• Category Archives Judaism
  • Mussar | Kabbalah | Hebrew | Talmud | Shabbat

  • In Shabbat

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

    Saturday gratefuls: 6-8 inches of new Snow coming tonight and tomorrow. White Christmas. And, yes, it still matters to me. The dark. The long Nights. Christmas Eve. Christmas Day. Chinese restaurants. Home movie. Quiet days. Shabbat. Today. Till 5:52. Leonard Bernstein. Maestro. Love stories. Action films. Art house cinema. Vayigash. This week’s parsha. Zornberg. Green. Ellis. New blinds. John Ellis. Evergreen Shutter and Shade.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Christmas

    One brief shining: Down the hill to Evergreen at night and after Thanksgiving some Lodgepoles and Ponderosas become pillars of light with bright multi-colored bulbs running from crown to base, how they do it I don’t know, I drive past following the curves and watching the lights, trying to remain on the road, sometimes it’s hard to do both.

     

    I’m in my version of Shabbat until 5:52. Still working on what it means for me. Probably going to breakfast at Aspen Perks, see the wait staff there before Christmas. Seeing and being with friends is part of mine. I also read the parsha, Vayigash this week. Each parsha gets its name from the first word of the passage. This week Joseph reveals himself to his brothers and Jacob/Israel makes the journey to Goshen. I’m reading some commentaries, too.

    Hang on here. I’m gonna get a bit into the weeds.

    Avivah Zornberg writes commentaries that are rich in psychoanalytic and midrashic thought. Midrash are commentaries written by rabbis, mostly from a long time ago though they’re still being written today, too. Jewish encounter with the biblical text differs a great deal from the hermeneutical method I was taught in seminary. Higher criticism.

    Exegesis came first. That meant using various critical methodologies like redaction criticism, seeing how various texts were edited, form criticism, sussing out whether the text conformed to, say, a prayer or a covenant or a song form, historical criticism, what was going on in the time period in which the text was written, textual criticism, how had this text fared in different editions of the bible over time. As well as others. The exegetical task was to find what the text meant in its day, sort of an originalist approach to the text.

    Then came the hermeneutical task. How did this passage and its message, as determined by exegesis, relate to our time. After that the homiletical work, writing the sermon, could begin.

    The Jewish approach can include the exegetical approach. Rabbis learn what critical methods have discovered about biblical texts. And, there is a lot of material to access. However, the Jewish approach that I have come to appreciate relies very little on higher criticism. Higher criticism seeks the best information about what the text meant in its day. Jews play with the text. Search in it for hidden meanings, word play, the human story. Or, the way the sacred reveals itself.

    In the story of Joseph, for example, Joseph’s brothers throw him in a pit, then take his coat, dripping with blood from a lamb, and give that to Jacob, his father, saying they don’t know what happened to him. Jacob says it looks like a wild beast has torn him apart.

    Instead of spending time on exegesis Zornberg dives right in. The pit can represent nothingness, ayin, the same nothingness from which God created the world. Joseph’s brothers consign him to ayin both by throwing him in the pit and by taking his blood soaked coat to Jacob. Jacob though is not completely taken in. He says it looks like a wild beast has torn him apart. He leaves open whether Joseph is dead or alive.

    But. Joseph is now absent from him and will be until the revelation comes to them about Joseph in Egypt. So, Jacob experiences Joseph as being in nothingness. Because of the blood. Zornberg then riffs on blood and what it can mean like bloodline, life, sacrifice. There are also the themes of sibling rivalry, deception, a father’s deep love for his son, as well as the parallel story of Joseph’s journey into Egypt and his rise to power there.

    I like the focus on longer passages, on whole narratives within the text. I also like an approach that seeks multiple meanings in the same text, acknowledging that we all approach not only Torah but everything in our life from distinctive places. That we see differently and conclude differently. It’s the frisson among the differing ideas raised in the Jewish encounter with the text that is the point. Not finding the meaning or message of the text, no, finding the messages and meanings of the text. A prismatic truth rather than a single truth.

     

     


    Judaism Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Reimaging revelation Torah

  • A Bar Mitzvah Boy!

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

    Friday gratefuls: The brit of Mt. Sinai. Of Abraham. Of Noah. Torah. Midrash. Emunah. Clouds. Mussar. This Jewish journey. Wandering with the diaspora. Rabbi Jamie. Bar Mitzvah. June 12! Shavuot. The Winter Solstice. The Fire last night. Orion and the three quarter Winter Solstice Moon. Jupiter. Darkness. Immanence. Our journey as Earthlings. All my wild fellow Earthlings. And the Earth herself, the Shekinah to Great Sol’s power.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Gabriella, my adopted axolotl

    One brief shining: Put on my kippah and walked up the sidewalk to the synagogue where Rabbi Jamie let me in (everybody has to be let in thanks to anti-semitism), he looked at my kippah, pointed at his, “We have the same hat!”

     

    Yes indeed. A bar mitzvah boy! On June 12th, the holiday of Shavuot, I will read from the Torah with Veronica, Kat, and maybe Lauren. Finally coming of age. Shavuot celebrates the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai, the making of the Sinai covenant with all Jews of all time. We stood at Mt. Sinai, we stand at Mt. Sinai, we will stand at Mt. Sinai. We will all honor that mystical moment and be honored in return as children/adults of the covenant.

    Moving sorta fast into the whole megillah. This is an adult Brit Mitzvah.* Often for those who did not have a bar/bat mitzvah when they were young, it’s also a way for converts to have the full experience of a Jewish life cycle. I’m excited to deepen my Jewish learning and to expand my circle of friends at Beth Evergreen.

    If you read this and want to come, I’ll post details here later about the day of. For insight into this rite of passage you might want to watch the Adam Sandler film, You’re So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah! on Netflix. It’s funny.

     

    We now have exhausted all the big holidays but two: Christmas and New Years. Holimonth has worked its magic on all of us whether we wanted it to or not. We’ve seen the lights. Lit the candles. Heard the songs. Tasted a cookie or two. Smiled at children excited. We’ve had a quiet moment or two wondering again whether all this bother is worth it, does it really mean anything?

    I come down on the side of yes, oh yes indeed. It’s worth it and it has deep meaning. Maybe not the ones visible on the surface of the Santa Claus gauze thrown over this family holiday called Christmas. Maybe not the story of the brave Maccabees recapturing the Second Temple. Maybe not the story of light returning triumphant on the darkest night of the year.

    Here are meanings I find in Holimonth. We ache for sweetness and love in our lives, for the light of others. We want to share ourselves with family and friends, have them share with us. Sometimes that’s hard to do without prompts. Like Jingle Bells. Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel. A Christmas tree. Services at the synagogue or church or living room or bar. Reasons to get together, clasp hands, hug. Be merry. Kwanza. New Year’s eve parties. We come together to see the sacred beings in our lives and to be seen as the sacred, unique being we are. These are learnings we can use later in the year during what the Catholics charmingly call Ordinary Time.

    No such thing to me. It’s all sacred time, but I get what they mean. We can’t be on this high all year. Too exhausting.

    So party like the climate is changing, like we’ll see each other next year in Jerusalem, like we’re all the only ones of our kind ever.

    *KAVANNAH [intention]

    The adult bar/bat mitzvah phenomenon is a recent and inspiring trend in American Jewish life.  Since every Jewish adult is regarded by halacha (traditional Jewish law) as a bar/bat mitzvah when they come of age (12 for girls, 13 for boys), the adult bar/bat mitzvah rite of passage is completely volitional.  Those who feel compelled to prepare for a Bat/Bat or Brit Mitzvah as an adult do it by choice, and for a great variety of reasons.  Given the diversity of kavannot (intentions), the program at CBE strives for enough structure to be both formal and flexible — formal enough to facilitate the invaluable dynamics of a group working together, towards shared goals while rooted in tradition, and flexible to accommodate different dispositions, intentions and expectations. Congregation Beth Evergreen


    Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Great Wheel Holidays Judaism

  • Traveling

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Winter Solstice Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Shrooms. Heidi. Irv. Psychedelics. Colorado. The West. Wolves and ranchers. Mountain Lions and Bears, oh my. The Rockies. Shadow Mountain. The Atlantic. Washington County Maine. Lake Superior. The North Woods. Wolves and Moose there always. The Wolf exhibit by Ode in Ely. Ely. The Boundary Waters. Voyageurs. Mt. Blue Sky. Grass along the shoulder of the road. The road itself. Cars. Bikes. Feet. Buses. Subways. Light rail. Heavy rail. You who read this.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Psilocybin

    One brief shining: A certain coolness headed toward warmth, humidity rising and the dawn approaching, another new life redolent of travel those early mornings getting out the door to the yellow taxi cab, the ride to the airport, that buzz of anticipation making all my senses quiver with quiet joy.

     

     

    Going on a trip today. Traveling to the inner reaches of my mind. And heart. The whole lev. Psilocybin. With a friend and his daughter. In Bailey, the Platte River Valley. Turn right at the Dragonfly sign she says. Bring a pillow, a blanket, a water bottle, snacks, and a journal. I’m ready. And, it does have the same feeling, oddly, of going on a trip.

    A little bit anticipatory last night. Not anxious. Not calm either. First time with a guide. She’s a Ph.D. psychologist and a remarkable woman. Went skydiving to celebrate her 50th. Her parents are both good friends so I feel very comfortable with her.

    Judaism emphasizes kavanah, intention, when engaged in prayer or action. I’ve been considering why I am doing this. The reason is simple. I’ve done mushrooms several times, as recently as this summer, but I’ve never done any psychedelic with a guide. After reading Michael Pollan’s book How to Change Your Mind, I decided I wanted to try that, too. That’s why.

    But. What do I want to focus on, consider? Right now I’m at living life fully. However. I feel I’m doing that. Maybe not, though? Or, maybe I could go in a different direction or emphasize something more? What could I be leaving out of my life? A relationship? More travel? What else could I choose?

    The more I mull this on the page, right here in real time the more I like this question. I have no need for career motivation or advice, nothing to prove. I love my life as it is yet I’m willing to enhance it. Excited to do it.

    Unless I change my mind on the drive to Bailey. That’s it. Living life fully.

     

    Yesterday Luke came to take Leo home. Luke comes in without knocking now and I like that. Makes him and me feel more like family. We love each other, all three of us. Nice to have that relationship with a guy Luke’s age. Could be my son from another mother.

    Great Sol has stayed in place while Shadow Mountain whirled around to our location in the Solar System where he can see us. Light breaks on Lodgepole Branches, on Black Mountain, on the milky blue Sky.

     

     


    Dogs Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Hermitage Judaism Shadow Mountain Travel

  • Neverending Story

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Winter Solstice Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Marilyn and Irv. Good friends. Tom, always a good conversation. My son and compartment syndrome, the bloody treatment. Seoah shooting a 90 at screen golf. My son an 85. Two athletes. Plus Murdoch. Hamas. Israel. Palestine. The diaspora. The Joseph story. The Jacob/Israel story. The Abraham story. Bereshit, Genesis. Beginnings. Ganesha. Krishna. Vishnu. Shiva. Snow plows and their drivers. My mail carrier, Mark.

    (N.B. I capitalize words associated with what I consider the living world, a practice of honor I picked up from the Potawatomi in Braiding Sweet Grass. [except for humans] Also, I include in my gratefuls the dark as well as the light since both make up our whole life and contain a seed of holiness. I learn this from the sacred nature of reality as One. It does not mean that I love, say, Hamas.)

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Breakfast with Marilyn and Irv

    One brief shining: At Primo’s Cafe I scooched between a diner’s chair and a giant Santa, right hand raised in what I imagine is a greeting gesture though it looks more like he’s waving to other outsized folks like Johnny Inkslinger, Paul Bunyan, Babe the Blue Ox, or perhaps very large Reindeer, a Rudolf with a nose the size of a softball.

     

    Conversations. Tom. Marilyn and Irv. Diane. Alan and Joan. Luke. My life requires time alone the most, yet it also requires conversation, connection, the intimacy of knowing and being known. Yours too I’ll bet. The second one, I mean. Most don’t need as much alone time as I do.

    I’m lucky enough to have regular folks to meet over eggs, potatoes, and bacon in the breakfast spots available here in the Mountains. And others I meet in the cloud, that mysterious realm just on the other side of my computer screen that contains people I know. Like Tom and my cousin Diane, my Ancient Brothers: Paul, Mark, Tom, Bill. The Thursday mussar group. A blend of the cloud and IRL.

    Judaism contains its own cloud. What Christians often called that great cloud of witnesses, referring to the dead. In Judaism the Rabbis speak over the ages through the Talmud, the Midrash, and the stories of their lives.  The rituals and traditions of Jewish life, the Torah, the Kabbalah, even the blood of the ancestors carry their own message. As well as the history of the Jewish people. That great cloud of witnesses places my temporary life in a broader and longer context. Comforting and challenging.

    Each book I pick up becomes a dialogue between the author and me, between the story and me. In this way my life might be said to be a constant conversation with interlocutors living and dead.

    Then there is the world of my wild neighbors and the planets, Great Sol, and other galaxies. A conversation exists between that very young Mule Deer Doe that comes to eat grass in my yard and me. She looks at me through the window with gentle, puzzled eyes. Among those three Mule Deer Bucks who welcomed me here. That Elk Bull watching from the side of the road in the rainy night. Black Mountain and its changes. The running Streams and the Arapaho National Forest. Crows, Ravens, Magpies. The Snow as it marches across Mt. Blue Sky to Shadow Mountain.

    A neverending story you might say.

     


    Art and Culture Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Hermitage Judaism Myth and Story Shadow Mountain Wild Neighbors

  • All the grandchildren will need them

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Winter Solstice Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: The Geminids. The Sky. Outer Space. The James Webb. Orion. Aquarius. Polaris. The Crab Nebula. Fusion power, may its potential become reality. The Darkness before a Winter Dawn. Fog. Driving through a Cloud. Prostate cancer as a chronic disease. Phonak. Split keyboards. Wireless mice and keyboards. My desktop, old faithful. With me since 2016. Cernunnos.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: My sibs

    One brief shining: On the seventh day of Hanukah I will take out eight beeswax candles, small tapers, and starting from the right place them one at a time until all but two candle holders have a candle, the eighth candle, the shamash, lies in front of the menorah ready for its servant role as bringer of fire and light to the other seven candles, when the others burn the shamash will go in its central holder, ready if needed.

     

    Still learning. Supposed to light the candles from left to right, always start with the new light. This festival honors a small group of Maccabean soldiers who liberated the temple in the second century b.c.e. The Temple menorah had only six lights plus a shamash, the helper and, in addition, the Mesopotamian Sun God. An interesting conflation.

    The Temple menorah burned oil and was to be kept lit always. The Seleucid’s occupying the Temple had let the Temple menorah go out. The only oil that could be used in the menorah was oil that had been blessed. There was only enough for one day. Yet it burned for eight days so the story goes. Enough time for the priests to return and bless more oil.

    Jews celebrate this holiday to honor the Maccabees and their small force that returned the Temple to the Jewish community. Thus, it’s a holiday signifying the power of even a small group of dedicated people. Yes, the miracle of the oil. But for most, not the main point. A minor holiday in most ways except for its confluence with the Christmas season and its emphasis on lights.

     

    Another interesting confluence. My beeswax candles for the menorah and the climate conference in Dubai. 200 nations agreed to transition away from fossil fuels. Cynical me: Finally. Probably not in time. Glad me: Finally. The right direction.

    We must emphasize adaptation, too. Adaptation to the results of climate change will have to proceed apace with the efforts to rein in carbon emissions. My own energy and money will focus there. I used to have a front line seat and intention to stop coal, get legislation passed, keep the oil in the ground. No more. There are plenty of young activists doing that. May they succeed.

    Me? I want the axolotl population to increase. Perennial food grains to go into the soil all over the world. Institutions like the Land Institute to get more and better attention, funding. I want those farmers willing to wrestle the land back to its non-fertilized, non-Roundupped state to start buying land back from corporate farms and feed lots. I want the DNA of all food crops to diversify again, away from the monocultures sold and owned by seed companies and pharmaceutical giants. I will support all of these efforts in my own way, both financially and politically.

    Why? Because a world changed by a climate heated beyond our experience will need all of them. My grandchildren will need all of them. All the grandchildren will need them.

     


    Family Feelings Fourth Phase Great Work Holidays Judaism Politics Shadow Mountain

  • All We Can Absorb, Hear

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Winter Solstice Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Phonak. Aimee. Mile High Hearing. Good workout. Luke and Leo. Leo’s food. Zornberg. Joseph and his brothers. The seven fat years and the seven lean years. Not-being. Catastrophe and hope. Parsha. Hanukah, night 5. Jeffco Snow plows. Trash pickup people. Mail carriers. Schoolbus drivers. Essential Mountain services. Dangerous jobs. Mountain Nights. Clear, clean, cold. A new moon. Pipe Creek. A Desert Eagle in Saudi Arabia. That Monitor Lizard in K.L.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Hearing

    One brief shining: In the dark of tomorrow night the Geminids will appear, motes of dust flying through thick atmosphere, heating up, becoming meteorites, flashing across the sky in the universe primeval language of formation and destruction a reminder message to us all that our lives, our planet, our Great Sol will all burn out on some other starry night.

     

    Hearing test next month. I suspect my hearing has declined. Missing things in conversations, can’t understand Gabe when he’s in the passenger seat and I’m driving. The Phonak gives me a relatively normal hearing experience, as good as I can get I imagine with only one good ear and that one on the wane. Even so. When I take out my hearing aid now, the world around me quiets way down. Good for reading, sleeping. Not so good if I forget to put in my hearing aid.

    Jeff Glantz, of blessed memory, and I talked only once before his sudden death. He told me Long Island was a hundred miles long. That’s long. Not the point here though. Jeff’s hearing aid dangled out of his ear. Ever since that conversation I’ve been aware that the only thing we old folks need to look demented is our hearing aid dangling out of our ear.

    Do we accept the changes of age or rail against them like Dylan wanted his father to do? Rage, rage, rage against the dying of the light. Or, perhaps the dying out of sound? There is a third option, the one I choose. Know the changes, do what you can to ameliorate them, accept what you can’t. Applies to hearing, sight, cancer, sarcopenia in my case.

     

    The chaotic chatter of our time has grown, to continue from the above, deafening. Perhaps that’s what going on with my hearing. My brain no longer wants to absorb thoughts about a second Trump term (I can’t call it a presidency because, well…). About A23a floating its way toward South Georgia Island bearing 1 trillion tons of ice formerly resident in Antarctica. About the Israeli Defense Force bombing, shelling, shooting persons and buildings in the Gaza strip. About the Chinese wanting to wreak havoc with our infrastructure through cyber warfare. About Ukraine’s failed offensive. About the dysfunction of the House of Representatives and the Senate. About the many trials of the Orange one. About sexual abuse in women’s soccer and gymnastics.

    Here’s what I want. A visit to the Rothko show in Paris. Rothko and me. Except, crowds and Covid. A midrashic hermeneutic for the Torah study group I’m starting. Breakfast at Primo’s tomorrow and at Aspen Perk’s on Friday. Marilyn and Irv, then Tara. Zoom time with Tom and Diane. My son and Seoah. More Snow for Shadow Mountain. Calm days for Ruth and Gabe. A gentle Winter with Snow and cold, flocked Lodgepoles and that very young Doe eating Grass in my front yesterday. Yet more books. Some good movies and TV. Quiet sabbaths unless filled with family and friends. Then noisy and upbeat.

    Happy Hanukah!


    Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Health Judaism

  • The Third Day of Hanukah

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Choice Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Ruth and Gabe. Jon, their father. Leo. Luke. The Snow and cold. Warmer though this morning. The beauty of the Arapaho National Forest after a Snow storm. All those cars in the ditch yesterday morning. Thai 202. Really good food. Last night with Ruth and Gabe. Blizzaks on Ruby, her sure footedness in the Snow. Hanukah. The dog menorah. Hanukah presents. Puzzles for Gabe. Resist earrings for Ruth. Money. Hanukah of 2016, of blessed memory for Ruth and Gabe. The coffee table piled high with gifts.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Family and Friends

    One brief shining: Ruth took four purple candles out of the box, Gabe wanted them his favorite color, starting from the right she placed them one, two, three, then lit the shamash and set candles for the third night burning, setting the shamash in its position of prominence in the center, ready if the others wink out to relight them, and finally we got to the presents, but the lights which cannot be blown out then had to burn until done, meaning we couldn’t leave for dinner for another half an hour.

     

    Ruth came up around noon yesterday, just before Vince got to my driveway. Not sure how much Snow we got, maybe 8-10 inches. Vince had an Arctic Cat with green fenders, pushing snow back, back, back to the edges of the driveway and beyond. So good to have a reliable Snow plow guy.

    Today would have been Jon’s 55th birthday. The impact of his death still reverberates through the hearts of Ruth and Gabe in ways I cannot discern. Thus in mine as well. My son is near the end of the probate journey then he’ll serve as custodian of Jon’s estate. And, of course, Jen has both of them at home full time now.

    Death is an end for only the one who has died. They check out forever from Hotel Life, which, unlike the Hotel California, you have to leave. The living though. Death goes out in ripples like a boulder thrown in a pond. Not a gentle moment of leave taking but a violent fall into the emotional center of the soul. At least for some.

     

    Antisemitism. The old hatred. Burnished and polished by those who need scapegoats for their own fears since ancient times. Pogroms. The Holocaust. Ghettos. That synagogue in Pittsburgh. Weirdly, the Greek Orthodox Church here in Denver which sits very close to the Jewish Community Center. A while back some antisemites mistook it for the JCC and vandalized it instead. Guess they missed the crosses all over its buildings.

    Whenever conflict flares in the Middle East, conflict that involves Israel, antisemitism increases in the U.S.  It is difficult to be clear about how one feels about the current war. Just ask the former President of Penn State. I’m pro-Israel, anti-Hamas, pro-Palestinian, and anti the violent, disproportionate response of the Israeli government in Gaza. How do you make those distinctions in a succinct manner? Especially during a protest. Of course pro-Palestinian. The poor benighted Palestinians have not had a good experience for a long, long time. Even preceding 1948.

     

     

     

     


    Family Feelings Fourth Phase Judaism

  • Prismatic Truth

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Choice Moon

    Saturday gratefuls: Gabe. Legos. Night 2, Hanukah. Lighting the candles. The electric menorah. Snow. lotsa Snow. Spaghetti. That free car wash. Blizzaks. Big O. Starbucks. Evergreen. Ruby in the Snow. Kate of blessed memory. Jon, who would have been 55 tomorrow. Mussar. Books, all books big and small. Stacked and unstacked. Read and unread. Reading. What a joy.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ritual

    One brief shining: That Arcosanti bell Kate got so long ago on a visit to her Dad in Phoenix, the one we decided to use as a memorial bell for all of our dogs which now rings in the high Winds of the Mountains for her, too, and Jon, has a large white cap of Snow in the quiet weather of this morning.

     

    This holimonth I’ve been getting gifts from strangers. The Thanksgiving meal at Urban Farmer. Yesterday the car wash. An attendant flagged me through saying I didn’t have to pay right then. The owner said, I’m ok with free. However. Just looked up on my credit card and I did get charged. Well, it was nice when I thought it was free.

    Had my new Blizzaks replace the 4 mm tread tires on the back. Good thing. Right now there’s more than 5 inches, maybe more like 8, of fresh new Snow. Have to head over to Safeway for a pickup order which is delayed. I imagine fewer staff with the Snow.

     

    Spent a lot of time reading yesterday. Finished Zornberg on the week’s parsha, the story of Joseph and his brothers, part 1, in which they toss him in a pit, imply to Jacob that he’s been killed, and he gets sold into slavery, bought by Potiphar. That one. Zornberg’s commentaries lean toward the mythic and the psychoanalytical. She sees themes of dismemberment and the power of blood in these stories. I do, too, after reading her.

    Torah study is very different from the higher criticism I learned in seminary. In higher criticism the aim is to find the truth of a passage using language, history, the history of tradition and ritual, textual comparisons, how a text was originally received, to get at what was originally meant, then using that original meaning to comment on today.

    In Torah study the search is not for the truth, but for the prismatic truth each parsha contains. That sort of truth depends on the interpreter, on what they see or don’t see in the text. Different points of view are not only expected but cherished. Commentators on the Torah argue with each other and their arguments often take on a status equivalent to the parsha itself. The mishnah records Torah commentators since the fall of the second temple.

    In the Joseph and his brothers story for example Zornberg uses some of the mishnah as actual Torah text to make her arguments. And this is not unusual. The result is a playful approach that looks for things hidden, things inferred, things that have meanings because they intersect with the ordinary lives of Jews then and now.

    The patriarchs are far from perfect. Isaac gives Jacob his birthright blessing and underwrites it even after he learns he’s been deceived. Jacob fears his encounter with his now grown brother Esau whom he cheated out of both birthright and inheritance. Jacob’s sons dislike their brother Joseph so much that they try to get rid of him. These are not, in other words, exemplars of truth and wisdom, but people faced with difficult decisions and sometimes, even often, choosing poorly.

    This approach makes Torah study a much more human endeavor, not requiring the power of revealed truth, rather requiring careful and attentive reading done with both living company and the thoughts of long dead Rabbis.


    Commentary on Religion Judaism Torah Weather +Climate

  • Call Me When You Get It

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Choice Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Good sleep. Laying around. Hanukah. Lighting my first candles as a Jew. Toba Spitzer. Mordecai Kaplan. Metaphor. God is Here. Mussar. Holimonth. Advent. Posada. The darkness. My inner Shadow Mountain. Tara’s cute new puppy. Kippur. Leo. Kepler of blessed memory. Rigel of blessed memory. Kate of blessed memory. A pinch of dysthymia. Oversleeping. Winds knocking over my trash can. Weather on the way. Cold and Snow. Rich. Diane. Tom. My son and Seoah and Murdoch.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Leo

    One brief shining: The cloud as metaphor sitting in Evergreen, Colorado, talking to Rabbi Toba Spitzer in Newton, Massachusetts, while others dotted the screen from Lakewood, Georgetown, Conifer who was the live audience, us around the table in Beth Evergreen or the individuals in the cloud, or were we all simply in the Cloud alive to ourselves but bits and bytes elsewhere? The multiparity?

     

    Not sure what’s going on with me right now, but I’ve slept in a lot this week. Over two hours this morning. Post-conversion dysthymia? That old melancholy coming up the chimney from its shack on my inner Shadow Mountain? Have felt slightly off for a few days. Negative thoughts showing up, not staying, not affecting my mood for long. Thanks to the how do I feel exercise Tal taught us. Yet they keep returning and oversleeping usually means a disturbance in the inner world.

     

    When I drove back from p.t. yesterday though. Mary discharged me. Good work on the back and I now have the exercise tools to manage it, know when to ask for help if it flares again. Prior to seeing Mary we had the Zoom which included Rabbi Toba Spitzer answering questions about her book, God is Here. Loved her. A great mind working at the frontiers of religious thought.

    Coming back up Brook Forest Drive I felt good. Reminded myself that people, people are good. I need people on line and in person regularly. Patted myself on the back for attending mussar, seeing Mary. Having meaningful connections in both places. Told Mary when she said something about her boyfriend that he was lucky, somebody out there needed her in their life, glad to know she’d found someone.

     

    Janet and I had an interesting post-mussar conversation. She said the only way to find God is through meditation. She’s a Jewbu. A Jewish Buddhist. And a very bright lady.

    Well, god is a universal idea so how can you be sure if the one you find in meditation is the One? Don’t we need each other for that sort of connection? She agreed we need the sangha, the synagogue.

     

    I don’t think the only way to connect with the sacred is to go in. As most of you know. Though it’s a sound way. I find the sacred right out there on the surface of things. The Lodgepole. Janet. Black Mountain. Mary. Leo. Electricity. Computers. Darkness. Daytime.

    Rich and I had a disagreement about this on Wednesday night. He wanted to preserve the particularity of Judaism, that its holy places in Israel, for example, were special. I asked him what Judaism points to.

    I agree with his appreciation and love for the particularities of Judaism, its holy places, rituals, people. Otherwise I would not have converted. Yet. I also want to preserve the idea that we do not need the rock on which Abraham would have sacrificed Isaac, or the Western Wall, or Mt. Sinai, or even the Torah to find our way to the sacred, to recognize our inescapable linkage to and with it.

    Here’s a poem that Tom offered this morning that says what I’m saying. By David Budbill

     

    The Three Goals
    The first goal is to see the thing in itself
    in and for itself, to see it simply and clearly
    for what it is.
    No symbolism, please.

    The second goal is to see each individual thing
    as unified, as one, with all the other
    ten thousand things.
    In this regard, a little wine helps a lot.

    The third goal is to grasp the first and the second goals,
    to see the universal in the particular,
    simultaneously.
    Regarding this one, call me when you get it.

     

     


    Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Judaism Mussar Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Reimaging revelation

  • Making my way in

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Choice Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Hanukah. Candles. Dreidels. Gifts. Menorah. The Maccabees. Masada. The lamp that remained lit. Lights. Devali. Christmas. Hanukah. Kwanza. The Yule Log. All that brave standing against the dark. Standing with the dark. Only two weeks to the Winter Solstice, the best day of the year. For me. Yes, the light becomes greater after. But on Solstice night darkness reaches its apotheosis for the year. Fertile, restful, creativity fostering darkness. And to the Shadow. I sit on Shadow Mountain, yet I have a Shadow Mountain within, too. In the darkness.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: My inner Shadow Mountain

    One brief shining: Marilyn and I went up the walkway to the synagogue last night as children came out clutching bags filled with gifts from the Bizarre Bazaar, a free shopping area for Hebrew School kids needing Hanukah gifts for parents and siblings, items donated from the congregation over the last month, and Ellen, looking weary, glad that it was over, ready for home, gave me a hug.

     

    Been tossing an idea around since I’ve started doing the sabbath. Why not a week where I can go anywhere I want? Down to Taos and Santa Fe. Over to Bryce Canyon or Moab. Down to the four corners area. Over to any of several wild spots in Colorado. Mountain towns. No dog to fuss about. I can just turn the key and go. But I don’t. Inertia. Maybe a week out of the month where I can make short trips would get me out of my house and on the road. Might work.

     

    Making my way in. Probably me mostly, but not only me. I’m a bit further into CBE. Wearing my kippah, yes. Mezuzahs, yes. Menorahs, yes. Last Friday’s service and the odd dissonance with the Christmas concert in the same space on Sunday, yes. But also Rich commenting on my dvar torah. Israel as a koan, a lived paradox. Joan giving me more jokes. Softer. Jamie a bit more open, friendly. It is not only me. I’m being folded in, granted access in a more open way.

    There’s also that feeling of inner calm. As if I no longer have anything to prove. Which I don’t. In part. Coming home to this remarkable group of individuals, this sacred communion of friends and acquaintances. In part. Saying yes to 76. Yes to being a widower. Yes to enough. And meaning enough as good enough. Plenty. Playing that back over the arc of my life. Good enough. Well done, good and faithful servant.

    There is, too, Kate and her gifts to me. This house. The 401K rollover. Her blessed memory. Ruth and Gabe. Her love. They fold into this calmness as well.

     

    Costa Rica. The new Canada? I know folks looking at land down there. In case, you know. Trump. Not me. Even if the worst happens somebody needs to be the loyal opposition. Especially if we have no loyalty at the top. Besides. Moving? Meh!

    What a time. A rising Ocean. A shrinking democracy. Wars in the Ukraine and Israel. Damn, dude. No wonder marijuana and hallucinogens have begun to get legalized in more and more states.

     

     

     

     

     


    Family Feelings Fourth Phase Judaism Politics Travel