AJL wants Beside Still Waters in “every Jewish library”

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Another great review of Beside Still Waters — this one from the Association of Jewish Libraries!

Rachel Barenblat, ed. Beside Still Waters: A Journey of Comfort and Renewal. Bayit: Building Jewish. Teaneck, NJ: Ben Yehuda Press, 2019. 179 pp. $18.00. (9781934730010).

There is a plethora of books, including several recent volumes, on comforting the ill and dying and their loved ones. This volume, edited by rabbi, poet and writer, Rachel Barenblat, contains teachings, readings, and services to guide the mourners.

The editor (named by The Forward in 2016 as one of America’s Most Inspiring Rabbis) has divided the text into several parts, each marking a traditional period from death (including several versions of Vidui) through the first Yahrzeit. The book includes full Mincha and Ma’ariv services, with a variety of alternative readings, including two versions of the Amida prayer. In addition, there are numerous readings and poems directed to mourners at each stage of the journey and throughout the services. Many of them are from well-known names (Jill Hammer, Zalman Schachter-Shalomi); others are from less famous rabbis and authors. Each recitation of the Kaddish has a different interpretive text by a well-known modern thinker.

The result is that the process is made accessible to everyone, from observant to non-practicing Jews. This small book is filled with wisdom, both ancient and modern. It is meant specifically for spiritual leaders, i.e., rabbis, Chevra Kadisha staff, prayer leaders, and counselors. But its readings can provide comfort for mourners at all stages of the process. It should be considered for every Jewish library; we all can use its kind words.

Fred Isaac, Temple Sinai, Oakland, CA

Rabbi Jack Riemer reviews Beside Still Waters

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Rabbi Jack Riemer reviewed our first print publication, Beside Still Waters, for the February 2020 edition of the Berkshire Jewish Voice. The review is reprinted below. Buy copies from your favorite bookseller or directly from Ben Yehuda Press, where you can also get a large-print edition. (Discounts are available for bulk orders of 10 or more.) Deep thanks to R’ Riemer for the review and to the Berkshire Jewish Voice for publishing it!

 

Beside Still Waters: A Journey of Comfort and Renewal

Meditations on mourning and mortality, edited by Rabbi Rachel Barenblat of Congregation Beth Israel

 Reviewed by Jack Riemer

For most of us, prayer is a closed world. Some of us know Hebrew, and some of us know the melodies and the choreography that go with the prayers, but who among us knows how to speak to God in prayer? Most of us are fairly good at keeping up with the service, but who among us knows what it means to pour out our souls to God? And yet, ever since the day when Hannah went into the Sanctuary alone, that is what prayer means according to the Jewish tradition.

Some of the meditations in Beside Still Waters: A Journey of Comfort and Renewal, a collection of “liturgy both classical and contemporary for different stages along the mourner’s path” edited by Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, fill a real need.

Ours is a death-denying culture, in which we are taught to ignore the oncoming of death so as not to make those around us feel uncomfortable. And so it is good to have a few different versions of the Vidui here, which is the prayer that we are supposed to say before we die.

Ours is a culture that tries to repress pain and anger, and so it is good to have a prayer to say in memory of someone who has hurt us, and whom it is hard to forgive.

Ours is a society in which most of us stand before the yahrtzeit candle with no idea of what to say, and so it is good to have a meditation for this sacred moment that can help us give expression to the feelings that we have inside.

Most of us mark the end of a year of saying kaddish by hosting a breakfast for the minyan, or by promising to stay part of the group, even though we know that we won’t, and so it is good to have a prayer available in which we speak to the one for whom we have mourned and still mourn, and wish that person an ascent to a new level of holiness, and in which we promise that the one for whom we have recited kaddish is and will continue to be a part of our lives.

Space permits just a few examples of passages that spoke to me.

On the Amidah

I have never been comfortable with the version of the first blessing in the Amidah that ends “pok’ed Sarah” – if, for no other reason, than because “pok’ed” in the Bible often means to punish. And so I am pleased to find “ezrat Sarah” in this book, instead, because it means “Sarah’s helper,” which makes a perfect parallel to “magen Avraham” (Abraham’s shield).

On Prayers of the Shema

Blessings to Zalman Schachter-Shlomi who, in the years before most of us had ever even heard of global warming or climate change, rendered the second paragraph of the Shema as a prophecy of what would happen if we continued to mistreat the Earth. Thanks to him, the “Vihaya im Shamoa,” which used to make us uncomfortable because it sounded like a threat from God who controls the rain, now speaks directly to our souls. What once seemed like a prayer that was far behind the times now reads like a prayer that is ahead of our times.

We owe much to the poet who gives us a fresh version of the “V’ahavta” blessing of the Shema in this collection. We owe whoever it was for the phrase: “with every heartbeat, with every breath, with every conscious act” simply because it is so much more alive than the “with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might, ” which we have been saying for so long that we no longer hear it.

And how much more alive are these words:

“Teach them to your children, talk about them at work,
Whether you are tired or when you feel rested.
Let them guide the work of your hands;
Keep them in the forefront of your vision.
Do not leave them at the doorway or outside your gate.”

Let me be clear: This text is not meant to replace the standard one. On the contrary, it only works if you know the original version, so that you can understand why the poet speaks of the work of your hands, or the forefront of your vision, or of the doorway to your house, each of which echoes a passage in the traditional prayer book. It is living midrash that the author is creating here – not a substitute for the text that we grew up with.

On Ma’ariv Prayers

We have said the prayer that thanks God for bringing on the evening so many times by now – both in Hebrew and in English – that it no longer helps us feel much awe at the setting of the sun. And so, I welcome this version of the prayer for the setting of the stars, a brief excerpt from which I cite below:

“The sun wheels over the horizon
Like a glowing penny falling into its slot.
Day is spent, and in its place the changing moon,
The spatterdash of stars across the sky’s expanse.”

There is more in this collection, including some pages that do not touch me and some that may not move you. But try it for yourself, and you may find in it echoes of moments when the soul of the writer danced or yearned or sighed or sung or screamed with pain. And you may find some pages that will stir you to do the same.

 

Rabbi Jack Riemer is the editor of New Prayers for the High Holidays and the three volumes of The World of the High Holidays, and of two new books of Jewish thought: Finding God in Unexpected Places and The Day I Met Father Isaac in the Supermarket.

BESIDE STILL WATERS, A Journey of Comfort and Renewal is published by Bayit: Building Jewish and Ben Yehuda Press, Teaneck, NJ 2019. It is available on Amazon or directly from the publisher, and costs $18. (Discounts are available for bulk orders of 10 or more at the publisher’s website.)

A time to build and a time to refrain from building

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Part of a yearlong Torah series on building and builders in Jewish spiritual life.

 

In our fast-paced world it’s rare to take a sabbatical. A week’s vacation here and there is more the norm. But a full year? That’s an awfully long time.

For a farmer, leaving the land fallow for an entire year must feel like a lifetime. And yet that’s exactly what the Torah asks; “When you enter the land that I assign to you… in the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath of complete rest.” No planting, no pruning, no reaping.

The Torah assures us that even without human intervention, the land will provide enough for everyone to eat, both human and beast. But there’s one thing the Torah doesn’t say: What are the farmers and the builders and the do-ers supposed to do with themselves during the sabbath year?

Perhaps the answer is that they’re not meant to do anything at all. Or at least, nothing productive. Because sometimes stopping completely is the path to our most creative moments. And a week’s vacation simply isn’t long enough to do the important work of truly resting and recharging.

This week’s Torah portion is called B’har, “on the mountain,” and it begins with an anomaly. The opening sentence is a deviation from the normal introduction, which generally reads something like, “And God spoke to Moses, saying…”

This time, two words are inserted into the standard sentence, so it reads: “And God spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai.”  The addition seems unnecessary, since we already know that Moses and God are together on the mountain.

Calling our attention to the mountain is a reminder that Moses is in an elevated place, both physically and spiritually. He has left everything and everyone he knew below, and has gone to a high place, where his sole task is to listen to God. Later, he will transmit all that he heard to the people below. But for now, he is not responsible for doing, only for receiving.

We live in a world that seems to function at a breakneck pace. We hurry from here to there, hurling ourselves down highways at speeds that were once unimaginable, yet today are routine. We take vacations that are filled with sights and sounds, and return home elated by the wonderful experiences but often so tired that we jokingly say we need a vacation to recover from our vacation.

We construct lives of perpetual motion for ourselves and our families. We build an existence so structured around accomplishments that we become humans-doing instead of humans-being.  The lesson of B’har is to stop building, stop doing, and simply be.

From the heights of the mountain we can look at our lives with fresh eyes and understand anew the injunction from Ecclesiastes that there is a time to build and a time to refrain from building. Even as Torah guides us toward creating a better world, Torah also teaches us to abstain from building and give ourselves unstructured time for reflection and rejuvenation.

A year is a very long time. Even the ancient rabbis chafed at the thought of letting the land and people rest for an entire year, and they dreamt up ways to work around it by allowing just one field to represent an entire farm. But I wonder if we are short-changing ourselves by abbreviating our times of rest.

What would it do for our psyches if we took “a sabbath of complete rest” that lasted more than 25 hours? More than a week? Or a month? If we put down our tools and set aside our plans, put away our cell phones and computers, our radios and TVs? What if instead we breathed deeply, walked slowly, observed the sun as it rose and set, and watched in awe as the stars reeled above?

If we gave ourselves the chance to visit the mountain, perhaps we could return refreshed, both physically and spiritually, ready to embark on the next stage of our lives with  a renewed sense of purpose, ready to pick up our tools and begin once again to build the future.

 

By Rabbi Jennifer Singer. Sketchnote by Steve Silbert.

Why This Firstborn Will Go Silent Before Passover: The Social Justice Ta’anit Dibbur

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Among Passover’s many customs, the fast of the firstborn (ta’anit bechorot) fell into disuse. This ritual fast, commemorating Egypt’s victims of the Tenth Plague’s death of the firstborn, finds little traction among modern liberal Jews. Even most traditionalists arrange a ritual joyous reason to avoid the pre-Passover fast.

The day before Passover, however, this particular firstborn of Israel will fast – not just from food but also from speech. I will go silent – I will observe a total fast from speech (ta’anit dibbur) – and I will decline any excuse that might absolve me.

The reason isn’t virtue signaling. Rather, it’s to remind myself, and invite others to consider, that words and privilege can be as enslaving as iron shackles. It’s to renew my commitment to make space for the voices of all who feel excluded or diminished, whose identities or experiences have denied them privileges I enjoy – including the very privilege to write these words.

A Pre-Passover Fast from Food (Ta’anit Bechorot)

There are many reasons to fast before Passover – and not just make room for matzah! One reason is to mourn the too-high price of freedom. Talmud famously teaches that when angels rejoiced during the Exodus drowning of Egyptian soldiers in the Sea of Reeds, God rebuked them saying, “My children are drowning and you sing Me praises?” (Megillah 10b, Pesachim 64b). If Egypt’s first-born and soldiers died for Israelite liberation, their deaths are not less tragic. If angels had to learn that lesson, then so might we. Just as we spill drops of wine for each plague during the Seder (we can’t drink a full cup of joy at another’s expense), we can fast in poignant memory of the tragically high cost of freedom.

Another reason is to connect with today’s captives of body, heart or spirit. Until all are free, all are unfree. So taught Dr. Martin Luther King from his Birmingham jail cell: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” We can fast, as I wrote elsewhere, to spiritually purge for every time co-religionists ever sung praises for another’s degradation. We can fast to rededicate ourselves to bringing Passover’s global message of freedom to the whole globe.

A third reason is to honor this year’s calendrical confluence with Good Friday. Jews need not understand the Jesus of faith as Christians might, but we can understand suffering, grace and redemption in common cause with our Christian cousins as they commemorate their own ritual descent and ascent rooted in Passover.

A Pre-Passover Fast From Speech (Ta’anit Dibbur)

The idea of a ta’anit dibbur (fast from speech) traces from the wisdom of Proverbs 18:21: “Life and death are in the hand of the tongue.” We fast from speech as a practice of purification. By ritually controlling the incessant drive to speak, we can refine the inner impulses they voice.

All the more so before Passover. Mystics re-read Passover (pesach) as the speaking mouth (peh sach), the spiritual liberation that could heal both Moses’ impaired speech and our own. Understood this way, the creative impulse that Jewish mysticism understood as speech – God’s speech, and our speech – can be healed and channeled to liberate the sacred in our world.

Consider the countless injustices and shacklings expressed as speech. Consider the enormous power of words to include or exclude, create or destroy, empower or enfeeble, uplift or suppress, liberate or enslave. Words can wound, or words can heal. Understood this way, any Passover worth its weight in matzah must focus intently on the power of words to help purify our words.

What does this have to do with the firstborn? In its day, primogeniture stood for privilege and societal power dynamics that locked privilege into the day’s reality map. By dint of gender and birth order, the firstborn male held special status legally, politically and ritually. Others were at best second best. And as for the individual, so too the collective: God told Moses to call Israel “God’s firstborn” before Pharaoh (Exodus 4:22). Later, liturgy attributed to Rav Kook, Israel’s first chief rabbi, transformed Israel into reishit tzmichat ge’ulateinu, “the first flowering of our collective redemption.”

We’ve come far since primogeniture’s days, but Passover becomes a mere tasty relic if we rest on past laurels. A living Passover means bringing freedom and equality to all in the flowering of collective redemption. A living Passover means pushing boundaries outward until they include everyone, and feeling deeply wherever boundaries or the call to expand them feels tight. Those tight spots are our meitzarim, our “narrow places” – literally our “Egypt,” the frontiers of today’s Passover ongoing call to liberation.

Understood this way, the “fast of the firstborn” is a radical and evolving call to name and invert today’s social structures that hold people back. The “fast of the firstborn” isn’t mainly about the “firstborn” but rather about the privilege that primogeniture wrongly symbolizes. It’s strikingly beautiful that Judaism can honor Passover – a defining experience of peoplehood and liberation – with this internal hedge against its own imperfect realization of this sacred calling.

Now let’s get personal. I seem like the personification of privilege. I’m the firstborn child – and a son at that. I’m straight and cis-gendered. I hold two graduate degrees, from Harvard, plus a rabbinic ordination. I’m honored with a judicial role and a pulpit. I teach in seminary and I’ve led spiritual nonprofits. I have seemingly unfettered opportunities to speak, write and teach. I’m not just a man; euphemistically I’m The Man! And most who know me know that I can have much to say.

That’s exactly why I and people like me should go silent before Passover – to remind ourselves of the marginalization and subjugation that others experience daily, to make space for them, and to recommit ourselves to that cause as a way of life for all time.

To be sure, I wasn’t born on third base thinking that I’d hit a triple. I’m the son of an immigrant. I did not grow up affluent. I’m the first in my family to graduate from college. I faced and overcame many obstacles both personal and familial along the way. But such is the American experience and, often, the Jewish experience. All the more reason for me to make space for tomorrow’s “me” – whoever and however they may come.

I think of my own mom and countless other moms denied a Jewish education or countless other opportunities on the basis of sex. I think of LGBTQI friends still fighting whether in or out of the closet, denied their rights at tragic costs to themselves and society. I think of people of color, of all backgrounds, whose lives as visible minorities still are fraught 50 years after Dr. King was assassinated. I think of talented people of all ages and stages blocked from leadership by crusty, recalcitrant power dynamics that cling to their own false solidity. I think of Jewish life’s virulent allergy to wise succession planning that shortsightedly robs institutions of healthy and vibrant futures. And I think of many leaders who undoubtedly think they’re doing leadership right but who wield emotional or spiritual authority in ways that are pervasively self-perpetuating.

That’s why I will go silent before this Passover. I will reclaim the ta’anit dibbur as a deliberate space-making practice both within and without. I hope all firstborns, whether literally first out of the womb or metaphorical firsts of privilege, will consider doing likewise. Let’s make space for others starting with one day, then one week, then for a lifetime, for all Jewish life and for all life. Let’s make space to heal speech, to heal power, to heal the world.

When we break our ta’anit dibbur at the start of the Seder, let our first word be Baruch: ”Blessed.” Let that flow of blessing be the purpose of our speech and all speech. And in that merit, may we, all of us, experience a truly liberating and sweet Pesach.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Rabbi David Markus

 

 

On removing leaven (again)

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From builder Steve Silbert comes this updated sketchnote for the first day of Pesach:

(This #VisualTorah sketchnote arose out of the post On removing leaven again.)

 

 

Announcing Beside Still Waters!

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bsw postcard v2 4.5x6.5 in_Page_1Now available!

Beside Still Waters: A Journey of Comfort and Renewal

New from Ben Yehuda Press and Bayit

$18

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You can find the Table of Contents, the introduction, and assorted other excerpts via the Look Inside This Book feature on Amazon or via this preview PDF: BSW preview.

Order Beside Still Waters at Ben Yehuda Press now.

The Spiritual Life is Lonely

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“A Foggy Passage” Simon Kingsworth

The farther you progress in the spiritual life, the lonelier it gets.

The topics that used to consume you may now only arouse faint interest. (How many books did I read about “the future of the church” in my late twenties and early thirties? Hundreds. How many have I read since we moved to the island three years ago? None.)

The dichotomies that used to agonize you now all seem like artificial constructions that obscure a deeper Truth. (Is this an outward work? An inward work? Is this love of God or love of neighbor? How do you balance work with rest? Anger with forgiveness?)

The conversations that used to energize you all deflate like sad little balloons, without enough hot air to keep them afloat anymore. (In my case, denominational politics, theological esoterica, and the over-earnest discussion of “what does it mean to be the church?”)

Instead, you find that your gaze turns inwards: to the places of deepest unspoken hurt, to the deeper comprehension of self, to the wrenching, painful work of giving up all those external attachments that you thought were You.

In the process, you also discover loneliness.

I’ve discovered that there are precious few people who are able to have those conversations about matters like this, much less engage in this work with the necessary degree of maniacal consistency.

After all, it is a journey that their friends will not encourage them to take, because it can strip them of the unspoken tribal prejudices and previously energizing interests upon which friendships are based.

After all, it is a journey which our society, built upon superficial urgency and the frantic pursuit of novelty, is designed to prevent. (Don’t believe me? How many times did you check your smartphone today? And how many of times did you check it because you grew uncomfortable, bored, upset, or disturbed with something which you would prefer be left unnamed?)

After all, it is a journey which their churches, which institutionally depend on busy people highly invested in externals, simply do not have the capacity to imagine.

And the journey is hard, because the road is terrifying. From the comfortable ruts of life, you emerge into a dangerous, dark wilderness of spirit, filled with monsters of your own making. The road ahead seems like no more than a vague trail (pray to God for something as clear as a vague trail!) with the road behind always clear as day, beckoning for you to come back to safer ground.

My experience? Most people, if they don’t have journey companions, will take a few steps on that terrifying trail, and then retreat back to the comfortable territory of their familiar existence, filled with friends and jobs, religious observances and books, momentary bursts of passion brought on by the novelty of a new spiritual idea, and the steady, familiar rhythm of prejudices and interests that were formed in childhood.

The problem is that God (and by God I most specifically the Love that birthed the universe, that birthed each of us, and that lies at the truest center of our being,) can only be encountered fully in that dark wilderness of spirit.

Ideally, our spiritual communities exist so that people can find companions and guides for exactly this journey; but maintaining that communal ethos requires spiritual vigilance and produces very few institutional returns. This is why the communities that call themselves churches have turned instead to peddling a hyper-commodified mass market version of themselves, so that people may learn to possess God rather than learning to let God possess them. (This may be true for other religious and a-religious traditions, but I’ll let them speak for themselves on this count.)

I’m thankful that I’ve found a community, albeit a temporary one, that has helped me take my first full steps into the wilderness of my own soul. I also hear an echo of loneliness, sometimes even terror, knowing that soon that community will come to an end, and it is not a given that I will find other people to journey with me.

I don’t have any reassurances for me, but I do have advice for you if who have heard God’s call to walk a deeper path, even if that call is heard only in whispers.

First, step out the door on that new road, even if all you have is a backpack full of questions.

Second, find some people. Be wary of the good church people. Look for the pones hovering around the edges (or the comfortably self-differentiated ones in the middle.) Look for the ones who talk more about God and about people and less about “church”. Look for the ones who have a smiling, self-deprecatory honesty. Look for the ones who seem like actual humans, not religious facsimiles of themselves.

Finally, ask them to join you on the journey. Some will look at you oddly. Some will say “no”; or say “yes” but actually mean “no” when they realize what is involved. But remember, God is gracious, and if God is pulling you into the wilderness, then God will send you a couple of people who might dare to say “yes” along with you: people who will pick you up when you stumble, or get lost, and point you back into the darkness and say “keep going”.

Because, in the end, this is really the only journey ultimately worth taking.

It is just as the great Quaker mystic, Thomas Kelly, says,

Out in front of us is the drama of [people] and of nations, struggling, laboring, dying. Upon this tragic drama in these days our eyes are all set in anxious watchfulness and in prayer. But within the silences of the souls of [people] an eternal drama is ever being enacted, in these days as well as in others. And on the outcome of this inner drama rests, ultimately, the outer pageant of history.

It is the drama of the Hound of Heaven baying relentlessly upon the track of [humans]. Is the drama of the lost sheep wandering in the wilderness, restless and lonely, feebly searching, while over the hill comes the wiser Shepherd. For His is a shepherd’s heart, and He is restless until He holds His sheep in His arms. it is the drama of the Eternal Father drawing the prodigal home unto Himself, where there is bread enough and to spare…And always its chief is – the Eternal God of Love.

THOMAS KELLY. A TESTAMENT OF DEVOTION. 1941.

 

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By Ben Yosua-Davis. Reposted with permission from A Glorious Mess.

Building Collective Spiritual Foundations: Re-Mixing the Cement

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Part of a yearlong series about building and builders inspired by the Torah cycle.

Look under any building and you’ll see its foundation.  Look deeper: you’ll see architectural plans. Look even deeper: you’ll see some impulse that the builder wanted to bring to life.  Look even deeper than that: see the values, hopes and assumptions that shaped the impulse to build.

We learn this: as we build the spiritual future, sometimes we must re-build the values, hopes and assumptions of building.  Only then can we be sure to build on a foundation that’s stable and strong for today rather than just yesterday.

That kind of vision, and the courage to re-vision the foundation, might be the most important tool in the spiritual builder’s toolkit.  This week’s extraordinary Torah portion (Vayishlach) teaches me so: it’s visioning and building for tomorrow, not for yesterday, that matter most.

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This paresha opens as Jacob is to face his estranged twin brother, Esau. Jacob will wrestle with… someone. He will reconcile with his brother… sort of.  His daughter will be raped and his sons will exact what they wrongly think is justice. Our ancestors lived rich and eventful lives!

Much of Jacob’s life was the wrestle for which he’d be re-named, the name that Israel carries today.  From the start, Jacob wanted what wasn’t his: first-born privileges, strength, power the blessing of a father to his own first-born son.  Then at Peni’el (“God turns to face me”), Jacob wrestled.  Was it a dream? a meditation? a physical-level encounter?  Whatever happened, it wrenched his hip, and he’d never walk the same way again.

Jacob’s hip injury got my attention, because usually wrestling injuries most affect the shoulder.  Why the hip? Maybe Jacob’s limp reminded himself – and us – that Jacob changed. Jacob no longer could walk in the world without a subtle but clear message to others that he’s different.

Modern social science and psychology teach that vital to any communication is body language.  Jacob’s limp is an outwardly visible token of an inner message. Seeing Jacob’s limp, we can see Jacob’s change from afar.  As Baal Shem Tov’s disciples taught, “legs” and “habits” hail from the same Hebrew word (regel).  Habits are difficult to change, but aspirations can change in a flash, a moment of clarity.  Maybe so for Jacob: he saw a light – Peni’el: God turned to face him.  He emerged limping on his legs (“habits”): in just one night, new aspirations were born that would begin to grow immediately.

Jacob next saw his brother.  He responded to seeing Esau’s army not with fear and dread but with conciliation, embracing and crying.  Teshuvah, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

For a brief moment: their reunion passed and they parted.  In the words of poet and Rabbi Rachel Barenblat,

“And again the possibility

Of inhabiting a different kind of story

Vanished into the unforgiving air.”

What do we learn from this?  While often Jacob is a model for us, not all of Jacob’s life is equally worthy of emulation.  When the occasion presents to build a bridge of healing to the past, build it – and then travel it as fully as you can.  Don’t let the moment go.

Jacob was right to seize his “Esau moment,” but what if the Jacob-Esau encounter hadn’t ended?

Imagine a different history if Jacob had built a future with Esau.  What might have become of Dinah? Of Shechem and their men? Jewish-Israelite history might have looked very different.

Too many Jews today aren’t finding a nourishing spiritual home in the Judaism they inherited. This is almost inconceivable to me: Judaism has been at the forefront of building bridges to the Eternal, rethinking our place in this universe, and in Rav Kook’s words, “Making the old new the new holy.”

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Think about it.  Since when did Judaism forget its own history of remaking itself?  The judges, prophets, Mishnah and Talmud all were new in their epochs.  Rashi (11th century) was new in his day; Maimonides (12th century) was new in his: he even wrote a “Second Mishnah” that to his mind was clearer and more evolved than the first!  Zohar and the Jewish mystics were new (1300s – 1500s). Hasidism was new (1700s- 1800s). The Reform movement (late 1700s and early 1800s). Denominations. The State of Israel.

Do we forget that every encounter with history changed Israel’s path?  Do we forget that we’ve been building for thousands of years? We rarely seem to forget when we limp, but too often we seem to forget that we’re on a Change Mission.  Always we’ve built a new future – not an old one! And now in the 21st century, today’s time of spiritual challenge perhaps unlike any other in our history, we must re-learn that lesson for tomorrow.

The Judaism we need for tomorrow doesn’t leave Jacob’s “Esau moment” behind.  We must ask: what and whom are we excluding in spiritual life that now we must help re-include?  To me, the values, hopes and assumptions that shape the impulse to build that kind of inclusive future trace back to the moment that Jacob and Esau parted without building a future together.

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As spiritual builders, we must be courageous enough to see whom we’ve left behind and make teshuvah.  This “return” doesn’t mean just apologizing and crying: it means re-including – not leaving again.  Only then can we build the Judaism that tomorrow really needs – a richly spiritual and inclusive Judaism that unifies and heals.

 

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By Steven Green. Sketchnote by Steve Silbert.