Category: Books & Resources

Rabbinic Insight from Chronic Illness

Image:  A woman walks through a greenhouse full of cacti. (Pixabay)

An op-ed appeared in the New York Times a while back. The piece, In My Chronic Illness, I Found a Deeper Meaning, is so good that I would be quite happy for you to stop reading now and go read it – even if you don’t read another word I have to say about it.

Rabbi Elliot Kukla describes the significant challenges of living with chronic illness. He writes about the problems of credibility every one of us with chronic illness face: it’s “in our heads” we are “making it up” we are “dramatic” and/or “lazy” and/or just plain “crazy.” You can hear all about that if you go onto Twitter and search for terms like “chronic illness” or “disability.”

He describes the horror of being a number, of having one’s troubles become “a monetized affair.”  The article would be valuable simply because he articulates all of this so well.

What’s different about this article is that Rabbi Kukla doesn’t stop with an eloquent description of the situation. He keeps moving towards meaning. “We are born needing care, and die needing care, and I am no exception.” Independence is in fact a delusion: we are all interdependent.

He maps a terrain that we will all travel someday, even the most fit and healthy among us. The take-away, though, is something that I think we all need right now: a reminder of the worth of every person.

In a time when human beings are treated as bargaining chips, when a small, wealthy part of humanity seems to care absolutely nothing for the rest, when it is so tempting to star in our own dramas and get lost in our private pain, this article takes the larger view. Go read it.

Rabbis I Read: Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin

Image: The words Martini Judaism in large brackets. It’s the logo for the column below.

There are a few rabbis I read whenever they publish something new. Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin is one of those rabbis.

In addition to being the senior rabbi for Temple Solel in Hollywood, Florida, he writes a column for Religion News Service titled: Martini Judaism: for those who want to be shaken and stirred. Just as the title suggests, it’s an informal approach to Jewish topics in the news. What isn’t so obvious from the title is that he brings scholarship and heart to every topic he covers.  Some recent examples:

Was Trump Right about Jerusalem?

Can Reform Judaism Reform Itself?

Meghan Markle is not Jewish. Big Deal.

How Neil Gillman Taught Me Judaism 101

The Secret Jewish History of Alice’s Restaurant

See what I mean? Some might say, “He’s all over the place” but I find that he’s good for my Jewish soul. Torah is everywhere, and it applies to everything in Jewish life. Rabbi Salkin helps me make those connections.

I will also admit he has inspired more than one blog post here!

Rabbi Salkin is also the author of Putting God on the Guest List: How to Reclaim The Spiritual Meaning of Your Child’s Bar or Bat Mitzvah (Jewish Lights Publishing). His new book, The JPS Bnai Mitzvah Torah Commentary, was published in Spring, 2017.

Enjoy, in these closing days of 2017. You read it here: Torah is everywhere.

A High Tech Option for Cheshbon Hanefesh: AtoneNet.com

Image: Woman reading from her computer screen with cup in hand. (Shutterstock  377318731)

As the Days of Awe continue, sometimes we can get a kind of soul-freeze. We know we need to atone for something, but we can’t think what. Our minds go blank. What did I do? What did I fail to do? Why can’t I think?

One traditional approach to this situation is to look at lists of mitzvot or lists of sins. That is the way the Vidui is structured, for instance, to help us go through an “alphabet of sins” and realize our own. It is a prayer, but it is also a catalogue, designed to help us see ourselves more clearly.

I recently learned about an interesting resource online that can be a real help with heshbon hanefesh, the accounting of the soul. That resource is AtoneNet.com. It is a place where people anonymously confess their sins, which are then posted to the scroll of sins.

Some are heartrending. Some are trivial. Some aren’t really sins. But they can be remarkably effective at shaking loose that soul-freeze, showing us our own sins in the words of others.

For example, this confession gave me plenty to ask myself:

I’m sorry I wasted so much time on social media, engaging in bittul Torah, rechilus, lashon hara, and filling my own mind and heart with negativity that doesn’t actually help anyone.

Translated, it means:

“I’m sorry I wasted so much time on social media, engaging in timewasting that could have been spent learning Torah, gossip, spreading rumors and unnecessary talk about others, and filling my own mind and heart with negativity that doesn’t actually help anyone.”

As a person who uses social media a great deal, this one gave me a lot to consider. Do I waste time on social media? Do I talk more than I learn? Do I engage in gossip there? Repeat poorly-sourced rumors? What AM I doing with social media – am I spreading Torah or indulging an addiction? And what is social media doing to or for me? Could I make better use of my time?

Should you choose to confess a sin on AtoneNet, it is important to remember that when a sin is against another person, it is not enough simply to confess it anonymously. For sins against another person or against ourselves a complete process of teshuvah is important.

Yom Kippur atones for transgressions between a person and God, but for a transgression against one’s neighbor, Yom Kippur cannot atone, until he appeases his neighbor. – M. Yoma 8:9

However we choose to do heshbon hanefesh, this is the time! Examine our hearts, check our calendars and checkbooks, think deeply about the patterns in our lives, and do the great work of teshuvah, which ultimately heals not only ourselves, but the world.

 

The Cooking Gene – Book Review

The Cooking Gene is about food and about so much more than food. It is about history, and identity, and memory. It is about the complexity of the American present, about the hidden away memories in plain sight. Michael Twitty’s poetic prose is mesmerizing; my copy arrived one day and I sat down with it, intending to skim. The cream of the text slowed me down and forced me to read one delicious paragraph after another. Hours later I had devoured the whole thing.

In chapter 4, Mr. Twitty addresses the simplicities and complexities of Jewish identity and food. I have never seen such a wonderful description of the links among ethnicity, identity, and gastronomy. He also describes the phenomenon of the longing which brings many of us to Judaism via conversion. I look forward to recommending the book to my students.

As a Southerner, I felt this book returning a part of my soul to me. I grew up with certain erasures and with many things that must never be said. I did not realize what a weight they put on the heart until I began learning from Mr. Twitty and learning to appreciate the unsaid, the uncredited, and the secret aspects of Southern identity.

This book is about holy healing work; it is about the memory in the kitchen. I recommend it without reservation.

Resources for Torah Study

Image: A study with books and computer. (Pexels/Pixabay)

I strongly recommend to my students that they find a Torah Study group and attend, at least for a while. It’s a great way to get to know a synagogue or other Jewish institution. It’s also one of the quintessential Jewish activities: there is no better way to learn how to think as Jews think. Torah is not just about the Bible; Torah is a worldview.

Here are some resources I highly recommend for beginners:

Sefaria.org – This online library of Jewish texts is a miracle of technology. “Sefaria” is a play on sefer, Hebrew for “book.” Seforim (suh-FOR-eem) are Jewish holy books. Sefaria.org offers a growing selection of Jewish holy texts for study along with other resources. It has a full Tanakh, with English translation, as well as all the major works of rabbinic literature and more. Some books are only partly translated, but don’t despair – scholars are working on them all the time! Click on the horizontal lines in the upper left hand corner of the screen to reach the Table of Contents. Give yourself time to click and explore. If you prefer to learn in more directed ways, scroll to the bottom of the screen and under “About,” click “Help,” which will take you to a series of videos illustrating ways to use the site.

Mechon-Mamre.org is an older, less complicated website offering resources for Torah study and other Jewish texts. I particularly like the Hebrew font they use; it’s very simple and clear.

Maps of Biblical Israel – One unique thing about Torah study is that our sacred text is rooted in the geography of Israel. This website was assembled by Christians (as you can see from all the mentions of “Old Testament” but the maps are very handy.

hebcal.com – For “Parashat haShavua” (weekly Torah readings) this website is a wonderful tool. This is the Swiss Army knife of Jewish calendars: you can click on the weekly portion and get the readings, with links to commentary and sermons online. It will also do date conversion (want to know what day in the Jewish calendar was your birthday?) It’s wonderful.

And finally, a wonderful book:

What’s In It For Me? Finding Ourselves in Biblical Narratives by Stephen Lewis Fuchs – This little book (less than 100 pages) is a series of short essays in which Rabbi Fuchs offers insights for modern readers on the ancient stories in Torah. While they are written primarily for beginners, they bring depth as well as simplicity to the project of learning Torah as an adult.  I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book and look forward to requiring it for my Intro students during the Winter “Israel & Texts” sessions of the course. Rabbi Fuchs makes a case for a living, vibrant Torah that helps us to understand our lives today.

 

The Wrong Thing to Say

Image: Meme from the article below.

Good advice. I’m proud to repost it on CoffeeShopRabbi.  I have only recently discovered this blog, but I will continue to follow it.

Women Rabbis Making History

Image: Photo of Rabbi Regina Jonas believed to have been taken after 1939. (Jewish Women’s Archive)

Tonight was the event I most looked forward to at the CCAR Convention: the Women’s Rabbinic Network gathered for our annual dinner.

One of the most moving aspects of the dinner is roll call. The president calls us by ordination years, beginning with the soon-to-be ordained rabbis: “Class of 2017!” A few of them were with us, and we clapped and cheered for them. Then the newest rabbis: “Class of 2016!” When she got to “Class of 2008!” I stood up with my classmates and enjoyed the warmth. As the years count down, we get to the pioneers, women who carved the way for the rest of us, right down to “Class of 1972!”

At that, one woman stands up. Her name is Rabbi Sally Priesand. We go crazy, standing and cheering for her, because she is the trailblazer for the rest of us, ordained on June 3, 1972. Since that day, the Reform Movement in the United States has ordained over 700 women as rabbis. We serve as congregational rabbis, as military chaplains, as academics, and as counselors. There are major scholars among our ranks, and teachers like myself. Two of us have served as presidents of the CCAR, and many women rabbis are on faculty at rabbinical schools worldwide.

For many years, we thought Rabbi Priesand was the first woman ordained as a rabbi. Only after the fall of the Berlin Wall did the world learn of Rabbi Regina Jonas, a German woman who was ordained in Berlin in 1935 by Rabbi Max Dienemann (1875–1939) director of the Conference of Liberal Rabbis. Rabbi Jonas served the Jews of Berlin and elsewhere faithfully until 1942, when she was sent to the concentration camp at Theresienstadt. There she provided pastoral care, teaching, and services for the Jews in the camp, until she and her mother were transferred to Auschwitz on October 12, 1944. They were likely murdered that same day.

Although Rabbi Jonas worked alongside Rabbi Leo Baeck and the psychologist Viktor Frankl at Theresienstadt, neither of them ever mentioned her after the war. Were it not for the records in East Berlin, including her rabbinic thesis, we would never have known about her.

If you are interested in learning more about women in the rabbinate, there’s a wonderful new book out that explores the topic. It won a National Jewish Book Award this year: The Sacred Calling: Four Decades of Women in the Rabbinate. I recommend it highly.

There are now many women rabbis in America and around the world. For synagogue-going Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative and Renewal Jews we are no longer a curiosity. Even in the Orthodox world, where change happens very slowly, there are now women with rabbinic educations, doing rabbinic work under various titles. When I looked around that room tonight, I felt honored to be a member of this group of women who have dedicated their lives to Torah and the care of the Jewish People. I felt honored to be part of history.

Fifty Shades of … Talmud?

Image: Book cover. 

I’m currently reading Maggie Anton’s Fifty Shades of Talmud: What the First Rabbis Had to Say about You-Know-What. It’s absolutely as much fun as it sounds.

Maggie Anton is best known for her wonderful trio of historical novels about Rashi’s Daughters. As I understand it, those books grew out of her study of Talmud, as does this nonfiction work.

The skeptical reader might think, “Oh, this sounds so frivolous! Is this a joke book?” Ms. Anton recounts fifty texts from the Talmud that deal with the subject of sex, and embellishes them with pithy sayings, jokes, cartoons, and nerdy clues to understanding the sages. It is not a pious book, but a joyful exploration of the rabbis’ conceptions and misconceptions about sexuality.

The book opens with a chapter giving the 101 on Talmud: what it is and where it comes from. At the top of that chapter it carries a warning:

(WARNING! This section contains historical details that may cause boredom, listlessness, or lethargy.)

However, what follows is the best “Talmud 101” that you will find anywhere. It’s good enough, and the material that follows is entertaining enough, that I’m considering making it a textbook for my “Israel and Texts” class.

Judaism is a sex-positive tradition. Sex-positive within boundaries, true, but there is a fundamental understanding that God gave us genitals and intended that we should enjoy them as well as use them to be fruitful and multiply. Accordingly, the rabbis delved into the subject with enthusiasm.

I considered giving examples, but that would ruin your fun in discovering this book for yourself. If you are curious about the early rabbis’ attitudes about sex, if you are curious about rabbinic literature, I recommend this little book. It is definitely not for children, and not for those given to pompous piety.

As with all good texts about Talmud, there are notes (end notes in this case) to lead you to the texts themselves should you want to delve more deeply. This is NOT a scholarly work, more a labor of affection, but it is nice to have the tools to go farther if the reader wishes.

“Positive Parsha” – Beshalach

Image: An early narcissus.

Positive Parsha is another blog I follow for divrei Torah. It takes a more psychological approach to the search for onsights into the portion.

While it is often timely, the writers keep their focus fairly diffuse, making the “shelf life” of these pieces fairly long. This week’s drashot is a good example. It is hard to imagine a more timely topic than “Healthy Optimism,” but is a good topic in all times:

Beshalach: How to Optimalize Your Optimism 

Another Blog to Watch

Image: An open Torah. Photo by Susan Krauss.

Anita Silver is a Jewish blogger who posts insightful divrei Torah [words of Torah] every week. I regularly list her work among the seven divrei Torah I post most Fridays. I invite you to become regular readers — it’s always worthwhile.

As a taste, here’s her take on last week’s Torah portion:

Bo: Hold High Your Signs – http://wp.me/p116cm-AM