Category: spirituality

Categories
Books Death spirituality

What is Your Concept of Soul and Afterlife?

As we ask big questions during the High Holy Days, Lights in the Forest: Rabbis Respond to Twelve Essential Jewish Questions, presents a range of Jewish responses to both theological and philosophical questions pertaining to God, humanity, and the Jewish people. In the spirit of the High Holy Days, we would like to share some of the inspirational responses included in the book, for a thoughtful and meaningful New Year.

In yoga class we do an exercise where we imagine holding a basketball in our hands. With minds focused on the present, feet planted, and hearts lifted, with our hands we trace the shape, push against the edges, even toss it into the air and catch it. We can feel the ball even though we can’t see it; we interact with it even though it is not there. The same is true of the souls of our loved ones after they have died.

At the first Yizkor service led by Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman, nearly twenty-five years after my mother died, he taught something that has taken me twenty-five years to understand: “Our relationships with our loved ones continue even after they are gone.” Like the basketball at yoga class, we can’t see them or feel them, but we can hold them, and our relationships with their souls, with our own souls touched by them, continue.LITFXXX_Page_1

For many years I thought my soul, the sparkling sacred essence of who I am, was a response to my mother’s death, that I am who I am because she died, that I took on her soul when we buried her young body. But now I know that isn’t entirely true. I have my own soul, formed and shaped, expressing my own values, dreams, and personality, breathed into me by God on the day I was born, not on the day she died. I am a wife and mother, a friend and a rabbi, not only because my mother died when I was a child, but because in the eleven years that we had together in this world, she shared her soul, her passions and commitments, with me—and because in the years since I have made them my own. She was clear and consistent about her core values, and they endure and find new expression in my life: hospitality, Jewish life in America and Israel, teaching and learning, nurturing friendship, being part of a complicated family, expressing creativity, being organized and in charge. With my feet planted, as I breathe deeply, focus quietly, lift my heart, feel confident and supported, I can see her soul and my own. I feel and embrace our ever-evolving and deepening relationship, life and after-life, breathing together for eternity.

—

Rabbi Debra J. Robbins serves Temple Emanu-El in Dallas, TX.

Excerpted from Lights in the Forest: Rabbis Respond to Twelve Essential Jewish Questions, edited by Rabbi Paul Citrin and published in 2015 by CCAR Press.

Categories
High Holy Days spirituality

High Holy Day Self-Care: A Rabbinic Primer

My ex-boyfriend used to joke: I love you every week of the year, except for the week between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. Oh, and the day before Rosh HaShanah. I find it challenging to love you then too.

I get it, and I bet you (and your significant other, or kids, or cantor, or assistant, or all of the above) do too. As a Rabbi’s kid, who’s herself worked for some very anxious senior Rabbis, I can attest: the high holy days often make us crazy. And not just crazy but angry, unpleasant, overtired and sometimes even nasty. My mom (who, strictly speaking, as a pediatric surgeon had a far more stressful job than my father) used to say, “I just try to stay out of your dad’s way during the month before the holy days.”

The irony is, of course, this: ‘tis the season of cheshbon hanefesh, of checking ourselves, apologizing to others, and guarding, a bit more closely, our words and actions. It’s what we preach from the bima, but far, far too often fail to practice in the lead up to the days of awe.

So, in the summers leading up to Elul, I’ve gone above and beyond to set aside some time to prepare myself – not just with cues and sermons and music – but spiritually, emotionally, and physically, for the chagim.

A few suggestions, based on trial and error:

1) The next time you’re agonizing over a sermon, or impressing your biggest donors with your Yom Kippur appeal, or figuring out the perfect balance between the political and the pastoral, stop. Literally. Stop it. Get out of your office. Step away from your computer. Put down the David Wolpe or Jonathan Sacks sermon you wish you’d written, and go for a walk. Get a massage. Hug your kids. Pick up Annie Dillard, or Wendell Berry, or Brene Brown, or Mary Oliver’s new book of poetry, or Yehuda Amichai, or whatever, whoever, inspires you. And then forgive yourself for not being able to produce utter brilliance in one sitting. If you have a creative hobby outside of the rabbinate, do it. Paint. Go to a yoga class. Go for a hike. Walk the dog. Give back to yourself so you have something to give to others.

2) Take your own preaching to heart, and forgive. Forgive the temple president who drives you crazy, the assistant who forgot to mail out the yahrtzeit notices, and yourself, for everyone you’ve failed – knowingly, and unknowingly this year. Be like God: balance your judgment of yourself – and everyone else – with mercy, compassion and gentleness. And then, once you’ve forgiven, apologize to those you need to apologize too. And don’t yell at anyone during the ten days, or you’ll have to do it again. (Yes, even you, Rabbi.)

3) Daven, just a little, just a bissel, every day of Elul. For me, this means mindfulness meditation. For others, it means selichot – prayers of forgiveness. For still others, it’s a niggun that connects us to our hearts. Because if you can’t give to yourself spiritually, or connect with what brought you to the Rabbinate in the first place, you can’t give to your congregants, or your students, or your patients.

4) The morning of Erev Rosh HaShanah, if you can, take an hour, or maybe even two, for yourself. Do something that gets you out of your head, out of your neuroses, and into your body. Last year, I woke up early and went surfing for two hours, which put me (very small person) in perspective (a very, very big ocean). (How important could my own mishegas about everything going off without a hitch be in a world so big?) This year, I’ll go for a trail run. Whatever it is that nurtures you (maybe even watching your favorite comedian for an hour), get out of your anxieties and fears and into a place of joy, and contentment, so that when you’re on the bima, welcoming the new year with all the joy, and excitement that a new year deserves, you mean it. The Jews in the pews can tell when you mean it.

5) Once the moment comes, try to enjoy it. Try to pray while you’re leading services. Try to set aside all of the madness that led up to the moment when tefilot begin and simply be present to the birthday of the world. It’s the climax of our spiritual year, the peak of the arc of our Jewish yearly lives and too often we’re too busy looking for our next cue or trying to make eye contact with the cantor to take it all in. So take an extra breath when you’re facing the ark, or pause for just a heartbeat, and remember what a tremendous privilege it is to lead hundreds, perhaps even thousands of Jews in letting go, starting over and beginning again. Even when it makes us crazy, it’s still the best work in the world.

Oh, and finally: Shanah tovah u’metukah – may it be a sweet, happy, healthy and meaningful new year for all of us.

—

Rabbi Jordie Gerson serves Adventure Rabbi in Boulder, Colorado.

 

Categories
Books High Holy Days spirituality

What is God’s Relationship to Suffering and Evil?

As we ask big questions during the High Holy Days, Lights in the Forest: Rabbis Respond to Twelve Essential Jewish Questions, presents a range of Jewish responses to both theological and philosophical questions pertaining to God, humanity, and the Jewish people. In the spirit of the High Holy Days, we would like to share some of the inspirational responses included in the book, for a thoughtful and meaningful New Year.

I imagine that God weeps at the sufferings of the whole disharmonious natural world. If God does weep with us, it is with a heart that we wrote into the story. We invented God’s heart, our greatest contribution to God’s tale.

I cannot know why suffering and evil exist. No work of fiction is free of it. It is the stuff of timeless story. However, our greatest spiritual resistance to suffering is metaphor and interpretation. To interpret is divine. God breathed that ability into us.

LITFXXX_Page_1A traditional Jewish ritual response to nightmares is called “the Amelioration of a Dream” (Babylonian Talmud, B’rachot 55b). The ritual requires three friends to declare that the dream be interpreted for good. The text explains that all dreams have a hint of prophecy; however, all dreams can be interpreted positively. In fact, the prophecy of the dream lies partially in its interpretation. The dreamer says three times, Adonai shamati v’yareiti—God, I heard what You made me hear and I was frightened. Three friends respond with the prescribed words, “Choose life, for God has already approved your deeds. Repentance, prayer, and charity remove the evil of the decree.”

We dream, but we are also dreamt. We are written, and within that story, we write. It is said in Torah and our liturgy: U’vayom hash’vi-i shavat vayinafash, “On the seventh day God ‘rested.’” Translators struggle in translating vayinafash, suggesting, “On the seventh day God rested and was refreshed.” Vayinafash, however, literally means God “ensouled.” On the seventh day God rested and created spirits. Out of God’s dark, void chamber before Creation, God suddenly dreamed a dream/nightmare and based on that dream/nightmare, the world was sketched and animated in full color. We are the dream/ nightmare. We have little control over the outcome except to interpret it for the good.

A congregant had a double mastectomy and did not know how to love herself afterwards. She would stand before a mirror naked, seeing herself as grotesque. We sought a metaphor that would help her to see herself in a new light. We imagined her body as a sacred altar and that her breasts were the sacrifices that redeemed her life. Years later she told me that now when she stands before the mirror, she thinks “sacred altar” and has found a love for herself inside that she thought had disappeared. She reinterpreted her nightmare through metaphor.

—

Rabbi Zoe Klein serves Temple Isaiah in Los Angeles, CA.

Excerpted from Lights in the Forest: Rabbis Respond to Twelve Essential Jewish Questions, edited by Rabbi Paul Citrin and published in 2015 by CCAR Press.

Categories
News spirituality Torah

Reading Between the Lies: Religion, Truthfulness and Nuance

It’s easy to jump to the wrong conclusion when religion goes under the social science microscope. Consider a recent survey from the Pew Research Center. The survey, “Religion in Everyday Life,”[1] does a good job examining differences in belief and behavior between “highly religious” and “not highly religious” people. But one observation about the faithful and truth telling calls for a more nuanced conversation.

The report finds that “highly religious people” are generally happier with life, more involved with extended family, more likely to volunteer, read the Bible, donate money, time or goods to help the poor, attend religious services, rest on the Sabbath, and rely on prayer when making personal decisions. Beyond these differences, there are similarities: Members of both groups tend to get the same amount of exercise, make as many socially conscious consumer decisions, lose their temper as often, recycle as much – and to the point of truth and falsehood – admit to telling little white lies: 39% of “highly religious” admitted to telling a little lie in the previous week, as opposed to 45% of “not highly religious.” That’s a six percent difference; enough to make a winner out of a presidential candidate, but not very much in this kind of study. We can say that 4 in ten surveyed people – highly religious or not – told a white lie in ANY given week.

It might be surprising to hear that highly religious people lie so often, especially since many of the surveyed highly religious people called “being honest all the time” “essential.” You’d expect more honesty from religious folks – “They should practice what they faiths preach!” – but not so fast. We have to “read between the lies.” To be sure, truth telling is “essential,” yet my faith and others also affirms that that telling a lie – little or big – may well be the moral thing to do. Here’s an example.

Let’s say you’ve looked forward to a good friend’s wedding and the day has finally arrived. You’re at the reception, and, as much as you love your friend, this wedding, like any other, is not perfect – it could be the food, the band or any of a number of things. Nevertheless, when the wedding couple comes to your table and asks, “Are you having a good time?”  you reply with an enthusiastic “Today is absolutely perfect!”

Now that’s not the biggest lie a person could tell. The point is that Judaism teaches that kind of lie is no sin, and I am sure that many other faithful would agree.

Centuries ago, the disciples of Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Shammai apparently faced a similar wedding question, when a bride – or groom for that matter –  must have asked, “How do I look?”  Shammai, stickler for the letter of the law, instructs the wedding guest to speak of “a bride as she is.” Be honest, for better or for worse. But Hillel has a different opinion. Tell her she’s “a beautiful and graceful bride.” Be positive. Be polite.

In response, Shammai points to the book of Exodus (23:7) – “Keep far from falsehood” – and insists truth be told, regardless. Now, Hillel knows what the book of Exodus says and he doesn’t need a reminder. Hillel believes in the moral good of a lie told to prevent hurt feelings. And the Talmud goes on to say that “From this the Sages concluded that a person should always conduct oneself in a pleasant manner” as when speaking with a groom or bride. (Ketubot 16b -17a) So don’t come to the wrong conclusion: There may be no inconsistency when “highly religious people” preach honestly yet practice lying that serves a higher goal, such as sparing someone’s feelings, saving a life, or keeping the peace. To the point of the recently released survey, we have to keep an eye open to nuance with discussing religion, truth and falsehood. Yes, those who are highly religious and those who are not may appear to lie to a similar degree, but that religious person’s lie is different when it honors a faith teaching that insists a particular kind of little lie serves higher moral good.

So there may be nothing at all hypocritical when religious folks call truthfulness “essential” and then go out and tell little lies. Jewish tradition and other faith teachings – along with common sense – recognize that a little lie can have a positive impact.

—

Rabbi Dennis S. Ross, MSW, serves East End Temple in New York City. 

 

[1] http://www.pewforum.org/2016/04/12/religion-in-everyday-life/

Categories
Death Healing spirituality

If I Should Meet God

A disciple came to his rabbi and lamented: “Rabbi, I have all these terrible thoughts. I am even afraid to say them. I feel absolutely terrible that I can even think these thoughts. Rabbi, I simply cannot believe. Sometimes I even think that God doesn’t exist.”

“Why not, my son?” the rabbi asked.

“Because I see in this world deceit and corruption.”

The rabbi answered: “So why do you care?

The disciple continued: “I see in this world hunger, poverty, and homelessness.”

And the rabbi once again responded: “So why do you care?”

The disciple protested: “if God is absent there is no purpose to the entire world. And if there is no purpose to the entire world, then there is no purpose to life – and that troubles my soul greatly.”

Then the rabbi said to his troubled follower: “Do not be disturbed. If you care so much, you are a believer!”

When the atheist Stephen Fry is questioned as to what he would say if he met God, he leaves the interviewer at a loss for words when he responds: “if I should meet God I’ll say: “Bone cancer in children? What’s that about? How dare you? How dare you create a world in which there is so much misery that is not our fault? It’s not right. It’s utterly, utterly evil!”

As a rabbi wrote: “it is time to raise the bar in the conversation about religion and faith, with the knowledge that most people, whether religious, agnostic, atheist, or whatever-ish, truly do want to do what is right, to find and express love, to live a life of purpose, and to be in a meaningful relationship with others.”

“It is good to question and challenge those with whom we disagree, but we deserve more than pithy catch phrases, caricatures of those who we have defined as our enemy, and the childish need to win. Human beings can be glorious creatures who, through conscious choice, can bring healing to the world, and we all need to do this together.”

In my many years as a rabbi, and especially since my illness, I have come to believe that more important than any theology or system of belief is caring, compassion and loving kindness. I have evolved spiritually to believe that no matter what we believe or don’t believe the true heart of our humanity is human goodness and decency.

—

Rabbi Hirshel Jaffe serves as Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Beth Jacob in Newburgh, NY.  Rabbi Jaffe just celebrated his 80th Birthday in Israel after surviving cancer for the fourth time. 

This blog was originally posted on The Running Rabbi. 

Categories
Death News spirituality

The Supreme Court Vacancy and the Soul-Trait of Patience

When Justice Antonin Scalia died suddenly and unexpectedly, a week ago Saturday, I experienced the same surge of emotion that many Americans felt. Sadness for the life lost and for a person, his family and friends, none of whom I know, was tinged with either sadness and fear about the future of our country without Justice Scalia on the Supreme Court or gratitude at the prospect of the Justice’s being replaced on the Court by a fifth liberal.

In my own Facebook feed, I noticed both responses. One friend in the latter camp, where I also reside, confessed to a guilty conscience about any happiness experienced as the result of a person’s death.

By then, though, we had seen the statement by the Majority Leader of the United States Senate, declaring in the hours after Scalia’s death was announced that the Senate wouldn’t act on any nomination by the current President. That President quickly insisted that he would certainly make a nomination and expect the Senate to act upon it.

I suspect that both Sen. McConnell and President Obama began their statements with words of sadness and sympathy. Still, none can blame the media for leading with their sensational statements about the recently-deceased’s replacement on the Court.

I was appalled. Not at the press but at our national leaders.

When a person dies, Judaism teaches that our obligation is kavod ha-met, honoring the deceased. That priority is so important that we are forbidden even turn to nichum aveilim, comforting the mourners, until after burial. Turning so quickly to discussion of a successor justice, Sen. McConnell immediately changed the national conversation away from kavod ha-met to mundane and political matters. President Obama piled on.

Surely, neither Sen. McConnell or President Obama wished to dishonor Justice Scalia, a”h. Each would argue that his position best honors the deceased Justice — McConnell, by striving for a replacement who would fit Scalia’s own mold; and Obama, by arguing for a process that would adhere to the Constitution that Scalia defended.

Both men failed in a way that’s increasingly common in our modern world, giving in to an urge to act instantly.

I am often guilty: jumping to the phone when I hear that “ding” or feel the vibration, even if it’s just my turn in “Words with Friends.” At the same time, by studying and practicing Mussar, I have learned not to respond instantly when I receive a text or email that I initially deem irritating. Frequently, the simple act of waiting an hour softens my view of the communication I’ve received. At the very least, waiting changes the tone or medium of my response for the better.

How much healthier would we be as a nation, and how much more fittingly would Justice Scalia have been honored in the days after his death, had Sen. McConnell paid tribute to the newly-deceased Justice’s memory, declining to discuss any possible confirmation process until after a nomination were made? How much healthier would we be as a nation, and how much greater the honor to Justice Scalia, a”h, had the President declined to engage Sen. McConnell’s remarks until after the Justice’s funeral. As one who hopes for the confirmation of a successor justice nominated by President Obama, and who agrees with his constitutional argument on the point, I believe he would have carried the day by pointedly refusing to descend into public political discourse about any nomination until after Justice Scalia’s funeral, and certainly not in the hours after his death.

My Mussar teacher, Alan Morinis, reminds us that “sevel,” suffering, and “savlanut,” patience, are formed from the same Hebrew root. Perhaps the Senator would’ve had to struggle mightily, even suffering, to suppress the urge to make his point instantly. Maybe President Obama would’ve been pained by not joining a battle that has been initiated. Each has a “base” that expects no less than instant, repeated, hyper-partisan reaction to every event.

Similarly, we may be uncomfortable sitting with that provocative text or email, but we must suffer patiently in order to reduce the suffering we will cause ourselves and others with the instant, caustic response.

Now, because the Senator and the President lacked patience, the nation suffers.

—

Rabbi Barry Block serves Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, Arkansas.  Rabbi Block chairs the CCAR Resolutions Committee.

Categories
Books High Holy Days Machzor Mishkan haNefesh spirituality

Our Most Meaningful Yizkor Service, Ever

For us at The Temple in Atlanta, Mishkan HaNefesh provided us the perfect opportunity to utilize our current practices alongside the most innovative, thoughtful, and moving prayers and poems in the entire machzor.

While some have chosen to read the Seven Lights of Yizkor (beginning on page 536) metaphorically, we choose to actually light seven candles. This new ritual dramatically added to the power of the service. Seven members of our clergy each led one of the candle lightings. (This can easily be adapted for lay leadership). Each section contained an introductory reading, a musical selection, and then a few moments for personal reflection (see page 554). We actually read the reflection questions in each session out loud and allowed a few moments for silence. Finally, a member of the clergy recited the chatimah and then lit the candle.

We deliberately chose some readings from a wide spectrum – emotional, academic, helpful, challenging, and provocative. Each year, we will refine the chosen readings to reflect the year that has passed and the mood we hope to achieve. Some of the most evocative readings included:

  • This is the Hour of Memory (page 541) to open the service
  • The Echo of Your Promise (page 561) based on Psalm 77
  • May God Remember (a two page spread with the relationships we remember at Yizkor)
  • Forgiveness And The Afterlife (page 581)
  • Father (page 589)
  • One Morning Shortly After My Mother Died (page 592)

We invite you to see the yizkor service outline we used.

Additionally, there are certain customs we have established over the years that blended perfectly with the new liturgy:

  1. Members of our High School Girls’ Yizkor Choir sing two selections each year. After a rabbinic meditation on looking at our memorial booklet to view the names of those who passed away this year, the choir sang the poignant words of Take My Name by Juliet Spitzer.
  2. After the seventh candle, members of our Yizkor Choir recited 18 remembrances (Tapestry of Memories) from congregational eulogies spanning Yom Kippur 5775 to 5776. The selections were carefully chosen by the Rabbis and provided the most emotionally powerful moment of the service.
  3. Immediately after the eulogy selections, the Yizkor Choir sang “For Good” (from Wicked– with some of the text changed to accommodate the sacredness of the moment). At the end of the first chorus, the singing stopped, but the piano continued to play softly. The rabbis then read the names of our members who passed away since last Yom Kippur. With the recitation of the last name, the choir resumed the text and concluded the composition.

Mishkan HaNefesh Cover Picture (Light) 10_14_2014The feedback we received from the congregation was extraordinary. Hundreds of members went back to view the service – again – from the livestream feed on our website. I am grateful to the CCAR for the gift of this machzor as a tool to enhance what is arguably the most important 60 minute liturgical experience of the entire year. This hour was, without question, our most significant Yizkor service, ever!

Rabbi Peter S. Berg is senior rabbi at The Temple, Atlanta GA.

Categories
spirituality

Spirituality in the Rabbinate

I was ordained in 2007, and accepted the position as the solo rabbi in a very small, extremely remote congregation in southeast Alabama.  My nearest colleague (Rabbi Elliot Stevens) is a two hour drive away.  Mine is the only synagogue in 100 mile radius, and we are located in the buckle of the Bible Belt where it is assumed if you walk and breathe, you must be a Christian.  My congregation is wonderful, and I have really enjoyed my 8 1/2 years here.

However, I should tell you that while I learned so much at HUC, I was not prepared spiritually at all.  We never talked about our relationships with God, we never prayed, except at services. Every meeting here in the south begins with a prayer, and I swear I was a deer in the headlights the first time I was asked to begin a meeting with a spontaneous prayer.

I think the lack of spiritual training hurts us and it hurts our congregations.  I have never once been asked to translate Talmud; in fact, most of my congregants only have a vague idea what Talmud is.  But when I do sermons or adult education on prayer or God, I am overwhelmed by the response. There is such a hunger among our congregants for a relationship with God, to learn about God and prayer.  And it is the area where I seem to have the least expertise.  Thank goodness for good books!

And I have so felt so empty spiritually myself so much of the time.  I cannot pray during services.  I have no cantor, so it is just me leading services and the music.  How can I do all that and focus on God?  It just doesn’t happen. I tried praying on my own using the prayer book.  That did not work at all.  And I am so busy because I am the only rabbi around.  It is truly a 24/7 job. Finding time to enhance my spirituality falls on the back burner.

I have been fortunate to be involved with a group of Christian clergy women, all seminary ordained. We meet once a month to study, or to let our hair down and complain about how the robes never fit right, or why dresses and slacks don’t have pockets to put your portable mike in, or most importantly to share serious problems we are having. There are many people down here who don’t think women should be leading a congregation, so we are a support group for each other.

I was surprised when I found out that all of the other clergy in my group are REQUIRED to have spiritual direction.  Required!!  The nun from the Catholic Church is REQUIRED to go to a spirituality retreat every year.  I wondered why we Reform Rabbis do not have anything like that.  I thought about it for a very long time, and finally approached one of the women ministers to ask about spiritual direction.  Of course, a Jewish spiritual director is out of the question here in Alabama, but I have a director who is Methodist. I have been seeing her once a month, driving two hours each way.  I’m slowly but surely getting my head straight and reestablishing the relationship I had with God before I started HUC.  I find it ironic that I lost the relationship I had with God which helped propel me into HUC while I was at HUC.  In any event, I look forward to seeing Lesley each month, and think I am becoming a better rabbi because of the explorations I am doing with her.

So I want to ask, why do we not have any training in this most important aspect of our rabbinate?  I took four required classes in Talmud, yet never talked to anyone about God, except theoretically as part of a Bible class or Philosophy.  I know now that the Institute for Jewish Spirituality does very good work in this field.  I am also aware that some inroads for spirituality training have been made on the LA and NY campuses of HUC, but I have not heard anything about Cincinnati.  And Rabbi Rex Perlmeter wrote a blog post around the High Holy Days about spirituality programs he is doing through the CCAR.  We are becoming more aware of the need to talk and teach about spirituality and our relationship with God.  I hope it continues and becomes an integral part of training for future rabbis.

—

Rabbi Lynne Goldsmith serves Temple Emanu-El of Dothan, Alabama

Categories
spirituality

How is Your Jewish Self?

Out of nowhere, in a Facebook message, she asked her father, who is more Jewish– you or Rabbi Kedar?

And so, in a Facebook message to me, he relayed the message, my daughter wants to know who is more Jewish, me or you.

I answered; we are not in a contest, no winner or loser. Just a journey toward expansiveness. I walk with you, I said to him. Let us consider together a few more questions. My guess is, I said, we are equally engaged in four of the five categories? He agreed.

And so now I ask you, how is your Jewish self?

Judaism is belonging: Do I claim Judaism as my past, my tradition, my heritage and my people? Do I cast my destiny with the Jewish people? Do Jewish rituals, customs matter to me? Am I part of a Jewish community? Do I participate in that community? Do I care? Do I belong?

Judaism is choice and consciousness: Am I a Jew by default or by intention? Is my Judaism white noise in the background until some event turns up the volume? Like High Holidays. Or my child’s Bar Mitzvah. Or when someone I love dies. Or an attack on Israel. When I am uncomfortable do I hide my Jewishness? Even at work? Am I satisfied with a seventh grade Jewish education? Or do I choose more?

Judaism is a perspective: Do I see the world through the lens of my Jewish sense of ethics? Is the Jewish story my story? Am I aware of being Jewish everyday? Is Judaism an integrated part of my life? When I see, watch the world and when I try to understand my life, do I have a Jewish filter? Sometimes? Ever?

Judaism is what I do: Do I pray? Bless? Study? Read? Give away my time and volunteer? Give away my money and help others? Do I give away my kindness, and heal? Do I have a sense of obligation to behave in a Jewish way? Do I feel the rhythm of the Jewish calendar? Does Jewish time enter into my time? Shabbat? Holidays?

Judaism is tending to the spirit: Am I aware of my spiritual life? Do I talk to God? Do I allow myself to struggle with my faith? Does my life have meaning? Do I have purpose? Do I sit quietly, settle down. Ever? Do I practice love?

I pose the questions, to me, to you. Everyday is an answer.

—

Rabbi Karyn Kedar is the senior rabbi at Congregation BJBE, in Deerfield, IL.