Getting Ready

Over the last few weeks as we are preparing to travel to Israel, I’m getting more and more excited, and also a bit nervous and a little stressed. Next week I’ll be off to the Hava Nashira songleading workshop, then out west to a bat mitzvah, and then we’ll be on our way. Getting our house ready for the people who will be house-sitting for us is a whole project in itself! Getting everything together to pack - what to pack, will it fit in the suitcases, while wondering how different things will be since I was last there 16 years ago and pondering how much of my textual skills I will remember since it has been a few years since I last studied texts this intensively, and how much music theory do I really remember for learning the oud, is part of the excitement. Over the past few weeks I have started to move more and more into the rhythm of this renewal time. I’ve enjoyed a short get-away alone with my spouse - a very rare opportunity to spend uninterrupted time without the kids. I’ve been able to go to the kids sports games and practices where I am able to focus just on them, being fully present, instead of my all too-often experience of being there bodily while thinking about congregational needs or missing games altogether because of meetings or classes. I’ve been home for dinner and bedtime almost every night - while I have made it a priority to be home for dinner even if it means a very short turn-around, most weeks I am out at meetings and classes many nights and miss reading books and our other bedtime rituals. I’ve been walking much more and taking the time to exercise - a few months ago I put on a pedometer and was shocked at how little I move during the day, too often driving when I could walk, because I have to get somewhere quickly, or because I will need the car later. I expect to do a lot more walking in Israel. Most of all, renewal is about slowing down, about taking the time to see things from a different perspective, as I have learned from my youngest who wants me to go out into our yard nearly every day to see how the apples are growing, and wants to water them to help them grow, even in the rain.

Sinai

This year as we are preparing to celebrate Shavuot, I am reminded of what the ancient rabbis teach, that we all stood at Sinai. My colleague and mentor, Rabbi Steve Foster, who is retiring from Temple Emanuel in Denver in just a few short weeks, teaches us that “we are all made b’tzelem elohim, in G-d’s image, black and white, women and men, tall or short, gay or straight... and we need to treat each other with kavod -with respect and honor”. As a woman, and as a female rabbi, I have faced discrimination and intolerance within the Jewish world, and Shavuot reminds me each year of Rabbi Foster’s message. One of my favorite poems of all time is Merle Feld’s piece entitled “ We all Stood Together”, because it resonates with many of the feelings that we as Jewish women have felt as we struggled to overcome to not be seen as “less than” or “other”.

We All Stood Together

by Merle Feld

My brother and I were at Sinai

He kept a journal
of what he saw

of what he heard

of what it all meant to him

I wish I had such a record

of what happened to me there

It seems like every time I want to write

I can’t

I’m always holding a baby

one of my own

or one for a friend

always holding a baby

so my hands are never free

to write things down

And then

as time passes

the particulars the hard data

the who what when where why

slip away from me

and all I’m left with is

the feeling

But feelings are just sounds

and vowel barkings of a mute

My brother is so sure of what he heard

after all he’s got a record of it

consonant after consonant after consonant

If we remembered it together

we could create holy time

sparks flying.

In her book, Standing Again at Sinai, Judith Plaskow writes: “Jewish feminists, in other words, must reclaim Torah as our own. We must render visible the presence, experience, and deeds of women erased in traditional sources. We must tell the stories of women's encounters with God and capture the texture of their religious experience. We must expand the notion of Torah to encompass not just the five books of Moses and traditional Jewish learning, but women's words, teachings, and actions hitherto unseen. To expand Torah, we must reconstruct Jewish history to include the history of women, and in doing so alter the shape of Jewish memory.”

For all of us to stand at Sinai, means accepting that women have a place in the synagogue and on the bima. This year, ultra-orthodox fanatics in Jerusalem need to be reminded that women also have a place on the bus, and it is not in the back http://blogs.forward.com/sisterhood-blog/120436/ Women have a place at the Kotel (the Western Wall) and do not deserve to be spit on, attacked, or arrested for praying there http://blogs.forward.com/sisterhood-blog/119148/ Women can pray wearing tefillin without the fear of physical brutality for doing so http://blogs.forward.com/sisterhood-blog/128056/ For all of us to stand at Sinai, means recognizing that Jews are not just of white European descent. Last June I was honored to be at the ordination ceremonies in Cincinnati, to witness the ordination of my friend, Rabbi Alysa Stanton, the first African American woman to become a rabbi http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/06/us/06rabbi.html and http://abcnews.go.com/US/Story?id=7639090&page=1 For all of us to stand at Sinai means accepting GLBTQ Jews are part of the covenant. And this Shavuot brings us that much closer on two counts. First, Reuben Zellman became the first transgender rabbi ordained by the Reform movement this month http://www.jewishjournal.com/community/article/transgender_rabbinical_students_finding_equality_in_the_jewish_world_201005/ And second, Kol hakavod to my future colleague, Molly Kane, for her fourth year sermon. Kane’s sermon on Acharei Mot/Kedoshim, managed to change the stance of our teacher Dr. Eugene Borowitz at the New York campus of HUC. For 27 years Dr. Borowitz refused to sign the semicha of any rabbi who was known to be gay or lesbian. In protest, many of my colleagues declined to have him sign their semichot. This year, for the first time, thanks to Kane‘s moving and powerful words, Borowitz, at the age of 85, signed the ordination documents recognizing gay and lesbian rabbis. Read more about it here http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2010/05/06/for-we-are-all-one-people-created-betzelem-elohim-in-the-image-of-god/ While discrimination, bigotry, and intolerance in the Jewish world persist, we also have much to celebrate this year.

Judaism in the Digital Age

At the most recent CCAR - Central Conference of American Rabbis - convention in March, I attended two sessions on synagogues and technology - Judaism on the web. Congregations are blogging (as I am now) and podcasting and videocasting services and sermons, and have a presence on Facebook and Twitter. With technology and the internet, we’re doing outreach in a whole new way - CyberJudaism. http://reformjudaismmag.org/summer_2009/ And, the future (as I predicted in a High Holiday sermon in 1998) is here! One of the sessions at the CCAR was on “Visual T’filah” , putting the siddur up on screens in the sanctuary. www.visualtefillah.com One of the first things I have participated in as part of sabbatical is an audio and sound production workshop. While I’ve spent years using microphones and sound equipment, both while speaking as a rabbi, and while singing and playing the guitar, I’ve always wanted to know more about audio production and recording. And as the rabbinate has changed, sound for worship is becoming even more important. So, the workshop I attended recently, a Sound for Worship workshop presented by How-To-Sound, is on the cutting edge of what we need to know now. Our instructor, Mike Sokol, is a professional audio engineer who has done sound recording, and live sound engineering for concerts, rock musicians, churches, and the Obama inauguration, and he was terrific! The workshop was extremely informative and answered all of my questions, and some I didn’t even know I had, about sound systems, mixing consoles, microphone inputs and speaker outputs. We learned about how to make the right choices for mics, where to place them for different instruments, and how to place monitors and speakers. Each of us had our own mixing console to work with and had the opportunity to play sound engineer and mix our own output - it’s much more complicated when you have to think about hearing each instrumentalist or vocalist individually in the mix! To get an idea of this, put on some headphones and listen to a favorite recording of a band that you like and try to hear each instrument individually, then think about the choices the sound engineer made that helped to give the band its unique sound. Being on the other side of the sound equipment as a speaker/musician/singer/performer, it gave me a lot to think about and to listen for, both in terms of live sound and recording/podcasting.

Send-Off Shabbat

My sabbatical renewal started with a really lovely send-off Shabbat service and dinner. It was a very special evening. And I was especially touched to see so many members of our Temple family there and to hear so many heartfelt well wishes for our family! I feel blessed to have a supportive group who have helped to plan this renewal time for our congregation while I’m on sabbatical and to have this great opportunity. The last few weeks have had a very rushed and busy feel as I’ve been trying to get everything taken care of, and remember what details others might need to know. Even though I have been looking forward to this time, I was surprised by the challenge of letting go. In one of my books I used to prepare for my sabbatical leave is a list of “The Top Reasons for Not Taking A Sabbatical”. Among the reasons are:

• You can’t stand all the free time with family and friends
• The congregation might be able to function without me
• You don’t have anything to wear except work clothes
• Maybe people in the congregation will forget my name
• I might forget how to lead services
• Too much rest, prayer, travel and renewal
• Won’t be able to use burn-out as an excuse anymore

So I read this list and I had a good laugh, and then serendipitously into my mailbox popped a message that said “Trusting the Process” . I didn’t really need to read further – like, whoa, there’s a message! And I realized this was a message for me –it said “take some time for meditation and reflection, the moments of introspection are important because they allow me to see my life in a broader context. The activities then take on greater meaning because I feel more conscious and aware of WHY I am doing them.”

That’s after all what a sabbatical is about. In the Torah portion for that Shabbat it even says “On six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there shall be a Shabbat of complete rest, a sacred occasion. You shall do not work; it shall be a Sabbath of God throughout your settlements” (Lev. 23:3) And next week’s portion tells us about the sabbatical year: “When you enter the land that I assign to you, the land shall observe a Sabbath of Adonai. Six years you may sow your field and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather in the yield. But in the seventh year, the land shall have a Sabbath of complete rest, a Sabbath of the Eternal.” Leviticus 25:2-4

So, sabbatical is sacred time, time for rest, renewal and reJEWvenation. I look forward to returning, renewed and refreshed.

I am deeply grateful to Temple Israel’s lay leadership for their willingness to grant us this time away. And my great thanks to all who have worked hard on planning our renewal programs, and have volunteered to provide coverage for Shabbat services. Thank you so much for making this possible! And second, I am especially grateful to have received a Lilly grant, which makes it possible for me to take this sabbatical. So, thank you to the Lilly Foundation.

So, at the onset of this journey, I pray for all of you that God’s blessing be upon you while I am gone from you, that you may experience growth and learning, a renewal of spirit, of new connections to one another and to our Jewish tradition, through study, music, and community.

In the words that we as Jews pray at the beginning of every journey, the words of Tefilat Haderech, the Traveler’s Prayer (this is the setting by Debbie Friedman):

May we be blessed as we go on our way
May we be guided in peace.
May we be blessed with health and joy.
May we be sheltered by the wings of peace.
May we be kept in safety and in love.
May grace and compassion find their way to every soul.
May this be our blessing. Amen