Isagogics

Flipping through my dictionary, I found this somewhat relevant "I" word which means:
Introductory study; especially, the study of the literary history of the Bible, considered as introductory to the study of Bible interpretation.

Yesterday at synagogue, we started a fresh round of Torah reading with the first part of the creation story. But before anyone uttered the first word, "B'reishit" (normally translated as "in the beginning"), our rabbi gave a brief overview of the different ways or levels in which the Torah can be read.

There is the peshat (surface) level, where each word is taken literally. Of course, even peshat isn't so simple, as certain words can have multiple meanings and there are some words that appear in the Torah only once, making it difficult to be completely sure what that meaning is. And plenty of the words in the Torah derive from even more ancient languages (how's your Ugaritic?) or refer to things, places or creatures that no longer exist. The next level is called remez, focusing on allusions or allegories in the text. The third level is called derash, where we look to the text in the Torah to answer a contemporary question, teasing out relevance with creative interpretations. In other words, we take the stories as written and make up new stories to breathe life into the text. And finally we can read Torah on the level of sod, the hidden and mystical.

Our Torah study session on Saturday mornings (before services start) is just a therapist's hour in length (we're lucky if we're at it for a full 50 minutes), and you could spend multiples of that time discussing just the first few verses of the Old Testament on all four levels, especially when you have a group of 30+ people, many of whom have something valuable to share.

In fact, one could spend a long time discussing just the third word of Genesis, "Elohim", which is in plural form even though it just refers to a singular God. Is it possibly a reference to the fact that at the time the Old Testament was written people believed that a whole group of gods had created the earth? Read in such a way, the Bible raises more questions than it answers. And our rabbi reminded us that even though the creation story is lovely and rather poetic (e.g. "God divided the light from the darkness" and "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters"), in a few chapters God gets upset and destroys it all (you know, the flood!).

Sounds to me like God is an artist who, displeased with her first attempt at creating, wrecks it and tries, tries again. It is comforting to remember that even God didn't get things right the first time. The other piece that stuck with me is the idea that God created the world with words - not with a magic wand, not with esoteric gestures, not with a great wind.

Words.

And so we create our own worlds with our words. The words we use to describe the people and situations in our lives are like paints. Do we pick the ones that create a hopeful and inspiring picture or choose words that perpetuate negativity and confusion? Can we step back from our experience and look at it, much like a painter steps back to examine her canvas, and find words to describe it that are positive and encouraging?

I often feel like I need to (re)write my own story, starting once again with b'reishit, in the beginning, developing a plot from a much kinder and compassionate place than I've been able to access during previous drafts.

Imbibing

Last night was Simchat Torah (happiness of Torah), the holiday that celebrates the conclusion of a year's worth of Torah reading. Tomorrow morning we begin again with Genesis. At my synagogue, we complete the entire scroll on a three year cycle, reading only 1/3 of each week's parsha (portion) in each of the three years. Like serialized stories that used to appear in magazines and newspapers, this method of reading keeps people in suspense and coming back for more...at least that is the idea.

Simchat Torah is a joyous affair. At my synagogue we unfurl the entire scroll; many people are enlisted to carefully hold it up and, when it's their turn, they read a synopsis of the parsha they happen to be holding. The first time I saw this done (and participated in the doing of it) I thought it was cool if not a bit wild (the Torah seemed to be naked and vulnerable, all spread out like that), but this year I felt a bit bored listening to the rather straightforward summaries of the chapters. Why not do it in limerick or haiku form? I might have to make that suggestion and, if accepted, I might have to create the limericks. Could be a fun project.

Once we'd symbolically read the entire Torah, it was rolled back up and, with other scrolls, paraded around the synagogue. Each parade is called a hakafa, and each hakafa was in honor of a certain group of people - e.g. board members, people who regularly read Torah on Saturdays, new members, etc.. And at some point the hakafot made their way outside and people were dancing on the sidewalk, accompanied by a lively klezmer band.

Like last year, I wasn't able to get into the dancing, and I didn't make myself try. It was one of those moments - and I have many of them - where I feel a distance from exuberant ritual, or I feel a need to set myself apart from everyone else. I hung back at the top of the steps of our synagogue, watching the action below and munching on some m&m's. At times like this I seem to retreat into an anthropologist persona, someone who is curious about and appreciates what is going on, but who isn't going to shed their reserve and jump into the fray.

After the seventh hakafa, we returned to the sanctuary and the service became more structured and formal. The rabbi called up three aliyot (an aliya is when someone is asked to come to the front of the sanctuary and recite the blessings before/after reading the Torah), starting with people who are descendants of the Cohanim, or priestly class of Jews, followed by an aliya for the Levites and then Israelites. I am the daughter of a cohen, through my father's side. In more traditional Jewish communities female offspring of cohanim don't receive any special privileges or perks, a fact which used to enrage my ego and (unjustified) sense of superiority when I was growing up. So, there I was, feeling disconnected from the festivities yet being invited to bless the Torah as a bat-cohen (daugher of a cohen) in a community that doesn't particularly care about such distinctions anyway. I hesitated a few seconds before joining the others at the front of the room, for the recognition I had always wanted. A few people held up a tallis (prayer shawl) over our heads as we recited the blessing, reading it from a laminated card with large print. The tall fellow next to me said, "Cohanim don't need the card," implying that as descendants of priests we should have memorized the prayers a long time ago.

Oy.

Returning to my seat, a few people shook my hand and uttered, "Yasher Ko-ach" (may your strength be firm), which is what you say to people who have participated in the synagogue service. (here's an interesting explanation of why we say these words). I felt strange accepting their salutations and wishes. My reluctant participation had not required any effort or skill or preparation.

I was, however, quite eager to try a homemade etrog (citron) liqueur that was being passed around in opaque shot glasses. The creator had grated the rind of three etrogim and steeped them in a few cups of vodka for several days before adding yet more vodka and sugar. The result was refreshing and delicious. Perhaps it could become a new holiday tradition, or a new holiday: Simchat vodka, anyone?

Integration

Somewhat dissatisfied by my Sukkot experience of shaking the lulav in a not very mindful fashion, I went online to read more about the meaning of the plants and fruit that form the core of this ritual.

The lulav (palm branch) is flanked on either side by branches of myrtle and willow. According to one rabbinic video on the subject, myrtle leaves are shaped like eyes, willow leaves like mouths, and the lulav itself is like a spine, straight but flexible. The etrog (citron) represents the heart. We can choose to use each of these parts of ourselves for goodness....or not. Does our heart lust after things and people, or do we open our hearts to other people? Do we choose to see the good in others or to use our eyes to find flaws? And, most importantly, can we integrate these parts of ourselves so that we're acting as a whole individual, not a person who feels one thing yet says and does another. Had I been more aware of the symbolism at the time that I joined the etrog to the lulav and waved them in six directions, I might have felt more open to the experience and to imbuing it with my own meaning.

Integration is something for which I strive. In a popular culture that encourages us to act from our heads, not our hearts, that appeals to our material lusts rather than spiritual needs, and that treats the body as an entity distinct from mind and soul, it is very easy to disconnect from one's true self, to dis-integrate. I don't believe that is an exaggeration or overstatement - people can and do fall apart when they can no longer hear what their heart and soul are trying to telling them. Yoga is a means by which I am trying to link myself back together, to bring all the seemingly disparate pieces of myself into a coherent whole and to learn to act from a place that is located between my crotch and my clavicle, not above my neck. For decades I gave my head veto power over what the rest of me wanted to do, and it's about time that my decision making authority be transferred to a more appropriate place: my heart. But first I need to flex my heart muscles some more, because after years of being ignored it has atrophied somewhat and isn't always in a position to override my highly trained brain.

One of my main heart-head struggles has had to do with my level of observance of Judaism. My heart is increasingly inclined to observe the Sabbath in some fashion, not necessarily strictly adhering to Jewish law but also not doing things that explicitly violate the Sabbath, like working. Having had a retail business for the last few years which relied primarily on weekend, and especially Saturdays, for selling, I've found myself with a conundrum on my hands, especially with the holiday sales season approaching. In American culture, Saturday is a much busier shopping day than Sunday.

Yesterday I decided to do an event at my studio, but started it late enough so that I could attend Torah study at my synagogue and stay for the shacharit (morning) service, one of my favorites. But leaving synagogue mid-way through the morning felt unsatisfying, and the fact that I didn't open my studio until 12pm meant that fewer people came. Both experiences were compromised.

And I was somewhat bewildered, in an amused way, by the fact that I (presumably a single individual) had had such a diverse day yesterday, beginning with the study of the Book of Ecclesiastes ("Vanity of Vanities, All is Vanity!"), followed by the intense chanting of morning prayers, to the sale of my jewelry (in which I felt Ecclesiastes' sense of futility), to attendance at a highly frivolous event celebrating marshmallow Fluff, during which a college friend treated me to chocolate ice cream with Fluff, boosting my blood sugar levels to heights not recently experienced, and ending with an outing with a new friend to hear the band Sol y Canto, whose lead singer also attended my college, perform.

I got home close to midnight and all of us - the studier of Torah, the chanter of prayer, the businesswoman, the friend, the Fluff-lusting inner child and my Latina persona - went to bed.

Insecurity

At Sukkot services today, the man who gave the d'var Torah (a brief explanation of the weekly Torah portion) spoke of how we can interpret this holiday as being about insecurity and security. Sukkot celebrates the harvest, the gathering of food from the fields, actions that procure sustenance and security for the community. But we are also commanded to sit and dine in the sukkah, or booth, which has only three sides and only branches for a roof, exposing the occupants to the elements, to insecurity. And, most importantly, we are to be joyful!

So often in life we tell ourselves that we'll be happy or celebrate once we've found security, in whatever form we tell ourselves security exists....when we've completed a large project, receive a promotion or a new job, bought a house or found a place to live, or otherwise have our various ducks lined up in an impeccable row. Yet we can align our ducks perfectly, and even smooth their feathers and shine their beaks, only to have a great wind blow (or a hunter come along) and destroy some or all of our efforts. And if we weren't experiencing joy while attempting to arrange our circumstances to our liking, then when are we to experience it?

I am at a point in my existence where I am keenly, make that painfully, aware of my tendency to figuratively, and often literally, hold my breath and not be able to enjoy life in its current configuration. Yes, I can make decisions and choices and put things in motion, but how they turn out is not 100% up to me. Intellectually, I know that each day really is a cause for celebration - not necessarily in the form of a black tie party with a mariachi band - but a chance to feel good simply about being alive, or even some small aspects of being alive. Plenty of people I know no longer are.

And yet....it is difficult for me to rejoice in my highly imperfect life, despite a growing pile of evidence from my own experience that pleasant surprises or turn of events typically appear when I am not looking for or expecting them, when I have let go of whatever urgency I had attached to the particular outcome, when I have stopped being preoccupied. For a (recovering) Type A personality and skeptic, this lesson has been slow to percolate through my consciousness, which seems to be protected by a very thick layer of nearly impermeable ego.

At synagogue we all had a chance to wave (and shake) the lulav (palm branch) and etrog (citron) in all four directions as well as up in the air and down towards the earth. I couldn't help but remember Palm Sunday in Jerusalem, where I toured the Christian Quarter of the Old City and tried to surreptitiously snap pictures of monks of all denominations toting palm branches in what appeared to be an arcane ritual. Our guide told us that it was possible that Jesus had entered Jerusalem around sukkot, when Jews would have been parading around with their lulavim, and that later Christians might have appropriated this part of Jewish ritual to mark his arrival to the holy city.

Lulav and etrog in my hands, I was relieved that no snarky photographers were lurking in the corners of my synagogue, waiting to catch us in the act of praising God with objects that bear some resemblance to reproductive organs. I didn't quite connect to the ritual at the time, but perhaps I can retroactively attach meaning to my actions, a way of thanking God for all the reminders I've been given to be at ease and joyful, even when, or especially when, I don't know what is coming.

Hallelujah!

Irony

On Sunday, following the Yom Kippur retreat, I ate a quick brunch at Elat Chayyim and quickly said my goodbyes so I could get back to Brookline in time to attend a brit milah, ritual circumcision, of a friend's newborn boy. Back in August I had participated in a moving ceremony at the couple's home to prepare them for the arrival of their child.

The ritual circumciser, in this case, was a woman, or mohelet. Her duties included not only performing the cut but also leading the assembled well wishers in blessings and in saying a few words, words which I recognized immediately from my younger nephew's bris nearly five years ago.

The following is not the precise language used, but the boilerplate brit blessing goes something like, "May he enter into Torah, into marriage (l'chuppah - the wedding canopy), and into good deeds....." At my nephew's ceremony, the first I had ever attended, I felt that I was witness to a very powerful tribal ritual, one that evoked marvel and revulsion. It was a bit of a miracle that my younger brother had, despite a previously rocky relationship with Judaism, chosen to continue the ancient Jewish practice of the brit with his first born son. But I was taken aback by the fact that expectations of marriage were being publicly heaped on a helpless eight day old baby and that everyone thought that this was perfectly acceptable.

What if the child chooses not to marry, is homosexual (the implication in the ancient words is that the boy will marry a female), or otherwise finds that his path to fulfillment lies outside mainstream Jewish practice? For some children these blessings can turn into curses, expectations that cannot be or are not met, sending them running into the open arm(chair)s of therapists.

Our mohelet was simply doing her job, repeating the words and prayers that have been uttered for millennia, but I wonder if she was aware that this tiny boy's parents had not yet stood under the chuppah themselves?

Immersion, Idolatry

I spent Yom Kippur at Elat Chayyim, a Jewish spiritual retreat center in the Berkshires. But the sentence I just wrote is casually inaccurate. More precisely, Elat Chayyim is the only Jewish spiritual retreat center anywhere in the world, and it happens to be in the Berkshires. It used to be in the Catskills and moved a year ago to Connecticut, shaving an hour off of my round trip journey. My first visit to Elat Chayyim was in December 2003, about seven months after my father passed away. Lost and grieving, I went for a seven-day silent meditation retreat, hoping that something would shift as a result. It was a revelation that Jewish practice and contemporary spirituality could be married in such a meaningful, practical and profound way, creating my most authentic experience of prayer yet. Each year since I've returned two or three times to nurture my soul and refresh my spirit. In many ways, Elat Chayyim is home, a place where my heart dares to open.

Yom Kippur is the most solemn and sacred holiday of the Jewish calendar, one in which we don white clothes and refrain from wearing leather, eating, drinking and bathing, as if we are rehearsing our own deaths. It is a day I take seriously, preferring to spend most of it in prayer or silent contemplation, without engaging in superficial conversation or driving my car back and forth to a crowded synagogue. Elat Chayyim, which attracts spiritual seekers and those disgruntled with traditional high holiday services, is - for me - a wonderful place for such an immersive experience. The simple wood cabins, clean mountain air and inclusive atmosphere all conspire to help one focus inside and forget worldly cares.

Yom Kippur is also about release: releasing ourselves from vows or, in modern parlance, commitments that no longer serve us or that we can no longer honor in a healthy way, allowing us to begin the new year with a clean slate. It is also an opportunity to unburden ourselves of unproductive habits and emotions.

To facilitate this release, on the eve of Yom Kippur we immerse ourselves unclothed and unadorned in the mikveh, the ritual bath which, in the case of Elat Chayyim, is a beautiful pond surrounded by pine trees and hiking trails. The women's mikveh took place late Friday afternoon, a ritual that was presided over by Rabbi Jill Hammer, a young woman with a strong mind and a delicate build.

She asked that we pick a mikveh buddy, someone to whom we'd confide what our imminent immersion would release us from, someone who would witness our immersion. I don't remember the name of my partner, a middle-aged woman with short brown hair, but when I told her that I wanted my immersion to help release old anger, she mentioned that she'd just attended a seminar with an orthodox rabbi who likened persistent anger as a form of idolatry, a way of keeping oneself in the center of things, raised up on a pedestal.

Idolatry?!

From practically the day I started Hebrew school, as an eight year old, I learned that idol worship was, to put it mildly, a major no-no for our tribe. Taking a hunk of clay and crafting objects that represented other deities was a sure way to provoke God into a destructive frenzy. And if God didn't strike you down personally, a messenger would be sent to do His bidding. But today our idols are not statuary or pieces of pottery. In our materialistic and individualistic culture the idols are more elusive things like perfection, fame, power, peak experiences, wealth and other things which, if focused on excessively, can lead people away from God. The self can be an idol, too.

Idolatry!

I had not viewed my anger in such a stark and profoundly Jewish way before. I was at a loss for words.

And soon I was at a loss for air. It was time to get in the water which, Rabbi Hammer pointed out, was a solvent that would aid us in dissolving our inner schmutz but was also "teeming with life." The pond was a less than tempting shade of brown, and the area near the dock on which we stood, in various stages of undress, swarmed with plants and reeds.

Already naked, I was the second person to jump in. The rabbi went first.

The water at the bottom of the pond was warm and, had I been an amphibian, I would have just stayed right there, curled up in the comfortable current. But I had to come up in order to perform four immersions (one each for body, mind, heart and soul), and when I rose to the much colder surface I was out of breath, spitting out some muddy liquid that had managed to enter my mouth. I started to cough and, strangely, despite my experience as an open water swimmer, my anxiety rose. Perhaps the idea of truly leaving all of my anger in that pond made me more than a little nervous.

What if this ritual succeeded...then what? Would I recognize myself as a person without resentments and grudges?

I wanted to get out of the water and try again, to try to enter the pond in a less jarring and more deliberate way. But there was no going back. I was already naked, wet and shivering. To stay warm I tread water while awaiting further instructions from our rabbi, who was still encouraging the other women to get into the pond. When it was time, my partner observed my four immersions - for each I faced a new direction - and then I witnessed her quartet of dippings, through which she hoped to be able to just "let go" of things.

By this point my relaxed breathing was restored. The gently moving water caressed my bare skin and the late afternoon sun kissed my face as I skinnydipped with God.

It's Never Too Late

An article in today's New York Times, about a middle-aged woman in Sweden who reinvented herself as a bodybuilder, is inspiring me to create a category called "It's Never Too Late" for this blog. While I don't aspire to follow in her footsteps (or biceps or triceps) I do admire her courage to create a life for herself that she genuinely loves, even if the rest of this world hasn't embraced her choice.

More such stories to follow as I find or discover them. Feel free to bring such stories to my attention.