Tag: Crisis

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Healing Holiday member support mental health News Passover Pesach Prayer Rabbis spirituality

The World as It Is: Passover 5780

The World as It Is: [1]: Coronavirus has forced me, like many people, to change my exercise routines. Instead of a half hour on the elliptical, I’m taking hour-long walks in the neighborhood. Sad as I was to give up the gym, I’m finding great pleasure in the walks. I have always loved springtime, and there’s the most magnificent quartet of large hydrangea trees, all fully in bloom, along my route. Often, I find myself struggling to reconcile the visible natural world, so pointedly alive this time of year, with the invisible natural world, so toxic to our lives now.

The very best moment of any of these daily walks came last week. My walk takes me past several congregants’ homes, but I hadn’t run into any until the day that my path crossed with a congregant, around my age, and his aging father, who has rather advanced dementia. He’s moving slowly, using a walker. Nevertheless, father and son were walking to the end of the street to have a look at the magnificent tulips in bloom at the corner.

In this most difficult moment in America, and in the personal life of their family, father and son together created a beautiful moment. 

Judaism offers blessings for everything. One that may be unfamiliar is the blessing for seeing something particularly stunning in nature, be that a uniquely handsome person or a magnificent landscape. The words of that blessing, though, don’t express that purpose as obviously as they might: Baruch Atah, Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, shekacha lo b’olamo, “Blessed are You, Adonai our God, for this is how it is in the world.”

While the blessing is intended to recognize beauty, its words suggest acceptance. We praise God for making the world as it is—with the bitter and the sweet, the devastating pandemic and the unwelcome opportunity for personal growth, the debilitating illness and the drive to continue appreciating life, the loss of life-sustaining employment and the personal reinvention that may emerge. The horrors of dementia and the beauty of the tulips.

Passover asks us to do exactly that.

Matzah is known to most of us as “the bread of freedom.” Yes, it’s true: Torah tells us that our ancestors had no time to let the bread rise as they were escaping Egyptian bondage [2]. Paradoxically, though, matzah is also “the bread of affliction, the poor bread, which our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt [3]. After all, slaves aren’t given time for the luxury of giving their bread the time to rise.

When I ask people, “What does the matzah represent,” the answer is almost always the same: I hear the story about leaving Egypt in haste. I almost never hear the quotation we read each year at Seder, “the poor bread.” Perhaps that’s because we wish to accentuate the positive. I wonder, though, if it’s a reluctance to accept the world as it is, warts and all.

The Seder ritual is full of such symbols. We eat the bitter herb together with the sweet charoset, reminding us that one must taste the bitterness of bondage before finding sweetness in liberation. We behold a roasted egg, symbol of the Jerusalem Temple, burned to the ground with a fire so hot that even its stones walls exploded. The Temple in ruins is Judaism’s symbol for the reality that we live in an imperfect, unredeemed world. The world as it is, as God created it, is filled with poverty and injustice—even slavery, with human beings trafficked like commodities for free labor or worse, for unwilling prostitution. And God knows, this unredeemed world today includes a devastating pandemic and the hardships of mass unemployment that accompany it.

Our Seder also invites us to open the door to Elijah—that is, to the prospect of redemption, of a better world to come. A custom that many of us have adopted is not to fill Elijah’s cup in advance, but to ask every participant at the Seder to fill that cup, symbolizing our collective responsibility to bring redemption. This year, we’ll have to do that in much smaller groups or even virtually, but the symbolism remains powerful. We can make the world better, even in this difficult time.

We are livestreaming worship services from the homes of clergy and volunteers. Yes, we miss being together—and even the inspiration of bringing our Sanctuary into our homes, which we have enjoyed in the last few weeks. More importantly, though, we will better protect ourselves from the virus and model the most important step that everybody can take to stay well: Stay home.

Some of us can volunteer in ways that lighten the burden for others. I’m grateful to be part of an effort by the congregation I serve, our city, and the Clinton Foundation, to feed families in need during this crisis.

I do not know why this world is as it is, with all its beauty and splendor, with all its cruelty and devastation. I do know that we must all do our part to enhance the service and caring, to soften the meanness and suffering. And even during these most difficult days and weeks that will stretch into months and perhaps even years, let us praise God for creating the world as it is.

Amen.

[1] I am grateful to Alan Goodis, whose song, Shekacha lo ba-olamo, inspired this reflection.
[2] Exodus 12:39
[3] The Passover Haggadah

Rabbi Barry H. Block serves Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, Arkansas. A member of the CCAR Board, he is the editor of  The Mussar Torah Commentary, CCAR Press, 2020.

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Holiday Passover Pesach Prayer

A Passover Like No Other

Last year we ended our Seders with “Next year in Jerusalem,” imagining a new year filled with hopes and dreams realized, parting ways with visions of a whole new kind of gathering.

Now, here we are, a whole new gathering for sure, but one none of us could have imagined. Instead of the sounds of bride and groom singing in the streets of Jerusalem, we are reminded of Lamentations: Lonely are the streets.

We will gather electronically and spiritually, even if not physically. We will return to the beginnings of our peoplehood to nurture hopes for brighter and healthier tomorrows.

Passover during a pandemic places parents and children apart and together, connected and distant all at once.

Still, look around, look at the screen and see the smiles, look outside and see the season’s new growth, sense the hope so central to Passover and to us as Jews.

Still, take a breath, take in the beauty of the Seder table, no matter the particulars. See the people coming together to retell a tale, finding our own voices in our shared inheritance.

Still, listen to the voices, some near and some far, some with us physically, some on screen, some in spirit. Hear the voices urging us on, helping us to see beyond today to a brighter tomorrow.

Pesach presents an intersection in time for all of us. Our old ways and our new, our enslavements and our freedom, our history and our future.

We are reminded of the intersections of our people—with Egypt, Rome, and so many more. Each presented both possibility and potential problems.

This Passover, as we join in new ways, remind us of our perch at history’s intersections. Will we go back or move forward? Will we survey the land and learn from all that is arrayed before us, or charge ahead into an unknown?

Tonight, the voices of our past join with us. Listen close and you will hear the whispers: We Jews believe in hope. We Jews believe in possibility. We Jews pursue freedom for all. This year we are enslaved. Next year, we pray, may we be free!

Rabbi Daniel Fellman is the rabbi of Temple Concord in Syracuse, New York. 

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Healing member support mental health Rabbis spirituality

The Good Enough Rabbi (Redux)

Who among us hasn’t seen the so-called chain letter entitled, “The Perfect Rabbi” (modeled on “The Perfect Pastor,” author unknown)? You know, the one that says “the perfect rabbi preaches exactly fifteen minutes. He condemns sins but never upsets anyone. He works from 8:00 AM until midnight and is also a janitor. He makes $50 a week, wears good clothes, buys good books, drives a good car, and gives about $50 weekly to the poor …” etc., and then tells you to bundle up your rabbi and send him (yes, him) to the top synagogue on the list. It’s hard not to wince while smiling at this description of our laypeople’s fantasies about us. We wince a second time when we recognize how we ourselves fall victim to believing this fantasy. 

Some years ago, frustrated by the way both laypeople and rabbi had internalized this image of perfection, I wrote a parody of the parody and called it “The Good Enough Rabbi” (inspired by the British psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott’s concept of the “good enough” mother). A parody, yes, but one with underlying seriousness: What would it mean for us rabbis if we gave up the aspiration to be perfect and instead accepted the good-enough? Would we be less successful or less loved? Would we feel more inadequate, less in control, more disappointing, or more hopeless?

While you might argue that now is not the time to raise this issue once again, I would suggest that the present crisis offers the perfect (okay, good-enough) opportunity for this conversation. The coronavirus crisis highlights the basic conflicts with which we already struggle. If we normally work a little too hard, we are working even harder now. If we usually worry about how long the temple will stay afloat, we are even more concerned now. If we normally have difficulty maintaining self-care practices, whatever little we might have done before falls apart at a time like this. If protecting a day off always requires some effort, that effort feels herculean in this moment. 

It’s true that we live in desperate times. We’ve been called upon to shift our entire rabbinic life onto Zoom. We’ve been challenged to offer pastoral care remotely, a seeming contradiction in terms. We stand alone by the graveside. We scramble to create an appropriate backdrop to our teaching and services, all the while watching the disappearance of our carefully guarded boundaries between home and work. And how again do you enhance your appearance on Zoom when your gray roots are showing and you haven’t been able to get your eyebrows waxed?

The ramping up has taken every bit of our energy and then some. Many of us are exhausted. And yet we also feel strangely gratified. We’ve been surprised at how intimate a remote funeral can feel. We’ve been overwhelmed by the number of people logging on to Shabbat services. We’ve found support from each other on our CCAR and WRN Facebook pages like never before. We’ve been stretched thin, but at the same time, we feel needed and productive. 

“This is a good moment to turn that sense of self-judgment into self-inquiry. What do you yourself need in this moment? Whatever you usually do for self-care, the solution now is to do more of it.”

We rabbis love to fix things, so this productivity can be like a drug for us. The more we experience its rewards, the more we crave it.  So we feel tempted to say yes to everything. We think about what else we can offer, how much more programming we can create, how many more phone calls we can make. At the same time, we bemoan the loss of the usual time off. We complain about how many hours we spend on Zoom. We are either sad to be alone or crazed by having children underfoot. We are in such constant motion that we have lost touch with what we might be feeling and how we are really doing. We need to sit still in order to grieve all that has been lost, both the personal and the communal. And frankly, we need to accept that we just can’t fix this.

It would be lovely to offer the perfect prescription for self-care at this point, but a self-care practice just isn’t a “one size fits all.” You first have to know yourself before you can craft what constitutes self-care for you. We have all been told we should meditate, exercise, do yoga, avoid junk food, and be in therapy (guilty as charged). It’s hard to argue with any of that. But what makes one person feel restored isn’t always the same for another. Prayer might work for you, but it might not for me. Knitting might bring solace to one, while reading does it for another. Cleaning your house and rolling out your refrigerator to vacuum the coils can be surprisingly satisfying (okay, I confess). Breaking up with Facebook is the way for some, while connecting with friends on Facebook comforts others. And what would happen if we gave ourselves permission to do nothing at all. I think of the wise words of that bear-of-very-little-brain: “Sometimes I sits and thinks,” said Winnie the Pooh, “And sometimes I just sits.” What if we, the people who gave the world the Sabbath, actually allowed ourselves a Sabbath rest?

Self-care doesn’t require conformity. If anything, it asks of us greater tolerance of the variety of ways in which we live our rabbinates. We can get a little preachy, those of us who are trained to preach. And we rabbis are a sensitive lot. We bristle at others’ telling us what we should be doing. Most of us don’t need help criticizing ourselves. We already see what someone else is doing and imagine he/she/they is the “Perfect Rabbi” against whom we don’t measure up. How often do we read our own perceived failures in other peoples’ successes? This is a good moment to turn that sense of self-judgment into self-inquiry. What do you yourself need in this moment? Whatever you usually do for self-care, the solution now is to do more of it. Rest more. Clean more. Talk more. Knit more. Binge-watch more. And if what you normally do isn’t working for you, try something else. Take advantage of the CCAR coaches who are offering pro bono sessions. Find a chevruta. Try self-compassion. And most of all, let yourself feel whatever it is that you yourself need to feel. 

We don’t know yet where and when this will end, but it will. And in that future time of recuperation and assessment, our role will be even more important. That is reason enough for us to work at self-preservation in the present so we will have energy left for tomorrow. We need to remind ourselves that working harder isn’t necessarily working better. We need to remember that being resilient may be our greatest talent of all. Our people have survived calamities and disasters by virtue of our adaptability and creativity.  Save your energy. In a time where perfection isn’t the gold standard, give yourself permission to be good enough.

* With gratitude to a wonderful Supervision Group for their suggestions and inspiring support of me and each other.

Rabbi Ellen Lewis is a certified and licensed modern psychoanalyst in private practice in Bernardsville, New Jersey, and in New York City. She was ordained at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and received her analytical training in New York at the Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies and has served on the faculty of the Academy of Clinical and Applied Psychoanalysis. She is also certified as a Fellow in the American Association of Pastoral Counselors.

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Prayer

A Prayer for a Person Isolated from a Loved One Due to Coronavirus

Rabbi Marci Bloch shares a prayer she wrote for anyone who cannot physically be with a loved one who is sick. May they be blessed with a renewal of body and spirit.


Hold me God…hold me now.
I am afraid.
My (husband/ wife/ sister /brother /child /mother /father /loved one) is alone, and my heart is breaking.
I want so bad to hold his/ her /their hand and comfort him /her /them—
but I can’t.
Help me to know that even though I am not physically there with him/ her/them….
I am very much there.

Give me hope, oh God.
Help me to put all my trust in his/her/ their doctors and his/ her/their medical staff to make the right decisions.
Fill my loved one’s lungs with air and restore him/her to life.
Protect him/ her/ them, watch over him/ her /them, heal him /her /them.

Give me strength, oh God in this hour of darkness to know you are there holding me.
Amen.

Rabbi Marci Bloch is the rabbi at Temple Beth Orr in Coral Springs, Florida.

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Prayer

Psalm 94:19: Soothe the Soul

Psalm 94:19 is traditionally read on Wednesdays. Whichever day you find yourself reading this in this challenging time, may it bring you comfort.

בְּרֹ֣ב שַׂרְעַפַּ֣י בְּקִרְבִּ֑י תַּ֝נְחוּמֶ֗יךָ יְֽשַׁעַשְׁע֥וּ נַפְשִֽׁי׃
When disquieting thoughts rage inside me, Your comforting brings me joy.

I need, we need, our world needs this psalm,
this verse, on this Wednesday morning [1], on any day.
“When I am tangled within, unsettled,
You comfort me, you soothe my soul.” [2]


שַׂרְעַפַּ֣י sar-ah-pie.
A unique word in the Bible, a favorite of the troubled Job. [3]
Perhaps a portmanteau of two words next to each other in the dictionary.
Sar-ah-pie is like saraf, with the letters sin, resh and peh—to burn.
My angst, my concerns burn within me, threaten to consume me like a fire.
Sar-ah-pie is like s’ra-ah, with the letters sin, resh and ayin extend or stretch.
My worries expand,
spreading out like flames fueled with dry timber until they rage,
filling my head, my heart, with fear and dread,
in the dark of the night and as the day dawns.
Tangled in the sheets and in my mind,
I wake. I rise.
I am unbalanced, again, like the world just yesterday. [4]

תַּ֝נְחוּמֶ֗יךָ Ta-n’chum-echah.
Buried within prefix and suffix, nun, chet and mem, nechum, Comfort.
You, God, You comfort me—
like a Parent can sooth a child after a nightmare,
like a Teacher can nourish a mind,
like a listening Friend can calm a raging one,
like a Leader can steady a country or community,
like a Shepherd can shelter the flock,
like a Rock can give shade a stifling day,
like a deep Breath can slow a pounding heart.

And finally, a Hebrew tongue twister,
worth practice, memorization, repetition.
Hold it in the mouth, release it from the lips,
know it, in the heart, by heart.
Two words:
three shins, two silent ayins, a yod at the beginning and at the end.
It’s onomatopoeia: Shshshsh…

נַפְשִֽׁי Y’sha-a-sh’u nafshi.
You, God, You soothe, You soothe my soul.
Gentle, calm, intimate.
This isn’t about the whole world,
it’s about my world, my essence, my breath.
I, the parent, the friend, the student, the leader,
a shepherd, a rock,
tangled,
I am comforted by my Breath Within.
Each breath exhaled, like wind scattering clouds,
releases a bit of pain, some worry, a flash of anger,
cools the raging fires of fear,
opens space for hope, and joy and gratitude.
These words, this Breath, soothes souls.


[1] Psalm 94 is the psalm identified in Jewish tradition to be read every Wednesday.
[2] Thanks to my student and teacher Tammy Cancela for this thoughtful insight on being “tangled”.
[3] This word appears only here and in Psalm 139:13. The BDB dictionary associates it with the root letters sin, ayin pay as in Job 4:23 and 20:2.
[4] From the Psalm read on Tuesdays: “They do not know, they do not understand, in deep darkness they stumble to and fro—all the foundations of the earth are tottering.” (Psalm 82:5)

Rabbi Debra J. Robbins is a rabbi at Temple Emanu-El in Dallas, Texas and author of the recently published book, Opening Your Heart with Psalm 27: A Spiritual Practice for the Jewish New Year, published by CCAR Press 2019, also available as an ebook.

Categories
Prayer

Prayer for Rising Waters: Getting Through Covid-19

We, who strive to illuminate for others the blessings that surround us, seek guidance for our ancient teachers. The Torah is replete with heroes forced to adjust and adapt to their new realities. This prayer invokes the Source of Life to guide us to learn from their examples and imbue us with courage, flexibility, and faith. 

Source of our Wonder and Life,
Please guide us with chesed
So that
With planning and love,
And laughter and hope,
We will find a way to cope,
And we will find a way through.

One of Blessing,
Who once blessed our ancestors,
Shine for us
A light forward,
To illumine
The unknown ahead.

Grant us resilience,
Like those who came before us:
And hope amidst the worry,
And promise amidst the fear.

•••

Guide us
Like You guided,
Noah and Naamah,
Partners who planned quickly
for unanticipated days-
Building an ark,
And gathering the animals,
And collecting the seeds
To seed a future unknown.

Help us to hear,
That in spite of our fear,
We must plan together,
Anticipating unsettling weather,
So that our small arks will float above rising waters,
And through raging storms yet to come.

•••

And please hold our children,
Like You held
Isaac the assaulted,
Who struggled to find meaning
After his life was torn apart.

Don’t let this
Childhood trauma
Close up their hearts.
Rather grant us the smarts,
And a love
Deep like Rebekah’s,
To get them through this era
By teaching them a lesson:

That by loving each other,
And by sharing our hearts,
We can overcome
Even the most debilitating
Worry, anxiety, and fear.

•••

And uplift each of us too
Like You uplifted
Sarai the soulful,
Who dug deep amidst her despair,
To discover strength
Hidden within.

Like she who fed the others,
Those three stranger-wanderers
Who arrived from a distance
So far, far away.
May we feed each other,
With manna from our souls,
Shrinking the distance between us
With words we text, tweet, or say.

Send us hope for the future –
Like her child to be born! –
So that we too may laugh,
As we telegraph,
Amidst the greatest of fear
Now sitting with us here,
That amongst all of the oys,
We will still find great joy,
Unbounded,
Unending,
And simchas so deep.

Rabbi Paul J. Kipnes is the spiritual leader of Congregation Or Ami in Calabasas, California. Recently, he wrote about conducting a funeral in the time of COVID-19.

Categories
News

Gam Zeh Yaavor: Uplifting Each Other during a Time of Crisis

Gam Zeh Yaavor. According to the Jewish folktale, this was the inscription inside Solomon’s “magical” ring, which if a happy person looked upon, made her sad, but if a sad person looked upon, made him happy. In reality the ring had no magic, only wisdom, reminding Solomon, and us, that all things and events are transient.

Gam Zeh Yaavor. “This too shall pass.” The question of this moment is not “if,” and we simply cannot answer the question of “when?” The compelling question is how shall we respond during the passing days, weeks and months? Recognizing that even though we know that we will traverse this crisis (gam zeh yaavor) doesn’t mean that we should ignore how we get there.

If anything, history, and especially Jewish history, is a guide to what we should try to avoid during a time of pandemic. If so-called “social distancing” (a poor term given that there is nothing “social” about distancing ourselves from one another) requires our physical separation from one another, then our every effort must be to work at social contact and interconnection.

For some of us that is easier because we have a significant circle of family and/or friends. But for others in our community, social distancing risks social isolation. We who constitute the synagogue community are dedicated to making sure no one passes through this period in such isolation.

Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav taught that at times “the entire world can seem like a narrow bridge.” Our choices are constricted and we feel we are hanging over a precipice. At such a moment, he taught, “the most important thing is not to give in to our fear.”

“Fear not, for I am with you. Do not be frightened, for I am your God” (Isaiah 41:10).

“Do not be afraid, Jacob my servant; do not be dismayed, Israel.” (Jeremiah 46:27)

The phrase, “Al tira—Do not fear,” is repeated so often in Hebrew Scriptures that Maimonides claims that “Al tira” is one of the 365 negative commandments of the Torah (Sefer HaMitzvot, Lo Taaseh 58; and in the Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Melachim 7:15).

Fear is a normative emotional response. Scripture certainly isn’t expecting us to simply turn this emotion off. But what we do with our fear IS a matter of choice. There is a Divine force that will strengthen and encourage us if we choose not to give in to our fear. Fear can be immobilizing. Fear can lead us to shut down, to turn away the efforts of those who are reaching out to us. And in an environment such as ours, the daily changes in information and reportage, recommendations and policies can lead us to stop listening or to stick to failed approaches.

Yet, paired with our faith in “decisive action” and our desire “to do something,” fear sometimes leads us to act precipitously rather than calming ourselves and awaiting greater insight and understanding. And fear can also be seductive. It leads some to find “answers” and “explanations” by seeking to blame someone, some group. Fear too often is used as a permission by some to vent their fears, sometimes violently, at others. We Jews are all too familiar with this tendency in human history. Gaining control (if not full mastery) over our fear is what we all seek, and we do that best together, not separately; communally, not individually. Social isolation, isolation from human faces and words, isolation from the attention and concern of others will surely injure each of us even if the virus does not.

If we must keep our physical distance, then we must also bridge the divide that separates us in every other way. As Solomon taught in the Book of Proverbs: “Worry in a person’s heart will bring one low, but a choice word will lift one up.” We can’t offer ourselves that choice word—only another person has that power.

Each of us is equipped with the means of uplifting the others around us. The visage of a smiling face happy to see another, the comfort of a familiar voice, the sincere inquiry into the well-being of another, the genuine offer to assist. These are the tools we have been blessed with to lighten the burden and help make this time pass.

Gam zeh yaavor!

Keyn y’hi ratzon.

Rabbi Serge A. Lippe was ordained at HUC-JIR in 1991 and has served as the spiritual leader of the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue for the last 23 years. He is the editor of Birkon Artzi: Blessings and Meditations for Travelers to Israel, published by CCAR Press. 

Categories
Rituals

Differentiating Time and Space: Spiritual Advice for Those Working from Home during COVID-19

As my colleagues are well aware, Jewish tradition makes a very big deal of drawing distinctions, at least in the earthly realm in which we currently reside. I’m not sure I’ve ever understood as fully the vital importance of that capacity as now, when most of us seem to be living in undifferentiated time and space; in time, in response to seemingly unending information about and need to respond to COVID-19, and in space, most of us are now relegated, to shut-in status (and what a rare opportunity for growing compassionate understanding!).

We eat, sleep, work, play, laugh and cry all in the same space. Perhaps you too have read advice suggesting that during this time of working at home, it is wise to pick a designated space—not the bedroom, if possible—set aside for work. I invite us to experience this as an act of mitzvah for performing the work of mitzvah to which you are committed. Make a space, sacred to the work and, equally, designate the rest of your space as sacred to non-work. After all, that too is holy (think Shabbat). And, while thinking Shabbat, to the extent possible, you may find it helpful to draw similar distinctions in time—again, to the extent possible. We need a little Shabbat, in space and time, every day.

Finally, consider the possibility of ritualizing the entry into and out of work space/time; a havdalah of sorts, in which to prepare yourself for what is required and offered distinctly in each of the two spaces. Perhaps take a moment to meditate, or offer a kavanah or a blessing—something that will help you to remember the sacred space/time of work and the sacred space and time of laying down that work and allowing yourself…to breathe. And may you be strengthened in and for all the good you are and you do.

Rabbi Rex D Perlmeter, LSW, is the CCAR Special Advisor for Member Care and Wellness.

Categories
Healing mental health News Torah

The Salted Offering: Grief’s Place on the Altar

Rabbi Nikki DeBlosi wrote this piece to share with colleagues in the Hillel world (and beyond) via Hillel International’s Office of Innovation. 

I’ve been crying a lot these days. Many of you have been, too. From the increasingly distressing news, to the demands of homeschooling our young children, to mourning the loss of the senior year we had dreamed of for so long, much brings us to tears.

I have to admit, I wasn’t very comforted when first I turned to this Shabbat’s Torah portion, Vayikra. Detailing the circumstances and forms of the various sacrifices our people were commanded to bring to the altar of the Temple, the parashah starts right in with details for which animals to bring at which times, how they would be slaughtered, and what type of expiation would be thereby attained. Collective guilt, blood and sinew, the recognition that closeness requires sacrifice: the truths contained in the priestly sacrifices seemed both too distant and too close to home.

In this global crisis, there’s too much blaming, shaming, finger-pointing, and hoarding; and yet, we see also glimpses of collective responsibility, from sewing homemade masks to calling nursing home residents barred from welcoming in-person visitors. The porousness of our bodies confronts us everywhere we look; I could spin into despair, and then I hear my youngest singing, “Happy Birthday to Someone,” each and every time they wash their little hands, and I smile. On the tree-lined sidewalks of my Brooklyn street, as flowering trees begin to blossom, I find myself shuffling away from my neighbors; and then I recall with fear and gratitude the closeness to this disease of my friends and students and colleagues who are healthcare workers.

What a time to read of the sacrifices of our people—and their awe, which we understand so differently now—of our bodily fluids and the precarious barrier between life and death.

And then a particular verse caught my eye:

וְכָל-קָרְבַּן מִנְחָתְךָ בַּמֶּלַח תִּמְלָח וְלֹא תַשְׁבִּית מֶלַח בְּרִית אֱלֹהֶיךָ מֵעַל מִנְחָתֶךָ עַל כָּל-קָרְבָּנְךָ תַּקְרִיב מֶלַח

 “You shall season your every offering of meal with salt; you shall not omit from your meal offering the salt of your covenant with God; with all your offerings you must offer salt” (Vayirka 2:13).

Immediately photos of emptied grocery store shelves flashed in my mind. No milk. No flour. No bread. No toilet paper. No disinfectant, or paper towels, or vinegar, or pasta, or frozen vegetables, or medical masks, or latex gloves. Salt in plenty.

A precious preservative, salt represents an everlasting covenant, a relationship between God and the people that stands the test of time, as the Ramban notes. But there is another meaning, and it comes from the story of creation.

In the beginning, all was chaos, and the waters were united. It was not until the second day that God “separated water from water” (B’reishit 1:6‒7).

Imagine how it felt for those waters: united for the eye-blink of an eternity, before there was anything at all, anything but God and the unformed void, there were waters, confusedly one. Suddenly, God begins the great act of creation, and in that act of creation, God made something new for the waters: distance, separation.

In what seemed to some a moment, in what seemed to others an agonizingly slow few weeks as the COVID-19 virus spread across the globe, the human family faced a new and stark separation. We tribal creatures have retreated to separate abodes, water divided from water.

According to the Midrash, the inevitable consequence of this separation was…tears:

אָמַר רַבִּי בֶּרֶכְיָה לֹא פֵּרְשׁוּ הַמַּיִם הַתַּחְתּוֹנִים מִן הָעֶלְיוֹנִים אֶלָּא בִּבְכִיָּה

Rabbi Berechyah said: “The waters below did not separate from those above except with weeping” (B’reishit Rabbah 5:4).

Here it is: the salt. According to the wise rabbis of our tradition, the salt we offer at the altar, the salt that accompanies all our sacrifices, has its origins in the tears of separation. The salt of the waters before creation, the waters that became sea and sky, were salty tears of grief.

What does it mean, during the COVID-19 pandemic, to season our offerings with salt? It means we bring our tears to all that we give in this crisis, and that is okay. It means that what connects us to God and to tradition and to the Jewish people, spread out as we are and isolated in our individual homes, is not only the gifts we bring, but our griefs and our disappointments as well.

Indeed, says the great Torah commentator Rashi, when God saw the disappointment and sadness of the lower waters, God decreed that the salt of the sea would forever be offered upon the altar, linking what is below to what is above, what is mundane to what is holy.

It can be this way for us, too. During this crisis, we can maintain our holy and life-giving distance, and we can mourn the loss of closeness, community, and contact. We can sacrifice what is needed, the “fat” of our material resources, and we can season those offerings with our feelings of loss.

Our tradition demands much of us: no longer the precisely rendered fats and juices of bulls and rams and turtle-doves; instead, a daily, rhythmical, cyclical attention to the blessings (quotidian and extraordinary) that surround us, and a scrupulous quest to engage in practices ethical and collectively beneficial. In such times as these, the demands of tradition can ground us. But without the salt of our grief and disappointment, we risk being crushed under their enormity.

Vulnerability is frightening. And it is deeply human. From the Torah and from modern thinkers like Brene Brown, we can gain much from looking at our vulnerability as an offering we can make alongside our resilience, strength, and pragmatism (all of which we need right now).

Ask yourself today: What sacrifices have I made to benefit the public good during this crisis? What sacrifices have I made to preserve my own safety, the safety of those I love, or the safety of my neighbors and community?

Light a candle. Breathe in for a count of four. Focus on a sacrifice you have made. Now breathe out for a count of four. As you watch the flickering flame, as you see its smoke rise, know that your sacrifices are linked to the sacrifices our people have made in the past.

Ask yourself today: What offerings have I withheld from my family, my friends, my community, at this time? How might I safely contribute my gifts?

Have you forgotten what talents and skills you possess? It’s easy, in times of high anxiety and widespread fear, to focus on what we cannot do, on how powerless we might feel. Imagine yourself, picture yourself, at your most skillful and competent. What characterizes you at your best? Make a list of these attributes. Brainstorm one action you might take to use that skill as a gift to others, whether they be folks in your household or in the wider world.

And, finally, ask yourself now: What griefs and disappointments have seemed “too trivial” to voice during this crisis? While it is true that this pandemic affects us differently, with very real and dire unique consequences for the chronically ill, the disabled, the poor (the list is far too long), we may also be holding on to grief unrecognized. I have spoken with wedding couples blessed to have one another, and yet grieving the celebration they have been forced to downsize or cancel. I have heard from students with secure places to live and plenty of food, and yet grieving the commencement ceremony they had pictured for four long years. Your griefs and disappointments are real, and need not be placed on a scale of “worst” or “hardest.”

And so the Torah reminds us: make your sacrifices, for the sake of the whole people, but do not omit the salt from your offerings. Your grief has a place on the altar.

Rabbi Nikki DeBlosi, PhD, spent the first years of her rabbinate at New York University’s Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life. She is currently transitioning into freelance and other rabbinic work; learn more at rabbinikki.com. 

Categories
Death News

A First Funeral During the COVID-19 Pandemic: What We Did

To my colleagues and community,

I officiated at the funeral of a wonderful man who, while fighting cancer, was felled by COVID-19. This appears to have been the first COVID-19 death at the cemetery where this funeral was held. Preparing for this funeral was intensely complex as the mortuary/cemetery and I were creating a protocol ex nihilo, as we went along. I fully expect that the cemetery and my personal practices will evolve as we learn more about this disease and as the numbers of dead increase dramatically. I am documenting what we did with colleagues to help you think through how to navigate this challenging situation.

I am a Reform rabbi—married, heterosexual, with children—working in a synagogue. I share this because these realities inform how I engage with tradition/minhag/halachah and how I make my rabbinic decisions. I recognize that the compromises and decisions I made will not speak to some.

What did we do?

  1. We had a burial.
  2. We held a community minyan service over Zoom and the oramiLIVE.com livestream (over 400+ people attended).
  3. Per the family’s wishes, we will hold an in-person memorial service once people can be together. 
  4. I offered to accompany the aveilim to the grave for another ritual, after their tests come back negative.

Who can attend the burial of a deceased who had COVID-19?

We decided that family members who were in his presence, and thus at risk of infection, would not be able to attend until they tested negative. This included his wife, children, parents, and in-laws. (I do not believe I would have officiated if they insisted on attending.) They considered these options:

  1. Holding his body with a shomeir present, testing family members and waiting for results, and then burying later.
  2. Burying with a rabbi with or without other family members.
  3. Cremating, holding cremains until family could gather for burial.
  4. Livestreaming (FaceTime, Google hangouts, etc.) the graveside burial for the family only.
  5. Livestreaming the graveside burial for the community.

Ultimately, the rabbi and a few other family members attended. At the last minute, the wife/children decided to use Facetime to participate.

How We Maintained Safe Distancing

We made it clear to all—mortuary personnel, family attending—that we would maintain a strict policy of six to 10 feet of physical distancing. Sometimes it took repeated reminders to get everyone to stay at a distance; this is expected in a culture of caring through close presence and touch. My agreement with myself, the family, and most importantly, my wife, was that I would be exceedingly machmir (strict) about this.

  1. For this first funeral, my wife attended to be my monitor. While machmir about distancing, there were moments when my desire to comfort had me almost let down my guard. With a gesture and sometimes a loving pull, she reminded me to stay back.
  2. Mortuary personnel were instructed not to approach close to cars or people. A hand up in a “stop” gesture.
  3. Siddurim: I prepared prayer sheets and emailed them to attendees. That way they did not need to accept the siddurim from the personnel. (The cemetery says they wipe them down after each use.)
  4. Family attendees brought their own shovels, borrowed from neighbors, and personally wiped down. (The cemetery says they wipe them down after each use.) Attendees completely covered the casket before leaving.
  5. Family attendees remained at one side of the grave, appropriately spread out, I was at the other.
  6. K’riah: No direct aveilim (mourners) were present. I had the aveilim cut up a black shirt and pin it to their clothes; over FaceTime I led them in the blessing and instructed them to tear.
  7. Washing: I brought a reusable bottle of tap water to wash my hands before leaving.
  8. Kaddish/Minyan: Between the attendees, my wife, myself, Jewish personnel, and the family at home, we had a minyan for Kaddish. In truth, had we not had the Minyan, I would have had them recite Kaddish anyway. 

How Did We Prepare the Body?

The deceased was received from the hospital morgue in a special bag that protects against spread of disease.

  1. I consulted with knowledgeable infectious disease and emergency room doctors about whether a body can transmit disease. They told me that there would not be the spray like from a cough or sneeze, but the body can hold onto disease like an inanimate object. The length of time of infection from a deceased with COVID-19 was as yet unclear. However, they strongly suggested we refrain from touching the body or washing it.
  2. Keeping bag closed: To minimize infection, we decided not to open the body bag (I do not know if the mourners knew this). The brother-in-law of the deceased approved that identification using the hospital tag would be sufficient.
  3. Tahara (preparing/washing the body): With mourners and family members, we decided not to do tahara because, (a) we did not want to endanger those who do the ritual (if medical personnel do not have sufficient personal protection equipment/PPE, surely those doing the ritual would not), (b) we did not want to take PPE away from the lifesaving work of medical personnel, (c) medical advice was that while washing, splatters or droplets might be dangerous.
  4. Tachrichim (dressing the body): The mourners initially wanted him buried with special clothes from home. Deciding that transporting and disinfecting these clothes represented an added risk, we agreed to do a modified tachrichim. The deceased was kept in the sealed bag, and the bagged body was wrapped in linen shrouds. A tallit, provided by the mortuary (purchased by family), was appropriately placed around the shoulder part of the deceased, with tzitzit cut as traditional . The necklace the family wanted him buried in—transferred from the hospital with his other personal items—was laid on the wrapped body in the coffin.

How did we care for the deceased community?

It became very clear that this death affected people in multiple ways and on multiple levels. The needs of the community felt similar to certain tragic deaths in Israel: it involved the whole community in multiple ways (forgive the imperfect comparison). 

  1. Like after most deaths, they lost a dear friend, family member, co-worker;
  2. This was the first deceased they knew of this pandemic. This death made the pandemic more real and personal;
  3. They were horrified though understanding that the aveilim were unable to attend their loved one’s burial (many were worried about this happening to them in the future);
  4. They recognized this is just the first of many, many more deaths to come;
  5. They were struggling with their inability to offer condolences and support in usual ways—with hugs, attending minyanim, sending food, visiting the aveilim, etc.

What we did:

  1. We held a community minyan service over Zoom and the oramiLIVE.com livestream (over 400+ people attended). While called a minyan, we understood this would also be an unofficial community memorial service as well as a moment of group therapy.
  2. Cantor Doug Cotler and I led the minyan.
  3. We invited six people to speak for three minutes only. We interspersed with prayers and songs. We said Kaddish.
  4. I spent time betwixt and between counseling people through the complex emotions. Consulting with congregant-therapists helped me prepare for this.
  5. Also: I took care of myself. Sleeping in, taking time off, prescheduling therapy, and exercise.

Finally, I thank the leadership of the cemetery I worked with and our local clergy colleagues for working diligently to create, revise, and re-revise the protocols for preparation and burial for this evolving pandemic.

 Rabbi Paul J. Kipnes is the spiritual leader of Congregation Or Ami in Calabasas, California.