Running on Bridges

Running on Bridges

April 19, 2013~10 Iyyar 5773

Rabbi Jen Gubitz

Kol ha'Olam - the whole world is glued to Boston this week.

The beautiful weekend, followed by an amazing race, with perfect running conditions. The only heartbreak, we thought, being the hills of Newton.  Kol ha'Olam - the whole world gathered to cheer on world-class athletes, a world-class race course, with world-class fans.

Kol ha'Olam - we know that in this whole world we are not the only ones who face and fear tragedies like this and yet, Kol ha'Olam - it feels today in our whole world of Boston that we are under siege, and we are scared and we fear for our safety, for the safety of our loved ones, and for the safety of those we don't even know.

Kol ha'Olam - though at times it felt like it might - the whole world did not end this week, but worlds ended.  Lives were snuffed out and fears ignited.  And those narrow straits, tzarim, those narrow straits of living became narrower. And we are a people who know narrowness, tzarut, because mimitzrayim, from narrow straits we have been delivered so many times. But right now, as we stand in the Jewish calendar facing towards Mount Sinai, all of that is supposed to be behind us. Now we stand waiting for the revelation of our sacred Torah.  So while we are a people who know narrowness, we do not look back willingly or eagerly to the straits from which we've just departed...

And Kol ha'Olam the whole world looks forward with us to deliverance.

But just about halfway through the ritual of Sefirat ha'Omer - Counting the Omer - that ancient offering of sheaves of grain for some 49 days, that covers the spiritual distance between our enslavement in Egypt and arrival at Sinai - we can still feel in our limbs, we can still taste on our lips the narrowness of our crushed spirits in bondage.  And all the more so today - for we are neither here nor there, for we are in neither Egypt nor Sinai...

Strikingly then, that this ritual period of the Omer is historically a time of mourning,  reflective of the plagues that struck in Talmudic times.  Though we are neither here nor there, we are not the first nor the last to be where we are in this exact moment...

No.  We are not alone in our 'neither-ness.'  And we are not alone in our 'not yet-ness.'  We are not alone because Kol ha'Olam Kulo - the whole world - Gesher Tzar M'od - is a very narrow bridge.  And whole worlds, centuries, and generations before us and, yes, after us have walked, now walk, and will walk this narrow bridge.  And, dare I say,  run on this narrow bridge?  Because walking a narrow bridge together does not appropriately articulate what really happened this week - which is that while the city of Boston ran an historic race on Monday, when people could have run away, when they could have run to the neither or the nor - they, our own congregants even, ran towards.  They ran towards - arms wide open offering support, solace, strength.  Even in our narrow straits, we find within ourselves the capacity for support and solace.  In this solidarity, we can draw strength knowing that when people have the option to run from us, they will, instead, choose to run toward us.  In this deep knowing of the strength of the human spirit, we might find spiritual sustenance and resilience to keep running ourselves.

But even with all the strength and resilience that runs through our bodies - it is scary to run toward.  It's frightening to keep running at all.  It's much easier to run away from.  It's much safer to resist lacing up our running shoes at all...

Kol ha'Olam Kulo Gesher Tsar M'od - the whole world is a very, very narrow bridge.  But Reb Nachman of Bratzlav compels us: v'ha'Ikar Lo L'Fached Klal.  Ha'ikar - the essence, the most important part, the here AND the there - is Lo L'Fached Klal.  The essence is not to be afraid.  Not because fear is bad.  It's not.  It teaches us. It guides us.  It compels us.  It protects us.  Rather perhaps we should try not to be afraid in times of uncertainty, in liminal moments like this, because fear isolates us.  It prevents us from connections and causes us to shut out the whole world.  

     And life, Jewish living, all living is about forging the path,    

            walking, journeying, counting, being,   

                     running on the bridge together.

Shabbat Pesach: So Close and Yet, So Far

Shabbat Pesach: So Close and Yet, So far

March 29, 2013~19 Nissan 5773

Rabbi Jen Gubitz

Arami oved avi. My father was a wandering Aramean. He went down to Egypt and sojourned there. He became a great nation, mighty and many.  Arami oved avi. My father was a wandering Aramean.

Actually. Not true. My father was not a wandering Aramean. You see, at most, my father is a wandering hoosier. He grew up in Hammond, Indiana, then went to college in Bloomington, lived for a time in Tennessee, and then for a long time back to Indiana.  And, while you get the point, he didn’t wander either. He drove.

No, my father is not a wandering Aramean.

And I suspect that in this room tonight, I am not the only one whose father or mother was not a wandering Aramean. All the more so, our classic commentators wandered through centuries of scholarship looking for an answer of who was this wandering Aramean for surely it was not their own fathers either. Midrash suggests, and Rashi agrees, this Aramean was Laban - and he set out to harm Jacob. But Rashbam, the grandson of Rashi and 12th century French scholar, rejects that argument, positing that the Aramean was Abraham. Sforno, a 15th century Italian scholar, suggested that this Aramean was Jacob. Other commentators sought to understand this statement by looking at grammar, syntax, and vocalization so that some iterations of the text resembled entirely different format and meaning.

Our enigmatic Aramean was a riddle to them, and our various Haggadot

are riddled with different answers, explanations, and interpretations.

Nonetheless, though we debate who he might have been - Arami Oved Avi - my father was a wandering Aramean. We recite this memory found in Deuteronomy during our Passover Seders, the foundational story of the Jewish people.

And yet every year, at every seder, during the Maggid, the acting out of this foundational story - this acting out of memory feels somehow like an act of distancing and estrangement.

How could my father be a wandering Aramean if we can’t even agree upon who he may have been? Could it be that all of us today, the rabbis of the past, and every generation in between stand equally estranged and apart from the pasts we claim?  

During every seder - to the story of our people we are so close and yet, so far.

How could it be possible to feel near and far at the same time? What do we do when we feel estranged from a story? How do we find ourselves within it once more?

We know statistically that there is something compelling specifically about the passover seder, specifically about this meal, which sets a special plate at the table to illuminate the story of the Israelite enslavement and deliverance from Egypt.  There is something that compels so many Jews

to draw near to the Pesach table, unlike few other moments in the Jewish calendar.

And I don’t think this amazingly high statistic of Jews attending Seders is just about being with family.

Perhaps Jews still come to the seder table each year because we aren’t, on the whole, satisfied with the status quo of our lives. We are not particularly comfortable with the comfort we enjoy daily, but we don’t always know how nor want to face it every day.

But a dining room table is a place of safety around which so many other of our life memories have fed and nourished the collective memory of our individual families. And so we come to the seder table, not just for the food, family, or fun, but for an opportunity to agitate ourselves, to alienate ourselves, to cause discomfort for ourselves, even as we recline comfortably in our chairs.

Perhaps Jews come to the seder table for the opportunity to feel that tension between being so close to a story we know we’re supposed to know, but actually don’t -- and so far from a story that we can’t always see ourselves in anymore, but can’t give up trying either.

Rabbi and most famous theologian of our time, Dr. Eugene Borowitz, writes of this exact tension which he calls “creative alienation.”  “Today,” he posits, “[humanity] needs people who are creatively alienated. To be satisfied with our situation is either to have bad values or to understand grossly what [persons] can do…Creative alienation implies sufficient withdrawal from our society to judge it critically, but also the way and flexibility to keep finding and trying ways to correct it. I think,” Borowitz concludes, “Jewishness offers a unique means of gaining and maintaining such creative alienation...[for] without alienation, we accept the status quo.”

The Haggadah and the Seder brilliantly bring us together under seemingly

invulnerable terms for food, family and fun - and then forces us to face the vulnerable task of understanding, wondering, questioning, asking how we really fit into the story of the Exodus, whether we really share the memory of the Israelite people which we retell year after year.

 

We find ourselves simultaneously so far and so close.

But it is these moments of feeling alienated and feeling distant from the story that are crucial. For they draw us in more deeply to find points of connection and nearness.

Even should we come to a conclusion that “No, my father was not a wandering Aramean” - in the process of figuring out, we are a perpetual part of the Jewish project, part of the Jewish people. A people who negotiate closeness - with God to whom we are near, but can never truly see; with our neighbors to whom we’ve always sought similarity, but from whom we will always be slightly different; and we negotiate closeness with our loved ones from whom we so often try to distance ourselves, but to whom we are constantly drawn back and back again to sit with around the seder table.

We may be neither here nor there, far nor close, estranged nor united, alien nor native, Aramean nor other.  This is how, this is why, and this is where we find ourselves - amid the stories and memories of the Jewish people.  

Somewhere in the middle.

As we read from the Haggadah - V’yotzi’einu adonai mi’mitz’ray’im b’yad chazakah oo-veez’ro’ah n’tu’yah/God took us out of Egypt, from narrowness, with a strong hand and an outstretched arm.

And it is from that narrowness that is the middle from which we reach for such deliverance - extending our now powerful and strong hands, stretching our arms to reach backward and forward, pulling together here and there, pulling together near and far.

Imagine everyone, all over the world, reaching out at the exact same time. This happens but for a moment during Seder.  And so we return each year to try once again for that brief moment when hands might grasp hands.  For it is then, when we all reach out to one another, that surely we might have the chance to redeem ourselves, to redeem our people, and perhaps most importantly, to redeem the world.  

Amen.  

**
Check out an in process collection of prayers for Israel at
Peace Will Come: a year of praying for Israel

Tears May Stay for the Night; Joy Comes in The Morning

Parashat Vayigash

Temple Shir Tikva

December 21, 2012 ~ 9 Tevet 5773

A little girl arrived home late one day.

“Where have you been?” Her mother asked.

“I saw my friend on my way home. Her doll was broken,” she replied.

“Did you help her fix it?” her mother asked.

“No,” she replied, “I don’t know how to fix it. I stopped to help her cry.”*

This little girl teaches us so much.  It turns out there is much that is broken in our world that we do not know how to fix.  But what we do know is how to cry.

It’s not an easy experience, crying.  It can be embarrassing.  Loud. Snotty.  Our faces redden as it rises from our chest into our throat - and out of our mouth cries of sadness, cries of joy, cries of frustration escape into the wind.  Sometimes we hope no one has seen  the tears falling from the corners of our eyes.  Sometimes we hope everyone has seen the tears falling from the corners of our eyes.  But its not an easy experience, crying.

It’s easier to be angry, to shout, yell, scream.  A full body experience, but somehow less vulnerable than crying - our brokenness hidden behind the maddened face of anger.

For we judge tears: as weakness, as inferior, less than.  “Don’t cry over spilt milk...” or “There’s no crying in Baseball,” Tom Hanks yells in the movie A League of Their Own.  “Big Girls don’t cry,” the Four Seasons intone...and Fergie reiterates decades later.  Our popular culture guides us against a tidal wave of tears.

Yes, resiliency is important, but crying is a gift. For in each teardrop, so much emotion, so much history, so much energy - so much can be released.  Around the world, there are people who for various medical reasons cannot cry.  There are people who cry, but have no one to comfort them.  There are people who cry and are punished.  There are people who cry and are laughed at, scorned.  We, who would prefer to do anything but cry, might allow some tears to fall, if only for those who physically cannot, for those for whom there is no one to wipe their tears, for those who are scorned and laughed at...

We might help them cry, we might cry for them, even if we cannot fix them.

In this week and past week’s Torah portions, we follow the story of Joseph and his dreams.  One of the most powerful in the land - Joseph is a symbol of strength and fortitude. And oh, his dreams!  But for as much as Joseph dreams, he often cries.  So much so, that of the 14 times crying is mentioned in the Book of Genesis, 50% of it is attributed to Joseph.  But Joseph’s tears are not often the focus of his story.  He is never referred to as Joseph, the Crier.  The musical is not called “Joseph, the Crier, and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”

But Joseph cries...and often.

There is much in our world this week and in every week that cries out for fixing...but we can never fix it all.  For we are vulnerable to all the brokenness, we are vulnerable to all the emotion, that bearing witness to the world around us brings up.

Oh, to give ourselves permission to cry:
Cry over the spilt milk!  Cry in baseball, at work, cry at temple, at hallmark commercials!   Big girls do cry.  So do big boys.  Like Joseph the Crier, like our President the saddened leader, like Hagar, like Hannah...

Tears may fall at night, Psalm 30 cries out.  But if we let ourselves be vulnerable and present to the brokenness of the world around us, and if we help to fix it, and if we realize we can’t fix it all...  When those tears of relief, frustration, empathy, pain fall... when we cry or when, like that little girl, we help others cry, the Psalmist promises us: 

Joy comes in the morning.




*Story attributed to Franz Kafka

Driving Inward

Parashat Re'eh
August 17, 2012~29 Av 5772
Rabbi Jen Gubitz

Inching forward
the car came to a halting stop
30 plus feet before the yellow light,

leaving a gaping two car length space

at the intersection

of Boston Post Road and Cochituate.

I was annoyed. 

We both could’ve made that light.

With less than 30 minutes to

run out between meetings,

at one of the slowest intersections in Wayland,

every minute counts.

At the same time,

I felt incredibly empathetic

for the drivers of this car,

for atop of it,

on the side,

and in the rear,

emblazoned in large, bold text,

were the words:

STUDENT DRIVER.

My own drivers ed experience

occurred in a 1988 blue

Oldsmobile Cutlass Sierra,

my first car,

shared with my older brother,

and with a drivers ed instructor

who taught all 3 Gubitz kids to drive...

Don would take us on I-69,

drive about 20 miles south

towards Indianapolis,

stop for a snack,

and then drive back.

That initial fear of stopping, starting,

and certainly merging

onto the highway stays with me today.

Looking over my shoulder so many times,

that he had to remind me -

don’t forget to look in front, too, Jennifer.

Gently saying -

I’ve got your blind spot, sweetheart,

don’t you worry.

**

Don’t forget to look in front, too...

he would say...

but I was keenly aware,

that in a car hurtling forward

65 miles an hour...

I would have to learn

to look backward and forward at the same time...

As one becomes a better driver, however,

she learn to check over her shoulder

much more quickly...

a short turn of the neck,

he learns to rely on peripheral vision

and other mirrors which provide a fuller picture of the landscape,

or perhaps there is a passenger next to you...

who can get your blindspot...

We are at the moment

in our Jewish calendar

where our driving skills

have much to teach us.

Eleven months passed,

but one month ahead until Rosh Hashanah,

it is a moment where

more of this year is

visible in the rearview mirror,

than through the dash.

A moment

where we may strain our necks,

as we look over our shoulders,

at those images which become smaller and smaller...

We see

all of the miles covered...

all of the far off places we have traversed...

all of the people with whom we have traveled... 

and we notice the various strips of highway..

that need roadwork..

the people, experiences, and ideas

that did not fill our tanks...

but rather drained our batteries...

And as we find ourselves looking backward...

our Torah gives us a gift

this week.

“Look!” 

It shouts out to us.

“Re’eh!”

Pay attention! 

It offers us a yellow traffic light...

slow down...

 רְאֵה, אָנֹכִי נֹתֵן לִפְנֵיכֶם--הַיּוֹם:  בְּרָכָה, וּקְלָלָה

“Re'eh anochi noten lifneychem hayom berachah uklalah.”

Look! 

Re’eh!

I am placing before you today blessings and curses...

Look,

see,

vision,

review,

notice,

perceive...

but the Torah,

and the Hebrew month of Elul

beginning Sunday

are not pushing us

to look only backward or forward...

rather inward...

slow down...the torah tells us...

cheshbon hanefesh...elul gently pushes us...

audit your soul...

take an account of all the blessings, gifts, gratitude

take an account of all the curses, challenges, pain...

Be it prayer, meditation, vacation,

exercise, counseling, singing...

dancing, breathing, being...

make time this month to reflect...

make time this month to renew...

make time this month to return...

to your most highest form of self...

Driver’s ed cars have a special feature...

on the passenger side...

to prevent collision...

an extra break...

an extra pair of eyes...

let this month of Elul be for you...

that extra break...

that extra pair of eyes.

This month is a gift of blessing and curses...

if used wisely, it will reveal to us all the good in our lives...

and if used wisely,

it will reveal all that is less than good...

But by noticing both,

and adjusting the speed,

modifying the fuel,

tightening a safety belt...

by looking inward,

we might each find the capacity

to glance backward with gratitude for all of our journeys...

in order to envision a forward

in ways we never thought possible...

O source of journeys,

may the tiniest of refinements

allow the road to take us places we’ve not yet traveled...

Amen. 

Sorry (But Not Really)

Jennifer Gubitz
Brooklyn Jews | 5772 | Kol Nidre


“Apologize to your little sister,”
she yelled to the back seat of our 1992 Chrysler mini-van
with wooden, yes, wooden siding.
“Right now,” she commanded.
A huff ensued, then a grumble, but finally
“Sorry…”
It seemed my 13-year-old brother*
had succumbed
to the greatest prosecutor of them all – our mom.
But then with a ridiculing, retainer ensnared grin,
In a voice so quiet she would never hear,
A cantankerous qualifying statement:
“but not really.”

It was a superfluous statement to begin with.
The first time I put
the orange Tupperware bowl to my mouth
To consume the final remnants
of milk and cheerios…
He stealthily walked over to me,
and deftly smashed the bowl into my face –
Milk and cereal dripped from my hair and clothes.
In but a few minutes, I had changed clothes
and returned to the breakfast table
to attempt eating once more.
And again, when I reached the last bits of my cereal bowl,
I raised it to my face –
Yes, we had questionable table manners -
And you can imagine what happened next.
This second attack
on my cereal bowl and mop of long curly hair–
was enough to nullify any future apology.
We all knew – my mom, my brother, me –
that he was not really sorry to begin with.
And yet, she demanded from him an apology
That could only transpire through falsehood.

His qualifying
(But not really)
was actually the most honest,
albeit snide, statement to follow up
that apology he never truly meant.

It’s amazing, tragic even,
just how hollow language can become.
We know the world
of disingenuous, empty, apologies all too well.
Victim and guilty of it ourselves, I’d guess.
Examples:
“I am so sorry that you heard me say it that way”
or
“I’m sorry that you feel that way”
which are really to say:
“Whoops,
didn’t mean for it to come out that way”
or
“I’m not actually sorry for what I did”
or even a judgment:
“Wow, you’re really sensitive.”
But neither, it seems, a sufficient apology.
And of course:
“Sorry I’m late…”
and
“Sorry I didn’t call you earlier…”
Or:
In the hustle of the morning commute –
“I’m sorry (but not really.)
After all you were in my way
when I was trying to
catch the D across the platform.”
And then again a judgment –
“Who wears open toed heels in November anyways?”
And, the worst of them, I think:
An email apology
which seems to really say
“I’m not apologetic enough
to say this to you in person.”
So many types of apologies
cloaked with qualifying statements
That ultimately negate sincerity.

We are socialized from early on,
well before we can really identify
A sense of feeling apologetic or remorseful.
The lines are fed to us –
Apologize to Arielle; Say your sorry to Sammy!
The toddler expresses, then,
In a voice so sweet
that alone it cancels out the crime,
“I sorry,”
“Accident Mommy,”
“No bite daddy.”
This is not to say toddlers are insincere so much as they
Learn to mimic what we teach them to say
As we prompt them to apologize and seek forgiveness.

And today, on our holiest day of the year,
A day prescribed to us centuries ago,
Out of the thoughtfulness of rabbinic
Forefathers and, its nice to think, foremothers…
On this day that prompts us
to apologize and seek forgiveness,
The question exists:
Are we really any different than a toddler?
Yes, we are more emotionally,
more spiritually mature -
But are we really any more penitent, apologetic, and sincere?
We were given a manual.
Someone told us what to say.

Our manual, our liturgy, which we will read shortly, guides us:

(sung/tapping chest)
Ashamnu, Bagadnu…
We have been guilty,
we have betrayed,
we have stolen,
we have spoken falsely…

He’evinu, v’hirshanu…
We have acted perversely
and we have done wrong;
We have acted presumptuously
We have done violence…
We have counseled evil

When I really stop to look
through the litany that is our Vidui confessional,
I take pause.
Yes this past year, I have felt guilty and betrayed
And have been guilty of betrayal.
Stealing, however, another’s property? No;
another’s happiness or spotlight– possibly.
Gossip– unfortunately, yes.
Guilty of that.

But counseled evil? No – not guilty.
Presumptiousness? Probably.
Violence? No.

And yet – every year, whether or not I am guilty,
I confess to these misdeeds.
In unison, we all confess to these transgressions.
We pound our chests –
(sung)
Ashamnu- we are guilty…
Bagadnu – we have betrayed…

A real dissonance reverberates in our confession.
Though beautiful that liturgy
connects us to the past,
If we are merely reading words on a page,
As we’ve been taught to do -
but in them cannot find meaning,
or relevance,
or truth
if in them we cannot find ourselves
and the words we speak feel hollow,
what does it matter
if we declare our penance aloud?
Or what does it matter if we do not declare our guilt at all?
Is it better to falsely admit to falsehood or simply remain silent?

While on Yom Kippur,
false admission may gain us admittance
into the presence of the true judge,
the Holy One Above –
In our criminal justice system,
fabricated confessions
Whether by coercion or personal choice,
can send one into the presence of a judge,
and ultimately to jail.

Practical, liturgical, judicial, theological discord abounds.

True story.
Eddie Lowery served ten years
for a crime to which he confessed,
but did not commit.
A September 2010
New York Times article
tells Lowery’s story –
as one of at least forty people,
who since 1976 confessed to a crime
that DNA tests later proved erroneous.
While the article suggests
that the downtrodden are among
the likeliest to be induced to confession,
there are also people like Mr. Lowery,
who claimed he was just “pressed beyond endurance by persistent interrogators.”

Are we, the annually penitent,
simply coerced into our confession –
reading from the ancient script in our machzor -
because its ‘what we are to do on Yom Kippur?’
Have we,
like Lowery,
been duped,
intimidated even into false confession?

How do we hold the discordant truths of
The sins we did not commit
with the all encompassing
“Al Chet Shechatanu L’fanecha” –
“I have sinned against you.”
How do we turn the acrostic confession of Ashamnu, written out for us centuries ago,
And that after years of recitation,
can become, Rabbi Louis Jacobs suggests,
a “purely mechanical act devoid of inwardness”
Into a personal truth,
That is unique to the moment,
Not to the masses.
So that when we have actually sinned,
when we have actually hurt
our loved ones, ourselves, God –
we can infuse what may have been
previously empty confessions
with truth, meaning, and honesty.

The modern Hebrew utterance – slicha –
Of many meanings -
Excuse me! I'm sorry! Pardon me?
Is rooted biblically.
While often a casual statement,
Its origins resonate an emphatic plea
for forgiveness, for pardon.

Slicha is not so different from the English “Sorry,”
rooted in the Old English “Sarig”
meaning distressed, grieved, or full of sorrow.

But many utterances of slicha and sorry
have gone the way of speech acts,
phatic expressions – essentially small talk
like “Hey, how’s it going”
or “What’s up?”
In the US, we know not to expect
a real answer to those questions
And often on the phone, awkwardness ensues
As both participants utter some sort of
“Hey, how’s it going, Good, I’m fine, cool.”
Phatic, general or casual, has become
the socially acceptable way of communicating.

The language of our daily lives is casual, is phatic
But the language of prayer is emphatic.
Traditionally, our confessional liturgy
is recited 10 times over the course of Yom Kippur.
So many times
we have the opportunity to read these words
And to infuse them with personal meaning,
Emphasizing and accentuating
our deepest held truths.
Let not your Yom Kippur confession
go the way of small talk.
Let it not be hollow language,
mired with conditional statements.
Let it not be uttered simply because it was written.
Rather -
live in the discord of apologizing for that
which you’ve not done,
love the opportunity to repent for committing sins,
and causing pain, of which you were unaware
Or remain silent and confess only to the sins
You know you’ve committed.
Or beat your chest twice for those which
Weigh most heavily on you this year.
Or beat your chest
for the one who will never repent,
Knows not how to repent,
or for whom forgiveness and reconciliation
are of great distance.
Adon Ha-slichot, O, Source of Forgiveness,
S’lach lanu, m’chal lanu, kaper lanu –
Forgive us, Pardon Us, Grant Us Atonement.

*Sorry (kind of) to my brother for public slander.