More Cowbell

Mourning the destruction of the temple

This has been the fitting conclusion to the slow and agonising death of a once vibrant Conservative congregation: "Guess what?! I've got a fever, and the only prescription... is more cowbell!"

The recipe is simple: Take one LARabbi™ who killed himself, throw in a sweet pinch of interim rabbi who held the place together in mourning, toss in a carefully hand-picked permanent rabbi who gets kicked out after a year for characterological "defects", add a big dollop of a board executive who rarely if ever attended religious services, throw it all into a pot of bitter tears, and mix everything thoroughly with one self-centred, ambitious, manipulative glam loving cantor with a cold hatred of traditional Judaism/liturgy... of Judaism.

Anyone who actually cared about the soul of the temple who tasted of this concoction has retched and tossed it out. It sickened them and so they have been leaving. In droves. Not the ones who had some quibble with a personality or rule, but the hardcore, diehard spiritual strength and centre of the congregation. People who have given decades of their lives in genuine caring and support. We all know who they are, in any congregation- the ones who are involved in services and festivals and learning and teaching and supporting on so many levels. The ones we can count on. Even if we don't know them personally.

I have found this phenomenon in minyan as well. Not all of us know each other on a personal level but the unspoken bond is there and the strength is there and when hard times come it is the only place to be, even if you never talk about it. To me, coming together at minyan is the purest form of Judaism and all that Judaism was meant to be. Those who attend regularly, in my little minyan, want to be there. Although as Conservative Jews we are also obligated to pray, this minyan has always been about more than duty. In its finest sense:

Prayer is the continuation of prophecy, and the fellowship of prayerful men is ipso facto the fellowship of prophets.~ Rav Soloveitchik

Almost everyone in the congregation who truly was a pillar, has disappeared, particularly after the current rabbi's firing. The temple has lost a lot of members with more losses to come. When the previous board presidents got together to brainstorm ways to stem the hemorrhaging and offered their services to the executive, they were told that they had no valid standing and their offer of help was summarily dismissed. Every president I had known in the past had been religious in a good way and heavily involved with the temple community. This cannot be said for the present board. I had spent a time on the board chairing a committee, so I had gotten to know the players quite well.

This was a congregation in crisis from the moment that my rav died by suicide. Since that time I've been a firsthand observer of the butterfly effect, of how the ripples of this single act have flowed outward in ever and ever increasing circles, like shock waves without end. At his funeral, almost 1000 people attended with barely a day's notice. When we were asked to stand up if he had personally touched our lives, almost the entire crowd rose. Now the circles cannot be stopped. I am convinced that his suicide did have some influence on a young man who also killed himself.

Will these ripples ever come to rest, I wonder? Will they ever end? Because we're not looking at the present only, but future generations, all from this one abortive act. It is devastating to return to what was once your spiritual home and sanctuary and discover it a barren wasteland where, finally, and indeed, G-d has left the building. On reflection, this is what it must have been like to lose the great Holy Temples and experience the utter devastation and disintegration of the Jewish people that followed. And there is much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

I went to his grave and raged at LARabbi™. What else was there to do? I see so clearly the great panoply of events that led us to this moment. In my case, I lost my first and only spiritual home- it was my Great Temple- and I even lost my minyan. Most of the regulars are gone. Apart from the beginning blessings, my minyan was gutted beyond repair, with a total loss of preliminary prayers- over in 25-30 minutes on a slow day. Stopping to recite a passage in English or telling us the meaning of prayers, ye gods. There is no way to retain kavannah with a bunch of stops and starts and no way to create a meditative space, which is what davenning is at its very best.

The dumbing down of services continues. Some happy singing, and a lot of talking at. Which brings me to the villain of this piece- the cantor. He's a show biz, Broadway type who spent his youth in yeshiva and came out a miserable, bitter anti-Jew. It's a job. He hasn't a spiritual bone in his body. His voice is uninspiring and adequate. He's a big ol' skinny tanned unctuous smoothy. Like a snake. I could go on.

When LARabbi™ died he was there to pick up the slack (and get a raise). Yeah, he knows Hebrew which I think must have been the only requirement. He changed services to reflect his interests. Which happened to coincide, it seems, with a bowdlerised version of Reform (Reform services are so much better). Liking the sound of his own voice, he destroyed the liturgy by hacking off chunks of passages and interspersing it with his fulsome "teaching" minute by minute, hour by hour, usually aimed at middle school minds. We get to hear show tunes like those from Prince of Egypt and electrified instruments during Shabbat services.

When the permanent rabbi came on board, Old Scratch (the cantor) dug in his heels and managed to erode that rabbi's position and influence; he surprised and shocked me, when I saw him, through his behaviour, diss the rabbi on the bimah during Shabbat services. In keeping with my own instincts, I tend to believe those in the know that it was the cantor's concerted effort that largely led to the rabbi's ouster. While there is a lawsuit brewing, the cantor just signed a contract for another year and is picking up the slack (with a raise). Out of this whirlwind, the cantor is the only one still standing.

Some people are trying to salvage what's left. Some are bitter because they perceive others as disloyal. Others force cheeriness on us saying it's time to meet members' needs which usually means a dumbing down, and always a cut in liturgy. Some think that singing simple catchy tunes will raise our spirits and bring in hordes. Most think that it doesn't matter about the rabbi, that it's the community that matters, the members, the congregation; we've seen how well that's worked out, haven't we?

Once I went raging to LARabbi™ about the congregation and he said, "You have a real love-hate relationship with this place, don't you?" I did, but I didn't understand, until I began listening to how people perceived the place. The largest argument has been for community and that's all that matters. In fact, the new president's vision is in restoring the community. They fail to see that without the spiritual/religious element, it's just another chavurah. Where is G-d in all of this? It deems itself a religious community only because it has a synagogue as its centre, not G-d; it is simply another sociological structure.

I didn't fully understand how they could make that mistake until I picked up Rav Soloveitchik's The Lonely Man of Faith. Here, the two Adams of Bereshit in the Torah are seen as representative of the respective essential natures of human beings: one is "majestic", that is, creative and utilitarian, and the other is "covenantal", committed to G-d; both are valid. To be wholly human means to have this dialectic of two natures raging within you. The lonely person of faith is a convenantal faith oriented human being who struggles to integrate the utilitarian and covenantal within themselves and into a covenantal faith community; this, unlike the majestics, includes the experience of G-d.

If you take a look at most of our religious institutions, so many of the shuls, this holds true- they are largely religious communities, but not covenantal faith communities. They are, indeed, "religious cultures" where faith has its uses and its message changes with the times. So, without the informed participation of covenantal faith types, the cultural edifice becomes weakened and crumbles into disarray, or ossifies.

Notwithstanding that Western man is in a nostalgic mood, he is detemined not to accept the dialectical burden of humanity. He certainly feels spiritually uprooted, emotionally disillusioned....Yet this pensive mood does not arouse him to heroic action. He, of course, comes to a place of worship. He attend lectures on religion and appreciates the ceremonial, yet he is searching not for a faith in all its singularity and otherness, but for religious culture. He seeks not the greatness found in sacrificial action but the convenience one discovers in a comfortable, serene state of mind. He is desirous of an aesthetic experience rather than a covenantal one, of a social ethos rather than a divine imperative.....

His efforts are noble, yet he is not ready for a genuine faith experience which require the giving of one's self unreservedly to G-d, which demands unconditional commitment, sacrificial action and retreat. Western man diabolically insists on being successful. p. 98

I really hate the word "sacrifice" but what I think Soloveitchik means here is essentially a humility, a sacrifice of the ego, an acceptance that the ultimate power is G-d and that we depend on G-d for everything. And without people like that informing the structure, the centre cannot hold. Without a rabbi who also informs the culture as my beloved LARabbi™ did, you get the poseurs and destroyers- you get the cantor. Without an executive that cannot see beyond the immediate, you get more of the same, and the cantor who counts and hoards success at the expense of everything else. This trickles down, like suicide, even to minyan. And to me, who stopped going to services, and finally could no longer bear to go to minyan and who has now lost my only spiritual community; the chances of encountering another one are nigh improbable at this point (and not for lack of trying).

I had to step back and give up on trying to fix it, since I don't live there any longer. In the big picture, I realised my time or influence there was pretty much over, since there was barely anyone I knew left. In the bigger picture I hope that the place will self-destruct and rise from the ashes, such is the cycle of things- ever Jewishly hopeful.

But meanwhile, I knew it was over when I endured the cantor's commentary on the passage in the Torah regarding the Shema and the wearing of tzitzit. He was speaking to a predominantly non-Jewish bar mitzvah audience. He likened the tzitzit to cowbells. That Jews wore tzitzit like cowbells to remind them of the commandments. And all I could imagine was a bunch of Jews in a field wearing a big, clanging bell around their necks. Talk about a death knell! I was mortified that non-Jews would see us depicted in such a manner. It offended my sensibilities on so many levels. It was crass and discordant. Cause yeah, according to him and the executive, they and the shul have a fever and what we need is more cowbell.

Seasons of Dryness

So, it's been since May that this spiritual dry period began, and it still continues. I can't even believe I'm using the word "spiritual". I still can't commit to asserting that I actually have a contemplative practice.

I haven't found a way out of the dryness. Sometimes I become lazy because nothing is happening.

I don't know how to describe it; it's not as if I expected anything to happen. If I could find words, I would say it was a bit like living in a state of grace when I prayed. I felt connection to G-d, felt G-d's presence. The shield of Abraham was a reality, 24/7.

Not that I don't feel G-d's presence now. It's just different. I don't know... was I in a state of bliss before? I don't think so. But it felt like an elevated state. Now, it is no less an extraordinary state because it doesn't feel ordinary, just indescribable...unexpected...unknown. Unformed.

I distressed over my lack of practice and connection for months even though both occur, unevenly, in fits and starts. It's been a hard year, very hard, but I hung in there. That is different; even though G-d was slaying me I remained faithful so maybe that's something. After all, I chose this covenant.

Last month in prayer, feeling the connective lack, I suddenly realised that there was more to my life than prayer. There was still ritual. There were the mitzvot, large and small, unannounced, throughout my days...and suddenly I grasped the big picture, felt a little more connected. I'd become so focused on what wasn't going right that I lost sight of the whole, and what was going right in the midst of my distress.

I can't tell if I am being too hard on myself. I have no idea if I am on a path or not. I don't know if I am just dumb or slow or missing the point or everything is as it should be. I just don't recognise this experience as anything but frustrating and yet, I have no true idea of what is.

Limning that question are unexpected moments of ultimate compassion for creatures and events, an absence of judgment, as if seeing through G-d's eyes. Another fringe of moments when the world is alive with personality, a tree, a flower, even a cloud...transformed. There are moments where everything shifts and I see and experience differently...moments of G-d, just not in the way I am used to.

And the miracles continue, of healing, of things getting better or, once in a while, of going my way (diamond rare), of the inflow and outflow of kindnesses and friendship...of seeing miracles for others as well.

This all must create something, must weave some wondrous cloth I am too blind to really see.

I feel guilty.

I feel like I'm doing something wrong

Approaching prayer is just boring. And I feel guilty for that as well

I don't know what to do.

My inner life sucks.

...Doesn't it?

The Duckless Summer

© Barefoot Jewess

The usual duck models were not available for this photo shoot.

Dog Days

© Barefoot Jewess

The dogs were happy to oblige.

Reporting on G-d II: Tisha B'Av, Mourning Ground Zero

Though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him (Job 13:15)

Him? "Him"?

No, there is no "him". I don't remotely believe or experience G-d to be separate from me- G-d suffuses everything. Everything is G-d. The pain, the blood, the joy, the delight. There is no question in my mind.

As for Job, who can stand here and say their story is akin to his? That notion is rather daunting and humbling. Perhaps it's just that we can relate. We may not be so extravagantly prosperous, but maybe we've known extravagant happiness and blessing and suddenly it is all snatched away, in ways we never imagined. Job's story is related so compassionately.

In that tale, the Satan, G-d's familiar, is directed to afflict the soul in whom G-d has tremendous confidence. We see Job as a man who mindlessly clings to ritual and doing all the right things that he thinks have brought him the great rewards of prosperity. Well, I am not sure how many of us can relate to that part. In fact, I think it is G-d's confidence in Job's core soul that allows Him to risk such material and emotional devastation on Job's life, even though Job simplistically believes right acts lead to reward.

It turns out that shaking a fist at G-d and standing his ground is Job's real style, his core nature and soul. In the face of everything, he finally declares: Though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him. Or, "yet will I argue with Him".

I've observed G-d for quite some time, now. And rarely really reported on the phenomenon. I read Psalms and discover a pattern: that the Psalmists are always experiencing G-d and/or trying to get back to G-d and the experience. I discover another pattern in Shaharit, the morning service, that addresses an awesome encounter, a description of that encounter, and the desire to remain within that experience; and having had that encounter, to live in hope of it and of G-d's grace and favour, to be suffused with that supernal light which is hoped for, wished for, craved, longed for, and which you can't buy, bargain for or will. It's all about returning to G-d. Over and over again.

Sometimes, I feel as if I'm on a treadmill. The "getting back to G-d" treadmill. Crap happens. I turn to G-d. Crap happens again and I turn to G-d. Even when I think I'm being faithful, doing the right things, crap happens and I'm back to square one. Or lately, back to ground zero. I have to ask myself at some point, is this that damned Buddhist wheel of suffering? Am I not getting it? Am I not understanding?

And then Tisha B'Av comes along. I remember, once, reading Eicha, The Book of Lamentations, and fasting, all by my lonesome and being struck by the thought of there being no G-d, no cosmic meaning in my life. As I've mentioned before, the realisation filled me with utter terror, as if I were torn away...violently rent from the source of Everything.

Ask me if I am not relieved to have Tisha B'Av descend upon us this Saturday night? I may feel as if I'm on a treadmill, but it somehow brings relief, becomes a touchstone. I have so much to howl at this year, and Lamentations is as ground zero as you can get. I will grasp at any holy verses that capture the essence of our tender, vertiginous lives and the nightmares that petrify our dreams. They are as real as all the hope and glory, and they are as much sanctified.

No one can answer why bad things happen to good (or innocuous) people. Any answers I have ever read have always created a limited god, a god of our projection, a god of our personal understanding, touted as the god. No. There is only mystery, and perhaps a spark of great unfathomable love, if we are lucky. A love that encompasses the good and the bad, because, in the end, it is all good.

Feh. In my raging pain it remains cold comfort; I want my friend back as she was, I want some shred of remembered happiness with no cruel unabiding centre.

Still, Though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him (Job 13:15)

Go figure.

Not Fade Away

This blog has always been about the spiritual/religious journey. It has been about discovery. Sometimes it's about Jews, sometimes it's about my life which I deem not my own but belonging to G-d. The latter has never been a choice for me, it just happened.

My best friend, L, the love of my life, yes, the love of my life even though some man in my life should be my bashert, has Multiple Sclerosis. It's been ten years since we met, and 5 years since she was diagnosed. She is the only family I have.

Her symptoms are not so physical, contrary to what most people experience or know. Her fatigue has grown over time but she lost 10 IQ points when she was assessed 5 years ago. yet her brightness remains unabated. She has difficulty with her memory, difficulty with tiredness, difficulty with initiating anything. Lately, in my experience, she has difficulty with empathy and seems indifferent to the latest symptoms. She has changed, not for the better.

Where does this leave me in my journey? I'm losing the one person with whom I was actually happy. It's not like she died. She's just fading away. Which is far worse than death.

Where does this leave me in my journey? I don't ask this because it's just about me, but more so, it leaves me confused. As to what do I do? How do I manage this, in a divine sense, when she shows indifference? And why, G-d, why, did you fashion the person I love into someone who is fading away from me?

I've had ten years of true love. I am so grateful. But I'm mourning.

Meanwhile, life continues. It just does.

And I don't know how to approach G-d on this. Since G-d came through, my life has taken an ostensible turn for the worst- aloneness, poverty, humiliation, betrayal, deprivation. I have imagined my life so differently, if I had only chosen safety and security. Material benefits have sucked, no matter what.

Since that seminal moment, life continues to be a challenge and not of my choosing. I am astounded by how endlessly rotten it can be. And yet blessings of an untagged sort, do pour in. Go figure.

I want G-d to make my best friend okay, or at the very least, come back to me, yet I know it will never happen. But I keep praying for her healing. Because it's what Jews do- live in hope. And because even though my encounters with G-d these days are not a happy happening, even though my spiritual life seems arid and wasted, so dry I want to spit, I tussle with the Big Guy, asking questions, demanding answers. I want to know that in the midst of all of this crap, divine love rains down. That, even in the midst of my anguish, the questions and love never fade away.

Baruch Dayan Emet, Again

Where are you going, my little one?

H died last week by his own hand. He jumped into the path of a fast moving train. He was 19. Sweet, gentle, kind, heartful H.

Mangled body parts were strewn everywhere, some hundreds of feet away.

Blood covered the tracks and platform and stairway. People had to walk past the blood.

A body part hit someone standing 10 feet from him. I had no idea trains did so much damage. I thought that they would just smack you and throw you elsewhere, but he went under....

A lot of people saw it, felt it; a lot of people were traumatised.

I can't imagine what the family is going through. L and I spent warm and lively Shabbat dinners with him and his family where we always felt welcomed, wanted and cherished, by not only the adults, but by him and his siblings. That they have a whole Jewish community supporting them is a testament to their passionate commitment to Judaism and the Jewish community- a purely golden thread in the communal cloth. So, this is good.

Baruch Dayan Emet....even though he took his own life....there is a Plan, yes.

Many hundreds at his memorial service.

Several hundred at the Hillel service.

And yet, he's dead, just like LARabbi™ z"l. There was not a single person either felt that he could talk to. I think that the fact that LARabbi™ was his rabbi, too, and an influence, is not coincidental.

Students at his college are talking about his being "picked on", bullied all year, which makes me so angry. The whole thing makes me angry; unlike Rabbi, who had much life and experience under his belt, H was a child, with few learned coping skills. He was also small, nerdish, had an adenoidal voice- things that would make him a target for bullies. But in an ocean of students, how did they find him? And perhaps, that is only part of the story.

Why did he mine so inside himself that there was no way to ask for help? Why do they never seem to ask for help?

It doesn't get any better: 1 suicide, 2 suicides. A bullet list. You might get used to death, but never to suicide. It's a special kind of tearing that is permanent. It rends the fabric of the world and that trauma and horror lives with you forever. And the grief...of so much possibility lost, an entire universe.

I can't help but muse, having entertained thoughts of suicide most of my life (though not for several years now, since I discovered a good therapist, and a contemplative Jewish practice), why did I never take that final step? How were they different from me?

Watching H growing up, he reminded me of myself- highly intelligent, sensitive and yet emotionally fragile- my "excitable boy". He was a young man of deep feeling, and passion, and conviction. Idealistic. He was kind and gentle, all qualities dismissed or derogated by our society, but which are worth their weight in divine diamonds.

Yet unlike me at that age, he wasn't so self-absorbed, or seemed withdrawn, or moody. Perhaps it would have helped if he could have gotten in touch with that side of himself, sorted out the darker side , seen it. And I can't help but wonder if religion can kill, sometimes, when you're a young idealist... to try to live up to an image that isn't balanced with an acknowledgment and acceptance of your human frailties. In one so young, that balance is not expected. It would have helped if he had had someone to talk to, where he felt safe, secure.

Perhaps perhaps perhaps. With suicide there is only "perhaps", only supposition. You never find an answer, you never find closure, it can never become integrated into the fabric of your life and made into whole cloth.

I read the official eulogies for him and I'm not impressed. It was all about achievement and how he eagerly drove himself, whether it was academically, religiously, politically, or as a human being, to be successful. In the midst of this rush, where was H? What happened to H? He truly was blessed with great gifts, and given the climate of super-achievement, he was, indeed, a hurried child.

In the only place where he rested and where it mattered, I remember him with a heart too big for this world. And so, it need be broken.

I can't believe I am pronouncing this again, under similar circumstances: Good night, sweet prince. And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. You were too good for this world. And that's the truth.

I Got Over The Jews

Update: April 30/08

My blog seems so depressing. Bad stuff always seems to happen to me and it kinda makes me look like a loser. Still, I consider this all a spiritual challenge and journey, so take it for what you will.

I did get that job, with Israelis, with fellow Jews. Last week. Who were humane, unlike my previous employers. I serendipitously got Shabbat off. They even told me yesterday what a rare gem I was as an employee. And then told me I was losing my job. They are closing the store. They've been looking for a buyer for several months. They did not tell me that in the interview, and now want to spin it as if they crunched numbers only this weekend and came to that decision. They refuse to acknowledge that they should have told me upfront in the interview (which is what I stated). I got played. Because of the timeline, and the state of my savings, I find myself on the precipice of welfare again.

This is the extent of their awareness: one owner told me that, yeah, it was not great for me, but he was sure I understood that is was far worse for them. I kept my mouth shut. He's been harping on that, trying to garner sympathy, actually, trying to relieve his guilt (how pathetic that the fact that he has the decency to feel guilty elevates him in my books). I know he would be argumentative trying to justify their bad judgment. But inside, I'm going, yeah, it's so hard for you, you took a risk and you have no head for business and dabbled, and you lost but you still have a job as a prof at the university, a home and family, while you just deprived me of my livelihood. Yet, I cannot say this.

This is my first close up encounter with secular Israelis in the diaspora. I have seen their liveliness and warmth when Israeli buds hang out in the shop. They know I'm a Jew. It's clear that they feel no such connection with fellow Jews. None. Thanks to the fundamentalist freaks that overshadow Israel for that. It is so sad.

I'm still in shock. Working out my week, and working out the clearance sale because I need the bucks. Wondering what G-d's purpose was in throwing me into this. Said owner is afraid that I will hold a grudge. I don't, though I am still pissed. Actually, I feel kinda sad when I am not feeling sorry for myself. Sad that they are so disconnected from their Jewishness, and sad that they don't get how their actions affect me; sad that they are, indeed, strangers in a strange land. It's like G-d wants to teach me the lesson of compassion through poverty. I just want to say, enough already!

But I also feel the love of fellow Jews. A huge shout out and scads of gratitude to eliyahu, to Shira, for leaving such support. To Norman who keeps me going in a rare email (after all, he's a hermit :)). To the stranger (DM) who left a tip in my tipjar. I never realised how much you all keep me going and assuage my rather painful and disappointing encounters with other Jews.

It will be interesting to see what happens next.


April 9/08

Hey, it's been a while.

I had to quit my job (not unhappily) cleaning houses, because of allergies and "hyperreactive airways". I haven't applied for unemployment insurance because I've become skittish of any government "program". I'm not saying it's bad, just that it's an ordeal to jump through the hoops. Been there, done that.

I have a lot to say about my latest wrangling and understanding of G-d, but given my ongoing financial situation, that telling hasn't been uppermost in my mind.

I went for a job interview today, thanks to the job counsellor at Jewish Family Services. No big deal, except for me the big deal is that they were Israelis. I mentioned JFS in my cover letter. With names like Ronit and Noa and Rafi, they were kinda self-evident. I imagined that they were secular. I was not wrong.

I think I've been sucked in by tales of Jews who help other Jews. Today I got over that. Where I live....one Jew helping another...well, you never know. I got over the Jews. In the sense, that, you keep trying, but you just never know. Community? My %&#.

Even so, I long endlessly for it. For the faith.