Jewish

God Strings

/ howardshapiro / 7 Comments

I was going to call this Two Weddings and a Funeral but it turns out that it is a South Korean Romcom about a gay man and a lesbian woman who marry to protect their secret lives in a society filled with taboos and judgement. I actually had my numbers wrong. I was thinking of “Four Weddings and a Funeral” the British comedy with Andy McDowell and Hugh Grant. The plot is predictable, the ending happy and the stars ever so young.

All of this is in my head because our summer is its own movie: two weddings, three graduations and one memorial celebration of life. All of them involve a plane or two and are forcing us to make both physical and digital folders for all the arrangements. Not complaining here at all. The first graduation (Jacob, your turn for a shout out) has just ended. And I was so aware as I watched the ceremonies all over the Duke campus, how blessed we are, living the Shehecheeyanu moment. (For those readers who are Hebrew challenged and find the word hard enough to read and almost impossible to pronounce: it translates ‘who has kept us alive’.)

We take that blessing so lightly. Maybe it’s the belief structure around it, praising/blessing God for being so personally interested in us, watching over us, preserving us, and allowing us to reach this moment. Maybe it’s the familiarity or the frequency. Jewish tradition invites us to say the blessing on so many occasions from a New Year to the first night of any holiday to new life events. For me I think it’s the theology: Does God need our blessings? Or do I need to bless. Meaning: I need to recognize the specialness, sanctity, uniqueness of the moment. Does God need our praise or do I need to stop and mark with gratitude and humility how lucky (read ‘blessed’) I am to be alive, aware, and sentient at this time.

I came back from the weekend and the next morning took a Yoga class. At the end of Savasana (the final resting pose in many Yoga classes), the instructor read a teaching about God and Oneness. It taught how many of us tend to think of God in dualistic terms. That there is God and there is us. God is up there or out there, and we are down here, separate from each other. But all that is illusion. There is only oneness. There is only “existence” and as we live in God so God lives in us. We are connected to each other, to the world, to the cosmos both inside and out. We may perceive moments and events as separate, but they flow into each other and out of each other as the waters in a bubbling stream.

All of this is my way of saying Shehecheeyanu again. Not just for the life events of this summer but for every moment. Our being is a gift. Life is a gift and gratitude is the foundational posture upon which a life of meaning stands. So, thank-you to our 3 graduates: Corey, Maya and Jacob. You remind me how sacred life can be. You remind me we are connected in ways astounding and holy. I think I will call them God Strings.

from the bottom up

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I feel so stupid starting off with a couple of stalks of flowers, when children are being killed in classrooms; the newest television series is produced by the January 6th committee; the rights of women to control their bodies seems to be eroding; there is a war in Europe and Ukrainians are dying for our freedom; and every day the cost of everything seems to be rising. I bought two ice cream cones yesterday at over $5.00 each. (Granted they were waffle cones, but they were classified as smalls.) And there is nothing complete about this list.

There is so much happening in our world it is hard to focus on the simple things that remind us that we are not the only living things that inhabit this orb that is steadily hurling through space in a predictable arc. I am looking at the last flowers of the Hollyhocks proudly blooming. They seem to bloom from the bottom up which by the way takes me right back to the politics of this fragile democracy we call America. It too blossoms and flourishes from the bottom up. My reading of American history is that the framers of our political system wanted our representatives to be responsive to us. They are not landed gentry; they are not noble men and women who are entitled to power based on their class. They are us and are supposed to be listening to us. When they don’t, America is precariously close to being broken.

I remember the wild hollyhocks from my youth when they would grow alongside the grey cement walls of the apartment building in Dorchester or maybe even the one we lived in before that in Roxbury. It’s a long time ago and almost the length of the Atlantic seashore away. I doubt if anyone planted them. In the world I remember no one had time to plant flowers. If you planted anything it was vegetables – most likely tomatoes – or am I confusing my Jewish upbringing with an idealized version of our Italian neighbors. And is all of this memory pieced together from the movies and stereotypes?

I didn’t plant these hollyhocks where they are growing now. When I bought them at a local nursery, they told me they would blossom every other year. So, I placed them near the house where I would remember to watch over them and patiently wait. But they had a mind of their own and somehow, they wound up happily flourishing near the tree halfway down the hill. I guess the world has a mind of its own; we probably should listen to it more often.

Upping the Ante

/ howardshapiro / 12 Comments

Last night was billed as one of the best nights to go out and see meteor showers in Western North Carolina. The moon was cooperating and fairly new; the clouds decided to remain on the edges; the air was cool, and I even put on a light sweatshirt. They said the show would be best after midnight and even better before dawn. But that time frame was not really realistic for me, so just after ten, I shut off all the lights in the house, took a flashlight and went out to the deck and lay down, my eyes scanning the sky.

I wish I had a camera that could have captured the moment. Well, not right away – it takes a while for your eyes to adjust to the darkness and begin to see what is really there, a universe so vast and awesome that I know these words are a feeble attempt to describe. The frogs were croaking down at the edge of the water; the cicadas were louder, buzzing and pitching a symphony of vibrations; the shadowed outline of the treetops politely framed my canvas and there I was alone yet a part of a whole I tried very hard to comprehend. The poetry of the Psalmist helped especially the question: “When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you fixed firm. What is man that you should note him and the human creature that you pay him heed…” (Psalm 8:4 – Robert Alter translation). Theology aside, the Biblical poet captured my feelings.

Who am I in the scheme of this vastness? Why am I here and where is here anyway? The Perseid meteor shower did not disappoint. At first, they were just like darts of light playing with my mind. They would appear and disappear in the space of an instant. But then God decided to up the ante and show me awe and amazement. It came from the northeast and shot across the night sky. Brighter and more intense than the stars in the background it was an arrow of light pointing to infinity. I use the word God as an anthology of thoughts and emotions – I have no pretense in believing that I know what the word means besides it points to a vastness of unlimited potential. Besides it pushes me to see the beauty and mystery of existence. Besides it offers me the opportunity to reflect on my place on this planet that is spinning through space and time surrounded by sparks of creation’s light. 

I wanted there to be more biggies – more arrows, more shooting streaks of light, more exclamation points but one is what I got. One is all I needed. One is all there is.

I CAN’T PUTT!

/ howardshapiro / 9 Comments

II played at golf yesterday at a beautiful course near Waynesville, NC. There were lots of streams, water hazards, elevations, and great views of the mountains. There were several holes on the back nine especially where you couldn’t see the green or the flag. But on one of the holes, I managed to get up to the edge of the green with an uncharacteristically good shot. I knew that as I started to walk up to my ball that all I needed was my putter. As I got closer, I heard myself complaining: “I can’t putt!”   “That should be the title of your next blog,” Jim announced. So, here we go. “I can’t putt” really meant that I misjudged the place where the ball landed. I can’t putt meant I was beating up on myself just a little. I can’t putt meant I was feeling stupid. Golf is good for that.

If the closest you come to liking golf is the soft velvety voices of the announcers narrating the golf matches on the weekends; their mellow tones a perfect sedative and almost always a guarantee for a good nap, then I thank you for reading this far. And this blog isn’t about golf or the things we can’t do. It is about humility and resolve; it is about being willing to fail before you succeed and enjoying the process because that is what life is. There’s no such thing as perfect.

There is almost. There is so much that is out of our control. Being human is living with limits. Not to get maudlin but we all have a hard end to our strivings. That limit looms over all we do even if we are not conscious of it at every minute. So we fill our days with things that we hope will make us healthier, happier, smarter, richer, more proficient, more more more. And we fill our lives with possessions that we think we need to live a rewarding life.

I can putt by the way. I just can’t putt perfectly and consistently. I think perfection and consistency are overrated. I think there are great lessons to be learned and a lot of laughter and joy to be discovered when the ball rims the cup. It sort of depends on your approach to the game. My religious or spiritual truth does not call me to flawlessness. It invites me to try, to strive, to struggle with whatever morning brings and start each day with gratitude that this life is overflowing with blessings.

But enough. I am feeling so privileged – like in White Privilege – but that’s a different blog. One day ……..

/ howardshapiro / 18 Comments

What You Can Learn When You Don’t Know Your Learning

Here’s one of my secret passions. I love America’s Got Talent. I’m not as faithful a fan as I could be. I usually watch it on Facebook. Someone posts a contestant’s presentation and I click the enlarge button and turn on my sound. After email and the newspaper (along with the mini crossword) FB is my third activity of the day. Not counting coffee.

This morning a woman who goes by the name “Nightbirde” inspired me. She sang a song she wrote called “Its OK”. It is touching and soft and gentle and affirming. Especially when you know the back story of her ongoing struggle with Cancer. While talking with Simon (you gotta know who Simon is) she just throws out this simple, profound and challenging line. “You can’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore to decide to be happy.”

“Wow”, Simon says on AGT. Wow I echo from behind my screen. I don’t know how she (Jane) knows this or heard this but there is so much to unpack in these amazing words that it doesn’t matter what their origin. I am tempted to parse it phrase by phrase, like Rashi does Torah. But you get it. There is less in our control than we like; there is more in our control than we can imagine.

Maybe it isn’t true in all stages of life, but it is now. Don’t wait until life isn’t hard. Just living is hard; just staying healthy is hard. Just accepting that this is what’s real and this is what I have right now is hard. And I can lift it up or let it pull me down but sometimes, too many times, I can’t change it.

Don’t wait to decide to be happy. To decide to be happy. Whether it’s a struggle or comes easily and naturally happiness is a decision. Not always a simple one and sometimes we need help to make that decision. Help like love. Help like people we care about and who care about us. Help that comes in the form of chemicals. Help that comes in dreams or prayers or words like God, family, friends, tomorrow, sunshine. Even golf and garden.

It’s been a long time since I posted anything on this blog.I often think about why. And sometimes I start to write but a voice inside says it isn’t quite good enough. I guess Nightbirde spoke to me in ways that transcended the RAM and CPU that make up the guts of this machine on my lap. Don’t wait. So It’s not perfect.

And Then There Was Darkness

/ howardshapiro / 22 Comments

(I wrote this yesterday as a meditation before lighting the lights of Shabbat and I read it at Temple Israel last night. Eileen said I should post it on my blog. It is always good to listen to Eileen.)

And then there was darkness. Banners waving; Flags burnished; T-shirts announcing they came to destroy our democracy.

They came on foot and they came with the urging of a man we are ashamed to call President. They came marching and chanting and they mounted the steps and they climbed the walls and they breached the fence. The barricades of decency destroyed.

And then there was darkness. The domed sanctuary to our freedom defiled by their anger, their hate, their venom poisoning the electoral process. Their truth the lies of a political expediency.

They came marching and chanting. And they broke the police lines and they shattered the sacred halls of liberty and they leered into their cameras calling themselves Patriots.

And then there was darkness.. And slowly reinforcements arrived. And belatedly the National Guard was called up. And step by step and bit by bit they were gently

Too gently

Pushed back and the mob dissipated into the night where they find a comfortable refuge. And the darkness became light. And the House of the People went back to do its work. The darkness became light when in the earliest of hours a glimmer of hope as a new President and Vice President were certified, announced, anointed.

Liberty was proclaimed throughout this broken land and we began to breathe again. Slowly and filled with worry but breathing. Astonished and full of questions and concerns, but breathing, heartbroken and might I say: angry.

But the darkness became light.

With this as our prayer, with this as our hope this glimmer, this spark, this turn toward the moon and the sun let us say these familiar words finding in them comfort and strength.

Let us kindle these holy flames and with them let us welcome Shabbat.

May its radiance illumine our hearts.

The Grass Needs Cutting

/ howardshapiro / 24 Comments

This is a story I am not sure I should tell. I have such mixed emotions about it. But it happened and is true and is probably a sense of our country right now and it happened to me this week.

We have a vacation home in Western North Carolina. Along with its beauty and respite comes responsibility and burden. (Burden is probably too heavy a word, but I liked the symmetry of the words.) Background information: Our place is basically in the woods: lots of trees and underbrush and mountain laurel and wild rhododendrons. Not a lot of grass or flower beds or garden but enough that we need someone to care for it especially when we aren’t here. The gardener stopped coming – no formal “quitting” – just doesn’t show up anymore and phone calls do not change the outcome.

We need a new landscape company. This is the story of the search. The Landscaper who came was on time and on the right day and I was immediately impressed. More came after I opened the door to go out and talk with him when he greeted me with “Baruch HaShem” (Blessed be God’s Name) in Hebrew. I figured it was the mezuzah on the doorpost. I said: “You’re kidding me.” To which he responded, “Shalom and ‘Elohim’”. I let that sit and started to talk about bushes and weeds. He asked me if I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I then figured it out and said: “Absolutely not! And we should probably agree to continue with how often does the grass need cutting.” (He belongs to a Messianic Congregation.)

A week later he was back to present me with the details of his proposal. I asked him if he would please put on his mask since we were outside, but kind of getting too close together. He echoed my words from the week before: “Absolutely not. I don’t believe in them. I believe the virus is real, but the media is exaggerating how contagious it is.” I was stunned into silence. Finally, I said – “You need to give me a moment.” My mind went racing. Do I impose my beliefs on him? Is the fact that he has a different (false and dangerous) view of reality my issue? Can’t I just let him cut the ***** grass and call it a day?  I don’t know how long it took me to say the words: “I’m sorry this is a deal breaker and we can’t work together.”

As he left, I noticed the two big Trump bumper stickers on his car. To this moment, I don’t know if I was right. I know the incident plays like a serial in my mind. I know that it is symptomatic of how polarized we are. I know that we need to make this better. I know as a country and community of Americans we need to begin the process of healing. Vote!

Memories & A Little Light

/ howardshapiro / 15 Comments

The Yahrzeit candle is burning on the kitchen counter. It is the only light in the room on this pre-dawn morning. I remember when these candles of memory were taller and wider, and my Aunt Molly used to save them for drinking glasses. Aunt Molly was the queen of candles. She experienced many losses in her life and on Yom Kippur there was a tray full of these flickering lights, each one lit with a tear and a sigh. Her greatest loss was her daughter Barbara, who according to family legend, died on the operating table having an appendectomy when the hospital lost power during the 1938 Hurricane. (Hurricanes weren’t named until 1950).

We don’t grieve like Aunt Molly anymore. (Although in the Australian series, “A Place To Call Home”, that Eileen and I are addicted to Sarah lies down on her husband’s grave to talk and connect with him.) As a kid, visiting my grandparents’ graves with Aunt Molly I remember how they used to have to hold her up as she went to throw herself down wailing, “my Barbara”.

Morning has broken (I know: “like the first morning…”). The candle on the counter still flickers and the memory of my mother-in-law hovers to be inscribed and internalized in our goings and comings. Bea wasn’t a great sleeper, and neither was I. After we met at the refrigerator door in the middle of the night, she learned to wear a bathrobe as she came from her bedroom. We got to know each other there: she with her cornflakes, me with whatever I could scrounge. She was her Hebrew name: B’rachah – meaning blessing.

I am not sure what I think these compact candles do. The author of Proverbs said that “the human soul is the light (Hebrew: candle) of God.” I don’t know what that meant back then. I am not sure I know what it means now. I do know that last night when we lit the candle, Eileen brought her mother up to date with the goings and comings of the family.  She told her “I wish you could have lived longer to see the beauty and the joy of the last 30 years.” There is nothing terribly rational about that but there is everything that is true on so many levels. Life is about memories and we strive to make them sweet and meaningful. It’s been a tough few months to do that. And so my candle whispers:

To making new and better memories in the New Year: Shana Tovah

“Morning has broken

Like the first morning;

Blackbird has spoken

Like the first bird.

Praise for the singing

Praise for the morning

Praise for them springing fresh from the word.”

(Cat Stevens)

To making new memories in the New Year: Shana Tovah

Lessons from a Waning Moon

/ howardshapiro / 17 Comments

I woke early this morning, technically it was morning but my body and the world outside my windows said it was still the middle of the night. I did everything I knew how to fall back asleep, but nothing worked and here I am in the office reading the newest Dan Silva book, “The Order”. It is too good to help me fall back asleep as Gabriel Allon eats in wonderful cafes and hunts down those who would destroy the world we know.

And then it was dawn. I didn’t even know it till I looked up and saw what you see. There is the tiniest sliver of an ancient moon peeking through the night sky. I said, OMG, it must be Elul – the month of preparation before the New Year. But I was wrong. It wasn’t the beginning of a new month, but the end of an old. The Hebrew month of Av was waning, and the moon was kissing it goodbye.

I know that reads like poor poetry and I apologize. But I need to somehow make sense of what is happening to us all. When Elul comes in just a few days, I know that nothing will change. We will still be social distancing; we will still be counting our afflicted and our dead. The pandemic of 2020 will still be with us. We will still be struggling with how we stay safe; how we keep our family safe. And too many of us: how can I pay the rent; buy food; get a paycheck.

And our elected representatives play Nero’s violin. And Rome burns. And we are victims of an almost criminal neglect for our county’s safety and well-being. And I despair. Then I remember Elul is coming. There will be a new moon. There will be a glimmer of hope. It’s not just the turning of the earth and night becoming day. I am genuinely psyched by the addition of Harris to the Biden ticket. Naïve? Perhaps. But my Judaism teaches change can happen. We are obligated to make it happen and we need to know it begins with us.

The silver of the moon is gone, caught by the rising sun. But it will return along with sanity at least I hope it so; I pray it so.

There is a Painting

/ howardshapiro / 18 Comments

There’s a painting in our office in the new apartment we are still finishing in the high rise building near the mall in the city where we rented our first apartment when we came here what now feels like a long time ago and it was. It is a gaggle of men studying. I started to say a group of Rabbis but why do I assume only Rabbis study. I guess you could ask why only men but that’s a different discussion. They sit pretty close to each other, breathing disagreements and questions on each other’s faces. Things we notice now.

I replaced the glass and the matt after the glass cracked in our move. It’s been with us ever since I was a student Rabbi in Vicksburg, Mississippi in 1965-66, a gift from the congregation after my one-year internship with them. They were incredibly warm, gracious and proud Jews of the South and put up with this naïve and inexperienced young Yankee from Boston. The congregation had been founded officially in 1865. But Jews have been living in Vicksburg for almost 200 years.

 It is a Zvi Raphaeli Litho. (Whatever that adds to this story. But in Jewish tradition it is imperative to quote your sources and name your teachers.) And they teach, these lines of color, strokes from a paint brush of the artist’s creativity. They teach about time and Torah; they teach about nostalgia and memory; they teach about an eternal quest to make sense of this life we have been gifted. One man is sleeping, maybe just a quick nap. Or maybe it is the Rabbi and they learn more from his silence than his words. I know about silence. Sometimes it is distant and cold, angry and bitter. Sometimes it is reflective and soft, harmonized compassion. Sometimes it is wise. I try to remember that simply refraining from speech opens up the moment to unforeseen potential. Speech is populated with words I already knew; silence celebrates that there is more to learn from each other.

My men are not silent. They are arguing about tomorrow. What will be its shape and how will we rise from this table piled with ancient tomes?  I would recommend to them The NYTimes article “No One Knows What’s Going To Happen” (Mark Lilla) as a worthwhile antidote to the hints they scour in the texts before them. In a way it is an echo of what happens when you are willing to live with the silence. Everything we say about tomorrow is a guess. Some guesses are more educated than others, but our predictions depend on so many variables including will my scholars in the portrait wear a mask when they leave the House of Study. Including will my scholars pray with their deeds and not just their words.

There is a very hard lesson to be internalized here. “Human beings want to feel they are on a power walk into the future, when in fact we are always just tapping our canes on the pavement in the fog. A dose of humility would do us good in the present moment. It might also help reconcile us to the radical uncertainty in which we are always living.” (NYT: Lilla. 5/24)

Scary this uncertainty. But if we are honest, we were never in control. We just lived as if we were. It was way more comfortable and settling. This stuff is tough but you all know that and didn’t have to read this far to hear me say it. But back to my scholars. I think what got them through is they had each other. If nothing else that was a constant worthy of emulating.

Starting Again

/ howardshapiro / 12 Comments

I got an email this morning from my college roommate and longtime friend who said: “Time for you to get back to your blog.” (You reading this Larry?) So, its Friday morning; the house is still quiet; I’ve finished my second cup of coffee; The TV is in the other room and the news can wait as I consider his “advice” to find my way back to you.

I don’t have a good reason I’m willing to share as to why I have stopped writing for these many months. So I’ll just start again by introducing to those of you not familiar with it this big initiative called “Daf Yomi”. On MyJewishLearning.com these are the words of introduction:

“Are you interested in joining the world’s largest book club?

Daf yomi (pronounced dahf YOH-mee)  is an international program to read the entire Babylonian Talmud — the main text of rabbinic Judaism — in seven and a half years at the rate of one page a day. Tens of thousands of Jews study daf yomi worldwide, and they are all quite literally on the same page — following a schedule fixed in 1923 in Poland by Rabbi Meir Shapiro, the founder of daf yomi, who envisioned the whole world as a vast Talmudic classroom connected by a global network of conversational threads.”

I’m participating mostly through the My Jewish learning emails I get every day because it is concise, relevant and interesting. Sometimes I head over to Sefaria.org to read the actual text and get enticed to get lost in the minds of the Rabbis who probably were somewhat A.D.D. since they rarely stay on topic and wander associatively rather that literally. But this morning the topic was prayer – yea I bet you are saying what else would the Rabbis talk about – well – stick around – you could be very surprised.

Back to two thousand years ago and the Rabbis discussion of what happens if you have prayed your daily prayers already but find yourself in a congregational setting and they have not begun their prayer practice yet. Rav Shumuel says: “If they (you) can innovate within [the prayer] in some way, then they should go and pray again, but if not, they should not pray again.” In my words: Try to find something new in everything you do. To stick with Rav Shmuel and the setting way back in Babylonia, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to change the prayers you say but if you can’t find a way to let them speak to you differently then maybe you should step this one out.

And this isn’t just about prayer. It’s about the way we approach many of life’s disciplines, from the stuff we do in the gym to the way we express our feelings, to the books we read, the work we do, the writing of this blog. So I’m back trying to renew myself and these words and looking to connect to all of you.

PS – Daf Yomi began again on January 5th, 2020. I know there is a lot of stuff in your inbox but just for the sake of expanding your horizons – check it out. It is never too late to start again. Here are some accessible Daf Yomi websites.

https://www.tabletmag.com/tag/daf-yomi

https://www.sefaria.org/daf-yomi

https://www.dafyomi4women.org/daf/

9 Things to Know About the Daf Yomi (Daily Page of Talmud)

Let The Light ShineThrough

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I spoke about Pope Francis on Yom Kippur morning at Temple Israel. His style of leadership was the unifying scaffolding upon which I built my sermon for this most holy of holy days in the Jewish calendar. I was able to tie in Jonah (the book not Hill) and the theme of reflection and self-assessment that is at the heart of this Day of Atonement. The Pope’s visit and his popularity became the refrain for me to ask one of the Day’s fundamental questions: when all is said and all is done how we would like to be remembered.

Now the Pope’s visit is history.   He is back in Rome and CNN can return to its regular programming.  I am not an expert in Catholic doctrine or ritual but this is what I learned from him as a Rabbi and as a plain old ordinary Jew and a plain old ordinary human being.

I learned that there are no plain old ordinary human beings. Whether it was planned or orchestrated or not, it doesn’t matter. Every time he stopped his motorcade and picked up a baby or walked over to a young boy with disabilities or met with people incarcerated for terrible crimes, he underscored a fundamental religious value that at the core we are souls precious and unique, created in the image of God.   And don’t let God language get in your way of understanding that. It is a message that celebrates our humanity and our shared responsibility to one another. It is the sacred voice of collective wisdom speaking: we are kin and we share one small planet in a seemingly cold, vast, infinite universe. Let’s take care of it and each other.

This is what I learned as a Jew. This is not my grandparents’ Catholic Church. It is still a huge and wealthy institution that loves its ritual, its incense, its symbolic gestures and its mystery. But at least under Francis’ leadership, there are conscious cracks and openings for the message that a Jewish Jesus taught as an itinerant Rabbi/Sage/Prophet/Story teller and parable maker in and around Galilee and Jerusalem. And this is what I admired. The message of forgiveness, love and acceptance is real and it is to be acted upon and lived when you sit in your house, when you walk on the way, when you lie down and when your rise up.

This is the challenge to me as a Rabbi (and you can substitute minister or priest and lots of other professions, not just religious).  You cannot let the institution or other people’s expectations define you. The weight of all our traditions can force you into a mold that is at the same time comfortable and confining. Maybe I am reading into it, but I think you could see how heavy the past was in just the way Pope Francis walked: slowly, deliberately and balancing the miter on his head. And yet, he always walked forward, deliberately so. And he always seemed to let his inner light shine through. And he always seemed to be his own person – what a gift to us all.