…but close is not the same thing as actually done.
I now pronounce ch. 1 Done For Now (we’ll be seeing one another soon enough at the revisions factory) and push forward, bravely, to battle ch. 9 and the afterword. But not today. I have some things to do for another project that, blessedly, requires an entirely different side of my brain.
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Today we’re learning Mishnah Brachot 4:6:
“If one was sitting in a boat, or in a wagon, or on a raft, [when one prays], one should focus one’s heart toward the Holy of Holies.”
Some background: When one prayes the Shmoneh Esrei (the Amidah, one of, or perhaps the, central component(s) of Jewish liturgy), one should pray physically facing the Holy of Holies. If one is outside of Jerusalem, one should pray facing Jerusalem. That’s why Jews in the Western world always pray facing East.
The thing that immeditately came to mind when I read this was the famous story told by the Dalai Lama in Simon Wiesenthal’s excellent book, The Sunflower. The Dalai Lama recalls, “A few years back, a Tibetian monk who had served about eighteen years in a Chinese prison in Tibet came to see me after his escape to India. I knew him from my days in Tibet and remember last seeing him in 1959. During the course of that meeting I had asked him what he felt was the biggest threat or danger when he was in prison. I was amazed by his answer…. He said that what he most feard was losing his compassion for the Chinese.”
We don’t always have control over our external circumstances. Sometimes we find ourselves in situations that are far from ideal, and this may hamper us from doing what we would do if we got to pick. However, we always have control over our minds, and our hearts. We can choose to allow our circumstances to prevent us from enacting our highest self and service to the Divine–or we can choose to find ways to preserve that Divine service and our own integrity internally… even if it’s a struggle because we are out on a metaphorical raft, and can’t stand up or don’t even know which way Jerusalem might be. Even adrift, we can still incline our hearts to the Holy of Holies. The heart has a better and more powerful compass than that which can be found on any ship.
May Yoel Natan ben Sara Miriam’s recovery be quick and complete.
Today’s meditation brought to you by Urbandictionary.com:
A guy walks up to me and asks ‘What’s Punk?’. So I kick over a garbage can and say ‘That’s punk!’. So he kicks over the garbage can and says ‘That’s Punk?’, and I say ‘No that’s trendy!”
In related news, today, this book-writing thing requires me to email a used record store in Chicago and ask when they opened, because I couldn’t remember if I started hanging around there in jr. high or high school. My job is fun sometimes.
(Answer: turns out they opened early enough for me to namecheck them in the section I had planned.)
I don’t know if this site was down yesterday or if my own internet was being screwy (both plausible; I had trouble pulling up a couple of other sites and didn’t have time to go dinking around to figure out why), but now at least in my own home, things are working as they should.
Maybe just a few links for now:
OK, that’s enough for now. Time to enter in line edits, fun fun fun!!
(Hat tip to Uri for link items 1 and 2).
Today I spent the whole day reading and writing about existentialism. Oof.
Sartre, I might add, looks increasingly feeble in his claims of atheism the more I read him. He’s constantly talking to and about the God in whom he doesn’t (really! He doesn’t! He means it!) believe. Not to mention this key chunk from his autobiography:
I had been playing with matches and burned a small rug. I was in the process of covering up my crime when suddenly God saw me. I felt His gaze inside my head and on my hands. I whirled about in the bathroom, horribly visible, a live target. Indignation saved me. I flew into a rage against so crude an indiscretion, I blasphemed, I muttered like my grandfather: “God damn it, God damn it, God damn it.” He never looked at me again.
I’m sorry, he does not say–even all of those years later, when he wrote this story down–that he imagines that God saw him, or that he wondered if God saw him. He communicates a pretty clear record of his understanding of reality–God was there. He may have vanquished God from his life and awareness out of sheer will, but that’s not the same thing as the Deity never existing in the first place. I am just saying.
Mmm, WotW was extra lovely indeed. Lots of friends showed up (I think they had to cancel the egal minyan at one yeshiva b/c all the women were coming to the Kotel today), and I had the great honor of leading both Shacharit and Musaf. It’s always so humbling just to be at the Wall with all of these incredible women, and all the more so with the weight of being shaliach tzibbur (leading prayers) on me. Standing at the place of worship and utmost longing for thousands of years of Jews, and getting to raise my voice in song and praise, to lead others in prayer–it’s amazing. We don’t know for sure what happened in Ezrat HaNashim (the Women’s Courtyard of the ancient Jerusalem Temple), it’s possible that there were women leading some sort of worship there, or in the 2000 years since by the Kotel. But it’s just as likely, perhaps more likely, that we’re the first real generation of women ever, in history, who have lead worship so at this site–singing loud, hymns and hallelujahs. It’s amazing. The mind truly boggles. I am so grateful, and so lucky.
According to the current status of the Supreme Court decisions, (possibly to change–I’ve heard rumors that the current plans for excavations might affect the Robinson’s Arch area, but I could be wrong about that–don’t quote me on it!), after praying Shacharit and Hallel at the Kotel, WotW is to go over to the Robinson’s Arch area by the side to read Torah, pray Musaf, and put on gear (tallitot, tefillin, etc.) We have one little corner of the Arch area–lots of other groups come as well to the Arch in order to pray in a mixed-gender environment, since the Kotel itself is divided (with, of course, about twice as much of the Kotel courtyard taken up by the men’s section. Naturally.)
Today there was what looked to be a youth group trip–high school-aged folk, I’d guess–and a bat mitzvah, respectively. As one of the WotW members observed, it really was a miracle to see so much Jewish life, so much prayer, so much happening around these old, old stones.
Our Torah reading was punctuated by the sound of drums and shofars in the distance; a bunch of hippie hasid types (I’d guess they were Breslovers but I could be wrong) were having a big ol’ jam session over on the far end of the Kotel plaza. As we left Robinson’s Arch, we shook our little booties for a couple of minutes before heading out of the Old City.
זה היום עשה ה’, נגילה ונשמחה בו.
This is the day that God made; let us rejoice and be happy in it.
Chodesh Tov!
Oh, it’s Adar. About time!
One thing I love about being in Israel is that the seasons really do correspond to the Jewish calendar–it was designed to be that way, after all.
But really, this Shabbat, suddenly, the air went from feeling heavy and rainy and chilly to having a bit of a snap in the air–the crisp snap of early spring. Shabbos day was downright warm, to the point where I was sorry to have worn boots to shul. There’s still probably some rain yet to come (we do pray for it until Pesach, after all), but the weather’s mood is different. It’s time to open a few windows, to wear a lighter jacket. It’s not only a new month, but it’s the one associated with happiness: “When Adar arrives, we increase our joy.” (Taanit 29a). Yay Adar!
Tomorrow’s Women of the Wall is promising to be a good one–a bunch of my friends (including one visiting from the States) are planning to be there. And Purim’s in just a couple of weeks! It’s shocking, but I haven’t even begun to think about my costume situation. I better get on it, I have a reputation to maintain.
and cry. Then write a letter to your Senator. Then remember that the Iraq war, while an important issue in the 2008 elections, is not the only issue worth considering when going to vote.
One of my classmates in LA has recently been diagnosed with a serious and scary disease. The community is seriously rallying, like it does–it’s one of the more impressive things about my seminary community, watching people step up when there’s a need. One of the things that they decided to do (in addition to childcare, holding Shabbos services in my classmate’s hospital room, donating blood and platelets in droves, etc), was to learn Torah in honor of my classmate. Every day, someone is learning a mishnah and posting a few ruminations about it to the rab school listserv in honor of Yoel Natan ben Sara Miriam. The hope is that at the end, there’ll be a siyyum–a celebratory conclusion–of the learning and of my classmate’s return to health.
In any case, today was my turn. I was assigned Brachot 2:8. You can see the whole chapter of Mishnah Brachot in translation here and in Hebrew here (but you have to click on the individual mishnayot). Here’s some basic background info on the Mishnah, and here’s what the Shema is, for those of you just tuning in at home.
Anyway, here’s my little musing, dedicated to the speedy and complete recovery of Yoel Natan ben Sara Miriam.
If a groom wants to recite the Shema on the first night [after his wedding], he [may] recite. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says, not everyone who wants to take on the Name [may] take it on (לא כל הרוצה ליטול את השם יטולֹ).
Our mishnah starts out fairly straightforward, as a continuation of the mishnah in 2:5 exempting a groom from saying the Shema right after his wedding. (As you all know, we digressed a bit to discuss a few more examples of Rabban Gamliel’s unorthodox behavior.)
It’s a fairly smooth transition, particularly if one reads 2:5 and 2:8 together. A groom is exempt from the Shema. Here’s a story about a scholar who read the Shema anyway. Then, the stam of the mishnah tells us, actually, that’s just fine–anyone who wishes to read the Shema, anyone who’s feeling up to the task even with plenty of other things going on, is welcome to. The groom is exempt, not forbidden, after all.
But then Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel pipes in with this strangely-worded note of reservation. To “take on the Name” is, of course, to say the Shema, to take it upon oneself with all the fear of Heaven that such an undertaking requires. Not everybody’s up to the task. The gemara (Brachot 17b) tells us that the reason RSbG says this is that he’s worried about arrogance. That is, he’s worried that a groom (or, like Dr. Labovitz, I’d add, bride) who has had a busy day full of wedding and who is now in the once-in-a-lifetime (one hopes) position of consummating the marriage, who is full of all sorts of fears and expectations and overwhelm and everything–may fancy himself such a rockstar, may think that he’s sooooo spiiiritual that even on a day in which he’s been given an exemption–because the Rabbis expect that he’s going to have difficulty concentrating on the Shema–he’s going to try to say it anyway. And, RSbG reminds us, not everyone who imagines that he’s so full of the fear of Heaven that he can say the Shema properly even on his (/her) own wedding night is actually up to the task. Gotta watch out for that.
Obviously this mishnah is warning us against arrogance, and about having a realistic sense of expectation for ourselves, about really checking ourselves on our motives and capabilities before we try to undertake something. Piety for the sake of piety is not service to God.
But, more than that, I think RSbG’s statement is actually a reminder to us all to be generous with ourselves. It’s not that there aren’t perfectly good reasons for taking on mitzvot from which we have been exempted, or to push ourselves ritually–women taking on positive, time-bound commandments is just one good example of that, in my mind. But that there are also times when, perhaps, it’s OK to take the lenient route, to allow our logistical and emotional state to influence what we do. In mourning laws, for example, the halakha tries to take the most lenient possible position for the mourner (Moed Katan 19b-20a, etc) because, after all, grief is hard enough as it is! It’s about knowing when it’s time to demand more from yourself, and when self-kindness is in order. This is true in our observance of halakha, and in life generally, I think.
God, RSbG is telling us in this mishnah, doesn’t see any great heroism in empty piety. The law gives us plenty of room to navigate, and by being honest with ourselves about where we’re at and what we’re feeling, we’ll be able to serve God with the awe and humility that our service truly demands.
OK, it’s time for another round of de-lurkification! Don’t worry, it won’t hurt.
Really, I’m just curious about who’s reading this thing. Some of you I know, either from Teh Interweb or from my actual real life, but I know there are many of the lurking variety out there as well.
Why not drop a comment to say hi? Maybe tell me either about your superpower of choice, or something related to ice cream.
Also, maybe I’ll open this space up to FAQ-type stuff, if people have Qs they want me to A as a post.
