Author: Eve Posen

Once More With Feeling – Yom Kippur 5776

Eve Posen2 Comments

Yom Kippur 5776

Yom Kippur sermon for Congregation Neveh Shalom
September 23, 2015

A Hebrew school teacher is making the rounds in her second grade classroom, inspecting the young students’ High Holiday artwork. Some are drawing shofars, some are drawing apples and honey, some are making cards that say “I’m sorry.” The teacher leans over one particular desk as a little girl is scribbling intensely, and she asks what the girl is drawing. The girl says, “It’s a picture of God.” The teacher, seizing every open opportunity to turn a situation into a lesson, says, “But we don’t know what God looks like.” The little second grader, without taking her eyes off her paper, keeps scribbling and says, “You will in a minute.”

If I asked you what prayer looks like, there would probably be just as many answers as there’d be if I asked you what God looks like. That is because prayer is different for everyone. I’m not just talking about the experience for davener versus congregant, or conservative service versus reform service. I mean the concept of prayer leaves plenty of room for everyone’s ideas and notions as to what that entails.

And not only is it different for everyone, it changes throughout the year. Case in point: the Days of Awe. We’ve made it to the second of the three big fall holidays. By now our total running time in services since Erev Rosh Hashanah is somewhere around 15 hours, and we have easily double that left between now and the end of Sukkot. Don’t worry, I’m not going for any Guinness records for sermon length. The point is the liturgy is different now, and your personal prayers and the feeling you have when you pray at this time of year might be different as well. Which leads me to the question: How many of you have an amazing experience every time you “pray”? Do all of your prayers feel generally the same, or does it fluctuate based on season or prayer substance? I don’t want to spend too much time talking about what we should pray for. That’s a whole other sermon, and to be honest I don’t have any of my Tim Tebow notes with me. Today I want to focus on what it feels like for you to pray and how to take this thing we engage in multiple times per day and make each time feel like its own experience with purpose and intention.

I’ll start with a little of my own personal background to give you some examples. I have always loved services. But prayer for me, especially over the last decade or so, has had major ups and downs. When I started rabbinical school, my father, who had a lifetime of health challenges, wound up in the hospital right before Rosh HaShanah. Of course I went home to Michigan because they weren’t sure what would happen. That started a roller coaster of emotions that took me on a pretty unpleasant ride each time he was in the hospital after that. And it changed prayer for me. Long before my father had been seriously ill, I had understood the feelings behind praying for healing, for strength, for love, and for the benefit of others. But in 2007, after a year of his trips in and out of the hospital, my relationship with God changed, and my relationship with prayer changed. I could no longer pray for healing – it seemed like wasted energy. Instead, I simply prayed to know what would happen.

The roller coaster ran off the rails that summer; my grandfather died in July, and exactly four weeks later on August 19th, my father died. My prayers had residual momentum that carried me to the Yamim Noraim, High Holy Days, but after that I was done. Prayers that previously had incredible meaning now felt like nothing. I would just sit with my siddur closed on my lap.

. . .

There’s a tradition with the Shema that many of you have probably heard before. Some people have the custom of taking a full complete breath for every word in the prayer. It sounds like this:

Shemaaaaaaaaaaaa

Yisraeeeeeeeeeeeel

You get the idea. There are several reasons for this. One is that because the Shema is the central tenet of Judaism, there is much meaning packed into these words, and they each need their own sentence. There’s also the idea that we need time to lose ourselves in prayer, and turning these words of Torah into a mantra of sorts helps us accomplish that. Praying, especially a prayer like the Shema, should feel different than the way we usually talk or even the way we usually think.

The Shema is supposed to be the last thing that a Jew says, the final words, the final affirmation of belief in God and our traditions. Most people never get the chance to have this final moment in time, but my papa – my grandfather – had this chance. Twenty-eight days after he said the Shema and took his final breath, I sat with my father at his bedside as he took his final breaths. He wasn’t conscious, his strength had gone, but I sat with him, and said the Shema. As I later journaled about this experience, I affirmed for him (and me) that singular expression of faith. It was something that he himself had long ago explained to me was a legacy we as Jews couldn’t ignore and a destiny we couldn’t change. But somewhere in the mourning process, prayer felt foreign. I found myself thrust into this strange place where not only did prayer seem fruitless because my father died, it had lost all meaning. And remember this was right in the middle of rabbinical school, where I was supposed to be training to teach others how to find meaning in prayer.

So how did I get the meaning back? Writing about it, crying about it, talking about it. I had a teacher who reminded me that it isn’t mandatory to say all the words in the siddur. If I could just open the siddur and say one word, that would be sufficient. There’s a Grand Canyon sized difference between honestly and earnestly using a single word to express your prayer and saying all the words on the page when they feel empty.

That first word didn’t come right away. I started to just sit in services with the siddur closed on my lap. It was second nature to open it up, but following along wouldn’t have meant anything. Instead, I forced myself to acknowledge the change that had happened, the change in the way it felt to pray. And then I learned this text:

Praying Without Expectation- Talmud Bavli 32b

(Case 1) R. Hanin said in the name of R. Hanina: If one prays long his prayer does not pass unheeded. Whence do we know this? From Moses our Master; for it says, And I prayed unto the Lord, and it is written afterwards, And the Lord hearkened unto me that time also.

Basically, it isn’t the length of the prayer that counts, but the purpose of it.

(Case 2) But is that so? Has not R. Hiyya b. Abba said in the name of R. Yohanan: If one prays long and looks for the fulfillment of his prayer, in the end he will have vexation of heart, as it says, Hope deferred makes the heart sick? What is his remedy? Let him study the Torah, as it says, But desire fulfilled is a tree of life; and the tree of life is naught but the Torah, as it says, She is a tree of life to them that lay hold on her!

And here we learn you can’t pray for immediate action, but rather for courage, understanding, or direction.

Hama son of R. Hanina said: If a man sees that he prays and is not answered, he should pray again, as it says, Wait for the Lord, be strong and let thy heart take courage; yea, wait thou for the Lord.

Again, it’s the idea that prayer is not about the physical rewards, not even always the content at all, but about the feeling you have when you pray.

It’s cliché to say “life is about the journey” – the real sentiment should be that by making the journey meaningful and enjoyable, you’ve given your life meaning and joy. And the same is true for prayer. There’s a performing arts group in Dallas that has had the same motto for the last several decades. It’s not on their brochures or their website, but when a show director wants to convey the power and purpose of the journey, he tells his performers, “Hard work is fun when improvement is evident.” Prayer is most meaningful, most beneficial, not when the result is getting what you asked for, but when it’s giving you a purpose and focus you didn’t have before.

So what was the one word that got me back? What was the one phrase that refocused my Judaism after this emotional Jenga puzzle came crashing down in front me? I’m sure you know by now . . . it was the Shema. It’s the last prayer we say and the first prayer we teach. In fact it’s still pretty new to Shiri, but I remember the first time on her own she held up her little fingers and covered her eyes when she heard the Shema sung at services. We beamed at her, and she beamed back with the pride of learning what she was supposed to do. Now she’s starting to learn bits and pieces of other prayers and blessings (what can I say, she’s a rabbi’s kid) but for a while, the Shema was the only prayer she could say.

In the late summer of 2007, the Shema was the only prayer I could open my mouth to say. As I wrote then, “It is the utterance of those six words that place me in a moment in time that I will forever cherish. It is these six words that reaffirm my belief in God, in man, and in myself. I will understand it one day, I will hear the world around me, I will find God in my daily life.” When I arrive at the High Holidays, I find myself in a unique conundrum. On the one hand, the notion of prayer and introspection for a dedicated number of days excites me; it feels like a mandate to take an accounting of myself and really listen to my heart. On the other hand, I’m a doer, and the thought of all of these hours spent stationary feels anything but productive. More than that though, these days call into question my personal relationship with prayer. Prayer is not always easy, and probably shouldn’t be.

There have been other times for me when I struggled with prayer not because of some spiritual blockage, but because the words themselves just didn’t flow naturally. Part of my time in rabbinical school included chaplaincy at a hospital back in Michigan. It was my job to sit and pray with patients, and only a small number of them were Jewish. So most of them wanted to hear Christian prayers, the ones they grew up with and knew from church.

Luckily I had the benefit of brilliant rabbi teachers, one of whom insisted we open each class with an extemporized prayer, and we would rotate through the class and have each student take a turn giving the prayer on a particular day. Including me, there were two students in this class. Needless to say, I got a lot of prayer experience that semester.

My goal today was to share my own experiences as a way of opening the door to a wide variety of things prayer can be for you. Prayer isn’t always about changing the world, but it is always about connecting with yourself, doing it over and over again, and about having the patience to wait.

. . .

Before we move on to Yizkor, I’ll share some some passages that I meditated on that reopened my conversation with God, and maybe they’ll do the same for you. Here is an example from one of my favorite prayers, D’ror Yikra, which is traditionally sung around the Shabbat table. I started by breaking down the words, which read: “Shema Koli B’yom Ekrah.” Hear my voice on the day that I call.

SHEMA: Hear. Hear the thoughts I can’t speak out loud, hear my heart’s deepest desires. Sometimes we pray because we can’t verbalize our thoughts; prayer is our private meditation space with God, and for God to listen, we also have to listen to ourselves.

KOLI: Think about your voice. What is it that you and only you can offer to the world? That is your personal prayer, your voice, and no one else can do it for you.

B’YOM: “On the day” is in the moment. You can have regular prayer and still make it fluid, not fixed or static. If prayer represents the innermost thoughts in your heart, then it’s going to change based on your mood, based on your needs. It can be as simple as thank you or please. It can be focused on individual growth or about what you specifically need to call out to God. Your prayer today doesn’t have to be your prayer tomorrow. Open yourself anew each day, and search for one new thing to share. Maybe it’s a hope for the day, a thank you for yesterday, or a goal you need extra support to accomplish.

EKRAH: I will call out. Allow yourself to call out, to let go of your inhibitions, and enter into the relationship with prayer that puts your everything out there. I’m not just talking vocally, but emotionally. Think about it – how can there be “shema” – listening – without something to listen to?

Our relationships with God change, always, and no matter how far out God and prayer can feel, there is always a way back in. For me, it still isn’t always easy to pray, but the meaning comes each day as I remember that it doesn’t have to be perfect, that God listens even when the siddur is closed. Find your voice, listen to your heart, change it up a bit, but mostly, be open to that experience. As we stand here on the brink of the moment of judgement, may we find our minds as open as the midbar, the wilderness, to the feeling of prayer, even if it’s just a word at a time.

Something For Everyone – Parshat Vayelech 5776

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Something For Everyone

One of my favorite shul memories from my childhood is going with my Zayde to services on Shabbat morning.  He had a regular ritual that during the Haftorah he and his friends would disappear from services into the small kitchen for a l’chaim.  I remember this was called the “key club” because someone from the group had to provide the keys to let them into the otherwise locked space.  The men would enjoy a beverage and a chat during Haftorah, and return to sing their hearts out during Musaf.  

Likewise, there was a group of women that had a special ritual too. Toward the end of the service I remember the women exiting to the social hall to set out kiddush.  

And the children? We too had our special time, and of course it was the best ritual of all. During the Torah service, I was whisked away on a parade through the sanctuary to a special kids-only space where I could play, pray, and learn without having to be quiet.  

What was great about the Shabbat mornings of my memory, and those just like it in synagogues all over, was the emphasis on the idea that Jewish ritual and practice are open to all. Everyone finds a way to connect.

This week we read from parshat Vayelech, which speaks of the difficulty leaders have in transferring over their power.  We read of the final days of Moshe and the gift of life he had in living 120 years.  The Israelites approach the land promised to them and witness the transfer of “power” to Joshua.  Finally, Moshe writes the words of the Torah and passes down the commandment to the Kohanim to read the Torah.  Moshe’s final moments with the Israelites are near, and he prepares for this by coming up with a transfer of legacy, tradition, and history.  

The Torah teaches us in chapter 31 that as Moshe is going through this transition, he makes the following request to gather the people.  “Gather the people, men, women, children and the strangers in your communities – that they may hear and so learn to revere the Lord your God and to observe faithfully every word of this Teaching.  Their children too, who have not had the experience, shall hear and learn to revere the Lord your God.”  Everyone is invited to learn, and everyone is considered to be an inheritor of our tradition.  This also means that we are individually responsible for engaging and enjoying this rich tradition in a personally meaningful way.  

Most notably, Moshe mentions the children “who have not had the experience.” It is commanded in the Torah that we bring children into our communities so that they can learn.  Imagine Mt. Sinai as the world’s biggest Tot Shabbat.  Noisy as it must have been, that idea is what Jewish learning is about.  

Whether you come for the l’chaim, the kiddush, the d’var Torah, or the communal davening, the Torah’s lesson this week is that one need only show up to partake.  Judaism is for us all, men, women, and children, and the job we share is to gather together to teach, to learn, and to listen so that our beautiful traditions live on.

The Jewish Fitbit – Rosh Hashanah 5776

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Jewish FitbitRosh HaShanah sermon for Congregation Neveh Shalom
September 14, 2015

Now the real fun starts. We’re going to do some Rosh HaShanah math. Don’t worry, this is fun math. And that’s coming from me, for whom there is no more moronic oxymoron than “fun math.” And since it’s yuntif, I won’t ask you to show your work. Ready? Here we go.

The modern Egyptian village of Qantir is widely believed to be the location where Ramesses II built his great capital. The math hasn’t started yet, I’m just giving you some background. Of course we don’t know for sure that Ramesses II was the pharaoh we refer to as “Pharaoh,” but for the sake of Yule Brenner’s legacy, we’ll say he was.

Here’s where the math starts. Qantir is located about 280 miles from Mount Sinai. So allowing for some interpretive reasoning, we can guess that 280 miles is approximately the distance the Israelites traveled from receiving their freedom to receiving the Torah.

Keep that number in your head – 280 – while we move to the next number. On Shabbat mornings when services are in the sanctuary, the Torah generally follows the same path through the pews. You probably knew that. What you might not know is that the round-trip distance – in other words, the parade when we take the Torah out plus the parade when we return the Torah to the ark – is about 0.06 miles. That’s six hundredths of a mile. Now of course not every service is in the sanctuary, including this one, but if we imagine this is around the distance traveled each week, then after a year of Shabbatot, our Torahs have traveled just over 3 miles.

Do you see where this is going? If you started coming to shul as a baby and followed the Torah around the sanctuary each week, after 90 years of Shabbat services, you will have traveled the same distance the Israelites traveled when they originally received the Torah.

Like I said, I don’t do a lot of math. But I do love knowing how far I’ve walked, so my step-count is kind of the exception to the no-math rule. If you’ve spent any time with me this year, you know that a highlight of each Tuesday, my day off, is the two and a half hours I spend outside, rain or shine, pounding the pavement. I walk. I walk to clear my head, I walk to come up with great ideas, I walk to feel good. And for me, walking is also a solitary, reflective time. I often walk alone, and as strange as it may sound, I don’t listen to music or talk on the phone. It’s a time for me.

Show of Fitbits, how many people have some type of fitness tracking device? I bought my Fitbit Charge last December. This incredible little device sits on my wrist, and magically counts the steps that I take every day. Not only that, but if I sync it with my phone, I learn all sorts of information about how active I am in a day, how many calories I eat, how many calories I burn, how many flights of stairs I climb, and how fast I move. It can even track my sleep patterns. And when I hit my daily step goal, I feel a short little buzz against my wrist as a reward to keep me motivated.

A tiny little buzz for a job well done means a huge sense of accomplishment for the day. And let me tell you, I work for that little buzz. In fact, your very own Neveh Shalom staff can get pretty competitive when it comes to step-count. I won’t name names, but rest assured there is a healthy level of one-upmanship around here that only pushes us to walk more. The competition is paying off, because I can proudly say that since getting my Fitbit, I’ve lost 10 lbs.

All told, I have at least three motivators: the reward buzz when I reach my goal, the challenge to keep up with colleagues, and the knowledge that I’m a healthier, more fit person. I’m not being paid by Fitbit for this sermon – although if you know someone who knows someone, I’m open to that idea – these are all simply ways in which this little device on my wrist inspires me to be more active.

What inspires your action? Are you more inspired by others or does your “nudge” come from internal motivation? What is your little buzz on your wrist? At this time of reflection on the cusp of a new year, what will drive you to make it your best year?

Rosh HaShannah is the time when we are commanded to take stock in ourselves, to do a year-end review of what it is we’ve accomplished, identify where we feel we can do better, and then work towards making active change. This is a requirement of our holiday, to look back on the year. What did your year look like? Where do you hope to do better in the coming year? Most importantly, how will you measure your progress?

Perhaps what we need . . . is a “Jewish Fitbit!” We have all kinds of gadgets for measuring physical activity, productivity, and intellectual engagement, but we don’t have one that keeps us religiously motivated and spiritually active.

So what would a Jewish Fitbit look like? I need to know, because if I’m going to make my elevator pitch on Shark Tank, I have to get it just right. On my regular Fitbit, my progress is tracked in terms of steps, miles, calories, floors, active minutes, sleep, weight, and hydration. These are all measurable on the single device, and each one tells me about how hard I’m working, how fast I’m moving towards my goal, how I take care of myself physically and mentally, and so much more.

Steps

Let’s start with steps. My Fitbit measures each individual movement I make during the day. The steps all count towards a bigger goal of 10,000 steps for the day, but each individual step forward still takes me somewhere. On our Jewish Fitbit, perhaps this is the summation of each little thing we’ve done to make positive strides in the world. From the Exodus to the symbolic march of Dr. Abraham Joshua Heschel alongside Dr. Martin Luther King when he said, “I felt my feet were praying,” as Jews we are literally moved to make change. The actions in our world, the steps we take, are measured by the ways in which we work towards doing and bringing good into our world. At the end and beginning of the year, we must ask ourselves how we keep stepping forward in our prayer, in our relationships, and in our mitzvot.

Miles

When you’ve walked enough steps, you start counting up the miles. These miles add up; they’re cumulative. What I love about the mile count on my Fitbit is that every once in a while I get a badge telling me how far I’ve walked relative to other forms of travel. So far I’ve climbed the flight altitude of a hot air balloon, the length of the Tube in London, and the distance of the “march of the penguins,” just to name a few. Now you understand my fun math a little more.

Judaism gives badges for these types of milestones too. In our community our miles are the collective moments we share with one another. We wear proudly the badge of our first siddur, our first aliyah to the Torah, and later our wedding under the chupah.

calories

If a step-count or mileage goal seems a little out of reach, wait till you measure your calories. This is the real hard part. In terms of calories consumed, you could easily overdo it just within these synagogue walls. Between the challah, the tuna salad, and every last homemade dessert we pride ourselves on, there are plenty of calories to be had in our holy space. And for the calories burned, you don’t have to look any further than the many man-hours of volunteering mind and body that continue to power our community.

floors

What about floors climbed – how would that translate to our Jewish Fitbit? Climbing stairs is hard work, and Judaism is all about lifting up yourself and others. In our daily Amidah we traditionally climb 3 times – we raise up on our toes at “Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh,” “Holy, Holy, Holy” we proclaim as we are physically uplifted. But we also climb spiritually and emotionally. We climb as we lift and elevate our souls. Perhaps for you the stairs this year represent finding a way to lift up one another in cooperation, in justice, or in holiness.

active minutes

What are your active minutes? On the Fitbit this is the measurement of continuous movement, the solid cardio. Pirkei Avot teaches us we’re not obligated to complete the task, neither are we free to desist from it. And having a community ensures that we’re not in this alone. We cheer each other on, and we know that our goals are attainable when we feel supported. Just like it helps to have a workout buddy who is your accountability partner, what if you had a spiritual workout buddy? Someone to celebrate with during the best moments and someone to check in with during the questioning moments.

sleep

Sleep. For me it comes and goes. For Duncan, it’s possible just about anywhere. For Shiri it means a special ritual of bath-time, singing, and a bedtime Shema. This is the time we take to recoup, and it’s absolutely necessary in order to be healthy, in order to be productive. Where the Jewish Fitbit is concerned, Judaism also teaches us that making time for ourselves is essential. One of our core prayers, the V’ahavta, teaches that we should speak of God and speak of Torah when we lie down and when we rise up. Thus, we track our faith even in our subconscious states. In Parshat Vayeitzei in Bereishit, we see this illustrated quite vividly in Jacob’s dream of the angels ascending and descending. Faith awake, and faith asleep. As a side note, the angels are on a ladder as you’ll recall, so this example probably works for “floors climbed” too. Who knew there was so much fitness tracking in the Torah?

weight

My Fitbit helps me track my physical weight, but we carry a lot more around with us than that. We carry our memories and we carry our guilt. We carry things that we should probably work to let go of, and things that we can reflect on and hold in our hearts forever. We face a constant battle of what to keep and what to hold onto. Sometimes it feels like a yo-yo diet. During the year, our actions can weigh us down, and at Tashlich we finally symbolically let go of our sins. By literally shedding those carbs, those breadcrumbs, those extra pounds that hold us back, we’re able to start the year anew.

hydration

Water is essential for life. It keeps our internal bodily systems functioning, and it cleanses and refreshes. It also symbolically nourishes us. We refer to the waters of the mikvah as mayim chayim, “living waters.” These are waters that refresh, renew, and restore our bodies to a state of ritual purity. Interestingly, we often refer to Torah as both nourishment and renewal. The study of Torah can feed a soul, and like a shower after a long workout, learning Torah together with a community can refresh and renew your spirit.

So now that we have our Jewish parallels to the data we collect, now that we’ve used our Jewish Fitbit to keep track of these aspects of our Jewish living, what do we do with it? How do we analyze the results?

Similar to a fitness tracker, our liturgy has its own built-in procedural standard, a rubric for measuring understanding and growth. The Unetanetokef in Musaf serves as a rubric of sorts for our year, and we measure each of these counters – steps, stairs, sleep – according to Teshuvah, Tefillah, and Tzedakah. Teshuvah: what did we give back and how did we try to better ourselves? Tefillah: how did we interact with God? Tzedakah: in what ways did we grow our community and advocate for justice? This is how we look back at the year and actually see the effect we have during this limited time on our planet.

In a world of gadgets, measurable data, and competition, what would it look like to inspire, challenge, and nourish our own souls in this way?

The Jewish Fitbit, or the Jewbit, or the Mitzbit, whatever we’re going to call it – I’m taking suggestions, by the way – is the way in which we motivate ourselves to do more, be more, give more. This time of year is about accepting the responsibility to make positive change and identifying new goals we can set.

The metaphor of measuring our Jewish involvement isn’t supposed to make us feel guilty, but it is supposed to make us accountable to what it means to be a part of the community. The reward you get might not be a buzz on your wrist every day, but it might be the warm feeling you get when the synagogue building stops being a beautiful place to visit and starts being a home away from home. The reward you get might not be weight-loss, but it might be a healthier, more centered you. Your reward might not be overtaking the step-count of your coworker down the hall, but it might be turning acquaintances into lifelong friends.

Like the network of people who use the same device, we’re in this together. When you’re struggling during shloshim, that agonizingly long month after a loss, you have supporters to lift you up. When you cross the finish line of bat mitzvah, you have cheerleaders to sing and dance for your accomplishment. For every mile marker you cross, there will be someone crossing it with you, and there will be another journey to take. We are, after all, a people on the move. If the book of the Exodus teaches anything, it’s that there’s meaning in taking the long way, for ourselves and for each other. Our year is as much about the miles we’ve travelled in personal growth as it is about the number of milestones we accomplish together.

Torah-landia – Parshat Nitzavim 5775

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Torah-landia

As we prepared for our move to Portland last year, the question nearly every person asked us was “Have you watched Portlandia?”  We did actually catch some of the series to see what it was all about, but it’s after having lived here for over a year that the humor in the uniqueness of our city has become perfectly clear. One of my favorite quirks, albeit a confusing one, is the complicated waste disposal system in many restaurants, grocery stores, and coffee shops. Sometimes I honestly don’t know where my trash goes.  Reusable? Compost? Recycling? Landfill?  Even though I feel like I spend half the outing figuring out how to sort my dishes, this might be environmentalism at its best. And this is Portland.

However, Portland is not the first place to hold its residents to a higher standard in regard to waste and sustainability.  The Torah, and particularly this week’s parshah, Nitzavim, has concern for how we treat our land, how we reduce waste, and what the results of our actions will be on future generations.  This week we read about the continued warnings to always follow God and observe the commandments, as well as the idea that we have a choice between good and bad and life and death.  We’re instructed that the power to lead righteous lives is within our control.  

Specifically, chapter 29 goes into detail about the downfall of our land should one generation choose not to do its part to take care of it.  The text teaches that if mitzvot are not followed then certainly the land will be barren and crops will not grow.  Later generations will ask the children who succeed you, “How did those who lived before us permit themselves to despoil the earth, air, and water, not leaving us a livable environment?”

How interesting that a document that defines our past and present also asks us to anticipate the future. The Torah compels us to remember that what we do has an impact on future generations, and that our damage cannot always be undone.  Yes, the idea of sorting every scrap of garbage makes Portland sound weird (and even makes for great television parody), but living in a world where we know the origins of our food and do our best to create a sustainable living environment also means that we continue to nourish and provide for our future generations. Not to mention you can put a bird on it.

photo credit: Portlandia! via photopin (license)

The Not-So-Fast Lane – Parshat Ki Tavo 5775

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Not-So-Fast Lane

I am a suburbanite through and through. While other people live and die by the big city and the need to be part of it, as Steve Perry knows, I’m just a small town girl. I like being big-city-adjacent. I feel much more at home in my personal vehicle than taking public transportation. Crowded cities like New York throw me completely out of my comfort zone, and to this day I still don’t like having to drive somewhere that doesn’t have ample parking.

The environments where we were raised and those where we feel most comfortable say a lot about us. The rush of downtown life and having everything conveniently accessible by subway (or Uber) is right for some people, and others prefer large open spaces with miles and miles between neighbors.  City or country, suburb or village, every type of place in which to live comes with its own blessings.

This week we read parshat Ki Tavo, the section of the Torah that reminds us again of the blessings and curses that come to us as we choose to follow or ignore the laws of the Torah.  Specifically, we learn of the requirement to make an offering of “first fruits” for the priests in the Beit HaMikdash, and the different ways in which we are supposed to thank God and give praise (before prayer was a daily activity).  Finally, the text reminds us of how we’re supposed to take time to rebuke one another when we’ve taken a misstep and the ways in which we can do so with compassion and kindness.

Within this list of blessings comes several examples of where we should be blessed.  Chapter 28 reads:

“All these blessings shall come upon you and take effect, if you will but heed the word of the Lord your God.  Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country . . . blessed shall you be in your comings and blessed shall you be in your goings.”  

The bottom line is God will reward you for your service to the community, whichever community that is.  What the Torah doesn’t say is what each type of blessing might look like.  In the city perhaps a blessing is to live in a good neighborhood with good schools.  Perhaps we should be blessed to live near resources or luxuries that enrich our lives.  In the country perhaps the blessing is a plentiful crop, or wide open space to meditate and enjoy.  

The Torah is distinctly vague in what this blessing might be to remind us to discover those blessings ourselves.  What feels like a blessing to me (plentiful parking) might be a curse to you because you see paradise paved to create my parking lot.  And your urban jungle might feel like a blessing to you, but to me, crowded trains and one-way streets are the worst. At the Pesach seder when we remove drops of wine from the second cup to recall the plagues, I like to take out one extra drop of wine for one-way streets.     

Anyway, the Torah reminds us that the choice of where we settle brings its own blessings.  And the blessing itself is individual and what we make it.  This is the perfect little note-to-self that a blessing is that little pause for a minute to simply look around and recognize the good we have found in our own space.