Noticing: inner treasures

Has this been a summer of relaxation and refreshment for me?  Quite the contrary!  But I can honestly say I’m happy.  I’ve had all kinds of experiences this summer, most of which of which were uninvited, and most but not all, of which I could have lived without.  (I’ll get back to that in a paragraph or two.)  And, for now, when asked how I am, I honestly answer: “I feel great.”

I had an epiphany this morning.  

I was reading the Book of Exodus (as opposed to the book, Exodus) in preparation for my Shemot class in school this year.  (Thank you, Shayna).  When I read the second part of Ex. 31:6 ובלב כל חכם לב נתתי חכמה I thought “woah!”  For starters, where does the punctuation go in this phrase?  Mostly because it does make sense AND it contributed to my “aha moment”, my current thought about its translation is “… and in the heart of all who are wise-hearted, I give wisdom…”  But what a strange turn of phrase.  What does it mean for God to give one who is “wise-hearted”, wisdom? 

The text is referring specifically to Bezalel.  He, with his helpers, was to execute God’s instructions for building the Tabernacle; the place where God would dwell among the Israelites in the desert. He was to follow the instructions exactly as God gave them to Moses.  Robert Alter translates the phrase “…and in the heart of every wise-hearted man I have set wisdom…”  His note reads as follows: “…the capacity for skillful artisanship is innate, one of the person’s attributes, but God is the ultimate source of all such capacities AND the enabling force for their realization.”[i] (Capital letters and italics are mine).  Holding my new identity as a person with cancer and supporting my ongoing spiritual journey and the evolution of my relationship with God, this understanding of that phrase feels like it was written for me.  Being a wise-hearted person is at, or very near the top of my “I wanna be like that”, list. 

In many ways this whole cancer thing has felt like an “out of body” experience which, of course, is extremely ironic because I cannot imagine anything more “in body”.  Yet, as I step out of myself and see "me" during this past 2 months, I'm filled with gratitude for the strength and grace which I've found within.  One of the many blessings in this experience has been my clear understanding that the propensity to feel gratitude and express it, appears thankfully to be innate for me and God has enabled me to realize those capacities from deep within, at a time when She knew, I needed them most. 

So, ya; I'm great!  Thank you for asking.

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[i] The Five books of Moses, with commentary, Robert Alter, p. 490

Blessing life

Tisha b’Av 5771 falls this year on August 8, 2011.  It is ten days away.  It will mark the end of the three week period on the Jewish calendar during which many Jews remember and reflect on several pivotal and dark chapters of Jewish history.  Tisha b’Av has never been a regular part of my personal Jewish calendar.  I didn’t go to a Jewish overnight camp.  I wasn’t a teacher of Judaism during the summer months.  I knew about the 9^th of Av from textbooks but it simply hasn’t been a part of my Jewish experience.

Although this is a time of sadness and deep reflection on the Jewish calendar that is not what occupies my mind.  I am not thinking about what some call the saddest day in Jewish history; a date which shook the very essence of Jewish/Israelite religious life. I am not dwelling on events which could have broken our people and put into serious question our connection to God.  I am deep in reflection on the status of my own life.  I am contemplating but not mourning, my own loss of good health.  I am recognizing the bump in my life journey.  Nobody saw it coming, least of all me.  There were no signs on the road that said “slow bump ahead”.  Still, my mood does not coincide with the sadness which the Jewish calendar would otherwise dictate.

Eleh ma’asei b’nai Yisrael, these are the journeys of the children of Israel.  That is the opening line of this week’s Torah portion, simply called, Massei, “Journeys.”  The GPS for my journey has inadvertently led me to a place of major reconstruction on the roads.  The calm, gentle voice to whom we refer in my family as “Judy” is telling me that my route needs to be recalculated.  I have a really awful sense of direction, so this is not good news.  In recent weeks, however, I have learned that for the journeys of my life that really matter (and that are not on a literal road) my sense of direction is more than adequate!  In recent years, y spiritual journey has been a priority.  As directionally challenged as I know I am on a literal road, I’ve positioned myself perfectly on the spiritual by-way.  Nourishment, love and support are pouring in on me.  God is winking at me with an impish smile.  She has moved from my peripheral vision to fill the expanse of the space all around me.  I can listen.  I hear and I know that I am blessed.  I am grateful for all of the opportunities that have come my way and for the ability to see opportunity even behind an outrageous disguise.

John Lennon wrote (and sang) “life is what happens to you while you are making other plans.”  I’ve had that experience a myriad of times.  Usually it has been in the form of chance encounters with people or events that have become vital connectors or participants in my life journey.  And usually, upon reflection, they were not as “chance” as I’d thought, but rather a result of my having been open or reaching out to receive them.  This is the most significant time that life has “happened at me”.  It barged in, uninvited.  And yet, I have watched myself move through the days with a grace that I have prayed for but wasn’t sure I had.  I understand that my way of life will be inconvenienced for the foreseeable future, but it is not broken and certainly not destroyed.  

The vehicles through which I have sought a connection with God have become more visible, less camouflaged since my cancer diagnosis.  Having been confronted with the reality of life’s transience has reinvigorated the possibility of my making it a blessing for myself and I hope, for others whose lives I touch.  I am very grateful for the many who have joined me on this less than desirable spectrum of the human experience and for their abundant blessings which embrace me every day.  I pray for the strength and courage to maintain my ability to receive and to give.

The people in peoplehood

On my journey to Jerusalem to study the meaning of peoplehood, I found profound blessing among my people. 

We were a group of 100, from disparate places in North America; 43 from our shul. Many were acquaintances. I had not yet met others.  We were like minded adults looking forward to engaging deeply and with honesty in challenging, difficult and often personal discussions.  I had expected a week of intellectual stimulation. What I encountered was a group of remarkably thoughtful caring and giving individuals each on his own Jewish journey and almost without exception, willing and even desirous of embracing all who boarded our particular multiple-terrain vehicle.

The Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem served as the hub of our GPS.  It was literally awesome to listen to and engage with the brilliant, articulate and creative thinkers who were our teachers at Hartman.  Our task was to explore our individual and collective relationships to the people Israel and to each other and ourselves as Jews.  How do we negotiate, let alone feel comfortable and grow with and within, the profound fractures among our people and even each of us within our own souls?  Can we learn to hold simultaneous "pekuach nefesh" issues, as Donniel Hartman called them? That is, the multitude of issues that threaten to tear both the state and the people Israel apart both internally and externally.  What are the boundaries of tolerance? Of criticism? We came to understand deeply the sometimes excruciating challenge not to say something that we know an other will not be able to hear.  In the process I began to clarify some of my own thoughts.  More important even than that, at this point in my journey of life I was embraced by many new friends. In a world that often feels divided by "us" and "them", by "self " and "other", I witnessed and was embraced by " us".

My own personal journey with breast cancer took a back seat for the last two weeks.  My mind and heart were occupied with other things.  By far the most significant are the new friendships and the deepening of ones that already existed.  Everything that is happening to me is new.  I have no control but I do not feel like a victim.  I know the possibilities of this insidious disease.  I feel scared and am grateful for that degree of reality having sunk in.  I’m sore, but not in pain; another way to keep in touch with the reality of my life forever changed but more than managing from one day to the next.  I feel deeply, the immense value of true friendship.  I am grateful for everything I have including what appears to be a strong physical and emotional constitution.

To everything there is a season AND sometimes life is what happens while you are planning....

June 19, 2011

     To everything there is a season, indeed!

     I am lucky; but I don’t really believe in luck.  Maybe attitude is the key.  Maybe it’s all about fine tuning our ability not so much to make lemonade out of lemons but to take those lemons and make something that will speak to who we are and what we need, at any given time: a slightly tart lemon popsicle!  A glass of lemonade that is too sweet, but a friend who likes it sweet with whom we can take a few minutes and share it.

     Stephen Dunn writes in his poem Before the sky darkens, “Sunsets, incipient storms, the tableaus of melancholy-maybe these are the Saturday night-events to take your best girl to.  At least then there might be moments of vanishing beauty before the sky darkens, and the expectation of happiness would hardly exist and therefore might be possible.”

     I am a planner, a thinker.  I am a feeler, a compassionate listener and a nurturer, more often for others…but in recent years increasingly also for myself.  I decided, at the age of 60, to fulfill my lifelong dream to become a Rabbi.  I evaluated my life journey to date and made my personal spiritual journey a priority as a part of that adventure.  By choice, with purpose and with the (unanticipated but sought after) help of extraordinary friends, teachers, a spiritual director and most of all my own compelling nature as a seeker, I am regularly aware of myself, seatbelt fastened, all protective gear at hand, flying down the highway of life.  I feel blessed to see, to hear, to know the presence of God in the tiniest of sounds and sights, far too numerous to mention.  AND as is often the case, when we are able to see it as such, my timing was perfect.  This Rabbi(t) was diagnosed with breast cancer last week.

     At least for now, and that is all that each of us really has, isn’t it, it’s ok.  Even as the clouds above me become laden with heavy darkness, the people I’ve always known love me are telling me that.  It is a blessing that I am able to bring to their awareness the importance of sharing those words early and often.  A team I didn’t know I had came together and went into action, all on my behalf, in God’s office.  And more than anything, I am watching my own Torah, my own innermost teaching, evolve and I am present, fully present to witness it.  Even without actively sharing it, it is shared.  I see its reflection in the faces and hear it in the words, of those around me.  It is a precious gift to hear another say Torah.  For me, in what most would think is a very dark time in my life, I’m feeling the most extraordinary gift of all: the voice, the music of my Torah is showing itself.  I’ve shed a few tears, not of sadness, not of terror, just of a little fear.  My heart seems to understand, though I haven’t asked it to.  This apparently, is a time for secrets of the heart to unfold and to nourish.  My sighs are those of wondering and of hoping and as odd as it feels to me, of gratitude.  My life today is a smile and a tear.  I am holding both of them with their inherent tension…and with ease.  That feels right for me, in this season.

To everything there is a season...

May 26, 2011

To everything there is a season; a time to think and a time to write; a time to share and a time to keep quiet.

I’ve resisted journaling for years.  “Never put anything in writing that you wouldn’t want anybody to see.”  That’s what I heard growing up.

I value face to face communication.  Being able to seeing how you feel is an essential component of what I want my communication to be.  So, when my husband suggested I start a blog, nobody could have been more stunned than I was at how right that felt.  

With humility I thank you for sharing in this adventure with me.  If what I write strikes a chord with you, I’d love to hear about it.  If something strikes a nerve, all the more reason to share.ברוכים הבאים