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In parasha Acharei Mot, God gives Moses a whole set of instructions to give to Aaron after the death of his two sons. The Parasha linked with this portion is Kedoshim. Holiness. When we say the names together-we have After the Death-Holiness. This work-linkage is interesting in translation and brings a new perspective to these texts (Thanks to this week's D'var Tzedek from AJWS for this little nugget).
I sat today at length and spoke with Clark, a gentleman of great Christian faith who works at HUC. We were talking about faith and how people SHOULD rely on their faith to get them through the tough stuff. I asked the following question of Clark because I wanted to understand if he had tested this theory so I said, Clark, I am not asking what the experiences are, but have you known suffering? I did not mean it to sound like a challenge in anyway-it was really a clarifying question.
He paused a long and heavy pause. And said yes. He began talking about Jesus again and then said, I had a daughter who died in a fire when she was five...that was about 12 years ago...she had third degree burns everywhere...they had her all wrapped up in gauze and all I could see were her little toes and her eyes...she was like a mummy...she was doing better and then worse...
I lost it when he talked about her toes. All I could see were these gauzy feet with this little, tiny toes sticking out. I imagined Clark loving those toes with such intensity and joy...
When she died I blamed her mother for being careless...I should have a 17 year old girl now...and it took me a long time to get over it...and finally I found the faith and I let it go...
Tears all over my face, a smile all over his. He reflecting on God, me on loss.
Somehow...somehow Clark came to understand these words...
After death...holiness
And I thought about Aaron losing his sons and I said a little prayer that one day he too came to know holiness too.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Dignity Dollars Part 2-When Public and Private Meet
My Dignity Dollars have been advancing (and I am running out of change). Dignity Dollars is the spare change I keep in a Smucker's Jam jar right by my front door so that when I go out, I can grab so change to give to people who are asking. Here is how I see it. It seems like a pretty miserable situation to have to ask people for help. Even people who are exploiting the system must be in some pretty bad shape at least psychologically to be begging. The amount I give is so nominal but what I hope I am handing out is dignity and respect. The loose change in my pocket gives me an opportunity to look someone in the eye, hand them a little bit of change and talk with them. See them. Not leave them alone. It drives me nuts when someone is begging on the Subway, for example, and people will not even LOOK at them. I think about when I have to get the courage up to ask for help. It is scary and makes me so vulnerable. To ask someone else for help and have them openly IGNORE me...well that just adds insult to injury in my book.
So lately, here is what I have been learning about the power of harnessing a community in doing justice. Somehow this is applicable to life in a congregation and I am not sure how...please comment, I need some assistance making the connections.
A story from yesterday: I was riding the 4/5 express towards Queens from Brooklyn coming home from services. I had my DD (Dignity Dollars) in my pocket. White fleece jacket, jeans, baby-blue back pack on. A late-middle-aged black man with big bifocal (think Mr. Magoo) glasses stepped on at Brooklyn Bridge. He was wearing a Mr. Roger's sweater, khaki pants, navy coat (a bit worse for the wear). Not your obvious homeless type. He began his pitch. He had lost his home in the economic down turn. Please help. Anything is appreciated-food, money anything. He even asked for fruit (no one asks for fruit-most of the chronically homeless cannot eat fruit because of lack of teeth or diabetes...I am not including this because I doubt the veracity of his claim, I do believe this man had no home of his own. His appearance spoke to a newness to his situation).
People looked away. I have come to decide that my DD can buy more than dignity from me but from others. When he finished his ask, I strode towards him and said, excuse me sir, I have some for you. People looked up. I struck up a conversation with him. He told some of his story. A man standing near us (also a respectable-looking type guy) joined in, slipping a bill or to into Mr Rogers/Magoo's hand. When we concluded our talk other said excuse me sir, here is something. Bills started come out. Seven or eight people held out a hand with paper money in it. The man collected. We arrives at the next subway stop. He said goodbye, and was gone.
The whole exchange is not very Maimonidean. It is very public. I feel uncomfortable. But the result seems to be worth it...
There is something to be said about the spirituality of the exchange (by spirituality I mean connecting to that sense of there being something greater than I am out there). Doing all that reminds me how small I am but that I am connected to every other person on that train and in the world and that makes me part of something HUGE.
So lately, here is what I have been learning about the power of harnessing a community in doing justice. Somehow this is applicable to life in a congregation and I am not sure how...please comment, I need some assistance making the connections.
A story from yesterday: I was riding the 4/5 express towards Queens from Brooklyn coming home from services. I had my DD (Dignity Dollars) in my pocket. White fleece jacket, jeans, baby-blue back pack on. A late-middle-aged black man with big bifocal (think Mr. Magoo) glasses stepped on at Brooklyn Bridge. He was wearing a Mr. Roger's sweater, khaki pants, navy coat (a bit worse for the wear). Not your obvious homeless type. He began his pitch. He had lost his home in the economic down turn. Please help. Anything is appreciated-food, money anything. He even asked for fruit (no one asks for fruit-most of the chronically homeless cannot eat fruit because of lack of teeth or diabetes...I am not including this because I doubt the veracity of his claim, I do believe this man had no home of his own. His appearance spoke to a newness to his situation).
People looked away. I have come to decide that my DD can buy more than dignity from me but from others. When he finished his ask, I strode towards him and said, excuse me sir, I have some for you. People looked up. I struck up a conversation with him. He told some of his story. A man standing near us (also a respectable-looking type guy) joined in, slipping a bill or to into Mr Rogers/Magoo's hand. When we concluded our talk other said excuse me sir, here is something. Bills started come out. Seven or eight people held out a hand with paper money in it. The man collected. We arrives at the next subway stop. He said goodbye, and was gone.
The whole exchange is not very Maimonidean. It is very public. I feel uncomfortable. But the result seems to be worth it...
There is something to be said about the spirituality of the exchange (by spirituality I mean connecting to that sense of there being something greater than I am out there). Doing all that reminds me how small I am but that I am connected to every other person on that train and in the world and that makes me part of something HUGE.
A good fortune in an empty Well-Shemini 2009
This is a Passover Story of Redemption and forgiveness but for it to be complete, I need your help. You have to hear me confess what happened in this story.
Not only am I the Rabbinic intern at Brooklyn Heights Synagogue, I am also, a daughter with a mother. And like daughters with mothers will sometimes do, I tease and make fun of mine.
For Passover, I went to Boston to spend some time with my family. It was a lovely trip and it was wonderful to see everyone including my grandmother who sends her regards, especially to you, Rabbi Lippe. During one of the non-seder dinner nights, my parents,grandmother and I ordered in Chinese food. Not to worry-no rice or noodles could be found anywhere. We did, however, forget to tell the Asian Sun Chinese Restaurant in Cambridge not to send the fortune cookies. So, in true Reform Jewish style, we debate the permissibility of having the cookies on the table and in the end decided to not eat them, but merely open them for our fortunes.
When the meal was over and fortune-reading time came, my mother sprang up from the table and said, oh good,I'll get the fortune book. "The fortune book? What ridiculous thing is this, Mom?" She returned with a small, red, 5x7 album with pages and pages of little plastic slots for fortune cookie fortunes. She explained, my parents had gotten it when they had this really good fortune and they wanted to keep it.
"Where is that one I asked?" (Being the simple child) and my mother said, "well...we lost that one." My reply,
"And what was so great about that fortune that you needed to keep it?" (being the wicked child)
"Oh," my mother replied, "it said 87% of all statistics are made up on the spot."
Ironic. Funny. Cute.
I asked about all the other fortunes and where they had come from. I assumed they too all had stories of their own.
"I don't remember" she said "...I did not write it down..."
And being the child who did not even know what to say...I held my tongue.
"Well, let's all read these new ones and put them in the book."
I rolled my eyes at my mother, thinking the whole fortune-reading enterprise was foolish, anyway. They are just these silly phrases someone pulled off the internet and wrote on to little slips of paper. It's not like Torah or anything...or so I thought...
We all took turns reading our fortunes out loud. When it was my father's turn, he reads the following, "Learn Chinese: Ginger LiAhng"
More eye rolling.
He continued.
"The sky seems small if it is looked at from the bottom of the well...I don't get it" my father said.
I thought a moment and said, "well, I have an idea." "Begin your discourse" was my father's reply.
Now a brief time out from this story to tell another which my father and I had encountered earlier that day. Not only am I the Rabbinic intern at Brooklyn Heights and a daughter with a mother, I am also a rabbinic student with homework. And like rabbinic students with homework sometimes do, I worked on mine while on vacation. I had some sermons to read and so I read them with my dad.
One sermon included the following story from Pirkei Avot- Rabban Yochanan was dining with his studentson a festive day (perhaps it was passover) when he turned to one of his longest learning pupils, Rabbi Eliezer Ben Hyrcanus and said, "begin your discourse" but Rabbi Eliezer begged off saying, I cannot begin for I am like a well which cannot givemore water than has been poured in to it. So too I cannot offer words of Torah which you have not yet given me."My dad and I thought this was a bit of a jab by the student to the teacher especially at Passover...not unlike adaughter teasing her mother at the dinner table...but we read on. Rabbi Yochanan, the teacher said, "you are not a dry well, but a spring which gushes freely of water from within itself. Believe me, you are like such a spring. Now, begin your discourse." After more discussion, Rabbi Eliezer the student is convinced, opens his mouth and brilliant, new words of Torah poured out. (Pirkei D'rabbi Eliezer 1, Avot DeRabbi Natan 6, Gen. R. 42:1, Tanhumma B, Lech lcha)
Back to the fortune cookie.
"I don't get it. " My father said.
I thought a moment and said, "well, I have an idea." "Begin your discourse" was my father's reply.
"It's like the student in the story. He thinks he is a dry well and from where he stands, the sky is small, and far away, just like all the possibilities of what he might be able to do. But when his well is fed by a gushing stream, he floats up toward the top, and the sky appears bigger and bigger as all that is possible comes in to view."
My father thought for a minute and said, "Very Cool! I like that...let's put it in the book."
I smiled, sheepishly and said, "actually, can I have the fortune? I want to write a sermon about it..."
My mother, being the wise child, smiled, kissed me, and handed me the fortune.
At this season of renewal and spring time and passover,my we all be nourished and enriched by the springs which keep our wells full, floating us ever closer to the bright blue sky we finally saw today, keeping all the hope and possibilities in view of the bright futures which lay ahead.
Shabbat Shalom
Not only am I the Rabbinic intern at Brooklyn Heights Synagogue, I am also, a daughter with a mother. And like daughters with mothers will sometimes do, I tease and make fun of mine.
For Passover, I went to Boston to spend some time with my family. It was a lovely trip and it was wonderful to see everyone including my grandmother who sends her regards, especially to you, Rabbi Lippe. During one of the non-seder dinner nights, my parents,grandmother and I ordered in Chinese food. Not to worry-no rice or noodles could be found anywhere. We did, however, forget to tell the Asian Sun Chinese Restaurant in Cambridge not to send the fortune cookies. So, in true Reform Jewish style, we debate the permissibility of having the cookies on the table and in the end decided to not eat them, but merely open them for our fortunes.
When the meal was over and fortune-reading time came, my mother sprang up from the table and said, oh good,I'll get the fortune book. "The fortune book? What ridiculous thing is this, Mom?" She returned with a small, red, 5x7 album with pages and pages of little plastic slots for fortune cookie fortunes. She explained, my parents had gotten it when they had this really good fortune and they wanted to keep it.
"Where is that one I asked?" (Being the simple child) and my mother said, "well...we lost that one." My reply,
"And what was so great about that fortune that you needed to keep it?" (being the wicked child)
"Oh," my mother replied, "it said 87% of all statistics are made up on the spot."
Ironic. Funny. Cute.
I asked about all the other fortunes and where they had come from. I assumed they too all had stories of their own.
"I don't remember" she said "...I did not write it down..."
And being the child who did not even know what to say...I held my tongue.
"Well, let's all read these new ones and put them in the book."
I rolled my eyes at my mother, thinking the whole fortune-reading enterprise was foolish, anyway. They are just these silly phrases someone pulled off the internet and wrote on to little slips of paper. It's not like Torah or anything...or so I thought...
We all took turns reading our fortunes out loud. When it was my father's turn, he reads the following, "Learn Chinese: Ginger LiAhng"
More eye rolling.
He continued.
"The sky seems small if it is looked at from the bottom of the well...I don't get it" my father said.
I thought a moment and said, "well, I have an idea." "Begin your discourse" was my father's reply.
Now a brief time out from this story to tell another which my father and I had encountered earlier that day. Not only am I the Rabbinic intern at Brooklyn Heights and a daughter with a mother, I am also a rabbinic student with homework. And like rabbinic students with homework sometimes do, I worked on mine while on vacation. I had some sermons to read and so I read them with my dad.
One sermon included the following story from Pirkei Avot- Rabban Yochanan was dining with his studentson a festive day (perhaps it was passover) when he turned to one of his longest learning pupils, Rabbi Eliezer Ben Hyrcanus and said, "begin your discourse" but Rabbi Eliezer begged off saying, I cannot begin for I am like a well which cannot givemore water than has been poured in to it. So too I cannot offer words of Torah which you have not yet given me."My dad and I thought this was a bit of a jab by the student to the teacher especially at Passover...not unlike adaughter teasing her mother at the dinner table...but we read on. Rabbi Yochanan, the teacher said, "you are not a dry well, but a spring which gushes freely of water from within itself. Believe me, you are like such a spring. Now, begin your discourse." After more discussion, Rabbi Eliezer the student is convinced, opens his mouth and brilliant, new words of Torah poured out. (Pirkei D'rabbi Eliezer 1, Avot DeRabbi Natan 6, Gen. R. 42:1, Tanhumma B, Lech lcha)
Back to the fortune cookie.
"I don't get it. " My father said.
I thought a moment and said, "well, I have an idea." "Begin your discourse" was my father's reply.
"It's like the student in the story. He thinks he is a dry well and from where he stands, the sky is small, and far away, just like all the possibilities of what he might be able to do. But when his well is fed by a gushing stream, he floats up toward the top, and the sky appears bigger and bigger as all that is possible comes in to view."
My father thought for a minute and said, "Very Cool! I like that...let's put it in the book."
I smiled, sheepishly and said, "actually, can I have the fortune? I want to write a sermon about it..."
My mother, being the wise child, smiled, kissed me, and handed me the fortune.
At this season of renewal and spring time and passover,my we all be nourished and enriched by the springs which keep our wells full, floating us ever closer to the bright blue sky we finally saw today, keeping all the hope and possibilities in view of the bright futures which lay ahead.
Shabbat Shalom
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