The Importance of Wandering

On June 18, 2011, just 10 weeks after I stepped from the mikvah, I was privileged to give the d'var Torah at my husband's childhood synagogue. The parsha was Shelach. At this point in the Torah, the Israelites have made it to the borders of the promised land, and they send in 12 spies to scope out the situation. The spies find a beautiful land flowing with milk and honey, with grapevines so large that it takes many men to carry them back to the camp. But they also find a land filled with formidable inhabitants. Ten of the spies report back that the land is good, but not worth the fights with the “giants” (Numbers 13:32) who live there. Only two, Joshua and Caleb, insist that settling the land will be worth it and that with God's help they can settle there. The people side with the ten spies, and for this lack of faith, God dooms them to 40 years wandering in the wilderness.

Unfortunately, I've lost the copy of the d'var Torah I gave in 2011, but I remember that it was about fear, wandering, and finding your place in the world. We moved a lot at that time in our lives - for jobs, for grad school, and then for jobs and grad school again. Between 2010-2015, we lived in 4 cities and 6 apartments. We've been settled in the DC-area for over ten years now, and with our wandering days behind us, it seemed like a good time to revisit the themes of that old d'var Torah.

The Israelites let their fear keep them from the life God had promised. They saw themselves as small and insignificant, “like grasshoppers” (Numbers 13:33), and let their own insecurities cloud their judgement. The 40 years of wandering was a punishment that helped to reshape their thinking. A people who can survive a nomadic life in the desert can do anything. While not a punishment, my own years of wandering helped clarify my values and strengthen my community ties. Nashville and Birmingham taught us the value of small, engaged Jewish communities. Philadelphia showed us the power of walkable communities. We learned the differences between areas with many transplants and those with more homegrown populations, and the importance of pride of place. Everywhere we went, we joined a synagogue, defying the demographic trend of young 20-somethings not embracing memberships. We didn't let the possibility of moving away in the future keep us from engaging in the present. In each place, we built relationships, celebrated holidays, and did the daily work of discovering who we are and what we wanted from life.

Now, more than a decade into our time in the DC area, I see how those wandering years were not just transitional, they were formative. They taught us to be brave enough to try something new and grounded enough to keep showing up. Like the Israelites in the wilderness, we learned who we were as we traveled. Looking back, I think the heart of that long-lost d'var Torah was this: fear tells you to wait, but faith tells you to begin. Wandering gave us the wisdom to know when to pause and when to move forward. And now, as we stand more firmly rooted in the life we've built, I’m grateful for the places we’ve been and the courage it took to journey through them.

Omer 2025 Day 49

Day 48

Day 49: The Torah
Malchut in Malchut, Leadership in Leadership

Of course our final book is the one that earned us the name "the People of the Book." The Torah is a profound guide to the complexities of leadership. There are explicit instructions, such as the "dos" and "don'ts" of the Ten Commandments. And then there are the lessons we can draw from the detailed lives of the individuals throughout the text. How to welcome the stranger like Abraham and Sarah, while also treating those in our household with respect. How to be more humble than Joseph, but maintain his cool head under pressure. How to overcome a "slow tongue" to speak truth to power, like Moses. 

For all their great accomplishments, our leaders are also shown to have flaws. No one is perfect and the Torah doesn't pretend otherwise. We're not given superheroes; we are given people in all their complexity. The Torah doesn’t just tell us what to do; it shows us how to be. It challenges us to rise to the occasion, not to dwell on our missteps, but to use them as opportunities to grow. And it reminds us that leadership is not about being perfect, but about being faithful to ourselves, our values, and our communities.

Omer 2024 Day 23

Day 22 | Day 24

Day 23: Gevurah in Netzach, Strength in Endurance

This week's Torah portion is Emor, where we read about counting the omer. This particular section tells us each of the holidays and the dates on which they fall. We're given a calendar date for each of them...except for Shavuot.

These are the set times of God, the sacred occasions, which you shall celebrate each at its appointed time: In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight, there shall be a passover offering to God, and on the fifteenth day of that month יהוה’s Feast of Unleavened Bread. You shall eat unleavened bread for seven days. (Lev. 23:4-6)

... 

And from the day on which you bring the sheaf of elevation offering—the day after the sabbath—you shall count off seven weeks. They must be complete: you must count until the day after the seventh week—fifty days; then you shall bring an offering of new grain to God. (Lev. 23:15-16)

We could easily calculate 50 days from the second day of Passover and know that Shavuot falls on the 6th of Sivan, but God doesn't give us that date as God does with all the other holidays. Instead, Shavuot is deliberately tied to Passover by the process of counting the seven weeks of the omer. We count the omer from Passover to Shavuot in order to mirror our leaving Egypt/slavery and reaching Sinai/receiving the Torah. It reflects our movement from slavery to freedom, from the narrow place (Mitzrayim) to God.

Those seven weeks give us time to have the narrow Egyptian/slavery mindset stamped out of us as a people. God recognizes that 400 years of life in Egypt made an impression on our collective mindset, and that it will take time to change ourselves and our thinking. By forcing us year-after-year to count the days from Passover to Shavuot, instead of just putting a date on the calendar, God forces us to be conscious of the connection between the two holidays. Receiving the Torah is all the more meaningful because of what God did for us in Egypt and because of our journey through the wilderness to reach God. It is a reminder that our people endured 400 years of slavery and 49 days in the wilderness before coming into the strength of our relationship with God.

Omer 2024 Day 21

Day 20 | Day 22

Day 21: Malchut in Tiferet, Leadership in Balance

This week's Torah portion is Emor, which begins with the laws regarding the proper behavior of the kohanim. Kohanim are not allowed to touch a dead body (with exceptions for certain relatives). There are limits to the ways they can cut their hair and beards and the people they can marry. Kohanim with disabilities (blindness, physical birth defects, or broken limbs) are not allowed to offer sacrifices.

When God speaks to Moses, it says "God said to Moses: Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them... (Lev. 21:1)

But when Moses repeats the laws, it says, "Thus Moses spoke to Aaron and his sons and to all the Israelites." (Lev. 21:24)

Why tell all the people the laws that only pertain to the kohanim? Most of the commentaries (including Rashi, Steinsaltz, and Chizkuni), offer some variation on the theme of oversight. That the reason the people are told these laws is so that they can ensure that the kohanim observe them and keep themselves from bringing a sacrifice to a kohein with a broken leg.

Leadership needs to be balanced. Leaders need to have checks on their power, and also others who know their responsibilities of leadership to ensure those responsibilities are being fulfilled.

Mishpatim: Diversity and Unity

Exodus 24:9-11

Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy elders of Israel ascended; and they saw the God of Israel – under whose feet was the likeness of a pavement of sapphire, like the very sky for purity. Yet God did not raise a hand against the leaders of the Israelites; they beheld God, and they ate and drank.

What does it mean to see God? We are told numerous times throughout the Torah that we cannot see God, lest we die. But here the elders see God and do not die. Twice we are told that they saw God: "They saw the God of Israel" and “They beheld God, and they ate and drank” (a line that reminds me of the joke “We survived, let’s eat!”).

But what does it mean to "see" God? Another translation of "and they saw" (וַיִּרְא֕וּ) is "and they feared" or "they were in awe." Maybe "seeing" is not visual, but an emotional reaction to God's presence. The verse goes on to describe not God, but the space under God, and even that is only described as a "likeness" not in definite terms.

In his book Man is Not Alone, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel attempts to discuss the nature of God. He says, “While the ineffable is a term of negation indicating a limitation of expression, its content is intensely affirmative, denoting an allusiveness to something meaningful, for which we possess no means of expression.” Basically, God cannot be understood or expressed fully in language, only through allusion and metaphor. Our ability to share our understanding of God with others will inevitably hit a language wall and require metaphor. This is why our text sometimes anthropomorphizes God - we do not really believe God has a body with hands and feet and outstretched arms, but that is the language we have to work with, so we work in metaphor. In Exodus 24:9-11 above, the elders lived out what Heschel is describing. They saw something meaningful that they did not have the words to describe.

In her book, 70 faces Torah Poems, Rabbi Rachel Berenblat reimagines the elders seeing God:

LIKE A FEAST / Mishpatim

Understand, when I say

        we saw a sapphire floor

                beneath the Holy One’s feet

I don’t actually mean

        we ate at a banquet table

                and clinked glasses with God.

What we stood on was like

        a floor but not a floor

                like the sky but not the sky

the likeness of a feast

        as we are made in

                the image and the likeness.

And during our ascent

        no two people witnessed

                the same vision: one saw

a bearded man on a throne

        one a woman robed in splendor

                one a shimmer of sound.

And then Moshe was called

        to ascend to a place

                none of us could even see.

He went into the fire

        and we came back, certain only

                that nothing will be the same.

This poem begs the question, how do we understand God? Rabbi Berenblat sets the scene beautifully, inviting us to reread the words of the Torah as a metaphor. If the elders each "saw" God (metaphorically) in their own ways, it invites us to use metaphor to help us understand and build a relationship with God today. Viewed in this way, the experience of God is open to or based on our own personal image of God, while still able to be part of a larger community of belief. Marrying this with Heschel's point, we can never truly know what someone else's experience of God is, since we lack the language to fully express our understanding of God. But that doesn't make our experience of God any less meaningful or our shared community any less important.

Earlier in the parsha, Moses received many laws and came down to repeat them to the people.

Exodus 24:3

Moses went and repeated to the people all the commands of Adonai and all the rules; and all the people answered with one voice, saying, “All the things that Adonai has commanded we will do!”

What does it mean to answer with one voice? The laws in this week's parsha are laws that are open to interpretation and with which we still struggle today, including laws about slavery, miscarriage, an eye for an eye, and boiling a calf in its mother's milk. Do we really believe that all the people answered unanimously? That none dissented or had a question about one of these laws? This seems to stand in direct contrast with both Rabbi Berenblat's vision of diverse understandings of God, and the popular axiom, "two Jews, three opinions." Is the unanimous agreement of all the people yet another miracle? Can a group of people answer “with one voice” while having a different understanding of their shared experience?

Perhaps this scene is what Heschel had in mind when he wrote, "Divine is a message that discloses unity where we see diversity, that discloses peace when we are involved in discord. God is He who holds our fitful lives together." The Torah, in sharing these glimpses of diversity and unanimity in the people's relationship(s) with God demonstrates why Judaism is so powerful. Individuals can each "see" God in different ways; a personal understanding of and relationship with God is a given. Even so, the people can remain in community, agreeing "in one voice" on a shared set of laws to live by. Our diverse experiences do not preclude a unity of belief. Arguably, our diverse experiences and understandings of God strengthen our community. As Heschel puts it, unity and diversity are not opposites, but equal parts of the divine. Both can and do exist in Jewish belief and that is what holds us together.

Hardening Our Own Hearts

Last week, I listened to one of my favorite podcasts, Chutzpod! with Rabbi Shira Stutman and Joshua Malina (from the West Wing). The latest episode, titled "Hardening Our Own Hearts -- And Pharaoh's, Too" was a look at Parashat Bo and the final three plagues of the Exodus. It is a great episode and I highly recommend it. But when I clicked on the title to listen to it, I was expecting something different.

Over the years - in Torah study classes or drashes and again in this latest podcast episode - I've heard and discussed at length what it means for God to harden Pharaoh's heart. We've talked about free will, different translations of the word for "hardened" (toughened, strengthened, made heavy), why God might have hardened Pharaoh's heart - important and difficult conversations that are always worth having. This is more or less the ground covered in Chutzpod!

However, what struck me about the title of the episode, and what I was expecting to hear, was an exploration of the plagues as a way of hardening our own hearts, both the Hebrew slaves and ours today. Because while slavery prepared us for many hardships, it could not prepare us to handle difficult situations in which we have the power. Who are we when we are in control?

The plagues increase in devastation over the course of the Exodus narrative. When the Nile turns to blood, we consider it justice for the babies who were drowned in its waters. When frogs hop in the people's beds and on their heads, here, there, and everywhere, we sing a fun song about it. Even in parashat Bo, as the plagues worsen, we see the locusts eat the last of the food in the land and I think it's fair to say that's a reminder to the Egyptians that they would have starved long ago without Joseph. But then comes the terror of absolute darkness and the crushing, wailing despair of the death of the firstborn. There is no silly Seder song for the last plague. Miriam doesn't lead the Hebrews in joyous song and dance, like she does after the Egyptian army is drowned. No, as the final plague approaches, the Israelites sit in their houses and pray that the lamb's blood on their doors will protect them from death. We contemplate the price of freedom.

In our freedom, we will experience thirst and hunger, infestation, disease, and war, and unlike in slavery, we will have the power to act for ourselves. How do we make free choices? How do we grapple with those situations and the consequences of the choices we make? How do we harden our hearts when we have to make a difficult decision that will hurt someone else? What does it mean to be in control of our own lives and what are the limits of our power? How do we understand and deal with the things that are still outside of our control? As we prepare to leave Egypt and become a free people, it strikes me that maybe the plagues are not only meant to punish the Egyptians, or as a show of God's might, and maybe God doesn't only harden Pharaoh's heart. Maybe we need to be hardened too.

Ritual Cleansing and the New Normal

​The beauty of reading the Torah on an annual cycle is that, while the words remain the same from year to year, we do not. Our reading each year should be deeper, informed by who we are now and the times in which we live. This year, the times certainly make for some interesting reading.

My husband goes grocery shopping approximately every two weeks, or when we run out of milk. He brings the groceries home from the store, places them all on the front step outside our door, and wipes everything down before we bring them inside. We wash our hands.​ Our offices are closed and we work from home. Our kids' daycare is closed and our toddler is blowing through every movie on Disney Plus (she likes Moana and Finding Nemo and does not like Toy Story). We video chat with our parents and attend zoom happy hours with our friends. We held a baby naming for our second daughter on zoom. We wash our hands some more.​ This is our new normal.​ This is the world in which we live.​

Three and a half months into the Coronavirus pandemic shut down in the US, we're reading parsha Chukkat​​ this week and for the first time the dry account of ritual purification grips me as I read it.​ The painstaking detail of selecting and slaughtering a perfect red cow, and the subsequent descriptions of the cleansing rituals required of all those involved in the process, is a slow and somewhat repetitive read.

"The kohen shall wash his garments and bathe his flesh in water, and then he may reenter the camp, and the kohen shall be unclean until evening. The one who burns it shall wash his clothes in water and cleanse his body in water, and he shall be unclean until evening. A ritually clean person shall gather the cow's ashes and place them outside the camp in a clean place, and it shall be as a keepsake for the congregation of the children of Israel for sprinkling water, for cleansing. The one who gathers the cow's ashes shall wash his clothes, and he shall be unclean until evening." Numbers 19:7-9

Why? Why do we go through this elaborate ritual for cow's ashes? Because the ashes are essential to purify people who have encountered death: "he who touches the corpse of any human being shall be impure for seven days," "when a person dies in a tent, whoever enters the tent and whoever is in the tent shall be impure seven days," "and in the open, anyone who touches a person who was killed or who died naturally, or human bone, or a grave, shall be impure seven days." Numbers 19:11-16

Parsha Chukkat is filled with death. Miriam and Aaron die, and Moses is sentenced to death. In a normal year, these deaths would be the focus of my attention. Leaving aside the details of sprinkling cow's ashes for purification, I would ponder these individual deaths and what they tell us about the ways we mourn family and the ways we mourn community leaders. But this is not a normal year. Instead, I wonder about the everyday Israelite who encounters death unexpectedly in a tent or in the open, and how their ritual of sprinkling cow's ashes and bathing is so familiar to my own cleansing routine of disinfecting groceries and washing hands.

As if to reinforce the comparison, parsha Chukkat also features a plague of deadly serpents, which kill many people. God sent the serpents to punish the Israelites for complaining (again) about leaving Egypt for the desert. In response to the serpents, the Israelites begged for mercy. "The people came to Moses and said, 'We sinned by speaking against God and against you. Intercede with God to take away the serpents from us!' And Moses interceded for the people." Numbers 21:7. God, as always, showed mercy, but God did not take away the serpents. The serpents didn't miraculously disappear with a change in the weather. Instead, God instructed Moses to create a copper serpent staff, which would heal anyone who looked at it. The serpents became part of their new normal.

​This year, I​ see us all in this text. I see us ​wearing face masks, wiping down groceries, washing our hands more frequently​ and more vigorously​, holding ourselves apart from each other, ​waving instead of shaking hands, giving air hugs from six feet apart, ​quarantining.​ We do this to protect ourselves and to protect each other. I do this so that when I take my baby to the doctor, I can answer "no" when the nurse at the door asks her screening questions: "Do you have any flu-like symptoms? Cough, fever, difficulty breathing? Have you tested positive for the Coronavirus? Have you been in contact with anyone who has tested positive for the Coronavirus?" We do this because our world is encountering death every day and, like the Israelites, we need to protect ourselves and our community.

As I write this, the number of US deaths from Covid-19 is near 130,000.​ I know people who have gotten sick and recovered. I know people who have lost loved ones. I'm sure you do too. Our new normal is alternatingly scary (will I or someone I love get sick today?) and monotonous (what day of the week is it?). I take comfort from parsha Chukkat in the fact that society has survived and adapted to pandemics and plagues before, and I have to believe we can do it again.

Abraham and Lot

Last weekend, I found myself in a discussion about high school reunions. I have not attended any of my high school reunions and had myself removed from the school's call list shortly after graduating. It's nothing against the school or my classmates; I just have no interest in seeing most of the 800+ people in my graduating class and the ones I do care to see, I've kept in touch with. I live 700 miles from my hometown. I left for educational and professional opportunities and at this point I have no intention of moving back. I've stayed in touch with some family and friends who are still in the area, but I've drifted apart from others.

How do we choose with whom we remain in touch and which relationships we let slide?

This week we read parsha Lech Lecha (Genesis 12:1-17:27). There is a lot to unpack in this portion, some of which I've discussed on this blog before. This year, however, I want to focus on the relationships between Abraham and his family.

Midrash tells us that Abraham's father was an idol maker and that when Abraham was a young man, he was left in charge of his father's shop, where he mocked the customers and smashed the idols. When God came to Abraham and told him to go forth from his home to a new land, Abraham left and never returned. He and his wife, Sarah, along with his nephew, Lot, traveled together throughout the region until they had both amassed too many flocks, servants, and herders to share the same land peacefully. After some arguments among their herders over land use, Abraham and Lot decided to part ways amicably. Later, when Lot was taken captive during war, Abraham rallied his men on a successful rescue mission.

Unlike when Abraham left his family at the beginning of the parsha, the separation of Abraham and Lot did not mark an end to their interaction. Did Abraham actively avoid contact with his father after he left or did they just drift apart? Why did Abraham and Lot remain close, despite their competition for land? Why have I remained close with some people over time despite great distances between us, while allowing other relationships to lapse?

Abraham charging into battle after his nephew is a big gesture, an obvious display of affection. This week, I'm wondering who I would charge into battle for and who I could take just five minutes to call as a small, but important touch point of ongoing relationship building.

Shabbat Shalom.

Babel

This week's Torah portion is Noah. Things move fast in the first few portions of the Torah. Just last week there were only two people on Earth and now there is a whole world of people. After God floods the world, Noah and his family quickly repopulate. In the middle of a recounting of Shem's lineage, we read about the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11).

The Torah notes that "all the earth had the same language" (Genesis 11:1) and that the people gathered together in a valley and decided to build a tower to the heavens. Midrash (the Oral Torah) tells us that the people wanted to build a tower with a statue and sword on top to wage war against God (Artscroll Bereishis, The Sapirstein Edition Rashi, Genesis 11:1 note). If a person fell from the tower during construction, everyone kept working, but if someone dropped a brick, they mourned the loss of the brick and the delay it caused their work. In their single-minded focus on building the tower, life ceased to be precious; the people did not value the humanity of their fellow man. Being of one mind became toxic and destructive. So God gave them all different languages and dispersed them throughout the world. On one hand, when everyone spoke the same language and were of the same mind, they were able to join together in a unified undertaking of massive proportions. On the other hand, there was no voice of dissent among them to question their violent tendencies. Giving them different languages and dispersing them not only disrupted their endeavors, but diversified humanity as well.

Science backs up God here with a theory called the edge effect. You can learn more about it from this Hidden Brain podcast episode on the topic, but in short, studies on the edge effect show that working with people from diverse backgrounds increases the creativity of all involved. While it is natural to want to cluster with people who understand you and share your background, scientific and creative breakthroughs are more likely to come from diverse groups of people working together.

I can't help but draw parallels between the Tower of Babel and the political toxicity of our society today. When we surround ourselves only with people who think like us and only consume media that reinforces our beliefs, we are creating little Babels for ourselves. From our little towers of sameness where everyone speaks the same language, we propose to wage war on big ideas (capitalism, socialism, political correctness, the patriarchy, Big Pharma, etc), and reject the humanity and worth of anyone who does not contribute to our cause. What we can learn from the Tower of Babel and the edge effect, however, is that it is not good or productive for us to surround ourselves with like voices. Listening to only one perspective seems to inevitably lead us down a path to war. God's solution can be a model for our own attempts to do better today - diversify. Read multiple sources, talk to and really listen to the concerns of others, collaborate, learn a new language.

Shabbat Shalom

And Cain said to Abel...

This week, we read parsha Bereishit, the beginning of the Torah. We could spend an entire year just unpacking everything in this one portion of the Torah from Genesis 1:1-6:8, but this week I want to focus on Cain and Abel.

After God created the world and Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge and were expelled from the Garden of Eden, they had two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain and Abel both made offerings to God, but Abel offered the best of what he had and Cain did not, so God favored Abel, and Cain became jealous.

In his jealousy, Cain said to Abel "..." and then killed him (Genesis 4:8). It is the first murder in the Torah, in human history, and the Torah does not record what Cain said to Abel. We can guess, of course. When the Greeks translated the Torah, they added "And Cain said to Abel, 'Come, let us go into the field,'" which makes sense given that the very next line says that Cain killed Abel in the field. But any guess that we make about the exchange is ultimately just that - a guess. So let's look at it as it was written, without dialogue.

I look at the story of Cain and Abel as a tale of the things we leave unsaid. In the blank space of those ellipses, I am left wondering if Cain even understood himself in the moment, or if his inability to speak to Abel mirrored his own internal struggle at self-reflection. Did Cain think through his emotions? Did he say to himself, "Come, let me try to understand what made me so upset?" Or did he fly into a blind rage and refuse to admit, even to himself, what he was about to do? Maybe he didn't say anything and just let his feelings of inadequacy fester. Midrash teaches that in the space of those ellipses, Cain started an argument with Abel and used it as a pretext to kill him. Whatever the case, it is clear that there was no honest, open conversation.

When words fail us, when communication breaks down, when we find ourselves unable to share our feelings with others, it harms our relationships and limits our possibilities in the world. So, even when it is hard, when we are overwhelmed by emotion and words seem meaningless or inadequate to the situation, it is important to name it. Earlier in this portion, God speaks the whole world into being, showing us the power of words. Don't take that power for granted. Don't leave ellipses in your life.

Shabbat Shalom.

In Defense of Isaac

It seems inevitable that every year someone will say, "Isaac is boring."

Abraham traveled the world, argued with God, and led armies into battle.

Jacob was cunning and strong, received messages from God in dreams, and wrestled with angels.

But Isaac never traveled beyond the boundaries of his promised land. He re-dug the same wells as his father and re-hashed the same stories. He rarely spoke to God and never wrestled with angels.

I've always been sympathetic to Isaac. I don't think he is meant to be larger than life, like his father and his son. He represents us - bound to the Jewish people by our forefathers, repeating their rituals and re-treading their well-worn steps in the landscape of Jewish tradition, taking God's promises on faith, and promising even more to our children.

Maybe this year we can view Isaac not as the boring and blind forgotten middle patriarch, but as the model for our own Jewish lives.

Coming Together on Thanksgiving

This Shabbat we will read Chayei Sarah, the life of Sarah, which recounts Sarah’s death and burial, Isaac’s marriage to Rebecca, and the death and burial of Abraham.

As so many of us come together with family for Thanksgiving this year expecting harsh political disagreements, I am reminded of Abbey Bartlet’s wise words on The West Wing:

“What most people find it important to remember is that, in the end, the two sons [Isaac and Ishmael] came together to bury their father.”

Skip to 1:30 for Abbey's story

If you are celebrating Thanksgiving this year in a politically-divided home, I hope that you and your family will be able to set aside your differences and truly have a happy Thanksgiving.

Quote of the Week: I wish I was Jewish

This semester for my field placement at JPDS, I am finally being forced to learn Hebrew in a real way. The third, fourth, and fifth graders know more Hebrew than I do, which makes it hard for me to help them with their Hebrew translations for Judaic Studies, but there are two new students to the school this year who have no Hebrew background, so I have volunteered to tutor them in the aleph-bet.

As an aside, I should mention that, while this is a Jewish Day School, it is also a community day school and they have a number of non-Jewish students enrolled (whether because it is better than their public school options, within walking distance of their homes, or any other reason that a parent would enroll their child in a private school). These two students - a boy and a girl - are not Jewish, so the Hebrew is new and hard for them, but they are so focused on learning it. Time for me to channel their drive, dust off my Rosetta Stone, and give Hebrew another try myself!

During our first lesson today, we reviewed the difference between בּ (a "b" sound) and ב (a "v" sound) and between ד (a "d" sound) and ר (an "r" sound), coupled with different vowels to make different sounds, like "da-beh" or "reh-va." Aside from the Hebrew, I also wound up teaching them about what it means to be Jewish. They were both shocked that I am not from Israel, have no family in Israel, and am not fluent in Hebrew. "But I thought you were Jewish!" the boy said with obvious confusion. We had a quick discussion about what it means to be Jewish, but the duality of Judaism as a people and a religion was a question that took me over a year to understand and three years later, I am still not good at articulating an answer. If the history of the Jewish people has taught us anything, it is that there is no easy answer to that question.

Later on in Judaic Studies, while my female student struggled determinedly to translate Parsha Vayetse - eyes flicking back and forth between the text and her vocabulary sheet to find סֻלָּם and scribble "ladder" above the Hebrew, circling the prefix and suffix on the word וְרֹאשׁוֹ in order to find the root meaning "head" in the middle of the word - she said in frustration, "I wish I was Jewish! Then I would already know Hebrew." If only being Jewish came with Hebrew proficiency that could be downloaded into your brain! Lacking that, we will have to stumble through the language together.

The Future of Conversion to Judaism in the Conservative Movement

Yesterday, at the USCJ's Centennial conference in Baltimore, they discussed (among other things) the future of conversion within the Conservative movement.

A panel of four rabbis led "How Open A Tent? A Dialogue About Conversion" to answer: "What should the Conservative Movement's stance on Conversion look like in the years to come? How do we define our communal boundaries, differentiate our stance from our brothers and sisters to the left and to the right of us - and be responsive to the Jewish community we serve? This session will be an open discussion with four rabbis in the field, with a robust give and take on their recommendations for the future." The panel featured Rabbis Elliot Cosgrove, Ed Feinstein, Michael Siegel, and Deborah Wechsler.

At the same time, Rabbi Adam Greenwald discussed "Conversion as Courtship: Helping Newcomers Fall in Love with Judaism." The description of his talk is: "The journey to becoming Jewish is like falling in love, encompassing flirtation, desire, heartbreak, and transformation. Join the director of the largest conversion program in the nation for a discussion about practical strategies for welcoming new Jews with warmth, integrity, and love."

I wish that I could have attended the conference this weekend, especially these two sessions. This conference is Conservative Judaism's "conversation of the century" and its "reset button" as the movement attempts to change with the times. It is especially obvious in light of the Pew survey on Judaism in America that something needs to change if the USCJ wants to stop losing members. Other topics at the conference included engagement, technology, and theology - all vital conversations to the USCJ's future. According to the Pew survey, 2% of the American Jewish population are converts (Jews who were not raised Jewish and had no Jewish parent). That 2% is split up among all the Jewish streams (the survey did not break them down into movements), so with such a minute population and so many other issues to address, you might ask why the USCJ devoted five rabbis in two sessions at its five day conference to the issue of conversion? It could be related to the rising rates of intermarriage that the Pew study also reported. It could be a signal that the USCJ is considering a more active approach to conversion, like the Reform movement did in the early 2000s. Whatever the reason, I am glad they included it in their overall conversation about the future.

Individuals in the Conservative movement have already gotten the ball rolling on conversion policy discussions! In March, Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove suggested (much to my dismay) converting potential Jews first and teaching them about Judaism after. Rabbi Harold Schulweis, one of Rabbi Ed Feinstein's co-Rabbis at Valley Beth Shalom, is among the growing number of rabbis in the Conservative movement who advocate more actively reaching out to potential converts. Rabbi Michael Knopf writes beautifully about the passion that Jews by Choice find in Judaism and how that can translate to Jews by Birth. These discussions are important, because they highlight a growing understanding among Conservative Jewish leaders that attracting potential converts is all in how they are addressed. There are a million reasons why a non-Jew might consider conversion - theological agreement, cultural affinity, introduction through a Jewish friend or significant other - and acknowledging them where they are and providing support as they ask the many Jewish questions they will have, is important in convincing them to turn their interest in Judaism into a fully Jewish life. I am excited to see these discussions becoming part of a movement-wide conversation of change.

It is fitting that the USCJ should start to rebuild its new identity this weekend, during Parsha Lech Lecha. This past Shabbat, as the USCJ Centennial began, we read Lech Lecha, in which Abram was told to go, to leave his home and to become the first of a great people. Lech Lecha is the reason that converts to Judaism take a Hebrew name ending in "ben/bat Avraham v' Sarah" symbolizing that step away from where they were raised toward a new spiritual identity. Jews by choice know a thing or two about building a Jewish identity from scratch, so maybe we can help the Conservative movement.

Action

Last weekend, as we discussed Lech Lecha in my new Torah Study group, someone asked why God would require circumcision. After all, he argued, God is omnipotent, so if God doesn't want man to have foreskin, then God could just make man without foreskin.

But I don't think that's the point. Circumcision symbolizes the covenant between Jews and God. It is the act of circumcising someone (more than the end result) that matters here. God always requires action of us, because actively engaging with something makes it more ours and actively engaging with someone makes that relationship stronger. When we interact with God (through Torah study, prayer, ritual, or however else you do it), we are building a stronger relationship with God and with the others who participate in those activities with us.

We see the necessity for action all over Genesis. God couldn't just spare Noah's house; Noah had to build an ark. Despite being promised a child by God, Sarah believes that there is still action required on her part to produce that child (whether or not letting your husband sleep with your slave so you can adopt the resulting boy as your own son is the action any of us would take is a separate matter). And now God requires circumcision, which is just the beginning of many more mitzvot - actions that will solidify our covenant with God.

The group leader took this one step further and said that it is not only action, but choice, that builds strength and character. Lech Lecha not only means "go" for Abraham, but "choose." In leaving his home, Abraham can and must choose a new life for himself. As a stranger in a new land, who will he be and how will he define himself? This struggle for definition in choice is what makes Abraham and Sarah the spiritual parents of all Jews by Choice. Abraham chooses to act in some pretty impressive ways and Parsha Vayeira this weekend will highlight some of his best moments. Hopefully we can all follow Abraham's example - to defend our friends and family (Gen 14:14), to treat the stranger with kindness and generosity (Gen 18:2), and to stand up for justice (Gen 18:25).

What better time to act generously and kindly than now, in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, when so many friends, family and strangers throughout the Northeast are without homes and without power?

To those affected by the storm, I wish you a speedy rebuilding.

Shabbat Shalom

Shul Shopping

I have become a perennial shul shopper; blame it on being young and mobile. This will be the fourth year in a row that I am spending the High Holidays at a new synagogue. Looking for a shul right before the High Holidays is probably the worst time to look for one - attendance is higher than it will be for the rest of the year, the rabbi is usually busy preparing for the holidays and won't have much time to discuss the synagogue with you, and you feel rushed to join a place in time to get tickets for Rosh Hashanah. My husband and I have moved every July for the past four years, meaning we have had just 2-3 months to figure out our temple options, visit, and narrow down the list, before committing to a place for the year. Based on our previous synagogue experiences, this is what I was looking for in our most recent venture:

1. A Traditional Egalitarian service. For me, this means mixed seating, the majority of women wearing kippot and tallit, and women on the bimah either as clergy or for an aliyah. 
2. Potential to make friends. Am I the youngest one there by 20-30 years? Are there other young couples without kids? Who are the regulars? Are the members inviting or clique-y? 
3. Torah study. I want a group that meets once a week, though I'll take what I can get. The format should be discussion-based and thought-provoking and cover a wide range of issues and biblical theories. I don't want to study with a group of people who will only treat the Torah as a 100% recounting of actual people and events any more than I want to study with people who are only interested in the proven historical (archaeological) record. Historical analysis can have its benefits, but the Torah is a religious text and should be treated as such. 
4. An intellectual rabbi who leads by example. I want a rabbi who makes it easy to follow the service without treating the congregation like we're completely clueless. I want a rabbi who gives interesting d'varim on the portion and covers a diversity of topics over the course of the year. Listening to a d'var about the State of Israel week after week, for example, gets boring pretty fast. 
5. A cantor or song leader I can sing along with. A cantor can have a wonderful voice, but if they are all over the place with the melodies so that no one can sing along, then it's not for me. 
6. Location, location, location. Preferably, I'd like something within 20 minute walking distance or 15 minute driving distance of my home. I belonged to a synagogue a 30 minute drive away for a year and an hour commute both ways at least once a week for services is just too much. 
7. Spiritual surroundings. I am not looking for a beautiful sanctuary. Architecturally and stylistically, I don't care what it looks like. Whatever it looks like, it should maximize the sense of God's presence and minimize distractions. Anything about the surroundings that will detract from my spiritual connection with God (creaky seats, really low lighting, etc) is a negative in my book. This is not necessarily a deal-breaker in my synagogue search, but certainly something to consider. 

This list will continue to grow as our experiences and needs grow, but it has served as a good starting point in our search this year. What do you look for in a synagogue or other house of worship?

L'shana tova! Happy New Year!

We will do and we will hear

Last week in the Torah's Parsha Mishpatim, while the Israelites were wandering in the desert, God stopped them at Mount Sinai to give them the Ten Commandments and a long series of other laws. After receiving these laws, the people responded, "naaseh v'nishma" which means "We will do and we will hear/understand" (Exodus 24:7). 

This one phrase in the Torah has sparked years of theological discussion. Shouldn't the phrase be flipped around? How can you do something before hearing what it is and understanding it? So at Torah study, we talked about rituals - those things in our lives, religious or not, that we do without ever having been told and without quite understanding why. What do you do regularly for no discernible reason? How many things do we have to do first in order to understand them? Before I had ever heard this line of Torah, the philosophy of doing before hearing/understanding was the guiding force in my conversion.

It took a year and a half of regular Shabbat observance, theological study, and cultural immersion before I felt comfortable and at home in Judaism. I progressed from awkward newbie to "hey, this is fun" to spiritual frustration as I failed to connect on the higher level I was hoping for to desperate prayers to God for a connection with a religion until, finally and suddenly, everything clicked. I "did" Judaism and then I understood it, connected with it, and heard God's response to my prayer for a religious home. I don't think it could have happened the other way around. To hear/understand and then do is logical. Faith is not.

Torah Study would be easier if I knew Hebrew

I'm leading Torah Study in a couple weeks for Parsha Bo (the portion that covers the last three plagues and the exodus from Egypt), so I was reading it online at work today during my lunch break. I get an hour for lunch and I spent the whole time doing this:

This was my attempt at figuring out the Hebrew word for "harden," as in "God hardened Pharaoh's heart." Since I don't actually know Hebrew (I'm working on that), I try to read the portion with multiple translations. I have three different translations at home (JPS, WRJ Women's Commentary, and Robert Alter), plus the Chabad.org translation that I linked to above. I don't always read them all every week or I don't think I would do anything else, but in preparing to lead the discussion for Bo, I am trying to read them all. I have seen "hardened Pharaoh's heart" translated a number of ways in the different translations of the Torah, including "made heavy," "strengthened," "stiffened," and "toughened." Usually when I want to figure out what a word is in Hebrew, I find the word in English in two different verses and then compare the Hebrew to look for words that look the same.

Above, I wrote out Exodus 10:1 ("Come to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, in order that I may place these signs of Mine in his midst") and Exodus 10:20 ("But the Lord strengthened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the children of Israel go out"). I know some words in Hebrew, like: God, Pharaoh, I, and, to, for, and so that.  Sometimes I use the internet to translate a word for me and sometimes I guess based on context clues. When all that fails, I ask my rabbi-in-training friend, Noah, to translate.

This convoluted attempt at Hebrew text study usually works in the limited way that it can, but today it didn't. As it turns out, the two verses I chose don't even use the same Hebrew word to express the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. The word with a question mark above it in my translation of verse 10:1 is hichbad'ti, which Noah (after I gave up and asked him - thanks Noah!) says comes from the root meaning "heavy" or "to burden." The first word in 10:20 is vaychazak which is basically "to strengthen." This translation is also from Noah, though I should have recognized it from the chant when we finish a book of the Torah "Chazak chazak v'nitchazek" which means "Be strong, be strong, and may we be strengthened." Ah, the fun of Hebrew. I guess my next step is to see where chazak is used and where hichbad'ti is used and try to see if there is any pattern behind using two different words for the same general sentiment. More to come on that idea if the theory pans out. Either way, I can use the different language to add to the discussion I am sure we will have about why God hardens Pharaoh's heart.

Letting Go

This is mostly going to be a post about my sorority, but it fits in so nicely with the end of Genesis that it seems appropriate for my blog.

*Note: In comparing my experiences with my sorority to those of Jacob, his sons, and the House of Israel for generations after that, I am attempting to relate the Torah to my life. I don't mean to put the story of the Israelites entering and leaving Egypt on the same plane as collegiate sorority drama. This should be obvious, but just in case.

Summary of Vayechi, this week's Torah portion and the end of the book of Genesis:Jacob has spent the majority of Genesis building a large family clan, thus kick-starting God's repeated promise of uncountable descendants. Through Jacob's efforts - and the efforts of Isaac and Abraham before him - his family clan will come to be known as the House of Israel. In the preceding portions of Genesis, Joseph saved Egypt and the world from starvation, making the Israelites pretty awesome and important. Skipping ahead a bit: generations later, when these people are all gone, the Israelites will still exist, but in a radically different position. After a long period of slavery, after the Exodus, and after witnessing the power of God countless times (in the ten plagues, the pillars of fire and smoke that led them through the desert, and the revelation of the Torah at Sinai to name a few), these Israelites will not say with the degree of certainty that Jacob and Joseph did, "God exists and is watching over me" (not a direct Biblical quote). They will be a different people and yet, the same.

Jacob, in this portion, is about to die and leave his hard-earned, angel-given name (Israel) to his sons, who don't always do the right thing and may not always represent his name in a way that would make him proud. But you can't live forever and creating something that will exist beyond you has to come with the understanding that you will one day pass the torch and it will be out of your hands.
It's similar in a sorority. I am an Alpha Sig, specifically a founding member of the Theta Nu chapter. The talented group of women I called "sisters" in my time there are vastly different from those women who make up the chapter today, but we are all Alpha Sigs.

Some background information:In 2008, I joined a new organization of bright, quirky women dedicated to strength, scholarship, and service. The goal was to build this organization, ATP, into a force on campus, a home for women with shared interests in things like superheroes, tea parties, and Harry Potter. Ultimately, we strove to join a national sorority and give the women of Knox College a fourth option for Greek life.

After getting caught in the middle of a war on Greek life for two years, we succeeded in reaching official sorority status and became the Theta Nu chapter of Alpha Sigma Alpha (ASA). ASA values strength, scholarship, and service with the added bonus of encouraging spiritual, physical, and purely enjoyable pursuits. Of course, when transitioning from one organizational structure to another, some things will be lost and some added, but overall, the ideals seemed to fit and I really felt this was an organization that could carry on in place of ATP. One month after our installation as an official chapter of ASA, I graduated from Knox with the sense of accomplishment that comes from graduating and leaving something tangible behind. That organization and fantastic group of ladies enriched my experience at Knox, gave me lifelong friends, and pushed my personal growth in ways I couldn't have imagined. All I wanted was for that feeling of happiness, pride and accomplishment to touch the lives of future Alpha Sigs.

My Alpha Sigma Alpha badges

As it turns out, however, letting go is easier said than done. I want to want nothing more than happiness for my future sorority sisters, but I have this nagging feeling of ownership over something that is now rightfully theirs. After all, you can't pour two years of your life into something in the face of constant adversity and then just let it go at the drop of your graduation cap. Rationalizing to myself that organizations grow and change all the time doesn't make the news of certain changes sting any less. For example, in ATP we placed a great deal of importance on academic achievements and professional conduct. We wanted to come across as the brainy (nerdy was ok too) and organized girls. One of the great things we gained by joining ASA was the official motto of "Poise and Purpose" which we reflected in ATP, but never officially adopted. So it hurts to hear that the new body of women who make up ASA have lowered their academic standards (only one member made the dean's list last term) and that they tend to come across as loud and a bit obnoxious (not all the time, but enough that it's noticeable to me over the internet).

To by fair, this happens with sorority sisters; we get on each others' nerves. My time in ATP and ASA, while highly valuable to me overall, was also filled with times when we didn't all like each other and when being part of it stressed me out more than anything else. We had our share of obnoxious moments and times when we didn't live up to the high standards we set for ourselves. We had our share of fights, both at chapter meetings and in the privacy of our own dorm rooms. But as an active collegiate member, I had a say in the organization. If I didn't like something, I could confront it and combat it. As an alum, I can't do that. It's not my organization to run anymore. I spent the majority of my college career creating this organization, just as Jacob spent the majority of his life creating a people/family/religion.
Here's what I've learned from all this:
I helped to create an awesome organization. I did my job and reaped some of the benefits of it before graduating. Now I need to let go. In order to grow and thrive, they will have to adapt the organization to a constantly-changing campus community (after all there's a complete turn over of the student body every four years) and who am I to judge how best to adapt when I live 900 miles away and can only keep up with campus activities through the student paper?

On the other hand, in joining ASA and becoming my new Alpha Sig sisters, these women took on the responsibility of representing not only themselves and the organization in their time, but of representing the organization overall and the memory of their alumnae. In the three-year span while ATP was struggling to become a national organization, a lot of women graduated, so when it came to choosing a national sorority to join, it was our job to consider what our alumnae would want. We didn't necessarily consult them about our choices, because we understood the situation on the ground better than they would, but we did take a good hard look at the goals they set out to achieve and tried to find an organization that would reflect what ATP was when they founded it and what ATP had become under our leadership.

To any Knox Alpha Sigs who may have found this, please don't get too personally offended. I don't mean this rant as an attack on any of you. I just needed to talk it out for myself in a public setting so I wouldn't stew about it to myself.

Alpha love and mine,

Erin

Genesis

Background on how Jews read the Torah/Bible
The Torah is the first five books of the Bible - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The entire Torah is broken into portions (parshiot in Hebrew) and we read one per week in order. When we get to the end, we start over with Genesis. Since we just passed the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah), we started over with Parsha Bereishit (Genesis 1:1-6:8). There is a corresponding Haftarah reading (a reading from the other parts of the "Old Testament." These do not necessarily go in order). You can find all the portions and their corresponding Haftarah readings here.

Actual topicAnyway, we just started over last week. It amazes me just how much stuff is packed into Genesis. In Bereishit, for example, we get two creation stories, the forbidden fruit, Cain and Abel, and then a list of descendants all the way up to Noah. In Torah study last week, we skipped creation and spent almost two hours just talking about Cain and Abel.

This week, in Parsha Noah, we read:

• the flood,
• the first vineyard, which was immediately followed by a very drunk, naked Noah in a tent,
• another long list of descendants as Noah's sons repopulate the world,
• the Tower of Babel,
• and more descendants, ending with the introduction of Abram and Sarai (soon to be Abraham and Sarah).

So basically, there is a lot packed into Genesis and, even though it's the same content every year, there's always something new to focus on. This deliberate way of reading the Torah is one of my favorite parts of Judaism.

Shabbat Shalom!