The Unbearable Lightness of Being Jewish (Jewish Week)

The Jewish Week

Have you ever stopped to think of how many useless things you've accumulated? Sukkot is a great time to reflect on this this, as we recall our ancestors' journeys through the wilderness with few posessions but enormous faith. This realization also hits me when I head to the outlet malls to buy the exact same khaki pants I purchased a few years before -- only one size larger. I buy the new pants reluctantly, but simultaneously pledge not to part with the old pair, just in case. The Messiah will undoubtedly come before I again fit into them, but I keep the older apparel nonetheless. I hate to throw things away.

It's the same with magazines. In my basement I've got decades of Newsweeks and Sports Illustrateds (worth pittance compared to all those baseball cards my mother chucked), a few ancient copies of Moment and some collector's item copies of the Jerusalem Post when it was left-wing. And then there's my fourth grade math homework, my old harmonica, some Hebrew notebooks with all the original psychedelic alef-bet doodles, and letters; loads of letters, personal, junk and life-transforming -- enough mail to fill the Smithsonian someday after I write the great American-Jewish novel, follow up with my memoirs and die.

But in the unlikely case that I don't become obscenely famous, I've got to start lightening the load.

Baggage accumulation, like the national debt, rises uncontrollably even as we seek to rein it in.

Every Pesach I dutifully perform the ritual of spring cleaning, but with each seder comes another albumful of snapshots, accompanying the escalating collection of clippings for the files, books for the shelves, videos for the cabinet, CDs to replace the tapes to replace the LPs to replace the 45s to replace the 78s, to put next to the 486 to replace the 386 to replace the PC Junior to replace the slide rule. If I were to sit down and read all the books I've got lying an a neat pile on my night table, I'd never have the time to scan the millions of pages of literature I can download right now from the Net or on CD ROM. It is petrifying to note that through computer technology I now have accessible to me a Judaic library greater than the cumulative libraries of all the great and not-so-great sages of the last 2,000 years. This baggage has deep value, but one can suffocate from the sheer weight of it.

Judaism has lots of baggage too. Our core acts of religious expression have been smothered by centuries of accumulated embellishment. Though some piyyutim (religious poems) are beautiful, most come across now like the old clothes that fill my closets. Very few of them actually "fit," and by the time you get around to the best stuff, you're too tired from "trying them on" to notice.
But we keep adding layers, to the point where our tallesim are becoming as weighty as those moon suits worn by the astronauts. As I stand during the Amida, straining to lift myself to angelic heights with each utterance of the word "Kadosh," I am weighted down by so much ballast that it is virtually impossible to pray.

Maimonides wrote about 24 things that keep us from truly doing teshuvah. There are umpteen impediments keeping me from truly baring all before God each moment of each day. If the world is a very narrow bridge, as Nachman of Bratzlav suggested, then in order to cross it we've got to cut loose the loaded U-Haul that we are dragging along. The problem is that the things we jettison might prove valuable to others, including our own children. So we shouldn't obliterate everything, rather we should place the superfluous in storage -- somewhere else. Then, free at last, we can begin to negotiate that narrow bridge.

So what could we do without? What weighs me down? For one, we really don't need the New York Times. Try going without it for a week and we might discover something amazing: our own opinions. On a Jewish communal level, we've probably got a few too many organizations and far too many fund raising dinners. We really don't need two days of Yom Tov in the diaspora and we could cut down on the times we repeat the Sh'ma, Kedusha and Ashrei at services. We could do without lengthy sermons and solos too. But these aren't really what weighs us down.

Our primary burdens are self-inflicted. They include feelings of guilt and inadequacy, unresolved relationships with parents, children, spouses and lovers; and hopelessness. The burden comes not from accumulated photos and fourth grade homework, but from seeing those bygone days as our best days. Then there are the burdens of pretension, status-seeking and conformity. The obsessive fear of change is a horrible burden to bear, and the need to always be right. Hatred is equally terrible, taking so much energy to sustain.

When all these burdens are shed, the other trappings hardly matter. So what if there are two Ashreis, five black-tie dinners and a closet full of outsized pants. These are the peripherals. The junk I shlep from place to place can often spring to life with new, sudden significance, if only I could color them with hope and humility.

If only I allowed myself to shed the extraneous layers and bare my soul before God, not allowing anything to get in the way, not the page number I have to announce next, nor the name of the Kiddush sponsor. Then I would truly be God's instrument, a violin in God's hands, allowing myself to share my most beautiful music with God's world.

I am God's instrument, exposed and lithe. And all the old pictures, the extra prayers and ancient periodicals serve to moisten the strings when I myself am stored away for the night. Even my old harmonica has become a life-giving force; it is the instrument of an instrument. These things can easily accompany me across that narrow bridge, not as the ballast but as the bounce.

If only I could let the baggage go.

The Lord is My Cable Guy (Jewish Week)

The Jewish Week, July 5, 1996

A few months ago, I suggested in a column that the split between Orthodox and more liberal denominations has widened to the point where we aren't even speaking the same language. There is no greater proof of this than the ways Jews of different stripes now speak of God.

I can recall a time not too long ago when God was God: almighty, transcendent, father and king. In the minds of most young American Jewish baby boomer, He probably had a beard, undoubtedly a deep, resonant voice and He was certainly a He; Zeus with a slight Yiddish -- no, British -- accent.

Now -- and before you excommunicate me, hear me out on this one -- just imagine a convention of current Jewish God concepts, as they converse around the bar somewhere in the Heavenly Hilton. Already we have a problem; some of these dieties can't attend because they exist primarily within the human soul, within nature or through the evolution of history. So let's leave some of the less transcendent God concepts out for now, and imagine this gathering: We find Hashem, just back from Kiryat Arba, where He has been scouting out recent American olim for potential moshiachs; He and G-D are mired in deep halachic discussion in one corner, while maternal Shechinah and New Ager Yah recite earthy love poetry in the other. The Lord demands that Shechinah serve Him some Leviathan leftovers. She refuses, commiserating with her feminist allies, Malkah (Queen) and M'kor Hayyim (Wellspring of Life). Then, L-RD calls Lord over and suggests that a little modesty might do Him some good. Adonai goes one step further, suggesting that S/he replace Lord altogether, since Adonai's the Hebrew word for Lord, but less masculine, less feudal, closer to the original. Just as Adonai is about to win the point, Adoshem sweeps down, whirlwind style, gyrating displeasure, shaking the heavens, nearly stirring even the outermost reaches of Ein Sof , causing an imbalance in the Sefirot and sending millions of shattered shards of divinity earthward. This shakes Hashem into action, calling for Moshiach, Now! At that moment a bespectacled Yahweh and El walk into the room asking if this is where the interfaith academic conference in being held.

How can we expect Jews to get along when our Gods are so different, or more to the point, when we see God so differently? I shuddered a bit when writing the previous paragraph; not that I considered it an exercise in blasphemy. All of our names for God are simply that: names, symbols, metaphors, far from encompassing the real One. What shook me was the possibility that this column might be seen by some as demeaning the search for God, for that search, I believe, is the key to Jewish regeneration, and one that I take very seriously.

If we are to know what lies at the basis for our attachment to Judaism, we've got to understand our personal theologies. Often that means picking and choosing from the available metaphors. Ideally, it means creating our own. Well, not creating, exactly, since creation ex nihilo is what God does. What we do is generate a world-view based on our own experiences, passions and visions, our interpretations of how text, tradition and life experiences commingle.

Two years ago, some congregants joined me in a faith-development seminar led by Professor Neil Gillman (one of the best faith developers around), and the metaphors that emerged from this primarily lay group were astounding. A fertility specialist spoke of encountering God when witnessing a new life she has created in a petrie dish. In one of my less techno-phobic moods, I described God as a large screen TV, with each person as a single, transient dot on that screen. We never get to see the big picture, but we know that somehow we are part of a greater order, that all of us are connected, and that the script calls for a divinely-ordained conclusion of some sort. God also operates the remote control and could change the channel at any moment, especially if our dots separate or weaken and the picture becomes snowy. In this scenario, maybe the Messiah is the Cable Guy.

I never fully played out my idea, but neither, I suppose, has God. The important thing is the search, and the need to liberate ourselves from the stale concepts of yesteryear. My God concepts are still evolving, but I'm beginning to get a handle on them.

Once I've begun to understand my own sense of Ultimate Reality, I then can see where mine intersects with others'. And I try to look at even the most divergent theologies as in some way complementary. For instance, I have a personal aversion to the modern usage of "Hashem," but although I would prefer that my children not bring Hashem home with them, I want them to know and feel the hunger for redemption that Hashem's followers have. And while I wouldn't want my kids to use G-D in their writings (I find that omnipresent dash to be an unnecessarily h-lier-than-th-u) I would want them to appreciate the absolute reverence underlying a desire to mask even an English translation of an already-masked version of God's Hebrew Name. They need to sense the mystery of Ein Sof, the harmony of the Sefirot, the love of Shechinah, the majesty of Adonai, the security of Tzur (Rock of)Yisrael and the life-giving waters of M'kor Hayyim. Given all that, at some point in their lives I hope they'll hear their own private calling from the burning bush. I want them to sense God's presence around them and within them.

It doesn't always come easily for me.

Every time God's name is used to promote a political cause, God is knocked down a notch. I don't blame God for the pieties professed by the pols, but having so much of that insincerity dumped on us in God's name can't help but make me more cynical. And how can I take God seriously when leading rabbinic figures in Israel claim that their incantations, candles and amulets caused God to bring down the Peres government?

Maybe what we need to do is exactly what Abraham did in his father Terach's idol shop: destroy the idols and build anew from the collective rubble. When we recognize that neither Adonai, Hashem nor M'kor Hayyim are really God, but that together they help us see different dimensions the Sacred, maybe we'll be more willing to reach out to our fellow Jew residing on the other side of the theological spectrum.

If all Jews would accept just that one point, we might begin to forge some unity. As Mordechai Kaplan wrote, "It is not the seeking after God that divides, but the claim to have found God." If my more traditional colleagues would consider seeing God as a Malkah for a single day, maybe I'll consider letting Hashem through the door -- but it would be helpful if He knew how to fix the cable.

Interfaith Council President - First Rabbi

 

A Tribute to Mel Allen

by Joshua Hammerman
Delivered at his Funeral, June 19, 1996

There is a prayer that Jews recite three times daily known as the Amida. This is in many ways our most significant prayer, containing within it the essence of our personal and collective aspirations. And it begins with a peculiar line, always recited silently, taken from Psalm 51. "Lord, open my lips that my words might speak your praise." This phrase is actually a prayer that we be able to pray. For Judaism is a faith that emphasizes the significance of each word, and considers each word uttered with perfect authenticity a prayer. Each breath is a prayer, each utterance, if authentic, is an expression of our Godliness, each sentence, if it comes from the soul, is testimony to the wonder of being alive, of the miracles that God has given us.

Mel Allen's life was one long, extended, exhaustive, exhilarating, triumphant prayer. It was a call to all of us to see the sublimity in the smallest things, the pitch one inch off the corner, the stolen sign, the first seasonal shifts of the wind. And as for the larger things, he coined the most sublime expression of wonder of all, radical amazement in three short words: "How About That." To have lived to have been able to witness something worth a "How About That," that, to him was a gift. Whether it was a triple play or a mammoth clout, with those three words, Mel Allen was able to elevate broadcasting to the realm of prayer, not just for him, but for the millions who clung to every word he spoke. And he was so fortunate, and he knew it, to have seen Gehrig and Ruth, to have chronicled the heroic deeds of Mantle and Dimaggio, to have placed the imprint of the bard on Don Larson's moment, to have helped us all to say, week after week, night after night, "How About That."

Mel Allen was a good, humble and sensitive man. He was a loving son who took care of his parents in their old age -- only, through his sensitivity, he led his parents to believe that they were moving up here from Alabama to help him. When his father was ill, he said to them, "I need you to make a home for me up here." Such exquisite sensitivity. And after they passed on, they continued to be in his thoughts. Every year, at our memorial service in the cemetery next door, Mel would be there, with his sister Esther of course, to remember.

Imagine the kindness of this man, a man in a position to be overpowering and cruel and get away with it; but not Mel. He understood the sheer miracle of his good fortune in life and recognized the power of his words. Imagine, his was a voice that spoke so many millions of words, so many millions, heard by so many millions of people, and yet how few of those words were spoken in anger or bitterness, how few shaming another person, how few containing the gossip that poisons today's vernacular, and how many simple words of wonder and praise. It was as if every time he sat in front of a microphone or otherwise opened his mouth he uttered that line from psalms, "Lord, open my lips so that my words might speak your praise."

Mel would probably be laughing right now, because of his humility, and he never spoke of death, never really prepared himself or us for this moment. He wouldn't have wanted us to make a big deal: we're talking about a man who in grammar school was allowed to skip a grade in the middle of the year and he never thought to tell his parents. But with all due respect to his humility, we must speak his praise. Bert Parks once called him the nicest man in the whole industry. Walter Cronkite telephoned him at home a short while back, and that call really touched Mel. While the two had been at the same network they hardly ever conversed, but Walter wanted to thank him, decades after the fact, for being so kind in showing him around the studio when he was just starting out.

In the '50s when Mel was at the height of his career, he received a call from an assistant football coach in the midwest who had some interest in being a sportscaster. Mel Allen spent over an hour with this young man on the phone and left a lasting impression. It was only years later that George Steinbrenner reminded him of the incident.

His kindness went beyond normal expectations. As a teacher in Alabama, he once gave a failing grade to Bear Bryant. But he did it nicely. And in his '20s, Mel Allen actually decked someone, a Klansman. He beat the tar out of him, and then years later he found out that they guy was living in Connecticut, so Mel called him and said, "You want another lickin'?" The man couldn't remember who it was, so Mel took him to lunch. It says in Proverbs, "If your enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat." Mel had a knack of turning enemies into friends.

When we think of Mel Allen, it will be with that microphone in front of him, but let us first recall the kind words that always came out of the mouth that spoke into that mike. He achieved greatness through hard work and good fortune and genuine talent, but never through malice, deceit or backstabbing. He achieved every honor imaginable, he is a resident of several Halls of Fame, but it didn't change him one bit.

And when we think of Mel, inevitably we'll think of baseball. Undoubtedly, some of you are here today mourning today not only the loss of a good person but the end of an era, a time when baseball reminded us of all that was good, an innocence that baseball has long since lost but Mel himself maintained until the end. We felt that as long as Mel was with us, maybe we could regain that lost youth, that passion, that innocence. But here we are: today is the day when the man who coined the name Joltin' Joe has left and gone away. Baseball's era of gentility lies before us.

And we are here to mourn the silencing of that voice. A journalist once called him the Homer of homers. Now that can be taken in many ways; but the intention was to designate Mel as the Homeric poet of the home run. His magnificent descriptive talents were on display especially when the drama hit its heights, and this gift was matched perfectly with a team and a time that immortalized him as he immortalized them. Another journalist once exclaimed that his voice had been decorated by a florist. I can see that. It resonated, but with class, with style, with a combination of southern grace and Jewish irony: And that fabulous sense of humor, well that was both southern and Jewish. Night after night, October after October, Mel Allen composed the epic poem of baseball's Homeric age. And for that he'll live on long after most of the heroes he described have faded from memory.

Most who knew Mel know that his passion for his work was unquenchable. He never really stopped working. Just over the past several days, he was making preparations to return to This Week in Baseball. Through an illness that would have stopped lesser men, I saw Mel struggling, and at times doubting it all, but never willing to give in to it. For him, giving up his work, and his game, would have meant giving in. He didn't keep working for ego or status. Undoubtedly it gave him satisfaction to be appreciated, I know how much that meant to him to be so much a part of the Yankee family. But Mel didn't do this for the glory. To silence his voice would have been to silence his soul.

Two years ago, just hours prior to Yom Kippur, baseball officially cancelled the World Series for the first time in Mel's lifetime. Everywhere, people were in deep mourning. How could it be the fall without the Fall Classic? Where would our heroes come from? What would become of our nation without our national pastime? The baseball world, the country and the calendar were entering an autumnal abyss.

I wasn't sure what to say to Mel that evening. I wanted to comfort him in the hope that he could comfort me. So I said to him, "Such a sad day." And Mel, in his matter of fact way, which could often mask deep wisdom as plain common sense, replied: "This is not a tragedy. War, now that's tragic. Poverty and hunger, that's a tragedy. This is not a tragedy."

And I ascended this pulpit that night a whole lot wiser. Mr. Baseball, the one I had thought lived and breathed only for the game, made me understand that it was just a game, a game which lived and breathed through him, but only inasmuch as it expressed the drama, beauty and poetry of life. It wasn't the game that mattered: it was the living and breathing. It was on that night that the Voice of the Yankees enabled this Red Sox fan to understand that ultimately we are all on the same team.

Mr. Baseball had his priorities straight. So while he will best be remembered for his association with the sport, and while one of his final activities was watching the Yankees win on Sunday, let us never forget the lesson he taught me that night. Let us mourn today not because baseball has severed its final tie to innocence, but because the human race has lost a voice that brought us closer to one another and closer to God. And let us celebrate today too. For Mel's voice, which was his essence, which became the essence of his sport, will never be silenced. The Lord opened his mouth, his words spoke God's praise, and those words will reverberate unto eternity.

May that voice continue to resonate through the heavens and through our souls, and may his gentle spirit be bound up in the web of life.

Zayde's Living Room - 1996 Bulletin Article (click on photos for full page pdf)

 

Recreating Zayde's Living Room (Jewish Week)

Civil War (Jewish Week)

 Civil War 

by Joshua Hammerman
Appeared in Jewish Week, 5/96

What has become of civility?

We see its demise in Washington, where angry ideologues have driven the moderates underground, and on talk shows, where hard-earned reputations are routinely demolished; from Giants Stadium, where catcalls led to ice-balls, to our own offices, schools and homes.

So I decided to launch a counter-attack -- by being extraordinarily nice for a single day.

My inspiration came from Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, who originated the idea of a day when all Americans would refrain from hurtful speech, and Senators Lieberman and Mack, who last August introduced a resolution designating this May 14 as the first "National Speak No Evil Day." The resolution is still well shy of the 50 co-sponsors needed to propel it out of the Judiciary Committee. Evidently, a number of senators feel this idea is too hokey to fly. I wanted to prove them wrong.

I elected to go cold-turkey on destructive language for 24 hours. These were my ground rules: 1) No cursing or screaming; 2) No negative statements about any third party not present; 3) Utter courtesy in all interactions; and 4) I would not tell anyone about this little experiment.

I began at five o'clock on a Monday afternoon.

5:30: My mother calls, with oodles of advice about relatives, the kids, work, health. By 5:45, she's broken me and I revert to my usual role as the annoyed son and willing gossip partner. On both counts, I've blown it. I decide to call off my quest until midnight.

1:10 a.m.: Mara, my wife, plops two-year old Daniel next to me in bed, jarring me from dreams of making the world better for nice people. "I'm sorry I didn't hear his screaming," I mutter, "I'll listen better next time." Perfect. I manage to suppress my knee-jerk response ("Listen, if the kid's bawling, why should we both have to suffer?"), and diffuse a potential chain reaction of verbal violence. I'm getting the hang of this.

5:05 a.m.: Four-year old Ethan plows into the bed, screaming, "Daniel is in my spot!" Again, I subdue the anger impulse, suggesting calmly that all Hammerman children return to their own beds. "Then carry me," my 49 pound eldest demands, always able to sense weakness in his parental prey. I do, with a forced smile, like a senator making nice to a wealthy lobbyist.

7:30 a.m.: I tip-toe out the door, leaving the domestic part of Speak No Evil Day successfully behind me.

As a rabbi, I represent a tradition that recognizes evil speech as an addiction and equates it with physical assault. But I'm human too, and since I spend most of my day communicating, the potential for verbal lapse is ever-present. On this day, I need to avoid all temptation. Driving to my rounds at the hospital, I switch from Imus and Stern to classical music. I miss the dirt. I need coffee.

9:25: An elderly patient whispers to me that the hospital is filled with anti-Semites conspiring to steal her flowers. I hold her hand, calmly, saying, "The people here are very nice." The word "nice" is beginning to get to me. As I leave the hospital, I smile at everyone, including an orderly sweeping the floor. He seems agitated. I'm stepping on his mop.

11:30: Back at the office, a phone call from a man moving to the 'burbs from Manhattan. I try to talk up Stamford without saying anything derogatory about the noisy, filthy, crime-infested city he inhabits (just kidding, Big Apple-ites; I love New York). It's not easy. I'm famished.

12:14 p.m.: As I return from a quick bite of anything-sweet-I-can-find, my secretary tells me that she didn't know I would be back so soon, so my 12:15 appointment, a potential new congregant, has left.

"You sent her home?!"

It's not quite a shout but I know instantly that I've gone beyond my strict boundaries. I apologize profusely. It turns out the appointment is waiting for me in the library. She badmouths another local congregation. I go out of my way to defend it. The conversation fizzles after that.

With each encounter that follows, I walk on verbal eggshells. I meet with a divorced couple, planning their child's Bar Mitzvah. Thankfully both are there, so neither can talk about the other. A close friend calls, a primary source for community gossip. I'm afraid to ask a simple "How is everything," for fear of what could follow. I have a deep thirst for some juicy stuff and sense an unnatural distance between us. What can I say to convey warmth without it being at the expense of innocent others? The call ends, abruptly. A congregant stops by to discuss a program she is working on, and states flatly of a co-worker, "Doesn't she drive you crazy?" Either a no or a yes makes me an accomplice to defamation. I pretend not to hear. Another rabbi calls, asking me for an evaluation of a teacher applying for a job in his synagogue. I've only good things to say, but every word feels like a dagger, every sentence a thrust. Through the day, I manage to deflect deprecatory comments about everyone from the Lubavitcher Rebbe to Yasser Arafat.

3:30: I am courteous to a phone solicitor offering "Rabie" Hammerman a Visa Gold card.

3:40: I stand before 75 restless Hebrew School students, wishing to dock them from life eternal if they don't shut up. I've a splitting headache. I'm ready to give myself over to a higher power.

Exhausted, I go home, flick on the tube and hear Dole attacking Forbes. I turn it off; in local news, Ethan reports that Daniel was pinching and kicking at gymnastics class. From day one, we are programmed to blame and defame.

The morning after: I am humbled by my noble failure and far less inclined to blame talk show hosts and Washingtonians for this national addiction. With or without a Senate resolution, I will have to shake it alone, step by step, word by word. On May 14, I'll try again.

Watch Your Mouth (Jewish Week)

 

Reform Jews are From Mars, Orthodox Jews are from Venus (Jewish Week)

 

Why Spirituality is In, Religion Out (Jewish Week)

The Jewish Week, December 29, 1995

Is there a difference between “spirituality” and “religion?”
This is not a mere exercise in rhetorical hair-splitting; I've been coming across this question quite often lately. The theologian Arthur Green wrote recently of his dismay over a personals ad found in this newspaper, written by a woman who described herself as a "DJF, 34. Spiritual, not religious." For those in my line of work, the distinctions drawn by that woman are illuminating -- and troubling.

Check out any bookstore and you'll see aisles devoted to what people have come to know as "spirituality," with subjects ranging from "New Age," to Eastern traditions to Native American lore to psycho-spiritual healing. The section marked "religion" is usually hidden in a remote corner and is always minuscule in comparison.

The best seller lists are filled with books on spirituality, soulfulness, seeking, questing, prophesying, myth-making and near-death, post-death, and other out-of-body experiences -- things that religion used to be all about. Books like "The Celestine Prophecy," "The Road Less Traveled," and "Healing and the Mind" have turned the publishing world upside down. There's even a book out called "The Soul of Dogs." Films are into spirituality big-time, especially Disney, which has in consecutive years brought us African animism in the "Lion King" and Native American environmental spirituality in "Pocahontas."

So what is the difference between all this and what people perceive as "religion?" Why does that DJF feel so alienated form her synagogue? In a nutshell: Pocahontas talking to an enchanted tree and living peacefully among the birds and forest animals: that's spirituality. Pocahontas receiving a dues statement from her local synagogue: that's religion. The Lion King feeling whole, purposeful and connected to the entire scheme of things, the "Circle of Life," is spirituality. And the Lion King forgetting how to lay tefillin and therefore never coming to minyan because he feels real uncomfortable: that's religion.

I serve on the clergy team of our local hospice organization. Recently, the staff tried to come up with a clearer understanding of the distinction between "pastoral" and "spiritual" care. In this seminar and in accompanying articles, spirituality was defined as "the gas, the organizing center of one's life which emanates and radiates from within," and religion as "the vehicle, an expression of culture; a set of predetermined standards and practices."

Religion is seen as a lifeless shell, spirituality, which can exist independent from religious structures, is the true source of vitality. The explosive proliferation of 12-step groups, some of which have a pro-spirituality, anti-religion bias, tells us even more about the perception that our institutional religious vehicles have run out of gas.

We in the religion biz have got a bad image problem. But while we continue to bicker and back-bite, everyone else is capitalizing on the seemingly unquenchable thirst for meaning out there. Even a computer company got into the act recently, classifying the ease of setting up its latest hardware as an "out of box experience." With people clamoring for transcendence as never before in our lifetime, with the normal fin de siècle and end-of-millennium religious frenzies building, and with hucksters everywhere cashing in on this massive selling of soul, we can't even get Pocahontas to come to shul.

And why should she? There's passion in nature. There's life. There's God -- in that tree and beyond it. And what does she get in shul? If she's lucky, an ark opening on the High Holidays.

It's easy to put down all these trends as neo-pagan fads, which, like so many over the centuries, will have their day and depart. Long after the names Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers have passed from memory, people will still be chanting the Sh'ma and studying Rambam. But to rely on that is to ignore the tides of Jewish history. For we have had our religious revivals too, those moments when spirituality (i.e. God) and organized religion were seen as incompatible, when the hot passion of the one overtook the frigidity of the other and eventually transformed Judaism. Check out the book ofJob, the 7th century BCE reforms of King Josiah or the early Pharisees' critiques of the Temple-based traditions of their era.

The last great Jewish revival was the rise of Hasidism two centuries ago. The next one is going on now, but more likely at your video store than at your synagogue. A quick shave, some hair dye and a few weeks on the treadmill, and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the Baal Shem Tov and Pocahontas.

At Sinai, our ancestors said, "Na'aseh V'Nishma," "We shall do and then we shall understand." It is the passion of the doing that will help bring understanding. "Doing" doesn't just mean the performance of rote ritual, but the act of cleaving to God as an expression of one's whole being. The early Hasidim dubbed it "Hitlahavut," from the Hebrew root "lahav," "to set ablaze."

We've got to restore the "gas" to our sanctuaries, classrooms and boardrooms. Mainline Protestantism, discouraged by declining church membership, has recently tried to rediscover passion in its practices. American Judaism, which for too long desired to become Protestantized and succeeded all too well, now must follow suit with its own critique of pure reason.

The rabbi can no longer be seen as the Jewish Answer Man, the embodiment of rationality, diplomacy and calm. If we are to reunite religion and spirituality, it is the heart of the spiritual leader that must be exposed for all to see, not the head. The music of Jewish spirituality must rush forth from the rabbi's soul, as well as every congregant's. Otherwise the rabbi risks becoming part of the shell and the synagogue an empty, hollow echo of a shell that once was filled with God, but no more.

All the talk about Jewish continuity seems like pointless chatter when the answer is so close at hand. Let's stop the talking, put down that grant application, go outside, listen to the spirit of God residing in the trees, and silently hum a b'racha. While we continue to commission surveys and blow hot air, the answer is just outside our windows, blowing in the wind. The equation is simple: Spirituality, God, is the pure oxygen that can ignite our souls. Religion, Judaism, is exactly the same.

Spirituality and Religion (Jewish Week)

Dec. 29, 1995

Sometimes the most profound truths are discovered in the unlikliest of places. The Jewish theologian Arthur Green saw this earlier, when he came across a personals ad in the New York Jewish Week. It was written by a woman who described herself in this way: "DJF, 34. Spiritual, not religious. Seeking like-minded JM, etc."

This young women should indeed be of interest to us. Green sees her as an icon of our age. We can assume that she has a pretty good idea of what she means by "spiritual, not religious," but do we? Let's speculate about her. You can meet her, along with a great many other Jews, at an Ashram retreat, where she goes for a weekend of yoga, massage, a lecture on spiritual teachings, healthy vegetarian food and conversations with like-minded people. You will not meet her at your synagogue, Green notes, from which she continues to feel alienated. But she fasts and meditates on Yom Kippur, a day that has some special meaning to her. She reads both Sufi and Hasidic stories. She used to go to Shlomo Carlebach concerts. Passover with her family is still a boisterous, "totally unspiritual," as she would say, affair. But one year her folks were on a cruise and she got to go to a women's Passover Seder, and she liked it, although it was a little too verbal for her tastes.

Spiritual, not religious... I hear it all the time. Who is this woman who wrote that personal ad? What turned her off? And what could turn her on to Judaism again? Why did she feel so alienated from her parents' synagogue? Why did she leave it so far behind? And how can we get her back?

Her problem is a reflection of her generation, to be sure, those in their 20s and 30s, the so-called Generation X. But it really is endemic to society as a whole. Look at any bookstore and you'll see aisles devoted to what people have come to know as "spirituality." Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin went into a Barnes and Noble one day and counted three bookcases for Judaism, three for general religion and Christianity, two each for Bible, and nine bookcases for New Age. The New Age menu is diverse, including astrology, psychic phenomena, tarot, goddess worship, witchcraft, out-of-body experiences and reincarnation, angels, Satanism and the occult, the channeling of spiritual energy and faith healing, yoga and transcendental meditation, holistic health and healing crystals.

Spirituality can mean all of these things and more, everything, except for what we do in a church or synagogue. Spirituality books are at the tops of all the best seller lists. Films are into spirituality big-time, especially Disney, which in consecutive years brought us African animism in the Lion King and Native American environmentalism in "Pocahontas."

So what is the difference between all this and what people perceive as religion? In a nutshell: Pocahontas talking to an enchanted tree and living peacefully among the birds and forest animals: that's spirituality. Pocahontas receiving a dues statement from her local synagogue: that's religion. The Lion King feeling whole, purposeful and connected to the entire circle of life: that's spirituality. And the Lion King forgetting how to read Hebrew therefore never coming to services because he feels real uncomfortable: that's religion.

I serve on the clergy team of my local hospice organization, and recently the staff tried to better understand the difference between pastoral and spiritual care. In this seminar and accompanying articles, spirituality was defined as "the gas, the organizing center of one's life which radiates from within," and religion as, "the vehicle, an expression of culture; a set of predetermined standards and practices."

By this definition, religion is seen as a lifeless shell; spirituality, which can exist independent of religious structures, is the true source of vitality. The explosive proliferation of 12-step groups, some of which have a pro-spirituality anti-religion bias, tells us even more about the perception that our institutional religious vehicles have run out of gas.

We in the religion biz a have a big problem. The market is booming, but the customers aren't heading in our direction. A recent Gallup poll shows a marked increase in those who say spiritual matters are important in their lives; but the same poll shows that church affiliation and attnendance are down. Spiritual themes are everywhere; even on Madison Avenue. A computer company got into the act recently, by calling its latest hardware an "out of box experience." The Washington Post reports that interest in the power of prayer and divine intervention is clearly growing and even gaining some credibility as an area of scientific study. To document this trend, the Post noted that for the first time ever, the National Institute of Health is funding research into the effects of spirituality. In the fall of 1993 a fledgling alternative medicine department at the NIH awarded a $30,000 to a researcher hoping to measure the impact of prayer on the recovery of drug users.

With people clamoring for transcendence as never before in our lifetime, and with the normal fin de siecle and end of millennium religious frenzies building, and they are, and with hucksters everywhere cashing in on this massive selling of soul, we can't even get Pocahontas to come to services.

And why should she? There's passion in nature. There's life. Theres' God. And what does she get in synagogue? If she's lucky, an ark opening on the High Holidays.

We've got to restore "the gas" to our sanctuaries, classrooms and board rooms. Mainline Protestantism, discouraged by declining church membership, has recently tried to rediscover passion in its practices. American Judaism, which for too long desired to become Protestantized and succeeded all to well, must now follow suit with its own critique of pure reason.

My point is that Judaism is a spiritual entity, that the dichotomy drawn by that woman from the personal ad, and by so many of us, is a false one. This vehicle is not an empty shell. So how do we get that woman, and Pocahontas, to come through the sanctuary doors?

...Bringing Pocahontas Back to Religion

One way is to knock down these doors. We have to begin to bring God out of this sanctuary and into the world around us. Not just the trees and flowers, but into our actions, attitudes and even our language. We must understand that the sacred resides everywhere, if only we would begin to notice it.

In her book, "Ordinarily Sacred," Lynda Sexson, tells the story of an only man who showed her a china cabinet filled with items related to his deceased wife. This was a sacred box, she says, in the tradition of the Ark of the Covenant. Emily Dickenson had her forty nine ribboned packets of poems, carefully written and stored. We all have these sacred books and boxes. If a hurricane were heading toward our home, and we could take away only one thing, what would it be? My guess is that most of us the answer would grab a photo album, a video tape of the last wedding, a box of letters, a notebook of thoughts, a volume of dreams, these are the things that connect us to something deeper than our own lives, to other people, to our ancestry, to our dreams. This is the stuff of spirituality. The stuff that makes us laugh and, most of all, cry. The stuff that guides us and terrifies us for the thought of losing them. The ordinary things -- that are religious.
Psalm 90 says it all, "Teach us to number our days, that we might attain a knowing heart." When I began writing in a journal twenty years ago, that daily exercise became a profound part of my Judaism. These twenty books have become my sacred canon. My collection of old newspapers, or match books from restaurants, and my videos and photos, these help me to connect the dots of my life, enabling it to have meaning. And that's all from Psalm 90. That is spirituality -- that is Judaism.

Thomas Moore, who has made quite a splash with his two books, "Soulmates" and "Care of the Soul," writes in the latter, "The spirituality that feeds the soul and ultimately heals our psychological wounds may be found in those sacred objects that dress themselves in the accoutrements of the ordinary."

At a rabbinic retreat I attended a few years ago, my group performed a cultural inventory of the ordinary things that have become part of our sacred world. My assignment was to write a museum-style description of the hidden meaning found in a box of Golden's blintzes. Next time you're at the store, look at it closely. There is actually a note from Grandma on the box. Grandma is telling you that she made these blintzes just for you. When you open this box and fry these blintzes -- for godsakes please don't microwave them -- Grandma's kitchen will appear somewhere in the recesses of the mind, or at least the nose. OK, so the blintzes are mass-produced, and OK, so I believe the company was bought out by a Japanese conglomerate, it doesn't matter, because the box says Grandma made it. And you know, when I eat Golden's blintzes, sometimes I cry, because I think of my Bubbe's potato kugel, which has passed form this earth never to return.

So the box is part of my spiritual life as an American Jew, as are shlocky New Years cards and wine-stained Maxwell House Haggadahs. These little things help along the process of imbuing the world with God's image, because Godliness is nothing more than the creation of order, and meaning where there was chaos before. And Jews have another word for how we create order out of chaos: kedusha -- holiness. As Jeffrey Salkin put it, "Holiness is where spirituality becomes Judaism." As Jews do Jewish things, these acts increase our sense of holiness, and through them we connect ourselves to our history, to God and to that ubiquitous, ill-defined thing called spirituality.

Spirituality is also about social action. Spirituality is about healing others, it is about giving selflessly, it is about sharing deep insights and terrifying fears, it is about glowing candles and incessant questioning from children. It is about life and death and life from death -- in short, it is about everything that organized religion does twenty four hours a day,
And -- it's about dues, and leaky roofs and staff hirings, and yes, although I shudder to say it, it's about politics too. Spirituality is about forming a community and making it work. One night while Web-surfing I came across a discussion group on the subject of why people don't affiliate with synagogues. I think that woman from the personals ad must have been one of the contributors -- there were about fifty in all. They recited the entire litany of depressing things we all know too well, the high cost, the cliquishness that turned them off, the politics.

We all detest dirty politics. But that is exactly the point. The synagogue has to be the place where the politics of the place enhance godliness and spirituality. There is a deep spirituality to politics, when it works, when it brings people together. Unlike much New Age spirituality, Judaism requires community. You can't just escape to India to seek a guru. You've got to stick around and make it work here, where it is most difficult, within the community. But when we succeed, and it is so hard to succeed, when the end result is a community where people share basic values and truly care for one another, that can produce the greatest spiritual high of all. It is a feeling of belonging that we all crave. It is one I know we can achieve. Once we've created that, dues and other mundane matters become far less distasteful; in fact, tzedakkah (charity) becomes an obligation we gladly take on. And Pocahontas leads the parade with her little blue box.

Spirituality is about all the little things we do every day, the choices we make that tilt the world just lightly more in the direction of life. The little questions become profound moral decisions. Like what do we eat for dinner? Judaism stands for life, but says, OK, you can kill some animals, but only in ritually-prescribed ways. The Torah always comes down on the side of life. So eat meat, it says, but beware, because animals are sacred, and even more sacred is man, the next step up.

Spirituality is about how we use language. To speak in cliches is to use dead language. I weigh carefully each word that I write or utter. And to use language as a weapon, to gossip, that is truly the way of death. The ancient sages indeed equated gossip with murder, spiritual murder, which kills the image of God for three people: the subject, the teller of the tale, and the one who hears it.

In Judaism, every decision is one of life and death, there is nothing that is morally neutral. If we become couch potatoes, that is choosing death. So working out then becomes a choice of life; a profoundly Jewish spiritual act.

Albert Einstein put it best: "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is. Choose."

As I've grown, I've come to recognize these miracles more and more. I suppose having children does that, to a degree, but it is also one of the blessings of my job. I recognize them because I see so many. I see so many supposedly ordinary people doing extraordinary things, people who hold off the angel of death for one final night or hour so to see some loved one through to the achievement of a personal milestone. I see the miracle of dedication allow people with average ability to soar to incredible heights. I think that's why Cal Ripkin became such a national hero this month. Gary Rosenblatt wrote in The Jewish Week, "Cal Ripkin, playing his position day in and day out with grace and efficiency, confidence and calmness, reminds us that our task is not to perform miracles but to keep our focus and do our little bit, one day at a time." And in truth, that's how miracles are made.

Within each of us is a soul that can be ignited by the pure oxygen of organized religion. We can go outside and join Pocahontas and listen to the spirit of God rustling in the trees and that too can set our souls ablaze. The early Hasidim called it "Hitlahavut," from the Hebrew word "lahav," "to set ablaze," as a means of cleaving to God with all our being.

This is no empty vehicle then, the sanctuary, that we invite our friend from the personals ad to enter again. We agree with her completely. Spirituality, God, is the pure oxygen that can ignite our souls. Religion, Judaism, is exactly the same.

God on Trial

The Jewish Week, November 24, 1995

Just as the world finally began to shake itself of that year-long melodrama known as the "Trial of the Century," we are soon to face a court proceeding that could top it.

When all the evidence is assembled and Yigal Amir and his cohorts answer to the assassination charges, the real defendant on the docket will be God.

Underlying this case will be two radically different views of Judaism: one backed by rabbis so certain that they know God's will that they are willing to sanction homicide to sustain it, and the other less certain of God's true intentions but far more in line with Judaism's talmudic roots. The vast majority of Jews, including rabbis of all denominations, uphold this flexible, non-fundamentalist perspective. Until now, Israelis and their government have never issued a direct challenge against the messianist-fundamentalist strain. Now they will have to.

Yigar Amir, the confessed assassin, may plead innocent by virtue of divine imperative. The prosecution will then have to be ready to answer basic questions: How do we know that God did not want Amir to pull the trigger? How can we be so certain that the God of Israel didn't see it is an abomination that a Jew was willing to give sacred soil away to the murderer of Jews?

The response to these questions will involve expert testimony, but this time there will be no DNA evidence or bloody gloves. This time, the experts paraded onto the stand will be rabbis and theologians, and the goal will be to deligitimize these deviants so that the government can then proceed to snuff them out when the case is closed. As much as the Eichmann trial educated the world about the horrors of the Holocaust, the Amir trial will be Israel's way of renewing the integrity of Judaism in the eyes of its own populace.

For too long, most secular Israelis have turned a blind eye to Jewish fundamentalism, because there were always more pressing needs. They had little to fear from most haredim, who seemed to care less about the West Bank than the other types of banks needed as repositories for hefty yeshiva subsidies. And the settlers, well, they were just modern-day chalutzim (pioneers), a little overzealous, perhaps, but they meant well.

Sorry. Messianic fundamentalists are dangerous creatures, even when they are ostensibly on our side. So now Israelis will finally begin to purge themselves of this ideological cancer in their midst. The trial will clearly demonstrate that the Rabin killing was caused less by the escalating verbal violence between left and right than by the nation's incubation of a virulent strand of Judaism that was then allowed to run amok.

God will be on trial in Israel, and in the end, God will win. Whether or not the other defendants find a way to evade justice, Israelis will finally begin to take seriously the need to fight fundamentalism on its own theological turf. That means learning why Judaism is flexible enough to allow for the exchange of land for peace. That means inculcating pluralistic values to the secular masses. Ultimately that also means learning why Jewish values are too precious to be left in the hands of the rabbinate.

One of the most incredible things about Yigal Amir for myself and many of my colleagues is that here is a man who actually listens to his rabbi. His rabbi allegedly permitted his deadly deed. Most rabbis I know can't even get their congregants to eat fewer cheeseburgers. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

I would shudder to meet a congregant who took my every word as, pardon the expression, "gospel" truth. One reason I had to use that expression is that Judaism has no real parallel. Our tradition is far too wary of human fallibility to allow us to place complete faith in the decisions of any human, even one steeped in wisdom, even a rabbi. I would never want to deny another person the chance to use his God-given faculty of reason.

Just as Jews everywhere have been shaken from our apathy in the face of fundamentalism, so have many been galvanized toward the fulfillment of Rabin's final dream of peace. With one dramatic, epoch-making event, the chain of hate just might finally have been broken.

Undoubtedly, there will be more terror, as the extremists see the hopelessness of their plight and become more desperate, but it will be much more difficult to hate Arabs after so many of their leaders turned out to be such menschen in our hour of darkest grief. It will be hard to erase the image of a bare-headed Yasir Arafat, looking a little like old Uncle Abe, paying a shiva call to Leah Rabin.

In contrast, Bibi Netanyahu's flailing defensiveness has rendered him politically maimed, soundbitten by his refusal to say, with simple dignity, what all of us wanted to hear: "Yes, I was at those rallies, and I can't tell you how ashamed I am that I didn't do more to stop it."

With nationalist bumper stickers being replaced by "Shalom Chaver," with the endless procession of Israelis past their slain leader's grave, and with the dovishly defiant "Shir L'Shalom" ("Song of Peace") enjoying the greatest musical revival this side of the Beatles, a dynamic shift is occurring in Israel.

It's occurring here, too. For the first time since Sabra and Shatila, my Hebrew school students are connecting to Israel on the most human level, and with a deep pride that has been masked for a generation. In death, Rabin has become the hero that he never quite was while alive. Among adults, the spontaneous outpouring of grief has pierced that tough hide of assimilation, a casing that not even 39 Scud missiles could penetrate.

We've all done so much crying these past two weeks. Even Henry Kissinger cried. Our hatred toward Arabs and cynicism toward Israel have been washed away. And we, although washed out, are more ready than ever to give peace a chance.

Yigal Amir will lose the war that his ideology spawned. But it will not be enough to convict him alone. We've got to discredit his God too, as our God (we think) and our ancient sages (we know) would want us to.

Remarks at community gathering following Rabin assassination

 

High Holidays Sermons, 1995

 See pdf of these sermons by clicking here.

TBE Bulletin - Spet. 1995