tell us a lot about ourselves, both our individual and collective unconscious, and if we go with Freud, our unfulfilled longings in the world. Perhaps my recurring dream is telling me that I should get a tattoo. Or perhaps it’s saying something about my relationship with commitment, who’s to say really? 

In this month of Kislev, may the darkness outside help us turn a light on our insides. May we pay attention to our dreams, asking ourselves what is trying to be heard, and perhaps, like Jacob, discover ourselves through them.

Shabbat Shalom.

Sukkot 5784

I’m about to share a very controversial opinion with you, but I feel that at this point, having been at PSJC for about two months, hopefully you all can handle it. I am not a fan of autumn. I try to lean into it, with big chunky sweaters, candles and, who knows, maybe I’ll even try a pumpkin spice latte. But, the literal and figurative winds of change that are palpable this time of year always throw me off kilter, or at least threaten to. It is fitting, at least in the northern hemisphere, that our big holidays that focus on mortality, reflection, and the transient nature of all things happen at this time, when the fragility of life is mirrored to us in the shaking of leaves, the cutting off and harvesting of long awaited fruits, and the waning daylight. 

In his famous book on the High Holidays, This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared, Rabbi Alan Lew writes about the arc of the High Holiday season not beginning with Rosh Hashanah, or even Rosh Chodesh Elul, but with Tisha b’Av. He writes, 

“This dance that begins on Tisha b'Av and ends on Sukkot, that begins with the mournful collapse of a house and ends with the joyful collapse of a house, this intentional spasm that awakens us and carries us through death and back to life again– stands for the journey the soul is always on.” 

Where Tisha b’Av is about mourning a house that we didn’t expect to be destroyed, Sukkot is about celebrating in a house that is designed to be destroyed. A representation of the beautiful but temporary houses that are our body and our world, their temporal nature increasing their beauty and meaning. 

I’ll never forget a time I felt somewhat joyfully in a dance between life and death. About 6 years ago, before the current war, I was in Ukraine with 5 other women, visiting the graves of famous holy Rabbis–the Baal Shem Tov, Rebbe Nachman, the Berdichever Rebbe, among others. Because of language barriers and navigation, it’s customary for people on this kind of pilgrimage to hire a driver to take them to the different graves. Our driver, a middle aged man who had been doing this kind of work for many years, picked us up from the airport in a van and off we went. The moment we took off, I could tell that the driving customs were…different…than I was used to. I urgently reached for my seatbelt. “Tsk tsk,” he said to me, his eyes looking at me in the rearview mirror. I quickly realized that he was not wearing a seatbelt, that recklessness was perhaps part of the driving culture there. That it was taboo to buckle up. I obviously wore my seatbelt, but the driving–with the wild speeding, driving on the wrong side of the highway to pass cars, moving back into the correct lane as an approaching car or truck was way too close for comfort–was a constant reminder of the fragility of our lives, and how little control we really have. I was grateful for the daily stops to pray at holy sites, and connect with the souls of teachers I feel like I know, to help me connect with the beyond between every frightening van ride. 

Even when we are not in a van speeding down Ukrainian highways in a snowstorm, this fragility and lack of control is reality. Even when it isn’t in our face, like it was at the beginning of COVID, or when we are experiencing a health crisis, under the surface the truth remains, that our grasp on this world is an illusion. Our home, like the Sukkah, is hole-y, it is fragile, and it is so, so beautiful. Rabbi Lew shares an image of the joy of this time, 

“The stars are shining on the top of my head, the wind is in my hair; a few drops of rain are falling into my soup, but the soup is still warm. I am sitting in a sukkah, a booth with branches draped over the top, which I have erected in my backyard. A deep joy is seeping out from the core of my being and filling my body and soul. It began as a kind of lightness. I felt it as soon as the shofar was sounded to signal the end of Yom Kippur. There were three stars in the sky then. I felt all the weight, all the heaviness of the day -- all the death and the judgment and the yearning, all the soulful thrashing and beating of breasts -- falling away all at once, suddenly gone. I felt light and clean.” 

May Sukkot and autumn help us to dance and rejoice in liminality, may we allow ourselves to notice and appreciate our lack of control, knowing that it’s what makes us human and makes us alive. Chag Sameach and Shabbat Shalom.