A Land of Prophets – Ancient and Modern

09 Thursday Feb 2012

Posted by in Art, Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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Yesterday I visited Rav Avraham Isaac Kook’s home, an extraordinary “Museum of Psalms” adjacent to it with 150 paintings representing the 150 Psalms based on the Zohar by the Holocaust survivor Moshe Tzvi Halevi Berger (who I met and spent some time with – a sweet lovely 90 year old sage), the home of the famed Hebrew poetess Rachel, the home of her physician Dr. Elana Kagan who treated Jewish and Arab children in the 1910-40s, the home of the wacko “Father of Modern Hebrew” Eliezer Ben Yehuda, and the home of Dr. Avraham and Anna Ticho. Dr. Ticho’s opthamological practice saved hundreds of Jews and Arabs from blindness in the 1920s-50s. His wife Anna was a gifted artist and their home was a cultural meeting center that attracked the likes of Martin Buber and Marc Chagall.

All these sites are situated all along Rechov Hanevi-im (“Prophets Street”) in the heart of Jerusalem. 

This 3-hour tour was part of my ulpan program, and I was privileged to spend it one on one (in Hebrew, of course) with one of my ulpan teachers, a lovely, bright and cultured 27 year-old daughter of Yemenite Jews who were part of the airlift from Yemen to Israel in 1949  called “Operation Magic Carpet.” Those Yemenite Jews thought the plane on which they flew was the eagle referenced in Prophets that would carry the people to the land of Israel in the time of the Messiah.

As I walked back to my hotel on Keren Hayesod in 40 degree weather I was thinking of these modern-day prophets whose homes I had just visited. I then heard chanting that grew louder and louder as I approached the Labor Department courthouse. About 200 energized Israeli workers were protesting the government on this first day of a national strike for higher wages and benefits.  

As usual, Rabbi Dow Marmur offers a consise overview of what this strike is all about, and I offer here with his permission.

Once again I am reminded that this is a land of prophets, ancient and modern.

A CASE FOR SOLIDARITY

I think of Ofer Eini, the Head ofIsrael’s Histadrut Labour Federation, as one of the most seasoned and balanced public figures in Israel. I was, therefore, at first surprised by his recent display of seeming uncompromising militancy on behalf of employees of contractors to whom government and other work is often outsourced.

Though he has good reason to be indignant about the low wages and inadequate working conditions to which these women and men are subjected, it’s such a common practice all over the capitalist world that even the enlightened and socially progressive Scandinavians are said to tolerate it. It may make sense to negotiate with the private employers for better conditions for their unskilled workers, but to try to punish the government for trying to keep costs down by outsourcing services seems excessive and perhaps uncharacteristic of the pragmatic and conciliatory Eini.

So why did he do it? Cynical and seemingly persuasive speculations suggest that because there’re going to be elections in the Histadrut and Eini has been accused by his opponents of being too soft on employers and government, this is his way of showing that he can be tough and therefore deserves to be re-elected.

It has already resulted in a general strike that affects many ordinary citizens. As is often the case in such situation, Eini may end up alienating the general public, perhaps even Histadrut members: an illustration of the vagaries of political life and the possibility of one ambitious person to distort the situation and cause havoc.

That’s the cynical view. But I’ve also heard another opinion forcefully expressed by Shelly Yachimovich, the leader of the Labour Party in the Knesset. Speaking at the Hartman Institute on the first day of the strike – that was also Tu Bishvat, the New Year of Trees which has become in Israel not only a day of tree planting and a reminder of our global ecological responsibilities, but also a day of rededication to social action – she insisted that the strike is a wholesome expression of solidarity with the have-nots.

This may mean that the cynics got it wrong and that the pessimists who fear that the public will turn against Eini are in error. Because the plight of the million or so workers who are employed by contract companies at minimum wage and under appalling conditions, social justice demands firm action. While the government chooses to turn a blind eye in the misguided effort to save money by robbing citizens of basic rights, the Labour Federation is championing the cause of the poor and the disadvantaged.

The two seemingly mutually exclusive scenarios reflect the tensions in Israeli society. The government is prone to sweep social problems under the carpet by claiming security as its priority and even using the Iranian threat as an alibi. Trade unions and the many organizations dedicated to social justice assert repeatedly that unless the ever growing economic and social gap in Israeli society is bridged, its security will be greatly compromised because the citizens are being demoralized.

So it largely depends on where you are on the Right-Left political spectrum. It will determine whether you believe the cynics who seek to discredit Eini or those who affirm solidarity with the downtrodden as a national priority. No reader of the above need to be surprised that I’m on the side of the latter. My faith in Ofer Eini hasn’t been shaken. He addresses one of the urgent issues in Israeli society for which he deserves praise.

Jerusalem 8.2.12  –  Rabbi Dow Marmur

Jessica Fishman’s Sad Story and the Threat to Israel’s Civil Society

07 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by in Ethics, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Life Cycle

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Jessica Fishman’s story will break your heart. She is a young Jewish woman from Minnesota whose father was President of their Conservative synagogue and mother was President of Hadassah. Jessica was a Jewish day school student and attended services every Shabbat. As a teen she traveled to Israel, fell in love with the country and made aliyah at the age of 22. Though beyond the age of military service, she volunteered in the Israeli army for two years. She met a young man, fell in love and was engaged to be married. Then her troubles began.

Jessica’s fiancé and his family wanted her to convert to Judaism with an Orthodox rabbi because her mother had converted to Judaism with a Conservative rabbi. They worried that  Jessica’s future children would not be considered Jewish by the Israeli Orthodox rabbinate and could never marry here.

Jessica refused to undergo conversion, saying; “This so upset me that these rabbis would define my identity for me.”

The tension was too much, and she and her boyfriend ended their engagement.

Jessica felt abandoned and disillusioned despite all she had given of herself to the state of Israel. After living here for seven years, she returned to Minnesota and explained, “I no longer feel that this is my home. I feel unwanted, not accepted,…it’s as if they spit in my face.”

Jessica’s story is only one recent example of the destructive impact the ultra-Orthodox rabbinate is having on Israeli society. The unholy alliance between religion and state has emboldened the ultra-Orthodox to impose themselves in more and more areas of Israeli life including the demand that certain bus lines running through Orthodox neighborhoods have separate seating for men and women with women seated in rear of the bus, nearly complete control of the Western Wall plaza by the Chief Rabbi of the Kotel, and incidents such as that which occurred last December in Beit Shemesh when Chareidi Orthodox thugs spit on an Orthodox 8 year-old little girl who was not dressed modestly enough for their taste.

Not unrelated were the massive protests last summer when hundreds of thousands of Israelis protested the squeezing of the middle class in cities all around the state. The protesters complained about not being able to make ends meet, all the while Orthodox religious institutions serving only 25% of the population who don’t work, don’t pay taxes and don’t serve in the military are being massively subsidized by the government.

In response to the Israeli protests, Prime Minister Netanyahu appointed a commission led by Professor Manuel Trajtenberg, the chair of the Higher Education Planning and Budget Committee in the Knesset, to examine and propose solutions to Israel’s economic problems. Among other things, the commission made recommendations to integrate ultra-Orthodox men into the work force, enforce core curriculum in Orthodox religious schools and to limit funding for yeshivas. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trajtenberg_Committee  for details.)

It came as no surprise that the commission’s recommendations met with fierce opposition by the ultra-Orthodox religious parties. However, in a national survey only 22% of the country opposed the recommendations. 90% of secular Jews supported it as did even 67% of the religious population, as well as 75% of Likud and virtually 100% of Labor and Kadima supporters.

Why are these recommendations so important? First, they aim to ease the financial burden of Israel’s constricted middle class while also leveling the playing field for all members of Israeli society, including the ultra-Orthodox; and second, they would break the stranglehold of the ultra-Orthodox religious parties over many parts of Israeli life. However, because of the threat of the ultra-Orthodox religious parties to leave the government coalition, these recommendations have been frozen.

For more information on this danger to Israel’s civil society no less significant than the threat from without by Israel’s enemies, I recommend spending spend time looking at the web-site of Hiddush, an organization led by Rabbi Uri Regev that is committed to the separation of church and state (http://hiddush.org/).

L’shalom mi’y’rushalayim.

Impressions From Jerusalem

05 Sunday Feb 2012

Posted by in Israel/Zionism, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

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This is my 15th sojourn in Israel since my first trip 38 years ago, and as much as Israel has changed in that time it is still the most fascinating and inspiring place I know.

Today I met an old friend for lunch who made aliyah from South Africa in 1970, and he shared with me how difficult life has become for Israelis noting that the mood of the country is very similar to that immediately following the Yom Kippur War in 1973. That war shattered the illusions and optimism that Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Days War had inspired. In those heady six short years between the wars Israelis felt impenetrable, like modern-day Maccabees, capable of overcoming every challenge and believing that at last they were fulfilling Jewish destiny.

Today, in light of last summer’s massive social justice rallies, the current government’s extremist nationalistic policies and the existential threat posed by Iran, it should not come as a surprise that Israelis are disheartened and distressed.

I am here for two weeks to study Hebrew on Ulpan (an accelerated language immersion program), and though my speaking approaches fluency at times it isn’t good enough for me. I am finding it increasingly difficult to understand many Israelis under the age of 45 who speak a mile a minute, far quicker than I remember 20 and 30 years ago. I figure that if I ever hope to engage with them in our common language, I have to do better, enhance my speaking and listening, and meet them where they live.

I asked my Ulpan teacher about why she thinks so many speak so fast all the time. She is a smart and sophisticated young woman younger than my eldest son, and she confessed that she didn’t know, but acknowledged that Israelis today live with exceptional tension, and perhaps that pressured life-style has affected their communication patterns.

That being said, there is no place like this place!

The day after I arrived, last Friday morning, I walked from my hotel in the chilly 45 degree sunshine to Machaneh Yehudah, Jerusalem’s famed open-air market, to buy food for my room and a fine bottle of Israeli Cabernet for my Erev Shabbat hosts. En route I wandered through old neighborhoods and narrow alleyways. Two elderly religious women hauling food carts were talking excitedly about their children and grandchildren who were coming from a Jerusalem suburb to their homes for Shabbat. Children ran by laughing and yelling. Hip looking 20-somethings passed me as well. Other than these human voices the streets were quiet as few cars were about.  I entered the market and barkers were shouting the price of dried fruit for Tu Bishvat, the New Year for Trees and one of Israel’s favorite holidays, that comes Tuesday night and Wednesday.

So much happens here. On Shabbat evening I prayed with my friends at the Reform synagogue, Kehillat Mevasseret Zion. In the morning , I attended  services at Congregation Shira Chadasha, an egalitarian Orthodox synagogue where women co-lead services with men. The singing of P’sukei D’zimra (a section of the service filled with Psalms and praises of God) especially was moving, melodic and beautiful. Kol isha ( “the voice of the woman”) was clear, feminine and strong despite the Talmudic prohibition against men having to listen to a woman’s voice out of fear that they (the men) will become sexually aroused and distracted from their prayers. I was happy to hear these feminine voices and especially here, in the holiest of cities, for they along with the men were filled with love and Godliness, the essence of holiness.

And then, on Motzei Shabbat kol isha again! It is now an annual tradition on the Saturday night after Shabbat Shira celebrating the “Song at the Sea” (Exodus 15) that HUC’s cantorial students celebrate the life, music and spirit of Debbie Friedman (z’l) who is responsible for initiating the transformation of liturgical music for Reform Jews and many Conservative Jews around the world. Hundreds sang Debbie’s songs, laughed, cried, and expressed gratitude to her for what she gave to us and the Jewish people, again in this holiest of cities.

I have two homes – one in Los Angeles and one here. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Shalom mi-Y’rushalayim.

 

“The Hare with Amber Eyes” by Edmund DeWaal – A Book Recommendation

04 Saturday Feb 2012

Posted by in Book Recommendations, Jewish History, Stories

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On a long flight to Israel this past week I read a beautifully written memoir called “The Hare with Amber Eyes” by Edmund DeWaal.  This thoroughly researched work tells the story of four generations of the Ephrussi family, among the most prominent and wealthy Jewish families in pre-World War II Europe. It is a gripping tale about a dynasty acting at the center of the world of art, culture, politics, and finance in two great European cities, Paris and Vienna. It is biography, history, art history, anthropology, autobiography, and memoir written by  a British porcelain ceramicist and Ephrussi descendent.

Hailing from Odessa, the Ephrussis migrated  to Paris in the mid-19th century, then to Vienna, and within weeks of the Nazi Anschluss (lit. “link-up” with the “Fatherland”) of Austria in March 1938 to London. They fled Austria with one suitcase leaving their palatial estate, much property, a massive art collection and library, and interests valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars by today’s standards.

The book’s title takes its name from a small carving in the Japanese netsuke style, one of 264 such figurines collected by Charles Ephrussi (great-great uncle to the author) who was an amateur art historian, dealer and art patron in late 19th century Paris. These animal carvings are the only items remaining of the family’s fortunes. The Ephrussi treasures most likely hang in the world’s  great museums and private collections with no compensation ever  having been given to the Ephrussi heirs.

Edmund DeWaal  is an elegant writer with an artist’s eye for detail. As he weaves the family’s story together set against the late 19th century and early 20th century European art culture and Parisian and Viennese upper-class soirees and balls, he  ponders what it means to belong anywhere and to leave what one has always known. In that sense, this is a quintessential  Jewish story.

Though the Ephrussi family fate was like that of the rest of pre-war European Jewry, there was almost nothing identifiably Jewish about them. They never attended synagogue, did not observe any holidays, were disinterested in nascent Zionism (Theodor Herzl appealed to them for financial support but was politely turned away), and they seemed to know little about or care about Judaism as a faith tradition and religious civilization.

Instead, their social circles were populated by writers, artists, intellectuals, royalty, and business tycoons. In the Paris of the 1880s Charles was  a friend to Proust, Pissarro, Manet, Degas, Sisley, Monet, and Renoir. He even appears in top-hat and black suit in Renoir’s famous Le dejeuner des cannotiers (“Luncheon of the Boating Party”) . He was among the earliest and most important collectors of Impressionist art in Europe.

Charles Ephrussi’s granddaughter Elisabeth continued the family’s affinity for the intellectual and artistic elite. She had left Austria when Hitler came to power and earned a law degree in London. She carried on an extended correspondence with the Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke.

The lack of a strong Jewish religious identity eventually took the family far from the large pre-war  Jewish community of Vienna as they continued the process of assimilation that many underwent in the Western Europe of those years. Elisabeth married a member of the Anglican Church who was eventually ordained a Priest, attending Church with him every Sunday. Her uncle (Edmund’s great uncle Iggi), a gay man, lived out the rest of his life in Tokyo as part of that country’s artistic and cultural elite with his long-time Japanese partner, Jiro.

The netsuke carvings followed the family from the moment Charles purchased them in mid-19th century Paris to Vienna. They symbolize this family as constant outsiders. The only reason these object d’art survived as a collection is due to the courage and loyalty of a long time Ephrussi family Viennese servant, Anna, who, when the Nazis ordered her to help crate all the family’s art and books, systematically took them away in her apron pockets and hid them in her mattress until she could return them to the family. They now reside with the author.

Edmund concludes years of research, travel and writing by wondering what it means to belong to a place, to leave it and continue to wander. “You assimilate, but you need somewhere else to go. You keep your passport [in] hand. You keep something private…Why keep things, archive your intimacies?…Just because you have it does not mean you have to pass it on. Losing things can sometimes gain you a space in which to live.”

A provocative thought, but I don’t buy it. For Jews, especially, memory shapes who we are, how we think, what we think about, the nature of our values, and who we will be. Transmission therefore becomes not only an existential necessity but a religious duty.

“I am Jewish” – A Moving Statement of Identity – by Andrew Lustig

29 Sunday Jan 2012

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Art, Poetry

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This is a moving statement of Jewish identity by a young Jew, Andrew Lustig, in poetic rhythm. I do not know Andrew, but I love what he has created here. If you are moved as I was, please share it with your college friends and 20 somethings and 30 somethings and 90 somethings. It will make your day and cause you to renew your faith and hope in our people’s future with young Jews such as Andrew.

Thanks to my friend Jacob Perlin for sharing it with me, who (along with his new wife Kat) and their friends, inspire me also about the Jewish future.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJe0uqVGZJA&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Note: I begin my Sabbatical leave today and will journey to Israel on Wednesday to study on Ulpan to enhance my conversational Hebrew. I may or may not post before leaving, but once there I will share reflections from time to time on this blog about being there.

Kol tuv lachem!

Living in Light – D’var Torah Parashat Bo

27 Friday Jan 2012

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Health and Well-Being, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry

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“I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came, and went and came, and brought no day,
And [people] forgot their passions in the dread
Of this desolation; and all hearts
Were chill’d into a selfish prayer for light:…”

Lord Byron describes well what must have been in the hearts of the Egyptians when the 9th plague of darkness befell them, as described in this week’s Torah portion Bo.

This was not an ordinary darkness. So dense it was that a person couldn’t see the hand in front of his face and if he/she moved would trip over the darkness.

The Midrash says that this darkness (choshech) wasn’t of the natural world. It wasn’t as a consequence of a solar eclipse or a moonless night. While it oppressed the Egyptians, the sun and universe operated normally everywhere else. It was as if each Egyptian was imprisoned in a black box of isolation, requisite punishment for their cruelty. This darkness catapulted the Egyptians back to a time before the creation when “darkness covered the face of the deep.” (Genesis 1:2)

From whence did it come? And what did it mean? In Psalms (105:28) it is said; Shalach choshech va-yach’shich – “God sent darkness and it became dark.” In our portion God instructs Moses; N’tei yad’cha al ha-shamayim vi-hi choshech… – “Hold your arm over the sky that there may be darkness upon the land of Egypt, a darkness that can be touched.” (Exodus 10:21) This darkness reflected the debased spiritual and moral condition of the Egyptians.

The Psalms tell us something else as well; Yashet choshech sitro s’vi-vo-tav sukato – “He makes darkness be His screen round about Him,” (18:12) suggesting that the spiritual light that abides at the very core of existence is always hidden and could never enter the Egyptian heart. That same light, however, shone in all the Israelite dwellings. In its pure form this light was so powerful that no one could see it and live. It is said that every angel and human being are able to receive only a very small measure of this Divine glow, each according to our spiritual capacity and development.

The Kabbalist Rabbeinu Bachya ben Asher (14th century Spain) taught that God shut down every Egyptian’s antenna so that none could receive these Godly light-waves and therefore not interfere with the Source of its transmission. But the Israelite antennae were open.

What does all this mean for us?

It is a certainty that each of us will suffer a broken heart once or more in our lives. Some of us bear chronic biochemical imbalances that need medical attention. All of us need love and support when we or our loved ones become ill, divorce, suffer the death of dear ones, the loss of jobs and income. Every loss casts a darkness upon the human soul.

Rabbi Isaac Meir Alter (19th century Poland) taught that the worst darkness of all is that blindness in which one person will not “see another,” and will refuse to look upon another’s misery and lend a hand. Such a person is incapable of “rising from his/her place,” that is, of growing in heart and soul.

Rabbi Yochanan taught that every eye has an area of white and black. We might think that the human being sees out of the white part. But no! We see out of the black part, which means when we’re in the dark we’re capable of seeing what’s in the light, but when we’re in the light we can’t see what’s in the dark. (Yalkut Shimoni 378).

In other words, there is always hope out of darkness, and there is always light when we think there is none.

In Egypt, wherever Jews went light went with them because the light was in them. That is what it means to be a Jew – to live in the light, to be a light to others and to hope.

Shabbat Shalom!

Kol Isha – The Most Recent Battleground Between Orthodoxy and Israeli Secular Society

25 Wednesday Jan 2012

Posted by in Ethics, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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As the gender wars heat up between Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jews and the rest of Israeli society, the Israeli Defense Forces has become the newest and most dangerous battle ground.

Traditional rabbinic law has a prohibition known as Kol Ishah (lit. “the woman’s voice”) based on a verse from the Song of Songs 2:14 (“For your voice is sweet – arev – and your appearance pleasant – naveh”). Turning that verse inside out in order to protect the male gender from the allure of a female voice and, Heaven forefend, the transgression of the laws of ervah (“nakedness”), a man was prohibited from praying or studying Torah in the presence of a singing woman.

I remember leading a funeral years back of a long time friend and synagogue member with my colleague, Cantor Aviva Rosenbloom (who was known in our congregation as our own “nightingale”). Sitting in the back of the chapel was a black-hat Orthodox Jew, and every time Aviva began to sing from the Psalms and finally the Eil Maleh Rachamim (the memorial prayer) he walked out of the chapel. In and out, in and out he went. We both shrugged. No big deal. In America, he can do as he pleased, as silly as both Aviva and I considered his adherence to this particular ancient prohibition.

However, for those living in the state of Israel today, the battle of the sexes does not abate. Indeed, it is getting worse and kol isha is the new point of contention.

Last September nine religious soldiers, in obedience to the kol isha prohibition, walked out of a mandatory Israel Defense Forces training course because it included women’s singing. An IDF committee was formed to study the issue and bring back a recommendation about how to handle this military insubordination in light of religious law. The decision? The army required all soldiers to remain at these mandatory training sessions regardless of the kol isha prohibition.

The official hareidi Orthodox reaction was swift. Rabbi Elyakim Levanon, a leader of Elon Moreh Hesder Yeshivah, which sends students to the IDF (more and more orthodox Jews are, at last, entering the Israeli military) advised soldiers to “choose death” because requiring them to listen to a woman’s voice is a “coercive order against Judaism.” Death! There are three mitzvot that tradition prohibits a person to transgress even if it means death: Idolatry, Adultery, and Murder. These extremist rabbis have extended listening to a woman sing to the category of adultery.

Clearly, the lack of an Israeli constitution with a separation clause is increasingly problematic for Israeli democracy and society as a whole (see http://hiddush.org/ – an Israeli organization fighting for religious freedom and equality – led by Reform Rabbi Uri Regev). The tension between the most conservative and reactionary interpretation of halachah (traditional Jewish law, which is an historically liberal and dynamic process of decision-making) versus the laws of the state of Israel, is now threatening the rule of law and Israeli democracy itself.

The following article posted this week on “Jewish Ideas Daily” is worth reading. I recommend subscribing to this site as well (http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/content/module/2012/1/24/main-feature/1/siren-songs/e).

Don’t Run Away From Politics Despite Good Reasons To Do So!

22 Sunday Jan 2012

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Ethics, Quote of the Day

≈ 1 Comment

Thankfully, we living in California have been spared the most recent barrage of SuperPac political advertising and candidate trashing of each other. Unless we read the national press we have also been spared the right wing’s wanton distortion of the truth of President Obama’s record and what he inherited upon assuming office three years ago, as well as the candidates’ pandering to the nation’s very worst angels of greed, self-interest, arrogance, aggression, self-justification, racism, homophobia, misogyny, and xenophobia.

In listening to the lies and distortions that daily pour out of the candidates’ mouths it would be natural for decent people to run far from politics. That a two time admitted adulterer and hypocrite and an unrepentant corporate raider who has not a clue about what the other 99% of America has to deal with on a daily basis are the two leading candidates of the Republican presidential contest is enough to make any decent person despair.

Plato reminds us, however, that “The penalty that good [people] pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by [those] worse than themselves.”

Pericles adds, “Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.”

Rather than run away, each of us has to become even more engaged. If we run then we deserve whoever we get.

“”Shortness of Breath” – Then and Now – D’var Torah Vaeira

20 Friday Jan 2012

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Health and Well-Being, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

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This past week I was talking with a good friend and colleague when he said, “John – I’ve been really irritable lately. Everything people do and say bothers me.”

I asked if anything particular was wrong. “No. Everything is fine,” he said. His marriage is happy and strong, his children well, and his work meaningful.

“Yet, I feel so impatient all the time. Things that normally don’t bother me now do.”

Knowing the way he works I suggested that he was exhausted. “Perhaps,” he said, “but I don’t feel any more tired than normal!”

That’s the rub. My friend’s “normal” isn’t normal at all. Though he does what many rabbis do, such work can be overwhelming. When I spelled it out for him, he acknowledged that I was probably right.

Certainly, the rabbinate isn’t the only occupation that exhausts its practitioners. No one is immune.

In this week’s Torah portion Vaeira (Exodus 6:2-10:1) we see the deleterious impact that relentless demands can have upon us.

The pivotal scene puts Moses talking with God a second time. He and Aaron had just appeared before Pharaoh to demand the people’s liberation. But, every request turned Pharaoh’s heart harder and he increased their work-load and their sufferings.

God responds by promising the people the greatest reward:

“I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary chastisements. And I will take you to be My people, and I will be your God. And you shall know that I, the Lord, am your God who freed you from the labors of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession, I the Lord.” (Exodus 6:6-8)

Then, we read, “Vay’da-beir Moshe ken el b’nai Yisraeil v’lo sha-mu el Moshe mi-kotzer ruach u-mei-avodah kashah.”  “When Moses told this to the Israelites, they would not listen to Moses, mi-kotzer ruach” (Lit. “because of shortness of breath”). What is its meaning?

Rashi comments that “the people didn’t accept consolation [i.e. Moses’ message of their impending redemption] for they were too much under stress.” All hope had left them. Abraham ibn Ezra translated mi-kotzer ruach to mean that the people were “impatient,” short-tempered and fatigued and incapable of sensing a higher purpose in their lives.

Though we are no longer “slaves” in this classic sense, our schedules can control us, people to whom we’ve given over too much influence of our lives can oppress us, obligations we’ve taken on can weigh us down, and the legitimate needs of others (our spouses, children, parents, friends and colleagues) can burden us.

When we feel over-burdened our spirits are afflicted and our creativity is diminished.

This past week in another blog I reflected on the work of Daniel Pink in A Whole New Mind: Why Right-brainers Will Rule the Future and the importance of our nurturing our solitude as a means in stimulating the creative impulse and restoring balance in our lives. I refer you to that blog now.

Shabbat shalom.   

 

The Creative Impulse, Solitude and Genius – Anticipating Sabbatical Leave

16 Monday Jan 2012

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Art, Health and Well-Being, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Quote of the Day

≈ 3 Comments

Six years ago Daniel Pink published A Whole New Mind: Why Right-brainers Will Rule the Future. There he made the case that in business, manufacturing, construction, law, medicine, the sciences, education, religion, and the arts creativity will be the competitive difference that distinguishes one thing from another.

A key requirement of creativity is the need for solitude, as discussed by Susan Cain in her thoughtful piece this past weekend (“The Rise of the New Groupthink,” NY Times, Sunday Review, p. 1): http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/opinion/sunday/the-rise-of-the-new-groupthink.html?pagewanted=all

Ms. Cain writes:

“…most humans have two contradictory impulses: we love and need one another, yet we crave privacy and autonomy. To harness the energy that fuels both these drives, we need to move beyond the new groupthink and embrace a more nuanced approach to creativity and learning. Our offices should encourage casual, cafe-style interactions, but allow people to disappear into personalized, private spaces when they want to be alone. Our schools should teach children to work with others, but also to work on their own for sustained periods of time. And we must recognize that introverts…need extra quiet and privacy to do their best work.”

For me, almost nothing creative comes when I am working in my synagogue office. To make matters more difficult I deliberately leave my door open because I want to send the message that I am accessible and welcome all comers. Yes, I can get certain kinds of work accomplished even with this open-door policy, but almost nothing new or inspirational will come to me in that environment. Creativity happens for me at home when I’m alone studying, reading, thinking, and writing. Creative ideas also come during worship services, when I’m teaching, listening to others teach, and during pastoral counseling when two hearts, minds and souls are engaged with each other.

The novelist and Nobel laureate Pearl S. Buck wrote:

“The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him… a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create — so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. She must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency she is not really alive unless she is creating.”

Though artists are special human beings whose sensitivity and talent are more exquisitely developed and tuned to their environment than the rest of us, we all have the capacity to create and that creativity can come in a multitude of ways. Yet, we are, most of us, deluged with too much noise, too much interaction with others, and we are plagued by intellectual, emotional, psychological, and spiritual fragmentation and exhaustion that stops creativity altogether. As individuals and a community, this state of being is deadly and self-destructive. We need to be able to encourage ourselves and our institutions (as my teacher Rabbi Larry Hoffman has recently written) “to create environments that catalyze the greatness within us and within our people by encouraging brilliance, supporting genius and rewarding excellence” in every arena.

To begin, we need to reclaim solitude as a necessary element of our lives, and then when we reemerge, energized and inspired, we need to find ways to share our gifts.

In two weeks beginning on January 29 my congregation has granted me Sabbatical leave that I will take in two pieces over the next 18 months. I will return from the first segment in mid-April. The remainder will be in the Fall and Winter of 2012-2013.

In this first period I will be traveling to Israel (leaving on February 1) to study on Ulpan in Jerusalem in order to improve my spoken Hebrew and comprehension. When I return home I look forward to quiet and uninterrupted time to read, study and write. I will most likely continue to post here from both Israel and home during that time.

I am grateful to Temple Israel of Hollywood for this time away.