Weekly Words: “Wedding Celebrations”

One aspect of rabbinic service that I truly cherish is the ability to be a part of life cycle events. To be able to be with a person, couple or family at an important time in their life is a gift and a blessing. 

I have a particular fondness for weddings. It was a wedding that drew me closer to deciding to become a rabbi-a good friend from college was getting married, and he and his partner asked me to participate in the ceremony. It wasn’t a Jewish wedding-they are both not religious and the bride’s father served as the officiant-and they asked me to participate as one of the several readers they were going to invite to read a passage they had selected. I was surprised and honored to be asked, and it was indeed a special moment. After having that experience I began to think more about what rabbinic work would be like, and this function of service was very appealing and moving.

 

I had occasion to celebrate a wedding this past weekend. I stood under the huppah with the bride and groom as they exchanged rings, shared wine, received blessings and joined together in sacred relationship. Surrounded by family and friends, it was a joyous event for all, and it was a joy to be a part of it. Earlier that day I was talking to a neighbor, and when I mentioned that I was to officiate at a wedding later, she lit up and said that it must be wonderful to be able to do that. It truly is.

 

When I officiate at a wedding, I serve multiple roles. My primary one is that of spiritual leader, guiding the ritual and the liturgy, and providing a spiritual rite to mark this important moment. I help facilitate the sacred agreement that is marriage, a loving partnership between two people. In addition, I serve as an agent of the state, attesting to the fact that a wedding did take place and reporting to the state that these two people are married. I help facilitate the civil agreement that is marriage.

 

When I do a wedding, I usually don’t make a big deal out of the civil documents. We sign them, we get them out of the way, and then I turn my attention to the ketubah, the Jewish wedding contract, and the rest of the ceremony. To be honest I have mixed feelings about the civil part, I feel that the spiritual and the legal should stay separate. Perhaps couples should have to go to a civil legal authority-a clerk, a judge-and get married civilly, and then have a religious ceremony with a rabbi or another member of the clergy. But as long as the law allows, I do this on behalf of the people I serve. The civil component is an important part of the wedding and marriage.

 

Which is why I celebrated marriage multiple times this weekend. For in addition to the wedding I had occasion to officiate, we also saw the beginning of gay civil marriage in my home state of New York. This, too, was occasion to celebrate. Watching the photos come out of New York was joyous-watching committed couples (some very long time) finally overcome a legal obstacle, and have the ability to have the same rights, the same access that other couples do, was tremendous. While as a rabbi I primarily approach marriage as a spiritual enterprise, the civil imprimatur provides a public acknowledgement that carries its own weight and meaning. 

 

[It was especially delightful to see the clergy of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, a LGBT synagogue in Manhattan, set up a rainbow huppah to officiate at the wedding ceremonies.]

 

Marriage is a spiritual partnership, but it is also a legal one in our society. The same status should be afforded to both aspects. So while currently I will officiate at the religious ceremony of a same-sex couple, I look forward to the day that my legal standing will apply in these cases as well. There are more obstacles ahead, other states and federal legislation. But looking forward is not enough, we should be committed to making it happen. New York, then Washington? Then we not only shatter the glass at the end of the wedding, but we shatter another form of discrimination.

Weekly Words: “Sibling Rivalry”

I remarked the other day in services that these stories in Genesis which we are reading now as part of our Torah reading cycle take on new meaning since I have two sons.

The stories of our ancestors in Genesis are steeped in sibling rivalry. From the opening stories of Cain and Abel—an example of sibling rivalry that ended in fratricide—through the tension between Isaac and Ishmael now to the conflict between Jacob and Esau, these stories relate the conflicts that perhaps come natural to siblings. Not to mention the tension between Rachel and Leah, two sisters who are both married to Jacob, and we haven’t even read the story of Joseph and his brothers yet.

Sibling rivalry is an issue that stretches across the generations from the Bible to today. I see it in my own boys as they squabble over toys, attention, or what have you. And I understand why it happens to some extent. Unlike their parents, who choose to live together in one roof, these two kids are forced to live together. It was not their choice, it was ours.

This is something that I see my boys wrestle with. (And this sometimes means not just figurative wrestling but physical wrestling.) As they face their own individual challenges of growing older—changes in physical abilities, or intellectual challenges through school, or identifying and pursuing their own likes and dislikes—they also contend with another doing the same. And here is the challenge, and it is a challenge for growth: How to take this forced living situation and navigate it. It is a way of growing into what it means to live with and be connected to others. We go through life by being in relationship, and the sibling relationship is the relationship in our lives that generally will last the longest.

Wresting plays a role in the story we read this week. Jacob is about to meet his estranged brother Esau after they have been separated for some time. He gathers up his family and holdings, and sends them across the river towards where the meeting will take place. Part of what he brings with him are gifts for his brother. And as everyone else makes their way across the river, Jacob is left alone. There an angel comes down and wrestles with him throughout the night, until Jacob, pinning the angel, demands a blessing. The angel blesses him and gives him a new name, Israel, “one who wrestles with God.”

Jacob was obviously dealing with a lot as he prepared to meet Esau. The years of emotion about his relationship with his brother that he carried with him is represented in the figure of the angel. Jacob “wrestles” with these thoughts and feelings as he prepares to move forward and be reunited with his brother. We can identify with Jacob as we face our own tensions and anxieties, whether with siblings, other people, or ourselves—it oftentimes feels like we are wrestling with the forces surrounding us.

And we do identify with Jacob to this day. For inasmuch as Abraham and Isaac are our forefathers, it is Jacob’s new name that we carry with us. Israel is the name that throughout centuries of Jewish history, liturgy and theology signifies the Jewish people. The use of this name as a communal moniker is ancient, it transcends time and place. We are Israel.

And what a name it is. For it is a name that embodies struggle and tension. It is a name that signifies not finality but process. It is a name which means that we are not content on one side or another but that we will continually live in the grey areas. We wrestle with God, with a sense of the sacred, with what is right, with what path to take, with our identities, with ourselves and with each other. This is what it means to be Israel. But it is not wrestling for the sake of wrestling. It is a challenge, and a commitment, for growth.

Thus I know that for all the bickering that goes on now between my sons, as they grow and mature their relationship will grow and mature as well. They will find through the rivalry that they are all the more closer for it, that this rivalry is an expression of closeness, and it has provided them with the opportunity to become better people.

Well, I hope so, anyway.

Shabbat poem–June 5

A poem for June, the time of graduation. This was drawn from Ritualwell, in honor of all those graduating this year, in all senses of the word–moving on from one experience to another.

Thirty-Two
A Song of Endings and Beginnings

Let us sing of our completions, smooth, round,
Silvered voices to praise Your Name.

Every season holds starts and stops,
Years of trees and spirits and souls,
Days ripe with harmony and turning,
Circled, cycled, to order our lives.

Inside each completion,
We hear Your creation; Inside our creations,
We resound with Your voice.

Let us mold a new shape for our completions,
Fluid and longing, subtle limbs
That lead us onward to praise Your name.

Every season casts away its jagged edges,
Rubs away the torn moments
To rejoice in the realignment
Of old ways made straight.

Inside each refitting,
We renew again Your creation,
Pulling it taut against us,
A firm bound shield of Your affection.

Let us sing of our completions.
Your hand hovers, blesses,
Bids us move to new beginnings.
Your hand moves us forward,
Toward unimagined completions. 

–Debbie Perlman, z’l

Turning Heads–Parashat Naso

Much of our liturgy is drawn from the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible. In this week’s Torah portion, Naso from the book of Numbers, we find one of the most familiar and powerful examples of this. The priestly blessing with its three fold invocation is given by God to Moses to give the priests who then will bless the people with its words. Today we use it in the synagogue in some traditional settings where modern cohanim (priests) bless the worshippers, but more commonly it is recited at at b’nai mitzvah, at weddings and on erev Shabbat when it is a blessing parents bestow upon their children.

 It reads, according to the Jewish Publication Society translation:

Adonai bless you and protect you!

Adonai deal kindly and graciously with you!

Adonai bestow God’s favor upon you and grant you peace!

 [not exactly JPS, cleaned up the gender stuff.]

 According to commentators, this simple blessing is seen as complex and complete in its content. The first line refers to material blessing (wealth), the second to spiritual blessing (Torah, wisdom) and the third to a culmination of the first two: peace.

 The translation above is a bit misleading for it is not literal. The second and third lines read differently in an exact translation. The first clause of the second line is “May God’s face shine upon you” and the first clause of the second line is “May God’s face rise (or turn) towards you.” There can be a few explanations as to why the standard translation is different. One is a general discomfort with anthropomorphism—we don’t like to make God human since God is God. The other reason is more prosaic—the literal words are a biblical idiom, so it only makes sense to translate it figuratively and not literally. Just as any language has idioms that are not translated easily [to go back to my high school French class, dans la lune is translated as “crazy” not literally as “in the moon.”], biblical Hebrew is no different.

 We see this idiom pop up from time to time. In Genesis, when Lot is fleeing from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorroh, he asks the angel of God who is accompanying him to save a nearby town so he can find refuge there. The angel replies that he will turn his face towards Lot, indicating that his favor is granted. Later when Jacob is about to meet his estranged brother Esau, whom he fears after he stole the birthright from him, he sends along in advance elaborate gifts hoping that Esau’s “face will turn towards” him—that Esau will show him favor and forgive him.

 But while this is an idiom, the original literal Hebrew is important, and something is lost in the figurative translation. The literalness is important in this case, and truly captures the spirit of the idiom. For we grant favor when we turn towards others. We can only bestow kindness on someone if we regard them, if we turn towards them.

 Recently President Obama gave his historic speech “to the Muslim world” as it was billed. In Cairo he spoke forcefully and said many important things. But in addition to what he said was what he did. Obama embodied the spirit of this idiom in that he “raised his face” to the Muslim world. It was almost a literal “turning of the head” as he broke with the past and showed favor to those to whom he was speaking. He was speaking to, and with, and not at.

 It’s not surprising that the second clause of that third line of the blessing is linked to the first. The blessing of peace is tied to the raising of the face. It is only when we show others favor, when we deal kindly with them, that we are able to attain peace. Peace comes when we turn our faces to one another, not when we turn away.

 Obama’s last line was a powerful charge. After quoting form the Koran, the Talmud and the New Testament, he said “The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God’s vision. Now that must be our work here on earth.”

 We know what our charge is: to work towards peace. To fulfill that divine and sacred vision. And that work begins when we turn our faces towards each other.

Shabbat poem–May 22

A poem for Memorial Day

 

The End and the Beginning

After every war
someone has to clean up.
Things won’t
straighten themselves up, after all.

Someone has to push the rubble
to the side of the road,
so the corpse-filled wagons
can pass.

Someone has to get mired
in scum and ashes,
sofa springs,
splintered glass,
and bloody rags.

Someone has to drag in a girder
to prop up a wall,
Someone has to glaze a window,
rehang a door.

Photogenic it’s not,
and takes years.
All the cameras have left
for another war.

We’ll need the bridges back,
and new railway stations.
Sleeves will go ragged
from rolling them up.

Someone, broom in hand,
still recalls the way it was.
Someone else listens
and nods with unsevered head.
But already there are those nearby
starting to mill about
who will find it dull.

From out of the bushes
sometimes someone still unearths
rusted-out arguments
and carries them to the garbage pile.

Those who knew
what was going on here
must make way for
those who know little.
And less than little.
And finally as little as nothing.

In the grass that has overgrown
causes and effects,
someone must be stretched out
blade of grass in his mouth
gazing at the clouds.

 Wislawa Szymborska

Shabbat Poem–May 29

An American immigrant’s perspective on Shavuot, the holiday marking the giving of the Torah, from Emma Lazarus

The Choice

I saw in dream the spirits unbegot,
Veiled, floating phantoms, lost in twilight space;
For one the hour had struck, he paused; the place
Rang with an awful Voice:
“Soul, choose thy lot!
Two paths are offered; that, in velvet-flower,
Slopes easily to every earthly prize.
Follow the multitude and bind thine eyes,
Thou and thy sons’ sons shall have peace with power.
This narrow track skirts the abysmal verge,
Here shalt thou stumble, totter, weep and bleed,
All men shall hate and hound thee and thy seed,
Thy portion be the wound, the stripe, the scourge.
But in thy hand I place my lamp for light,
Thy blood shall be the witness of my Law,
Choose now for all the ages!”
Then I saw
The unveiled spirit, grown divinely bright,
Choose the grim path. He turned, I knew full well
The pale, great martyr-forehead shadowy-curled,
The glowing eyes that had renounced the world,
Disgraced, despised, immortal Israel.

Emma Lazarus

Society is Messy–Shavuot

The second day of Shavuot coincides with this Shabbat thus temporarily suspending our normal reading cycle. [Opinions as to the continued relevance and need of the second day of a festival is for another time, but for now, we’ll respect this calendar.]  The reading for the first day is the relevation at Sinai and the 10 Commandments, the theme of the holiday. The second day’s text is from Deuteronomy and speaks of Jubilee, issues of economic justice and [here’s the reason] the calendar cycle with an emphasis on the agricultural reasons for the celebrations.

In looking at these holidays side by side, there is an interesting dichotomy between Passover and Shavuot. Passover has a set date and a fixed offering which all must offer. Shavuot does not have a set date (its date is given only in relation to Passover) and it does not have a fixed offering. One gives based on the harvest—however successful one was at the harvest, that is how much one gives. Passover is clearly defined, Shavuot is not.

This difference in relation to the agricultural roots of the holiday can also be applied to the historical basis for the holidays (unspoken in our text). The Passover themes of slavery and oppression—these are lines that are clearly defined. The roles and slave and master, the regimented life of a slave: these are fixed. Even the crossing of the Red Sea forms a sharp break between two states of being. The fixed date and offering of Passover reflect the fixedness of the holiday’s themes.

The Shavuot themes of law, Torah and community building on the other hand are not clearly defined. Sinai takes place in the wilderness, a boundary-less region. Forming community, interpreting law, transmitting text, building covenant: these are not fixed. The undefined date and offering of Shavuot reflects the undefined nature of the holiday’s themes.

One need only think of the recent nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Conversations and hearings based on how she interprets the law, her place on the continuum of “blind interpretation” vs. “empathy” (if that is even a fair distinction) points to this notion that forming community is a messy process. Its rules are unclear.

Earlier in the parasha, in the section on economic justice which is seemingly unrelated to the theme of Shavuot, we read “There shall be no needy among you…” [Deut. 15:4] Then a short while later the text says, “If, however, there is a needy person among you…” [v. 7] And then it says, “For there will never cease to be needy ones in your land.” [v. 11] Which is it? Will poverty be eradicated or will it persist? This discrepancy ties directly to that theme of Shavuot mentioned, that society building is messy stuff. This text on poverty lays out for us within a few verses the real and the ideal. Where we are, is at one trying to get to the other.

Shavuot reminds us that as a society we are always striving for the ideal. But it is not an easy task. Our offering may vary, the time is not fixed. Shavuot celebrates the messy-ness of society building.

Line ‘em up–Parashat Bamidbar

In the first parasha of the book of Numbers, Bamidbar, the Israelites are preparing to take leave from Sinai and make their way to the Promised Land. Before any big journey such as this, they need to get ready. Part of this preparation involves a census, and part involves positioning themselves so they don’t all crowd each other as they are walking along.

The end of the portion outlines the arrangement of the camp, which takes the form of concentric circles: the Tabernacle is in the middle, surrounding the Tabernacle are the Levites, the ones who take care of the Tabernacle (with Moses and Aaron on the eastern end) and surrounding the Levites are all the tribes. The Torah describes the four main directions: north, south, east and west with specific tribes at each posting.

According to the way the tribes will move, the ones in the east are in the front, so it is worth noting who is there. Three tribes are in the east: Judah, Issachar and Zevulun. To the ancient rabbis, the arrangement of the tribes is no accident, there must be meaning found within. These tribes, according to the rabbis, have inherent qualities which give them the honor of leading the Israelites.

Because the sun rises in the east, the east is associated with light. These three tribes are seen as embodying an aspect of life. Judah, since the kings will be descended from it, represents the light of leadership and political power. Issachar represents the light of Torah scholarship. And Zevulun represents economic power, which is a “light” since it allows the other “lights” to burn.

[As an aside, the leader of Judah is Nachson ben Amminadav, who makes a famous appearance in the midrashic interpretation of the Red Sea story as the guy who, fed up with Moses futzing around and wondering what to do, jumps into the water. It was this act which, at God’s urging, inspired Moses to use his staff to split the sea. In the set up of the camp, Nachshon, as the leader of the first tribe in the outermost circle, is still leading Moses. Words and law are one thing. Action is what is going to get us somewhere.]

At the other, “dark” end of the camp, are the tribes who are good at warfare and fighting. This is important say the rabbis because the nation would need strong protection should they get attacked from behind. But from at symbolic perspective, the fact that the warring tribes are in the back means that they are the last in the travelling line of tribes. Light in front, darkness in back. Torah, justice and peace in front, aggression and warfare in the back.

 We would do well to take this example of the Israelites to heart. In our own ordering of society, we too should and lead with light and with politics, and only use war at the end, as a last resort. For as in this line up of the tribes, if the community leads with warfare, it is moving backwards.

Whew!

This blogging is hard work at times. Sidelined by the long weekend, a trip out of town and a cold, I apologize for being backlogged on the blog (backblogged?). I can’t promise before Shavuot, so I might have some catching up to do after the holiday and Shabbat. As Moses (maybe) said to the Israelites as he went up the mountain to receive the Torah, which we mark this evening, “stay tuned….” Chag sameach! Shabbat shalom!

Shabbat poem–Friday, May 14

In honor of Carol Ann Duffy being named Poet Laureate of Britian, the first woman to hold that title in its 341-year history.

  

In Your Mind

The other country, is it anticipated or half-remembered?

Its language is muffled by the rain which falls all afternoon

one autumn in England, and in your mind

you put aside your work and head for the airport

with a credit card and a warm coat you will leave

on the plane. The past fades like newsprint in the sun.

 

You know people there. Their faces are photographs

on the wrong side of your eyes. A beautiful boy

in the bar on the harbour serves you a drink—what?—

asks you if men could possibly land on the moon.

A moon like an orange drawn by a child. No.

Never. You watch it peel itself into the sea.

 

Sleep. The rasp of carpentry wakes you. On the wall,

a painting lost for thirty years renders the room yours.

Of course. You go to your job, right at the old hotel, left,

then left again. You love this job. Apt sounds

mark the passing of the hours. Seagulls. Bells. A flute

practicing scales. You swap a coin for a fish on the way home.

 

Then suddenly you are lost but not lost, dawdling

on the blue bridge, watching six swans vanish

under your feet. The certainty of place turns on the lights

all over town, turns up the scent on the air. For a moment

you are there, in the other country, knowing its name.

And then a desk. A newspaper. A window. English rain.

 

–Carol Ann Duffy