1019. #BlogElul 29: Return

I know I'm skipping ahead—I still have to finish 25 through 28 (all begun, or at least considered!). But since I've actually written and posted more of these this year than ever before, I want to officially conclude, for now, with the last one. The other four will appear before Yom Kippur, a fine time to continue to be circumspect. As Pirkei Avot says, starting the task is the most important part.

By #BloggingElul, I've fulfilled my goal of returning to writing after some time away. I stopped blogging because other creative pursuits took up too much of that kind of energy, and they will continue to do so. But I'm glad to have proven to myself that I didn't forget how to string words together, and still have a great deal to say. A metaphor for my life, in general: I need to to not be timid or afraid to use my voice. Oh my goodness, that lesson applies to so many different thing right now.

Whomever may be reading this, I wish you and the entire Internet a good, sweet, happy, and healthy year ahead. May our our country return to some semblance of sanity very soon, and may the world be filled with peace even sooner.

1011. #BlogElul 21: Love

My Hebrew name, I was always told, is Ahuva, "beloved." I love my Hebrew name even more than my somewhat archaic English one, which I'm fine with now but was an uncool burden as a kid. Ahuva begins with the same letter, aleph, as my grandfather's Hebrew name, Asher; there's no one better after whom to be named. I grew up hearing so many stories about him that sometimes he seemed to be just hiding around the corner, waiting for the right moment to jump out and say hello. No one ever uttered a bad word about Pops; he was kind, sweet, smart, and ethical, the one you'd always go to for advice and a smile. "Asher" means "happy," and in photos his face is gentle and welcoming, and (within the technological constraints of the era, when you had to sit as still as a stone) clearly, calmly joyful.

But last week I finally had time to looked at a CD of photos and scanned documents from my father's side of the family, painstakingly compiled by a relative. Included were images of yellowed, creased pieces of paper with family records in both my parents' handwriting. I found my paternal grandparents' yahrzeits, the dates they died, which I had never before known. And on another was the record of my birth, with the date and my name written in careful caps in my mother's distinctive slanted hand. Above it was my Hebrew name, in my father's scrawl. But, wait: there were 2 names, Ahuva Rahel, in both Hebrew and English. Rahel? Who?

No one ever told me I  had a Hebrew middle name. I stared at it, and read it over and over. I vaguely recalled my mother telling me I was almost named Rachel, and getting a little angry at the time that I was denied such a beautiful name. Maybe this was a compromise? I don't know of any past Rachels among my ancestors, but there are few existing records on either side. My father's grandmother, perhaps?

So my Hebrew name is now bigger and better than ever before, and I will be using it whenever I'm lucky enough to be called to the Torah for an aliyah. (I consulted with my rabbi, who agreed that this discovery is quite legit.) What better time of year to stumble upon such a bounty? I think it means that my task ahead is to try to understand this unexpected gift, this cryptic dispatch from my parents' souls, and live the life that Rachel z"l (zikhroná liv'rakhá, may her memory be for a blessing,) as well as my grandfather z'l, might want me to lead.

991. #BlogElul 2: Search

During 2016, also know as the Year of Having To Get Rid Of Lots of Stuff Very Quickly That I Did Not Want To Get Rid Of, I went through the following stages—not so different from the stages of grief:

1. Denial. In a week or two I'll calmly remove everything I own from these plastic bags, no worries. How 'bout those Mets?

2. Guilt. This is the universe paying me back for never finishing cleaning out my closets. I deserve it.

3. Anger & Bargaining. Why can other people live their entire lives as disgusting hoarders, but I—owner of a completely average amount of stuff—get forced into a state of extreme Marie Kondo? I am really tired of examining every piece of lint stuck to every scarf. Hey, God, if you stop treating me like Pharaoh I swear to be good In every way, forever and ever. Really truly.

4. Depression. Maybe no one will notice if I crawl into one of these extra-large garbage bags.

5. Reconstruction. This wall looks kind of cool in bright blue. 

6. Acceptance. I miss my stuff, but it's nice to have more space—physically and emotionally. I have so few possessions now that I won't have to search for anything ever again. Vacuuming is a snap, since there's nothing left to clean.

974. Happy 2014, and here I am again

It sure has been a long time, well over a year. I'm still here, and doing fine. I've been very busy with a new business on top of my old business; both are fun and complicated, and take up too much time. Not a whole lot of creative juice has been left over for writing, though, which has been OK; the new stuff has mostly filled that need, and more.

But I'm still trying to make sense of one of those bullet points from way back at the end of '12:

• ended a long friendship that had become toxic; as sad as a death, and I will be mourning this loss for a long time

Mostly, in my experience, time really does heal all wounds, but not always. Sometimes time creates scars weaker and far uglier than the original thin skin. It's taken me over a year to understand that there will be no closure to this particular pain and I need to learn to live with it, move past it, and change its story into one of comfort and compassion. I need to stop imagining that the clock will magically turn back and all will be well. I've tried to heal in many different ways; maybe reviving this blog and watching myself think in public, so to speak, will help.

Aside from all that: yes, I continue to chant and sing! And I'm still thinking about how the meaning of all those words and notes (and, in my art, their shapes and colors) fits into the larger story of Torah and life. Maybe I'll write about that, or maybe not. Either way, I hope to again be able to make time and space to write something, anything, every once in awhile.

896. Prayer

Here's another interesting link I've been meaning to post since October:

Why Jews Pray

Why does anyone pray? asks Rabbi Ben Greenberg, the author of the article:

"... Prayer is arguably the most fundamental, intimate, and unique element of a life of faith. ... Prayer is the vehicle by which sages of any religion put to words their deepest hopes and visions for all of humanity. "

There is, of course, a rabbinic debate as to why Jews in particular do this:

"... On the one hand, as expressed by Maimonides, praying daily is of fundamental importance. One can speculate a myriad of reasons why this would be so. On the other hand, however, prayer is only necessary when the community is faced with a tremendous difficulty and needs to turn to God and cry out for help in that very moment."

Heschel says it best (from Man in Search of God):

"As a tree is torn from the soil, as a river is separated from its source, the human soul wanes when detached from what is greater than itself. Without the holy, the good turns chaotic; without the good, beauty becomes accidental. ... Unless we aspire to the utmost, we shrink to inferiority. ...

Prayer is our attachment to the utmost."

"These goals are so awesome in scope," concludes Greenberg, "so radical in what they propose, that any adherent to Judaism could easily be left paralyzed into inaction at just pondering the aims of their faith."

I agree—prayer can seem like an overwhelming task. Not even he greatest sages of our tradition could agree on why we do it and Heschel's answer, although brilliant and true, lacks instructions. I think prayer is like Justice Potter Stewart's definition of pornography: you know it when you see it (or feel it in your bones or soul). But how exactly does reciting words over and over change into a connection to something great and undefinable?

The first time I really prayed accompanied a moment of great understanding. I'm not sure what came first, the praying or the opening of the door, but do know that I've had few, if any, grand revelations since then. Yet I'm still able to jump into that stream of prayer, the feeling of touching something like the root of a tree or the reason behind beauty. I've never surfed, but imagine that watching the approach of a wave and then diving in and flying above it must not be all that different from prayer. I leave the shore, the dry sand of ordinary life, and climb up until I reach the crest of something nourishing and endless like water. As with any kind of exertion, I need to warm up first; it's easier when I'm with others who have the same purpose. The familiar sounds of the prayers—not their meaning, but the repetitive rhythm and music of the words—give me energy to swim out to sea.

I pray, I jump into that water not knowing what awaits, because I'm afraid I'll die of thirst without it. Prayer is now essential in my life; I can't imagine feeling safe and at home in the universe without those moments of pause and connection.

Maybe prayer is just mediation, learning how to tune out noise and focus on what's essential. But I think that's God, too—what remains after everything else is gone.

878. Drawers

When my mother was young, she volunteered at a local hospital and grew close to a man who was seriously ill with a grim prognosis, but always in great spirits. How do you stay so positive? my mother asked him. What do you think about when you're lying in bed, unable to move, cut off from everything that gave you pleasure?

The places, people, and events of my life are like a series of drawers, he answered. Every day I open a new drawer, look inside, and enjoy the contents. Some are good, some bad, but I open them just the same. Then I close and save them for another time.

My mother told this story often, and kept a photo of the man in one of our family albums—thin, pale, with a goofy smile, propped up in bed surrounded by an army of nurses and volunteers. I got that it was an important lesson to learn, but never understood why. Was it about not forgetting? Or more like havdalah—separation—appreciating each thing on its own, in its time?

Last week I decided to paint, which used to take up countless hours but fell by the wayside years ago for many different reasons. I dove in, after some fits and starts; it felt great, although was a bit of a struggle. But soon I could sense my brain responding in old, familiar ways, a tether between eyes and hands that had fallen slack since college. Even the light and air around me began to look like it did decades ago, an odd déjà vu. Had nothing really changed since then? I wondered. For a moment it was incredibly depressing—I didn't want to feel the same. I'm a very different person now.

But then I looked at what I painted and saw pieces of other images that came from different drawers. I chose one color because I chant Torah; the curved line was a relationship that ended in my 30s. White space at the top: walking alongside El Malecón, Cuba, 2002. The sensations of painting were the same as always, but my brush automatically outlined snapshots of a life I had not yet lived when I was 22. I finally understood that the drawers don't have to open one at a time; it doesn't even matter if you misfile and mingle the socks with the T-shirts. The best creative jolt comes from allowing yourself to open each, good and bad, and savor what's inside.

704. Rest in peace, Clay S. Felker

The cover story in this week's New York is about the magazine's recently deceased founding editor, Clay S. Felker. New York magazine, oddly, was one of the longer-lasting and more stable presences in my childhood. We were a middle-class Queens family with no nightlife whatsoever; a typical Saturday evening consisted of sitting in front of the TV from the beginning of "All in the Family " straight through to "The Carol Burnett Show," capped off daringly by a dish of chocolate ice cream. Wild times involved window shopping at Alexander's on Main St. New York's world of "radical chic," and the best place to buy sushi or get a $600 haircut, or even a cheap, chic haircut, held only anthropological relevance to my mother and I—but the world in its pages was still our New York, even if we were mostly observers. The New Yorker, we silently agreed, was wordy and snooty; might as well just read a book. New York, on the other hand, although annoying and a little trashy in a high-class, aspirational sort of way, felt like the city I met on the subway. I snickered at the ludicrous self-involvement of everyone mentioned in its pages while also feeling simultaneously of, below, and above them, an odd mixture that kept me hooked.

We never actually bought the magazine. It came to us second-hand from my Uncle Ben and Aunt Estelle, my mother's brother and his wife, who used to hang out at Latin-inflected nightclubs and were now retired to a Forest Hills apartment filled with naked Delft cherubs and plastic-slipcovered, gold brocade sofas. But they were once the real thing. Ben, reserved and gravel-voiced, very unlike my other loud, garrulous uncles, made a lot of money as a whiskey importer (and, rumor had it, bootlegger), and personally knew the mayor of Dublin. On weekends my mother worked as his secretary and typed letters about labels and cartons, sandwiched between many sheets of carbon paper, on an old Underwood. Estelle had more wrinkles than any other person on Earth, wore too much lipstick, and regarded children as aliens from outer space—but I grudgingly decided I loved her when she had a piano shipped to me as a 6th birthday present. My mother was much like her eldest brother, quiet but harboring a daring side that mostly remained hidden, but not always. Maybe she read New York to be more like Ben.

The magazines accumulated on a aluminum tray table next to the refrigerator, to be read while eating dinner at the kitchen table. They held little interest for me until one day, at the age of 15, I noticed this headline staring up from the top of the pile:

The "Me" Decade and the Third Great Awakening
by Tom Wolfe

Perhaps it was the bold (for its time) typography—in my first year at the High School of Music and Art, I was newly intoxicated by calligraphy and letterforms—or the funny photo of all those narcissists in T-shirts, or simply a concept I understood immediately, but had never labeled—but I remember the moment I saw that cover and a little spark lit in my brain, as if that instant nudged me closer to becoming a legitimate urban adult. I soon followed up with Andy Warhol, Philip K. Dick, and many others I didn't understand but had to explore just the same. I was still an un-cool teenager from Queens, but New York magazine opened a door. After Ben and Estelle died, my mother got her own subscription; after my mother died, I transferred it to my name, and remain a faithful reader. I still can't afford to eat at Per Se but, thanks to New York, feel like the voyeuristic but beloved cousin of those who do. Rest in peace, Clay S. Felker.

639. Hidden and revealed

Last night I dreamed I was standing on the shore of an ocean, but the waves lapping up were made of people rather than water. I watched a brightly-colored stew of bodies wriggling back and forth in a most friendly and amusing fashion, teasing at my feet and inviting me to jump in and swim.

I really wanted to—the sun was big and yellow, and my bare feet burned in the sand—but as much as I imagined the joy of diving into that cool sea of faces, I was afraid I’d disappear and become anonymous, lost in the crowd. That I would never again be noticed.

I woke up and thought of this blog. I enjoy the freedom and safety of revealing myself while also hidden, but sometimes wonder how I might feel if more public with my observations. But I am not yet ready to dive into all those people, nice as I know they will be. I still need to remain apart, if only to keep my identity, which I am still figuring out even after all these years, safe within my own mind. Maybe I'm tentative because I know freedom quite well--I open so much of myself when I sing and pray--and it is both exhilarating and frightening.

The tension between being hidden and revealed is a very Jewish one. I was reminded of the Mishkan (tabernacle) that we've been reading about for the last few parshiot. Its beautiful adornments--golden poles, bells and pomegranates, priests in glorious linens and jeweled breastplates--are visible to all, but the most holy part, the Kodesh Hakodashim, is hidden from sight. The Aron, the Ark, that houses Torah scrolls at a synagogue, is also veiled with a curtain until the moment its words are uttered to the congregation. The truest parts of our stories and ourselves resist being revealed, and also need to be protected.

(I write this at the JTS Library, which I finally summoned the chutzpah to enter. It's very quiet, save for the hum of an air conditioner and click of neighboring keyboards. I'm sitting in an easy chair by a big window, looking past tall apartment buildings to a sliver of Harlem in the distance. What is everyone in those homes doing on this calm Sunday, I wonder? This is far, far better than Starbucks. If ever I decide to write a book I would do it here, in the company of thousands of years of Jewish wisdom.)

597. Knowing, part 2

(Continued from here.)

For me, I think singing in the context of prayer is a key to this deeper kind of knowledge. Unlike the model of Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin, where you learn and learn and continue to ascend, I reached this place reluctantly and unexpectedly. After years in a cappella groups, I was sure I had all the tools to coast along at the top of my circle of amateurs--and also that I lacked the emotional engagement to go any further. A teacher had told me so, had voiced my secret fear.

I was a snob when I first heard the music at my synagogue. Where were the glorious chord changes and complicated harmonies? It was pretty but just melody, boring and unsophisticated. Even when I began to study leyning, I was dismayed by the lack of Western musical notation. Learning by ear was for people who didn't know any better.

But a funny thing happened: chanting Torah turned out to be challenging and exhilarating, and felt completely natural--as if all my singing about lovelorn Italian peasants and, yes, Jesus' resurrection was just practice for a few minutes of holding a yad with shaky grip. I was even OK with the idea of people hearing my voice, after years of being sure my sound was the worst in any group of musicians. It probably was, because I didn't believe what I was singing. Now I did, which changed everything: I had a reason to sing, which led me to da'at, deeper awareness, and a reason for being Jewish and living a life in which I tried to make the world a better place. Not that I didn't want to do this before--I just didn't know why, so got lazy. I lived for myself alone.

R. Berlin compared knowledge to reaching a pinnacle. But my experience was more horizontal than vertical; I hadn't been climbing, but rather coasting along until I bumped into an open door. I think we tend to see life as a journey upwards: achieve! acquire more stuff! go beyond! But if we truly believe God is everywhere, we shouldn't have to scale a mountain in order to get closer. The angels on the ladder in Jacob's dream went down as well as up; the story was about movement, not ascending and staying. The key to being able to sing with all my heart did not come as a result of years of practice, of going higher and getting better, but rather by taking steps backwards and sideways. I think God likes those dances.

I worry, sometimes, that I will step in a different direction and find myself in a doorway that leads out. Faith arrived so suddenly that I'm afraid it might leave. I can't imagine it will, but I never thought I'd be writing any of these words, either.

Two years ago I wrote a d'var Torah on Parashat Tetzaveh, and next month will chant the very section of dizzying detail that so baffled me before. I know that practicing and singing will bring me to a new understanding, which will probably change entirely if I chant it again next year. Turn it around and around, for everything is in it (Bamidbar Rabba 13:15). But you can't dance around your partner while you're trying to leap over his head.

538. Back to reality

In case anyone's wondering: I haven't disappeared.

I've had a hard time getting back to reality. The month of September was overwhelming, and ended with a big neon sign instructing me to start--something. But over the last two weeks I feel like I've resumed rather than begun afresh, and am not sure that's what the universe intended. (What, me second-guess fate? Never; but if life is a door, which it is, I think someone is knocking, almost too softly to hear.) Maybe I'm already doing whatever it is; I just need to give it a name. Perhaps it's about learning, or art, or relationships, or running in the park every morning. I don't know. On Shabbat the rabbi spoke about Abraham having the right tools to change the ordinary path of his life into an event of awareness. Until you understand how to see them, discoveries remain hidden in the bushes.

One of my weed-whackers or lawnmowers of the moment is a wonderful Biblical Hebrew class (suburban metaphors are not my strong suit, sorry); a symphony of practical arcana, we spent an hour and a half on the dagesh alone (the little dot inside letters). More about that, and the ending of my Simhat Torah story, when I'm more awake.

526. Learning (once again)

Interrupting Rosh Hashanah, 5768 to re-post some words from 2005. This morning I followed a link that led me here:

Scribbit's September Write-Away Contest

sponsored by Michelle Mitchell, author of a wonderful blog about life as a mom in Alaska. The theme for this month was "learning." I've been kind of obsessed with the topic all week long, so figured I should enter. I realized, after services last week, that I manage to learn something new from the rabbis at my synagogue even when they don't say a word--even from their gentle, generous body language at the bima, from their very breaths. Teaching seems to emanate from their every pore. In honor of this astouding gift, an old post about how the memory of another teacher led me to a different kind of awareness:

(Original post here: http://onchanting.blogspot.com/2005/06/91-leaf-from-tree.html)

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Friday, June 03, 2005
91. A leaf from a tree

I had never wanted to thank so much as in that moment. It was frightening, this joyful, painful need; it didn't feel like myself. One minute I was here and then higher, dizzy, drinking in something very good, just like when I sung the B Minor Mass.

I didn't understand math when I was a kid. Then I got to high school, where math had shapes and concepts, all explained by my favorite teacher Mr. A., who divided the ideas into parts and then put them back together in a way even more exciting than literature. One day he plotted points on graph and then, just before the bell rang, connected them to form a sine curve. I recognized the shape; it was the body of a wave, the top of a mountain range, a flag in the wind. It was an equation, and yet also a picture of real things, as much a portrait as if I had painted it. They were linked, the equation and the sea, partners in the language of what made up the world. One without the other was only part of the story. I was dumbfounded by this idea, and sat staring at the blackboard even after the bell rang and everyone left for the next class.

And this was the same. My thanks were one thing, and all I was grateful for another, and they were linked. You could even argue that they were the same, two halves of a larger whole. You might choose to sing praises in an empty room, or say "you're welcome" to an anonymous crowd, but why bother? Each action needed the other in order to make sense. And I realized this was why people, sane people, people like me, could need and want to pray, and then really mean it--because they believed, they knew, that if you threw a bunch of thanks out to the universe, it had to be caught. It had to complete something else. And the receiving place, whatever my gratitude was sticking to--people, the wind--that was God.

I thought these thoughts quickly, in the time that a leaf could blow off a tree, but everything was different afterwards.

465. Language

I never heard of Hebrew-English leyning until this thought-provoking (as always) post by Rachel. I've gone to approximately, um, one traditionally Reform service in my entire life, with the remaining 99% Conservative-flavored or a sadly moribund version of Orthodox. None included chanting in English. But I agree that it's a great idea, and have had a taste: one of the very first events presented by Storahtelling, which also coincided with one of the first Shabbat morning services I attended in years, was a Torah reading assisted by a meturgeman, a line-by-line instantaneous translator. It's an old concept--this was the usual custom about a thousand years ago--and was completely electrifying. I had always read the English part during services, of course, but making sense of archaic words while trying to listen to their incomprehensible language of origin took more coordination than I possessed on a Saturday morning. The meturgeman demonstrated how alive that old book could be, and made me want more. I felt like Helen Keller with her hand under the faucet; text changed in an instant from symbol to meaning, and my life really was completely different afterwards.

That said--despite the pivotal role of translation in my spiritual life, I prefer to hear very little English during services. The language of prayer for me is Hebrew, and chanting is prayer. Yes, I need to understand the story in order to tell it, but I'm fine with that part happening before and after the moment. On one level it makes no sense: why knowingly limit my comprehension? But Torah is art, not science, and therefore completely bound to mystery no matter how hard we try to untangle meaning. So we might as well sit back and enjoy the ride. Her words are music, not just via the lilt of ancient melodies but because of their ability to bypass mind and go directly to heart. Every time I ponder that phrase or this combination of letters, I remind myself that dictionary definitions are sufficient but soulless, like a script in the hands of a bad actor. Understanding is not equivalent to praying.

I also need to pray and chant in Hebrew as a constant reminder of what I don't know. God is encouraging me to reach further than I can ever imagine, and is keeping my ego in check in the process.

451. Fear of havdalah, part 1

The Shabbat before last, right before we read Parashat Bo, the rabbi spoke about timing in the Torah. We're described as strangers, sojourners, gerim, even before we leave Egypt. Were we already en route when the story officially began? Perhaps we experienced a trial run, a smaller Exodus before the big one. OK, so we've been wandering forever; what else is new? But it's important, noted the rabbi, to define the beginning of a journey as well as its end. We need to be able to look back and see how far we've come. I thought about this blog and my first post exactly two years and seven days ago, and realized I can finally define the question that made me start writing in the first place. It's much simpler than I imagined. Every word is really about just one thing: Why do I sing? The answer: because I need to pray.

But endings are important, too. Last month, in a frenzy of hiddur mitzvah envy, I bought the least expensive, most beautiful havdalah set I could find. Havdalah and I have had a rocky and somewhat guilt-ridden relationship. I never heard the word until a few years ago; I think it's one of those quasi-mystical services that fell out of favor during the pragmatic modern era, popular at Jewish summer camps but otherwise relegated to a mumble by the man of the house right after sunset. Spices, candlelight, wine: the "greatest hits" of ritual objects, a feast for the senses to mark the separation of Shabbat from regular time. I watched the ceremony a few times at synagogue retreats, but never led it myself until two years ago, in front of about a thousand people, at the end of Ne'ila on Yom Kippur. This felt like competing in the Olympics without ever running the race on local turf. But I sang with confidence, pretending I was a havdalah expert a million times over and praying there wasn't a big red "H" on my forehead alerting everyone to the truth.

(Continued here.)

441. Up and down

As they always do in ulpan-style classes, Yossi went on and on in Hebrew even though we understood very little of what he was saying. I felt like an alien who had eavesdropped on Earth radio signals her whole life; the sounds of the words were comfortable and familiar, although mostly incomprehensible. Then he pointed to the top of the luah, the whiteboard: "Lemala," he said. And wrote a kametz, a vowel, below a letter on the board: "Lemata."

A chill went through my body, the same sensation of grave, mysterious importance I felt when hearing the cantor sing El Maleh Rahamim for the first time since my childhood of many funerals. Why should the words for "up" and "down" make me nervous? I repeated them to myself, and suddenly remembered:

Bishiva shel mala uvishiva shel mata
Al da'at ha makom v'al da'at hahakal
Anu matirin l'hitpallel im ha'avaryanim.

"By authority of the court on high and by the authority of this court below,
with divine consent and with consent of this congregation,
we hereby declare that it is permitted to pray with those who have transgressed."

This is the introduction to Kol Nidre, the prayer that begins Yom Kippur. Every September, during one brief moment just as evening falls, I hear these lines and read the translation. But I rarely consider the meanings of individual words. Hebrew is mostly a language of sounds to me, vowels and consonants dancing and singing around my heart and corresponding to no ordinary grammar. I get the point; I quake in my boots as prescribed. I understand without understanding. Like a flash fire, those Kol Nidre syllables were seared into my brain over the years after less than a minute of combined seconds of utterance, just waiting for the key to unlock their true meaning. I think I've lacked the ability to comprehend any further, as my previous abortive attempts to learn seem to indicate. I'm ready now.

----

My Hebrew class is down one student (V. didn't show up this week, no explanation), and R. will be away on vacation for the next three. She promised Yossi that her Israeli boyfriend would quiz her every night by the fire, aprés ski. That leaves just Vinnie Barbarino and I. (He's very motivated; his fiancée demands a thorough report after each class.) I'm kind of surprised that in this city boasting more Jews than all of Israel, only a handful of schools offer adult ed beginner Hebrew, and they attract barely enough students to fill a class. Maybe the picture (temunah) is healthier at more advanced levels.

433. Not alone

I wasn't feeling well last night and had to skip services, which made me sad. I yearn all week long for Friday night, and the singing, dancing, and company of a few hundred of the best people in the world, although sometimes the idea of sitting with nothing but music and my thoughts for an hour and a half seems unbearable. But I can't imagine being anywhere else. Services are the best and safest place I know to experience joy or despair, concentration or distraction; Kabbalat Shabbat is never less than sanctuary for me in all senses of the word.

But it doesn't work as well when you have a stomach ache. I stayed home and lit candles instead, which I often skip. (In cat-endowed New York City, I know God would also advise against the folly--the sheer stupidity--of leaving home while a fire is burning.) I sat on the sofa for awhile and watched them sway and glimmer, and then davenned Arvit. I've prayed this service on my own before and it always felt like a novelty, superfluous: God already knew what was in my heart, so why bother following rituals whose main purpose was to engage groups? And singing to myself when I was alone: like a falling tree without an audience, did it really matter?

This time it did. As I faced east towards Central Park and Jerusalem and my eyes traced letters and watched them change into words, I thought of the tunes, sighs, and smiles just like my own at this very same moment wherever Jews chose to congregate. I felt far from those people and places, but with them, deeply, as well. I was relieved; always in the back of my mind lurked a doubt that I'd wake up one day and would no longer believe, would be back to the hollower, blinder person I was before I stumbled upon my synagogue. I now understand that distance, whether physical or emotional, will never break my bond. It might loosen, perhaps, or try to slip off, but the threat will always be hollow. I felt connected like a twin who always senses the presence of the other even when they're on opposite ends of the earth; the candles bathed my walls in the light of many more Jews than could ever fit in my apartment.

I watched the flames and read Psalm 97:

Your lightning illumines the globe, fire consumes Your foes.
Mountains melt like wax in Your presence, the earth trembles.

The heavens proclaim Your righteousness;
all people behold Your majesty.

They were right in front of me--the dancing illumination, the melting wax mountains--just like so many other gifts I choose to ignore, or am afraid to see.

420. Condensed version, part 2

(Continued from the previous post--here's the rest of the outline of my talk last Shabbat, and also the super-condensed version of this entire blog.)

------

"I joined the choir, and was amazed that I could actually be a part of services.

The music--Jewish music in general--took awhile for me to get used to. At first I didn't like it at all. I was a real snob and thought that only Western music, Bach, Brahms, etc., was any good. But eventually it grew on me.

One day about five years ago my friend C. said, 'I want to learn to chant Torah, and I want my friends to learn with me.' She basically gave us no choice in the matter, and recruited a bunch of us for a class. I had nothing better to do and it sounded interesting, so I went along with it--I never before thought I might like to chant, or imagined why in the world I would want to.

I found it very hard at first. I was used to Western notation, reading notes on a page, and this was very different. I was terrified the first time I chanted; my knees were shaking so hard I thought I'd fall over. But, to my surprise, I didn't feel at all alone at the bima, very different from being on stage--I really sensed the strength of everyone in the room, like they were holding me up. I knew I couldn't have gotten through it if not for their support. This feeling is still with me every time I chant, as if I draw energy from the people who listen. Even if I screw up, which I have, I always feel stronger when I finish than when I started.

Other things I love about chanting Torah:

• It's an actual, visceral connection to thousands of years of Judaism. I can see and touch it on that scroll. I'm part of the river of time when I read. I never before felt so connected to being Jewish.

• I get to sing music of my own tradition that makes me feel as good--but without the guilt--as when I sang Christian sacred music.

• I love the process of learning. Even though it's mostly repetition, it's never boring. It's actually very relaxing and meditative. Life is complicated, but this is straightforward and rewarding: somehow, after practicing my portion over and over again, it always gets stuck in my brain.

• I think what I like most is that I can't be distracted while I chant. It's just me and the words on the scroll. But I also can't focus on the words too much, because then I'll lose the rhythm of memorization and get confused. So I'm caught between two kinds of time--the time of details, and of the big picture. I'm very much in the moment but also apart from it. And in that place I have no choice except to be as honest as possible. There's nowhere to hide.

It's still terrifying at times, but always very profound. Thank you all for letting me share these thoughts."

419. Condensed version, part 1

This past Shabbat morning I did something new and wonderful: I was the hazzanit for a meditation service. A rabbi at my synagogue, part of the team that leads monthly Friday night mediation services, also teaches a course in Jewish spirituality; this service was for her students.

We sung the first few lines of a selection of prayers, and then sat in silence for a few minutes after each. We also studied this week's Torah portion, and I chanted some verses of Vayishlah. Then I was asked to speak about why I like to chant and how I learned--essentially condensing all I've thought about in this blog (unknown to those at the service) into about five minutes. I really enjoyed the challenge of this process, and was gratified that people wanted to hear what seemed to me like the very self-centered story of my spiritual life. Here's an outline of what I said (written for speaking, so a little stylistically sparse):

--------
"I guess you could describe the way I grew up as halfway Orthodox and not very interested. My father was from Russia and traditionally observant, although out of a sense of obligation more than anything else.

My mother wasn't into it at all. Some things we observed strictly, like kashrut--others not at all, like Shabbat. It worked out fine but was a little schizophrenic, and I was confused.

I went to a very bad Orthodox Hebrew school for six years. Everything was done by rote. I learned nothing and hated every minute.

I got out when I was 12, my parents got divorced, and I didn't sent foot in a synagogue again for years. But I never stopped being kosher, although my mother did; she was thrilled to start eating BLTs. Maybe because I went to Hebrew school for so long, that connection seemed very important to me. But nothing else about Judaism did, and I felt like a hypocrite.

At the same time, I got involved in choral singing. I always knew I would be an artist when I grew up, but music was my big hobby. I think being in a choir was a good counter to the solitude of being an artist.

I hated being on stage, and was shy and self-conscious about anyone hearing my voice--but in a choir I could make music and hide at the same time, as well as be a part of something larger than myself. When I sang in choirs I felt like I was able to touch something magical. It was intoxicating.

The only problem: most of what I sang was Christian sacred music, which I loved--and which made me feel like an even bigger hypocrite, because nice Jewish girls weren't supposed to do this. It felt very subversive. But I did it anyway, and loved it.

Fast forward many years to when I stumbled upon [my synagogue], a whole other story I won't go in to. For me it was the first time ever that I found a kind of Judaism that was relevant and spoke to my life."

(Continued here.)

412. In this very place

I subscribe to Sitemeter, and can see which Google search terms lead people to this blog (mostly the word "chanting" and Hebrew phrases like "El Nora Alilah"). The other day I noticed that someone in France found me by typing "rabbi fever." Was that a kind of cultural obsession like "disco fever," I wondered, or more like "dance fever," with the guy who wore really tight pants? Or an illness specific to Jewish leadership (like the search awhile back for "swollen vocal cords clergy")? I clicked on the link that brought this Googler to me, and was amazed to discover I spoke French--I had no idea!--but otherwise gained little insight into the reason behind the query.

But it got me thinking about rabbis. For reasons I don't understand, my parents held teachers, rabbis and their ilk in pretty low regard. I always got the sense that instructing others meant you couldn't do the thing yourself, a very non-Jewish point of view. As a kid, and rabid Star Trek fan, one of my favorite books was "The World of Star Trek" by David Gerrold, in which he divides humanity into three types: creators, producers, and service people. (Why this philosophy stuck with me all these years, I have no idea. But it made quite an impression, maybe because I once equated Gerrold, writer of "The Trouble With Tribbles," with God.) Creators, he wrote, were the best kinds of people. (I sighed with relief, because I knew I'd grow up to be an artist.) Producers--people who made things happen, like my mother, a bookkeeper who kept a business running despite her boss' incompetence, and supermarket managers like my father, who told others what to do and made sure everything was fresh and perfect--were OK, too. Last in the hierarchy were service people, grunts who took care of all the other stuff. I slotted teachers and clergy into this category. What did they do but pass on info and engage in meaningless ritual? You could read books or pray on your own, if need be.

I think this arrogant bias prevented me from taking full advantage of what my teachers had to offer. Once I understood, sometime during high school, how smart they really were, I became intimidated. Teachers suddenly seemed superhuman, possessing of mysterious talents, and I didn't know how to speak to them. I realize now that this misperception never quite went away; even though the rabbis at my synagogue share so much of themselves by allowing me into their world at the bima, I often feel it's not my place to share back. Which is kind of ridiculous, and is limiting the insight and knowledge I could gain from these associations. On this Shabbat Vayetze, as Jacob awakens from a dream of angels and ladders--"Ma norah ha makom hazeh, how awe-filled is this place; God was here but I knew it not"--I hope I can follow his example and truly see, use, and reciprocate the gifts of people and ideas that surround me.

406. Out of hiding

I've been thinking a lot about prayer, encouraged in part by these wonderful posts by Mata H as well as the fact that I've been doing so much of it publicly--and am more confused, as a result, than ever before.

I didn't know how to pray until I came to my synagogue. There are many kinds of prayer; for most of my life I ignored them all. Prayer, on the one hand, can be instinctive, happening even when we don't know it. God hears us before we make a sound. Pretty sure, although unwilling to proclaim with certainty, that God was a crock, for many years I banished the idea that my unvoiced entreaties had any point except indulging a comforting fantasy. I was too smart for that. The other kind of prayer is planned, purposeful, and with honest intent (kavannah). This I dismissed as theater of the absurd. Talking to something that doesn't exist--completely nuts.

Then community and music combined to unlock a part of me I never knew before, and suddenly I could pray. It forced me to redefine myself, become more accepting of my own vulnerability as I allowed the words in the siddur to voice wishes and pleas that I was once certain could not be expressed. Just as I was thinking, OK, I have a handle on this, I get the drill, I was asked to sit up front and do it on behalf of of everyone--with a voice I had always kept partially hidden, even while singing as loudly as possible in dozens of groups. The rabbis didn't know this; they had only heard me chant Torah, my first, tentative steps out of hiding. The best sounds I could make, before then, always felt too intimate to allow the rest of the world to hear. I blended perfectly, shielding my identity. I never, ever sang solos. But I couldn't hide while praying; dishonesty at that moment seemed as wrong as murder. I also think I was, and still am, too inexperienced at the art to know how to fake it, like a doctor who hasn't figured out how to keep emotional distance from her patients.

So I continue to learn, which I know will never lead to mastery. I learn not only how to put the drama of my discoveries in perspective--I'm human, I'm a volunteer, perfection is never possible when trying to talk to God, relax--but also in context with the other 98% of my life. Do I trust in my abilities? How much of myself can I reveal to the world? How naked and honest, confident and self-reliant, can I be? What other cliffs can I jump off, knowing my community will always be around to catch me? Prayer, this intensely personal, private thing, has unexpectedly become my model for real life.

397. Keep going

In the spirit, if not the letter, of NaBloPoMo (because I can provide quite enough pressure on my own, thank you), I hope to follow this November 1 post with another, and so on for the next 30 days. Or not. But at least I've started, the hardest part. This week's parasha is Lekh Lekha, which has become a kind of benchmark for me. Just when I think the High Holy Day soul-searching marathon has ended, Lekh Lekha reminds me of that Shabbat morning when, intoxicated by my new awareness of a benevolent universe, I listened to the rabbis talk about God's order to Abraham: Go. Go out of yourself, don't just sit there. I was astonished at their ability to get into my head and say what I needed to hear. I did go, blindly at times, and am in amazement of some of the places I've stumbled upon since that day.

This Lekh Lekha I need another reminder to keep going, not be afraid, not be lazy, and trust that the journey itself will provide answers--as long as I pay attention. Writes Rabbi David Hoffman of JTS (not yet posted to the website, but soon to be here):

...What happens when we are asked to put aside our personal histories and all the narratives from our past that, perhaps, keep us imprisoned? What happens when we are simultaneously asked to give up the scripts that we have written about our futures? “I thought I would be a partner at this point in my life. I thought my children would be….I thought I would be ready for retirement. I thought I would be married.” We all have scripts from our pasts and for our futures....

I submit that this is one of the challenges that Abraham’s life offers us. Can we put down our scripts for ourselves, our families, and children and be present, really present for our lives and the people we love?

Abraham’s life suggests that this is the key to our ability to most acutely see and appreciate all the great blessings God has given each one of us.

We did walking meditation at a class tonight, the mindful placing of one foot in front of the other with no defined destination. The goal was simply to keep moving. Yet when we stopped, we had certainly reached somewhere new. Ma norah ha makom hazeh, how awe-filled is this place; God was here but I knew it not, says Jacob--perhaps this new, unplanned place was the goal all along.