Author: Rabbi Naomi Gurt Lind

Rabbi Naomi Gurt Lindhttps://jewishthemes.com
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A Progress Report in Two Parts

Sometimes the moments line up just right. For more than a year I have been coming to morning tefillah (prayer) at Hebrew College, since long before I started school. It was part of my grounding practice while I was in between, and it was instrumental in helping me to make my decision. In the course of that practice, especially at the beginning, I felt lost more often than not, sometimes extravagantly so. 

There was one day that was so unsettling that I wrote about it here. On that day, there were no guideposts in prayer, just an open space and a lot of people doing their own thing with what looked to me like unattainable competence. It was so unnerving I considered leaving, but was afraid people would notice me leaving and it might affect my chances of being admitted to the program.

Fast forward about a year.

This morning, just days from the end of my first semester as a rabbinical student, I came in for tefillah a few minutes late to find there were three other people there. All faculty. All engaged in their own personal, mostly silent prayer. There was a little mumbling, a little humming, an occasional snatch of recognizable text, a lot of page flipping.

I walked in, opened my siddur, and began to pray.

***

This afternoon I went to see one of my professors for a quick question. So I thought. Nearly two hours later, I left his office, having moved from the so-called quick question to a deeper conversation to impromptu study of a famous text about Rabbi Akiva. Akiva is one of my favorites, for two reasons: he happens to share a name with my beloved elder son. And he started studying as an adult.

The text I studied with my professor depicts a moment where Akiva contemplates the mouth of a well and muses to his companions: How did this stone get worn away? They tell him, The water falls on it every day. Haven’t you read that water can erode stone?

Akiva extrapolates a judgment for himself: if something soft can sculpt something hard, how much more can something hard, like words of Torah, shape something soft, like my heart?

And presently he began to study Torah.

Teach us how to see

Our parsha this week, Vayetze, continues the story of Jacob. When we last left our hero, he was skipping town in order to escape the wrath of his brother Esau, on account of Jacob’s having stolen Esau’s blessing from Isaac, their father. This was just the latest bit of trickery between the two brothers, and the trickery will continue into this parsha, with Jacob getting some karmic payback from his Uncle Laban, who makes him work for seven years to “earn” his beloved Rachel and then pulls a switcheroo and sends Rachel’s sister Leah on the wedding night. But I get ahead of myself.

One of the opening images of Vayetze never fails to take my breath away. Jacob is running from Beersheva toward Haran and he stops for the night. He makes a bed of stone to sleep on and while he sleeps, he dreams of a ladder with angels going up and down. In the dream, G-d promises Jacob numerous children and the land where he lies. When Jacob wakes up he is transformed and says these beautiful words:

יש יי במקום הזה ואנוכי לא ידעתי

G-d was in this place and I didn’t know it.

This parsha glimmers with allusions to vision and perception, starting with the dream-vision of angels going up and down the original “stairway to heaven.” There are things that are clear in a moment (like Jacob’s interest in Rachel) and things that reveal themselves over time (like the ways in which Laban and Jacob try to get the better of each other and Rachel’s struggle with infertility). And Leah, who is described as having weak eyes is actually quite perceptive about her place in Jacob’s esteem. Even with her weak eyes, she sees quite clearly that he will never love her.

All these variations on the themes of vision and perception have got me thinking about what it means to see clearly. We live our lives, many of us, looking at most a few feet in front of ourselves. Our lives are mediated by screens of one kind and another, and much of what we think we see on those screens is curated, manufactured, or outright fabricated. Searching for the truth seems to get more and more difficult with each passing day. And even when we manage to break free of our screens — at dinner time, on Shabbat, or what have you — sometimes it’s our minds and hearts that get in the way. We focus on weather or logistics or petty disagreements and don’t find it easy to level up and see what is most important.

When I was in high school, literally in the last century, I committed to memory a line from the book, “The Little Prince,” a line that felt profound to my teenage self: On ne voit bien qu’avec le coeur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux. “We can only see clearly with the heart. The essential is invisible to the eyes.” As I studied and pondered the parsha this week in preparation, this beautiful little quote came back to me and with the experience of the intervening years, it felt perhaps even more profound than I’d realized. How often our perceptions change over time, as our hearts begin to see more clearly what is important! The more time and genuine presence we offer, the more clearly we begin to see. The uncooperative toddler begins to feel more like someone who is struggling to learn something new. We stop seeing our spouse as a collection of annoying habits topped off with a receding hairline and remember the kindness that made us fall in love in the first place. In these moments, our eyes get out of the way and our hearts do the work.

Now let’s go back a minute to those words Jacob utters when he wakes up from his dream. 

יש יי במקום הזה ואנוכי לא ידעתי

The phrase לא ידעתי means ‘I didn’t know it’ and within the word ידעתי is the word דעת. if you look up דעת in a dictionary it will say ‘knowledge or wisdom, but Rabbi Art Green taught me that it’s also used in Hassidic thought to refer to the mind of G-d. When Jacob awakens from his astounding dream, it is as if he has glimpsed the mind of G-d, or even more remarkable, he seems to have realized that his own awareness has something in common with the mind of G-d, that when he sees something amazing it is like peering into the mind of G-d.

In fact, in one of the blessings following the Sh’ma, G-d is referred to as the Rock of Jacob. I think that when Jacob sleeps on that rock, he is actually resting his mind with G-d’s, and just like the method of learning by osmosis by placing a book under your pillow, Jacob awakens with a clarity of vision that comes from having glimpsed the mind of the Holy One. 

We often go through life not realizing the holiness of what surrounds us. Whether we’re absorbed in work, or preoccupied with personal difficulties, or staring at a screen, it’s easy to go through the whole day — sometimes several days — without noticing that the sun rose and the world is pretty amazing. My wish for you this Shabbat is that you will go out from this service with a kavannah, an intention, of seeking and seeing more clearly all of the beauty and purpose that surrounds you. Perhaps if your eyes and your heart are truly open, you will even catch a glimpse of דעת, the mind of G-d. Shabbat shalom!

A Snarky Little Musing on Rebekah

If Rebekah lived today she’d probably have pink hair to go with the nose-ring that Eliezar gives her to mark her as Isaac’s betrothed. She comes from a family that is, in colloquial terms, effed up. Her dad Betuel is a specter who barely does anything. But hey, at least he gets a name, which is more than can be said for her mother. Her brother Laban is a greedy sneak, a petty crook who looks for every opportunity to profit off her, as he will later do to his own daughters. 

When Abraham’s servant Eliezar gives Rebekah a sample case of the family jewels, she sees opportunity. Maybe she has a bit of the family greed herself. Anyway, she guesses there’s more where that came from and damned if she’s gonna share it with her slimy brother. She agrees to go off with Eliezar to join Abraham’s household. How bad can it be, with all that swag?

Little does she know her new fiancé is long in the tooth and full of troubles and griefs. Having been threatened at knifepoint by his own dear old dad, and now recently bereaved of his mother, Isaac is hollowed out. 

Nonetheless, Rebekah falls for him, falls right off her camel. Maybe she was surprised at what she’d gotten herself into. The dudes that wrote down the stories want you to think she fell in love at first sight with this pathetic old creature but that’s such a dude thing, isn’t it? Maybe she was just ass-sore from riding a camel.

Anyway, she’s stuck with him now, and he’s probably better than her original family. She and Isaac have twins, Jacob and Esau, and even before they’re born, they’re fighting. Esau is born first and is Daddy’s little man, but Rebekah always favors Jacob. When it comes time for Isaac to bless his favorite kid before kicking the bucket, Rebekah manages to disguise Jacob as Esau so he can snatch the blessing right out from his big brother’s hairy nose.

Daughter of a specter, sister of one wily dude, she holds her own and makes way for her baby to get what he needs.

Mishna Berachot 1-5 in Haiku

Last week we had an exam in Mishna class and the essay question gave us the opportunity to delineate the differences in approach between Sh’ma and Amidah, as discussed in the Mishna. For reasons I can’t quite fathom, I decided to write it in haiku. This post is probably not for everyone but for those few people who traverse the intersection of Mishna and Japanese poetry, this is your moment.

Click here for the original mishnayot.

Sh’ma and Amidah
How to do community?
Mishnayot differ.

You might also ask
Is the structure fixed or loose?
Depends what you pray.

When to say the Sh’ma?
If you go out late at night
Say it before dawn.

When the day arrives
Say it now, pray before nine
If your dad’s a king

Don’t take foolish risks
In your home or on your way
Just to make a point.

While the frame is loose
Structure holds the thing in place.
Do your chatimot!

When we pray the Sh’ma
Boundaries are fluid here.
Hi   [I’m scared]   Oh, hi?

What if I mess up?
Or I cannot hear myself?
In Sh’ma that’s OK.

When you get married
Maybe skip Sh’ma, just this once
Maybe, maybe not.

Sometimes people choose
Things that don’t check every box
Sh’ma is flexible.

When you’re on a wall
Or atop a terebinth
Praying Sh’ma’s OK.

Unlike with the Sh’ma
When you pray the Amidah —
The stakes are higher.

Saying Amidah
We hold the community.
Leadership matters.

You should take your time
Getting in the proper mood
Even one hour

Fewer options here
Time of prayer is fairly clear
(Maybe not Musaf)

Rabbi Akiva:
Every day say Amidah
Do the best you can.

Improvisation?
Keep community in mind
Preserve the remnants

Birkat Kohanim
If you are the only priest
Do not lose your place

In community
We hold one another up
Even when we can’t.

The Way You Make Them Feel

[This is a sermon I wrote for my friend to deliver, with attribution, at her community’s pop-up High Holiday services.]

They say that people may forget the words you say or the way you look, but they will never forget the way you make them feel. Sometimes it feels like people pay less and less regard to this basic concept. We’ve all had experiences that drive this point home: someone says or does something thoughtless and — even though you know they didn’t mean it — you still feel awful. Or maybe they did mean it, and you feel even worse. It seems to be an ever-present and self-perpetuating phenomenon. The more unkind people are, the more it emboldens people to be unkind, until the harshness spirals out of control. Maybe it feels these days like it’s getting worse.

And yet there is a parable in our tradition that suggests that, as hard as people may seem these days, 21st century America did not invent the coarseness that characterizes our world right now.

In ancient times there were two people with similar names: Kamtza and Bar Kamtza. Think GoldSTINE and GoldSTEEN. A subtle distinction, but it turns out to be a difference that makes a difference. The story goes that there was a wealthy man who was throwing a big party. He wanted to invite Kamtza but his servant made a mistake and invited Bar Kamtza instead. It turns out, though, that the host detested Bar Kamtza and was determined that that guy not come to his party. 

On the day of the party, when Bar Kamtza arrived, the host was so enraged to see him that he asked him to leave. Bar Kamtza wanted only to save face, so he asked if he could stay, if he just didn’t eat or drink anything. The host said no. Bar Kamtza offered to pay for everything he might eat or drink at the party. The host still refused. Finally Bar Kamtza offered to pay for the entire party, and still the host would not allow him to stay. He had him kicked out.

Meanwhile, all the dignitaries, all the rabbis, all the fancypants people in the town were there, and nobody said a word. They allowed the host to embarrass Bar Kamtza and nobody spoke up for him. 

Jewish tradition holds that there were two sins in this interaction: the pointless hatred that caused the host to regard Bar Kamtza as his enemy and not allow him into his home, and the silence of the bystanders as they witnessed Bar Kamtza’s humiliation. 

You probably need no reminder of the ways in which this story resonates today — funny names aside. We are all too familiar with the stories: whether it’s someone in high office making fun of a person with disabilities, or children teasing the new kid or the short kid or the kid whose clothes are ragged, or the person in line at the grocery store making racist assumptions about the cashier, or the bullies who threaten a gay couple walking home from the movies. This short list barely scratches the surface of all the ways we have learned to be unkind.

Sometimes it can feel like life is one big comments section. 

Now let’s look at another story. Perhaps you’ve heard this one as well: it concerns a religious order that has fallen on hard times. There were few practitioners left and the leader was concerned that the order was dying out entirely. The leader went to speak with a Rabbi in a nearby town. They talked about their struggling communities, about their faith, about the mysteries of life and death. It was a wonderful conversation! Then just as he was leaving, the leader of the struggling community mentioned to the Rabbi his concern about the future of his group. The Rabbi sighed with him and said something cryptic: “One of you is the Messiah.” 

The leader went back to his small group, just five people left in his community. He mentioned his conversation with the Rabbi, and the strange thing that he’d said. The other five mulled it over… “One of us is the Messiah? Couldn’t be. Unless…” “Must be our leader. He’s the only one who seems qualified.” “Maybe it’s Sister Angela. She is old and grouchy but, you know, she’s often right. Sometimes very right.” “Maybe it’s Brother Thomas. He has such a gentle way about him, he could very well be the Messiah.” “Hmm, I wonder if it’s me?” 

Subtly at first, then noticeably, the culture began to change in this dying order. People began to treat one another as if they might be the Messiah. They became more patient, more likely to listen carefully; who wouldn’t want to listen to the Messiah? They helped one another more freely; after all, each of them thought, “if I’m the Messiah, I should really be more helpful.”

Gradually people from outside the order began to notice how kind and welcoming that community was, and they started to take an interest in the learning taking place there, and eventually participating more and more. Suddenly the dying order was full of life! The Rabbi’s gift was just what they needed to revive. 

There is a poem by Danny Siegel that is perfect for this theme, and perfect for us to keep in mind not just at the High Holidays but year round.

If you always assume the person sitting next to you
is the Messiah
waiting for some simple human kindness – 

You will soon come to weigh your words
and watch your hands.

And if the Messiah chooses
Not to reveal himself in your time –
It will not matter.”

Let’s all hold close to that thought. One of us is the Messiah. Or maybe, just maybe… all of us are. 

Shana tova!

Let All that have Breath… Work for Change

[This is the sermon I delivered on Yom Kippur 5780 at Shir Hadash Reconstructionist Havurah in Newton, Massachusetts.]

Shana tova! How’s everybody holding up?

So here we are, midday on Yom Kippur. Those among us who observe by fasting are probably starting to feel it. Let’s take a few breaths together to get centered.

Breathing is underrated. We do it all the time: sometimes with intention, sometimes absent-mindedly, sometimes frantically, sometimes with awe and wonder. It is easy to take breathing for granted…until you have a terrible cold, or are singing a really long note, or are in the company of a skunk. Yet breathing, when you pay attention to it, can be soul-filling. 

The Hebrew language makes a pretty strong connection between breath נשימה [neshima] and soul נשמה [neshama]. Technically you might say that breath is just the air going in and out of our lungs, but clearly the Hebrew language wants us to think more expansively about it. Breath is not merely anatomical but spiritual. When we breathe, we are somehow gaining access to our very souls.

In fact, the two words are sometimes translated as though they are interchangeable. Psalm 150, for example, describes praising G-d with different instruments: shofar, harp, tambourine, lute, cymbals … and finally, ecstatically: 

כל הנשמה תהלל יה הללו-יה

Some translators interpret that line as: “Let all that breathes praise G-d; hallelujah!” while other translators interpret it as: “Let every soul praise G-d; hallelujah!”

Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld, the President of Hebrew College, teaches, “the sound that comes through the hollow bent horn of a ram is the sound of human breath, amplified, so we might hear it.” We spoke last week about the ways in which the sound of the shofar wakes us up. In our short chevruta study, we directed our thoughts to the ways in which the shofar calls us to remember what’s most important, and in these past ten days of teshuva, we have, each in our own way, been coming to terms with the ways in which we may have fallen short of our highest aspirations, taking stock of the relationships and concerns in our lives which merit deeper attention. 

So last week the shofar woke us up to the need in the world… but it was kind of a cliffhanger. This week, those who observe this way up the ante with a 25-hour fast. In this time of intense soul-searching, we deprive ourselves of the pleasures of the body so that we can really focus on the needs and longings the shofar blast awakened us to. But I’m sure I don’t need to tell you: it is easy to get so focused on our individual discomfort that we lose track of the purpose of the fast.

Today’s haftarah reminds us of this. Isaiah has a few things to say about the prospect of an empty fast. In verse 3, the people complained to G-d: “Why, when we fasted, didn’t You notice? When we starved our bodies, did You pay no heed?” 

Finishing the verse and going on, Isaiah posits G-d’s answer: “Because on your fast day, you see to your business, and oppress all your laborers! Because you fast in strife and contention, and you strike with a wicked fist! Your fasting today is not such as to make your voice heard on high. Is this the fast I desire, a day for people to starve their bodies? Is it bowing the head like a bulrush and lying in sackcloth and ashes? Do you call that a fast, a day to be right with G-d? No, this is the fast I desire: to unlock the fetters of wickedness, and untie the cords of the yoke; to let the oppressed go free; to break off every yoke. It is to share your bread with the hungry, and to take the wretched poor into your home; when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to ignore your own kin.”

If you’re fasting to get G-d’s attention, you’re doing it wrong. G-d asks us to fast in order to get our attention.

Now. One of my touchstones in this world is listening to my children breathe. When they were little enough that I could hold them, the sound of their breathing became like the sweetest music to me. Even now that they are older (and probably mortified right about now!), I find contentment and spiritual solace in hearing their breaths, in and out, in and out. When I go in to wake them up in the morning, I sometimes take a moment of quiet in their room before I do the deed, so I can listen to them breathe. It fills my soul.

A couple of weeks ago, along with several friends from Hebrew College, I participated in the Massachusetts Climate Strike. I went for lots of reasons: I was motivated by a feeling of frustration at the way the pace of scandal in the current administration leaves us unable to focus on the most consequential matters because we are too busy being shocked about the latest outrageous tweet. I was motivated by a desire to stand side by side with the young leaders and activists I share my days with. Most of all, though, I was motivated, perhaps selfishly, by the hope that my children would have air to breathe, G-d willing, long into the future, and that they could one day know the pleasure of hearing their own children breathe.

The more I read and learn about it, the more urgent I realize the climate change crisis is. According to the UN report from March of this year (or last year according to the Jewish reckoning) scientists believe that we have just eleven years before the damage wrought by climate change is irreversible. 

We have seen some climate-related devastation already in the form of melting polar ice, species extinctions, and the increasing frequency of storms whose strength would once have qualified them as once-in-a-century events. Just the damage caused by the last few hurricane seasons should be enough to get our attention. In the Bahamas alone, over 70,000 people were left homeless after Hurricane Dorian. Two years ago, the death toll from Hurricane Maria’s devastation was nearly 3,000 in Puerto Rico. And nearly fifteen years after Hurricane Katrina, parts of New Orleans are still struggling to recover. 

As with most things, the effects are worst on those who have the least, but you don’t have to be impoverished or live in a coastal area to be affected. Climate-related disasters have wide-ranging intertwined effects on wildlife, beach erosion, tourism, epidemics and other issues around the spread of disease, economic stability, migratory patterns and more. Everything that happens in an environmental or weather event touches off other consequences in many arenas. 

Getting interested in the climate crisis is about much more than hugging the pretty trees and protecting the wide-open spaces we love. This truly is — or should be — a matter of global concern, and of global action.

So what can you and I do? We have little influence, little economic power. Even my modest lifestyle, my commitment to reusing and recycling, my efforts to emphasize real food made with recognizable ingredients — all this still feels like whistling in the wind compared to the enormity of the problem. Yet when I marched with 40 folks from Hebrew College alongside an estimated 7,000 people — that’s a lot of whistling! And the global numbers are quite staggering. The folks who do this kind of counting estimated that at least one million people participated worldwide in the climate strike in September. Imagine the noise that a million people whistling can make! It might even rival the shofar.

Clearly there is much work to be done, and if we all work together we can make a difference. If I decide no longer to use single-use plastic such as plastic cutlery & cups that’s one thing. If we all do, that’s something more. If we model this one small change and talk it up in our workplaces and with our families and friends, we can really begin to make a difference. And that is just from one small change. One of my fellow students pledged publicly to give up driving to and from school one day a week in favor of public transportation, and I am working on the carpool logistics to be able to make the same pledge. Whether these small changes speak to you, or something else does, I urge you to consider what you can do to increase your positive impact on the world.

As we read in the maftir today,

רְאֵ֨ה נָתַ֤תִּי לְפָנֶ֙יךָ֙ הַיּ֔וֹם אֶת־הַֽחַיִּ֖ים וְאֶת־הַטּ֑וֹב וְאֶת־הַמָּ֖וֶת וְאֶת־הָרָֽע

“See, I set before you this day life & good, and death & adversity. For I command you today, to love Adonai your God, to walk in G-d’s ways, and to keep G-d’s commandments, laws, and rules, so that you may thrive and increase, and that Adonai, your G-d, may bless you in the land that you are about to enter and possess.”

These words are as relevant today as they were originally. The land is crying out for us to make different choices, to contemplate the gift of Nature that G-d gave into our care in B’reishit, and to exercise our stewardship in a more responsible and thoughtful way.

There is a line in our Yom Kippur liturgy that we chant several times, 

אנו נחלתך ואתה גורלנו

We are Your inheritance and You are our fate. 

I’ve been pondering what it means to say that we are G-d’s inheritance. It’s puzzling — G-d doesn’t have possessions in the conventional sense. And from whom would G-d have inherited anything anyway? Who could possibly be further up the food chain?

One day recently when I was out walking in the woods and thinking about this beautiful planet whose creation we had nothing to do with, but whose gradual destruction we might be witnessing, I began to see it in a different way. It’s not that we are an inheritance in the sense that an old family wristwatch or a stash of love letters between long-dead ancestors might be. Rather, we are an inheritance in the sense of what’s left behind. We are what’s left, the remnants of the people before us, and the people before them, and the people before them. G-d is counting on us. Let’s step up, so that the “inheritances” ahead of us — our children, and theirs, and theirs after that — will have air to breathe, water to drink, space to live, and please G-d, a world at peace.  

G’mar chatima tova! 

 

Atonement | Alonement | Alignment

T’shuvah: Extended Definitions

I have been thinking lately about how t’shuvah can leave people feeling discouraged and defeated, and about the ways in which people find Yom Kippur and the process of t’shuvah heavy. I don’t think that’s what G-d wants for us. Our tradition teaches us always to look for reasons to kindle hope, so how can we frame t’shuvah in a way that makes space for that while still doing the serious work t’shuvah requires? This is an attempt to address that question.

Atonement: Examining mistakes from the past year and seeking to make them right. Whom have I hurt, whether intentionally or unintentionally? Where have I been dishonest? When did I say the unkind word? Where have I cut corners in my work in ways that placed more burden on others? When did I not stop myself from yielding to my lesser impulses? Who was affected by my actions in ways I regret now? Who might have been affected by my actions in ways I don’t even know about?

Alonement: Taking some time alone to search deep within. Where have I been dishonest with myself? Where have I cut corners in my work, that only I would know about? Where have I judged myself too harshly? Where have I judged myself too gently? Were there decisions I made that were expedient but not wise? When did I squash my own needs in order to make things right for everyone else? What did it cost? When did I prioritize my own needs over everyone else’s? What did it cost?

Alignment: Expressing gratitude for the people and events that have helped me grow in the past year. We spend a lot of time and energy in these Ten Days of T’shuvah looking at ourselves and our actions through a negative lens. This is necessary work that must be taken seriously. What happens if we also look through the other side? Who helped me see my actions in a new light? What events forced me to level up and be more thoughtful of others? Whom have I been watching as a model for how to do something I don’t yet do well? Who has offered me a kind word when I needed it? In what ways have I come closer to my center this year, and who has helped me get there?

Elul: Writing my own S’lichot

Rabbi Jordan Braunig’s prompt last night (I’m on the “better late than never” plan!) was to write our own S’lichot.

Forgive me…for being impatient with people who matter to me.
Forgive me…for being impatient with people who matter less to me.
Forgive me…for thinking I’m smarter than I am.
Forgive me…for thinking I’m not as smart as I am.
Forgive me…for doubting myself.
Forgive me…for doubting You.
Forgive me…for trying to do too many things at once.
Forgive me…for not trying hard enough to do the needful.
Forgive me…for hubris.
Forgive me…for fear.
Forgive me…for weaponizing insecurity.
Forgive me…for denigrating humility.
Forgive me…for wasting precious time.
Forgive me…for wasting precious time.
Forgive me…for wasting precious time.

Elul Return to Writing

I am once again making the attempt to do some spiritual or reflective writing during the month of Elul. Some of it will show up on my blog, with grateful acknowledgement of whoever provided the writing prompt that opened up that particular day’s reflections. Tonight’s prompt comes from Rabbi Jordan Braunig. He writes: On this second day of Elul, I invite you to think about the space between the private and the public sphere. What intentions would you like to set for yourself when you are going into the world? What reminders would be helpful when you come in?

Sometimes it feels like the world has become one big comments section: people are snippy, judgmental, snarky, eager to believe the worst. Although I mainly consider myself a nice person, some of the things I say when I’m driving and people drive less politely than I would like suggest that my niceness has a limit. Alas the more I look at my behavior, the more I see cracks in the niceness picture. It has become for me, and perhaps for others, all too easy to assume I know what’s happening with people — even that I know their politics — based on external factors. I find myself putting people into boxes before ever even saying hello.

It’s now not uncommon to hear people say that this is part of some nefarious master plan to eventually turn Americans against one another, as in the Civil War not that long ago. I think it may be true.

And if it is true, the best thing I can think of to counteract it (the only thing I can think of) is to look beyond the stereotypes and to refuse to box people in. When there is no “them,” we all become “us.” This is what I wish for, and work for, and often fail at. This is what I feel I need to take, now more than ever, into the public sphere.

I always try to remind myself: we share a country.

And when I come home into my own space, may I keep some of that openness and temper my own temptation to judge, in order to search for the common humanity that unites us all — or could — despite our differences.

M’kadesh haShabbat, Part 2

Alongside four others, I recently co-led Kabbalat Shabbat as part of the Friday night davening at a Limmud gathering. As a variegated group of learners and worshippers who had gathered for in-depth learning about the Limmud model, we used Limmud values to guide our planning process. Click here to read a long but lively description of how the service came to be the way it was.

I stood up to begin.

“Shabbat shalom. Hinei ma tov uma na’im. Let’s appreciate for a moment how good and meaningful it is for us to bring in Shabbat together as a community.

There will likely be parts of this service that make you uncomfortable, whoever you are. Keep in mind that there will be other parts that make the person next to you, or a person in another section, uncomfortable. This discomfort is the price we pay — we all pay — for the opportunity to be together on Shabbat. I think it’s worth it.

Rabbi Harold Kushner teaches that Jews don’t pray for, Jews pray with. And so here we are, each with his or her or their individual approach to bringing in Shabbat. Tonight, in our variety, we become one community facing G-d and welcoming Shabbat together. Tonight, embracing our differences, we pray with.”

We began with Yedid Nefesh and the room warmed as we went. The verses that were unfamiliar to some of the service leaders were easily carried by those in the kahal (community) who knew them by heart. The language was a delicious salad of gender pronouns and conjugations, the perfect way to sing to a G-d who is far beyond gender.

A short L’chu Neran’nah followed as we all got used to each other. Then a voice from the kahal started us on Shiru l’Adonai, which hadn’t been in our original plan. Limmud being a volunteer-driven organization, it felt perfect to have some of our service plan turn out to be crowdsourced!

The Brazilians at the front taught, then led, a Brazilian pop song — originally a love song but one that with a few word changes became a Shabbat song and allowed space for the bouquet of languages in the room.

And so it went: traditional liturgy, comments from the heart, unexpected songs and connections. By the time we got to L’cha Dodi, the feeling in the room was electric. Something truly unique, heartfelt, and Limmud-y was taking place, and we were taking it in with buoyant hearts.

When I started L’cha Dodi, the energy rose even higher. We welcomed Shabbat with joy and ruach…and then kept singing. A few of the men started to dance. I had a moment of wonder: Is this for everyone or is there a shomer negiya (protecting the modesty of touch — i.e. no physical contact at all between men and women who are not married to one another) issue to navigate? I don’t want to be the one to create a rift in our community by accidentally being my characteristically close and cozy self. I paused a moment, not even a moment. I needn’t have worried. The men swung around to “pick up” the (female) service leaders and we all swooped around the room, through all three sections, singing, dancing, laughing in holy community. When the person who was most cautious about praying with mixed seating present took my hand to join the dance, I knew that something truly transformative was occurring.

After my final reading, we took a short break to light candles communally and then returned for the Maariv service. We started with a blessing: two, actually. We made a Shehecheyanu (the prayer thanking G-d for giving us life, sustaining us, and bringing us to this present moment) over the groups representing the new Limmuds just starting out. Then we offered Birkat Kohanim (priestly blessing) over a young woman who happened to be celebrating the second anniversary of her conversion to Judaism that day. She was not the only one with tears in her eyes.

Led beautifully and soulfully, Maariv was the perfect cap: an earnest, traditional opportunity to pray, sometimes aloud and sometimes in silence, in the space that the community had created for itself. Much like Limmud in general, this was a beautiful example of the concept I hold so dear: that community is something we do for one another.

In the Friday evening Kiddush (blessing over the wine), we bless G-d m’kadesh haShabbat, who makes Shabbat holy. I know I’m not the only one who felt this in my every molecule, as, together as a community, we Limmudniks experienced the holiness of Shabbat.