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.

Poverty and Shiva and Curses

The thought occurs: talking with or to a person who is on the verge of bankruptcy and homelessness is like talking to the loved one of a dead person. Both are sitting shiva, only the shiva of a poor person seems to have no end, in terms of losses. Often it is best to sit by their side and hold their hand and remain silent and follow their lead when they do speak.

Becoming poor, I realise, is very much about loss, and the financial aspect merely the tip of the iceberg, the surface of things. Just imagine the losses, if you are able. Most people inhabit the world in which loss is concrete, in terms of love, in terms of death, in terms of fripperies. There are social and/or religious rituals for all.

But, what is the ritual and protocol for the descent into, and being in, poverty? I finally met with my therapist today and it is clear she didn't grasp that I was sitting shiva, though I can't blame her because it was all about feeling overwhelmed and disorganised with all the things I need to do, and all the bureaucracy; no time even for tapping into the chasm of forlornness that pervades it all. Still, I hope people understand that those who lose financially are losing so much more and there is so much bereavement, beyond any feeling of shame or humiliation or anything you can imagine.

I never imagined my blog would turn in this direction. But it has. It's like living in a completely different world from others. It's like moving through this world on a different frequency, with such different needs from the needs and hungers of the general populace. Often, your world is reduced to the penny on the street. Yet, somehow, I don't begrudge others their prosperity (ok, except for the venal types, and a curse be upon them).

Speaking of curses; I was studying Ki Tavo last week, and here is what was written (edited for pertinence):

But if you do not obey the Lord your God to observe faithfully all His commandments and laws which I enjoin upon you this day, all these curses shall come upon you and take effect: The Lord will let loose against you calamity, panic, and frustration in all the enterprises you undertake .... The Lord will make pestilence cling to you... The Lord will strike you with madness... and dismay ... you shall not prosper in your ventures, but shall be constantly abused and robbed, with none to give help.....If you build a house, you shall not live in it. If you plant a vineyard, you shall not harvest it. ... A people you do not know shall eat up the produce of your soil and all your gains; you shall be abused and downtrodden continually ... The stranger in your midst shall rise above you higher and higher, while you sink lower and lower: he shall be your creditor, but you shall not be his; he shall be the head and you the tail.
All these curses shall befall you; ... Because you would not serve the Lord your God in joy and gladness over the abundance of everything, you shall have to serve — in hunger and thirst, naked and lacking everything — the enemies whom the Lord will let loose against you. He will put an iron yoke upon your neck until He has wiped you out.

Source

If anyone got this far in their reading, know that when I read it, I wondered, wow, sounds like I am cursed, because I sure have experienced the above. And if I am cursed, I don't get it. I just don't get it. Like, is it karma? Because my sociopathic landlady is prospering while leaving me and the wreckage of any secure life I had in her wake.

This is a total conundrum to me. If I am cursed, if this, my life now, is a curse, then what? What in heaven's name would it take not to be cursed?

While I sit shiva, I have had friends. Including those who come here or in email and leave comments and hold my hand. And listen to me. There is no greater kindness, or greater Jews. Thank you. I imagine, overall, I have been blessed way more than I have been cursed. At least I would like to think so.

Elul-ul-ul-ul-ul

As I was writing this response in comments below it made me realise how different life and people are from what we have been led in Judaism, to believe. In Judaism and tradition, there is the legend of cause and effect. For example, you ask for help, and the community comes through for you. You are in distress, and some Jew cares. You are poor, and someone will try to elevate you from your poverty.

But the part that I find so striking is the idea that there is someone who will take a personal interest in you. You read it in midrashim and in anecdotes, and also very much in Hasidic literature, which many non-Hasidic rabbis and communities are ready to adopt and promulgate in a piecemeal kinda way. You know, that feel good idea that we are all in this together, a "holy community" and that the Jewish obligation is to look out for one another? Yeah. Sure.

The reality is so different. Everyone is busy. People plead busyness- that's their excuse. Even rabbis have to prepare for the High Holy Days with their exhortations for what, I am not sure. Probably because their livelihood depends on it? I know there is always a plea for money. Usually for the building fund or the mortgage and other expenses. I understand the pressure. But it doesn't justify their focus. For several weeks all other concerns get swept away. Cease to exist. And yes, I am talking about the urgency of what is happening to me. At this time of year, Elul, increasing tzedakah, seems to mean that the poor and the needy, are expected to be the most generous. in their understanding, of a general indifference while the machers do their thing. I am not one of them.

Is there no one clear-eyed, clear-hearted, and brave, left? To be fair there is always a reaching out to the disaffected, but unless you are a charismatic orator, all I can say is I admire the "dull" ones their perseverance. Because the "disaffected" are the most likely to bring lunch on Yom Kippur. The truly disaffected have been long gone from the shul.

And there is Project Isaiah, providing food for the poor; doesn't it feel great to supply kosher food to the faceless kin? Because, G-d forbid that you should notice a poor Jew right in your face who might take you out of your happy, shiny people comfort zone. G-d forbid that you might be inconvenienced at some time to deal with the intimate tsuris of a "needy" Jew.

It makes me wonder, if nowadays, the Judaism promulgated is a fantasy, not the squirmy reality. Talk among yourselves.

Meanwhile I want to mention with gratitude, the mensches in my life, who perhaps even put lie to what I wrote above. I know I have missed some, but this is all I can manage for now- I hope to repair the omissions. If Judaism is Jews, then the following make Judaism look like a viable faith alternative; but more importantly it shows to me that the "captive G-d" of Heschel's nightmares is a lie. G-d is ALIVE and FREE. And the following have kept or set G-d free.

To the following commenters, all strangers to me:

joey,
I know that people can't often give money. Still, your soulful support and understanding mean more to me than you can ever guess; I have learned that not everything is measured in money- sometimes words are such a treasure (as is money :).

anonymous,
I wish I were in NY. I did not know that having any legal power exists for people like me because you are right- I don't have a lease and have no rights whatsoever. Man, I wish I lived there! Thank you so much for your concern. I can't say often enough what that means to me, because it can be so isolating, this experience, and thinking you can depend on the Jewish community can be one of the most devastatingly disappointing experiences imaginable. I won't go on....

Sk,
Thank you for your solid and unimpeachable words. I so agree with you. Your words are a treasure. Pure gold.

Sefardi,
You touch my heart and you understand things and emotions that make me crazy too and the sheer nuttiness of the disparity between the ideal and the reality. You have a gimlet eyed (and disillusioned) view that I share.Wow.

I can't email you because you share no public address. Help!

Lioness,
Well, I think you are my poetic soulmate. You GET it. Not that others don't but you get it on the level of feelings and the glory of words.

To all, especially those I have missed right now:

I am so amazed and touched that this loving handful get it in so many ways!

I also especially want to thank my anonymous, constant and faithful angel who has helped keep me going for a couple of years now; who always sends words of blessing and hope to me. You GET it, too.

I don't know what to say. None of life and Judaism and Jews has turned out anything like I expected. Hmmmm, maybe there's a great post in that, someday :).

To be poor is to suffer. To encounter the face of G-d in kind and generous people who have no reason to love me, have never met me? This is no romantic fantasy. This is the real deal. And it so eases my suffering. And gives so much hope. Beyond choosing life or death. Because when you see others choose such Life, to choose blessing and not curse, to live it and share it, to offer you Life (without the needy having to beg first), it shames you into wanting to be just like them.

And one other thought- there would be no beggars if everyone became an offerer, not a giver, but an offerer.

Reporting On G-d

There is nothing in the world more grievous than poverty—the most terrible of sufferings. Our teachers said: If all afflictions in the world were assembled on one side of the scale and poverty on the other, poverty would outweigh them all. Exodus Rabbah, Mishpatim 31:14

I'm on my way to Jewish Family Services (where they have been nice) but I had this notion.

Yesterday I applied for welfare. Was it demeaning? Yes. But surprisingly no more demeaning than trying to get through US customs. I'm single, female, with a dodgy record regarding money, and of course, I will fall for the first terrorist that pays me heed or makes me swoon. Yah. I am that dumb and desperate.

Back to now. You would think that emunah, i.e., faith in G-d, would be a real challenge. For me, who is looking at homelessness, still, it's not even a question. I have experienced G-d's miracle, the one that let's you see G-d's glory everywhere, seen the delights of G-d's world. G-d exists, is real, so emunah is not really a question for me. It's a done deal.

As for trust in G-d. Well, that's up in the air and that is what this experiment is all about. Here I am, on the verge of declaring bankruptcy, and being homeless. So, the question is, does G-d actually have a "mighty hand"? Is He the champion of our prayers? Does He swashbuckle his way through history when He so chooses?

I have been mollified and comforted with the words of people who speak about miracles. That- actually, wildly and desperately, gives me hope. But in the meantime....

Let's just wait and see. Will report back.

Beggared Lunacy and Shabbat

I am a wallower. Indeed, I am. I freely admit it.

I am not sure what a recent response to my poverty post, "don't marry trouble", means. That's right up there with "Think good, and it will be good". I am sure this helped the millions who waited with hope in the Shoah. Why do I bring up the Shoah with seeming irreverence, with seeming bitterness? Because I think of it every time I think of my situation. Poverty and its attendant marginalisation challenges all the Jewish truisms, clichés, sayings, and lore we've absorbed- thoughts and attitudes by which we lifted ourselves up in life through difficult non-material times.

I thought of the Shoah when I asked myself "why me?". I found the answer in the Shoah, "why not me?". I no longer ask that question. Perhaps the Shoah is G-d's answer to Job, writ large and real- final and unambiguous; maybe we had to be hit over the head with a sledgehammer to finally understand. There is no explanation that we can fathom.

'Specialness' to G-d somehow loses its meaning. 'Chosen'. I don't think so, when 'special' and 'chosen' signify good things. Still, if not special, at least, 'chosen'. Yes. Absolutely. The covenant stands. It's indissoluble. Through poverty, through degradation, through loss and death. I don't think I have 'married trouble'; I 'married' G-d. The covenant stands.

Will this, too, pass? I don't know. Will my fortunes rise? I don't know. This is not an existential crisis. This is reality- of statistics, facts, life predictors. Do miracles happen? Yes. But often, they don't. I am not that special, even though I pray for release every single day. G-d did not release the Hebrew slaves from Egypt for 400 years; how long is 400 years in my time?

In the 9 weeks that I lived and worked like a beast, from Tuesday through Saturday, I observed that I became more mean-spirited. I became more impatient with everyone and everything. It was a kind of delirium, where I wondered whether the world was demented, or was it just me? I was caught up in a whirlwind, but did not know it was a whirlwind.

I did not have Shabbat.

I had turned down a well-paying part-time job a couple of years ago, when I was still solvent, because it necessitated working through Shabbat- I would miss Shabbat. And the thought of that? It was as if someone had ripped my insides out. The thought staggered me, left me terrified.

Circumstances changed, and if I did not take this job, which sounded like Paradise, I would be applying for welfare, a fate worse than death (largely because of how they treat you). I would have to sacrifice Shabbat and I knew I would be the loser. I just didn't know how much.

My Shabbats usually involve davenning (praying), contemplation, reading Torah and commentaries and just generally kicking back and absorbing the day. I rarely go to shul because it is too far and takes too much time for very little return, community-wise. But I anticipate my Shabbat like a lover anticipating the return of their beloved. It is everything to me. I like to wallow in its glow.

When I keep Shabbat, I know what to do, what decisions to make- I remember my past and look to the future. And often, words of the Torah leap out at me, or the commentary speaks to me and sheds light on my troubles. The Torah reaches out to me and embraces me, seeps into my very bones and marrow, and the world rights itself once again and I am restored to sanity.

I kept this past Shabbat. I davenned, I contemplated, I read the Torah and commentaries. Order emerged from chaos- the hours and minutes and seconds fell into pleasant lines. Shalem, wholeness. I wallowed in it. While the demented world out there, somewhere, circled upon its axes. The shredded mantle of poverty fell away- I was rich.

How bitter poverty makes one! How harsh. And yet, we often expect the religious poor to live a life of transcendence, to count their "blessings' in an attempt at uplift, to be generous in the midst of gnawing deprivation. We would rather see their piety than their poverty. As if religion could cure all that ails us. As if blood can be squeezed from a stone. We forget that there is a time and a place for beauty and truth and preaching, and a time to listen to need and want; that bitterness is also very much a part of the human condition and not readily transcended when your poverty runs deep. Just ask Job, or G-d, and then, ask them about Job's friends.

In studying JTS commentary on last week's parsha, Korach, I happened upon the following:

By the third century of the Common Era, with rabbinic leadership in ascendancy in Roman Palestine, Rabbi Yohanan, who led the academies in Sepphoris and Tiberias for decades, sharpened the qualifications necessary for religious leadership. He claimed to derive from the fragmented profile of Moses in the Torah that God would single out individuals for prophecy only if they possessed strength, wisdom, wealth, and humility (BT Nedarim 38a).

For the prerequisite of personal wealth, which I find most interesting, Rabbi Yohanan cites the verse in our parashah that states Moses never had the need to avail himself of anything that belonged to an Israelite, even for reimbursement. That is, Moses was rich and self-sufficient. In other words: To guard against greed and venality in public office, religious or otherwise, requires that the candidate be without want. Poverty is a condition that can subvert piety. Schorsch Commentary

Poverty is a condition that can subvert piety. I suppose there are all sorts of poverty, that are not material in nature. Still, one must feed the body in order to feed the soul. You would think that is self-evident, but clearly we forget. Sometimes, I think that Christian charities understand this more viscerally, places like the Salvation Army, for example. Perhaps it feels more 'religious' because Christian charity is not as ethnocentric as Jewish charity can be. Even though tzedakah means 'justice' to the Jew, how is it anything but religious in nature, and yet we don't really think about how poverty interferes with piety, with a Jew's soul. But I digress.

That same day I happened upon an unfinished draft upon the subject of my Rav z"l, LARabbi™, whom I miss terribly:

Do the Right Thing

At LARabbi's ™ funeral, Wednesday, Rabbi Ed Feinstein mentioned 2 characteristics of my rav, that aimed so true. One was this: yes, the world was corrupt, but even so, it is important for a Jew to play by the (Jewish) rules. No matter what. I remember many a time, when I, as a needy congregant, poured out my disappointment, and in return, he kept me on the straight and narrow. He turned me towards what mattered, without ever literally invoking Torah of any sort. He showed me where I could find strength - besides minyan, it was always in doing the right (Jewish) thing.

I don't really ever remember my rabbi preaching in a personal session. Yet in the moment, he would steer me where I could find refuge- in doing mitzvot, in being a mensch in the midst of those who were not, in davenning at minyan, and he never, ever indicted or fashioned apologetics for the others, or the otherness- he always suggested to me what I might do and there was never a focus on the other. Truly. This is what I remember.

The second characteristic: ....

Well, I left myself hanging because I don't remember the second thing. Perhaps it is not that important. What is important is that in working to survive, I had lost time, and in losing time, I had lost Shabbat, and in losing Shabbat, I had lost myself, the real me in G-d's eyes. In losing my rav, I've been impoverished beyond words.

Lack of poverty, wealth, lets you wallow. Buys you time. Buys you space. Buys you sanity. Buys you dignity. Buys you Shabbat.

Please G-d, let me and every poor Jew wallow once again. Very soon. In our time. Amen.