Summer Reading, 2019

What are you reading this summer? Here is my current list, always subject to change when a bright and shiny object appears:

Elizabeth Zimmerman, Knitting Without Tears (rereading – a beloved favorite)

Sofie Hagen, Happy Fat

Allan Levine, Seeking the Fabled City: the Canadian Jewish Experience

Rabbi Amy Sheinerman, The Talmud of Relationships

Rachel Mankowitz, Yeshiva Girl. (Recently finished and highly recommended.)

Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice

As you see, it’s a mix. What’s on your list? Is there anything you’ve read lately that you recommend?

The Interfaith Potluck

Image: Girl disgusted at food. Some things were just not meant to be reduced to a puree. (koh sze kiat/Shutterstock, all rights reserved.)

Periodically I encounter a well-meaning person who assures me that “we’re all really the same, I mean, we all believe in God, right?” It’s a feel-good, no-worries approach to interfaith issues, minimizing problems and seeking to avoid any unpleasantness.

Here’s an analogy to explain why this feel-good approach can actually cause hurt feelings:

Imagine we’re all going to a potluck supper. I bring a beautiful loaf of home baked challah.

Catholic Bridget brings a traditional Irish cottage pie, savory beef with carrots and onions and mashed potatoes piled on top, gently browned in the oven.

A Hindu acquaintance brings a vegetable curry, redolent with spice, served on a mound of brown rice. 

A Buddhist neighbor brings a crisp green salad with tomatoes fresh from his garden and a tangy dressing that his grandmother taught him to make.

A Methodist from Mississippi brings a plate of fragrant pork loin with baked apples.

A Pakistani Muslim brings a dish of creamy kheer for dessert.

All of the dishes are mouth-watering. All are rich not only in nutrition but in cultural values and tradition.

Then the host welcomes us, crams everything into a giant blender, and begins pulverizing it into a liquid. When one of us protests, she says gaily, “It’s all food!” And that’s true – but the distinctive flavors have been lost, the texture is gone, and it’s just a tasteless mush.

Do you want to eat that mush? Is it really “just the same?”

And by the way, what is the Hindu supposed to do about the beef in the pulverized goo? What am I to do with the pork chops that are in there somewhere? What is the Buddhist to do with all that meat?

For me, interfaith dialogue is a bit like that potluck. Each tradition has its own beauty, its own distinctive texture and flavor. There are things we can share but there are other things that clash and cannot be smoothed over.

For Christians, the person of Jesus is the definitive revelation of God, and a personal manifestation of God. That is dramatically different from the fierce monotheism of Judaism, which insists that God is ultimately indescribable and utterly One. And both of those are completely different from the Allah of Islam, who revealed His will to humanity through the Prophet Mohammad, and to whom believers owe perfect submission.

There are elements in each that simply don’t reconcile. Either Jesus is God, or he wasn’t. (The tense difference is deliberate.) Either the Messiah has arrived, or not yet.  Either the Koran is the definitive word of God, or it isn’t. Either a particular food is forbidden, or it is permitted.

To have a true dialogue, we have to hold those differences – the different flavors, the different understandings of what is permitted. We have to hold them in our hearts and still keep our hearts open to listen to one another.

I understand why these differences can be scary and why it seems safer to insist that there is no real difference. The problem is, there ARE real differences, and all the insisting and pretending in the world won’t change that. Our task, in a pluralistic society, is to learn how to get along despite the fact that we disagree on so much. It can be done, but only if we’re willing to be honest about the differences. If we are honest in owning differences, then we can learn enough about each other to avoid injuries, and to foster mutual respect.

There are still many things upon which we can agree: our religions share moral values that sometimes need to be expressed in all our voices in the public square. We can work together for peace and justice and fairness. We don’t need to be “all the same” – in fact, our differences can translate into great strength.

May the day come when we can appreciate difference without feeling threatened by it.

Possibly TMI: Life is Sweet

Image: A bird-of-paradise plant in my yard.

I woke up this morning and something was different. My body was still achy, but not as heavily achy. I felt amused when I realized the powder puff against my cheek was Jojo’s ear. I stretched, and felt the pleasure of a good, long s-t-r-e-t-c-h. I opened my eyes, and it seemed as if the sunlight coming through the window was five times brighter than yesterday.

It took a while for me to make the connection: the latest round of depression had loosened its grip on me.

When I’m depressed, I doubt everything about myself. I even doubt that I’m depressed: I tend to see myself as lazy and shiftless when I’m in the grip of what Churchill called “the black dog.” I can’t get as much done, if I can get anything done. I’ll think of a topic for this blog, but when I sit down to write, I have nothing. If I read email, the most I can manage to do is mark emails that need replies as “need reply.” Email and snail mail have the potential to send me further into the black hole; I feel guilty and exhausted when I see something new I can’t deal with right now.

Yes, I take anti-depressants, and thank God for them. They keep the lows from getting too low. I exercise. I pray. I meditate. I knit. I eat mindfully. I go to therapy. I do mitzvot. And most of the time, I’m a high-functioning human being – until the wheel turns and another low cycle comes. Then I hang on until it recedes.

Why all this personal info? This is my effort to reduce the stigma around this very common illness, clinical depression. Yes, rabbis can get it, just like they can get diabetes or bunions or cancer. It is a disease, not a moral flaw. I’m self-employed, and so I have less to fear from the stigma, so I can “come out” without fear.

If you are a person who suffers from depression, it’s worth the fight to get to the other side. There are some things that may help (see my list above) but ultimately, it’s not something we can control. It will lift eventually, like mine did this morning. I promise that when you can finally taste life, it’s darn sweet.

If you know someone who suffers from depression, I know it’s hard to be patient. I can only tell you that I’m deeply grateful to the loved ones who are patient with me, who remind me that (1) they know I can’t control it and (2) this, too, shall pass.

Now I have stuff to do because I have energy and attention to spare! Catch you later.

Double Vision: Beha’alotecha

Image: Eyeglasses, a blurred page. (By Free-Photos /Pixabay)

Parashat Beha’alotecha (Numbers 8:1-12:16) is a study in pairs, a study in contrasts. God guides the people as a cloud by day, and as fire by night, yet within those two manifestations are another set of pairs. A cloud may guide, but it also obscures; fire may guide, but as the portion shows, it may also kill and terrorize. There are those that are ritually pure for Passover, and those who are ritually impure who need a way to observe the mitzvah.

Rabbi Sylvia Rothschild points out the contrast between the black skin of the Cushite woman, and the whitening of Miriam’s skin with tzra’at. Miriam, a woman is powerless to do anything about her punishment the skin disease, which contrasts with Aaron and Moses, who pray for Miriam’s healing. Indeed, there is also a contrast between silence and speech in this passage: Miriam sins with her speech, and the Cushite woman is silent in the text.

Perhaps more than anything, this portion illustrates the inclination of the human mind to divide things into binaries. Rabbi Arthur Gross-Schaefer, in a lecture on ethical decision-making at HUC in Los Angeles, taught me that human beings tend to frame our choices as “this” or “that,” but a good counselor will assist people in seeing as many alternatives as possible. In that way, we can escape the illusion of black-and-white, and see our world in its true colors. It is important to look beyond the yes/no or this-one/that-one binary in order to see the true spectrum of our options.

Still Singing: LGBTQ Pride Month

Image: A heart shaped box filled with rainbow ribbon. (inkdrop/shutterstock all rights reserved.)

I’ve been writing this blog regularly since 2012 – that’s seven years of Pride months. LGBTQ Pride Month is a big deal to my family. We’ve been out as a lesbian-headed family since 1988, and Pride Month has always been an occasion to stand up, gather round, and remember that we are not alone.

My sons are straight, but they identify as part of the LGBTQ family, too. They were hassled even as young children because mom wasn’t in a closet – and yes, even the Bay Area was a lot less friendly back in those days. We have always faced the world as a family, and we have been the stronger for it.

In past years, I’ve written about how far our community has come, and how far we still have to go. I’ve shared some flashbacks to the bad old days, when my children were picked on and we were nervous in certain states. I’ve memorialized some great human beings and some people who caused a lot of misery for good people. I’ve shared memories of Prides past, and hope for the future.

I’ve explained why I believe that no, the Bible doesn’t say LGBTQ folks are terrible sinners.

In 2016, I mourned the murders at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando. Looking back, that was when the news took a turn. The era of good news about same-sex marriage and DOMA and increasing rights ended and we began a slide into today’s news about diminished rights for transgender Americans, and the ominous shifts in the Judiciary branch of our government. I am concerned at what the future holds, especially for trans family members and friends. And after all these years, I still feel more angry than scared.

Pride this year is bittersweet, but I feel fiercely proud. As the Holly Near song tells it, “we are a gentle angry people, and we are singing for our lives.” She wrote that song, “Singing for Our Lives,” 40 years ago, on the way to the demonstrations in San Francisco the night after Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were murdered. It was another time when great promise had given way to backlash and sorrow.

Here’s the story of the song, told in her own words:

May we have the strength to ride out this current storm, to fight when we can, to endure when we cannot fight, and to remember, above all, that we are in this together: lesbians, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and all.

Chanukah in June!

Image: The cycle of the Jewish Year, depicted as a wheel. The spring holidays are at the top, the fall months are at the bottom. (source, provenance uncertain.)

The Jewish year is not just a big circle that goes around and around. It is full of echoes and connections across the year, and this week’s Torah portion is an excellent example of those connections.

The Torah reading for Parashat Naso in the book of Numbers contains readings that we will read again during Chanukah. Why? This portion contains the description of the consecration of the Mishkan [tabernacle.] Chanukah is the holiday when we celebrate the reconsecration of the Temple in Jerusalem, after the victory of the Maccabees.

We don’t have a full description of the reconsecration of the Temple, but it was almost certainly echoed the consecration ritual outlined in Numbers 7.

The Wikipedia article Naso (parsha) lays it all out so succinctly that I’m just going to quote it here:

Numbers 7:1–17 is the Torah reading for the first day; Numbers 7:18–29 is the Torah reading for the second day; Numbers 7:24–35 is the Torah reading for the third day; Numbers 7:30–41 is the Torah reading for the fourth day; Numbers 7:36–47 is the Torah reading for the fifth day; Numbers 7:42–47 is the second Torah reading for the sixth day of Hanukkah, which, because it falls on Rosh Chodesh, has Numbers 28:1–15 as its first reading; Numbers 7:48–59 is the Torah reading for the seventh day when it does not fall on Rosh Chodesh; and Numbers 7:48–53 is the second Torah reading for the seventh day when it does fall on Rosh Chodesh, in which case Numbers 28:1–15 is the first reading; and Numbers 7:54–8:4 is the Torah reading for the eighth day. When a day of Hanukkah falls on a Sabbath, however, the regular weekly Torah reading for that Sabbath is the first Torah reading for that day, and the following readings from Parashah Naso are the maftir Torah readings: Numbers 7:1–17 is the maftir Torah reading for the first day; Numbers 7:18–23 is the maftir Torah reading for the second day; Numbers 7:24–29 is the maftir Torah reading for the third day; Numbers 7:30–35 is the maftir Torah reading for the fourth day; Numbers 7:36–41 is the maftir Torah reading for the fifth day; Numbers 7:42–47 is the maftir Torah reading for the sixth day of Hanukkah, which, because it falls on Rosh Chodesh, has Numbers 28:9–15 as its sixth aliyah; Numbers 7:48–53 is the maftir Torah reading for the seventh day; and Numbers 7:54–8:4 is the maftir Torah reading for the eighth day.

Naso (parsha) Wikipedia

A word about Jewish Wikipedia: Some writer/editors have put a lot of work into the articles about Judaism in Wikipedia. I find them to be generally reliable, but that’s because I double-check anything I find there. Wikipedia is not a bad place to look for sources about Jewish topics – but the real meat is in the footnotes and references. I don’t recommend quoting it without checking the source. Mistakes happen, typos happen, and I have seen errors there from time to time. Some of the writers include all movements of Judaism in their articles, and some have “attitude” about whichever movement isn’t theirs.

To bend a familiar saying a bit, Caveat lector! Let the reader beware! Or if you prefer it in Hebrew:

!קורא, תיזהר

Climate Change and Torah

Image: A California poppy, in my yard.

Climate change is doing a number on my neighborhood. Today the temperature was over 100°F for sure. If WeatherUnderground.com can be believed, the high was 107°F. I decided not to believe it.

It is June in the SF Bay Area. June is legendarily chilly here. Mark Twain joked that the coldest winter he ever experienced was in June in San Francisco. No more, apparently.

What does this have to do with Judaism? several things:

1. We learn from a midrash that when the Creator entrusted the Earth to Adam and Eve, God said to them, “Take care of it. It’s the only one I’m going to give you.”

2. We are commanded, bal tashkeit, “do not waste.” The verse in question has to do with trees, but our sages expanded it to a commandment to be careful in our use of natural resources.

3. We are commanded to preserve life. The strictest form of that commandment has to do with responding to someone in immediate danger of death. In a heat wave, we are responsible as a community to make sure everyone has water and a cool place to go. Alameda County is doing its best but I am concerned about the huge number of homeless people, and elders.

I hear a lot on the media about why we can’t do anything about climate change. The Green New Deal was pooh-poohed by conservatives, and they talk about what other countries are or are not doing, or they say the whole thing is “fake news.” Environmental advocates have been less than diplomatic in their rhetoric, which I understand but “I told you so” never contributed to progress.

If you have personally never been affected by climate change, there are lots of places where you can see it in action: my house, most port cities, and the farms in the Midwest. Or you can take a cruise to the island nation of Kiribati, which is quickly submerging into the Pacific.

We have made a mess, folks. I’m as responsible as any individual. We need to change. We need to think in terms of what we CAN do. We need to quit using others’ behavior as an excuse. Because as the midrash teaches, this is the only world we’ve got.

A Gift for New Parents

Image: Hands knitting teal yarn. (guteksk7/Shutterstock, rights reserved)

I’m a knitter. When I find out that a friend is expecting a baby, my fingers begin to twitch. I start rummaging through my yarn bag, because I want to weave a web of love for that little one and their parents.

However, although I start knitting very early for babies I usually do not talk about it very much, and I never give the finished product to the parent(s) until the baby is safely in the land of the living. I do this because of a wise old Jewish custom that is based both on superstition and on sad facts.

The superstition is that if we draw attention to a pregnancy, evil spirits might be attracted to the child. I don’t know any modern Reform Jews who believe such a thing, but they may well have heard a grandparent talk about it. The fear may lurk, even as they shake it off as superstition.

The more practical reason is that pregnancy carries risks for both mother and child. 10-20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage (loss of pregnancy before the 20th week.) Stillbirth affects about 1 percent of all pregnancies in the US (pregnancy loss after the 20th week.) Pregnancy and birth carry risks for mothers, as well – for more data about maternal mortality, see this report from the Centers for Disease Control.

While we hope that everything will be OK, the truth is that pregnancy and childbirth are not risk-free, and a certain number of pregnancies end in grief. Should something go amiss, we don’t want to add to the pain of the family by leaving them with a pile of baby things.

That’s why Jewish custom is that we don’t congratulate the parents until baby is safely born, and we don’t give presents before then, either.

And a related topic: What do we say to a pregnant woman, if not “congratulations” or “mazal tov“? We have a special saying that we say to expectant parents:

B’shah-AH Toh-VAH! – At a good time!

This is a way to say, “I hope all goes well for you and for the new life on the way.” It does not allude to anything going wrong – that would be upsetting – it simply expresses our wishes for parents and child. Understood another way, it could also mean, “May your labor come at the time that is easiest for you, and may the hour of birth be a good one for all.”

When I weave my little webs of love, I hope to give joy, not sorrow. Jewish tradition teaches us to wait before giving, so that in the fullness of time, our gifts will give purely joy.

Blessing for a Drink of Water

Image: Water, glass, ice cubes. (By Bruno Glätsch / Pixabay)

We will die without water. The human body can survive no more than a few days without water, depending on the temperature, the exposure to direct sunshine, and many other variables. It makes sense, then, that there is a blessing for a drink of water.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְ‑יָ אֱ‑לֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם שֶׁהַכֹּל נִהְיָה בִּדְבָרוֹ:

Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech haOlam, she-ha-kol ni-hi-yah bid-var-o.

Blessed are You, Eternal our God, Ruler of Time-and-Space, by Whose word all things came to be.

This blessing is also used for other things we eat that do not come from the ground: meat, eggs, fish, chicken, and other drinks (except wine, which has its own blessing.)

Before a full meal that includes bread, we say only the blessing over bread and that covers everything on the table.


Shavout is HERE! Shavuot Sameach!

On Saturday night, June 8, 2019, Coffee Shop Rabbi is sponsoring an ONLINE celebration of Tikkun Leil Shavuot, the late-night/all-night study session to celebrate the Giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai.

This FREE event will take place via Zoom software – all you will have to do is click on the link I will post on this blog Saturday afternoon, and you can attend via your home computer or your smartphone. The schedule of teachers from 7-11pm Pacific Daylight Time:

7-7:55 pm – Rabbi Deborah Goldmann, Congregation Shaareth Israel, Lubbock TX. “Who Was Standing at Sinai?”

8-8:55pm – Student Rabbi Meir Bargeron, MSW, MAHL, Hebrew Union College Los Angeles, “Doing Unto Others: Compassion in Judaism.”

9-9:55pm – Jehon Grist, Ph.D., Lehrhaus Judaica, “The Divine Feminine in the Biblical World.”

10-10:55pm – Rabbi Ruth Adar, Coffee Shop Rabbi, “Stories of Springtime: Visions of Jewish Life in the Spring Holiday Cycle.

The event is free. You need not speak a word of Hebrew. You don’t even need to be Jewish! You can log in from anywhere and celebrate Torah with three wonderful teachers and myself.

Please share this link with anyone who might enjoy it: lovers of Torah, Jews who cannot attend a local event, people curious about Judaism. The link to the Zoom event will be posted here by 6:30pm Saturday evening.