Vayikra and the Trapeze

Vayikra-Drash for BHS 3/27
I recently was watching sex and the city and I think the episode I saw
was inspired by this week's Torah portion, Vayikra, the opening portion in the book of Leviticus. In this episode, Cari Bradshaw, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, is taking a trapeze lesson. She loves it. Soaring through the air, hanging by her knees on a trapeze overlooking the Hudson River, a beautiful spring day.
But...., she cannot get herself to let go for a catch and release. All she needs to do is unhinge her knees while reaching back for the waiting hands of a trained trapeze artist. She knows she cannot fall. She knows she is harnessed in and there is a net below. And yet, she cannot convince her self to let go of what she has and grasp on to something even better-the hands of another human being.
I know what you are thinking...this sounds JUST LIKE the laws and lives of the ancient Israelite priests! OK, so maybe the leap is not so obvious on the surface. But it is there. In this week's text, we are given a seemingly endless list of offerings to bring to God through the hands of the priests. We are told to bring sheep and goat and turtledoves. We are asked to take that which is most precious to us, the choicest animals of our meager sustenance and give them away.
We have to let go of the little bit that we have and put it into the hands of the priests for the greater good, as an act of faith, as an offering to God. Here is this people who have so little-just what they can carry, just what they can coax to walk with them on the long journey through the wilderness.
And yet, they are asked to give. Making an offering to God must have been an incredible act of self sacrifice; of letting go of things, especially those things which make us feel safe in order to grab on to something else.
This is all well and good for those who are relatively wealthy in the Midbar, the wilderness. But what about the people who are truly without...what about them? Surely they do not have to let go??
Not true. In Leviticus 5:7 it says but if one's means do not suffice for a sheep, that person shall bring to the Eternal to turtledoves or to pigeons.”
OK, but surely if I do not have even to pigeons I am exempt! It is not so. In verse 11 the Torah tells us, “And if one's means do not suffice to bring to pigeons or to turtledoves, that person shall bring a measure of choice flour...and one shall not add oil or frankincense to it.
This text says, no matter how little you think you have, you always have something to give away, it is as if God has the audacity to ask us to maintain a mentality of abundance when we most feel we are without. It is as if the less we have, the more important it is for us to give.
See what I mean, it's just like Cari Bradshaw on the trapeze. In that moment on the trapeze, she has nothing other than a narrow bar suspended by metal wires, a harness which feels remarkably inadequate and far far below, a safety net which looks like more open space than "net."
Vayikra, our Torah portion, is just like this; about facing the fear of giving up safety measures and letting go.
And, it this just like our lives today.
I think I am not alone in this room when I say, I am freaking out in this economy. I do have a job for next year and for that I am grateful. I will be at Mount Sinai hospital doing chaplaincy work, but it is for fewer hours and for less pay than I am making now. Tuition has just gone up to0% at school but scholarships and loans have not. My monthly subway pass and health insurance fees are on the rise My story is not unique, and all things being equal, I am in pretty good shape. But I definitely do not have a cow or a goat to give. I don't even think I have turtledoves or pigeons...
But I do have a Smucker's Jam jar full of change. It's my tzedkah box and it has been sitting on my shelf a long time, filling with change but changing little.
My mother recently told me how she has moved her tzedakah box to the front door so she can put some money in her pockets to have with her if anyone asks for some. As much as I was inspired by her example, I kept thinking, how can I give any of this change away? What if I need it? I was feeling so afraid to give anything...I had such a mentality of lack. But at the same time, once I put the change in to the jelly jar, I knew I was never going to spend it on myself.
I decided for just one day that I would give it a shot.
Something incredible happened. As I encountered people in the street, I no longer had to say, no, sorry, I do not happen to have anything. Not saying no felt pretty good.
I figure, even if the money I gave went to something I do not support like buying drugs or alcohol, I was only handing over small quantities of money so it felt OK
And I felt good to look at someone who does not even have a Smucker's Jelly jar let alone the coins to put in it and not say I have nothing
I decided that I would keep up with the project. In my head, I started calling it dignity dollars. It had a nice ring to it. Get your dignity dollars as you walk out the door...
I knew I was giving out very little sustenance, but I hoped that I could make a great donation of substance towards someone else's dignity.

Then, I forgot for a few days and something was missing. I realized that just doing the giving had given me something. I had begun to feel generous... GENEROUS of all things!!
I felt like I had so little and then more and more I saw that I have so much. Suddenly, I found I had the emotional energy to spare. I had time to REALLY see people, to give them attention-even for just a moment while running from one class to the next. Whereas before I felt, no, I can not stop moving, I do not have the time to spare for this.
Suddenly I felt, YES, I must stop moving for a moment. I must spare time for this person, for this moment.
And doing so felt so good.

Right now, what I have to give is not the 50 cents in my pockets. What I have to give is something bigger and better. I have all of ME to give and the loose change became a vehicle for that.
The 4th century Rabbinic text of the Shirta, a commentary on the song of the sea, teaches that we wandered through the harshness of the wilderness SINGING because even when we were without, we had so much love, joy and connection to one another that we just had to sing. Just like us here at Shir Shabbat tonight. We just HAVE to sing!
Rabbi Michael Chernick, Talmud professor at HUC, teaches that when we felt like we were lacking, the rabbis demanded an accounting: Not an accounting of our checkbooks and possessions, but of our souls like the one we do 6 months from right now at Yom Kippur.
Who am I?
How do I live in the world?
What do I have within me?
What can I give away?
Forcing us to shift our understanding of transactions from money to love, care, connection and even abundance.
This shabbat, this Shir Shabbat, Shabbat of Song, Let's sing in this wilderness even though it is hard. May we all find the inner strength to do a different sort of audit than the April one5th kind. May we find the ability, inclination and support from one another to see what we have we have, to remind someone else what they have throw our arms back as we fly through the air, terrified. Reach out our hands to another human being and just let go.

Published on the Interwebs

In my world, when you meet someone new, you google them! It is a new vern like Madoff. Here is a new site you will find if you google me:

http://www.ujc.org/page.aspx?id=196241

A d'var Torah for the start of Pesach for the UJC
I am pretty excited! It was fun to work on
Enjoy!

Dignity Dollars

It sounds catchy, doesn't it? The words played in my head over and over for weeks until I picked dignity dollars up.

I never gave money to people on the street. I am a student and do not have much cash. I give my tzedakah/charity dollars to causes who do work with people on the street (or other such places). I work at a soup kitchen and volunteer my time.

BUT, I really value seeing...looking at people on the street, people who are suffering. Looking someone in the eye and saying, No, I am sorry, I have nothing to give you right now. But I hope you are doing ok out here. God Bless... Something like that.

And then I would walk off, feeling unsettled. Did I help enough? How awful to be in a position to have to ASK for change to get by. There is no dignity in having to ask for loose change. And I always felt like I only enhanced the lack of dignity there by saying no.

See, it was my mom who inspired me. during recent conversation, she said she was committing to putting change by the door so she could have it in her pocket to hand to people when they asked. It is a great idea. Sitting at home, I had this tzedakah box full of change. I have trained myself to put change in...but I have not yet figured out how to take it out and use it until now.

I moved the money into a jam jar which sits by my front door. I take a handful of change on my way out the door and seek to give it out all day. In New York City, it is not hard. And even if people do things with the money I do not like or even if someone is lying and does not need the cash...no big deal! I have only given a little bit of change. And more often then not, I feel like the people who are asking are genuine.


But then, the amazing thing happened...The more I have been doing this, the more change I have been handing out...well, the more and more giving I feel, the more and more generosity I encounter in the world, the more of me I feel I have to give.

I really noticed it when I went a few days and did not give the change out. had it in my pocket, but let myself get so busy that I was not seeing the people who needed it, I was not thinking about people in need, I was absorbed thinking about myself, my own life. The system collapsed, the warm generous feeling in the world was gone.

It is strange and this feels so hokey to write...but the more I am giving, the more I am getting. Now, at the end of the day, a measure or success of my day, the way I measure MY dignity is not how full, but rather how empty my pockets are.