Newish Jewish

Building a Sukkito

2011-07-31T16:51:00.000-07:00

You shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are home-born in Israel shall dwell in booths; that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt; I am the Lord, your God. (From (Lev. 23:39-45)

I never got to build a tree house growing up. Living in a lower-middle class suburb, surrounded by cement and cookie-cutter houses, there was not a tree to be found that would have been strong enough to hold up my little body, much less a body of architecture of any scale. No, the best I could hope for was that our neighbors would invite us over to camp in their backyard in a little pitched tent. And even then, it was one of those types of tents that pop up practically as soon as you set it down on the well-trimmed and watered backyard lawn.

Really, I never got to build anything growing up. It just wasn't a skill that I seemed to need, or at least it was one that no one bothered to try to teach me. So when I decided that this would be the year that I would build my first sukkah, I went into the project optimistic, ambitious--and with no idea what I was in for.

My first inclination, of course, was to build something sturdy. Something that would be so solid I'd be able to use it next year, and heck, even the year after that! I started looking for building plans online for a sukkah made completely out of PVC. It wasn't too long after mentioning my idea to a few friends when I got a huge blow back. "PVC? Seriously?" one friend asked. "It's got to be made entirely out of natural materials," another told me. I tried to resist this discouragement, insisting that it was the principle of building the sukkah that mattered to me, not the fine print. So I pressed on. It wasn't until I went to a building supply store and saw the price tag attached to PVC that I decided maybe natural materials were a good idea.

I browsed Craigslist and found a listing for someone giving away free wood just down the street from me. Bingo! Maybe natural really was the way to go!

After loading up on free lumber, I began building the skeleton of my little sukkah that same day. It took me about six hours. I was proud of it! I was a builder! Heck, I was even an architect! I called for my fiancee to come out and took a gander at my work.

"So, what do you think?" I asked, flush with pride.
"Um," she said, cocking her head to the side. "Well....it's a good start. But it's kind of...well, honestly, like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. I mean....it's going to be bigger than that, right?"

I stared at her dumbfounded. Was she serious? Could she not see the magnificence of this work of mind-numbing genius and backbreaking labor?

Nope, "Honey," she said, "If we're inviting people over to eat in that thing, you'd better make it bigger."

Sigh. It was back to the drawing board!

Having run out of free wood, I dutifully trotted back to the hardware and home improvement store in the next town over, and as luck would have it, found a pile of lumber on sale for $0.79 a piece. If I couldn't get this thing made for free, as least I could get it made cheap!

The next week-and-a-half--knowing that I was going to have to do this by trial and error, I didn't even wait for the Ten Days of Repentance to finish before I got to work--was spent obsessively cutting, sawing, drilling, fastening, and building. I went through a good seven packs of screws, two drills, and a hammer before I was done. I finally had a skeleton to build upon.

Two days before the start of Sukkot, I ran down to the thrift store and bought up all their seventy-nine cent sheets. I hurried home, intent on attaching the sheets to form the walls of my sukkah before what appeared to be an ugly storm would begin.

Using a stapler, I hung up and fastened my thin walls of fabric to the now spacey frame. As soon as I fastened the last corner, I felt the first splash of rain fall upon my brow. "Just in time, I thought to myself." The rain, I was to discover, was the least of my worries.

I turned on my heel and headed indoors. Just as I was about to open the door, a long, aching noise cracked through the air: CREEEEEAAAAAAK!"

Crap. THE WIND!

I ran back around the house. What I thought were going to be simple walls on my sukkah suddenly, in what was steadily growing into a full-out storm, became SAILS. The wind dragged my walls sharply north. Another long CREAAAAAAK. A short silence followed, before the inevitable sound I was fearing finally broke through.

CRACK!

The entirely building began to slump over. I dashed into it, immediately seeing that the center support beam had snapped completely in half, the four outer support beams were beginning to buckle underneath the wind and their own weight. Grasping skyward, I grabbed what was hanging off of what remained from the support beam, and tore it the rest of the way, just to get it out of the way. I ran from corner to corner, trying to slowly balance each leg, leaning them into the wind...but the gusts just blew harder and harder.

I spent the next four hours slowly inching the entire sukkah behind our house where some protection from the wind could be found, first lifting one leg, moving it five inches forward, then rushing to the next leg and doing the same. Then the next leg, then next one after that.

I was soaked to the bone by the time I got it in a safe alcove behind the house.

But I did it. Sure, the center support was now simply a crooked, sharp stump. The place was a mess. But at least it still stood. I went to bed that night exhausted. I felt beaten. I clearly didn't know what I was doing...so why was I wasting my time building this ridiculous fort out of old wooden door frames, basement bargain lumber, and second hand bedsheets. I fell asleep convinced I was giving up.

The next morning I woke to sunlight streaming in my window. I must have overslept, I thought to myself, It's already the afternoon. I looked at my bedside clock radio. Wait. That couldn't be right. It was barely nine? The sun was out, and not a cloud in the sky? That just didn't happen in Olympia. It DEFINITELY didn't happen the day after a storm like the night before.

But, I couldn't deny it. The day was just naturally beautiful. Birds chirped, squirrels chattered, butterflies fluttered.

How could I NOT spend the day outside? I grabbed my toolkit, slipped my kippah on, and went back to work.

I spent the rest of that day adding on some additional supports to the structure of what I was now calling my Sukkito, or little Sukkah. My next door neighbor was in her yard gardening, and called out. "What is that your making?"

I quickly explained that it was a Jewish tradition to build a small temporary fort during this season. "Why doesn't it have a roof?" she asked, and before I could even finish explaining that the roof needed to be permeable, that one needed to be able to see the stars through the ceiling, she was already running back to her yard. After a few minutes, she returned with a big pile of Bamboo. "These will work great!" I cried. "Take as much as you need," she smiled. And I just pruned the bushes, so feel free to use anything you need"

I went straight to work, grabbing branches, vines, leaves, even the huge 8-feet long stalk of a sunflower, to build my roof.

Finally, I was finished, two days after the official start of Sukkot, but with three days left to spare before the big party I had planned for Saturday. I stood outside, proud of my new handiwork. I still had a lot of work to do; I would need to find somewhere to get Lulav and Etrog, something that I knew would be difficult this late in the game. But for now, I had built something entirely with my own hands. I had built something of which I was proud!

That Saturday, many of our friends came over and dwelt in the sukkah with us. I had been unable to procure Lulav and Etrog.. Still I was intent on participating in the feeling of the mitzvah. My fiancee put together a small psuedo-Lulav made from palm and fern leaves and small shoots of bamboo, all held together by rubber bands. And I picked up a lemon.

At exactly 8:00pm, surrounded by friends and garbed in tallit, I performed the rituals of Havdalah, lighting for the first time the braided candle. I led everyone in the blessings of wine, spices, fire, and separation, before putting the glowing flame out in my glass of wine, with an intensely satisfying sizzling sound. Handing out an outline of the blessings for Sukkot, we all said the appropriate blessings, and everyone took turns shaking our little DIY Lulav and Etrog set, East, South, West, North, and then Up and Down. Once everyone shook to their hearts content, I removed my tallit, and shouted "Well, it's a Jewish party.....so let's eat!" and handed out loaves of my vegan challah.

The whole process of building my Sukkito was a times heart breaking, at other times exhilarating, and completely exhausting on every level. I had to learn a lot of the physics of structure and balance purely through trial and error. But in the end, everyone said that even if it wasn't the first sukkah they had even been to--for some guests, it was--it was probably one of the best, and definitely the cutest.

I am certain I'll build a sukkah next year. Now that I've got one under my belt, and I know a little of the pitfalls and frustrations associated with it--and more importantly did it completely all on my own, with my own hands - I think next year's will be bigger, better, and filled with even more laughs and smiles and the simple joy of the simcha of being with friends together, eating and talking, and looking up into the night sky, watching the moon as it sails over us.

Well, then.

2011-07-03T22:52:00.000-07:00

I met someone who said they read my zine, I think in Hawaii.

They said that their roommate was a Chabad Rabbi, who apparently, upon seeing the word "Anarchist" in the title, decided it must be blasphemy, and promptly threw it in the recycling bin. Without actually reading it.

The first night

2011-03-11T21:42:00.000-08:00

So, I just got back to my room after the first night of the JVP NMM. I had said before that I would be Tweeting and Blogging throughout. However, after talking to several people at the event, out of concern for privacy and the larger concern of organizational security, I won't be blogging about the event itself. As was pointed out to me, this isn't a "Conference", it's a "Member Meeting", a meeting space for members to meet, network and work with other members.

Instead, I'll be writing about my feelings and thoughts about the day over all, and maybe a little about after hours discussions.

I've already met some amazing people that have been involved with some amazing work, with some surprising connections to people I've met and know in Olympia. I talked several members of Brandeis Jewish Voice for Peace who just this week were rejected by Brandeis Hillel as a legitimate Jewish student group. We had a long discussion about the role of a Hillel on campus and how that can shape the discussion of Israel/Palestine politics on campus. I've definitely got a lot to think about.

There was also an amazing, beautiful Shabbat service. I've never felt so turned on to the type of energy that was radiating through the room like that! I'm really looking forward to sitting down with the many members of the Rabbinic council that I met tonight and have a long discussion about the role of spiritual renewal in this activist movement.

In terms of people I'm looking forward to talking to: Rabbi Lynne Gottlieb and Rabbi Brant Rosen from the JVP Rabbinic cabinet!

A whirlwind weekend

2011-03-10T17:27:00.000-08:00

I've got quite a busy next few days.

I'm leaving tonight for Philadelphia, PA. Tomorrow I have an appointment to visit the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and talk to their Admissions counselor. That night and for the rest of the weekend, I'll be taking part in the Jewish Voice for Peace National Member Meeting. I've got a few dates to sit down and talk with a few members of the JVP Rabbinic Council, including Rabbi Alissa Wise, Rabbi Joseph Berman, and HUC Rabbinic student Alana Alpert. I'm especially looking forward to hearing former Israeli Air Force pilot and author of the IDF Refusnik "Pilot's Letter" Yonatan Shapira speak about his work in Palestinian solidarity, as well as meeting up with my new friend and Young Jewish Proud activist Eitan Isaacson, who recently had a great piece up in Zeek.

And then I'll also try to fit in time to enjoy Philadelphia itself! I haven't spent a lot of time on the East Coast so I want to make the most of my time there.

Not sure how sure my internet access will be once I'm there, but I'll try to blog while I'm there.

See ya!

Vegan Challah

2011-02-06T13:09:00.000-08:00

I've been told by 10 different people the last couple of days that I should start selling my Vegan Challah.

I suppose that's be one way to finance the next issue of the NJ zine.

This always makes me happy

2011-02-04T22:59:00.000-08:00

Shabbat Shalom!

Some thoughts on some Terumah Drash

2011-02-04T15:17:00.000-08:00

I've started studying Midrash for the weekly parshah. While reading the drash for Terumah, I came across this little ditty that really stuck out. In discussing the line "And they shall make an ark of acacia-wood":

Our great teacher said: We are indebted to Job, because he added to everything Elihu said. Job said to this companions: 'Do you imagine that even all that you have said exhausts all Yah's praise? Who can declare all the praises and mighty deeds of Adonai? All the things you have said, why These are but the outskirts of Yah's ways,' etc. . .Elihu said: 'The Almighty we cannot find Yah, excellent in power.' He that hears this verse may exclaim: 'Perhaps, heaven forfend, this is blasphemy!' But this is what Elihu meant: We will never find G!d's strength [fully] displayed toward any of His creatures, for Yah does not visit God's creatures with burdensome laws, but comes to each one according to his strength. For know thou, that if G!d had come upon Israel with the full might of Yah's strength when Yah gave them the Torah, they would not have been able to withstand it, as it says, 'If we hear the voice of Adonai our G!d any more, then we shall die. . .G!d, however, came upon them according to their individual strength. . ." (Midrash Rabbah, Ch. xxxiv.1)

This idea of being indebted to Job, of all people, sits uncomfortably with me. Job, the most depressing guy with the most depressing book in the Bible, has something positive to say?

What makes this passage sensible, though, is the dialectic that it develops between Job and his friend Elihu, who is the one comforter who is not joining in on the pity party that Job's other two friends have started for him. While Job is speaking of the despair of his existential crisis, in his pit of loss and mourning, at the same time, he's talking about it's opposite. According to Rabbi H. Freedman, what Job's saying is that "G!d's greatness is beyond human comprehension.' (ibid, footnote 3), that These, referring both to the devastation visited upon Job's life, as well as to everything that his friends have been saying, are but the outskirts of Yah's ways. G!d's incomprehensible reality is beyond understanding, beyond any system or framework we could hope to dream up, but is nonetheless suffused with everything--in fact everything, including despair (Job) and critique (his friends) on one end, and joy and affirmation on the other (Elihu), are merely the outskirts, merely extensions of that reality. Elihu, in saying that "We will never find G!d's strength fully displayed toward any of Yah's creatures, but comes to each according to his strength,' is saying that even in despair, G!d is approaching. Maybe, then, Despair is the human coping mechanism for dealing with the emotionally overwhelming stress of a Theophany. When you are depressed, or angry, your bodily reactions (decreased or increased heartrate, decreased or increased seratonin or adrenaline, fight or flight response, and so on) is your body trying to defend itself--either by shifting inward as in depression, or outward as in anger, to a stimuli--whether that stimuli is Revelation or a depression triggering event. Remaining at those levels of defense are not sustainable, though, and eventually you have to return to equilibrium and deal with the stimuli in a different way. As a people, the Israelites sent Moses to work with G!d; as individuals, we relieve stress in some way (laughter for some, exercise, sulking?), and then try to approach a problem from a different space. Both are periods when the divine, or the weight of that total reality, approaches (or alternatively, is approached by you) you differently--or according to [your] individual strength. Compare this with R. Nachman of Bratslav's advice on heartbreak:

"It would be very good to be brokenhearted all day. But this could easily throw most people into gloom and depression. You should therefore set aside some time each day for heartbreak. Seclude yourself with God for a given time and break your heart with regret over your sins. Then be happy for the rest of the day.

And:

There is no pure/complete heart like a broken heart.

Put together, Job, Elihu, and R. Nachman are saying that G!d, or the totality of reality, includes everything. And that very same totality of everything necessarily includes elements that aren't always nice as manna from the sky, comforting as matzoh ball soup, or as awesome as a splitting the sea or getting water from a rock in the middle of the desert. To experienced a totalized-reality, that reality needs to include everything, those positives need to be experienced, and are in fact enhanced by, the awareness of the existence the negatives. In a religion that calls for you to be like G!d, you need to likewise be present in everything. By following R. Nachman's advice, and spending a little time with heartbreak every day, to have a Job experience a little bit each day, you partake in the depth of the Divine--not just the cool parts, but in the whole.

It strikes me as more than a coincidence that the name Elihu ("He is My God Himself") is so similar to Eliyahu ("Yah is my G!d"), the Prophet who will bring the joy of the Messianic age. Where Elijah will bring ecstatic joy, Job represents crippling despair, and the whole of the Human experience lies in the space in between them, without contradicting either of them. There's so little known about Elihu, that perhaps it's possible that he could have been Elijah himself in disguise, there not to disprove Job's cries of depair, but to complement them.

Thoughts on my own Jewish Ethnicity.

2011-01-29T11:24:00.000-08:00

I notice I've been writing more often, and admittedly, more coherently, in comments to other people's blog posts, than I have here. So until I have more time to devote specifically to this blog, I'll try to cross-post my thoughts elsewhere to here.

Today I've got my response to Todd over at Becoming Jewish, regarding his post on Jewish Ethnicity, which is an amazing read all on it's own. Go read it first.

I've been struggling myself with the question of Jewish ethnicity. When I first began going to shul, many (many!) times I was approached by temple members who, out of a commendable sense of wanting to welcome me, invariably made a point of saying that this area (Seattle) has one of the largest populations of Sephardic Jews. I didn’t know WHAT a Sephardic Jew was at the time, but I eventually figured out that what they meant was “Jews who look like you.”

When I began the conversion process and learned more about the geo-historical experiences of Sephardim, I felt it was my duty, as a person of color, to identify with them. I started to self-consciously use Sephardic pronunciation (“Shabbat” as opposed to “Shabbos”, or “Sukkot” versus Sukkos”, for example), and wear knitted kippot–someone told me that Sephardi Jews wore knitted ones, and I took them at their word, though I realize now that what they really meant was “Non-Askenazi”.

More and more though, I find myself gradually shifting to Ashkenazi minhagim. I realized I don’t KNOW anyone who follows Sephardi customs, and I was surrounded by Yiddishkeit both at temple and among my Fiancee’s family. I was surprised to find myself feeling a great deal of guilt for this. I should’ve been, my thinking went, “representing” Jews of color, Jews outside of the East European paradigm–in short, representing Jews who looked like me.

I’ve come to terms with Yiddishkeit. It’s what I know, it’s what I’ve become comfortable with, and while I ought to learn more about Sephardic Jewry, I don’t have to feel guilty about not following it’s customs. I’m much more aware, though, as a result of this process, of Ashkenazic privilege in discussions of Jewish identity. Which, as a component of critical thinking in relation to my own relationship with Klal Yisrael, can’t be a bad thing, right?

Wish I knew the title to this video...

2010-11-28T00:37:00.000-08:00

But "jewish anarchist anthem" works well enough for now.

Shir Chadash: We are on the cusp of a new day

2010-11-08T21:00:00.000-08:00

I am all at once humbled and astounded and excited and inspired by the actions of Young Jewish and Proud, the collection of Jewish and Israeli activists who today disrupted Bibi's speech at the Jewish Federation's General Assembly calling for a change in Israel's attitude, tactics, and overall philosophy regarding the Israel/Palestine conflict. Working in close cooperation with Jewish Voice For Peace, who just gained a new chapter at the historically Jewish Brandeis University in preparation for that university's first Israel Apartheid Awareness week, the arrival of YJP is clearly evidence of a sudden blooming of a movement made up of young progressive Jews ready to hold Israel accountable for its policies in ways previous generations have not.

I've got issues with some of what Marc Ellis says, but I agree with him on this: It's going to be the responsibility of this--of my, of our-- generation to take on the mantle of the Jewish prophetic to make an end to this conflict imaginable in our, or at least our childrens, lifetimes.

Just because it's inspiring on its own, here is Young Jewish and Proud's manifesto in its own words:

The Young Jewish Declaration
A vision of collective identity, purpose and values written by and for young Jews committed to justice in Israel and Palestine. It is an invitation and call to action for both our peers and our elders, launched as a counter-protest at the 2011 Jewish Federation General Assembly in New Orleans.
Join us TODAY, Monday, November 8 at the New Orleans Marriott Hotel, 555 Canal Street, 2nd floor at 8:30pm for a reading of the Declaration and dialogue.
I. we exist.
We exist. We are everywhere. We speak and love and dream in every language. We pray three times a day or only during the high holidays or when we feel like we really need to or not at all. We are punks and students and parents and janitors and Rabbis and freedom fighters. We are your children, your nieces and nephews, your grandchildren. We embrace diaspora, even when it causes us a great deal of pain. We are the rubble of tangled fear, the deliverance of values. We are human. We are born perfect. We assimilate, or we do not. We are not apathetic. We know and name persecution when we see it. Occupation has constricted our throats and fattened our tongues. We are feeding each other new words. We have family, we build family, we are family. We re-negotiate. We atone. We re-draw the map every single day. We travel between worlds. This is not our birthright, it is our necessity.
II. we remember.
We remember slavery in Egypt, and we remember hiding our celebrations and ritual. We remember brave, desperate resistance. We honor a legacy of radical intellectuals and refugees. We remember the labor movement. We remember the camps. We remember when we aged too quickly. We remember that we are still young, and powerful. We remember being branded as counterrevolutionaries in one state and hunted during the red scare of another. We remember our ancestors’ suffering and our own. Our stories are older than any brutal war. We remember those who cannot afford to take time to heal. We remember how to build our homes, and our holiness, out of time and thin air, and so do not need other people’s land to do so. We remember solidarity as a means of survival and an act of affirmation, and we are proud.
III. we refuse.
We refuse to have our histories distorted or erased, or appropriated by a corporate war machine. We will not call this liberation. We refuse to knowingly oppress others, and we refuse to oppress each other. We refuse to be whitewashed. We will not carry the legacy of terror. We refuse to allow our identities to be cut, cleaned, packaged nicely, and sold back to us. We won’t be won over by free vacations and scholarship money. We won’t buy the logic that slaughter means safety. We will not quietly witness the violation of human rights in Palestine. We refuse to become the mother who did not scream when wise King Solomon resolved to split her baby in two. We are better than this. We have ancestors to honor. We have allies to honor. We have ourselves to honor.
IV. we commit.
We commit ourselves to peace. We will stand up with honest bodies, to offer honest bread. We will stand up with our words, our pens, our songs, our paintbrushes, our open hands. We commit to re-envisioning “homeland,” to make room for justice. We will stand in the way of colonization and displacement. We will take this to the courts and to the streets. We will learn. We will teach this in the schools and in our homes. We will stand with you, if you choose to stand with our allies. We will grieve the lies we’ve swallowed. We commit to equality, solidarity, and integrity. We will soothe the deepest tangles of our roots and stretch our strong arms to the sky. We demand daylight for our stories, for all stories. We seek breathing room and dignity for all people. We are committed to the struggle. We are the struggle. We will become mentors, elders, and radical listeners for the next generation. It is our sacred obligation. We will not stop. We exist. We are young Jews, and we get to decide what that means.

I don't know if this was intentional, but I can't help but see patterns in this manifesto that immediately bring to mind the concept of Teshuvah, and even more specfically, of the Musaf benedictions of the High Holy Days: Malḳiyot, Zikronot, and Shofarot; in english, Kingship/Majesty, Rememberance, and Awakening.

The proclamation that "We Exist" both recognizes the existence of an alternate voice growing within the Jewish mainstream--but it also refocuses attention on the majesty, on the Malkiyot, of 'mere' existence--on life, and the vitality and colors and dynamics of life, of life for all people, which, along with Shabbat, in our creation myth is the crowning achievement of the initial world gestation.

That "We Remember" is Zikornot, evidence of what we already know: That we Jews are a people with a long memory. But we can't only remember the times we have been wronged by the world, or the times we have been right; we also have to remember when we have been wrong. We remember so that we can learn. We remember our mistakes, we remember our worshipping of idols, our following of false prophets (The Golden Calf? or Shabbatai Zvi, anyone?). The whole reason we do the same Seders and read the same scrolls every year is because we are called to never forget. I think it was the Baal Shem Tov who said "Remember: Even a mitzvah can become an Idol". For all the love US Jewry and the greater Diaspora has for Israel, we must remember to not let it too become an idol.

That "We Refuse" is Shofaret, our recognition of the Shofars call, that alarm clock within our being, that we cannot remain asleep in our waking life to the reality before us. Sometimes we need to be jarred out of our slumber. That alarm may take the form of a Ram's horn; it may take the form of five young people standing up and shouting truth to power and being tackled by security.

And that "We Commit" is proof of our Teshuvah that reminds us that all of these add up to a Turning Back, to a Return to the path we strayed from. We might commit chet, a sin, literally 'a missing of the mark'--but if we take a step back, and a moment to get that better look at the target, we can hit it dead on; oftentimes, that's as true for pesonal relationships as it can be for international ones.

I'm very excited for this new chapter in Progressive Jewish life. I can't wait to see what's next.

I fought the Law; Torah Won

2010-10-17T15:34:00.000-07:00

I've got a real problem with Torah.

No, no, before you bring out the pitchforks and the soap to wash out my mouth, let me explain. I've got an issue with the word Torah. Or more accurately, with the usual English translation as "The Law." More about that later.

I came to Judaism six years ago from a very different background than most JBCs. For about half of my life, I've identified with and studied the thought of radicals and social revolutionaries, or what is commonly identified as “The Left.” I try to avoid using buzzwords like "left" or "right-wing" too much, but for the sake of clarity, I'll define my understanding of the term here.

To me, the radical left is an ongoing political, economic, and social movement to create a social world where the highest values are the liberty and equality of man alongside man; where society is seen as the collective account of a community that facilitates the transfer of mutual aid between people. Now to be sure, "Leftists" have disagreed with the best way to create this society. Communists think it's through a Dictatorship of the Worker's class in the form of a Party; Democratic Socialists through Parliamentary Statism; Anarchists through the establishment of worker's voluntary co-operatives, guilds, unions, collectives. I tend favor the Anarchist, or Libertarian Socialist's, point of view. Despite their differences in tactics, they all favor the dismantling of class and caste systems. I always believed that a community is a responsible for and to its members, and to those who interact with it. That's my core principle.

Like most leftists, I was a militant atheist. I disparaged organized religion at every turn as an opiate of the masses, and a tool of the ruling class to keep the rabble in line. I still believe this on some level, especially when religion is used a blunt tool of ignorance to reinforce existing prejudices and hatreds (Westboro Baptist Church, anyone?). Atheism served me well for its time. It helped me shed some of my earliest prejudices. As a young Mexican-American boy, I was exposed by my parents, knowingly or not, to some of the more conservative social mores of Catholicism. From the time I first became aware of the concept of same-sex sexuality, I was repulsed. I remember first reading about Greek culture in seventh grade. Not satisfied with school textbooks, I went to the library and checked out all the books I could find on the subject. When I read about the practice of some Greek aristocrats to take young male lovers, I remember feeling terribly sad. "What smart people, all those philosophers", I thought to myself, "It's too bad they could never go to heaven for their sins."'

As I entered high school and integrated myself into the punk culture, with it's stylistic attachment to freedom and "Anarchy!", I started to shed my earlier beliefs about the differences between people. It wasn't cool to be religious anymore. It was cool to be an activist. I started reading up. Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Mikhail Bakunin, oh my. Over time I came the realization that my own feelings of homophobia were the result of internalizing what I thought were the *right* kinds of prejudices. My studies showed me that these prejudices served only to divide people who were better off standing together to demand their rights.

Well, alright then, religion. It was nice while it lasted...but no thanks.

This was my status quo for the next ten years. I constantly disparaged the ruling classes’ religious control, while learning more about the liberation of the people from superstition.

When I came to Judaism, I was at point in my life where all my old prejudices had been expunged. In their place, there were still biases, but biases that were oriented against power, against privilege, against prejudices that divided, whether they were sexual, racial, ethnic, or, yes, even religious. I was open to learning about religion now, but it had to be on my terms, it had to be a religion that shared my ethical beliefs.

Judaism was that religion for me. Judaism did away with the moralistic sinning view of my youth, and invited all to worship the Just One. I dove right in. I did the legwork and the study. Along side the works of Marx, of Kropotkin, of Chomsky that I had studied for years, I now added the luminary work of Buber, of Heschel, of Fromm. In time, I even discovered that Judaism in America had a rich segment in the history of Anarchism. I came upon Rudolf Rocker, an anarchist who informally converted to a kind of class-conscious secular or humanist Judaism, who wrote and edited the great Yiddish Anarchist newspaper of his day, Arbeter Fraint, and later wrote for the Freie Arbeiter Stimme.

Yeah, I thought to myself as I stood in the mikveh ready to dip for the third time, these are definitely my people.

Okay, You might be thinking: Thanks for the trip down memory lane, but whats all this got to do with Torah?

It all comes down to my belief in Judaism as a liberation creed.

Jewish civilization has many facets, but two pillars of it's system have stood the test of time, even as they sometimes were opposed to one another. They are our mythic structures and the ritual practices mirroring our mythic realities on the one hand, and ethical observance and practice of the ethics on the other. The former is best exemplified, of course, in the Torah, the latter, in the Talmud, the Oral tradition. The set and unchanging form of the written word has a symbiotic relationship with the spoken word. But where the written word is static, and the oral word is fluid, they are natural antagonists as often as they are partners. Martin Buber in his retelling of Hasidic legend, The Legend of the Baal Shem, put it well:

All positive religion rests on an enormous simplification of the...wildly engulfing forces that invade us: it is the subduing of the fullness of existence. All myth, in contrast, is the expression of the fullness of existence, its image, its sign; it drinks incessantly from the gushing fountains of life. Hence religion fights myth where it cannot absorb...it. The history of the Jewish religion is in great part the history of its fight against myth. It is strange and wonderful to observe how in this battle religion ever again wins the apparent victory, myth again wins the real one.

The narrative thread that runs through the whole of Jewish myth is tale of the freeing of the captive. The literal Exodus, the escape of the Hebrew nation from the bondage of Mitzrayim is precisely just as vital as the freeing of the human mind from the bondage of idolatry, of the worship of the idols of power, or of privilege, of material accumulation, or even in our modern era, of the state, of the establishment. As religion instinctually desires to set down roots, to ossify into a mere institution, myth tirelessly leans its curve against the status quo to create a discomfort, a dissatisfaction, a sense of what Dr. Martin Luther King called "maladjustment" to injustice and oppression. It was this very same kind of discomfort that the prophets sought to induce in the people of Israel. Isaiah scorns religious observance without this sense of responsibility:

14 Your new moons and fixed seasons

Fill Me with loathing;

They are become a burden to Me,

I cannot endure them.

15 And when you lift up your hands,

I will turn My eyes away from you;

Though you pray at length,

I will not listen.

Your hands are stained with crime —

16 Wash yourselves clean;

Put your evil doings

Away from My sight.

Cease to do evil;

17 Learn to do good.

Devote yourselves to justice;

Aid the wronged.

Uphold the rights of the orphan;

Defend the cause of the widow.

Judaism envisions a world of freedom for all. While it commanded Israelites to sacrifice on an altar in the Temple, the sacrifices were meaningless without ethical actions. The rabbis taught that as well off as you might be, you still had an obligation to step outside of your comfort zone and perform Bikur Cholim, the visiting of the sick and the shut-in, and to provide for the widow,the orphan and the stranger.

This sort of attention paid to spiritual integrity is not the purview of any law or code. Law is unconcerned with good behavior. Law merely seeks to punish transgression. Law is obsessed with your evil inclination.Law lies in wait for you for the inevitable day when you follow the urges of your Yetzer Hara, at which point it will pounce with the full force of its wrath.

The problem with interpreting Torah as The Law is that Torah does so much more. Even as early as the rabbinic era, the punishments stipulated by Torah were interpreted in the Mishnah out of practical application--that's why the rabbis didn't stone disobedient children to death as Deuteronomy recommends. As an student of Anarchism and social liberation, I've seen how the Law concept has been used to justify and enforce class warfare. Law which governs the behavior of the dis-empowered masses is legislated by the privileged few to maintain these distinctions.

How is Judaism anything like that? The simple answer is, well, It's not.

The solution of course is to become aware of the manifold meanings of the Hebrew word Torah. The Encyclopaedia Judaica states that it "is derived from the root ירה which...means "to teach"... The meaning of the word is therefore "teaching," "doctrine," or "instruction"; the commonly accepted "law" gives a wrong impression.".

Torah is a teaching. Torah is a learning, a development towards excellence. This interpretation is much more satisfying precisely because it's unlimited, and unencumbered by punishments, by required consequences that are unenforceable in the world we live in anyways. It's a teaching that assumes the best desires to aspire to the highest potential of Man.

This sense of Judaism is of course a little problematic at times. Keeping a constant committment in mind to fight brutality and exploitation is difficult. To grapple with the actions of the State of Israel, a bureaucracy that has claimed for itself the right to represent me, and all Jews, to the nations of the world, while simultaneously engaging in a brutal occupation of another people, is a tenfold struggle. I struggle through the wordplay that gets the point across that I am committed to the Land and the People of Israel, without excusing the actions of a State. The Land of Israel is eternal. The People of Israel are the Eternal People. Bureaucrats, while they may be infinite in legislation and restrictions and regulations, are not Eternal. We continued to be Jews from the fall of the Temple up unti the state was established in 1948, and we will continue to be Jews forever regardless of political circumstances of the moment.

Please, don't misunderstand me; I am not opposed to the existence of the State of Israel. I think there should be a safe place for all Jews. But if it is going to claim to be a Jewish State, then it should start to act like one. Not in the ritualization, and near fetishization, of closing all the government offices on Saturdays, but in the eternal mitzvah of liberating the oppressed and of refusing to engage in oppression itself. That, of course, a post for another day.

Torah, the story of our people, is relived every day, every time we put its principles into action. Let's let Torah come alive in our day-to-day relations with each other as teachers to one another; let me be the I to your Thou, and I'll be the Thou to your I.

I don't think Moshe Rabbenu, that great tutor to some of the most difficult, stiff-necked students of all time, would have had it any other way.

Jewish Double Standard

2010-10-05T08:41:00.000-07:00

As I'm sure you've heard, The Jewish Standard out of New Jersey--yes, the same New Jersey which recently suffered the tragic death of Tyler Clementi who committed suicide after his roommate streamed him having sex with another man live on a webcam--has anounced that it will no longer print same-sex wedding couples. And then as the gall to publish an "apology" to any in the 'orthodox/traditonal' community who they may have offended by seeing the simcha of a same-sex couple.

Coddling the bigotry of a small minority though is clearly not a Jewish value. While I'm sure TJS wish this whole episode would just disappear, the Jewish blogosphere ain't letting that happen. And Dan Savage has pointed out that the comments pouring in on TJS' website have been overwhelmingly horrified and angered by this sudden about-face to placate homophobes within the Jewish community.

With light suddenly being shined upon the cockroaches of anti-gay bullies, the rash of gay suicides by children as young as 13 , and the (aborted) push to repeal DADT, Americans slowly seem to be approaching a watershed moment. More and more Americans are re-examining their views on gay and lesbian sexuality and not simply going about business as usual. While this is a good thing, that so many young lives have been sacrificed to get us to this moment is going to be a lasting testimony against this nation.

I'm encouraged that Jews overwhelmingly are taking the right stand on this, and are willing to call our institutions out on their shit.

Keep it up.

High Holy Days 5771: Friday Night Fever | Good God: Faith for the Rest of Us

2010-09-22T07:40:00.000-07:00

This is Rabbi Daniel Weiner's, of Temple De Hirsch Sinai, Eruv Rosh Hashanah Sermon, and it's one of his best, funniest, meaningful sermons that I've heard. Read the transcript, if you'd like, but if you can, LISTEN to the sermon for the full effect. Really great stuff.

High Holy Days 5771: Friday Night Fever | Good God: Faith for the Rest of Us

Mazel Tov's are in order...

2010-09-04T23:40:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Rabbi Brant Rosen of Shalom Rav for his recent appointment as co-chair of Jewish Voice for Peace's Rabbinic Council! I've followed Rabbi Brant's blog for quite some time and taken much inspiration from his writings and his work. There were times during the conversion process that I wondered whether it was inappropriate for me to convert despite my having more nuanced and critical views of Israel than is usually allowed in the Jewish mainstream. Rabbi Brant's blog helped me understand and believe that Judaism's tent has room for all types of beliefs about any subject. Knowing that made it possible for me to feel comfortable in my own relationship to Judaism, without feeling like I had to give up my deeply held values.

And it's not only on Israel/Palestine issues that he's worked on. He's been deeply involved with labor struggles here in a America, fighting for the rights of working men and women to their fair share and freedom to organize and unite for better, more equitable working conditions.

(Sigh. A rabbi after my own heart.)

Thank you, Rabbi Brant for your inspirational work, and Mazel Tov, a thousand times Mazel Tov, on your new position! I know you'll be a great leader in the neverending struggle against injustice and inequality.

The Struggles of Transformation

2010-08-26T17:57:00.000-07:00

A week ago today, I experienced the culmination of a years worth of formal study, and five years of independent research and examination, and uncountable years of searching for a spiritual home.

I drove down to Mikveh at the Orthodox shul. I went before a Bet Din, a religious court made up of three knowledgeble Jews or Rabbis (in this case, two Rabbis I've studied with for quite sometime, as well as the Executive Director of my congregation), and answered their questions about the path that brought me before them. With Amanda by my side, and my sister, who had come up to visit from California just to be with me during the Conversion process, I answered their queries.

I had given them all copies of an essay I had written. It chronicled my discovery of the Jewish tradition through my exploration of various world mythologies in college, progressing through my approach to Rabbi D. to sponsor me as a candidate for conversion, and culiminated in my adoption of many of the positive Mitzvot. As people who have followed this blog know the essay is structured about a poem by Rabbi H. that has inspired me for quite a long time. Rabbi C. noted that Rabbi H was a collegue of his, and that he had read the essay that I had written. I'm sure my face visibly reddened when he told me that Rabbi H had been moved by my piece, and looked forward to meeting me one day--he occasionally makes appearences at the Torah N' Tefillah study sessions TDHS has every Shabbat.

One question that I did not expect was for Rabbi D. to ask me why I had chosen Ya'akov as my Hebrew name. My response--that in the Torah, Jacob was merely the starting point, the soil from which the personage as well as the nation of Yisroel would spring forth--that to me, the person of Jacob, the "Proto-Israel", represented a fertile potential for constant change, for unending growth, for a holy transformation--seemed to satisfy the three judges.

Thus satisfied, Rabbi D. invited me to go into a private room, shower up, and prepare to enter the Mikveh; he, his three collegues, and my guests would stand behind a closed door while I immersed.

Stripped down to the nude, I climbed down into the Mikveh, which looked like a very deep hot tub, with olive green tiles, about five feet deep. The water reached to my chest. Upon my shout that I was in the pool, Rabbi D. instructed me to drunk, and then led me in the blessing for Immersion. I had never read it before, and even now cannot recall the words for it.

Another dunk. Rabbi D. then led me in the Shehecheyanu, a blessing whose Hebrew recitation I've often had trouble getting right, though with guidance I managed just fine.

Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha'olam, she'hecheyanu v'ki'y'manu, v'higiyanu lazaman ha'zeh.

Blessed are You, Adonai, our G!d, Ruler of the Universe, who has granted us life, sustained us and enabled us to reach this occasion.

Then, another dunk.

This time, I stayed down for longer than the first two times. Lifting my feet off the floor, and curling my head forward, I rolled myself into a ball, fetal position, creating a small circle of me. I opened my eyes, my mouth, unclenched my fingers and my toes. I held my breath for as long as I could.

When finally I lifted my head to the surface, water dripping down my face, I was reborn. I was a Jew.

"MAZEL TOV!" everyone shouted!

I climbed slowly from the water, dripping wet. I went back to the shower, cleaned myself up again. Drying myself, I looked at myself in the mirror. "Holy crap" I watched myself silently mouth. "I'm a Jew."

Amanda gave me a big hug when I came out. Pictures were taken, more hugs, and kisses. Rabbi D. called me over to a desk that had been set up. There sat a beautifully ornamental covenant. I signed it, swearing love and loyalty to the Jewish people, swearing to raise my children as Jews, and swearing to put Judaism above all other faiths.

After more thank-you's and congratulation's and Mazel Tov!'s were exhanged, Amanda packed me and Brittany into the car, and we drove to Temple, where many of my friends had gathered.

There, along with two of my IntroToJudaism classmates, we had our welcoming ceremony. We ascended the Bima. Handing each of us the Torah scroll, we each recited Sh'ma Yisrael.

I of course had practiced this for MONTHS, so when my turn came, I surprised the Rabbi when, without his guidance, I sang out the verses.

Shema Yisra'el Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad!

Hear, O Israel: Adonai our G!d is One!

Amanda later told me that everyone present had enjoyed and giggled at my breaking out into song. Hey, I couldn't help it, when a guys' gotta sing, he's just gotta sing!

Rabbi D. then recited over us the Priestly Blessings.

Afterwards, my friends and family all went out for a big lunch at my favorite vegan restaurant, Bamboo Garden, and then, to show my sister a little of Seattle while she was in town, we spent the rest of the afternoon at the Pike Place Market.

It was an amazing day, with memories I will always cherish. For two days afterward, I felt like I was floating three feet off the ground. When I finally came down, I got straight to work planning my next steps.

Get a job teaching at the Synagogue? Check.
Keep on top of my own Torah study? Check.
Preparing for Teshuvah for the High Holy Days? Check.

I've got a lot of big plans that I'm sitting on. I'm trying to remember that even those this is the end of one road, it's also just the beginning of yet another.

Like Jacob, I have to always be ready for when I find myself in another Holy Place, and be prepared to struggle with the sacred moments hidden and embedded like gems in the reality of this life.

Teshuvah experiments

2010-08-24T17:59:00.000-07:00

Just made some copies of one of my teshuvah projects.

"Days of AWESOME! - 5771: a high holy days mix"

And yeah, I still haven't written about my mikveh day yet. It's very much in the works. Thanks for your patience with me!

Wow

2010-08-19T06:39:00.001-07:00

Today's the day.

Bet Din / Mikveh in two and a half hours.

But first.

Coffee.

The Sanctification and Kavanah of Pain

2010-08-16T17:12:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday, I drove up to Mercer Island to perform the mitzvah of Hatafat Dam Brit. The mohel, Dr. Aaron Witz, had come to speak at my Introduction to Judaism class last fall, and gave a presentation that potentially, given the subject matter and his visual aids, could have degenerated into toilet humor. But he treated the topic with great respect and seriousness, and explained not only the reasons behind the ritual of Brit Milah, but also the entire process and how the procedure has evolved over the centuries. I knew right away that I'd want to work with him when the time came for me to have this part of my conversion arrived.

Dr. Witz has devised a meaningful and spiritually satisfying ceremony for his adult conversion clients. This, I later learned, is relatively unusual. Though there are certain blessings that are mandated by Torah to be recited, there is not a universal formula. Dr. Witz said he wanted to make it as meaningful to his clients as possible. He provided me with a script to follow, explaining what blessings I would recite and which he would recite over me.

After allowing me to apply some numbing cream, he brought me into an examination room where, after donning his tallit, we both recited our respective lines. I sat and he began the medical procedure.

Full disclosure: I was scared out of my mind. While I was lucky enough to have been circumcised as an infant and therefore avoided needing a full surgery for that, the mere thought of having a needle inserted into my genitalia definitely pushed my heart up into my throat, making room for the butterflies to move into my stomach.

I really did want to watch the actual act being performed. I really did. I told myself I would. But when he pulled out that needle, my eyes glazed over. I clenched them tight until i saw stars, and then...

Well, then, the pain.

I don't know how deep it went, I don't know how much I bled. What I do know is that it felt like I had my penis being pinched by two sharp nails. But only for about a second. The only blood I saw was a little red on the white gauze he showed me, "as proof", he said, before throwing it away. A little bit of antibiotic, a little dabbing with fresh gauze, and I was back on my feet, zipped up, and sweating bullets.

"That's it?" I panted.
"Yep. That's it." He nodded, matter-of-factly.
"That...that really wasn't all that bad!" I stammered.
"Let's go back to the waiting room", he said, motioning towards the door.

What had been a short walk TO the examination room turned into something very different on the way back. Everything suddenly clicked into slow motion. I felt lightheaded. By the time I reached the waiting room that had been been arranged for a small kiddush and a spice box, I felt like I was floating.

He handed me a the Kiddush cup, a beautiful jade and bronze artifact filled almost to the brim with Manishevitz. He led me in the Shehecheyanu and the blessings over wine, before floating the spice box just below my nose. Bowing my head, he then recited the Priestly Blessing over me.

The rest of the day was a blur after that. I went in expecting something different. Something much more...clinical? But I left in a sort of haze. I honestly felt high, light as a feather, invincible.

Now, I know there are definite reasons for these feelings and these reactions. Pain sensation instantly releases a wave of endorphins in to the bloodstream, readying the fightorflight response. The wine tempers and depresses this chemical reaction, and the smelling salts of the spice box wake you back up, bringing you to a slightly more concrete awareness of your surroundings.

I know all this. But that doesn't make this experience feel any less ...divine. The knowledge of scientific explanation did nothing to make the pain, the ritual, the humility, the sheer awe any less numinous. Whatever went on in my bloodstream, whatever synapses were popping in my head, there was still something unexplainable underlying the electric impulses going back and forth across the network of nerves, some deep sense of Kavanah, of intention, that made this particular pain, this particular sensation, special, different, even what many people would call holy.

So, I've got step one of my three step conversion done. And a certificate to show for it and everything.

This Thursday I'll go before the Bet Din and answer their questions. And then it's off to the mikveh.

After that, I've got a whole new road to travel on.

Absolution

2010-08-15T11:36:00.000-07:00

Notice to people who meet me as the first Jewish person they've ever met:

It's reallly not appropriate for you to apologize to me for the Shoah, or for centuries of anti-semitism as the second sentence of the conversation.

If youre catholic, it's not really the right time or place to bring up --even to apologize --to me how your church treated '[me] and [my] ancestors' during the meet-and-greet of an interfaith Shabbat service. Not if you don't want me going into your church and bringing up church sex scandals during christmas mass.

It's not really appropriate to mention to every Jewish person you meet the latest incident of anti-Semitic graffiti within three minutes of knowing them. Besides the fact that it reminds us of our 'differentness' no matter HOW assimilated we might be (a rude and sometimes uncomfortable fact in a society that views differentness as an anomly at best, a liability and a target at worst), it's just not good introductory conversation. You know?

My family didn't suffer antisemitism, or the Shoah, or the inquisition. But even if my family had--even if my grandfather was the direct victim of violence committed by your grandfather's own fists--it's not your place to apologize. And it's not my place to accept your apology or to offer absolution. I can't. I couldn't even if I wanted to.

It's just not that easy. And you saying "I'm sorry" to me just won't make it all better.

Zine finished! And off to Seattle for some bloodletting.

2010-08-12T10:00:00.000-07:00

And it's finished.

Yesterday I finished the process of putting my first zine together.

Newish Jewish: Choosing Judaism Through An Anarchist's Eyes, Vol. 1 is available from Ms. Valerie Park Distro as well as on Esty. Just a small print run of 25 copies were made, most of which I still have in my possession. I will probably be sending a few of them to a couple of interested parties. Most of what's in here previous readers of Newish Jewish will have already read, though a few small extras have made their way in.

Thanks so much to Joshua at Valerie Park for offering to put them out, and to Alexis of Ilse Content for helping me with putting them together and teaching me how to navigate the complexities of a xerox machine.

Other than that....

I'm off to see the Mohel today. The Wonderful Mohel of Oz.
He's quite a whiz a mohel'ing, if ever a whiz there was.

Or so I hear.

Wish me luck. I don't always do well with blood.

Yamim HaNoraim: High Holy Days & Teshuvah

2010-08-10T18:11:00.000-07:00

As we approach the High Holy Days this year, my first earnest involvement with the most important aspects of Judaism, I've been looking for ways to prepare myself. I've heard great recommendations of the meditation book This is Real and You are Not Prepared for This, though I haven't been able to track it down yet. In the meantime, Temple De Hirsch-Sinai of Seattle's recent Temple Tidings newsletter included a short, and surprisingly helpful Teshuvah Prepartion Worksheet.

I'm usually really skeptical of anything that appears to quantify something as ethereal as 'repentance'--and that's immediately what I assumed it was. But when I got my tickets to the HHD services at TDHS, the packet included the same worksheet. More out of a desire to have an excuse to write--and it seemed like it'd work as a great writing prompt--I began to fill it out.

I'm really glad I did. It turned out less to be a writing exercise than a chance to examine myself honestly--painfully honestly, I admit. Whereas before I was planning on posting my response on here, the answers I found myself giving were a bit too personal. Maybe I'll post them later, but i feel I have to really process through them myself first.

I thought I'd post them here, in the hopes that maybe someone else might find some value from them.

Via TDHS:

Teshuvah Preparation
“But Repentance Prayer and Righteous Giving Temper Judgement’s Severe Decree”

The process of Teshuvah (repentance) is a serious, lengthy and gradual one. During this holyday period, we engage in the first two levels of teshuvah: awareness of our wrongdoing and voicing our vows to change. The third level, the most vital and the one upon which the first two depend, is the fulfillment of our vows when challenged.
During these Yamim HaNoraim (Awesome Days), in addition to our communal and individual prayers, our feelings of fellowship and bonds to

our history and destiny, we are challenged to actively and authentically confront ourselves, refine ourselves, and renew ourselves. As an aid in embracing this task, please use this Teshuvah Worksheet to help focus your thoughts and spirit upon the sacred task at hand.
Teshuvah/Repentance
Relationships:
1.) How am I part of the problem in the following relationship: my spouse/ significant other, my children, my parents, my siblings, my friends and my co-workers?
2.) How can I contribute to healing this relationship?
3.) How can I act on that contribution immediately? (seek that person out, ask for forgiveness, forgive insults and slights against you)
Care of the Body:
4.) How did I treat my body this past year?
5.) What can I do to improve my health and condition?
Care of the Mind:
6.) How did I enrich my knowledge and thinking?
7.) How did I increase my openness and tolerance?
Care of the Soul:
8.) How did I care for/neglect my soul during this past year?
9.) What can I do to better care for my soul? (read books, attend classes, provide reflective time)
T’fillah/Prayer
10.) What is the quality of my prayer life? Do I pray merely for answers, or seek to cultivate a relationship with God and the divinity in others?
11.) What can I do to enrich the quality of my prayer life? (attend worship more often, learn Hebrew, study the meaning and content of the prayers)
TzedAkah/Righteous Giving
12.) How much of my economic resources have I given to worthy/needy pursuits? What more can I give?
13.) How much of my time and efforts have I given to worthy/needy pursuits? What more can I give?
14.) What have I done to better the condition of the world’s oppressed and impoverished? Who can I lobby, contact or influence to foster Tikkun Olam through the political process?
Ultimate Question/Confrontation:
When have I given up too easily, given in too quickly, and not made the most of my full, God-given potential in any pursuit? When have I rationalized when I should have realized?

A lot's been a-changin'...

2010-08-10T14:17:00.000-07:00

So, work is stop-and-go on the zine. It's process has been interrupted by a few trips we've made including spontaneous trips to national forests, selling vintage clothes in Seattle, and antique shopping in Centralia. One of these trips was for an especially awesome simchah last night: The wedding of our friends Chris and Mike!

It was a magnificently "cool" wedding, down at the Georgetown Ballroom. Being right under the landing patterns of planes coming into Sea-Tac airport just a little bit south of us, enormously huge planes flying incredibly low would interrupt the ceremony at just the right times. That might sound terribly oxymoronic, but it really added something special to the proceedings. Chris and Mike said they chose this spot because the roar of the planes brought home to them the uniqueness of their favorite urban center, the city that brought them together: Seattle, warts and all.

In other news...

I'm pretty certain I got the job I just applied for, and while it doesn't start for two months, I'm incredibly excited about this development: I am going to be a Preschool Teacher at the Beit Sefer Religious School at the syngagouge in downtown Olympia, Temple Beth Hatfiloh! While the formality of a background check needs to be done before the job can officially be offered to me, I've already been put on the Teachers e-mail list and have been trying to gather up some books on early childhood education. I recieved some great recommendations from Debbie B over at Jewsbychoice that I'll be searching around for when I stop by the library in the next few days. [Update: Her recommendations seemed to have disappeared, which is disappointing...but I've got them tucked away in an evernote notebook somewhere..].

Though I've written on the subject before, it's worth mentioning that my Hatafat Dam Brit ceremony is THIS WEEK! I'll be going over to the Mercer Island office of Dr. Aaron Witz to physically embrace the covenant between Israel and HaShem in advance of my dip in the mikveh next thursday. I will probably write more about Brit Milah in the next couple days in mental preparation for it. And because I'm unemployed and have all the time in the world to do so.

Expect more writing about the approaching high holidays, as well.

Taking a really fantastic idea from David A.M. Wilensky over at The Reform Shuckle, I added a picture of our Mezuzah to the blog. It's an amazing notion, of transforming our shared netspace to reflect the realities of our personal living spaces. He words it much better than I ever could in a recent post about a redesign of his blog:

The mezuzah is still there for the same purpose as my bizarre old attempt at a digital mezuzah. It’s an attempt to define cyberspace as real space through a ritual object. I do this because we can do many of the same interpersonal things on this blog that we can do in a real physical space.

I'm increasingly inspired by the Progressive Jewish blogosphere that seems to gravitate around or in the vicinity of Jewschool. I'm terribly afraid of coming across as a poser, or groupie, at best, aping their angle at worst. But the truth is, I really feel a lot in common with the general perspective of this corner of the blog universe. I'm not good at finding the happy medium, but I'm working on it

I leave you with a look at my bookcase.

Enjoy.

Newish Jewish : The Zine

2010-08-01T16:56:00.000-07:00

After a long couple hours, and lots of coffee, (thanks, 24 hour zine marathon event people!) I've completed a prototype for the first Newish Jewish zine issue. Collecting the first few posts, with an extra feature or two, like a list of my favorite Jewish super heroes (Ben Grimm reciting The Sh'ma, anyone?)

Figuring out reproduction and distribution logistics still, I'll post more information when I make it up!

My Bet Din Thesis: The Origins of Hasidic Tradition and The New Hasidism

2010-07-12T14:24:00.000-07:00

he term ‘Hasidim’ comes from the Hebrew word Hasidut. Hasidut, translated literally as ‘allegiance’, is most often extrapolated further to mean ‘piety’. (The Way of Man, 5). The term’s adoption by certain sects of traditionally Fundamentalist Orthodox East European Jews in the 18th century gave a name to a mystical and popular tendency within Judaism that, following Emancipation, was struggling to assert its legitimacy. That period of Western history fostered Post-Enlightenment ideals and concepts; chief among them were the rejection of magic, mysticism and religion. Instead, Western intellectuals favored the use of pure logic and reason in their pursuit of the perfection of man. Jewish intellectuals in their turn adopted these tools to justify and explain their own Jewish traditions to the larger world. In the Eastern areas of Europe, however, Enlightenment thought and other intellectual discourse influenced little of the under-educated and often poverty-stricken lives of those communities of Jews. At a time when formal education was a privilege, intellectualism would likely to be viewed as a form of elitism. The masses of men and women who were not of the intellectual classes, however, still yearned for a emotionally powerful and yet accessible new way of interacting with their Jewish traditions.

Enter Yisroel ben Eliezer. Known as The Baal Shem Tov, he was the founder of the Hasidic Movement. He introduced a perspective of Judaism that, while still couched in established traditions and theories, was less thoroughly elitist or esoteric.

Hasidism ... was a corrective to the excessively intellectual Talmudism that had formerly dominated Eastern European Piety. Though theoretically grounded in the Kabbalah, on a practical level it catered to the common man, stressed ecstatic worship, and idealized naive forms of religious expression (Scheindlin 177-180).

This new form of religious expression opened up new ways of worship to the common man, who was already besieged and subject to the alienation entailed by the growth of individualistic Capitalist economic structures then threatening to tear apart traditional communal ways of life all over the globe. Hasidism offered a way to reclaim a personal stake in the communal spiritual world. Hasidism refused to condemn Man to the life of an isolated automaton in a vast unfriendly universe, as Modernism and its accompanying liberal economic models did. Rather, Hasids found strength in the transcendence of G!d. Furthermore, they could participate in that transcendence. Experience of the numinous was possible in manifold ways. For some, it was through Hitlahavut, the ecstasy of worship. For others Avoda, the service of G!d in the world of space-time was their path towards the higher reality of the divine. “Hitlahavut is the mystic meal. Avoda is the mystic offering” (The Life of the Hasidism, 24).

Hasidism was significant because it brought in its wake new paths towards the idea of G!d. However, its historical origin as a ideological reaction both against intellectualism and against Modernism ensured its development into a fundamentalist sect. Fundamentalism of any faith is at its core a reactionary attempt to avoid, suppress or deny the super-Individualist focus of Modernist thought, in so far as it is detrimental to communal life. This suppression of the absolute freedom of the individual protects the identity of the community, and therefore, of its way of life. Comparative religion scholar Karen Armstrong notes:

Fundamentalism represents a kind of revolt or rebellion against the secular hegemony of the modern world ... The great changes of modernity mean that none of us can be religious in the same way as our ancestors. We are, all of us, having to develop different forms of seeing our faiths. Every generation, ever since religion began, has had to reinterpret its traditions to meet the challenge of its particular modernity. But the challenges have been particularly great, especially during the 20th century. Fundamentalism is simply one of the attempts to rethink faith. (Armstrong)

In times when the identity of the Jewish community was threatened by forced assimilation, the impulses behind fundamentalism were not negative, and in fact, were often sustaining ones. For example, the zealous leaders of the Maccabean Revolt fought to preserve Jewish autonomy, freedom and identity in the face of violent repression by Syrian Greeks rulers. The rebellion would go on to be immortalized in the holiday of Hanukkah to celebrate this will towards freedom

The violent reaction against Modernist thought by fundamentalism, including by Hasidism, however, rejects many liberatory concepts. Egalitarianism, feminism, LGBT-equality, multiculturalism and class consciousness are all products of Modernist thought. They are all necessary for the development of a free and just society. It is true that much trauma has accompanied the growth of Liberalism, such as neo-liberal devastation of the environment; class-based warfare against the poor, and imperialistic exploitation of the third world. But the benefits of its emphasis on the liberation of all of humankind are well worth preserving.

The development of a so-called Neo-Hasidism is one of great interest and promise. Growing from the traditions first promulgated by those involved with the Jewish Renewal and Havurah Movements, such as Rabbi Zalman M. Schachter-Shalomi, Neo-Hasidism seeks to make the meaningful elements of Hasidic thought, such as ecstatic worship and mystic understanding, adaptable to the sensibilities of modern audiences. Unlike traditional Hasidism, though, Neo-Hasidism aims to be an egalitarian community that is open to all races, genders, sexes, and orientations. One of its most visible proponents, Rabbi David Seidenberg, created the website Neohasid.org, whose mission statement proclaims:

We hope [to be] an open a door for anyone who wants to connect their own spiritual practice with Chasidic traditions ... We hope to be egalitarian in many senses, allowing people from many walks of life, embracing varied spiritual practices and political beliefs, to benefit from the songs and deveikut...of Chasidus. (Neohasid.org Mission Statement).

Neo-Hasidism, rather than rejecting new patterns of thinking, adopts and adapts to them. Championing pioneering concepts and practices such as Eco-Kashrut, interfaith dialogue, and LGBT-specific Minyans, Neo-Hasidism seeks to be universally inclusive and welcoming to those interested in Hasidic ideas.

For my own part, I have long had an interest in how myth and mysticism interact with each other, which led to my interest in studying Hasidism’s development. My fascination with the romantic legends of Hasidism was always tempered by my discomfort with the anti-egalitarian and sometimes outright misogynistic and homophobic aspects of the greater Haredi culture. To find that there is a movement to preserve the meaningful elements of these traditions while removing the reactionary fundamentalism was an exciting discovery for me. While I feel well at home within Reform Judaism, the opportunity to delve deep into the romantic mystic tradition without becoming a Black-Hatter, with all that entails, is one that can only serve to enrich my Jewish life.

Bibliography

Seidenberg, Rabbi David. “NeoHasid.org: What We Hope to Accomplish.” NeoHasid.org Chasidus Without Borders. 2006. Web. 11 July 2010. .

Armstrong, Karen, Susannah Heschel, Jim Wallis, and Feisal Abdul Rauf. “Fundamentalism and the Modern World.” Sojourners. Apr. 2002. Web. 11 July 2010. .

Buber, Martin. “The Life of the Hasidim.” The Legend of the Baal-Shem. New York, 1974. 17+. Print.

Scheindlin, Raymond P. “The Jews of Eastern Europe and the United States.” A Short History of the Jewish People: from Legendary times to Modern Statehood. New York: Oxford UP, 2000. 177-78. Print.

Buber, Martin. Preface. The Way of Man: According to the Teaching of Hasidism. New York, NY: Kensington, 1996. 5. Print.

Weiner, Daniel A. “Talkin’ Bout My Degeneration.” Good God: Faith for the Rest of Us. Seattle, Wash.: Classic Day, 2009. 10-11. Print.

While I do not quote directly from Rabbi Weiner’s work, the section in his book Good God titled “Putting the ‘fun’ in Fundamentalism” was instrumental in the development of my view of religious fundamentalism and literalism. It also served to point me in the direction of Karen Armstrong’s writings on the subject, in particular her excellent examination of the Abrahamic faiths “A History of God”, as well as her conversation from the above cited Sojourner Magazine article.

Armstrong, Karen. A History of God: the 4000-year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. New York: Ballantine, 1994. Print.

Judaism and Mythic Time

2010-06-25T03:26:00.000-07:00

Long, long ago, in a land far, far away, a man left his hometown because he felt a calling to be somewhere else and to make a different type of life for himself. So, he packed up his things, walked out the door, and began an adventure.

This is a trope common to many mythologies. Through choice or circumstance, man leaves the comfort of home and family, and heads out to places to which he had never dared venture before. Luke Skywalker did it. Bilbo and Frodo Baggins both felt the drive to leave the comfort of their symbolically womb-shaped Hobbit-holes. Even in that most American of modern mythologies, comic books, we can find the example of the weak-bodied Steve Rogers who—declared 4-F and disqualified from army service—so badly yearned to serve his country that he underwent dangerous experimental medical procedures to become the great hero Captain America. In his seminal The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell argued that there was one Hero archetype. This hero-figure wore different masks that reflected the culture of each individual story, but a common cycle was followed in every incarnation. The Hero always must cross the threshold of his comfort zone, of home, before heading out to face the unknown. Using some form of assistance, whether it be a ring or some super-power, he would over come the initial challenge of the inertia of home life, thereby overcome great obstacles and have his name entered into the halls of legend.

This idea of a common path has always intrigued me, perhaps because the power of Myth, in all it’s forms has fascinated me throughout my life. The complex patterns of narratives contain such beauty in their diverse forms and contents. It was not until I discovered Judaism, though, that I found a cultural system that not only used the power of The Story as a means, but actually sanctified and revered it as an end in itself.

Martin Buber, in the introduction to his book, The Legend of the Baal-Shem, noted:

The Jews are a people that has never ceased to produce myth. In ancient times arose the stream of myth-bearing power that flowed...into Hasidism. The religion of Israel has at all times felt itself endangered by this stream, but it is from it, in fact, that Jewish religiousness has at all times received its inner life.

I completely agree with his proposition. While all religions—also cultures, nation-states, economic classes, and so on—have myths that periodically must be re-enacted, Judaism was one of the first to see that the actions of Heroes were not to be confined to a long past Mythic Time untouchable by human action. On the contrary, Judaism took on the project of dragging Myth into the here and now of our lives. In effect, not only was Myth enmeshed in the soil of everyday life, but the life of Man was enriched, ennobled and gifted with honor from the heavens. The Man of Myth and Man of Earth were both changed forever.

My journey to Judaism was compelled by the allure of myth. The best mythologies, I think, are ones that carry the seeds of a lesson, but avoid the pitfall of becoming didactic. For me, the myths that taught me the most were the four-color ones. Spider-man, the X-men, Superman and Batman were legendary figures who performed great feats. But they each had their own weaknesses, each their own Hurbis that kept them from achieving a complete victory, even in the midst of their greatest successes. Batman could never completely heal from the trauma of his parents deaths; Superman could never bring back his lost home planet. They didn’t dwell on these weaknesses; but they could learn from them and use their lessons in their struggles against evil.

As I grew older, I outgrew the tales of men in masks and long underwear. I searched for deeper meaning in the tales of Hercules and Aesop’s fables at first. Later still, I delved deep into the complex histories and adventures of the fantasies of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings cycle. I felt deeply inspired by these stories on many levels.

During this same period, I was becoming disillusioned with the belief system of Protestant Christianity in which I had been raised. To me, the system of Christianity, while willing to use the power of myth to further its own cause, was deeply antagonistic to the human tendency to form legends. To question any part of the literal understanding of Jesus of Nazareth’s journey and death was heretical. Any exploration into any other sort of world view—even as simple as the reading of my horoscope, for instance—was dangerous and akin to devil worship. I felt guilty for even considering whether my being born under the sign of Aries really affected by personality traits.

This policing of the permitted uses of storytelling pushed me away from Christianity as a belief system. I couldn’t in good conscience remain in a religion that told me I was a sinner for reading Harry Potter books.

Entering adolescence, free of religion, I found myself, ironically, yearning for something to fill the hole that religion had once taken up in my life. I tried different paths and activities. I joined a band and immersed myself in underground punk culture. It was here that I found a sense of fulfillment and community. Communing with others with similar tastes and interests, I felt a sense of happiness and belonging. I learned much about the world during this period. Being a countercultural movement, punk and its related DIY art culture tought me how to consider all sides of a power relationship. Concern for the vulnerable and invisible populations within society became an important value to me. As I aged, I refined my understanding of what this concern meant, politically and socially. I searched out and supported progressive causes. My value system was developing and settling itself in. Like any good punk, of course, I also adopted a fashionable atheism.

It’s ironic, of course, that the combination of my joy of myth with my progressive politics is what caused me to search out information about Judaism. Judaism had just about everything I wanted to draw myself into. It had a healthy attitude towards the use of narrative storytelling. Its central text, The Torah, in fact was the example par excellence of this. At the same time, Judaism had within its tenet of Tikkun Olam an inherent drive to fight against injustice. The power of the Story could be used as an incentive to work towards making the world better, to repair its brokenness and bring it back to its original, rightful state of peace and equality. Judaism sought to make the work of Social Justice sacred. There was still much to complete to repair the world; but now, rather than repeatedly burning out from despair, I had a framework from which to renew my dedication and passion for justice.

My Journey to Judaism has been a long and complex one. I’ve had many Jewish role models, a real mensch every one of them. Now, as I stand on the cusp of joining the people of Israel and binding myself to their destiny, I feel both a sense of awe and of decisiveness. I feel how I imagine Abram must have felt when he felt this irresistible urge to leave his home and everything he had ever known, and embark on a path with an unknowable end. This sense of just knowing, deep in your soul, what you must do is a mixture of wonder and excitement. As I go through the rituals of Hatafat Dam Brit, Bet Din, and Mikveh, I tie myself to his example. I hope I can be just as courageous as Abram was at all times on my path.

Once or twice in a lifetime,
a man or woman may choose
a radical leaving, having heard
Lech l'cha--Go Forth.
G!d disturbs us towards our destiny
by hard events
and by freedom's now urgent voice
which explode and confirm who we are.
We don't like leaving,
but G!d loves becoming.

-Norman Hirsh

Packing up the life + Last Erev Shabbat

2010-06-23T07:35:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. We've been packing for our very imminent move from Seattle to lovely, lovely Olympia, Washington. I've slowly been working on a few posts, but since I'm still working at my day job pretty much right up until we move, not a lot has been done.

Still getting a little reading done at the end of the night, though. Current reading list:

The Way of Man - Buber

Sanatorium under the Sign of the Hourglass - Bruno Schulz

Legends of The Baal Shem - Buber, and, always, Mishkan Tefilah.

Last Erev Shabbat was a very special one. Now that Temple De-Hirsch-Sinai has switched to it's summer schedule, Friday Services are held at only one of it's campus' (Either the Seattle or Bellevue one), not both. Last week it was at Bellevue in the eastside--a bit too far for me to want to travel, since I try to make a point to walk to and from shul on shabbat.

Amanda was spending time with her family, so I was home alone for friday evening. I was going to just call it an early night and go to bed. Instead, I went up to the apartment of my upstairs neighbor's (who had once made a kind comment about our Menorah during hannukah), knocked, and asked if he would like to join me for a glass of wine. Having grown up with "many Jewish friends", he immediately knew I was trying to have company for a Kiddush.

"I work nights, so I just woke up," he said, blinking in the fading light. "But let me put on some clothes, and I'll be right down!"

After a few moments, he came down, looking sharp for someone who had just woken up. Together, we did the candle lighting and wine blessings, and Hamotzi over some toasted bagels with hummus and tofutti cream cheese. I recited the Hebrew while he chanted the English translations, working them into a nice melody together.

We then just schmoozed for an hour or two, telling each other about our lives, talking about the World Cup, his service in Iraq, and recently controversies over Police Brutality in Seattle, with our wine cups never empty until the bottle was.

The whole night was just lovely, ending only when his girlfriend came down to remind him that he had to go to work.

We shook hands at the door, neither of us eager to end our little "Boys Night In". We both then blurted out at the same time--"I'm sorry, but..." "...but I don't remember your name!"

We laughed, and introduced ourselves. We had had a great night of camaraderie and conversation, and not once even needed to know each others name. His name was Jeff. He's a good guy, that Jeff. A real Mensch.

So Friday Night alone turned into something a little bit better by being a little bit less alone. That's how it should always be, right?

It got me thinking, while I'll always want to make a point of going to shul...maybe I should think about looking more into the idea of joining, or maybe even helping to organize an Indie Minyan wherever it is we end up settling down and putting down roots.

More thoughts on this later.

Review: Erich Fromm's "You Shall Be As Gods"

2010-06-17T21:35:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Erich Fromm's You Shall Be As God's: A Radical Interpretation Of the Old Testament and Its Tradition. After living on a steady diet of the usual suspects of Conversion manuals--Anita Diamant's Choosing a Jewish Life, while engaging, didn't have anything new for me--YSBAG was a breath of fresh air, and introduced me to new ways of thinking about old ideas

Fromm's central thesis--that after a short period of ethnic nationalism during the temple era, Judaism became an engine for the development and expansion of Humanist thought--is one I was ready to sink my teeth into.

I'll admit I think the title's suggestion of a "radical" interpretation is a bit of an exaggeration. Fromm only briefly connects Judaism's ethical influence to Marxist ideology. He completely does without examining the rich history of Jewish Anarchism in the 19th and early 20th century among Yiddish speaking Jews in America. Wikipedia tells me that he did write strongly in support of Democratic Socialism, even at one point joining the Socialist Party of America. But he less presents a strong and forceful support for radical social change as much as he offers a critique of capitalist economic structure. While I'm appreciative of that critique, I think presenting alternatives--while perhaps necessitating a second volume--would have provided valuable support for his thesis.

That's just me, though.

I posted a quote a few weeks back from YSBAG, that I wanted to examine:

"...One can understand the phenomenon that Judaism has not developed an effective theology only if one understands fully that Jewish "theology" was a negative one...the acknowledgment of G!d is, fundamentally, the negation of idols."

This sentence, in the middle of an examination of the concept of G!d in a humanist context made my heart jump. I've gotten weird looks when, during a long airplane ride, I've pulled out the JPS Study Bible and begin studying Torah. In conversation with Jewish friends about my ideas about religion, I've always had trouble disabusing them of the idea that I was a Bible thumping believer in an old man in the sky. Many of them grew up with a Hebrew Day School's presentation of a Judaism as a theistic-centered religion, and upon reaching adulthood, they immediately rejected that view--and the whole of Jewish religious belief along with it.

Here, Fromm eloquently takes the the idea behind the Sh'ma--that there is only one G!d--and releases it from the old man framework. Belief in one G!d isn't simply the idea that there is only ONE invisible old man as opposed to MANY invisible ones. Rather, it's the negation of idolatry, an idolatry that goes beyond the worship of small handmade clay figures. Idolatry is dangerous and insidious in that it's often invisible to the uncritical eye. Concepts like nationalism, patriotism, personality cults, careers, religion--even the Mitzvot!-- can become idols.

So to reject idolatry is to reject anything that comes behind man's harmony with nature and with his fellow man--in short between you and the work of Creation. To believe in one G!d is to believe that there is one measure of justice for all humanity; as the Torah says, "There shall be one law for all time throughout the ages. You and the stranger shall be alike before Adonai The Lord".

This is a liberating concept for me! While I know in conversation people will still be looking for the short sound byte answer to "So, do you believe in G!d?", I at least have an intelligent basis behind my answer of "Well, Yes and No" from which to start the discussion. Judaism's lack of a formal, canonized theology gives me as an individual the freedom to see G!d as a bearded dude on a cloud if I want to--but I can think of Adonai as electrical energy or the force of gravity or the human capacity for compassion just as easily without denying basic Jewish truths.

You Shall Be As Gods is definitely finding a snug home in my Jewish library for a long time, and has cemented Fromm as a key influence in my construction of a Jewish self. As indebted as I am to the Diamant's and the Sosino's of the world, I'm finally feeling comfortable leaving behind my old ideas of what a Jew 'ought' to think and starting to think for myself.

Housekeeping

2010-06-08T19:45:00.000-07:00

Just did a little reworking around here, including registering my own domain, and changing the layout a little bit. This is still the first blog I've ever worked on and taken (a little too) seriously. Constructive criticism? Always welcome.

www.newish-jewish.com

A Frommian thought for later:

2010-05-28T10:30:00.001-07:00

"But one can understand the phenomenon that Judaism has not developed an effective theology only if one understands fully that Jewish "theology" was a negative one...the acknowledgement of G!d is, fundamentally, the negation of idols."

-Erich Fromm, you shall be as gods
...

"Tallit Katan Because I Can!" or "It's My Mitzvah & I'll Kvetch If I Want To!"

2010-05-26T19:59:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, I took a big plunge. And, as you'll see, I found that I got myself in a little too deep over my head.

I went and ordered a Tallit Katan. Yes, the traditional Jewish undergarment worn most visibly by Hasids and other Haredim.

(Just looking at that last sentence again, it seems a little ironic to be squeezing "visible", "undergarment" and "Hasid" in the same thought, but, hey, let's just run with it, shall we?).

Now, I'm someone who views himself as Progressive Jew. Others might prefer to call me a "Reform" Jew, or maybe even a "Liberal" Jew. I'm kinda iffy on those label sometimes--they all seem a bit too smugly and self-conciously denominational, and "Liberal" especially seems uncomfortably partisan. "Progressive" as an adjective kind of captures the flavor of the type of Judaism I wish to live, and while it's not wholly devoid of political implication, I think it's a good catch-all category in general for a Non-Orthodox Judaism that places a deep value in Tikkun Olam. The larger point here is that I don't see Halakha as legally binding on all Jewish individuals.

That said, as my Journey--I've tried to find another word for it, as 'Journey' feels a little hippie feel-goody kumbaya-esque for me, but I've yet to find one yet...How does Odyssey sound?--into Judaism has gained momentum, I'm finding more and more that I'm driven to become more observant.

At first, the simple stuff was enough. I put up a Mezuzah on my front door posts. I started attending Shabbat services on friday nights and a minyan and Sarcharit Services on Saturday morning, and lighting candles at home when I couldn't make it to Shul in time. All that, plus attending my Introduction to Judaism class on thursday nights was my Judaism in a Nutshell. It wasn't much, but it worked for me.

After the class concluded, however, something changed.

Now, I'm not sure what, exactly. Much of what I learned throughout the course is stuff that I already knew. Maybe it was having a Rabbi say it that made a difference. Maybe it was re-learning everything while surrounded by other people for whom actually participating in the activities we studied was something new and exciting. Hell, maybe it was my overblown sense of ego and compulsive tendency to overachieve, or at least appear like I was overachieving.

But whatever it was, I felt it, and I felt it bubbling up from deep inside me to the surface. It was no longer enough just to have the Mezuzah; I wanted to make sure I touched it every time I entered my home. It wasn't enough just to drink a glass of wine before I went out to drink whiskey on friday nights; now I wanted to drink it from a beautiful Kiddush cup, and light the candles beforehand, too.

While sometimes I would take a step back and think "My life was never like this before", it wasn't an unpleasant feeling. More than anything, it felt like I was enveloping myself in tradition, and yet also, something far deeper than tradition, something primal--though far from "primitive"--something mythical, maybe even something cosmic. I felt like I had always done things like this, but without the knowledge of how to go through the motions. Things were the same as they had always been, but different. I was living a Jewish life, but more importantly, I was living it effortlessly. The changes I was making didn't really even feel like changes--I could be the same person I had always been, just with a few more candlesticks and wine. Really, I thought, This whole conversion thing wasn't so hard after all!

Obviously, something had to go wrong. And it did, right on schedule.

We had been invited to the wedding of a friend of Amanda's. Though I didn't know her, I did know that they had gone to Hebrew Day School together. After Amanda and I became engaged, I suddenly found myself more interested in this upcoming, presumably Jewish, wedding; it'd be a great chance to actually see what a Jewish Wedding was supposed to look like. So, when I asked what kind of temple it'd be at, I was floored when I heard that, well, actually, it was taking place at City Hall.

"So, the rabbi is going to meet them there? I didn't know Rabbis did that."

No, there wouldn't be a rabbi.

"Oh, so they're having a cantor perform the ceremony?"

Nope. No cantor, either.

"You can't mean...."

Yep. A Justice of the Peace.

It would be both melodramatic, and yet, absolutely true to say that I was shocked, scandalized even. They don't want a Jewish wedding? Why in the world wouldn't they want one?

It took a (thankfully metaphorical) slap in the face from Amanda to knock me off my pedestal and back to earth. This couple was in love, I was reminded, and if they wanted a secular wedding--a natural choice, given that it was an interfaith marriage--they had every right to have a secular wedding. Not everyone was in love with Judaism as much as I was, and some people who had grown up with it--especially grown up with it orthodox-- shoved down their throats still had a bad taste in their mouths that wasn't always easy to forget.

It suddenly dawned on me that I was kind of being, to put it kindly, kind of a bigot.

Of course there was nothing wrong with a secular wedding at City Hall with a Justice of a Peace. Of course, the love at the center of the marriage was what is most important, not the type of robe the officiant wore. And, of course, I was just being kind of stupid about the whole thing. I apologized, and promised to Amanda I'd work at being a little bit less judgmental.

Honestly, though, the whole episode kind of spooked me out.

While before I had felt like I wasn't really making any changes at all, it took something like this to make me wake up and realize that I was changing. It's just that since my own personal views on the world were shifting, I thought the whole world was shifting with me.

Since then, I've tried to be more careful to pay attention to the subtle differences that a paradigm shift can sneak into my every day thoughts and words.

So, what, you might be asking, does all this have at all to do with undergarments with strings on the corners?

And I'd have to say, nothing, and yet at the same time, everything.

See, the reason I've always tried to define myself as a "Progressive" is to set myself apart from what is implied by the opposite of the term: namely, reactionary anti-egalitarian Ultra-Orthodox. While I've read enough Chomsky to know a little bit about the subtle influence of media bias, I was still beside myself with anger when I read articles about the Noa Raz, the woman who was called an abomination and choked by a Haredi at a bus stop for simply having Tefillin imprints on her arms. Not even for wearing tefillin in public, but in private in her own home! And what about the Mob of Haredi who threw chairs at a group of praying women at the Wailing Wall? While avoiding 'partisanship' in defining my Jewish Identity is important, there is a point where calling Sexists on their shit is just the right thing to do.

The Haredi is a group that has appointed itself the gatekeepers of Judaism, by virtue that they dress the dress and walk the walk and claim to talk the talk. Ordinarily, while a bit irritating, this really wouldn't matter all that much to me. Let them think that they're the only "Real Jews". Except it goes beyond the self-perception of a small group that self-isolates itself. The orthodox segment of Judaism does have real power far out of proportion to it's numbers, with the Orthodox Rabbinate having an official role in the administration of daily life in the Jewish State of Israel. And it has used this position to attack liberal non-orthodox Jews. Need an example? What about when Religious Affairs Minister Ya'acov Margi suggested it would be a good idea to ban Conservative and Reform Congregations from using public funds to subsidize the construction of synagogues, saying “If the Reform and Conservative in Israel want synagogues or mikvaot let them build them with their own money. From the state they won’t get even a penny.”

Clearly, the Haredi can believe what they want. But using public policy to defund and de-legitimize other expressions of Judaism, in effect denying Jews freedom of religion? That's not cool.

Judaism--the expression of it, the participation in it's greater community, and any of its cultural markers such as attire--shouldn't belong to any one group--it belongs to all Jews.

I chose to adopt elements of 'traditional' jewish attire, including the tallit katan, I suppose as a statement of reclamation. As an attempt to take back the teachings and practices of the rabbis that came before ever there was Orthodoxy or non-Orthodoxy--when there were just Jews who lived among other Jews. To reclaim for Modern Judaism, for Jews who refuse to ignore the future that quite literally lies at our very fingertips, all of the elements of our Birthright from Sinai through today to tomorrow. The tallit katan is worn as reminder of Holiness. As one Jewish blogger, David A.M. Wilensky, wrote,

I do wear a talit katan every day, and I also wear large black and white talit during prayer. I wear them for different reasons. I wear the talit gadol like a sports uniform--it prepares me for an activity seperate from my mundane life. I wear my talit katan kind of because of the commandment. I call the tzitzit my "anti-asshole fringes." When I SEE them, I am reminded to be less of a dick to the people around, I recall my obligations.

And holiness is something that everyone, Jew or Non-Jew, Orthodox or Reconstructionist, has a G!d-given right to remind themselves of and to desire, and to pursue.

So when it gets here, I'll perform the mitzvah and wear my fringes with pride. When someone points out that "That's an Orthodox thing," I'll be sure to point out that it doesn't belong to the orthodox any more than the desire to live in harmony with the world in the way they see fit belongs to any one group of humans, no matter what any entrenched monopolistic rabbinate may say.

"Shaving Shavuot" or, "I'm Proud To Be An Omer-ican!": A Post-Holiday Debrief

2010-05-21T17:47:00.000-07:00

This past week was the first time I was conscious of and capable of observing and celebrating the Yom Tov of Shavuot. Unlike other "popular" or more widely recognized holidays like Hannukah and Passover, which have become almost secularized in the popular American imagination, I went into Shavuot, and it's preceding period of counting the Omer as a blank slate. I had never even heard of Shavuot before last year, and certainly never heard of counting the days and weeks leading up to it. Having heard that Shavuot is linked to a tradition in which children receive their first haircuts, I even for a short while thought it was a reference to shaving. Yes, Shaving!

After a bit of research--by which I mean a quick review of wikipedia and a look around the Chabad webpage--I quickly got the big idea behind Shavuot. And I really dug it. It's a pretty complex holiday! On one hand, it's definitely at it's core a celebration of agriculture and the spring harvest, a tradition that Jewish culture shares with peoples all over the world. At the same time, like the Greeks, the Mesopotamians, and Egyptians did, the Jews mythologized this time period, attaching to it one of the most religiously significant events of our people: The Release of Torah into the world.

While the Greeks gave Spring a face with the myth of Persephone, who would return from Hades and gladden the heart of the Earth Mother Demeter, they placed their story deep in mythic time, in a world without any human agency. Humans had no part to play in the rivalry and political game-play between Demeter, Hades, and Zeus--except as victims who would suffer during Demeter's sorrowful winters.

Likewise, the Egyptians have humans has marginal figures in the murderous drama of Osiris' murder and dismemberment and the operatic journey of Isis to rebuild him.

What was revolutionary about Shavuot, throughout it's development from simple harvest festival, was that it placed us "mere" humans at the center. Lacking it's later Torah-associations that were appended by the Rabbis, at it's begining Shavuot called on Man to be a participant. They were called to bring their offerings of Omer to the honor of a G!d who had chosen to involve himself in real time, not content to be relegated to a mythic era of which only echoes could be discerned. Their conscious actions in the here-and-now is what kept Adonai dwelling among them, rather than off at a faraway mountaintop, on an Olympus or Sinai.

Later, when the Rabbis of the Talmudic era decided that Shavuot needed deeper religious significance, they gave it an honor in marking it as they did. Shavuot became a celebration of collaboration between Man and Divine. G!d offered us Torah; but we also had to freely choose to accept the responsibility of it. I've heard of a midrash that suggests that the Jews weren't G!d's first choice; Adonai had offered it to all the Nations, all who turned down the offer, daunted by the responsibilities it demanded. Only the Jews accepted Torah's mission. Most importantly, we accepted it not as slaves with no better alternatives open to us--this would have merely been trading one form of Slavery for Another--, but as free men and women. This was the true reason for the Exodus, to bring freedom and liberty onto the landscape of man's imagination. Not merely a frail, chaotic sort of freedom, though, but a freedom that we renewed for ourselves through a disipline to laws that refined us people, and as a tribal collective of vital, agency-enabled souls. Man was no longer merely a victim or toy to the gods; Man was a full-partner in the business of Creation.

Shavuot, as obscure as it was to me in the begining of my journey, has quickly become one of my favorite holidays. Though I didn't always keep on top of my counting of the Omer--the most I did was place an Omer counter on my blog, and occaisionally I read @tweetingtheomer on my iphone, I was mostly successful in making a point of at least saying it privately on Shabbat. It was very much a test run for me, a learning experiment that has me better prepared for next years celebration.

I hope your Shavuot was as meaningful and heartfelt as this one was for me!

Teslan HaShem: Post-Modern G!dhood

2010-05-12T21:34:00.000-07:00

G!d is energy, the force of attraction: G!d is electrical.

G!d is electric dialectical: opposites found and met and fallen in love with each other. When positive embraces negative and kisses him on the lips, they create a charge.

And Spark! G!d is The Process. The process of processes without laboratory fluorescent lights to dull the eyes.

Matter is space. Matter is alone. Matter with no relations or relatives or friends who call and ask to come to dinner on Friday night. Matter has no time for any of that, instead it stays home with the venetian blinds half drawn, so the living room always feels like it's twilight.

G!d is the strike of the match, combustion the photosynthetic laughter of that first step outside on the first real spring day after a long winter.

G!d is the process.

G!d is energy. He is electromagnetic, he is weak and strong nuclear, radio-waves, he is gravity.

But Though God is In the everything, doesn't mean G!d is the cause of all our ills. God is in dinosaur bones, yes, in fossilized plants and bugs compressed for millions of years into crude oil or coal, but that doesn't mean G!d causes the SUV, the greenhouse gas, the Ozone Hole, the Oil Spill destroying millions of lives. God is in the lonely isotopes, yes, but he is not the cause of Nuclear Winters or Megadeath Scenarios or Mutually Assured Destruction. Those are our responsibilities, when we take what G!d has given us, and weaponize his World.

Three Questions

2010-05-11T22:26:00.000-07:00

Is there only one G!d?

If there is only one sum of all possible existences, then that sum is G!d. If there is possibility, if there is the potential for potential--tiny, more subtle than mere probability--then G!d is standing balanced on it's equation. G!D is an Equal Sign.

How Can I Know G!d?

G!d is a balanced equation; a relation, a ratio. G!d is the connection between two disparate points in the universe--G!d is a stable wormhole. G!d tugs The I, and turns it towards The You. Every being who relates himheritself to another has met G!d. Every being who merely uses another merely speaks to and of himheritself, grinding down into a solipsistic fury.

So, how does G!d relate to the world?

G!d connects the world to itself. G!d is Darkmatter, the cosmic cobweb of space-time that we wade upon, slip-sliding into each other, scared of one another's shadows. G!d nudges Me towards You so we can comfort each other. G!d relates to the world through Me.

Any talk about G!d--and hence, all theology--implies using G!d's name in vain. Idols have names--They are things. They are not Becoming. They are finished --Erich Fromm, You Shall Be as Gods

Once or twice in a lifetime, a man or woman may choose a radical leaving, having heard Lech L'cha--Go forth. G!d disturbs us toward our destiny by hard events and by freedom's now urgent voice which explode and confirm who we are. We don't like leaving, but G!d loves becoming. --Norman Hirsh

A quick quote

2010-05-08T16:44:00.001-07:00

"atheism is frequently not a rejection if G!d but a rejection of classical theism.
-Rifar Sonsino / Daniel Syme, "Finding God"

So, can one reject classical theism--the belief in g!d as a person, who is all powerful, all knowing, and all good--becoming definitionally an "atheist", but still be "religious" i.e. open to learning from, finding inspiration and meaning from, and enjoying the related rituals and practices of a particular creation myth?

I certainly think that my own beliefs land me squarely in this territory. My understanding of Mordachai Kaplan's conception of Reconstructionism leads me to believe that this is how he advocated how to best continue living a Jewish religious life in a post Shoah modern world.

I wonder how many atheist rabbis there are out there....

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Big News!

2010-04-24T00:47:00.000-07:00

I just got my date to go to the Mikveh. August 19th, at 9:00am!

To Circumcise Or To Circumcise: Not Really a Question

2010-04-17T21:34:00.000-07:00

(Possibly NSFW? I guess?)

I'm at a very interesting point in my Conversion. I'm done with my formal study course. I've got a few months of working with my Rabbi to get at a place where he feels I'm ready to convert. But I've got a something else that I've gotta get done along the way as well.

Yep, I'm talking about Berit Milah. Otherwise known as Ritual Circumcision.

For those who aren't familiar, Brit Milah--literally, "The Covenant of Circumcision"-- is one of the most profound components of Judaism. Countless of Jews have had their sons circumcised on the 8th day of life, following the tradition of Abraham, who circumcised his two sons--and himself--as a permanent sign of his acceptance of G!d's covenant. Abraham took upon himself a heavy responsibility to live in a way consistent with G!d's will. He essentially had to enter into a formal contract with G!d, and in an era thousands of years before written contracts had to be filled out in triplicate, his contract was written upon the only things he had to offer: His Body, and his Future, symbolized by his children, Ishmael and Isaac. To show he really meant it, God had him do it where it probably hurt the most. That's some dedication!

Jews today continue the tradition of Circumcision as a symbol of loyalty to that agreement with G!d. G!d took the Jews as his chosen people whom he would protect and make plentiful. When one converts to Judaism, they are taking on the responsibility of honoring that agreement, and must go through the same process.

Fair Warning: From this point on, we are getting into TMI territory, so if youre squeamish, maybe here's a good place to stop reading.

I am circumcised. My parents had me circumcised at birth. I'd imagine it was for health reasons. While this is pretty fortunate for me--I can't get Re-circumcised, obviously!--the ritual is so important to Jewish tradition that I have to experience it in some form, at least symbolically. So what I will have to do is have a Hatafat Dam Brit--literally, "Drop of the blood [of the] Covenant"--in which a single drop of blood is extracted from the penis. The Blood is the important part; as a symbol of life force, it represents the change towards a life oriented towards sacredness or holiness. One's own blood as a ritual tool is not unusual in the world. One example I can think of is Native American Sun Dance ritual, used by men to purify themselves on the occaision of their wife giving birth to a child. Christianity took a different route, substituting one's own blood for that of Jesus' body and blood, symbolized by the communion wafer and wine.

Anyways, I'm at a point where I have to begin to think about this important ritual. The actual act of the ritual circumcision is done by a trained professional called a Mohel. I have one in mind that I plan on approaching--he came and explained the entire ceremony to my Introduction to Judaism class last fall, and I made sure to grab a business card. But I've been putting it off. Not out of fear of pain. He's a liscensed physician, and ensures the entire process is comfortable and with a minimum of pain, including the use of Anesthetic.

No, I've got other concerns. The most mundane is of course payment. As you might imagine, a religious penile light bloodletting ritual is not covered by insurance (Yeah, I checked). While, I've been assured that arrangements could be made to accommodate me and my particular circumstances, I still feel a little hesitant asking for that sort of help. Call it pride, call it hubris, or whatever. It's something I'll struggle with, but in the end, I will have it done. Though maybe I will wait till after a really good week snags me a slightly larger paycheck than usual.

The other concern is that I don't really known when a potential convert should get it done. I don't anticipate finally finishing my conversion until the summer. So should I put it off until then? Should I just get it over with and doing sooner? Do I get some sort of certificate showing it was done, or do I just get a little wetnap with a red stain that I have to bring with me to show as proof?

All these are questions that I'm sure the Mohel has answers for, and it's just a matter of getting around to making the phone call to ask them. I'm aiming to call some time this coming week.

Like other Jewish rituals I've participated in--the Passover seder dinner, the lighting of Hannukah candles--Berit Milah is one that I find to be a beautiful symbol of Jewish Life. But it's one that for the first time, will actually physically change me. I've changed in many ways since I've started this journey, mentally and spiritually. It's fitting that to become a part of a Holy People, I have to go through the additional, but vital step, of making an outward change as well.

All the same, maybe I'll go ahead and get the tattoo I've always thought about getting done first.

After all, a journey of a thousand steps has gotta start somewhere, right?

"The Ethics of Kashrut" or "Is Kosher Highly Illogical?"

2010-04-09T17:37:00.000-07:00

So, I keep kosher, yeah. I'm also vegan. So, while I'm really glad to have experienced Pesach this year, and having led the Seder, I admittedly am relieved that it's all over. Because for a Vegan, Kosher For Passover restrictions on Chametz make my diet even tighter. Whereas the other 51 weeks of the year, I can get my protein from seitan, a sort of grain-based Wheat - "Meat", for Pesach, that's kind of a big fat steaming "NO." If I kept to Ashkenazic tradition--along with no leavened foods, you can't have beans OR rice, as they're kitniyot, too similar to chametz-- I'd have very little to eat except salad and matzo. Fortunately, in our home we decided to keep to Sephardic tradition, so we could at least have tofu (though...wouldn't you know, we love to put Nutritional Yeast (which is deactivated) on our Tofu Scrambles, and turns out, that's Chametz, too).

During the week of Pesach, I read many articles in the Jewish blogosphere about why we eat the flat bread. To identify with the poor, the oppressed, with those who aren't yet free, to live like we were frantically packing our bags ourselves and getting the heck outta Dodge City, or Soviet Russia, or Germany, or wherever Mitzrayim is for you nowadays. This got me thinking about the laws of Kashrut more generally. Why did we only eat certain animals with certain traits, like vomiting up already digested food to chew it up again, or split hooves? Once a kosher animal is chosen, why is it kosher only if it's killed a certain way? What's up with kosher wine?

I've tried to make sense of this in my own way, but it's been hard. Regarding kosher slaughter, the immediate assumption is that Kosher methods are supposed to minimize suffering of the animal who is giving up it's life--that's why you need a knife with no chips in it, it's gotta be one stroke over a specific vein in the neck so it's a quick death. Okay, that kind of makes sense. Except with the ever ongoing global industrialization of Food Production, even that's going by the wayside, when kosher slaughterers are sitting on deer before slaughtering them, or letting cows walk around with their throats cut while they bleed out.

Okay, so animal rights aren't necessarily the focal point. An animal can have immense suffering and still be kosher. A little disappointing, but, technically legal, sure.

So, what IS the point? I couldn't really get it, until I read this weeks Parshah, Shemini. Besides being significant in that it contains the very middle words of the entire Torah (darosh darash or, "and Moses searched deeply"--click through the link, it's pretty interesting in it's interpretation of the passage), it also lays out the laws of Kashrut. Reading through it, I wasn't surprised that it laid out that creepy crawly bugs couldn't be eaten--but I startled that were were that certain insects could be eaten:

However, among all the flying insects that walk on four [legs], you may eat [from] those that have jointed [leg like] extensions above its [regular] legs, with which they hop on the ground. From this [locust] category, you may eat the following: The red locust after its species, the yellow locust after its species, the spotted gray locust after its species and the white locust after its species. But any [other] flying insect that has four legs, is an abomination for you. (Lev. 9.21-23)

Considering that Locusts are bugs (they're creepy crawly to me, even if they do jump); and especially considering that they, in fact were one of the Ten Plagues (!!!), this kind blew my mind.

And then I came to a weird sense of Zen understanding. Seriously.

I came to start to think a little outside the box of Logic and Reason. The laws of Kashrut just are. They're right there in the book, immutable (at least so far), and they probably won't change. But they're also unreasonable. Indecipherable. If Moses was Kirk, and Aaron was Spock, and Kirk was trying to explain the laws to Spock, Spock would say "These laws are highly illogical".

Sure, it might be fun to engage in a little bit of forensic paleo-anthropology (is that a word? I think I just made it up, and it's probably the wrong one for what I mean, but I think you get my point). Maybe it makes sense that Pigs would not be a good animal for a nomadic people wandering the desert to raise, while those with cloven hooves would be. And avoiding Birds of Prey, or predators in general, would be one way to avoid disease, as well as avoiding the moral implications of "You Are What You Eat".

But the Laws don't necessarily seem to follow any logical system, at least not consistently, that I can decipher. They're just the Laws that G!d says we should follow, for his own reasons. Maybe G!d's a health nut who doesn't like Bacon Double Cheeseburgers or calamari.

They are just laws that we follow because we are Jews. We do them because we are a different people, with a different mission here on this Earth, and we need to live in a way that reminds us of the sacred nature of that mission, of life, and of the world we exist in. We do that by infusing sacredness in everything we do. In how and what we eat, in how we enter our Mezuzah-laden homes, in what we read, and what we wear.

That's not to say the Laws of Kashrut aren't evolving. The growing movement towards Jewish vegan/vegetarianism shows one way we can go one step further to make our meals holy, by making them cruelty-free. Ethical Kashrut ideas which examine the ways Kosher Production and Distribution affects animal treatment, workers' conditions, and environmental issues, is an especially exciting development, ensuring the the food we put on our tables can be holy and socially responsible.

I'm glad to be converting in this new era of a socially tuned-in Judaism, a Judaism that embraces tradition, but justifies it with an ethically innovative cultural sensibility . It's an especially good time to be a Progressive Jew who has passions and values that extend beyond the door of the Yeshiva.

Macroons: Passover EP

2010-04-04T01:19:00.000-07:00

Just in case you're not ALREADY aware of the Macroons, they just released their Passover EP. Great poppy rock with Jewish twists. I can't get enough of "Elijah" and his grape juice adventures! If I had known about them earlier, I'd have played them at our Seder! Maybe next year?

Check them out here, on JDub Records.

(Found Via Jewschool,)

Seder-palooza 2010: Vegan Edition: Success!

2010-04-03T18:27:00.000-07:00

Currently Listening to: "Passover Mixtape 2010", presented by the Idelsohn Society. Really excellent mix, including Dorondo's "Let my People Go" and Joy Divisions "Passover". We used it as background music for our Seder this year. Check it out here.
As I've said before, I've neglected this blog a bit more than I should have. Work, readings for my Intro to Judaism class, AND trying to keep up with the weekly parshot for Torah Study have all been a bit more in the front of my mind. This past thursday, however, was the final night the Intro class. Having my thursday nights freed up, I think I'm gonna try to devote the time that WOULD'VE gone to class to writing here more, and to my other writing projects in general. Hold me to it, would'ya?

So, this year, we had a Seder at our home. We had one last year, but what made this one especially important to me is that I played the role of the Ba`al haSeder, the leader of the Seder. Having been studying for it all year, and also having participated in a model Seder with the Intro class helped tremendously. Unlike last year, I knew what the symbolism of every item and every action was, and this made it much more meaningful to me.

Of course, we did choose to make some changes. Having a Vegan/Vegetarian home, there were some more traditional, um, items that we definitely couldn't squeeze in. For one thing, the Zeroa, or the shank bone representing the Paschal Lamb was a big no-no. Instead, we used a sliced tomato, for it's blood red colour, as well as it's blood-like wetness, as a reminder of the blood the Israelites painted on their doorposts. Likewise, to replace the Beitza, the hard boiled egg used as a symbol of fertility, we used a flower, plentiful in the area with the coming of spring. I'm sure none of these substitutions are strictly kosher, and a more orthodox rabbi might find issue with some of our choices; but what was important to us was that the symbolism have meaning to us.

We used a Conservative Haggadah given to us by Amanda's father. We used it last year, and while it managed to serve it's purpose for now, there are some definite issues I have with it. It's a bit heavy of commentary from Elie Wiesel, it's editor, which in theory could be really nice, but in practice, we found ourselves for the most part skipping, instead focusing on the more traditional commentaries embedded in most (all?) Seders. The biggest issue I had with it, though, was the lack of any transliterations. As someone still working on learning to understand and read Hebrew, this was pretty frustrating. Only having the options of unreadable Hebrew script and English translations meant that I, and our other non-Jewish guests (which made up half of the dinner party) were left out of being able to participate in the singing of the traditional Passover songs, except for some of the easier choruses, like in Dayenu. I have a grasp on some of the more basic blessings (like Kiddush, or the Motzi) but it would have been nice to have been able to recite them in Hebrew for a more authentic feel. At any rate, while I said Kiddush, I delegated some of the other blessings, such as the She'hechyanu, Karpas, and Maror, to some of our Hebrew Academy Alumni, which helped a little.

As a result of our dissatisfaction with the Haggadah, however, something positive may still come from it. Me and Amanda had the idea of making our own Haggadah for our family. Having both come, to different extents, from the punk/hardcore/hippie subcultures before we met, we both have appreciations for Zines and Zine Culture, and we think we'd like to create something with that sort of spirit to it. It's something I'm going to ask Rabbi D. about, and probably be doing A LOT of research on.

In the end, I think the Seder was a big success. We ended out with a really fun English rendition of "Who Knows One", led by our friend Sarah C., who prefaced it by saying it had a "really poppy feel". It really made my night. We also sang "Chad Gadya" in the style Amanda's Grandpa Menashe used to sing it, stretching out the chorus into a long "Chad Gadya/OHHHHHHHHH Chad Gadya!" while throwing our arms in the air.

Now that I've gone ahead and led a Seder for the first time and gotten over the associated nervous jitters, I'm really looking forward to Passover next year. I've already got ideas for a really great PowerPoint presentation (Yes, I said power point. No, there will NOT be a test afterward!)

Shabbat Shalom, and Chag Semeach!

2010-04-01T23:10:00.001-07:00

Today was the last day of my introduction to Judaism class. I'm kinda sad, what am I gonna so with my Thursday nights now?

Maybe keep up with this blog more often.

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Shabbat Journal

2010-04-01T00:30:00.000-07:00

As part of the requirements for my Introduction to Judaism class, I had to write a Shabbat Journal. Ostensibly, we were supposed to attend shabbat at least three times at different synagogues. I never actually got around to visiting other synagogues--I tried to attend a friday night service in Olympia, but the temple forgot to reflect on their website that every few weeks, they do services a few hours EARLY, so we didn't make it to shul in time--so, I just wrote a journal on my experience of Shabbat at my home temple here in town, Temple De Hirsch-Sinai.

And I'm sharing it here:

Shabbat Journals
Vincent Calvetti

I unfortunately never got around to attending Shabbat Services at other synagogues before the end of the course. I have regularly been attending Shabbat, both Friday Night and Saturday morning including Torah Study, for the past few months here at De Hirsch-Sinai. Rather than make three separate entries, I thought I'd document my general feelings of Shabbat Services here.

Friday Nights services provide a moment of relief for me. While I usually have Friday off, I am usually rushing around all day Friday trying to finish whatever small tasks I didn't have time to complete during the workweek, especially shopping. Once I walk into Temple and slip on my kippah though, thoughts of stress melt from me. Maybe it's the wine of the Kiddush, but the night really feels tangibly different on Fridays than on any other night. Kiddush being one of the first blessings I learned to say in Hebrew is especially meaningful to me, especially with the melodies of the song that accompanies it.

Once in the chapel, I always make sure to save a spot for my buddy Ron, who is usually at his post passing out siddurs. I always hope we start off with L'chah Dodi, one of my favorite songs. Not only do I enjoy the tune, I also especially love and find deep meaning in the minhag associated with it--the standing and facing the door to welcome the Sabbath Bride. As one of the customs devised by the Kabbalists, I feel there can be many different meanings to it to different people.

My absolute favorite portion of Shabbat services--both Friday and Saturday--is the reciting of the Sh'ma. Knowing it is the central tenet of our faith--that G!d is a unity, an essential dimension of completeness--gives it both an air of gravity, while also having a deep sense of joy that lurks beneath the surface, that perhaps is not always immediately apparent from a simple reading of the lyrics on the page. When the congregation says it together, it gives voice to a deeper, mystical truth that is on one hand a stark, matter-of-fact declaration of a theological position, but at the same time is a metaphysical recognition of the unity of our world and our place in it.

After the Sh'ma, I also find myself looking forward to the sermon from the rabbi. Being especially interested in finding deeper meaning in the weekly parshah, the sermons usually find a way to cut to the very essence of the tale in ways that I sometimes don't recognize myself upon first readings.

The recitation of the Mourner's Kaddish is one I take as a very solemn duty. While I've heard that in orthodox shuls, only people that are in mourning or observing a Yahrzeit stand, I find it especially meaningful that according to Reform tradition all congregants stand, so that all that have passed on, even those without surviving family, have someone to stand in honor of them. Though I might not recite all of the other blessings and songs--some of them I still have trouble wrapping my tongue around the Hebrew--I make sure to say every word of the Kaddish as an honored responsibility.

After the service, I make sure to stay for the blessing of the Motzi, though because of my vegan diet, I usually abstain from eating any challah myself. When he's ready, I meet up with Ron and we walk around the neighborhood for a while discussing our ideas about the service or our conversions, or whatever other topics spring to mind.

On saturday morning, I make an especial effort to wake up early for Torah Study. In honor of shabbat, I try as much as possible to walk to Shul, as opposed to taking the car, though I don't always refuse to to take a car to other destinations later on in the day. Having an opportunity at study to bounce ideas off other readers helps me delve deeper into the multiple meanings behind the texts. There are many different points of view to hear from in class; some more traditional people like to skip the historical analysis and just examine the parshah on it's own literary merits. I, however, find great joy when the Rabbis point out the historical context that surrounded the text at it's writing, acknowleding that some of the stories were borrowed and adapted from other, earlier cultures.

During Shacharit service, I've recently began donning a tallit, a practice that I find increasing pleasure in. I'm still struggle to find the exact way to wear it in a way that feels natural and comfortable to me--should I wear it just around my neck in a more "modern" style ala Rabbi Weiner, or should I drop it across my shoulders with the corner's flipped up like Rabbi Septimus? I'm leaning towards Rabbi Septimus'--perhaps because it looks more cape-like in a Superman-esque kind of way. :]

During our recent Shabbaton, my classmates came up with many questions that probably would not have occurred to me to ask but I had always wondered as well. The exact timing of the bowing and knee-bending during the Amidah, for instance. The occasion of our Shabbaton make Shabbat some much more immediate and intimate to me, and I felt instantly more ingrained in a community of peers; I think it was that feeling that inspired me to go ahead and create the facebook page for our Introduction to Judaism Course alumni.

Overall, the importance of shabbat to me is in that the routine of Shabbat has become the centerpiece for my weekly life. I look forward to it all week as a chance to really be myself, to unplug myself from consumerist society, and especially from the mindset that one has to adopt by necessity when working in Customer Service. I'm able to exist in an island of time, while avoiding the pitfall of creating an isolating island of space. I connect better with my loved ones and friends, and cultivate in my mind a more compassionate attitude towards others, friends, family and strangers alike.

Pesach Semeach!

Chametz: clean!

2010-03-28T08:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday began as chametz cleaning, but ended as re-arrange our furniture and throw out or sell books we don't read anymore day.

I guess this is where the joke that Passover is the original spring cleaning came from!

All our carbs are packed up in a box in our closet. Bring on the matzoh!

(though I AM going to miss not having seitan for 8 days!)

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Birthday gifts

2010-03-27T00:09:00.001-07:00

Ready to hit the hay, but just had to gush.

For my birthday today, the bes
t gifts I got were a kiddush cup and a mezuzah.

Pics to come!

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Just an update

2010-03-21T21:30:00.000-07:00

I've been a bit remiss in my commitment to update this on a regular basis. Work has been picking up, so I'm usually a little bit too tired to sit down and write, but I'm going to try to be better about it. The fact that yesterday I ended up going to the emergency room--i cut my finger washing dishes and needed some stitches-might make typing a little bit difficult, but all the same I'm gonna try to be all up in hurrrr, so to speak.

I had a meeting with Rabbi D on friday. He told me that I'm doing great and progressing accordingly in the conversion process. It's quite apparent, he said, that i'm committed deeply to living a jewish life. I also told him that I am now engaged, and that we'd love for him to officiate at our wedding. He immediately said he'd love to.

Oh, yeah, did I mention that I got engaged on wednesday? I did. :]

On Saturday, I finally took a big step--for me, at least--and wore Tallit for the first time. Rabbi D was there--though he wasn't leading the service--and he helped me with the blessing. It was a deeply satisfying moment, the first time I slipped it over my shoulders. I think I will begin bringing my own Tallit with me and wearing it to Shabbat morning services from now on.

That's it for now!

Menudo and Matzo Ball Soup: Blending Ethnicities in a Jewish Future

2010-02-28T20:27:00.000-08:00

I want my children to be Jewish. I want them to grow up knowing that they are Jewish, and for them to live the richness of Jewish Lives.

But before I get to that, this is my blog, so I get to talk about myself a little bit more.

Me, I've never had much of a sense of ethnicity. While I've always known what my ethnic heritage includes--mostly Mexican-American, with some good amount of Italian, as well as filipino--I never felt any reason to be particularly proud of it. I grew up in a working class family. My parents were high school sweethearts, who married and had kids in their teen years, something that I suppose is common enough for chicano culture. Sure, we ate tacos, burritos and menudo a whole lot. But we'd just as often have Italian one night, to be followed by BBQ and chili beans the next, and fried chicken and potatos the night after that. I never felt defined by my background. I just felt neutral, or "American", by which I suppose, underneath a layer of unconscious internalized racism, is code for "White".

The reason I bring this up is because to many people, including many Jews, Jewishness is basically just a race. It's a gene you're born with, or you ain't. The more I learn about Judaism though--Reform especially--the more I understand how wrong, factually as well as morally, this idea is.

Although for much of it's history, portions of the Jewish people (read: Ashkanazic) HAVE had some common genetic traits, intermarriage and conversion has replenished the community so much and so often, that the idea of a "race" is pretty meaningless. I have a good friend who has met Jews on every continent. He's met closeted Jews in China, a state that "officially" has no Jewish population, who must hide their religious identity for fear of government reprisals; he's lived in Israel and met Jews whose idea of their own Jewishness extends only as far as their bubbe's recipe for Matzo Ball soup, but whose idea of fun is harassing and humiliating visiting orthodox rabbis. The horizon between these two extremes are so wide as to be mind-boggling and stands in stark opposition to any categorization of Race.

At one session of my Introduction to Judaism class, we were taught by Rabbi Daniel Weiner. That particular session was focused on Death and Jewish Mourning practices, but we somehow ended up talking about what being a Jew meant to us. Someone mentioned that they had heard of a genealogy website that was offering DNA testing that could confirm whether one has any Jewish ancestry. Rabbi Weiner scoffed at the idea, noting that you could not possibly reduce the Jewishness of someone to a genome, or to predisposition to Tay-sachs, or to any other so-called scientific "proof". Jews have been around so long that we have the blood of every people in us, and every people has our blood in them. "The people who have been most interested in making us into a race," he said, "have always been those who are most interested in trying to kill us."

I totally agree. To me, Judaism isn't simply something to "be", it's something you "do". As a convert, I don't have the luxury of Jewish Day School memories or of Day camp or a Bar Mitzvah. I have to remake my Judaism everyday by infusing my every action with Jewish meaning. Whether that's by keeping a kosher diet or by making it a habit of dropping whatever spare change I have in my pocket into the Tzadekah Piggy Bank by our front door, it's something I have to be conscious of at all times. For now, sometimes that means being Self-conscious in my observance. And sometimes that means allowing myself to go overboard. I really find enjoyment in being what my girlfriend calls "obnoxiously Jewish". I have a growing Jewish library, and I'm even half-serious about growing out the sides of my hair--though I don't think I'd go so far as to curl them into peyos just yet at least. Maybe it's a little bit of Convert Zeal on my part.

On the other hand, I fear sometimes born-jews can risk becoming complacent when they are privilged to be able to adopt an "ethnic Judaism", a Judaism that requires nothing of them other than to be born Jewish, and to maybe have Jewish wedding. This admittedly frustrates me to no end, when I think of all the steps I have to take to join myself to the Jewish community. And this obligation free Ethnic Jewishness seems just a little sinister to me, as well. It essentially adopts Jewishness as an unalterable inheritable race, as a gene. This plays right into the plans of antisemites everywhere,who, now that they can't wall us off into ghettos, are always still on the lookout to make us "different" somehow.

I am at the age where I'm beginning to think more about my future. I am excited about living a Jewish life for myself. But I also have to consider about what that means for the family I hope to raise one day. I don't have any personal memory of anti-semitism. I've never really been excluded or discriminated against because of my Jewishness. But I've also not had to live with it for very long. For any son or daughter that I might have, they will live with it their entire lives, and will be vulnerable to anti-jewish sentiment their whole lives. And I have to ask myself: Is this something I'm willing to put them through?

The simple answer is Yes. While I hope with every ounce of my being that they will never suffer any reprecussions from the choices that I make today, I have to face the cold hard truth it is likely that they will face at least a rude, prejudiced comment at some point in their lives. And that is a moment for which I will have to prepare them to face. My duty, my responsibility as parent to them will be to give them the strength to be proud of their heritage, and to not let cruel words or actions do anything to damage their senses of themselves. If I do my job right, they will always be conscious that they are Jews. But they will also always be willing to stand up for their people and to confront anti-semitism, or any other racisms, wherever they may show themselves.

I regret growing up without a real sense of background or of ethnicity. For a long time, I will admit, I was even ashamed of my Mexican-ness, which I saw as a handicap. Growing up in some not-too-good neighborhoods at some points in my childhood, my idea of Mexican-ness was deeply engrained in a violent street culture, populated by gangbangers and cholos. And it frightened me. I guess I turned away from that and I tried to be as different from that as possible. I internalized the stereotypes about my people, believed them to be true, and I rejected my people as a result. I am just now learning to appreciate my Mexican heritage, but it's a struggle to make up for lost time.

This sort of identity crisis is not something I want my children to have to deal with. And they won't. I won't allow them to be complacent in a simple "American" indentity. They will know they are a blend of different stories and histories and are heirs to many different birthrights, as well as to many different struggles. They will proud of every part of themselves. And they will be proud to know that they are the People of the Book, just as much as they are the People of the Sun.

My Newish Theology: A Developing View of God.

2010-02-19T14:07:00.000-08:00

I grew up with a simple view of God.

God, above all, was a He. An man, in a Toga, with a long white beard, who had distinct Eurasian features. He looked like the Sistine Chapel's God: stately, graceful, overflowing with majesty, and purpose. Most importantly, he looked nothing like me, or anyone I knew. He was just old, the oldest thing imaginable, which was evident by how long his beard was.

I didn't get a whole lot of religious instruction as a child. Early on, we occasionally went to church. One of those mega-churches that preferred to be called a "worship center". At first, me and my brother would sit in the pews with our parents during the sermons, but we'd get antsy, and squirm, and grab the offering envelopes and draw ninja turtles on the back. I guess we were pretty loud, too, because after a few Sundays of that, we were told that we were gonna start going to the children's services while my parents went to the grown-up service.

I don't have many positive memories of those services. Taught by younger youth pastors, it ended up feeling more like a classroom than anything else, with a chalkboard in a wide, windowless, stuffy room. I usually sat in back, and managed to catch a little shut-eye, which might account for why I can't remember much that I was supposed to learn in there. One time, though, I felt especially studious, and sat right in front. The pastor came in and began to talk to us about following "The Path." She drew two paths on the board. Around the left one, she draw balloons, carnival rides, clowns, and candy. The other one, she left completely blank, just two parallel lines right next to each other. And then she asked us if we were walking somewhere, and came to a fork in the road, which of these paths would we want to go down?

Every one started yelling. "The Left one!", "The one with the rides!", "Where the candy is!"

Quieting us down, she asked, "Would anyone take the right path?" Complete silence. Like, seriously, crickets chirping.

Shaking her head, she said. "You guys all like the left hand path. And I understand that, it looks much more fun. But that is the path that Satan wants you to walk down."

More silence. I, ever the studious child, was taking notes, and immediately stopped and dropped my pencil.

She continued, "Satan tries to trick you with fun, and toys and treats to go down his path. But that's only because he wants you to follow him. Jesus, on the other hand, wants you to take the right hand path. He wants you to follow him down the path of righteousness. It's doesn't look as fun, but if you follow him, you get to live forever."

I felt suddenly very sick. Holy shit, I had chosen the left hand path. It had rides, and candy, for pete's sake! A sense of terror washed over me as I realized the implication of my choice.

I was going to hell.

She went on, about how we all still had a choice and could choose to follow Jesus, but I wasn't listening anymore. What was the point? I had chosen candy instead of salvation.

Aw, crap.

* * * *

We went to church a little while longer, but when I was probably about 8 or 9, we stopped going. I never made any friends in these youth sessions, and I think my parents could tell how much I disliked going to church. I'm not sure if they realized exactly the sense of holy terror that one session had given me, but they could sense a change in me. They continued to go, but me and my brother were allowed to stay home.

This early exposure to religion had a very deep impact on me. I began to see God as an administrator of shame, of punishment. As someone who established certain rules--against choosing candy, against disobedience, about fun--and had certain established consequences for each infraction. God wasn't there for any of the good I did, but was definitely there anytime I did anything bad. God was a cop.

* * * *

As I've talked about before, in my teen years, I got involved in the punk scene, and adopted a fashionable atheism. For a long time, this was enough. Punk, and it's ethics and codes, was my new substitute for religion. There was still certain off-limit behaviors, though--I wouldn't be caught dead listening to a band that had sold out. After high school, though, I think found myself looking for something a bit more...fulfilling? It was during this time that I began to deeply study mythology. Norse, Greek and Roman, Babylonian, all were beautiful, and could be read on so many different levels. As allegory, they provided imaginative answers for the deeper questions I had began asking: Why are we here? What am I supposed to do? What's the point of life, which all of its time to waste. I suffered from bouts of depression during this time, and having these stories, and being able to decipher their deeper meanings distracted me; but also, on some level, comforted me.

Eventually, as I've also talked about before on this blog, I discovered Judaism. It had many appeals to me, but at first, the most immediate was that it wasn't Christianity. I knew that above all, Christianity was not for me. I could never ever forget the feeling of guilt and shame and fear that penetrated my whole being that day at the youth sermon, and I always associated it with Jesus The Cop. While I know many people who find great comfort in the figure of Jesus and his related myths, he definitely wasn't for me.

Judaism, on the other hand, didn't have that baggage. Though it shared many cultural assumptions--and therefore was familiar to me--it had everything I enjoyed about religion, but without any of the downsides or guilts.

What struck me most about it, though, was it's diversity of viewpoints about God. Somewhere in the midst of my researches into it, I came upon a statement that one could actively disbelieve in God, and still be Jew. You could believe God was a Woman, a planet, a universe, an immanent force, or was dead, and still be a Jew. Amazing. And also, convenient, since I still hadn't solidified my own view of what God was. I still haven't decided if I prefer "God" over "G-d", and I switch between them from time to time. At least now, though, I had a choice.

* * * *

I am now beginning to slowly refine my idea of God. Or more correctly, my conception of the world without God's interference. I think the more I read, the more I'm attracted to Reconstructionist Judaism. Reconstructionism removes God from the equation of the world, and re-frames Judaism as an evolving living culture. Judaism has many set rituals and liturgy, or Keva, that were influenced by specific social and historical forces, but have been passed down through the ages. But Reconstructionism recognizes that the intentions and feelings behind the rituals and traditions, the kavana, are constantly changing from generation to generation, and even from person to person, and that we must reconstruct the kavana for ourselves every time we practice the rituals.

God is an increasingly receding figure in my theological landscape. I've read many different formulations of God, and some of them appeal to me. I've been especially moved by the ideas presented by Rabbi Harold Kushner in his book When Bad Things Happen to Good People. He presents God differently than the traditional idea of the omniscient, omnipotent Creator-being. Instead, he suggests that, in a world where good people suffer and evil thrives, God is far from omnipotent. God, rather, is the fellow sufferer, the constant presence that is there with us in our worst moments.God feels the pain as acutely as human beings do.

"The conventional explanation, that God sends us the burden because He knows that we are strong enough to handle it, has it all wrong. Fate, not God, sends us the problem. When we try to deal with it, we find out that we are not strong. We are weak; we get tired, we get angry, overwhelmed. We begin to wonder how we will ever make it through all the years. But when we reach the limits of our own strength and courage, something unexpected happens. We find reinforcement coming from a source outside ourselves. And in the knowledge that we are not alone, that God is on our side, we manage to go on." [Kushner 129]

This conception of God appeals emotionally to me. It rejects the idea of a wrathful God, the God (as Jesus) that I had rejected so many years ago, and replaces it with a compassionate God, who while he can't save us from pain, tragedy, or injustice, isn't indifferent to it, either. Unlike Kushner, I try to avoid seeing God in gender-specific terms, and I try to divorce god from Personhood completely, though sometimes its difficult to even talk about God while avoiding nouns or pronouns completely, so I relent a little.

God, to me, is a set of values that encourage social action to improve the world we live in. A world without social injustice or prejudice or discrimination. Of course, we don't need God to have these values--God is simply a highly effective image for symbolizing and transmitting these values. Perhaps, that's what a perfect world--The Messianic Age, or The World That Is Coming--will be: A World where we don't need God anymore as a parental figure that instills values, for we'll have learned to internalize the values of justice and love by ourselves. A world where God can stop being a fellow sufferer, and just stand back and be proud of his/her children grown into adults that know the answer to the age old question "Am I my brothers keeper?" is Yes. Always Yes.

Conversion: On Judaism as a Choice

2010-02-11T17:50:00.000-08:00

There's a story I've heard --I've sometimes heard it attributed to Albert Einstein--about a prominent Jewish professional. This man broke through boundaries to become the first Jew permitted to join a prestigious Gentleman's club in New York that historically had refused to admit Jews or Blacks. At his induction ceremony, he began his speech dramatically by stating: "I regret being born a Jew."

At this, he received a raucous standing ovation from the assembled members. As the room quieted down, he allowed a pregnant pause swell up, before he continued: "I regret being born a Jew because it denied me the chance to make a conscious choice to join myself to be part of such an honorable, noble people."

After a few shocked seconds of embarrassment, the whole room then broke into an even louder, longer applause that lasted for several minutes.

=================================

I've recently gotten into researching my family history. I joined a genealogy site and have been combing through archives of old censuses, birth records, marriage certificates and social security death indexes. I've learned a lot about my heritage through this, but it took me a while before I could come to terms with and admit my ulterior motives: I was searching for some record, or just any proof, of Jewish ancestry. I was looking for something that would explain this deep fascination and enchantment with Judaism and Jewishness that I've carried in me for the past few years.

Have you heard of this? People who have always been attracted to Jewishness, or to Jewish partners, or music, or films, or culture, but who couldn't explain why? After years of this, they do a little research, and, surprise, find out that they have a great grandmother who was born Jewish, or a great grandfather who left Judaism to convert to Catholicism. They suddenly find an explanation for this overpowering urge to join the people of Israel: They were Jewish all this time! Their souls were simply trying to find it's way back to it's true home!

I've heard these stories, and I've desperately wished myself to be in one of them. To find some scrap of paper that explains, once and for all, just why I'm drawn to the conversion process, that explains why I'm going through all this work to be a member of a group that began a millennium ago as a small primitive tribe worshiping a nameless, jealous and authoritarian god.

The truth is, though, that I'm not in one of these tales. My researches have revealed that I've got a rich heritage--Mexican, Italian, Filipino, some Native American--but, as far as I can tell, no Jewish in me. There's no mystical transmigration of souls going on here. I don't have a neat and tidy Kabbalistic answer wrapped in a bow for me waiting at the end. The truth in this case, like in most things in life, is much more messy and disorganized and random. I just want to convert and throw my lot in with the Jewish people because I just do. There are elements I can point to which I admire, such as the high value placed on education and learning; but there are just as many elements that I can't stand, such as the entrenched sexism or xenophobia within certain fundamentalist orthodox circles. The point is that the desire that drives me to pursue conversion is more than just a sum of it's parts. It isn't a decision based on a weighing of pros and cons. On some level, though, it may be an joyful expression of my freedom to be able to choose to join the ranks of this "admirable, noble people."

That said, I've thought much about what it means to be part of the Jewish community.

To me, being Jewish is to be part of a community of resistance. To be part of a people that has for the past two millenniums been trod upon, terrorized, persecuted, forcibly converted, excluded, marginalized, deported, and executed, sometimes without, but also with State-Sanction--and yet still is here! A community that's not only still here, but one that has become one of the most influential civilizations in history!

While researching for this, I came upon this quote from President John Adams:

“I will insist the Hebrews have [contributed] more to civilize men than any other nation. If I was an atheist and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations ... They are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this Earth. The Romans and their empire were but a bubble in comparison to the Jews. They have given religion to three-quarters of the globe and have influenced the affairs of mankind more and more happily than any other nation, ancient or modern.”
- John Adams, Second President of the United States
(From a letter to F. A. Van der Kemp [Feb. 16, 1808] Pennsylvania Historical Society)

Now, I don't throw a whole lot of credence to the words of statesmen simply for the fact that they happened to be people who were privileged with positions of great power. I mention this here merely to illustrate a point that John Adams presented much more eloquently that I ever could have: that whatever you might have to say about the value of spreading a "civilizing" monotheistic belief across the world--part of me is almost inclined to say "not very much"-- the fact is that a small band of desert nomads resisted one imperialistic domineering world power after another after another, and still managed to maintain their own distinct identity. An identity that made a point of sanctifying compassion for all victims--of poverty, of concentrated power, of prejudice and discrimination-- as a Mitvah. That's not to say that there's anything inherently inborn or hereditary about Jews that's unique. Rather, it's an endorsement of the power of the spirit of resistance in the service of the preservation of human dignity.

Judaism championed a truly revolutionary idea. It challenged the assumption that Might always make Right, and proclaimed that even a slave has the rights and responsibilities of freedom. Judaism recognized early on that oppression was a disruption of the balance of the world, that equality was the true equilibrium of the universe. That injustice was more than random unfortunate chance, but was in fact a symptom of the broken nature of the world. And it recognized that it was the responsibility of human beings--as caretakers created in the image of the ultimate Creative Force--to begin to do our part to repair the world. That to free the slave from the master is the first step to freeing the slave in ourselves.

To join this community of resistance that affirms Justice as a central tenet means the taking on a special role. The idea of the Jews as a Chosen People has been seen and judge from many different angles--I believe Reconstructionist Judaism rejects it entirely--but to me this chosen-ness isn't any sort of privilege. It's a mission, a responsibility. It's a duty, a Mitzvah, to be on the front line in an never-ending struggle against corruption and misuse of power. Even if that means you risk putting your self in harms way, you have a duty to stand up for those who can't stand for themselves, those who have been brought so low that they don't even know recognize their oppression anymore as anything but normal. Because God chose to free the Israelites even when He knew they would complain in the wilderness that they were better back home in Egypt, where at least there was familiarity, and comfortable, predictable routine.

Judaism has many parts of it that speak to me, but this, above all, draws me to it. It forces me to question everything, to step outside of my comfort zone to strive for something better and different, to come outside of the bounds of what I'm merely "settling" for. Even the very questions of God and his ways--and even his existence--are there for me to pick up and examine and learn from. A religion that answers one question with another question is one of great value tome--and to anyone who values inquiry and the human capacity for understanding.

Death and Mourning (Long Post)

2010-02-06T18:20:00.000-08:00

*This is one of my longer posts. You've been warned. *

I've not been confronted with death much in my life. I've been to a number of funerals. For the most part, though, they were for distant aunts and uncles who I never had opportunities to know in life. The only deaths of family members that I knew and to whom I was close, came relatively recently: my father's mother, Vicki, and my father's father Reuben--affectionately known to us grandchildren as "Grouchy Grandpa". They died within two years of each other, both after long, painful illnesses.

Before their deaths, I had never understood the idea of Death as a 'release'. Death was something to be afraid of, something that was going to come and steal in and take you away in the night, a boogieman. Death was just not something we talked about, and I was left with a caricature of a scythe-bearing, hooded Nazgul.

The deaths of my grandparents were the first time I was confronted with two truths.

First, that people, real people, people that I actually knew, that I actually cared about, that I had lived with, could die. They could really, seriously die. And not come back. Ever. It wasn't just something that happened to other people. It happened to us. To me.

That was a frightening realization; it scared the shit out of me. And angered me. Toward the end of Grandpas life, I found myself lashing out, looking for something, or someone to blame. Doctors. Hospital bureaucrats. Even amongst our family; I tried to place blame on one relative in particular.

This last point is one that I'm profoundly sorry and ashamed for. In my anger, I tried to shovel guilt on to someone, anyone, who wasn't me. One person in particular I focused my rage on; I didn't stop to consider that he, too, was struggling with how to care for this man who had loved and cared for him, who had raised him as his own son. He had his own grief to sift through, without me piling my own grief on top as well.

Grandpa Reuben died in a hospital bed surrounded by his family. With me and this relative standing next to each other, equally helpless. Whether or not there was ANY blame to place (there was not), we were both unable to do anything to stop the inevitable.

This was the first truth that I had to face.

I mentioned a second truth. This one took much longer for me to understand; indeed, I really did try to resist it for many years.

It was that sometimes, yes, death can be a release.

Grandpa suffered alot in his last years. He smoked and drank most of his life. Of course, for much of his life, the dangers posed by alcohol, and tobacco in particular, weren't very publicized; by the time that society acknowledge that they were serious health risks, Grandpa, and an entire generation (or two) along with him, had been locked into lifelong addictions. The point is, Grandpa had alot of complications, and was in much pain, in his last years. While I would have loved to see him live many more years, it was clear that the longer he was alive, the worse he would get.

That's just speaking physically. We all knew, though, that he suffered from very intense mental anguish with the death of Grandma Vicki just a year before. He used to say that he had never left her side for the entirety of their marriage. I'm willing to believe that, at least from the time of his retirement on. Growing up, me siblings and cousins all knew that, as gruff and grouchy as grandpa Reuben could be, it was always grandma who was in control. With her gone, grandpa became almost helpless. He never had to deal with bills, and taxes, and setting up doctor's appointments before. That task then fell to us. We could step in and help set up his appointments, and make sure he made it to them in time. But we could never fill her shoes completely. He was still alone without her. He missed her.

By the time Grandpa died, it really did seem that it was possible that death could be a release for him. From pain. And from loneliness. Seeing him on the hospital bed, he finally, for the first time in a long time, to be unafraid. To be at peace. To be free from a body that had slowly become a prison that only served to keep him from the person whom he had loved the most.

Now, I'm sure you're wondering: What does any of this have to do with Judaism, or conversion?

The answer goes, though, a bit more beyond that scope.

Religion, any religion, is primarily concerned with life, of course. But it must also inherently be equally concerned with death. Not the afterlife, per say, but the simple fact that one day, the collection of veins, and guts, and organs, and bones that make us up will one day fail us. And will rot. And will decay.

Some religions focus on this fact. Christianity in particular makes death a prime focus, The death of Jesus, in particular. One reason I could not truly accept christianity is for this reason. It always seemed (to me, at least) to be a religion that was in eternal mourning; and one that for that reason, focused all it's energies on the coming life, on a future existence after this here-and-now life. And for that same reason made this life, this world, a secondary concern, a mere intermission before ones just reward or punishment.

This is just my own personal view, in general of the religion.

Judaism, on the other hand, was not a faith based on mourning a Godhead. Judaism makes sure that the emphasis is always on this life now. We have a responsibility to improve this world, to not wait around for the end of the show in anticipation of a much better after party.

As someone with a deep interest and background in historical materialism, this perspective was a breath of fresh air. A religion that offered the comfort of faith, without offering an ostrich hole to hide in to escape a confrontation with the problems of this world. Whether G-D exists or not, we still have a duty to act like we are all in this on our own. Because this life, this plane of existence, it's survival is our job, not G-d's.

Something else that attracted me to Judaism's view on death was its related rituals. Judaism has very specific duties and roles to fill regarding a death. These rituals offer a sense of structure. A pathway to guide grief and mourning. When one loses someone close to them, their entire world is turned upside down. Their sense of self, their very identity is radically altered, and sometimes, torn. Grandpa Reuben had this happen to him. With the love of his life, his rock, gone, he was lost. And he wandered and was looking for her, or a replacement for her, for the rest of his life. He had no rituals, no routines or traditions to show him what to do.

Judaism offers a path. It defines certain times to allow your self to sink to the lowest depths of grief, to sit shivah in honor and respect of the pain you feel for the loss of your beloved. It not just allows it; it specifically prescribes it, and in that sense, validates it, validates your feelings, and makes them worthy of attention, without trying to avoid or hide them.

After the seven day shivah period, the rituals then guide you back to life. Sh'loshim, the thirty day period that follows, is designed to draw you back out of your grief. You are right to indulge your lowest depths; but you are not free to remain there. As a member of the living, you have a duty to return to life, and to the community. That doesn't mean that you just forget the death. You don't. You don't just "get over" a death; it becomes apart of you. A new you, with a little bit of your loved one apart of you. And the best way to honor your loss is not to let it kill you, too. But to let them live on, through you, and your memory, through your yearly rememberance of them with a Yarzheit.

Now, don't misunderstand me. I'm not trying to say that I wish my grandpa was Jewish. I don't. I loved him just as he was. Perhaps if he had even been aware of Judaisms traditions, it wouldn't have appealed to him as much as his native christianity's. But I do wish that he had had some sort of ritual to help him reclaim his life, whether of christian, jewish, or secular origin, or whatever origin. To me, Judaism offers that. To me, a path back to life is going to be the most important key to cope. I don't want to get lost in loss.

The Threshold: Walking in, and Staying: A short auto-bio.

2010-01-18T08:24:00.000-08:00

Hella Shalom, Ya'll.

My names Vincent.

But it's also Ya'akov, and I am, as you may have figured out from the title of the zine, a convert to Judaism, a Ger, often translated from the Hebrew root " גר " ("Gar") as "stranger". I've been asked in casual conversation why I chose to convert to Judaism. But I've never really felt like I was able to give a satisfactory answer--At least, not without getting into a long dialogue about religion--which, I quickly found out, was not what most people who asked were looking for. For the most part, they really just wanted a short, fortune-cookie style explanation that would easily help them figure out if I was some kooky religious fundamentalist fanatic who was secretly judging them under my breath, or a just a casual enthusiast who made cameo appearences at Temple during Hannukah. To simplify matters, I'd come up with a few thoughtful sounding One-Liners--"When I learned about Judaism, it felt like I was finally coming home!" was the most popular one--but doing so never allowed much room for me to express that I had a very different flavor of Judaism than the kind they saw on TV or in movies. I wanted to give a fuller portrait of my own take on this thousands-of-years-old religion. Being deeply influenced as a young man by punk and underground culture, I saw the best way of doing that was through the zine you now hold in your hands. That, and, well, I always wanted to do a zine anyways, and this was a good way to do both.

I thought about converting for a long time. For most of that period, though, I was usually really nervous and uptight about actually approaching a Rabbi about it, or even going to a Synagogue--I didn't want to look like I had no idea what I was doing, or singled out. So, instead, I studied independely for about five years, devouring everything Convert related that I could find (See the end for a bibliography of books that influenced me over the course of my exploration).

In the summer of 2009, I moved out of my family's house for the first time, and moved up to Seattle with my Fiancee, Amanda. After living in the suburbs for my whole life, and then suddenly finding myself in the Big City, I kind of felt that I was ready to start making big changes to my life. After a short search on Yelp, I discovered that we lived within walking distance of one of Seattle's oldest Reform Synagogues, Temple De Hirsch-Sinai, in Capitol Hill. I attended my first Friday Night Service in the fall, feeling wildly out of place, and convinced that everyone who looked at me could tell that I was SO. NOT. JEWISH. I was ready to walk out right after the Kiddush...but something kept me there. Curiousity, maybe. Once we all filed into the chapel, though, and I could hide out in the back and just watch, I felt a little better. And I really got into the music, which rather than being just organ music and a choir, was actually accompanied by an acoustic guitar. Yeah, I thought. I could get into this.

The next friday, I went in with the same nervous butterflies in my stomach. I hung out in the back of the foyer nibbling on crackers, looking at my shoes, when a sharply dressed young looking guy came up, introduced himself and shook my hand.

"Hi, I'm Daniel. How are you?"

I was at a loss for words. Someone was talking to me? I was so not prepared for this.

"I'm...I'm good. I guess. Shabbat Shalom", I muttered, emphasizing "SHALOM" to signify that the conversation was effectively over.

"It's great to see you," he contined, obviously not getting the point. "I hope you really enjoy it. Let me know if you have any questions. Do you want some wine?" Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed a glass of Charles Shaw and poured me a glass. "Here. For the Kiddush."

This guy was being really nice. And after a few sips, I decided he was going to be my new Jewish BFF.

Looking at his watch, he said "Oh, time to start. I'll see you inside!"

And to my utter fucking horror and astonishment, he put on a Yarmulke and pulled a cape out of his bag and put it on, and went to the table in the center of the Foyer and started singing in Hebrew.

HE WAS THE RABBI?? I WAS TALKING TO THE FREAKIN' RABBI??

Immediately wondered how much of an utter fool I had made of myself. My immediate instinct was to just walk out and never look back. But...something about the song kept me there. I couldn't understand a word of it. But the melodies were haunting, not quite demanding, but more seductive than anything else, and they arrested my steps. The song was joyful, to be sure, and the whole room was covered in smiles as everyone sang along...but there was an undertone of sadness to it as well. It contained a pool of gaiety with pockets of melancholy that would bubble up and swell to the surface for an instant, and then disappear into the next line. Without knowing what was being said, I knew somehow that this was a song written by and sung for people who had survived some unknown, unforgiving pain, not entirely unscathed, but with an unwavering hope and plan for the future.

I decided I had found exactly where I needed to be.

After a few months of Friday Night Services, I took the decisive step of enrolling in an Introduction to Judaism class TDHS offered. I gathered up what small courage I had and finally approached Rabbi Daniel, who had become to me the face of the synagogue, and asked him to sponsor me. I left his office an official candidate for conversion. Rabbi D, as I took to calling him, said I should start keeping a journal about my thoughts, and record how I'm beginning to live Jewishly. Unlike born Jews, he pointed out, converts don't have the option of just BEING Jewish; they have to remake their Jewishness anew everyday. We can't fall back on an ethnic Jewishness. We are Jewish by virtue of our love of the Jewish people, and by our daily performance of Mitzvot. This can be tough sometimes. Some days, I just wouldn't feel up to the task. A late night on friday just might mean I'm too tired to make it to Saturday Torah study; or maybe the work week is so busy, I don't have time to fit reading the Parshah into my schedule. What then? Am I LESS Jewish that week? This was a difficult question, but one he said I needed to find an answer to within myself.

This Zine is my attempt at an answer.

Bio

A little background on me. I was born in San Jose, California, to two lovely, young teenage parents. I grew up there most of my life. Early on, we attended a non-denominational Super-church on Sundays; otherwise I didn't really have a lot of religious instruction in my life. In my teenage years, I discovered punk rock, and changed from a quiet, nerdy wallflower into an obnoxious, loud, mohawker, with a stylish militant atheism to complement my new identity. While I would have vehemently denied it back then, I think I adopted the punk/DIY/hardcore culture as a surrogate sort of religion. I studied the history of the music, and the ethics of the DIY culture, with all it's myriad taboos and sins--and adopted the dress, with it's studded jackets and patched jeans. These were formative years for me, shaping both my political beliefs--which skew to the far left--and my view of myself. Nowadays I don't feel I have to LOOK punk; but I still learned from those times that often the most marginalized in society have the most to say, and are deserving of our attention.

The first time I encountered Judaism was in a Humanities Seminar on my first day of college. My Professor, who happened to be the Head of the Jewish Studies department, talked about it, and my curiosity was piqued. There was not a very visible Jewish community where I grew up. I grew up in the east side, a predominantly latino community, with also a large east asian--primarily chinese, vietnamese, and filipino--presence as well. Jews were a people I was largely ignorant about. But the more I learned about who the Jewish people were, the more I wanted to know. The Jewish people seemed to be a very academic group of people. Education was important to them; literacy was a vital component, if for no other reason, to at least read some book called Torah. I had always loved reading. Books were with me at all--and I do mean ALL--times. During family getogethers, when everyone turned on the football game, I went into the bathroom, locked the door, and sat in the tub with whatever book was my current obssession. And all types of books came into my hands. But one type of book especially was close to my heart.

Comic Books. I had always been a comic book reader, having been introduced to them by my mom's brother, my uncle Abel. He always told me abotu stories he had read as a child, written by Stan Lee and drawn by Jack Kirby. It was while reading up about these two comic pioneers that i came upon a curious fact. Stan Lee WASN'T Asian. I had assumed this, as I grew up with my asian classmates with that last name. What WAS his background then?

A quick search revealed that Stan Lee was born Stanley Lierber, son to Jewish immigrants coming to American in search of a better life. Lee's frequent collaborater, Jack Kirby, the king of comics--a man spoken of in epic, mythical tones by my uncle, an artist, who taught me that Kirby had changed the way comics were drawn and stories were told--was born Jacob Kurtzberg, also the son of newly arrived Jews.

Further reading revealed more: Batman's Bob Kane was really Robert Kahn. Superman's Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were both Jewish, and furthermore gave their iconic creation the kryptonian name Kal-El--which also happened to be Hebrew for "All that God Is"; and they even gave him a red tallit! More and more, I found that my two interests were intertwined intimately from the beginning. This time was when the roots of my Jewish education began to take hold.

Shalom, and Excelsior!