Spiritual and Religious

Today I visited the new location of the Lund Jewish Center (JCL) twice. 

The first time, I went to help unpack books and put the rooms in order. The JCL has recently relocated to a new space, and it must be put in reasonable order prior to the house-warming and mezuzah-hanging gathering on Sunday. I have met several JCL members, but had never before met G., the woman with whom I was volunteering. We spent a productive couple of hours together, putting the JCL library back onto shelves and learning a bit about each other's stories. She also gave me several useful bits advice regarding life in Lund.

A few hours later, I returned to the JCL to attend a meeting of their Board. Among other topics, we discussed the up-coming Days of Awe; what sort of services they'd like to have, and how I can serve them as rabbi. People also provided all types of help and advice for how to acclimate to our new home. Considering that I've only been here two weeks, I felt very comfortable with this small group of Jews who offer leadership to the relatively tiny Jewish community of Lund. And I know that part of my comfort had something to do with the combination of unpacking books one on one with G., and then talking with the group in a meeting, surrounded by the library.

When I got home, and logged onto Facebook (the only place where I truly understand that pointless phrase, "international community,") I discovered that over 50 of my friends and colleagues had either recommended and/or posted the below article by Lillian Daniel. I find it so spot-on that I had one of those moments of envy, wishing I'd written something like it. In the same amount of time it took to unpack the books, have coffee with a new friend, and return to the JCL for the Board meeting, I could have indeed gone down to the water and watched the sunset. Or, I could have taken a walk in the woods and listened to birdsong.  And it would have been soothing and delightful and, yes, spiritual. But not in the same way that connecting with these individuals, and being welcomed by them to join in their nitty-gritty work of buidling a kehillah kedosha, a sacred community.

I am copying the Rev. Lillian Daniel's article in full. I substitute "community" for church, and for an opening quote, in my mind's eye I see the passage from the Talmud (Brachot 63b) that the National Havurah Institite uses as its motto:  Torah cannot be acquired except in community.

May our collective work during Elul help us to build stronger communities, and allow us to figure one another and ourselves when we don't always achieve that.

Spiritual but Not Religious? Please Stop Boring Me.

August 31, 2011
Matthew 16:18

"And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it."

Reflection by Lillian Daniel

On airplanes, I dread the conversation with the person who finds out I am a minister and wants to use the flight time to explain to me that he is "spiritual but not religious." Such a person will always share this as if it is some kind of daring insight, unique to him, bold in its rebellion against the religious status quo.

Next thing you know, he's telling me that he finds God in the sunsets. These people always find God in the sunsets. And in walks on the beach. Sometimes I think these people never leave the beach or the mountains, what with all the communing with God they do on hilltops, hiking trails and . . . did I mention the beach at sunset yet?

Like people who go to church don't see God in the sunset! Like we are these monastic little hermits who never leave the church building. How lucky we are to have these geniuses inform us that God is in nature. As if we don’t hear that in the psalms, the creation stories and throughout our deep tradition.

Being privately spiritual but not religious just doesn't interest me. There is nothing challenging about having deep thoughts all by oneself. What is interesting is doing this work in community, where other people might call you on stuff, or heaven forbid, disagree with you. Where life with God gets rich and provocative is when you dig deeply into a tradition that you did not invent all for yourself.


Thank you for sharing, spiritual but not religious sunset person. You are now comfortably in the norm for self-centered American culture, right smack in the bland majority of people who find ancient religions dull but find themselves uniquely fascinating. Can I switch seats now and sit next to someone who has been shaped by a mighty cloud of witnesses instead? Can I spend my time talking to someone brave enough to encounter God in a real human community?  Because when this flight gets choppy, that's who I want by my side, holding my hand, saying a prayer and simply putting up with me, just like we try to do in church.

Prayer

Dear God, thank you for creating us in your image and not the other way around. Amen.

 

Light

1 Elul 5771

It's still the first day of Elul, now around 11 a.m. It is traditional to read Psalm 27 daily during this month. With my first glance at the text, it struck me in a whole knew way. YHVH! Yah! Creator! Infinite One! Holy One! The One! However I choose to name the One who is beyond the beyond...that Divine Presence is "ori." My light.

Since deciding to relocate to Sweden, I've been afraid of the(potential) dark. I've visited this latitude many times in the winter, but never spent more than 2 weeks at a time. I know that people here have ways of making space cozy and warm and bright during the dark months, with creative uses of "living light." There are candle-light breakfasts, and lovely candelabras  illuminating displays of bread and cake in bakery windows. But still, there is a  lump in my stomach at the thought of getting up and out every morning when the sky is still dark. I worry about my mood sinking with the light.

So, to be reminded that the Divine Presence is my light; that  I need not dread the shortening of the days...that is a gift. After reading the Psalm in Hebrew, I found a wonderful array of meditative translations into English.  Below is from my teacher, Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi. 

During the month of Elul it is still light, but the days are growing shorter. It offers me the opportunity to meditate on the meaning of light, and how to find it--literally and metaphorically--in my new location, as the season changes.

Do you have a favorite meditation on or translation of Psalm 27? Perhaps just the thoughts that come up when you read this? I'd love to hear from you.

Psalm 27, as translated by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

Yah! You are my light.
You are my savior.
Whom need I dread?
Yah, with you as my strong protector who can make me panic?
When hateful bullies gang up on me, wanting to harass me, to oppress and terrorize me
They are the ones who stumble and fall.
Even if a gang surrounds me my heart is not weakened.
If a battle is joined around me my trust in You is firm.
Only one thing do I ask of You, Yah:
Just this alone do I seek, I want to be at home with you, Yah,
All the days of my life.
I want to delight in seeing You.

You hide me in your sukkah on a foul day.
You conceal me unseen in Your tent.
You also raise me beyond anyone's reach
And now, as You have held my head high despite the presence of my powerful foes
I prepare to celebrate and thrill, singing and making music to You, Yah!
Listen, Yah, to the sound of my cry
And, being kind, answer me!
My heart has said, I turn to seek you.
Your presence is what I beg for
Don't hide Your face from me.
Don't just put me down, You who have been my helper.
Don't abandon me, don't forsake me, God my support.
Though my father and my mother have left me
You, Yah, will hold me securely.
Please teach me Your way.
Teach me Your way and guide me on the straight path.
Discourage those who defame me
Because false witnesses stood up against me belching out violence.
Don't let me become the victim of my foes.
I wouldn't have survived
If I hadn't hoped that I would see, yet,
Your goodness, God, fully alive on earth.
So I tell you, my friends: you too hope to Yah! Be sturdy!
And make strong your heart. And most of all, keep hoping to Yah.
Seeing You when I come to visit You in Your temple.

To learn more about Reb Zalman, visit the Reb Zalman Legacy Project:

http://www.rzlp.org/wordpress/?m=201108

Hodesh Elul Tov: May the month of Elul be a good one

The Jewish month of Elul begins tonight. It is the month that precedes the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe, a/k/a the "High Holidays," the High Holy Days, and (although I've always disliked this) the Hi Hos.

So many Jews forget, or likely never really learned, that the Days of Awe don't just show up out of nowhere, expecting us to look deeply into our innermost thoughts and feelings and take stock of who we are and who we wish to be. We have the entire month of Elul to prepare for the spiritual work of Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, and the 10 Days of Teshuvah between them. 

This year, I've decided to take advantage of social media by blogging my way through Elul. I've never blogged before, but I am an avid Facebooker. Counting the Omer* on Facebook is the only way I've managed to count every single day without forgetting. So, perhaps blogging during Elul will spur me to create a heshbon hanefesh, an inventory of my soul---the kind of soul level work that is necessary to delve deeply into the Days of Awe. 

The tools I'm using for this are varied. There is musar, the practice of refining one's sense of ethics by focusing on particular middot, or characteristics, such as patience, humilty, or orderliness. There is Mindfulness, a type of meditation I've been practicing but without discipline for some time. There is writing practice, a type of meditation I learned from the books of Natalie Goldberg---I used to practice this with great diligence, but I have let it go.

I've left out prayer. Call it that, or call it tefilla (Hebrew) or davening (Yiddish)---I need to reassess what it means. Perhaps that is part of my Heshbon Hanefesh?

Elul tov!

*There are 49 days between the holidays of Pesach and Shavuot. From Biblical times to the present, there have been various reasons for creating a spiritual practice out of counting each and every day.