Category: D’var Torah

Wisdom from the Wilderness

On By scatteredleaves322In D'var Torah, Holidays, Sermon, SermonsLeave a comment

There’s a name for what we’re experiencing . That feeling of having our hearts broken so repeatedly by the news cycle. Flash floods, fires, mass shootings, wars within us, wars between us, and wars in the world. Wars that make us question who we really are as a people. One day you’re worrying about climate change, the next it’s a group project, AI taking over, what you’re going to do with your life, the next pandemic, your situationship, economic collapse, or drama within your friendgroup. There’s never enough time to process one crisis before another begins. Even when the crisis is no longer acute, there’s a pit in our collective stomach, and it’s not just because we’re Jews with stomach problems. There’s anxiety pulsing through our communities as we wonder what will happen next. The feeling is called “existential whiplash.”  An instagram post from a mental health service called Spring Health says that “existential whiplash” is the emotional strain of trying to keep up with daily life while everything around us feels uncertain or overwhelming. 

Our ancestors knew a thing or two about this feeling, and what it’s like to yearn for stability, while knowing that change is going to keep coming. They survived slavery, escaped Egypt, and crossed the Red Sea. They had a dramatic experience at Mt. Sinai. They reached the Promised Land.  In between these major events, they wandered in the desert – trying to live amid existential whiplash, just like us. The Hebrew word for desert is “midbar.” It also means “wilderness.” The word  midbar appears approximately 270 times in the Torah. It represents uncertainty, wandering, a feeling of lostness in a world churning  with change. 

We’ve spent a lot of time here too, bamidbar – in our own spiritual wilderness. Believe it or not, 2020 was only five years ago. It’s been a long five years, and it’s been utterly exhausting. But all that intergenerational trauma we’ve acquired – going all the way back to our ancestors in the midbar – comes with intergenerational resilience. We are still here.  Still moving forward. We’re even still complaining about it, much like our ancestors in the desert.  

Tonight, I’m going to share 7 lessons for our spiritual wilderness based on our ancestral experience, as well as a few lessons based on the literal wilderness. Some of our most powerful spiritual technologies mirror the interdependent systems of the natural world. In the wilderness, we have an opportunity to learn from that which is wild, around and within us. We will see what our ancestors and the natural world can teach us about the resilience we have right now – and the ways we can build it for the future.  

7 Lessons from the Wilderness 

Lesson 1: Build sanctuaries. “V’asu li mikdash, v’shohanti b’tocham” – God says. “Make for Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell within them.” The mishkan – the communal, portable sanctuary in the desert – was elaborate. Five Torah portions in Exodus discuss the building of this space, sometimes in excruciating detail. The mishkan teaches us that at times of uncertainty, we should build something beautiful. We should pour our energy into creating, especially co-creating something that will serve the community. 

What sanctuaries have you built in our wilderness? What does your mishkan look like? Your mishkan might be your dorm room, a friend’s car, or your favorite coffee shop. It might be the arboretum or another outdoor space where you feel at peace. When you can’t change the whole world, you can still create something beautiful. Something safe. Something meaningful to you and those around you. 

The commentators point out that “v’shohanti b’tocham,” means “that I may dwell within them.” Yes, we must build physical sanctuaries, and we do – and on another level, the text may be referring to the people themselves. “Make for Me a sanctuary that I may dwell within them,” the people. The mishkan, the dwelling place for the Divine – is within every one of us.  

This means you can both build and be a sanctuary – for yourself and others. When have you been a sanctuary for someone you care about this year? When have you been your own? What does it look like to know there is a safe and sacred space within you, one you can always return to? The ultimate mishkan – traveling temple – goes wherever you go, and is there for you no matter what. This is the first lesson of the wilderness: In times of existential whiplash, build sanctuaries. 

There are many examples of collaborative building in the wild that can be instructive for us. Bees build hives and make honey through a process called festooning.. These “festoons” create structural support and regulate the temperature of the hive. Within the hive, there are worker bees who build honeycomb, nurse bees caring for the young, and scout bees who search for optimal hive collections. Each bee contributes to the structure that enables the hive to thrive. 

This leads me to lessons 2 and 3. Lesson 2 is Everyone has something to offer. God instructed every person to bring gifts to the sanctuary, telling Moses, “You shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart is so moved.”  Everyone was asked to give from their heart, and every gift was accepted.  

What can you do to sustain yourself and your community?  Are you an expert problem solver? Someone with powerful listening skills? Are you creative? Are you the person who can always make your friends laugh? Think about what you can give, and give it with love. It might be exactly what your community needs. Lesson 2. Everyone has something to offer. 

Like bees, when we contribute our skills and strengths to our community, we also benefit from the skills of others. This creates a more capable community that allows people to flourish – even or especially in the wilderness. This is where lesson three comes in. Ask for help. In the mishkan, Kohanim were the priests, who made sacrifices on behalf of themselves and their communities. The Levi’im played music and managed the practical aspects of Temple worship. There were also specific roles for individuals. Miriam was the one who could always find water. Betzalel was an artist who designed that first mishkan. 

Lessons 2 and 3 are connected. If everyone has something to offer, you can help others – and others are here to help you, like the bees in their hive. We all have different skills to share. Who, in your wilderness, can you turn to for help? Who can you reach out to when you experience existential whiplash?  When your well has run dry, find a Miriam who can help you locate a new source of lifegiving water. If you can’t serve God by leading song, find yourself some Levites who can. 

Hasidic master Sefat Emet wrote, “Each one gave their own offering,  but they were all joined together by the Mishkan, and became one. Only then did they merit the Divine Presence.” Each person had something unique and precious to offer – but they could not experience the Divine Presence until they shared these offerings. We became a people united not by what we took, what we achieved, or what we conquered. We became a people united by what we gave to one another.

Ecosystems are interdependent. Beavers create habitats, and those habitats are shared with other life forms. Recent research suggests that trees of the same species are communal, and will form alliances with trees of other species. Some claim that forest trees live in cooperative, interdependent relationships, maintained by communication similar to an insect colony. We are both of and in the wilderness. No one can make it through the wilderness alone and fortunately, we don’t have to. Third lesson from the wilderness: Ask for help. 

One Jewish practice that speaks to lessons 2 and 3 is the act of praying with a minyan – ten people. Mourner’s Kaddish is one prayer we only say when we have a minyan. We show up to support the mourners so they can say this prayer during their time of vulnerability and grief. In my prayer services, we count the Jews who are in the building, not just the ones who are in our service, because we are here together for the same reason. We are here because we know we are interdependent, because it strengthens the community, and because we believe in showing up. 

In April, there was a 5.2 magnitude earthquake in Southern California. A livecam from the San Diego Zoo showed all the adult elephants making a protective circle around the two youngest elephants. This behavior is a natural instinct to protect the most vulnerable. An elephant minyan. I think about it when we pray Mourner’s Kaddish together. We can’t protect anyone from grief. But there is so much power in showing up, like the elephants – it makes the grief just a little more bearable, a little less lonely. 

When there’s existential whiplash, make the minyan.  When others ask for help, it’s ok to not always have the right words. Sometimes, showing up is the help. When people are vulnerable, when things are uncertain, when the ground itself feels shaky – count your people, leave no one behind, show up, and be counted yourself. 

Lesson 4: Practice mindful awareness – be present and look around. Our ancestors often found what they needed in the wilderness when they least expected it.

Jacob ran into the wilderness after deceiving his brother and his father. He fell asleep with his head on a rock, and he dreamed of a ladder with angels ascending and descending. Jacob awakened, saying “Mah norah hamokom hazeh!” God was in this place, and I didn’t know it. 

Moses was also bamidar when he saw a bush, burning, but not consumed in the fire. He had run away from Pharaoh’s land, struggling with his conflicting identities as a master in Pharaoh’s palace and a Hebrew, like those Pharaoh enslaved. God spoke to Moses from the burning bush, saying, “Take off your shoes. The place where you are standing is holy ground.”  It was existential whiplash. 

Moses and Jacob were in the wilderness – physically, emotionally, and spiritually – when they received these messages. The Israelites were in the wilderness when we received the Torah at Mt. Sinai. Midrash Rabbah Numbers 1:1 teaches that this was because the Israelites had to be “free and ownerless like the desert” in order to receive it.  The lesson is to be aware of your surroundings. God was in that place. The ground itself was vibrating with holiness. That which appears empty is full of potential. Make yourself free and ownerless like the desert. That which appears mundane may actually be sacred.  Lesson 4.  When facing existential whiplash, practice mindful awareness.  You never know what the wilderness of our moment might reveal.  

Lesson 5 is to forgive. Yom Kippur is the anniversary of the day God forgave the Israelites for one of the greatest sins of all-time – building and worshipping a golden calf. Moses went up Mt. Sinai to receive the Torah from God. The Israelites were afraid and uncertain as they waited. We’ve all been there. We turn to unhealthy coping mechanisms in the wilderness of the unknown, just like our ancestors did.  Even Aaron, Moses’s brother, a leader in the community, took part, inciting the group to not just build, but worship the false idol. 

We have all worshipped false idols in the last year. We have doomscrolled through the desert, worshipping headlines, statements, and trends, arguing in comments instead of taking responsibility for our errors. Your leaders, like Aaron, have also committed this sin. But the story of the golden calf and God’s forgiveness of our ancestors remind us how important it is to forgive, even if it means forgiving idolatry. 

Individuals can’t be perfect, communities can’t be perfect, and the world can’t be perfect.  Ecosystems can’t be perfect either –  even a slight shift in one element can create significant and damaging change across the system. Without grace for the flaws of individuals, communities, or the world, we lose interest in showing up to help each other. We instead cut ourselves and others out. Our communities suffer as a result, much like our ecosystems when something is missing. 

On Yom Kippur, we pray for God to forgive us, as God forgave us for the golden calf. But the only thing we can really do is forgive each other and ourselves. Adonai, Adonai, El Rachum v’Chanun, we chant, listing God’s 13 attributes of mercy – God, God, compassionate and merciful. Can we be compassionate with one another? Can we have mercy on ourselves? Can you forgive yourself for your own idolatry? Can you forgive your community? The world? Can you forgive God? It’s a tall ask. It’s not always possible and it’s not even always the right thing to do. But most of the time, it is – and we must try. Lesson 5. Forgiveness. 

Lesson 6 is to make space for grief. Miriam, Aaron, and Moses – all great leaders – eventually die in the wilderness, before the Promised Land. We’ll focus on Moses and Aaron first. Regarding Aaron’s death, the Torah says “All the house of Israel bewailed Aaron thirty days.” Regarding Moses’s death, we read, “The Israelites bewailed Moses in the steppes of Moab for thirty days.”  To this day, shloshim – 30 days – is one of the mourning periods after a death in Jewish tradition.  With their deaths, Aaron and Moses taught us how to grieve. 

Elephants revisit the remains of deceased herd members, touching and examining the bones, or standing vigil for extended periods. Some cry and refuse to eat after losing a companion. Dolphin mothers may carry their dead calves for periods of time, and other pod members may assist in carrying the body or guarding it. 

Loss happens in the wilderness. In ours, it may seem like everyone is grieving, all the time. But announcements of anguish for suffering communities does not reflect a full grieving process. Existential whiplash leads to “statement culture.” Everyone feels the need to say something about the most recent bad news. It’s often necessary, but it keeps real grief itself at a distance. We need to pause. We need to wail, like the Israelites cried for Moses and Aaron. We need to reflect and remember, like elephants revisiting their herd members’ bones. Make space to mourn. That’s lesson 6.  

Lesson 7 is to practice trust. God appeared to the Israelites as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. The pillars  were with them at all times, reminding the Israelites that they were safe. That’s right. They had an emotional support pillar-of-cloud.  Still, as a people traumatized by a history of enslavement, it took them a long time to trust their safety, their leaders, and God. Even when the Israelites were on the verge of the Promised Land, they believed false risk reports, and acted out from a place of fear. They had to wait another 40 years before going into the land as a result.  Nonetheless, the pillars of cloud and  fire stayed with them; a Divine Presence. A reminder that they could learn to trust. 

When you are hypervigilant, or overly attuned to risk – what is your pillar? What shows you that you are safe, that you can trust the process, that you will be cared for, no matter how the future unfolds? Can you trust yourself? Your leaders? Your community? Lesson 7 is to “practice trust” because in times of emotional whiplash, it really does take practice. But our ancestors learned how. And so can we. 

I want to share one case study from the wilderness that shows what happens when we miss the mark in each of these lessons.  When Miriam died in the wilderness, “The community was without water, and they joined against Moses and Aaron. The people quarreled with Moses, saying, “Why have you brought God’s congregation into this wilderness for us and our livestock to die there? Why did you make us leave Egypt to bring us to this wretched place, a place with no grain or figs or vines or pomegranates? There is not even water to drink!”

Miriam was the one who made wells of water appear in the desert, so their concern about water was understandable – but by now, they had been bamidbar for a long time. God had provided what they needed, from manna to eat, to the Torah herself.  By whining for the Egypt they left behind, the Israelites abandoned the sanctuaries they built together.  With mindful awareness, the Israelites might have made space for Moses and Aaron to grieve for their sister. Instead, they panicked, quarreled, and cried for water. Ultimately, God told Moses to speak to a rock, and water would pour from it. In Moses’s rage, he hit the rock instead. 

It’s so relatable. The communal experience of water anxiety. The personal loss. The competing needs, everyone yelling over everyone else. And all of it happening all at once. It was existential whiplash. Instead of grieving, he had to make it stop. He had to fix it. Can anyone relate? Me too. With awareness, Moses might have said “I hear your concern for water. God will provide. Give me a few minutes to myself before I ask God for help.” Instead, he lashed out, hitting the rock in his rage. 

We are living in a wilderness, experiencing profound existential whiplash. The Israel / Palestine crisis, the climate catastrophe, rising antisemitism, lack of access to health care – the list goes on.  While the issues themselves may be new to us, the experience of wilderness is, for lack of a better term – precedented. We have been afraid and uncertain before. We know what happens when we act from a place of fear, building false idols that don’t really protect us. We know what happens when we jump into fixer-mode, without first making space for grief.  We are interdependent, like so many animals in the wilderness. When just a couple of wolves can’t trust the others, it threatens the health of the whole pack. 

We also know what it’s like to build and to be a sanctuary, for each other and for ourselves. We know how to make a minyan, how to lean on each other, and we know how to make offerings that come from the heart.  We know that every bee’s role is urgently needed for the health of the hive. We know how to see the sacred where we least expect it to find it. We can lessen the pain of existential whiplash by looking to the midbar – the wildernesses of our past, the wild world around us, and the wildernesses within, to discover what we need to thrive.  

To recap: 

Lesson 1. Build Sanctuaries. 

Lesson 2. Everyone has something to offer. 

Lesson 3. Ask for help. 

Lesson 4. Practice mindful awareness.

Lesson 5. Forgive. 

Lesson 6. Grieve. 

Lesson 7. Trust. 


A midrash teaches that midbar, wilderness, is linked to the word “midaber,” which means speech. We can use our speech, our words, to teach one another these lessons when we’ve forgotten. We can use them to write down our stories, so we can return to them in the next wilderness. We can use them to remind ourselves that our ancestors passed down their grit (along with all that anxiety and the stomach problems), and that we are stronger for it. We are always in the wilderness and there are always sanctuaries and we keep trying and learning and becoming. There are words for what we are experiencing – existential whiplash. And there’s a term for the antidote – it’s what happens when we learn from everything behind us, around us, and within us. It’s resilience.

Hovering: Rosh HaShanah 5785

On By scatteredleaves322In Communal Tragedy, D'var Torah, Holidays, Sermon1 Comment

Wow. What a year. I have to be honest, friends. I don’t know what to say about it. I don’t know what to say about the year we are leaving behind. I don’t know what to say about where we are now – with rockets flying in multiple directions, slogans screaming across Instagram, countless lives lost and relationships shattered since October 7th. I don’t know what to say about where we are going in this new year when there’s no resolution in sight. We eat apples dipped in honey, illustrating our hopes for a sweet new year. But it can be really hard to think or talk about sweetness when we are tasting bitterness at the same time. 

The beauty of Jewish holidays is that they are both commemorative and experiential. We are asked to remember something that happened in the past – AND we experience it in real time. At Passover we are told that we ourselves are coming out of slavery. Rosh Hashanah is a time when we both remember and experience renewal, rebirth, and creation. When God began creating the world, 5785 days ago in Jewish time, the earth was tohu vavohu, chaos and void. And choshech, darkness, was on the face of the deep. And Ruach Elohim, the spirit of God, m’rachefet, hovered on the face of the water.

What was God feeling in that moment, hovering over the darkness? Was God afraid of the void? Anxious amid the chaos? What did it take for God to find the courage to say “yehi or,” “Let there be light?”

We, too, have known darkness this year. We have also faced the depths. And right now, we, too, are hovering – m’rachefet – between darkness and whatever comes next. What is it like living in this hovering uncertainty? What will it take for us to risk looking forward at all, let alone looking forward with something like hope? I don’t know. But I do know we have examples in our tradition of other moments like this one, and we can learn from our ancestors. 

Our ancestors shared an experience of darkness, chaos, and confusion at Mt. Sinai, waiting for Moses to bring Torah down from the mountaintop. When Moses ascended Mt. Sinai, the Israelites didn’t know when he would return, and they were terrified. In their fear and anxiety, hovering beneath the mountain, they turned to a destructive but familiar coping mechanism, like so many of us have in those uncertain moments – they built a golden calf, a false idol. 

How many of us have turned to an unhealthy habit in moments of anxiety in the last year? Me too.

Moses came down from the mountain with the commandments on two luchot, two stone tablets, and when he saw the golden calf, he was so furious that he shattered them. Moses climbed the mountain again. Even though he was angry at the Israelites, he pleaded with God on their behalf. And God forgave them on the 10th of Tishrei – a day that we now experience and commemorate each year: Yom Kippur. Then Moses descended with new luchot. 

A midrash – which is Torah fanfiction – on this Torah portion tells us how our tradition treats the brokenness we experience in times of darkness and hovering. When Moses came down from Mt. Sinai the second time, with new tablets, the Israelites kept the broken ones. They placed the broken luchot, along with the new ones, in the holy ark.

Why keep this symbol of our own fear, this casualty of rage, this set of broken laws? Because brokenness and wholeness live side by side in the world and in our hearts. Because we had to be in the wilderness, hovering, waiting, lost and afraid, worshiping a false god before we could worship our One God from a place of trust. We kept the broken tablets because learning is part of becoming. We kept them alongside the new ones, because brokenness itself is holy. The broken tablets, carried along with the whole ones in the Aron HaKodesh, the holy ark, represent the resilience that carried us through the rest of the uncertain wilderness.

Rabbi Harold Kushner (z’l) raised an important point about this story “…The saga of the golden calf, God’s anger at the people, Moses’ intervention and God’s forgiveness raise an interesting question: When something breaks, something that was precious to us, is it ever possible to put it together again so that it’s as good as new?” 

So much shattering occurred over the last year. Trust was broken. Relationships ruptured. Communities crumbled. October 7th splintered us again and again. How can we repair? Is it even possible to build ourselves up again so that we and our communities are as good as new?

Rabbi Kushner continued, “It would be nice to believe that a God of second chances would make that possible, but the reality seems to be no, you can’t. If it’s broken and repaired, it will never be the same. The crack will always show. But what a God of second chances does is make it possible that you will end up with something in its place that will be even stronger and better than the original.” 

What would it look like for us to build something better? And what examples can our textual tradition offer for guidance? 

After God hovered in darkness, over the face of the water, God said “yehi or” “let there be light,” and went about the work of creating the world for us. When we finished hovering in the darkness at the foot of the mountain with the golden calf, we went about the work of creating a Mishkan for God, an elaborate and collaborative traveling sanctuary. Each person contributed something of their own to the creation of the Mishkan. The sages consider the golden calf incident to be one of the darkest moments of our history – despairing, leaderless, and chaotic. Our ancestors came through that darkness and said “yehi or,” “Let there be light.” And they created a mishkan. 

The truth is that there is always darkness, brokenness, and loss. And – we can always say yehi or – while we hover within the tohu vavohu, within the chaos. Kohelet says “To everything there is a season, a time for joy and a time to weep.” In his poem, “Kohelet Wasn’t Right,” Israeli poet, Yehuda Amichai responds that no, these are not separate times. “In the days when each hour collides with the next,” he says, “we have no choice but to cry and to laugh with the same eyes, to mourn and dance at the same time.” We have to carry the broken tablets with the whole ones. We have to create light while the darkness swirls around us. When false idols have made us forget that we are One, we have to build a mishkan together. 

Does it sound impossible? That’s ok. It won’t happen perfectly, or all at once. Creation didn’t happen just one time – creation is always unfolding, all around and within us. 40 days and nights passed before Moses came back down the mountain with the new tablets after seeing the golden calf. It took time for the Israelites to return to the mishkan. Healing is a long and by no means linear process. We may continue hovering – m’rachefet –  over the depths for awhile.

In the meantime, we have ancestral tools, handed down in our hearts and in our liturgy, that can help us make incremental change. One of these tools is selichot – forgiveness. Rabbi Kushner wrote that “The crack in the first set of tablets was the loss of the dream of perfection. Now the challenge facing you is… can you replace that dream of perfection…with a more realistic one… that will make allowance for human frailty? … Can you give yourself and those around you permission to be human…? On Yom Kippur, so many years ago, God forgave the people who built the golden calf. He forgave us for being human beings, with hopes that we would learn to forgive each other as well.” 

Can you forgive yourself for the moments when the darkness was unbearable, the moments when the shattered pieces of your heart cut so deeply you couldn’t see the whole ones beside you, the moments when hovering was the only option because you couldn’t find light amid the chaos? Can you forgive your community for the moments when we failed to hold you in the way you needed to be held? Can you forgive God for God’s imperfect world? 18th century Ukrainian rabbi, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, taught that Moses was able to find the nekuda tovah – the good point, the Divine Spark – in the Israelites when he pleaded with God on their behalf on top of the mountain. Nachman teaches that this is what allowed the Israelites to move from building the golden calf to building the mishkan – all it took was one person seeing the good inside of them. Forgiveness is another way to say “yehi or.” Let there be light. 

5784 had darkness, chaos, confusion, and grief. We have been at the foot of the mountain with the golden calf.  At this exact moment, when we remember and experience the story of creation, we are m’rachefet – hovering – on the face of the depths. How can we say “yehi or,” like God, when God created from darkness? How can we say “yehi or,” like our ancestors who contributed to the mishkan after contributing to a golden calf? How can we build new tablets – while we hold onto the broken ones? We have looked at an ancestral tool, but we can and should draw on personal experience as well. 

Take a deep breath. Think back on some of your own, personal, darkest moments from this last year. What are the qualities you already had inside you, what are the roots you returned to, what did you discover that was grounding, replenishing, and brought you a little more light? What did you try? What was helpful for you?

Even in this dark year, you were able to find “yehi or” moments. Looking back on our year at Hillel, I can also see examples of times when we said “let there be light” as a community, not in spite of, or even because of, the chaos – but because it is what we do. It’s part of who we are. 

Yes, there was rupture within our community. And, over the twenty-five Bagel Brunches we shared on Sunday mornings, we ate 1,250 bagels in total. There’s an ongoing hostage crisis and war in the Middle East. There was anger, distrust, and antisemitism on campus. There was also Matzo Ball, a festive Hollywood themed semi-formal at Joe’s at the beginning of spring semester. We were anxious and uncertain, but we also celebrated Purim with 300 of our besties at the seventh annual Purim drag show. The news cycle was relentless and depressing. And we played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons. We said “yehi or” when we piloted a wellness-themed Jewish Learning Fellowship, where students shared from their hearts and deepened their relationships. We said “yehi or” when we welcomed the angels, and each other, by singing Shalom Aleichem together before each Shabbat meal. With the darkness – light. With the brokenness – creation. With the hovering – a mishkan, a gathering space for sacred community. 

Contemporary scholar of kabbalah, Dr. Melila Hellner-Eshed, writes that “An envelope of bitterness encases the divine sweetness,” yet we can “reach the sweet, divine essence hidden within the layers of the world’s bitterness.” So we will dip our apples and our challah in honey for a sweet near year. We will practice forgiving ourselves and each other for our imperfections. We will rebuild relationships and repair our community. It won’t be the same as before, but it will be stronger. We will honor our brokenness and our wholeness. We will turn away from false idols and we will work together to create a better world. We will say “yehi or.” Say it with me: “Yehi or.” Let there be light. 

Shared with gratitude to Rabbi Bluth and Josh Feldman for helping me figure out what to say in a year when none of us really know what to say. Your friendship and mentorship means the world to me.

The Narrows and the Expanse

On By scatteredleaves322In D'var Torah, Holidays, SermonsLeave a comment

Min ha’meitzar karati Yah
Anani ba’merchav Yah

From the narrow place I cried out to God;
God answered me with an open expanse.

These words from Psalm 118 have been on my heart this year as I’ve prepared for Passover. Every year, we relive the Exodus, saying that we ourselves were slaves in Mitzrayim – a Hebrew word that means both “Egypt” and “Narrow Place.”  This year, we are all trying to make sense of slavery and freedom in a post October 7th world. Each of us has our own meitzar (narrow place) to escape, and our own merchav (expanse) to explore. We have our individual enslavements, our personal Pharaohs and seas to be crossed. But like the Exodus, the war in Israel is being experienced collectively as well as individually.  We all need to find our way from our communal meitzar to the merchav, and we need to do it together. 

For the Hebrew slaves, the narrowness – the meitzar – was Egypt under Pharaoh. The Haggadah tells us that Pharaoh forced the slaves into hard labor. But the subjugation went far beyond the physical. When Moses told the Hebrews that God would free them from slavery, they could not hear Moses in their suffering – literally, according to the text, due to kotzer ruach, shortness of breath, or spirit.  Their spirit had shrunken until they couldn’t grasp the idea of freedom. Netivot Shalom, a 20th century Hasidic rabbi, wrote that “Israel was subjugated in total. They had no independence, even in thought.” The Hebrews “became like breath caught in the throat, subsumed in Pharaoh completely, body and spirit.”  In the narrowness, they could not hear, think or speak for themselves. A numbing silence came from deep trauma, their thoughts swallowed on the inside before they could name them, even to themselves or each other. The Zohar calls this a “galut ha’dibbur,” an exile of speech. 

The path to freedom opened when the Hebrews opened their own mouths and spoke. Exodus 2:23-24 lists four types of outcry: The Hebrews anach, (sighed), za’ak (called out), shav’ah (cried for help),and n’akah (groaned). The beginning of redemption was their own awareness. After generations of feeling and thinking only what Pharaoh told them to, the Hebrews recognized their own suffering. The next step was to call out. At first, they groaned before they could speak. It may have been unintelligible, but the pain and their voices were their own. “When they left Egypt, they went from subjugation to everlasting redemption and received anew the aspect of speech,” writes Netivot Shalom. “Peh-Sach can be interpreted as shorthand for peh (mouth) that sach (speaks). This is the essence of the holiday of Pesach.” They went from slaves that couldn’t think, feel, or speak for themselves, to human beings with awareness of their own pain, and voices that could tell their story. 

After the Hebrews crossed the Sea of Reeds, they found themselves in their merchav – the wilderness.  And they were terrified. We joke about it, but it’s true – after singing at the Sea, the Hebrews immediately used their newfound voices to complain. They complained in Egypt they’d had cucumbers, onions, and melons. Would they starve to death in the desert? What would become of them in this wasteland? These complaints were about physical needs, but they spoke to an underlying spiritual question. Enslaved in Egypt, they’d known what to expect. The Hebrews knew who they were, understood their roles, knew where their meals would come from, and when. There was security in the structure. 

Today, sometimes our structures confine and define us as strongly as Pharaoh. Our polarized political discourse is the most constrictive structure I’ve witnessed and experienced since October 7th. This meitzar is one of certainty, and obsession with our own correctness. In this suffocating narrowness, we categorize people, things, and actions into good or bad, right or wrong. People are forced to be on the side of Israel or Palestine, the side of peace or war. We are enslaved to the echo chambers we created, narrow spaces that limit our perspectives. Students who don’t fall clearly on one “side” or the other have shared that they, like our ancestors under Pharaoh’s rule, can’t speak. They don’t want to ask questions because they are afraid they will be alienated from friends and communities they hold dear. The Passover seder is all about asking questions, but we have become experts at silencing voices that question the Pharaoh. It’s so easy to unfollow or unfriend, to curate a meitzar where we feel secure – and sometimes we may need to! Like the narrow place that enslaved our ancestors, this meitzar has its benefits – it’s predictable, expected, understood. But at what cost?

If our meitzar is a place where we are constricted by certainty, the merchav – the expanse – is uncertainty, a wilderness of not-knowing. We are free when it is safe to be unsure of our stance, and we are open to engaging with different viewpoints. In the merchav, Pharaoh no longer dictates what we believe. Once again, the beginning of our redemption is our own awareness – an awareness that there’s something outside the narrow confines of our own perspectives. We have learned to speak – this time, with people outside the echo chamber. And perhaps more importantly, we’ve learned to listen.  In this expanse, we can be expansive. We can hear one another, acknowledge complexities, and hold multiple truths. 

No longer trapped in the narrowness of what is, we are able to imagine what could be. In this merchav, students who are unsure about their views on Israel and Palestine are welcome to voice their questions without being forced to choose a side. In this merchav that we create, two students who completely disagree with each other sit down for coffee, hear each other’s stories, and learn why each of them cares so deeply about this cause. Neither one convinces the other – and neither one expects to change the other’s mind. They leave the conversation richer because they understand one another better than before they entered this merchav together. 

The possibilities are exciting and terrifying, much like the merchav the Hebrews encountered. It’s scary to hear the voices of those who disagree, when our beliefs feel fundamental to who we are. Will we lose ourselves in the process? Will we forget where we came from? No we will not, because, as the seder reminds us: Avadim hayinu, ata b’nei chorin. Once we were slaves, now we are free. 

As we approach Passover this year, I invite you to use the seder as an opportunity to truly reflect on the meitzar and the merchav. Throughout the week, consider: Have you made a Pharaoh of your opinions? Are you 100% correct, or is that Pharaoh telling you what to think? When you feel the urge to retreat to the security of the meitzar, remind yourself of the consequences. Passover is an opportunity to reflect on what we believe, how we formed our beliefs, and how those beliefs may be forming us. This year, the Peh – Sach, the mouth that speaks, must be one that asks questions, as we always have in our seders. The Haggadah reminds us that we cannot return to Pharaoh. We must free each other, and we must do it together.

Our Imperfect Offerings

On By scatteredleaves322In D'var TorahLeave a comment

Sent to the Illini Hillel community on March 29, 2024

“Forget your perfect offering 
There is a crack in everything 
That’s how the light gets in.”
– Leonard Cohen 

“Can I be a rabbi if I can’t sing?” I sobbed to one of my teachers in rabbinical school. I’d struggled for years to find my voice, taking lessons, trying to force myself to make sounds that just wouldn’t come out of my mouth. I practiced relentlessly, but it never seemed to be enough. My teacher was soothing and supportive, pointing out how many strengths I had, and the many gifts I would offer my future communities as a rabbi. And prayer isn’t about having a beautiful voice, after all, she said. It’s about connection. 

Similarly, many times, students have confessed to me that they don’t feel comfortable praying because they don’t know how to do it perfectly.  They don’t know Hebrew, are not sure about their relationship with God, or they don’t know what they “should” be doing during the silent part of the prayer service. I’m always happy to help students build their prayer skills, but I have to wonder how many times we’ve missed the point because we’re trying to make the perfect offering. Even beyond the world of prayer services, I recognize that many of us have missed opportunities to connect with ourselves or with others in a deeper way because we are afraid to fail.  

This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Tzav. Tzav means “command,” and the parsha opens with God telling Moses to command the priests to make offerings. The rest of the text details the long process of making a ritual sacrifice, and consequences for completing the ritual imperfectly. This long list of instructions may seem pedantic. But the language used in the parsha reveals additional meaning.  While “tzav” צו means “command” in Hebrew, this word is also related to tzavta צוותא, which means “connect,” or “bond” in Aramaic.  “Mitzvah” מצוה, which comes from the same word, means “commandment” and it means “connection.” Similarly, the Hebrew word for sacrifice is “korban,” קָרְבָּן‎ which comes from the root, “karav,”  קָרַב, meaning “to draw near.” God commanded us – tzav – to make sacrifices – korbanot – so we could tzavta – connect – and karov – draw near to the Divine Presence.  It was all about connection and closeness with something bigger than ourselves. 

After the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 CE,  we no longer had a place to make sacrifices. The Sages had to design new ways to connect with God, drawing near to the Sacred during a period of distance and exile from everything they knew.  The animals the priests offered in sacrifice at the Temple had to be unblemished, but without a Temple or priests, our ancestors understood that our offerings would no longer be perfect, or even uniform. Prayer was the innovation that came from this understanding. In the Temple’s absence, we learned to draw near to the Divine Presence that is alive in everything around us. We don’t need a Temple because our world is the temple. We don’t need priests because everyone can pray.

In Parashat Tzav, we are commanded three different times to never let the fire on the sacrificial altar go out.  Without a sacrificial altar at a Temple, the fire that must be tended is an internal one – the spark of the Divine that each of us carries inside.  19th century Polish rabbi, Sefat Emet שפת אמת‎, wrote that any “distracting thought that enters the heart” during prayer is consumed in that inner fire. “That, in fact, is the true purpose of all those thoughts that rise up within the heart; they are there to be overpowered in the fire of worship. In this way, those distracting thoughts are purified and uplifted.”  

Sefat Emet wants us to make our imperfect offerings. My distracting thoughts about my voice are there to fuel the fire inside me. The students’ feelings of uncertainty during prayer are there to do the same – to help them shed light on the reason why they pray, which is connection.  I don’t have to sing perfectly in order to pray through song or lead prayer services. I can lead in different ways, using poetry and meditation, or I can partner  with a strong vocalist. Most importantly, I’ve learned that I can still sing along with my community, letting the music move me into deeper connection with my community, and with the Divine.  This parsha teaches us that we have to keep that light burning. 

As we make our offerings on this Shabbat Tzav, if anything is holding you back, I invite you to consider the power of your imperfect praises, blessings, and prayers.  Let the light of hope and connection get in. And if you are looking for a place to start, I humbly offer the prayer below – an interpretive version of a prayer we say as part of the daily and Shabbat Amidah. The original prayer asks for a restoration of the Temple, the priests, and the sacrifices. Mine asks instead for acceptance of the words we offer up – wholly imperfect and perfectly holy. 

HaMakom,
Our prayers are the offering
and You are the Temple.

Our words rise to the sky 
like smoke from a flame,
swirling above what is burnt,
what is broken.

Holy One of Blessing,
please accept them all:
the words and wonder, 
the fear and awe.

Life is light and wood and burning.
Every offering we bring before You
is a way to draw near, a promise of our love. 

Barukh Atah Adonai, mekabel ha’olot 
Blessed are You, Holy One, Who accepts our offerings.

Rabbi Heather’s interpretive R’tzei prayer originally published on Ritualwell

Common Ground

On By scatteredleaves322In Communal Tragedy, D'var Torah1 Comment

“Rabbi,” she said, “I don’t believe in coincidences.” 

I was strapping my daughter into her stroller for a walk when I received the call. Her name was Dr. Daniela Hermelin, and she was the Chief Medical Officer for ImpactLife Blood Center, an organization that coordinates blood donations. I had reached out to the local chapter in July to schedule a blood drive at Illini Hillel for today, October 12. I figured it would be an easy service program for students after the start of the Jewish new year. At the time, I couldn’t have known that my community would be reeling from the impact of a war and terrorist attacks that began in Israel on October 7th. 

Even with the war tearing us apart, I believe the blood inside us unites us more than we are divided by blood spilled on the ground. Dr. Hermelin asked if Hillel was hosting the drive as a response to the war. I told her that I’d planned it months ago and that even though my students were deeply impacted by the war, we had decided to move forward with the blood drive. We could still make a positive impact by giving with our bodies, even with our hearts and minds on Israel and Palestine.

“It’s never the wrong time to do a mitzvah,” I said, and then explained, “a good deed.” 

“Yes,” she responded. “I’m Jewish. And I’ve been in contact with Magen David Adom. If they need more blood, we offered to send some from our donors.” 

I took a deep breath. Magen David Adom is the Israeli version of the American Red Cross. The organization is responsible for emergency medical care and blood services, and they treat any individual who needs help – regardless of ethnicity, race, or political or religious affiliation. 

“I don’t want to make any promises,” Dr. Hermelin continued. “So far Magen David Adom doesn’t need more blood because they have so many donors in Israel. But you can tell your students there’s a chance that their donations today will save the lives of people impacted by this war.” My heart leapt into my throat. 

“Rabbi, I don’t believe in coincidences. You didn’t know this would happen, but this is the day you chose to host a drive. If there’s anything I can do to support you and your students, let me know. I’m a Jewish mother. We are in this together.” Together – united by our shared humanity.

I felt tears on my cheeks, my first since the crisis began. All week I’d been in action mode, but my tears and words had been frozen inside me. I’d been texting students late into the night and meeting with students to help them process. I helped students advocate for academic support. As someone who tends toward action and care for others, until this moment, I hadn’t cried yet myself. 

I thanked Dr. Hermelin for reaching out and told her I’d pass the message along to students. She promised she would update me on the partnership with Magen David Adom moving forward. “From one Jewish mother to another,” I said, walking my daughter down the street, “thank you.”

This week we read Parashat Bereishit, the very first chapters in the Torah. In Genesis 2:7, we learn that God formed the first human, adam from adamah, earth – “the dust of the ground.” God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the human became a living being.” The Hebrew word for human, adam, includes the word “dam,” which means blood, and adom, which means red. 

The terror attacks and the war in Israel broke in the US on Sunday as we celebrated Simchat Torah, preparing again to read the creation story. All week, blood flooded my newsfeed as I watched, horrified from afar. All week, blood – dam – splattered on the earth – adamah. Blood of b’nei adam, children of the first human. All of them formed – as we learn in this week’s parsha – b’tzelem Elohim – in the image of God. Later in the same Torah portion, after Cain has murdered Abel, God cries out, “Your brother’s blood, dam, cries out to Me from the ground,” adamah. 

These words from the parsha have been inside of me all week as I grieved for my student’s brother, an IDF soldier taken hostage, for an acquaintance of mine from Seattle, kidnapped and murdered, for the peace activists and concert-goers. I grieved for the babies, and for the mothers who would never be able to take their daughters on a walk again on a beautiful fall morning. The blood cries out from the earth. The blood cries out from inside of us. The blood that unites us all, b’nei adam, children of Adam, part of God’s marvelous creation.

In the book of Leviticus, Aaron, the High Priest, watches as his sons, Nadav and Avihu, die when they bring a sacrifice to God. A fire erupts and envelops them. There are no reasons cited for their deaths in the Torah, though many scholars have offered suggestions. After Nadav and Avihu die, the Torah says “Vayidom Aharon,” Aaron was silent. Sometimes there are no words for tragic loss. Vayidom comes from the word damam, a word for silence that appears only one other time in the Torah, referring to a stone-like silence – a paralysis. 

As a mother who turned away but could not turn away from my newsfeed this week, I understand Aaron’s frozenness, his lack of voice – even though he was the leader who spoke for his brother Moses, when Moses could not speak himself. My own words and tears were frozen inside me all week – damam – a silent stillness – while I watched the dam of b’nei adam spill on the adamah. It was the call from Dr. Hermelin, the Chief Medical Officer of ImpactLife Blood Center, a call that came as I played with my own baby girl, that finally caused my thaw, allowing my tears and words to flow in response. “Rabbi,” she said, “I don’t believe in coincidences.” 

I don’t know if I believe in coincidences. But I believe in humans, b’nei adam. I believe in the medical officer mother who reached out to say “thank you” and “you’re not alone.” I believe there is never a wrong time to do a mitzvah, and that we should always give blood when we can.  Whether it supports victims of distant war that is close to our hearts, or patients in the hospital down the street, it makes a difference. I believe that we are each designed b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God, and that our diversity reflects the different ways the Divine manifests on earth. And I believe that even as blood cries out from the land, the blood inside of us unites us. In time, when we are able to break through the damam, the silence and shock, I pray that we remember our shared humanity. May we use our voices to remind others – and ourselves – that we are in this together.

Multitudes: Yom Kippur 5784

On By scatteredleaves322In D'var Torah, Holidays, SermonLeave a comment

Sermon delivered at Illini Hillel on Yom Kippur – September 24, 2023

Believe or not, I used to think I was strictly an academic; I was working toward a history PhD, I loved studying, I was a strong writer and teacher, and I loved everything about history. But I couldn’t stand the graduate seminars, the posturing of my colleagues and professors, and the unrelenting stream of brutal criticism without a hint of positive feedback. I believed my advisor saw me as a failure, and, unfortunately, I began to agree with her. I was overworked, I’d lost my spark, and I was deeply depressed. I was also determined to keep at it. It was what I had always wanted, after all.

I only gave myself three hours off each week, and it was for Shabbat on Friday night. Every time I showed up at Hillel, one of the undergraduate interns asked how I was doing, and with a sigh of relief, I’d say “I’m so glad it’s Shabbat.” At the end of that year, I was given the “Shabbat Cheerleader” award at Hillel because I was always declaring my love for Shabbat. And I did love it, even when I felt miserable, alone in my work, and out of love with everything. I still have that award, a cardboard cut-out star with glitter around the edges, a reminder that, to paraphrase Achad Ha-Am, Shabbat has kept me more than I’ve ever kept Shabbat. When I thought of my identities, The “Academic” label wasn’t a lie, but it didn’t cover everything. I hadn’t yet internalized poet Walt Whitman’s famous statement: “I am large. I contain multitudes.” 

Things began to change for me at the last Shabbat of the Jewish year, on the cusp of my second year in grad school. I was with the local Jewish community at the beach on a beautiful Friday night – the Santa Cruz California fog had cleared, the stars were bright, and the ocean crashed and receded on the shore. Families gathered on blankets around the bonfire as Rabbi Paula Marcus led us in song.

“Return again, return again, return to the land of your soul. Return to who you are, return to where you are, return to what you are, born and reborn again.” It felt like an awakening. I remembered that on Yom Kippur we talk about tshuvah, returning to who we truly are, as the final step of atonement. This means we have endless potential, and it means that everything we need to be our best selves is already inside of us. 

There, with the sand and the sea, the song, the stars and the fire, a voice rose inside me, like smoke from a flame. It said “This is not who I am! I am not this miserable person. I am not a sad, cynical academic who fears my teachers and dreads my life every day. I’m not this person who cries on Sunday nights because I don’t want to face the week. This is not who I am!” And just like that, I realized that I had a choice. I didn’t have to get a PhD. There was more to me than being an academic. I promised myself that if I was still unhappy in December, I would consider other options. I went to bed grateful to have discovered this great epiphany – that I had choices. That I was free. That I contain multitudes.

We all have stories we tell ourselves about who we are. What stories are you telling yourself today? What stories have you told yourself this month? Until that moment by the ocean, I had been clinging to a single narrative, something I could believe about myself based on internal and external validation: I am a good student. I am an academic. I was sure I was following the best possible path for Heather the Good Student, and it became my entire identity. Everything else about me seemed unworthy of exploration. I couldn’t yet see the value in my empathy, my leadership and community building skills, or my growing passion for Jewish life. 

Don’t get me wrong, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with “Good Student” as an identity. I want to celebrate all of you for your hard work as students today, and the work that brought you here. But here’s the thing – by this time, I was no longer shaping my story. My identity had begun to write the story for me. How much are you shaping your own story, and how much is it shaping you? Because my identity was writing the story for me, months after my beach epiphany, when I faced the reality of leaving this part of my story behind, I didn’t know who I was anymore. Without “Good Student,” what – or, rather, who – was left? I had a full-on identity crisis. It really felt like a loss. In addition to new anxiety about the future, I grieved the future I thought I’d have. I grieved the person I believed I’d always been. I didn’t know at the time that this little death would lead to a much bigger life

I’m standing here now as a rabbi and as living proof that identity crises are survivable. As it turned out, “Shabbat Cheerleader” was a more important part of my identity than I had ever realized. And thankfully, I’m not the first person in history to have had an identity crisis. Many characters face identity struggles in our Torah, but today I’m going to focus on one. Joseph – who spent parts of his life in a pit, a prison, and a palace. 

A quick recap, for those who haven’t seen Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat recently: Joseph was the youngest in the family, and he had the power to interpret dreams. He was also his father’s favorite, and his brothers were very jealous of him. His brothers cast him into a pit and sold him into slavery. Joseph’s brothers then lied to their father, Jacob, saying that a wild beast killed Joseph. Joseph worked hard as a slave in the palace and he eventually became a respected lead servant of Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s advisors, having earned their trust. Then Potiphar’s wife falsely accused him of sexual assault, and Joseph was thrown into prison. As a prisoner, Joseph made a name for himself by interpreting dreams. Finally he was called on to interpret Pharaoh’s own dream. Joseph’s interpretation inspired the Pharaoh to quickly prepare the country in advance for years of drought, preventing widespread famine in the coming season. 

Joseph’s family back home suffered during this famine, and his father sent his brothers to ask Egyptian leadership for assistance. By the time his brothers approached him, Joseph was the governor of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh himself, and Pharaoh had given him a new name: Tzofnat Paneach. According to some translations, Joseph’s new name meant “revealer of mysteries.”

This Joseph, this Tzofnat Paneach, whom the brothers entreated on his throne, was quite different from the Joseph who was their father’s favorite son, the Joseph they threw into the pit, and sold into slavery. This Joseph was even different from the Joseph who lived in the Egyptian prison. It’s no surprise that, although Joseph recognized his brothers, his brother’s did not see Joseph on the face of Tzofnat Paneach, the Egyptian governor.

Joseph tested his brothers, accusing the youngest, Benjamin, of stealing a silver cup that Joseph planted in Benjamin’s sack. Upon “discovering” this silver cup, Joseph threatened to enslave Benjamin. Fortunately, the brothers passed the test: Older brother, Judah, offered himself in Benjamin’s place, so that their aging father, Jacob, would not have to grieve the loss of yet another favored child.

When he learned that his father was alive, the Torah says, “v’lo yachol Yosef l’hitapek” – Joseph could not afak – contain – the secret of his identity. He asked everyone to leave besides the brothers, and he began to cry. “Ani Yosef,” “I am Joseph,” he told them. “Ha’od avi chai?”: “Does my father still live?” When he heard about his father, Joseph remembered where he came from  – he was not only Tzofnat Paneach, governor of Egypt. He was also Joseph, the Jewish son of Jacob and Rachel, the boy from the pit and the prison, the interpreter of dreams. If his father continued, then so did Joseph. He was still, after all, himself.

His brothers were frightened and could not answer him, worried that their brother would exact revenge. But Joseph was not angry – they passed the test and showed that they had changed. They, also, were not limited in their roles as jealous older brothers. 

“Come near me, I pray you, Ani Yosef,” he said again. “I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt.” He explained that they should not worry, saying God sent him to Egypt to ensure their safety during these years of famine. He told his brothers everything that had happened since they sold him into slavery, and Joseph sent them back home with food and other provisions, so the brothers could return with their father and the rest of the family.

“Ani Yosef,” “I am Joseph,” appeared twice within a few lines of this story. Why did he say his name more than once? Maybe the brothers were disbelieving, and Joseph wanted to prove his identity, explaining that he was, in fact, their brother, whom they sold into Egypt. Or maybe it was because Joseph was reclaiming this part of his own identity. It’s significant that Joseph could not afak, he could not contain Joseph, once he learned that his father was alive, even though he rose to power under a new name, Tzofnat Paneach.

It’s also significant that Joseph told his story as one of triumph, in which God had sent him to Egypt to save his family, instead of a story of victimhood, in which his abusive brothers sold him into slavery. Both of these things were parts of Joseph’s truth. Sometimes, trauma doesn’t have a purpose – it just sucks. Part of me wants Joseph to be really angry about what happened to him. And maybe he was. But in telling his story, Joseph had a triple revelation. First, he revealed his identity to his brothers, then he revealed that everything that happened was part of God’s plan, which was his way of making meaning from his trauma. But the resulting third revelation was the most powerful of all: Joseph revealed the truth to himself. After everything that happened, his father was still alive, and he was still Joseph as well as Tzofnat Paneach. 

Joseph had multiple defining traumatic experiences, none of which solely defined him. At different points in his story, we see him drawing on his identities as a dream interpreter, a son, a brother, a servant, and a leader. Though trauma was a part of his story, and it always would be, Joseph saw himself in multitudes. 

The new year has started, and I invite you to consider:  How will you tell the story of your multitudes this year? What parts of yourself can you, like Joseph, no longer afak, no longer contain? Close your eyes for a moment, take a deep breath – and say to yourself, silently. “I am me.” What does that feel like? What identities are you holding? Are any of your identities writing your story for you? Is something external writing your story that shouldn’t be?

Over time I’ve learned to practice drawing on my experiences and identities, leaning into one and then another. I’m a writer, a learner, and a Hillel professional. I’ve been a distance runner, a caffeine addict, a band geek, and a person traumatized by infertility and pregnancy losses. I’ve been a Shabbat cheerleader, a grief guide, a theater person, and a leadership educator. I’ve been a person facing chronic mental and physical illness, I’ve been a camp director, a healer, a college student co-op enthusiast, and a living historian (true story – ask me about shooting Revolutionary war era muskets!). I’ve practiced Conservative and Reform Judaism. I am a Renewal Rabbi. I’m a wife, a sister, a daughter, a mom, a community builder, and an educator. Each of these identities has been a significant part of my story at one time or another. And the most important outcome of my revelation that night on the beach is that I can be all of these things. Even the things that are outside of my control – illness and infertility, for example – do not define my whole self. I get to choose which part of myself I’m leaning into every day.

Two years ago at Yom Kippur I spoke about Simone Biles, celebrating her choice to step back from a successful gymnastics career to focus on her mental health. To recap, by 2020, Simone Biles was considered by many to be the greatest American gymnast with seven Olympic medals and 25 World Championship medals, making her the most decorated gymnast in the history of the Gymnastics World Championships. At the height of her career, during the 2021 Olympics, she withdrew from the finals, citing mental health concerns. 

Tonight I want to lift up the newest chapter of her story. Biles went back to gymnastics after a two year hiatus. She returned to this part of herself on her own terms, and she won an eighth National Championship at the end of August, breaking the record of Al Jochim, who won seven titles on national level, the last one in 1933. Biles said the most important thing she did for herself in the last two years was attend to her mental health needs. In a recent interview, Biles said, “There’s so much more in life than gymnastics. I love what I do. At the end of the day, yes, I am a gymnast. I’m really good at what I do. But I won’t be doing gymnastics forever. And there’s still things to look forward to, past gymnastics, where before I never thought so. So, now it’s just a part of what I do. And it doesn’t really define who I am as much anymore.” Biles is learning to honor different parts of her identity, deciding what parts of identity to prioritize, and she is celebrating her multitudes as she writes this next chapter. 

We are each made in the image of the Divine. This means that God is One, and God’s Oneness manifests in multitudes. The Divine is alive in everything! God is in the thunder and the wind, flower petals, and yes, even mosquitos. God is in the mountains and the minutiae of daily life. As the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, wrote, “God is garbed in everything. No place is devoid of the Divine.” God is garbed in each of us. God manifests in our multitude of identities, and all of them are holy.  If God-language doesn’t work for you, consider a teaching from another one of my rebbes, scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson: “The atoms of our bodies are traceable to stars that manufactured them in their cores and exploded these enriched ingredients across our galaxy, billions of years ago. For this reason, we are biologically connected to every other living thing in the world. We are chemically connected to all molecules on Earth. And we are atomically connected to all atoms in the universe. We are not figuratively, but literally stardust.” Stardust, manifest in multitudes.

When I was on the beach on Shabbat all those years ago, sitting under the stars at a dark time in my life, I could not have imagined that I would be standing here tonight as your rabbi, telling you this story on Kol Nidrei. I left that graduate program, but I still love learning – as a matter of fact, I started looking for a professional development program about three months after I finished rabbinical school. I’m not a professional academic, but the academic in me will always love being a student. We don’t have to be a professional at any activity in order to love it. What do you love to do, even if it’s not part of your life plan? For some of us it might be playing an instrument, or a sport, travel, or cooking. And, because we all have “great multiple futures,” as my friend and mentor, Josh Feldman, says, our passions and past identities sometimes show up as part of our careers or lives in ways we can’t even imagine – being named the “Shabbat cheerleader,” for example. I’m sure the Joseph at the bottom of the pit couldn’t have imagined that he would become Tzofnat Paneach, a powerful leader in Egypt, or that he would forgive his brothers. But even in that position of power, he realized that he was still, after all, his father’s son. After winning her eighth championship following a two-year hiatus, Simone Biles acknowledged that gymnastics is part of who she is, but it no longer defines her. God is One, and yet God – and the stardust that we are made of – manifest in the multitudes of existence. 

We all contain multitudes. We are all expansive. We have so many pasts, presents, and futures to explore and inspire us on our journeys of becoming. Which parts of yourself will you return to in this season of returning? How will you honor your own wholeness? 

This year and in the years ahead, you will have many opportunities to explore who you are and who you might become. Hold nothing back. “Dare greatly,” as Brene Brown has taught. Don’t let one identity write your story for you. Think about the part of your story you’ve been resisting, and how you might stretch yourself to write it this year. Or let your t’shuvah this Yom Kippur be a return to an identity you’ve abandoned and would like to engage again. Experiment. Play. Be curious and courageous. Repair the world, and do the inner work you need to heal yourself. Embrace the magnificent multitudes of “maybes” that lie within you, and the “great multiple futures” that await you. It’s 5784 and the possibilities are endless. May the stories we tell this year remind us who we are, and celebrate the multitudes contained within us. 

The Mishkan Within

On By scatteredleaves322In D'var Torah, Guided MeditationLeave a comment

Guided meditation for Parashat Terumah based on these sources – written by Rabbi Heather for Illini Hillel students

Plant your feet on the floor and sit in a way that is comfortable for you. Take a deep breath. Now take one more. When you’re ready, close your eyes or soften your gaze. Take another deep breath. Begin to feel your body relax. Your toes. Legs. Hips. Keep breathing. Release any tightness you’re holding in your torso. Your chest. Drop your shoulders. Keep breathing. Release your jaws. See if you can feel your eyes and ears. Relax those too. Take one more deep breath.

Picture yourself in a desert. In Hebrew, it’s called a midbar – it means wilderness as well as desert. Notice the sand – feel its texture beneath your feet [pause] Gaze up at the wide blue sky and the mountains [pause]. Notice the colors of the mountains. Brown, beige, red – what else is there? [pause] Breathe in the stillness. The silence. The emptiness. [longer pause]

Imagine a beloved leader is up on one of the mountains. You followed this leader out of Mitzrayim, the narrow place, and now you are here, in this vast, expansive wilderness. From the constriction of slavery you arrived in open nothingness. What does this nothing sound like? Smell like? [pause] You don’t know where you are going. You don’t know what’s coming next. You are afraid.

When your leader returns, you receive instructions. You are to build a mishkan, a sanctuary. Here in the desert. Here in the nothingness. Here where you’re far from everything you’ve ever known. A place for the Divine to dwell. God does not need this space – “God is garbed in everything. No place is devoid of the Divine.” But we need a space where we can connect with God. A sanctuary in the desert of our souls. What should this sanctuary look like? Imagine its colors and structure. What textures are part of this sanctuary? Take a few moments to explore it.

Now bring your attention back to your body with another deep breath. The rabbinic tradition links the mishkan to the human body. You are a dwelling place for the Divine.

Like your skin that covers and protects you, there are tapestries and wool hangings around the sanctuary. Your sense of touch is one of the first ways you connected with the world as an infant, while your other senses slowly developed. Your skin is a gateway to human intimacy. Imagine slowly dipping your hand into the desert sand. Notice its temperature, its texture. [Pause] Lift a handful of sand on an inhale. And release the sand with an exhale. Notice the sensation of the sand slipping through your fingers. [Pause] Take another deep breath. And when you are ready, you can release them.

There is an incense altar in the sanctuary, connected to your sense of smell. Scent can return memories to us from long ago. Inhale deeply now through your nose, and exhale through your mouth. Is there a scent that feels like a sanctuary to you? [Pause]

There is a menorah in the sanctuary, and a menorah in you – as the menorah sheds light, your mind, your intellect, enlightens your body. Take a deep breath and envision a warm light filling the sanctuary of yourself. Notice the quality of this light. Are there specks of dust that float across? What color is the light? White, yellow, blue, something else? Feel the warmth of this light that brightens even the darkest places, making the desert feel like home. [Pause]

Now place your hand over your heart and see if you can feel its beat. Tap. Bum-bum. Bum-bum. Tap gently with me. Your heart is the innermost part of the sanctuary – the Holy Ark, containing the Tablets of the Covenant. What else does your heart contain? Listen for its wisdom as you continue tapping. [Pause]

Take a deep breath and pause your tapping. You can keep your hand on your heart if you wish, or you can let it rest. [Pause]

Your body is the sanctuary. Your textures and colors, your breath and your skin. God said that all those whose hearts were moved to give, should bring a gift to the sanctuary. Everyone was asked to give according to their ability – no more, and no less. Every gift was perfect. Every gift was accepted. However your body looks or feels, you are a holy sanctuary. You are accepted. You are loved. You are whole. You are a dwelling place for the Divine.

Take another deep breath and we’ll sit with that for a moment. Explore the sanctuary within.[Pause]

Take another deep breath. Notice the ground beneath your feet. The temperature in the room. The sound of your companions breathing beside you. Take a last few deep breaths in this space and when you are ready, slowly, gently – open your eyes.

The Soil and the Seeds: On Openness, Vulnerability, and Leadership

On By scatteredleaves322In D'var Torah, Sermons1 Comment

I gave this d’var at Illini Hillel on February 3rd, 2023 at a Renewal Shabbat experience in honor of my January 8th rabbinic ordination. I wanted to share something I learned about leadership during my rabbinical program with my community. This d’var was given on Shabbat Beshelach, two nights before Tu B’Shevat, the new year of the trees.

Where do untold stories go?
Do we bury them like sacred texts?
Do the stories turn into seeds underground?
If the seed splits like the Red Sea,
and a stem starts to grow, where does it go
if it can’t burst through the soil, if it can’t rise up singing,
if it never blooms?

Where do untold stories go? I’ve been asking this question for years in various leadership roles. We talked about it at Davvenen Leadership Training Institute, DLTI – the most formative training program I experienced in rabbinical school. Sometimes leading means we “tell the stories communities need to hear, instead of the stories we want to tell.” The best leaders know how to “hold space instead of taking up space.” As a leader, when I open up, it’s to create openings for others to grow. I am the soil, not the seeds. It’s an honor to bear witness, to share just enough that others are inspired to stretch, crack, and split through the shells of their seeds. It’s a blessing to empower others to grow. 

I built a life out of soil and I like to think I’m good at it. I am soil when I train and empower students to lead, when I facilitate grief groups, and when I serve as a mentor. Until DLTI, I thought I made great soil because I am comfortable with the seeds of my own stories – I am comfortable with my vulnerability. However, over time I learned that while I’m open, that doesn’t mean I’m willing to be vulnerable. The stories I share are curated and crafted. I’ve written the stories before sharing them, or I’ve considered the role they play in others’ stories. I share when it’s something a mentee needs to hear, instead of a story I need to tell. That’s a way of being a leader, but it’s not vulnerability.

At DLTI, we took turns leading and then “labbing” prayer services. In labs, our teachers offered feedback on how to make the prayer service more powerful. Transformation occurred every time a prayer leader cracked open their shell, showing a hint of their own stem. We learned to lean into vulnerability in just the right way, to draw on our stories and lead from the heart. Leaders are the soil, but we are also in the soil. And we lead best when we let it show – not a lot, but more than I had in the past.

In a conversation with one of my DLTI teachers, I set a kavanah (intention) that I was going to try this vulnerability thing. I planned to tell a story that had been longing for soil at a Saturday night open mic, a story that truly made me feel vulnerable.

Saturday night arrived, and every presenter who came before me told their own hard story. They split their shells in the soil of our kahal (community) and beautiful, vulnerable stories bloomed all over the sanctuary.  However, I noticed that the kahal was worn out from all the emotion – a few people left, and those left in the room were drained. It was time to tell the story the community needed to hear, instead of the story I wanted to tell. So when it was my turn, I shared a story that never fails to make me (and others) laugh. It felt good to lift people up. The tone was right on. Afterward, my teacher congratulated me, knowing I made the decision to share something lighter in lieu of vulnerability: “That was davvenen leadership,” he said. It was, and I was proud.

…until I was sad. Devastated. I figured I was just tired at the end of a long day and a long week. But where do untold stories go? The question was tugging at me.  When I felt tears well up during a song circle later that night, I realized that 1am was not the best time to analyze my feelings, and I went to bed. Besides, I thought, these are the kinds of decisions I make all the time as a leader. Surely I’d be fine the next day.

But I wasn’t. A friend noticed, and we walked to a private space where I explained everything. My friend acknowledged that I made the right choice the night before, and then pointed out that this moment was different. She invited me to share the story I needed to tell. I hesitated, but she meant it. I let the seed crack open.

When I finished, I felt lighter. I learned an important lesson about vulnerability that day. I learned I could plan ahead and ask a friend in advance: “If I cannot tell this story tonight, can I tell you another time?” Or as an alternative, I learned to notice my need to share in moments when I can’t, and to honor that need by sharing with a friend later. 

This question came up for me again at Hillel last fall. When a friend was in the ICU after an overdose, I wanted a morning prayer minyan for my friend’s healing. Progressive in-person minyanim aren’t regularly accessible here, so I figured I’d find a random one online. When Carly suggested I invite students I am close with to pray with me the next day, I was nervous. Should I be that vulnerable? Was this a story I needed to tell or a story the kahal needed to hear? When is it ok to ask the community I’m leading to show up for me, the leader? I decided to try it, I’m glad I did, and I’m grateful to those who joined me in prayer that day. Leaders need to both support and be supported. Sometimes leaders have to find support outside the community or outside the moment, like I did at DLTI. Other times it’s good to be vulnerable with those you are leading, like I was last fall. It’s hard to know the difference, but I’m learning every day. 

We celebrate the leadership of Moses in this parsha – a reluctant leader whose brother Aaron had to help him share his story. Tu b’Shevat is on Monday, celebrating not only trees above ground, but seeds buried in soil, a generative darkness that encourages growth. In honor of this parsha and holiday, I invite you to notice your own opportunities to lead, grow, and lean into vulnerability this week. Every seed wants a chance to grow, and, as I continue to learn, even soil needs soil sometimes. Shabbat Shalom.

“Can I Take the Place of God?” Parashat Vayehi

On By scatteredleaves322In D'var Torah, SermonsLeave a comment

Dvar Torah presented at ALEPH’s ordination weekend Shabbaton on January 7, 2023

“Can I take the place of God?” Joseph surveyed his pleading brothers. His brothers, who threw him into a pit and sold him into slavery all those years ago. Their father, Jacob, was dead now, and his brothers were worried he would pay them back for what they had done. 

Joseph said to them, “Al-tirah, ki hatachat Elohim ani?” “Don’t be afraid, for can I take the place of God? Although you intended me harm, God intended it for good, so as to bring about the present result – the survival of many people.” As a leader in Egypt, Joseph saved his people from terrible famine, and he saw God redirect the evil his brothers intended toward this positive outcome. Joseph refused to respond to his brothers’ hateful acts with his own.“And so, don’t fear,” he repeated. “I will sustain you and your children.” The text says he comforted them, and spoke to their hearts. 

A flashback: Joseph’s parents, Jacob and Rachel were facing infertility, long before Joseph was born. Rachel, envious of her sister, Leah, who had children, said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I shall die.” Jacob became angry. Vayomer, “Hatachat Elohim anochi asher-mana mimech peri-baten?” He said, “Can I take the place of God, who has denied the fruit of your belly?”

“Can I take the place of God?” The same phrase – hatachat Elohim – in the voices of father and son. While Jacob lashed out, using this phrase in anger, Joseph softened it. 

When Jacob said “Can I take the place of God,” he didn’t speak to Rachel. The text de-emphasizes their relationship, saying “Jacob said,” not “Jacob said to Rachel.” We can imagine Jacob throwing up his hands in rage, spitting out the phrase “Can I take the place of God?!” He couldn’t be present in relationship with Rachel. He couldn’t respond to her pain because he was exploding with his own, blaming God for denying fruit in baten, her belly. Notice that he does not use the word rechem, womb, which shares a root with rachamim, compassion, because there was no compassion in his reaction. After this, Rachel gave him her handmaid, Bilhah, who bore two children on Rachel’s behalf. The first child, Dan, means judgment. The second, named Naftali, means struggle. Anger and jealousy begat judgment and struggle. When Rachel finally gave birth, she named her son Yosef, Joseph, meaning “increased.”

After Jacob’s death, Joseph said the same words to his brothers.“Can I take the place of God?” But the text says Vayomer Yosef aleihem –  Joseph spoke to them. Unlike Jacob and Rachel, the text emphasizes the relationship. Further, Joseph addressed their feelings first: “Do not be afraid. After all, can I take the place of God?” He comforted them, and spoke to their hearts. He brought in the compassion that was missing from his father’s exclamation. 

Like his father, Joseph believed this was all part of God’s plan. In Jacob’s situation, “Can I take the place of God” meant “I’m not God. I don’t decide who can give birth.” In Joseph’s situation, “Can I take the place of God” meant “God sent me here, not you.” Both Joseph and Jacob believed God was responsible for their experience, but Joseph had the advantage of hindsight, and understood the reason.

It is so much easier to make meaning out of trauma once the reason has been revealed and you’ve moved beyond it! Jacob and Rachel were facing infertility when Jacob lashed out in anger – yes, at Rachel, but perhaps also at God and himself. Not knowing how things would turn out, Jacob only knew he could do nothing about his wife’s suffering. I get it. Sometimes I’m angry I can’t change my situation, and sometimes I’m too upset to be compassionate toward myself or others. I’m sure you can think of moments like that too. Maybe you blamed a loved one, God, or yourself. We’ve all been there. 

Joseph was in a significant leadership role, like many of us. He rose from the pit to the palace, and made meaning from his pain by acknowledging the blessings that came from it. He was in a position not only to support his family financially, but to see and speak to them with compassion. I’ve found that sometimes, after growing through trauma, we are better able to make space for others in their suffering, and to appreciate the blessings that appeared along the way.

This brings me to one difference in the words Joseph and Jacob used to say the same thing: “Can I take the place of God?” Joseph said “Hatachat Elohim Ani?” Jacob said “Hatachat Elohim Anochi?” Both “Ani” and “Anochi” mean “I.” The Zohar teaches that Anochi is associated with Binah, one of God’s upper sefirot, a part of God that is transcendent and hidden from the world. Ani is associated with Shekhina, the Divine Presence, the aspect of God that is most accessible to us on earth. Jacob used the word Anochi. For him, God was responsible for the infertility – but God and the reason were hidden. Jacob was unable to find meaning in his wife’s pain or his own. For Joseph, who used the world Ani, the Divine and the plan were revealed; Joseph was able to make meaning from it, and could respond to his brothers with kindness. 

We can’t expect ourselves – or anyone else – to find meaning, or to find God, in the midst of trauma. But that doesn’t mean we can’t pray or seek the Divine at those times. Some of our favorite Hasidic masters taught us how! 

None of us are in the place of God. We have limited control over our outcomes. Sometimes that’s frustrating and sometimes it’s a relief – who wants that responsibility? Either way, when it feels like God or meaning are distant or hidden, we can learn from Jacob’s outrage, and we can remember to treat ourselves and others with compassion instead. And when we have come through our trauma, when we’ve emerged from the pit to find ourselves in the palace, like Joseph, we can remember to appreciate the Divine blessings in our lives. We can speak to the hearts of those who fear, and act in the world from a place of love and compassion.

Empathy and Exodus: Parashat Shemot for 2021

On By scatteredleaves322In D'var Torah, VideosLeave a comment

You’re walking through the desert and you’ve been walking forever. You are walking away from something you’re trying to forget. You’re not sure what you should be walking toward, but you do know you have to walk. There is sand between your toes and there’s a pebble in your sandal that’s just large enough to be an annoyance, digging into your heel. You don’t stop to remove it because you are compelled, with a focus you’ve never felt before, to just keep walking. Nothing will stop you. Until you see the light. The light of a thornbush on fire, burning but not consumed. Where is all the smoke?

Parashat Shemot is the beginning of the story of Exodus, and it includes Moses’s first encounter with God, through a burning bush. When Moses moves toward the strange burning, God calls out to him. “Moses, Moses!” And Moses said, Hineini, “Here I am.” Hineini is a statement of focused presence. I am here. I am listening. I am ready.

“Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing holy ground. I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

You have removed your shoes, the pebble lost in the sand now. Your heart is pounding in your head and the voice is pounding with it. I am, I am, I am, it says.  Hineini, you respond. I am, too.

“I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt,” says God. “I have heard their cry. I know their sufferings.”

Their cry and their sufferings have enslaved you too. You tried to leave them behind, but somehow they came with you – their voices, their faces twisted in sorrow. You tried to escape it, but memory makes escape impossible.

God was not enslaved by the Egyptians, and yet, God knows the sufferings of the Israelites just by seeing the affliction and hearing their sufferings. According to Rashi, God demonstrates that God is with the Israelites in their affliction by appearing in a thornbush, instead of a more innocuous plant or tree.

“The cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them,” God says. “Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”

“Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”

God, the God of my Ancestors, I am Here, but Who am I? I am the pebble in my sandal, I am trying to escape, I have been walking because I am afraid.

“I will be with you,” God says. “I will be with you.” God doesn’t say “It will all be ok,” or “Don’t be ridiculous; of course you can do it.” God doesn’t tell Moses “This is your job – now deal with it.” God doesn’t shut Moses down when Moses admits to his own impostor syndrome – something so many of us are familiar with. “I will be with you” is validating and honest. God never tries to convince Moses that the exodus will be easy. Instead, God shows Moses that he will not be on this journey alone.

People often feel isolated when we face challenges, alone in our personal deserts, waiting for a bush to burn. I can talk with multiple people in the same week who are facing similar challenges, but they all think that they are the only one. It’s tough to combat feelings of loneliness because vulnerability is scary – our own and the vulnerability of others. Of course we are compelled to walk away from it all, to face the suffering of others by suffering alone.

This is why God’s promise, “I will be with you” is such a powerful and healing response. When we don’t actually know the outcome of a situation, “It’s all going to be ok” is hard to swallow, and “just stay positive” can feel like blame. Validation and acceptance create a safe space for real growth and change. “Yes, this is really hard. It feels impossible. And yet, here I am with you, and I will stay.” My friend Donovan likes to say “Your presence is the medicine.” When there’s not much to say to someone who is suffering, being present is enough. Presence means you’re not walking away. Presence says “Your pain is not taboo.” Presence says “You have not lost me, even if you feel like you have lost everything.” Presence says “Hineini,” Here I Am. I am listening. I am with you. Like Moses, most of us just need to know that we are not alone.

In honor of this parsha, and its arrival at a time of continued fear and uncertainty in the face of rising virus numbers, I encourage you to really listen to your friends and loved ones, to seek an understanding of their suffering. Listen to what your loved ones are saying and not saying, and check your assumptions when you’re about to offer advice. A simple “I will be with you,” may be more than enough. Suffering is hard, and isolation makes it harder. Your presence is the medicine. Only together can we do the work of healing.