When a blessing doesn't feel like a blessing

 34א  וַיַּעַל מֹשֶׁה מֵעַרְבֹת מוֹאָב, אֶל-הַר נְבוֹ, רֹאשׁ הַפִּסְגָּה, אֲשֶׁר עַל-פְּנֵי יְרֵחוֹ; וַיַּרְאֵהוּ יְהוָה אֶת-כָּל-הָאָרֶץ אֶת-הַגִּלְעָד, עַד-דָּן.

 34ד  וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֵלָיו, זֹאת הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּעְתִּי לְאַבְרָהָם לְיִצְחָק וּלְיַעֲקֹב לֵאמֹר, לְזַרְעֲךָ, אֶתְּנֶנָּה; הֶרְאִיתִיךָ בְעֵינֶיךָ, וְשָׁמָּה לֹא תַעֲבֹר.

4 And the LORD said to him [Moshe]: 'This is the land which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying: I will give it to your seed;  I have caused you to see it with your own eyes, but you shall not cross over [to the land]

Simchat Torah, 5775 Nava Tehillah, Jerusalem

We stood in a large circle.  The Torah was completely unrolled and each of us, using a tallit or some other material as a buffer between our fingers and the parchment, held the Torah from the top.  Without looking and without touching the Torah, we each reached over the top of the part we were holding and pointed to a pasuk.   One of the several Torah scholars present came, read the pasuk each one of us had pointed to, translated it and gave us a blessing for the year based on the pasuk.

My heart sank when “my” scholar, Julie, read the pasuk to which I had (by chance?!) pointed. It was Dueteronomy 34:4, written and translated above.  I could tell that she really wanted to find a blessing in those words.  There was a slight strain in her face as she processed the words. Perhaps I was projecting but it seemed to me that she was hoping to turn them into a blessing for me.   And all the while I’m thinking: These lines about the end of Moses’ life, about our (indirect) reminder of his lack of patience, when he hit the rock in order to get water out of it rather than spoke to it as God had commanded.   Moshe would lead the people to the land that God had promised their ancestors…but he would not enter it.  He saw it.  He knew God would fulfill God’s promise to the people.  But even after 40 years of leading them, of putting up with their complaints, of finding solutions to their problems, of the ramifications of the Golden Calf, Moshe would see the promised land, but he would not cross over into it.  Was this to be my blessing?  My promised land is the rabbinate.   In many significant ways, having lived my life for 60 years was the beginning of my preparation for this goal.  I’ve learned through five years of rabbinical school and survived cancer in the process.  I struggled with my “not so young” and now compromised by chemotherapy, brain.  Despite that Moses knew long before he was at the precipice of entering  Canaan, that he would not enter, he must have felt profoundly sad and disappointed.  Could Julie find a blessing for me in Moshe’s having spent his entire life leading the people to the precipice of Canaan, which he would only see it?  She tried.  She blessed me with the ability to see, to look at and be aware of everything that was around me, like Moshe was.  Her blessing included that I should be humble like Moses, that I should have perseverance and the ability to look north and south, east and west to see and to appreciate the beauty of all of God’s creation.  But I did not feel I had received a blessing.  That I would have any connection to Moshe’s “coming up short” felt more like a curse.  Taking my blessing of seeing, I was determined to find my as yet uncovered blessing, in Deuteronomy 34:4; that I would be like Moses, humble, compassionate and caring.   Maybe, like Moshe, I would be blessed with a long life, one in which neither my vision (both literal and otherwise) nor my physical strength, would diminish.   Maybe, though falling short of my promised land, I would know God, perhaps not face to face, but as more than an acquaintance.  Maybe I would be aware of God as more of a constant presence in my life-and that would suffice.  Even thinking those thoughts however, left me feeling anxious.  Why couldn’t I both reach my “promised land” and as part of that journey, have evolved in my partnership with God?

When I shared my experience with my beloved husband, it did not surprise me that he had a different and much more hopeful, understanding of the blessing intended for me from this pasuk.  In addition to having led the people to the land of Canaan, Moshe was a teacher of B’nai Yisrael.  He was a transmitter of Torah from God to the generation that entered the promised-land.  With patience, constant reminders, occasional reprimands and repetition, Moshe taught Torah to the people-God’s people.  The blessing in Deuteronomy 34:4, my connection to it, is not, as I had imagined, in a literal interpretation of the situation in which Moshe found himself, but in the way he had led his life, in his love of God and Torah, in his compassion and his teaching and in the trust and respect and love that B’nai Yisrael had for him-and do to this day. וְלֹא-קָם נָבִיא עוֹד בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל, כְּמֹשֶׁה, אֲשֶׁר יְדָעוֹ יְהוָה, פָּנִים אֶל-פָּנִים; There has never arisen another prophet in Israel, like Moshe-that he knew God, face to face.   Deut. 34:10

Moshe received Torah from God but he did not keep it only for himself.  He spent his life giving it, teaching and sharing it with B’nai Yisrael. For every teaching of Torah that came from God to Moshe, at least one flowed out.  Moshe received and he gave in equal measure.  The Torah lives because it is shared, taught to each subsequent generation.  My teacher Rabbi Or Rose teaches about parsha ve-zot ha-Berakhah: “We are told that we are all Moses’s disciples; he is the da’at, the mind or awareness of Israel, and that passes on to us through the chain of tradition.  But we also know that da’at has to be renewed in each generation.”[1]

So, here is take 2 of my blessing based on Deuteronomy 34:4:
May I be blessed to receive Torah from many different people and equally as blessed to be able to share it, to give it and teach it.  May I “be faithful to my teachers”[2] and at the same time understand my students, whether formal or simply as I walk through life, so that I can speak Torah in a way that each one can understand and embrace.  May I help those with whom I engage, see within themselves that spark of God that I see in each one of them.  And may I feel gratitude for the many gifts I have been blessed with during the years of my life.  May I embrace with wisdom and compassion the role that God has intended for me; a blessing in itself since I feel keenly aware of what my purpose is on earth. May I create students of Torah knowingly and unknowingly.  And my I become the best partner with the creator of all life that I can be.

---

[1] Speaking Torah, spiritual teachings from around the Maggid’s table, Volume 2, Arthur Green, with Ebn Leader, Ariel Evan Mayse and Or N. Rose, p. 154

[2] Ibid, Ariel Evan Mayse, p. 154

Many Faces of Israel

On Sunday, August 24, 2014

This past Shabbat I didn't want to stay home alone all day.  I decided to take myself on a tiyuul and wanted to go for a walk on the Jerusalem talyelet.  The tayelet is a 30 minute walk from where I live.  I went to the Inbal hotel to get directions-which turned out to be nothing close to accurate.  Nobody on the roads to ask, so I decided to walk, find a park, sit in the shade and muse about my journey, to date.

I headed toward the Kotel; found the paths via the artist colony; quickly found a great view.  I heard water flowing and children playing.  I followed it and came to two small stone pools with fountains in the middle of them and steps going from one pool to the other.  There were kids playing; a father sitting on a bench.  I put my feet in the water, the kids splashed, the dad said don't; I said its fine.  A few minutes later I decided I really wanted to talk with this Ethiopian Jewish family-which I did.  Fascinating conversation (in Hebrew) boys: 4, 5 girls 7 and 14.  Father came when he was 10; treked across the desert in Sudan; robbers, bandits, men with long knives and so forth.  Before they left the mother said she would invite me to their house.  The 14 year old girl took my phone number.  Could be a fascinating, family connection.

Then I went up the hill again looking for a shady place to sit.  Saw a group of young people, clearly on a tour; their security guard was sitting separately.  I asked if I could sit and talk to him.  He is an Indian Jew.  The group was a Birthright group from Hungary.  He had been with the group for 8 days; 3 more to go.  He was disappointed to find them without traditional Jewish values; they weren't really interested in anything including the kotel.  He wanted to know what I was doing here. Again fascinating.

I went further up the hill, again to try to find a quiet shady place.  Found a bench under a tree.  There was an 18 year oldish Chasidic young man sitting on one end.   I asked if I could sit on the other end of the bench.  He looked me right in the eye and said "of course"-again all in Hebrew. Ma Nishma? I'm fine; he's fine.  It was a very strange experience.  He kept moving closer to me; looked right at me; no modesty; no hesitation.  Suddenly he said he wanted to kiss me and lunged forward.  I put my straight arm out and said no.  He asked why.  I said it's wrong; not appropriate and it makes me uncomfortable.  He pointed to my cheek and said "right there."  Then he took my shoulders, firmly, kissed my cheek and I pushed him away.  This is crazy I thought.  At the same time, I was quite sure he was gay and quite obviously was living a very tortured life; but hey...that is not permission for how he acted.  I asked him why he did that.  He said he loved me.  I said No you don't; you don't even know me.  He said my soul felt attached to your soul.  Poor guy; I'm sure he's not the only one suffering in whatever way he was suffering.  Another of the many faces of Israel.

Once again, I got up to find a shady place to sit.  I thought:  all this has happened in just 2 hours!  So much life, of so many varieties...I finally found a bench in the shade with nobody on it.  I sat down, took a deep breath and began to relax.  I looked up and saw a 35ish man walking toward me.  He sat down.  (OY!) How am I?  Fine how are you?  I have a problem. (Oy, again) What is his problem? He moved closer; I moved further; he said "I'm married" I said "I don't remember asking about that"  again-all in Hebrew.  He has 2 children; one 3 and the other 1.5.  The little one is sick; he can't breathe; he wears a mask at night and he has to give him a shot 2X a day and it is very expensive.  Ahhh! I thought-he wants $.  I told him I was sorry about his son.  I asked him if he believed in God.  I suggested that praying, maintaining his faith, and working at his job...who knows maybe something good will happen for him.  NOW, fortunately I'm pretty good at figuring out what time it is by looking at the position of the sun in the sky.  I figured it was about 4:45.  I asked him what time it was and told him I had to be at a meeting at 4:45.  He said it's 4:45 and I told him I would pray for him and I left!

I walked home, slowly, on main roads thinking what an incredible 2.5 hours I'd had.  I don't know what it all means.  I hope I've made a connection with an Ethiopian family.  I had a good conversation with a 20 something Jewish Indian security guard with a big heart and strong Jewish values.  I experienced first hand how complicated and painful life can be for a soul that just doesn't fit into the system into which he was born.  Who knows whether the last man really had a sick child or not.

I love that I'm open and curious and want to learn about people.  I learned that there are an infinite variety of ways that people respond to each other.  Being open and wanting to make meaningful connections requires at the same time, caution and awareness and keeping myself safe.  In many ways I had experienced a small sample of the large variety of differences that exist between the many different people who have come here from so many different places, with so many different backgrounds.

I'm tired. Going to sleep.

I love you all and miss you a lot.

Ima/Mom/Ma'ayan

Wednesday, August 20, 7:00 am Jerusalem time

 

Didn't sleep much last night.  When awakened by a siren it is hard to go back to sleep.  I felt safe, as safe as can be, in the basement apartment with my neighbor who works for the Belgian embassy and her 27ish year old daughter. After the siren there was a big bomb like noise not too far from here but hard to know where exactly.  The Iron Dome intercepted a rocket.  That was about midnight.  Before that, around 11, rockets did land in Tel Aviv; many shot at Ben Gurion.  What is of equal concern in some ways, is the collateral anger, frustration, who knows what all around Jerusalem.  There were reports (and tweets) from East Jerusalem that some (unknown) Palestinians had thrown molotov cocktails into a home, a bus and unknown destinations.  My friend, in the basement apartment, works in East Jerusalem.  This morning she has to go to work not knowing what the condition of her office or neighborhood is or whether it is "safe" to go there.  She is not allowed by the embassy to take a bus so, once again, she will take a cab and have conversations with Israeli and Arab cabbies. That is how she learned about the first rockets at 6:30 last evening.  Her Arab cabbie told her about it, that rockets were shot from Gaza and that Israel had responded.

Keep the tweets coming, with discretion.  Last night with my neighbor and her daughter, we discovered that if one can read tweets with discretion they are the most accurate and up to date information.  The problem is you have to tread thru all the emotional stuff.  We have not yet found a news station, in any language, that is "live".  When we do hear the news on Aljazeera and CNN, Sky News, Fox and Israeli stations, all report pretty much the same thing but with varying "commentary".  It isn't too hard to figure out the facts.  What feels to me to be humanly impossible is to listen, find safety and have compassion for all of the regular citizens of this area of the world. Having experienced one, only one, siren last night and knowing that people in my neighborhood and in all areas of Jerusalem were crouching along walls in the street or going into a meeklat, bomb shelter, if they are lucky enuf to have access to one, it is "easier" to imagine what the Palestinian people are going through intensified enormously.  But why is it so much more difficult and unsafe for them?  On the news this morning a Palestinian woman who was leaving her home for a "safer area" said "No one is looking out for us".  For me that is a most basic part of the problem.  Hamas (and ISIS and others) do not have the same respect for life, including their own, that civilized people do.  Just like I try, in conversation and thought, to distinguish between the government of Israel, the people of Israel and the land of Israel, so too for Palestinians (and all the moreso Arabs all over the world) Hamas does not represent them, look out for them.  It is so complicated and a most unbelievable human tragedy, with generations of history and human souls on all sides, probably living in the same circumstances as their ancestors, for generations yet to come. I cannot imagine how all the fear and hatred that is being transmitted in mother's milk will ever be overcome. We can listen to news and interviews from all sides, but the truth is that it doesn't feel like anybody has any power or control to change very much; least of all regular people, more of whom I hope to meet this year, on all sides, with all different perspectives.

With discretion, keep the tweets and responsible news coming.  I'll keep in touch as much as possible while at the same time trying to carry on with my life here.

I love you all

Ima, Mom, Savta, Ma'ayan

Renew our days as of old

Ma’ayan Sands written in Jerusalem, August 17, 2014

(For those of you who don’t read Hebrew, don’t fret.  I’ve translated it below.)

חדש ימינו כקדם  איכה ה:כא

כאשר הייתי צעירה התבלבלתי לפעמים עם המילים האלו: האם הם קדש ימינו או חדש ימינו? שניהם לא הרגישו לי נכון- אבל זה נושא לזמן אחר.

לאחרונה אני חושבת על קדושה-האמת היא שיש קדושה ליום יום, כל יום, אבל אנו לא רואים אותה. אנו מחפשים משהו רוחני, משהו קדוש. תכליתנו להיות משהו גדול. זאת הבעיה. יש קדושה בכל מקום אבל לא רואים אותה. האמת היא שלא מסתכלים במקומות נכונים.

לפני שנסעתי לארץ עם בעלי, אכלנו ארוחת ערב במסעדה.  אחרי שסיימנו לאכול המלצר שאל אותי אם רוצה לקחת דוגי בג הביתה. אמרתי לא כי אתחיל נסיעה גדולה בעוד כמה ימים ולא רציתי שזה יהיה במקרר. הוא שאל לאן אני נוסעת, ועניתי ישראל, והוא הלך.  לפתע המנהל הגיע מולנו. הוא אמר לי "המלצר שלי אמר לי שאת נוסעת לישראל. ארוחת הערב שלך עלי".  הייתי מופתעת!  רציתי לדעת למה.  על מה הוא חושב-אבל הבנתי שהשם היה במקום הזה. ראיתי את הקדושה לפני.

היינו בעלי ואני בארץ שבוע. מונית באה עם אחד מהשכנים. אמרתי לנהג שבעלי צריך לנסע לשדה תעופה ביום ראשון הבא. האם הוא יכול להסיע אותו? כמה זה יעלה? וכולי.  הוא נתן לי את כרטיסו ואמר "בוודאי. באזה שעה?" והוא הוסיף שאם יהיו עוד אנשים, המחיר יהיה יותר נמוך.  ביום ראשון בבוקר בעלי צלצל לנהג אבל הוא היה כבר פה.  התחבקתי עם בעלי, בכתי והם נסעו. אחרי שעה בעלי התקשר אלי וספר לי על הוויכוח שלהם. הנהג היה נעים מאוד, הוא איש ארמני ונוצרי. דתו מאוד חשובה לו והוא מאוד אקטיבי בכנסיה שלו. הנהג לא הבין למה אני עוזבת בעלי וכל המשפחה ללמוד שנה בארץ כדי להיות רב.  בעלי לא זוכר בדיוק מה שהוא אמר לו אבל אחרי כמה דקות הנהג עצר ברחוב, הסתובב ואמר לו:  "אתה אח שלי.  אם יש דבר שאני יכול לעשות בשביל אשתך, תגיד לה להתקשר אלי.  אני אעשה כל מה שהיא צריכה. 

עוד פעם דקה מלאה בקדושה. הסתכלתי וראיתי אותה.

כן, יש שנאה בעולם.  יש כל מיני סכנות. זה המסע, הנסיעה שלנו.  אבל הנשמה שהשם נתנ לכל בן אדם טהורה היא.  העיקר הוא לזכור שכולנו נבראנו בצלם אלוקים, יש בכל אחד נצוץ של השם.  יש גם קדושה בכל מקום-אילו היינו יכולים לראות אותה.  זאת היא העבודה שלנו, ההזדמנות שלנו והזכות יתר של כל בן אדם. מתפללת להשם גם לחדש וגם לקדש ימינו הקרובים ולעולם.

“Renew our days as (they were) before” Lamentations 5:21

When I was young and I said these words from the prayerbook, I often felt confused: was it “Kadesh yamainu”, make our days holy as they were before, or was it “chadesh yamainu”, renew our days as they were before?  Neither one felt right (true) to me.  But this is a subject for another time. 

Recently, I’ve been thinking about holiness.  The truth is that there is holiness (in our world) every day, but we don’t see it.  We are looking for something spiritual, something holy-and we expect that it will be something big! That is the problem.  There is holiness everywhere (but it isn’t what we expect) and we don’t see it.  The truth is that we are not looking in the right places.

The Saturday night before I travelled to Israel with my husband we went to a restaurant to have dinner.  (It was in the middle of “the war”.)  After we had finished eating, the server came and asked me if I wanted to take a doggie bag home with my left overs.  I said “no”, that I would be beginning a big journey in just a few days and I didn’t want the food to remain in the refrigerator.  He asked where I would be travelling and I answered “Israel” and he left.  Suddenly, the manager of the restaurant was standing in front of us at our table.  He said to me “The waiter told me that you will travel to Israel.  Your dinner is on me!”  I was amazed!  I wanted to know why; what was he thinking.  What I understood was that God was in that place.  I saw holiness right there in front of me.

We were in Israel for one week.  A taxi driver dropped off one of my neighbors.  I told the driver that my husband would need to go to the airport on the coming Sunday.  Would he be able to take him?  How much would it cost? And so forth.  He gave me his card and said “Of course.  What time?”  He added that if he was able to get more than one passenger, the price would be less.  On Sunday morning (when the time had arrived) my husband called the cab driver.  He was already here!  We hugged, I cried and off they went.  After an hour my husband called me on my phone and told me about the discussion they had had.  The driver is very nice, he said.  He is Armenian and a Christian.  His religion is very important to him and he is very active in his church.  He told me that the driver couldn’t understand why I would leave my husband and all my family to learn for a year in Israel, in order to become a rabbi.  My husband did not remember exactly what he had said to the driver but after a few minutes, he stopped by the side of the road, he turned around and he said to my husband: “You are my brother.  Tell your wife to call me if there is anything I can do for her. I will do anything that she needs.  Again, a moment full of holiness.  I looked and I saw it.

Yes, there is hatred in the world.  There are all kinds of danger.  This is our journey, our experience.  But the soul that God gave each human being, that soul is pure.  The crucial thing is to remember that all of us, each of us, was created in the image of God.  In each of us there is a spark of the divine.  And there is also holiness everywhere-if only we were able to see it.  For each human being, that is our work, our service, our opportunity and our privilege.  I pray that God with both renew and make these days, our days, holy, soon and forever.