Be equanimous.
Those were the opening words of a 10 day course I just completed with Sharon Salzberg, a world renowned teacher of mindfulness and Buddhist meditation. In Pali, the word for equanimity is Upekkha. In Jewish terms, this is called Menuchat Nefesh - a settled soul, or a rested spirit. It describes a kind of internal balance that is liberating. Equanimity is not the result of avoiding pain and stress, or pretending it doesn't exist. Equanimity is what emerges when we cultivate the spaciousness and wisdom that allows us to relate to any experience and still be free. Which is to say, we can be fully present and without being burdened or broken by life. This is not easy, for me. And apparently not easy for 10 of the 12 spies Moses sends to scout the promised land in this week’s parsha, Sh’lach. They return reactive and afraid, warning the people, וַנְּהִי בְעֵינֵינוּ כַּחֲגָבִים וְכֵן הָיִינוּ בְּעֵינֵיהֶם׃ “...We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.” This line is so vivid and has always captured my attention. For today, let’s set aside the colonial context it is describing. And instead notice how it closely echoes the teachings on equanimity. Sharon Salzberg explained, “Our reactivity causes us to wither in self-confidence and avoid our own purpose.” We become grasshoppers in our own eyes. This is perhaps the greatest risk we take when we allow ourselves to be consumed by anxiety and fear. We wither in self-confidence and avoid our own purpose. From this place we are not able to easily access clarity and calm, and this negatively impacts our thinking. However, if we can cultivate enough spacious attention around our feelings, wisdom can naturally arise. Confidence can take root. And we can lean into our purpose and power. All of this takes practice. And all of this is possible. In the moment when we learn how much we cannot control, we let go. And there is freedom in letting go. And there is a sense of security in knowing we can meet whatever is actually happening. It is one of my summer goals to keep learning about equanimity, to cultivate menuchat nefesh. So that as we together scout the landscape of our own lives and of the world in the coming months, we can greet it with more courage and confidence, rather than fear and overwhelm. I am excited to share that I will be teaching a series next year called Selah: Sunday Morning Mindfulness. I hope you will join me. This will be my final Friday email for a while. I offer you one more poem to take you into summer. Wu Men Hui-k'ai, a 12th century Chinese Buddhist teacher, wrote: “Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter — If your mind is not clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life. To see things as they are, to see the changing nature, to see the impermanence, to see that constant flow of pleasant and painful events outside our control — that is freedom.” Whatever your summer brings, I hope this is the best season of your life. As I write to you, the city of Philadelphia is sweltering. Today is the longest, and I hope, the hottest day of the year. Apparently 100 Million people in the U.S. are currently experiencing a heatwave on its fifth consecutive day. Nearly a third of the entire country! (Please stay hydrated and out of the sun as much as possible.)
Needless to say, summer is officially here and has made herself known. I could not be more grateful that we now have air conditioning at Kol Tzedek. I can now safely imagine our summer shabbat services without fear of heatstroke. And I am doubly excited for popsicles at oneg. Summer for me is marked by extended time off, mostly spent camping with my family and a few of our Boston friends we see but once a year. Each day is marked by a combination of the following five things: swimming, biking, eating ice cream, playing baseball and reading, in every possible order and varying ratios. I am very grateful to my kids who have taught me how to spend many hours reading. This has been a revelation for me. We read in hammocks, in sleeping bags, by the campfire, by the lake. As someone who spends many hours a week writing, taking this extended time to close my computer and read is the best way I know how to restore myself. And so on this second to last Friday email of the year, I wanted to make space to share with you some of my summer reading list, with the hopes that you might want to read along with me. Below you will find my first three picks for this summer, from three different genres. The Necessity of Exile: Essays from a distance by Shaul Magid The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBridge World of Wonders: In praise of fireflies, whale sharks and other astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Fumi Nakamura (Illustrator) These three books speak to places of wonder that I want to encourage for us as a community. And so I invite you to join me in reading or listening to any and all of them this summer. Perhaps we can have a book discussion upon my return in August or the Fall. No doubt I will likely also read some celebrity memoirs and queer graphic novels, and I hope you do too. What is on your summer reading list? Last Sunday morning, 70 of us gathered for our annual congregational meeting which was full of small group discussions and yummy treats. I want to share one highlight which came from a conversation about the design of the stained glass that would be in the sanctuary and above the entrance doors. Carly Freedman, a very talented and generous KT member and artist, generated a series of designs that integrated the geometric motifs of sephardic synagogues with the floral motifs of ashkenazi design. The group was tasked with discussing the spectrum of colors in the design. There was relative consensus that people preferred oranges and turquoises, and other mediterranean colors. But everyone also ended their comment with a general shout out for rainbows. At one point someone said, “But also, yay rainbows” and the group actually cheered and clapped. It was a joyful and spontaneous moment, which contained more consensus than the average KT process.
The instinct to adorn our sanctuary in rainbows is timely given June is Pride month. But it is also ancient. We learn in this week’s parsha, Naso, that as the Levites cared for and deconstructed the traveling mishkan, they covered it in the skin of a tachash (Numbers 4:6). We don’t quite know what animal the Torah is describing. Most often its translated as dolphin skins, but that seems incredibly unlikely given the desert. Some suggest it was a special type of weasel called an ermine. Others think maybe a wild ram or even a zebra. Since we know it has a single horn, maybe it was a narwhal or a unicorn. But those animals aren’t kosher and the tachash was. I think the most likely species is the dugong, which in Arabic is tukhush, a large aquatic mammal which has been seen swimming up the Red Sea. (Thank you Zeev and Naim for teaching me about dugong). But the thing that stumps all of these possibilities is the fact that its skin was multi-colored. Such a magical being perhaps created for just this purpose. Imagine the beauty of an iridescent rainbow skin covering the tent. Turns our we share the queer biblical instinct to want rainbows in our sanctuary! In Aramaic the tachash was referred to as sasgavna / ססגונה, meaning “rejoicing in its many colors” or “joyful (שָׂשׂ) and proud (גונא) .” (Shabbat 28; Midrash Tanchuma, Terumah 6). I hope the many colors of our stained glass windows will reflect what we strive for as a community, to be joyful and proud. In addition to dugong skins, this week’s parsha contains the Priestly Blessing, an ancient tripart amulet for protection which concludes, וישם לך שלום // place within you shalom. About this final phrase, The Ba‘al Shem Tov reads an old rabbinic tradition to say that "shalom is the vessel we need to place within each of us which can contain God’s blessing. It is not enough to pray for blessing; divine blessing is pouring forth upon us in every moment that we exist. But without a proper vessel in which to hold it, that blessing just washes over us and vanishes." Here shalom means “wholeness” as well as “peace. It means being whole with ourselves…This is not an easy challenge, but without it our vessel is not whole and cannot contain blessing.” Our ability to carve out wholeness within ourselves, makes it possible for wholeness to exist in our world. May we find our way into this shabbat, joyful and proud. And may the magic of Shabbat enable us to emerge more whole. May it be so. This week marks 10 years since I was ordained as a rabbi. The hum of nigun Rosh Hodesh Sivan has been in my head all week. It was the melody we sang as we processed during our smicha ceremony. The same melody Rabbi Mó and I chose to sing as we entered our new sanctuary for the first time. And given that today is actually Rosh Hodesh Sivan, I encourage you to listen to Rabbi Mo’s three-part harmonies and let it soften you. Summer is coming.
That year, as is true this year, it was just a few days before Shavuot, a holiday known to the rabbis as zman matan torahteinu /the time of the giving of Torah. And since the festival of Shavuot is always preceded by the reading of parshat Bamidbar, the very beginning of the book of Numbers, this parsha always marks my ordination-versary. Believe it or not I still remember the dvar Torah my classmate and beloved friend Rabbi Jordan Braunig shared. And today, I want to share some of those words with you, with his permission. Some of you may already be familiar with his wit and wisdom from the Elul Prompts. Rabbi Jordan began by asking, “What is it, after all, that we are supposed to learn from our tradition's mythic story of a Torah revealed to us on a long lost mountaintop? Believe it or not, I am not the first to ask this question. In a midrash on the first words of the book of Bamidbar or Numbers the rabbis ask this exact question, lamah b'midbar Sinai? Why in the wilderness of Sinai? You might have thought that Torah would be given in the land itself, in one of the holy cities or at the site of the Temple, but no – it's given in the sticks. So why is it given in the wilderness? The midrash answers its own question, stating: By three things was the Torah given, ba’eish, ba’mayim u'vamidbar – by fire, by water and by wilderness. The first two are easy enough to understand. Fire and water are each essential for life – fire warms, it illumines, it sustains – water, renews, hydrates, transforms. Wilderness on the other hand... But, it is the Torah that comes by way of wilderness, that confounding and compelling image, that speaks to the experience of studying Torah… To find your way into a text, to really wiggle your way in, is to experience the vastness, the unknowability of the wilderness.” I am personally forever grateful to my teachers allowed us the freedom to see where the study would take us. Where would we emerge? Who would we be? In a world full of push notifications, Torah study is so compelling because we can get lost in it and because we can find ourselves in it. And this parsha always reconnects me to those possibilities. Rabbi Jordan continues, “The midrash goes on, elucidating just what it means to receive Torah by wilderness. It teaches that in order to acquire words of Torah a person must make herself as unclaimed, unbounded, ownerless as the wilderness…” Given the many demands on my time and heart, this reminder is precious. Torah study is an invitation to not know, to be open to what could be. The midrash then goes on to ask the same question and answer it differently. Lamah b'midbar sinai? Why in the wilderness of Sinai? So that no one people can say it was given to them on their land and therefore belongs to them. Torah is itself ownerless, it is all of ours. In this moment of political and religious conflict, remember that. Rabbi Jordan concluded, “A version of this same midrash appears in the Pesikta d'rav Kahana, but it includes one additional line. Posing the question there. Lamah b'midbar sinai? Why in the wilderness of Sinai? It answers, “just as the wilderness has no end, so too Torah has no end.” In this heartbreaking and blooming world, it feels helpful to connect to the sense of wonder I felt at this time in years past. I offer each of you the very beautiful blessing Rabbi Jordan offered me some 10 years ago. May your experience of Torah be limitless. May you find wisdom at each juncture of your journey. May you be blessed to study Torah that illuminates and Torah that refreshes. Torah that is wild and boundless and teeming with possibility. The final chapters in the book of Leviticus turn our focus to our relationship to Ha’aretz, The Land or the Holy Land. In the Torah, this refers to the Land of Israel, which is certainly related to but distinct from the State of Israel.
The previous parsha, Behar, which on a typical year is read along with Bechukotai, asserts a vision for how to live in alignment to the land so that it yields produce and rain, necessities for a thriving civilization. This week’s parsha, Bechukotai, is a painful read. This is generally true any year, but it burns today. And I do not use the word burns lightly. It burns because of what is happening in Rafah. And because it contains an impossible premise. Leviticus 26 begins, “If you follow My laws and faithfully observe My commandments, I will grant your rains in their season, so that the earth shall yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit…” God’s promise peaks in verse six, וְנָתַתִּי שָׁלוֹם בָּאָרֶץ “And I will give you peace in the land…” If only this was a thing that the Holy One could grant. If only this was a thing that a life full of mitzvot could facilitate. What follows is the flipside. Known as the tochechot, and chanted in a whisper (if chanted at all). 35 verses of terrifying rebuke, outlining the consequences for spiritual disobedience. “But if you do not obey Me and do not observe all these commandments…I will wreak misery on you” and everything bad will happen sevenfold to you and your people in The Land. The rebuke is not just threatening, it is mean. Needless to say, we have chosen to omit this section from tomorrow’s Bat Mitzvah service. This year this text feels descriptive more than proscriptive. Watching the news, my eyes are sick and my soul is full of sorrow. .(26:16) מְכַלּוֹת עֵינַיִם וּמְדִיבֹת נָפֶשׁ The suffering of the people of Gaza is incomprehensible. And yet I feel called back to verse six, to the idea that there can be peace in the land, wholeness, return, healing. It must be possible. Over and over again, Palestinians in my life remind me, lovingly rebuke me, despair is a privilege. I am so inspired by the growing number of students and teachers, organizers and educators, bringing us closer to this vision. So this shabbat, I invite you to choose hope, to let yourself imagine the promise of this parsha is a just peace, in which everyone who dwells in the land will know within themselves peace. Palestinians and Israelis, Bedouins, immigrants, and refugees, “shall lie down to sleep untroubled by anyone.” May it be so. About six weeks ago, at our first Saturday morning service in our new building, one KT member voiced a unique and resonant concern. Without multi-stall bathrooms, where will the teens hangout? I laughed out loud. She was only half-kidding. A significant motivating factor to move to a building of our own was the need for accessible, clean, functional, single stall bathrooms. Despite knowing that all change involves loss, it had never occurred to me that there was in fact any loss this particular change.
In an instant, her question transported me back to my own childhood synagogue memories. I remember the deep red carpet in the low-lit vestibule outside the bathrooms, where women sat on stools that swiveled to put on makeup and tweens waited for them to leave so they could exchange first kisses. Some of my most formative memories of being Jewish took place in my childhood synagogue. Hebrew school twice a week, youth group meetings, Shabbat dinners, B’nei Mitzvah parties, Purim carnivals and the list goes on. It was a place I felt comfortable. I loved to discover the secret staircases that connected one corner to another, probably the result of different generations' attempts to update and expand the building. More than sermons or prayers, what I remember of synagogue is how I felt in the building. To this day, decades later, these memories remain vivid and sweet. I remember playing hide and seek in the coat closet, burying myself in mink coats and wool top hats, checking the aisles to be sure services had not let out. I remember fogging up the glass case in the Judaica shop, waiting as the notably gay member showed the latest broach or mezuzah to my father, who can’t refuse a chance to shop for jewelry. And I remember many moments spent staring at the yahrzeit wall in the chapel, rows and rows of names with little lights beside them. Who were these people and who turned on and off the lights? I would read the names, trying to render these Jewish ancestors fluent on my tongue. For me, being Jewish has always been visceral, a felt-sense of knowing in my body. We know from the many chapters in Exodus that detail the building of the mishkan, that the contours of the places we gather greatly impact our experience of the sacred. But we also know that so much of what is sacred is invisible, ineffable, intangible. So how important is the physical plant? Rabbi Michelle pointed me to the commentary of R. Isaac Abravanel (15th cent. Spain) on Exodus 25:8 where he asks, “Why did The Holy One command the building of the mishkan, when The Holy One said "that I may dwell among them," as if The Holy One were an object demarcated and limited in space — which is the opposite of the truth!... After all, The Holy One spoke these words through the prophet Isaiah (66:1): "The heavens are my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what kind of house can you build for me?" This suggests that space is only one axis of our experience. Our ability to access the Divine is also about dedicating the time to do so. It is fitting then that this week’s parsha, Emor, includes within the Jewish sacred calendar. It is where we learn how and when to mark sacred time in space together. Leviticus 23:4 reads, אֵ֚לֶּה מוֹעֲדֵ֣י יְהֹוָ֔ה מִקְרָאֵ֖י קֹ֑דֶשׁ אֲשֶׁר־תִּקְרְא֥וּ אֹתָ֖ם בְּמוֹעֲדָֽם׃ “These are the set times of יהוה, the sacred occasions, which you shall celebrate each at its appointed time.” These words are not just a preamble to the holidays in Torah, but they are placed in our festival liturgy, and we sing them before reciting Kiddush on festival mornings. The answer to both mine and Abravanel’s question is both/and. We need both a time and a place to cultivate holiness in our lives. We are a community bound together across time and space; across generations and time zones. For the first time in the life of Kol Tzedek, and the first time in 40 years in West Philadelphia we have the opportunity to access the Divine in the nooks and crannies of our own synagogue. I can already tell you the coat closet isn’t as big as the suburban shul I grew up in, but it does have a sacred back recess that I think would make a great hiding spot. Now we have a sanctuary in the cloud and a sanctuary on Whitby Ave, holy places to observe our sacred calendar together. Knowing how much of Judaism is transmitted in the act of being together, it is precious to have a place we can gather to learn, connect and reveal the Torah of our times. Earlier this week I had the privilege of taking a group of Kol Tzedek teenagers on a field trip to the encampment at UPenn, where students gathered as part of a nation-wide university divestment effort. I had originally imagined it would be a quiet night on campus, marked by an interfaith prayer service and hopefully a chance to talk to some students. As it turns out, there was a last minute student march which led to increased police presence and a more confrontational tone. I kept the young people close as we took in the sea of flags, posters, and t-shirts, surrounded by many familiar Kol Tzedek faces. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a young Jewish student put on tefillin and began shouting the Shema over the din of the protest. At which point the protest began chanting over the sound of the Shema. Our heads scanned back and forth as we found ourselves suspended in the political theater.
When a quiet moment emerged, I gathered the students and we walked to a grassy knoll to debrief our experience. We were joined by another KT member, who is now a student organizer at Penn. The teens asked thoughtful questions about the goals of the encampment and the organizing process. As I began to recount the experience of the Shema, one of the teens asked if they were just praying or if it was meant to be disruptive. In the moment it was hard to tell. We learned that this had become a regular tactic for counter-protestors on campus, to interrupt the activities at the encampment by loudly chanting the Shema. Apparently the student organizers have spent long hours trying to decide how best to respond. Sometimes the crowd quiets. Sometimes they chant over it. I am still processing the cognitive dissonance of hearing the Shema and not instinctively joining in. Those six powerful words are meant to unify not just Jews, but humanity. And yet in that moment, they were divisive. Sitting with these students I felt the pain of not knowing who my people are. In a week when there are congressional hearings about antisemitism in schools and Israel begins to invade Rafah, it is a complicated time to be Jewish. The intentional fusing of Jewishness with the Israeli state has proliferated very real antisemitism. And it has also criminalized very urgent righteous protest. My week has been full of conversations with members who are ashamed and horrified by the actions of the Israeli government. They do not want to be implicated in this catastrophic attack on Palestinian life in Gaza. I have been called in to consult at my kids’ school in response to concerns that students of different backgrounds are struggling to talk about what’s happening in Israel and Palestine. Reading the news I find it can be hard to discern what is and isn’t antisemitism. Just this week I read an article in the Times about Republicans who are propagating antisemitic tropes while simultaneously supporting the State of Israel in the name of Jewish safety. It is a confusing time to be Jewish. I am a rabbi, and I barely know how to thread this needle. It is not new that we as Jews disagree about questions that are core to our self-understanding. It is also not new that we as Jews disagree so aggressively about Zionism and the question of a Jewish nation state. This disagreement long precedes the founding of the state itself in 1948. How on the one hand can I feel a bone-deep love for Jewish traditions and prayer, and on the other hand feel threatened by the sound of the Shema? There is so much at stake in this political moment that it feels hard to know how best to live our Judaism. Whether at home or in the streets, I invite you to return to the basics. To the Shema. To the Holiness code in this week’s parsha. To the most foundational teachings in Torah. To treat others with dignity so that we can remain connected to our own inherent dignity. In the words of Marcia Falk, Hear, O Israel-- The divine abounds everywhere and swells in everything; the many are One. May it be so. There are many beautiful verses in this week’s parsha, Acharei Mot, and yet it is best known for its most perverse teaching. Leviticus 18:22 reads, “Man shall not lie with a man as he does with a woman, it is an abomination.” The Hebrew word for abomination is To’evah - and I have a piece of art in my office with just that word. This verse has been used to shame and scar generations of Queer Jews.
A few years ago a colleague of mine, Rabbi Guy Austrian, gave a very memorable d’var Torah on this week’s parsha that did not redeem the verse, or reverse the harm, but did give me a way to relate to this and many other painful verses in Torah. Rather than wrestling with the translation or interpretation, he opted to wrestle with the trope, the melody with which they are sung. Classically there are six different melodies with which we sing the Torah. The most common is of course the trope we use on weekdays, shabbat and holidays. In addition, we often hear the Haftarah for the prophetic readings and the special trope for the High Holidays. And but once a year we get to hear the special trope of Lamentations on Tisha B’av, Esther on Purim, and if we are lucky the three megillot that are ready on the festivals of Passover (Song of Songs), Shavuot (Ruth) and Sukkot (Ecclesiates). That particular Shabbat, Rabbi Guy posited: what happens to this verse if we make it a lament and read it in Eicha trope? What happens if we eroticize it and sing it in the trope of Song of Songs? Can we flip it on its head with the playful trope of the Purim megillah? Can we give it gravitas with the Days of Awe trope? Changing the melody was an unexpected way to reclaim agency over this verse in Torah. To reclaim queer sexuality and sing it as a love poem. To reclaim queer grief and cry out in lament. The one thing I wasn’t able to do was make it into prophecy and sing it like the Haftarah. I offer you all of these options as a way to heal this part of Torah. Honestly, these days this verse hurts less than many others. The treacherous teachings about the sotah waters, the instruction to stone the rebellious child, the endless chapters of conquest in the land. Which is why, despite being musically challenged, I think it is so beautiful and important that we chant the words of Torah week after week. To remind ourselves that their meaning is not static. Every Torah service truly is an act of revelation. What Torah “means” is contextual, impacted by the reader, the teacher, the time, and as it turns out, the trope. Torah is a tree of life, and we give voice to its evolving truths. How might we sing our way back into the painful verses of Torah? What might that teach us about how to relate to the harm and contradiction present in other parts of our lives? In this complex political moment, Rabbi Mó pointed me to another verse in Torah, a prayer which is typically sung as a way to bless the places we gather. It emerges from the book of Numbers (24:5) and blesses the places where we pitch our tents. These words have taken on new meaning in this time, in which college students are bravely rising up and calling for divestment on college campuses around the country. מַה טֹּבוּ אֹהָלֶיךָ, יַעֲקֹב; מִשְׁכְּנֹתֶיךָ, יִשְׂרָאֵל Ma tovu ohalekha Ya'akov, mishk'notekha Yisra'el. How lovely are your tents, O Jacob; your encampments, O Israel! In singing these words, may we like Balaam, transform the harshness in our hearts, and in the world, into blessings for protection. Last night, Shosh and I were cleaning out our fridge in preparation for Passover. We composted shriveled carrots, yellowed kale leaves and some moldy anchovies. We wiped down sticky shelves and tossed old condiments. Towards the top of the fridge door Shosh found my secret stash, aka ice box apothecary. A shelf dedicated to homemade bitters, including cough cordial, fire cider and a roots and shoots tonic. I rinsed the bottles and returned them to their shelf, not wanting to waste a drop.
Bitter herbs have been known to get a bad wrap. Of the many tastes, most people prefer things sweet or savory, if not spicy and salty. Few people fall in love with bitter. But I have known the healing power of bitter herbs. Dandelion root and burdock to cleanse the liver. Horseradish with cider vinegar and honey to clear a relentless cough. I have a soft spot in my heart (and even a tattoo) for bitter herbs. According to Jewish time, yesterday was the 10th of Nisan. This is an auspicious date in Jewish time, a date marked by many miracles. According to the Babylonian Talmud, it was the date of the original Shabbat HaGadol. The Israelites were believed to have left Mitzrayim on a Thursday, which would have been the 15th of Nisan. Therefore, that last Shabbat before their flight to freedom, known as Shabbat HaGadol/The Great Shabbat, would have been 5 days prior on the 10th of Nisan. Why then don’t we celebrate the anniversary of Shabbat HaGadol with its own festival on the 10th of Nisan? Because some 39 years after the Exodus, it was miraculously also the day that Miriam the prophet died. In reverence for her yahrzeit, the rabbis established that Shabbat HaGadol would be celebrated on the Shabbat immediately preceding Passover, regardless of the date. Miriam was one of the 7 prophetesses in Tanakh. She is counted among Sarah, Deborah, Hannah, Abigail, Huldah and Esther (B.T. Megillah 14a). She was the elder sister of Aaron and Moses. Among her many merits, she is credited with having saved Moses’ life, led the Israelites in song and dance as they crossed the sea, and drawn forth a well of water for 39 years in the desert. Every year I look forward to the moment at our seder when we fill a glass of water for the Prophet Miriam and sing her song. I am proud to have danced at the original women’s seders with Debbie Friedman herself, z”l. That said, this year, I am realizing that maybe Miriam was always present at the seder, albeit not explicitly. Miriam’s name actually means bitter, from the same root as maror. What medicinal wisdom might be held in her roots? There is no question that Passover this year, and perhaps every year, is bitter/sweet. It is dreadful and devastating to sing of freedom with Gaza and Ukraine under siege. And yet we are called to find a way to see ourselves as if we are personally leaving a narrow place. The Passover story is at once a very political story, and a very personal one. Both are important. Hope is important. It occurs to me this year that perhaps more than the 4 cups of wine, or even the story itself, it is the bitter herbs that are essential. As we journey into Shabbat HaGadol and Passover seder(s), I offer you the prophetic words of the Puertorriquena poet Aurora Levins Morales, in her reflection on Bitters. “Eat bitterness. Eat bitterness and speak bitterness and share bitter herbs upon your bread, for in bitterness we empty ourselves of poison. Bitterness cools the boiling blood, dries the festering wound, tightens, reduces, expels, rejects, empties the toxic wastes that cruelty deposits on our souls. Here are stories to be taken with horseradish on dry, unleavened bread; with gentian root, six drops of tincture in a glass of water, a dash of angostura in your orange juice; a tea of goldenseal and sage. Without bitters you will sicken. Your liver will ache. You will not digest what is true. So take these stories as bitters, as tonics for the centuries of lies. Let your own pain dissolve into the larger streams of the world. Find comfort with these women, those who lived, those who died. The poison they took in, that made them retch and burn with fever, is the same poison you live with every day. But if you eat bitters, drink bitters, speak your bitter truth, your liver will unclench, your tongue come alive, your fever, the fever of the wronged, will break into luminous sweat. Come clean. Come home. Be healed.” And in the words of Cathy Cohen's newest poem "This Fragile Moment: Breaking the Middle Matzah", “Each of us must emerge from this year, this story and bring to the table our pieces to share what’s luminous among us.” To fully prepare and observe Passover, we can’t just clean our fridges. We need to clean ourselves from the inside out. So consider grating your own horseradish. Indulge in arugula and romaine lettuce. Put a brave portion of maror on your korach sandwich. Tell your story, speak your bitter truth, share what’s luminous among us. f you have ever sat in the shade of an old olive tree, you know its like being embraced by an elder or even an ancestor. Ancient olive trees are known for their twisted, gnarly trunks and silvery leaves. The first time I encountered olive trees that were hundreds of years old was in the West Bank of Palestine. I placed my hand on the tree’s limb and was instantly transported into the arms of my nana, who used to gently scratch my forearms with her knobby fingers, joints gnarled from years of arthritis, skin paper thin.
It says in the Torah that when you go to war (why must we go to war?!), you are not to cut down the fruit trees. Consider them like human beings, consider them civilians, says Torah. I thought of this verse earlier this week when I read that 48% of all of the trees in Gaza have been destroyed, most of them fruit trees, many of them ancestral. It will take generations for the earth to regenerate. This week marks six months since October 7. Six months of kaddish for the 1200 Israelis who were murdered. Six months of relentless siege displacing 2 million civilians in Gaza, killing more than 32,000, and starving the rest of them. I do not know the words to describe the horror of this genocide. This week also marks the beginning of the month of Nisan and the coming of Spring. There is a special blessing that can only be recited under the moon of Nisan called Birkat Ilanot, the blessing of the trees. It is specifically designated that we should bless the flowering of fruit trees in Nisan: Blessed are You, Source of all Life, whose world lacks nothing and who made wondrous creations and beautiful trees for human beings to enjoy. With the cherry blossoms popping off and their flowers frosting the sidewalk, I feel called to gratitude, wonder and delight. And also to disgust and disgrace and despair. What is the blessing for a felled fruit tree? What is the blessing for fertile ground turned to “sand, shit and decomposing flesh”? Every year at this time, at the same time as I seek out trees to bless, I return to words of Ada Limón, in her poem, Instructions on not giving up, “More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees that really gets to me. When all the shock of white and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath, the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin growing over whatever winter did to us, a return to the strange idea of continuous living despite the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then, I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.” This year I need these words more than ever. Despite the mess of us, we must find courage and endurance in the slick leaves unfurling all around us, green skin growing over what this winter has done to us, and to mother earth herself. Join me, let the greening of the trees really get to you. Find the strength to bless this brutal, beautiful world. Today and everyday. |
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