All I Have Left is a Song of Peace

In Oklahoma City, people were working at their desks
In London, people were riding the Underground
In Mumbai, people were strolling through a market
In Paris, journalists were working and cartoonists were drawing
In Beirut, Marines were in their barracks
In New York, so many people were enjoying a beautiful Tuesday morning
In Saudi Arabia, people were going to pray
In Aurora, people were going to watch a movie
In Japan, people were commuting to work
In Turkey, people were rallying for freedom
In Washington, DC, people were protecting our country
In Nigeria, people were trying to make it another day
In Tunisia, people were vacationing on the beach
In Iraq, people were trying to rebuild
In too many places, students were trying to get an education

In Paris tonight, hundreds of people went out La Bataclan to see a concert.

I do most of the activities above, but going to see live music is where I find
my peace
my joy
my connection to the universal language of music and dance.

I have to believe the terrorists knew exactly at whom they were aiming their weapons. Concerts are gatherings of happiness and good vibes and being together with strangers and friends who love what you love.

Tonight, 100 or more of those revelers, those music fans, were killed in a holy place by the unholiest of people.

As we enter Shabbat, all I have to offer is a song of peace.
May there one day be a true Shabbat of Shalom.

The Bat Mitzvah I Never Had

I'm writing this in a coffee shop as my daughter meets for the first time with our rabbi to study Torah for her bat mitzvah. She's well prepared. We've reviewed all of the parshas up to her portion, and she read her parsha (Behar) on her own over this past week.

I feel like a pro, having already shepherded one child through this process, but what I don't feel is a sense of nostalgia for my own bat mitzvah ceremony. Why?

I didn't have one.
Those of you who've only known me as an adult may be thinking....

But anyone who knew me as a tween is thinking...

My "blunder years" were awful, and every shy, reticent, introverted, misanthropic, angry bit of me was multiplied 1,000-fold. I have look back on those years and wondered if I could have been "forced" to do it and thus risen to the occasion? Maybe, but I certainly don't blame anyone for not waging that fight with me. I would not be moved.




I've "done" all the rituals, though.

The first time I chanted Torah was August 28, 2004, parsha Ki Teitzei

From the archives of Go West. Young Jew (8/31/04)

I'm still riding high from my Torah reading this past shabbat. I admit to being very nervous about the whole thing. I was fine through most of the morning service, until the Torah service started. As soon as the Torah was taken out of the ark, I could feel my heart racing and my hands start to sweat. I had my paper with the portion on it tucked into my siddur. I took it out to glance at it, and I swear it was like I'd never seen it before, even though I'd listened to the tape probably 50 times and was hearing the trope in my dreams.

Here I was, reading from a Torah that had been saved from Prague before WWII, a Torah that is identical in every way to every other Torah scroll around the world, THE Torah. It was such a different experience than reading from a Chumash or Tikkun. I hit every note, got every word right, needed no prompting, and when I was done looked up into the faces of a very proud father, husband and mom. The gabbai and the rabbi were both pretty amazed, and then the rabbi told the congregation that it was my first time layning, and everyone gasped. He also told them that I'd never had a bat mitzvah and then did the misheberach for a bat mitzvah girl and people sang Simon Tov u'Mazal Tov.

Was that my bat mitzvah ceremony? I suppose we could count it as such. My parents were there, and I know they were very, very happy to see their one and only child on the bimah, chanting Torah. And I studied the heck out of that portion. I could chant it right now (which would be awkward in this Starbucks with the couple sitting next to me doing their New Testament bible study.)

Several people who've heard that I did not "have" a bat mitzvah at  age 12/13 have suggested that I have one now. Why not age 43, 30 years late? I've always said no. Why?

There have been so many Bat Mitzvah moments...

• My first aliyah was on the Congregation Har Shalom bimah, on May 24, 2003, with a 7-day-old Ellie in my arms receiving her Hebrew name.

• I've always been a practitioner of Judaism, though I got real about being a student (and teacher) of it when I moved to North Dakota in 1994 and had to represent "my people" to my classmates, many of whom had never met a Jew before. You really learn when you teach. 

• I've read every parsha and turned the Torah over and over again, looking for its secrets and finding my own voice to add to the chorus of Israel, those who struggle with this wonderful, terrible, people-defining and people-dividing book.

• For 7 years I was a professional Jewish educator, teaching Hebrew High and then serving as the director of our synagogue's religious school. I lived my Judaism out loud, and I carry the lessons of those years -- some of them very heavy -- with me each day. [Any scars from that adventure are healed each time I run into an old student (as I did tonight) and remember what I taught them and what they taught me.]

• I have taken on and shed mitzvot over the years wavering from

blatant disregard (I Don't Want Your God!)
to
do-it-yourself observant-ish (God Said So!)
to
spiritual atheism (Judaism Without God)

Too many developmental milestones have come and gone for me to "become" a daughter of the commandments.

Besides, it's someone else's turn now.

We Interrupt This Blog

My commitment when I revamped this blog (for the 4th (5th?) time) was to

1. Read something every day (check!)
2. Write something every day (check!)
3. Post something every day (almost-check!)

I'm living up to my commitment on 1. and 2., but 3. is proving slightly more difficult. I've been reading a lot of the wonderful, glorious Anne Lamott. The result is that much of my own writing has turned to the deeply personal, and unlike Ms. Lamott, I don't need all that out there for everyone to access.

Also, there's a #4.

No one needs to read my blog every day, and I want to be more focused in my publishing about Jewish-centric things. (I've got Facebook and Twitter (@schaibly) for all those other thought drippings.)

I've pushed out some posts that needed more editing, more time to simmer, and a few that needed to be deleted. I've also published some really great posts that got lost in the background.

I'll be publishing less, but (I hope) publishing better.

Shabbat: Happiness Only (With a Soundtrack)

I've often pondered this question:

Does the music I listen to influence my mood?
or
Does my mood influence the music I listen to?

The answer, of course, is yes.

Landslide by Fleetwood Mac will always make me tear up...

(Especially this 1975 version. She is so young.)

As will Time by Pink Floyd...

 (Don't forget the alarm clocks at the beginning!)

But the tecnho Orthodox chant at the top of this post has never failed to make me smile. It's damn upbeat, it has a great hook, and you can really dance to it!

The followers of Rebbe Nachman are known for driving their vans around Israel, stopping traffic and dancing in the intersections.

Their eponymous Rebbe was big on happiness, and quotes like this are everywhere in his writing:

Be very careful to feel only joy on Shabbat. There is nothing to compare with the greatness and holiness of Shabbat. The key to honoring the Shabbat is joy. Don't show even a hint of depression or anxiety on Shabbat. Treat yourself to all kinds of delights in the food you eat, what you drink, your clothes...  whatever you can afford. 

The food of Shabbat is completely holy. It is purely spiritual and filled with Godliness. It rises to a totally different place from that of the food of the six working days.

Make an effort to feel the joy of Shabbat and you will find true happiness.

--Rebbe Nachman  
Likutey Moharan II, 17

That's a tall order, but I like that he ends with "make an effort".  Sometimes there is more than "do," there is also "try". 

[This post doesn't serve as an endorsement of the Na Nachs, their theology or practices, which I know very little about beyond the views on joy. I'm sure we disagree about much. ] 

Remembering Yitzak Rabin & Jew vs. Jew

I am not Israeli.
I have never been to Israel.
But I clearly remember the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin 20 years ago, when he was 73 and I was 23. It was major world news, of course. It was so soon after the Oslo Accords, the treaty with Jordan and the Nobel Peace Prize. The world was shocked.

For me, the most shocking aspect was that his murderer was a fellow Jew. At the time, I was fairly ignorant of the deep disagreements between Jews, especially Israelis. I hadn't studied much of Israel's history, and what I did study was a gloss -- I'd had a few Israeli religious school teachers, but the only thing I really remember about them was the arguments over tav/sav pronunciation.

I spent from 1989-1994 in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and as a university student I often found myself as the first Jew my peers had ever known. I put a lot of time into studying Judaism itself,
especially anything that would help me educate my friends and refute my evangelistic enemies on campus. (I had a few knock-out punches ready for the Campus Crusade for Christ whenever I engaged them, and I engaged them every chance I could.) Oh, to be young and on fire!

Rabin was killed by a Jew? How could a Jew do such a thing to another Jew? I still struggle with this question, with Jews who don't seem to embrace my liberal idealism of "This Judaism is good for me," and "That Judaism is good for them," but we all get along anyway.

I knew they were against us.
I didn't know we were against us, too.

Was there really something so divisive that Jews would resort to killing each other?
Of course there was.... and I look back on my naivete with wistfulness and nostalgia.

I used to be very into Jewish Triumphalism, Jewish Essentialism, and Jewish Exceptionalism. Jews are chosen. Jews put more value on education. Jews are smart. Look at all the Jewish doctors, lawyers, and media moguls (but don't talk about Jewish influence and lobbying power...)

What a narrow view of Judaism (and the rest of humanity).

It doesn't give Jews enough room for their shortcomings and doesn't acknowledge the amazing potential of everyone person, Jewish or not, to achieve excellence. [American exceptionalism drives me crazy for many of the same reasons. As soon as you believe that you are chosen, or the best, or #1! you close yourself off to learning from "others" who may know better.]

Maybe there are better ways to do religion, to think about spirituality, and to act virtuously.
Maybe we can learn from other countries who have found better systems, economies, and ways of being in the world.

I used to think that Jews were somehow above hurting others in the kinds of ways we had been hurt so many times.

• Would we oppress people? Of course not, because we know what it is to be oppressed. 
• Would we hold ourselves above others? No, because we know what it is like to be stepped on.
• Would we settle our disputes with violence? No, because we were experts at debate and argument and agreeing to disagree. The minority rabbis may not make law, but they were included in the Talmud.

Then Yigal Amir shot Yitzhak Rabin, and I didn't know what to think.

I still don't know, if Judaism has taught me anything, it's to be OK living with the questions. Living with the uncertainty and looking to many sources for guidance...)

Be kind. Always.

Let's start there.

May the dream of peace be seen in our lifetime.