Today I was driving home from school after an intense week involving many conversations about where we will be in a year, what the future holds, many unknowable ideas and grappling this morning with my own struggle with God a song from my past came on the radio.

“Another turning point a fork stuck in the road. Time grabs you by the wrist directs you where to go. So make the best of this task and don’t ask why. It’s not a question but a lesson learned in time. It’s something unpredictable but in the end it’s right, I hope you had the time of your life.” ~Green Day

This song used to be one of my favorite songs, it provided me some sense of calm and comfort when it seemed my life was out of control, out of order, strange, frustrating. And today, it came on the radio as all these thoughts of change and moving were on my mind and once again I was calm. I am here at another turning point, a fork in the road. I don’t know where I’ll be 9 months from now. For the first time in my life I have no idea what comes next. Will I work in a pulpit, will I work in a school, will I combine the two? Will I stay in LA, will I move back to Michigan, Texas, the east coast? Will I have friends there? So many choices need to be made, some of which I have no control over other than trying my hardest, putting my best foot, face and mind forward and being totally fit for the job.

And then I was thinking about rabbinical school, what a strange, incredible, long, exhausting, exhilarating journey I have been on for the last 6 years. I have grown, changed. I have fallen in love, made a new community for myself. I have lost many loved ones. I have gained weight and lost weight, smiled, laughed, cried, screamed and argued my way through so many pages of Talmud. Through the history and tradition that I love so dearly. It has been an incredible journey and I would be lying if I said I was glad it is ending. I am terrified, but excited, certain it will be an experience like none other.

And I have learned. I learned a little bit about who I am, about what motivates me, about what terrifies me. I wrestle with God daily, with the question of God, with the relationship I have with God, with what I used to know to be true and can no longer believe. I learned about traditions, law, philosophy, and I only hope I can remember it all.

In order to begin the job search process as part of the last year of rabbinical school (WOAH!), we had to come up with our metaphor for the rabbinate. I spent a lot of time debating over different metaphors- rabbi as park ranger, rabbi as juggler, rabbi as conductor. But none of these really resonated with me in what I see as the role of the Rabbi. I settled on Rabbi as Relationship Therapist. As a rabbi I see it as my role to help people build relationships, plumb the depths of the relationships, what makes them work? How have they changed? What are we lacking in them? What can we do better? As a rabbi I want to help people build relationships with themselves, with their partners, lovers, friends, community, texts, traditions, history and with God. My job is to help these relationships blossom, flourish, and grow into a deeper, more meaningful relationship. Along the way, I will offer encouragement, suggest texts to push the learning deeper. I will engage in the hard conversations that accompany growing with oneself and with one another. I will be supportive on the journey and challenging when a little push is needed to really move to the next level in these relationships. Sometimes our relationships are broken, in disrepair, and I hope to be able to guide others through the process of healing. This is my hope as a rabbi- to be able to foster relationships with, love of and comfort with Judaism, people, tradition, ourselves.

A D’var Torah given on Friday Night, Erev Sukkot at my internship. Actual delivery varied from text!

growing up in Michigan my biggest sukkot worry was that it would snow in the sukkah, or those other times when it would rain and the paper chain I’d spent hours piecing together would be ruined, soggy, gone. Sukkot always meant hot apple cider, chilly nights outside, mittens. And then I came to LA, it was warm, even comfortable in the sukkah, I didn’t have to worry about my paper chains being ruined- what a weird experience. It wasn’t until I moved to LA 6 years ago that I even learned that Schach, the word for what we cover the sukkah with didn’t mean evergreen. I came to LA and was very confused when there were palm branches on top of the Sukkah, Of course they didn’t have evergreen trees in the desert as they were traveling, but for me, it was a huge blow to my world.

A couple of weeks ago as I was learning more about Etz Chaim, I heard the following conversation: There was a problem with the Schach, the covering for the Sukkah. Apparently if it was delivered too soon it would dry out and become a fire danger. Now, some of you might be thinking, DUH, this is obvious, it’s dry, we live in a desert? I’d never even thought about that, I only saw the luxury in living somewhere that had weather above freezing for sukkot.

listening to this conversation I was again humbled at my place on this earth. Sukkot, this holiday we have just entered into provides us with a space to think about our journeys. While we may not be physically journeying from place to place with this temporary structure as our only shelter, we are journeying through life. We have just spent days thinking about who will live and who will die, praising God for the good in our life, wondering how we can help others. And now we have arrived at Sukkot and are again reminded of our temporary residence in the world. The sukkah, like our relationships with one another takes effort to build, requires constant care, checking in on, nurture in order to make it through just an 8 day celebration. The sukkah stands for us as a symbol of community.

Ufros Aleinu Sukkat Shelomeicha. Spread over us the shelter of your peace, of your completion. This phrase is part of the Hashkiveinu prayer said every night during Ma’ariv, the evening service. It has always stood out to me as a line of poignancy, one that speaks to me on many levels. Physically, we build the sukkah, we build this temporary structure to live in for the 8 days of the holiday. It becomes our home, our center. And on a much higher level, we think about a much larger structure, being wrapped, embraced in God’s arms, in God’s shelter of peace, of tranquility, of completion. The Sukkah is much bigger than what we can build in our own backyard.

We are on a journey, trying to find the space that we will call our own. The sukkah thtat we build is strong, but can only last for so long.

We ask God to spread over us his shelter of peace, to support us on our journey. Ufros Aleinu Sukkat Shelomecha. Over the next week as we celebrate the joy of the harvest festival, as we continue on our journey through life, finding our place under the shelter of peace, think about where your journey is taking you. We have this gift each year of 8 days to sit with ourselves, to think about where our journey is taking us.

And so, it is my prayer, my hope, the prayer of my heart that God spreads over you, over us his/her shelter of peace. That each of us finds our peaceful place, a place of center, contentment, happiness. That the loving embrace of God helps each of us to find our own place, our makom Kavua (set place) in this world, and we enjoy the journey to that place!

Shabbat Shalom, Chag Sameach!

A drash on V’zot HaBrachah- once again, written text is not what the actual presentation was!

what if you could write your own Eulogy, you own ethical will? What would you say? who would you bless? How will you be remembered? What would others say? We are often remembered by our words, what we say to another person can often leave a mark.

This Parshah, Parshat V’zot HaBrachah is Moses’s ethical will, his parting words to the people of Israel. As I was growing up, my dad used to send me emails of encouragement, of support, of blessings and of love. When he is no longer here with me, his words remain, encouraging me, they allow him to live on.

In many ways, Moses’s words in our parshah do the same thing. he brings in memory of what was, he reminds them of what he had seen them do, who they were and how far they have come. Deuteronomy, Chapter 33, verse 1 states: This is the blessing with which Moses, the man of God, bade the Israelites farewell before he died. And then goes on to bless the tribes. The order of this blessing and the blessings given are nearly identical to what is given to those tribes in Genesis. Moses concludes his life with a blessing, with his wishes and dreams for the future.

in Chapter 34, verse 5, Moses dies, “So Moses, the servant of the Lord died there, in the land of Moab, at the command of the lord.” The verse states Al-Pi-Adonai literally by the mouth of the lord. So I ask the question, what does it mean to die by the mouth of the lord?

In the Babylonian Talmud, in Moed Katan, 28a the Talmud states that God reclaimed the soul of Moses by kissing him. The same God who breathed life into Adam in the beginning of the Torah takes Moses in the same way at the end. Life, Breathe, a Kiss. So simple, so profound. Our mouth is the window to our soul- we live through it, we can injure with it, our words can hurt and heal, By the mouth Moses died, and by the mouth, we live.

In tractate Brachot 31 the Talmud teaches that a person should only leave his fellow with a word of Halachah, a piece of Law as it is through this that one will be remembered. Our words allow us to remember people, to create meaning and memory. After we are gone, whether by distance or by death, often our words are how we are remembered.

Our Parshah- V’zot HaBrachah tells us that this is the blessing. We are able to use our mouth, life is blown into us to bless us, we can bless those around us. This is what our blessing is.

Moses will be remembered through his blessings, his laws, his deeds. My father will be remembered by so many for so many things, but his legacy for me lives on through his emails, those words that speak to me more each day.

What is your blessing?