Category Archives: Judaism

January 25, 2016 · 7:12 am

A Flip of the Coin

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

So tell me, learned men of the Torah,

who see beshert as a wedding cake of joy,

a bouquet of blessings bestowed by a loving God,

do you also not consider the flip side of the coin,

the reality of a world beset by numbing horror?

In addition to the glass half full,

do you not allow for a glass half empty,

with nothing left but the dregs,

such as when a plane falls from the sky?

Is that beshert, too?

When unimaginable tragedy visits our people

was that similarly meant to be?

At those times, I am inclined to believe

in the total indifference of the universe.

But when good things happen –

a child heals, new lovers meet, nations avoid war –

I am inclined to leave the philosophical door ajar,

and concede we have been placed in this good world

for a divine purpose from a purposeful God.

The author of twelve books for young adults, Mel Glenn has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years.  Lately, he’s been writing poetry, and you can find his most recent poems in the YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy, edited by M. Jerry Weiss.

If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/

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January 11, 2016 · 8:00 am

Tzedekah: The Gift of Giving

By Ellen Sue Spicer-Jacobson (Bala Cynwyd, PA)

Two strong memories of giving are still vivid in my mind’s eye. The first is my father sitting at the dining room table at the end of the year and making out $1.00 checks to each of his favorite charities. This was the 1950s when $1.00 meant something. And since he was a hard-working owner of a gas station and garage, supporting five children and a wife, $1.00 per charity was all he could afford. The other memory is my mother working as a volunteer for our synagogue and packing our one-car garage with other people’s stuff, much to my father’s chagrin, to be saved for the annual rummage sale, the money collected going for needy causes. The garage was always stuffed with stuff!

Both my parents’ actions could be labeled under the Hebrew word tzedakah, an obligation to give to those less fortunate than ourselves. Some also define this word as charity, but the meaning of tzedakah goes beyond charity, and for me, is linked with another Jewish tradition, tikkun olam, which means repair of the world. Helping others is also considered a “mitzvah,” a good deed, all of which dovetails into the whole concept of compassion for others through giving.

I grew up with the idea of tzedakah, and as an adult, continued to emulate my parents, who were following Judaic traditions. (This idea of giving can be found in other religions and belief systems. Jews don’t have a monopoly on this concept.) Then, a couple of years ago, I was introduced to Maimonides’ Eight Degrees of Charity, also known as Maimonides’ Ladder of Charity. Maimonides was a well-known and revered 18th century Jewish philosopher, astronomer, Torah scholar, and physician whose influence Jews still feel today. This ladder was a revelation to me, and the brief description below may give you, as it has me, new thoughts about giving in the future. (I have used several sources, each of which had some variances in language or interpretation.)

  • The lowest rung on this hypothetical ladder is when one gives help or money unwillingly, or gives a small donation grudgingly after being asked.
  • The next-to-the last rung on the ladder is a direct donation, but smaller than s/he is able to give, but given with a smile, after being asked.
  • The next rung up the ladder is a direct donation of sufficient size after being asked or only when asked by the poor.
  • The rung fourth from the bottom (now halfway) is giving a direct donation to the needy, with one another’s knowledge of the giver and the receiver, and without being asked.
  • The fifth rung from the bottom (or third one down) is charity in which the giver knows not the receiver, but the person receiving help does know the giver and may feel indebted.
  • The next rung, directly under the top rung, is when a donation is made anonymously to a charity fund that benefits the poor and the person receiving the help does not know to whom s/he is indebted.
  • The top rung of Maimonides’ ladder is the highest rung of tzedakah. This is when money is donated to prevent a person from becoming poor and helps this person (or persons) to become self-sufficient. This could be in the form of a loan or a job. It is the highest form of charity because it prevents poverty.

With this new information, I am much more aware of how and why I am giving. The next time I am ready to contribute, I want to keep in mind these eight levels of tzedakah and give anonymously, without expecting recognition. In fact, if I can afford to give, then I feel it is a privilege as much as an obligation to help another more needy than myself. I believe that this top rung of the ladder is probably the greatest gift you can give to another, as well as a gift to yourself.

How you give is as important as what you give. If you make wise choices from your heart, I can think of no better gift to yourself and to those in need at this time of year and throughout the next year. Give anonymously with joy and reap its benefits all year long!

(Note: Maimonides’ Ladder of Charity is from Mishneh Torah: Hilcot Matnot Aniyim 10:7-12.)

Ellen Sue Spicer-Jacobson is a freelance writer and author of four cookbooks, a children’s coloring book, a computer manual, and a children’s (fiction) book based on her ancestors’ trek from Russia to Austria-Hungary (and eventually to America.) She lives in Bala Cynwyd, PA, and has a health-oriented website, www.menupause.info  for older women.

This essay is reprinted with the author’s permission. It appeared originally in Women’s Voices for Change (www.womensvoicesforchange.org).

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September 22, 2014 · 6:30 am

The Tent Connection

by Ronni Miller (Sarasota, FL)

“and it came to pass that everyone that sought the Lord went out into the tent of Meeting…” Exodus 33:7

When I first moved to rural Woodstock in the ‘80’s, I had just barely shed my role as a suburban New Jersey divorced wife and single mother. My three children had sprung the nest and were ensconced in colleges of their choices all over the country. What I discovered in the isolated, eclectic pine cabin that I had built, ringed by fields of hay and mountains, was the fledgling connection to myself and to my life as a writer. It would take many years for me to reinvent myself, and during that time, while adapting to the culture of fading hippies, I felt an intuitive connection to the Jewish services that were held nearby under a tent.

Discovering services down the road from the cabin and under the tent was, at first, daunting, even uncomfortable. I had been raised to be proper and staid, reflective and sorrowful in silence inside a proper temple of brick and mortar, and I tried to duplicate that kind of Jewish experience for my own children as I raised them. But my connection to a spiritualism beyond the words that I mouthed in English and Hebrew in that environment was watery at best. What I began to discover under the tent was an inner connection, a physicality of feeling that I had no words to express. Singing, smiling, even laughing and feeling a lightness of spirit, at first felt wrong at such a holy time, but gradually this way of celebrating became the norm that I yearned to experience. I felt connected to something ancient, and I was proud to be a part of such a bond. Yet by the following year when it was time to make plans to return, I again questioned the sincerity of my action.

When I sold my cabin of wood and glass in Woodstock, NY, packed my quilt, books and computer, and moved south for sun and warmth, I felt the need to make a pilgrimage north each fall to re-experience the interaction of a Judaism that spoke to me of ancient connections and rhythms, a living energy that mingled psychological, philosophical, literary and religious themes in a meaningful way that I had never experienced before in any other synagogue of stone walls and stained glass windows. It became an annual ritual that provided a beginning for the New Year, a ritual that helped me understand where I was in my life at the time, as well as shining a light ahead that would help illuminate my path when I had to return to my home in the south and cope with everyday realities.

That first year, as I drove north on the highway, I thought of Rabbi Jonathan who played his guitar as we sang and danced on the earthen floor. The Woodstock Jewish Congregation Kehillat Lev Shalem is, as their motto says, “the congregation of a full heart.” It is “an egalitarian congregation whose members range from cultural atheists to traditional Jews,” says Rabbi Jonathan Kliger, who was trained at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, served as spiritual leader under the tent for twenty-six years, and is now Senior Scholar of the Lev Shalem Institute, a center for learning, creativity, healing, and spiritual growth located at the Woodstock Jewish Congregation. Was I returning for this experience alone, and how did that connect to the religiosity of a new year?

I’ve struggled for two decades to understand the true reason for my annual pilgrimage to the tent for High Holiday services. I know I’m seeking a connection, but a connection to what? Even though I celebrate Shabbat each week by lighting the candles and saying the prayers over the bread and the wine, I feel at times like I’m going through the motions for the sake of tradition. So I drive the twenty-five hundred mile trip alone, from Sarasota, FL to Woodstock, NY, searching for something deeper. And I look forward to the experience of emotional freedom and, if only temporary, a spiritual connection while sitting on a metal folding chair on the earth, sheltered from the elements by a white canvas tent, surrounded by fifteen hundred like-minded strangers.

In my struggle to define the truth for this rite of return, questions pile on questions. Is it just nostalgia to return to a place that had once been my home at a crossroads in my life? Is it the novelty of celebrating the High Holidays under a tent with dancing and singing instead of with the austerity and solemnity encased by stained glass windows? Is it because I desire to be included in a community that welcomes all people, Jewish or not, straight, gay, single and married, a community that openly acknowledges the power of expressing feelings and emotions? Is it because I need to confirm the person I reinvented — or began to reinvent — in this mountain community of artists where individualism is recognized, not scorned?

On reflection, I can say, yes, definitely, it is nostalgic to remember every thread and every morsel of a new life that I had made for myself in a rural rather than suburban environment, and where bear, deer and pheasant were my neighbors instead of people.  It was where an eclectic cabin of pine with wide board floors and two story glass windows, surrounded by pasture and mountains, held treasured memories of a home I had built to declare both my choice of aesthetics, as well as my personal independence as a newly unmarried woman with three grown children.  Yes, it had been exciting to continue to create my fiction in this cabin, which overlooked undulating fields of hay, as well as inspiring to recall the birth of the writing program that has sustained me financially on my future path.

This quest for connection on a deep level is a pervasive theme in my life, as well as in my fiction writing, and it is the power of this quest that draws me to the tent each year.  The tent is where I feel the ancient and the modern connect.  A few children and grandchildren have joined me over the years, and for a few hours it feels like we are home again, a family under one roof. We stand before the bimah to receive a blessing before the Torah is opened. Together we hear the shofar blown, the children standing on metal folding chairs to see over the adults’ heads, or astride their father’s shoulders.

I am on a new chapter in my life now as a widow after twenty years of a second marriage. In the past I haven’t been swayed by practicality. Imagination and desire have always trumped reality. Yet I know that this rite of return helps me feel cleansed and inspired to begin a new year. The service under the tent strengthens my religiosity and my spiritualism, and, after it’s over, I know I’ll carry these feelings, along with the words from Rabbi Jonathan’s sermons, in my heart and mind as I drive south again over interstate highways from the Catskill Mountains, past the low country of the Carolina’s, and into the flat terrain beside the Gulf of Mexico.  This ritual of ebb and flow, this traveling up and back, comforts me. It provides a beginning for the year, a meaningful way for me to mark a distinction between the endings and beginnings in my life.

Ronni Miller, author of Dance With The Elephants: Free Your Creativity And Write and Cocoon To Butterfly: A Metamorphosis of Personal Growth Through Expressive Writing, among other published books, is an award winning fiction author and founder and director of Write It Out®, a motivational and expressive writing program for individuals of all ages since 1992.  She teaches and lectures in the US, facilitates writing retreats in Tuscany and Cape Cod, and writes about her Jewish roots, feelings, memories and experiences in published books, short stories, essays, poems and plays for children and adults. In her private practice as a Book Midwife, she helps people birth their books. See www.writeitout.com for more information. 

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September 16, 2013 · 10:16 am

I Can’t Promise

by Natalie Zellat Dyen (Huntington Valley, PA)

I can’t promise that people will be kind.

But I can show you a reservoir of kindness
where anyone can dip their cup.

I can’t promise you happiness every day of your life.
But I can plant seedlings in your garden
that burst with joy in springtime.

I can’t promise you undying friendship.
But I can give you the words
to mend shattered bonds.

I can’t promise there’s a world to come.
But I can give you the tools you need
to fix the world that is.

I can’t promise that those you love will love you back.
But I can give you an open heart
to receive love when it comes.

And if you can’t promise to use all your gifts
At least you can promise to try.

Natalie Zellat Dyen is a freelance writer and photographer living in Huntingdon Valley, PA. Her work has appeared in Philadelphia Stories, The Willow Review, Global Woman Magazine, Intercom Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Schuylkill Valley Journal, and other newspapers and journals. Links to Natalie’s published work are available atwww.nataliewrites.com.

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September 9, 2013 · 8:32 am

Building Community with Soul

by Shira Sebban (Sydney, Australia)

I can no longer live a meaningful life without my Jewish community. My teenage son calls it an addiction. But my love for my community does not stem from mere habit, nor am I guided by compulsive need or blind infatuation. On the contrary, it has taken years of soul searching and trial and error to find the appropriate community where my family has been able to take root, grow and contribute.

Since ancient times, philosophers like Aristotle (Politics, 1.1253a) and more recently, Spinoza (Ethics, IV, prop 35) have argued that we are social animals. As Rabbi Hillel famously said, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I?” (Ethics of Our Fathers 1:14) In other words, “All Israel are responsible for one another” (Babylonian Talmud, Shevuot 39A, Sifra Bechukotai 7:5).

The Talmud actually defined the type of society where scholars were allowed to live: The chosen city had to include a beit din (law court), an honest charity fund, a synagogue, public baths and toilet facilities, a mohel (circumciser) and a surgeon, a notary, a shochet (ritual slaughterer) and a teacher (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 17b). As Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Executive Director of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, has explained, “in order to be a suitable place to live, a community must provide for all its members’ spiritual and physical needs” (www.myjewishlearning.com).

Yet, it was not until my own father’s death ten years ago that my longing for such community became so urgent. I had once asked him whether he would wish to be buried in the same cemetery as his parents and extended family in Toronto, Canada. “We should be buried within the community where we live,” was my father’s reply. By that time, he had been residing in Melbourne, Australia, for more than 30 years.

He was espousing the teachings of both Rabbis Hillel and Tzaddok, who urged us not to separate ourselves from the community (Ethics of the Fathers 2:5, 4:7). Indeed, Judaism teaches that those who are not prepared to feel their community’s pain and help out when the going gets tough, will not enjoy comfort in the good times either. As the Talmud warns, “The man who secludes himself from the community, which is in distress, shall not see the prosperity of the community” (Ta’anit, chapter 1).

A midrash goes even further, maintaining that removing yourself from the community is like overthrowing the world. It tells the story of the dying Rabbi Assi, who was depressed because although he had been a great scholar and kind and generous man, he had not been involved in communal matters or disputes. As he told his nephew, “I might perhaps have been able to render some service, had I not kept to myself but taken upon me the burden of communal affairs” (Midrash Tanhuma, Mishpatim 2).

When my father died, I did not know where to turn. Although we had belonged to various Orthodox synagogues in the past, my husband and I had not been able to find a spiritual home since moving to a new city some years earlier. As a result, we had flitted from one synagogue to the next, sampling a different one on each Jewish holiday but not feeling “at home” in any of them.

Nevertheless, I was touched when one of the rabbis, whom I had met in the course of my search, rang several times to see how I was faring. When upon my father’s first yahrzeit (anniversary after death), the same rabbi offered me his synagogue for a memorial service, we finally made up our minds to join his congregation – after such generosity on his part, we believed it was the least we could do.

That sense of welcome, warmth and support through both tough and good times remain major factors in why we renew our membership each year. Judaism ensures that mourners do not grieve alone, stipulating that Kaddish, the prayer for the dead in which God’s name is sanctified, only be recited publicly in the presence of a minyan (ten Jewish adults – the minimum number required for community). Celebrations also become more meaningful when enjoyed together in community.

As our sons have grown older and undertaken preparation for their Bar Mitzvah, our family has come to attend synagogue every Shabbat. Our shule of choice is Conservative (Masorti): Integrating tradition with modernity, it allows us to sit together as a family instead of banishing me behind a mechitza (partition to separate men and women).

This egalitarian ethos is particularly important to me as I do not have any daughters and would otherwise be sitting apart from my husband and sons. Nevertheless, it was several years before I felt comfortable being counted in a minyan and agreed to be called up to the Torah. Not that there was ever any pressure on me to do so – our synagogue accepts a certain variety of Jewish practice.

It also gives us the freedom to question and acknowledges our right to consider different interpretations and viewpoints. As Robert Gordis, chairman of the Commission on the Philosophy of Conservative Judaism, has explained: “Pluralism is a characteristic not only of Judaism as a whole, but of every Jewish school of thought that is nurtured by the spirit of freedom” (JTS: Emet Ve’Emunah: Statement of Principles of Conservative Judaism, 1988, Introduction p14).

In addition to my synagogue, the Jewish day school my children attend is another pillar of my community. Pluralistic and egalitarian too, it welcomes students of all backgrounds, who come together in mutual respect and are encouraged to work for tikkun olam, making the world a better place. So committed have I become to this philosophy that I decided to volunteer for the School Board when my oldest son was in first grade and have remained actively involved ever since.

According to Rabban Gamliel, the son of Rabbi Judah HaNassi, “Those who work for the community should do so for the sake of heaven” (Ethics of Our Fathers 2:2). In other words, the early rabbis were urging us to be ethical when we undertake communal work. As Rabbi Yehudah Prero explains, “We must act with pure intentions, with no ulterior motives” (“Community – Then, Now, and Forever, www.torah.org/learning/yomtov/holocaust/no3.html).

Humility is also an important factor: The Talmud not only regards leaders as the “servants” of the community (Horayot 10a), but also stresses that they should always carry “a basket of reptiles” on their back so that if they “became arrogant”, they could be told to “Turn around!” (Yoma 22b). In other words, never forget that family skeleton hidden in your closet!

Recognizing the frailties of human nature, the ancient rabbis resorted to divine reward and punishment as a means of encouraging ethical communal leadership: those who cause others to do wrong will not be “given the opportunity to repent”, while those who lead others to do good will be credited with their community’s merit (Ethics of Our Fathers, 5:18).

Sure, as Rabbi Yitzchak Blau has pointed out, the rabbis did not think it fair that communal leaders should enjoy heaven while their followers rotted in hell, but is there really no hope of redemption for those who lead others down the wrong path? Here scholars disagreed, with some arguing that while God would not help the wrongdoers, they were still free to repent on their own. In contrast, the medieval scholar and physician Moses Maimonides is much more damning in his assessment: for him, there is truly no hope of salvation for such wicked leaders (Hilchot Teshuva 4:1, http://blog.webyeshiva.org/teshuva/inights-in-pirkei-avot-the-implications-of-causing-others-to-sin).

Admittedly, such threats have little effect in this day and age when many of us don’t even know whether we believe in God. Nevertheless, it is still possible to contribute altruistically to and derive meaning from community based on religious civilization. Conservative (Masorti) Judaism recognizes this position as valid: “One can live fully and authentically as a Jew without having a single satisfactory answer to such doubts; one cannot, however, live a thoughtful Jewish life without having asked the questions” (Statement of Principles of Conservative Judaism, p17).

My oldest son has commented that without faith, a prayer service is just “a group of strangers singing together”. Yet, I have certainly discovered a sense of inner peace, spiritual uplift and intellectual stimulation through regular attendance at synagogue services and communal celebrations like the Pesach Seder.

To quote the writer Alain de Botton: The “relevance” of such religions as Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism “to the problems of community are arguably never greater than when they … remind us that there is also value to be had in standing in a hall with a hundred acquaintances and singing a hymn together … or in sitting at a table with neighbors and partaking of lamb stew and conversation, the kinds of rituals which, as much as the deliberations inside parliaments and law courts, are what help to hold our fractious and fragile societies together” (2012, Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion, London: Penguin Books, p50).

De Botton – who was born Jewish but describes himself as a committed atheist – argues for the removal of religion’s “supernatural structure” before it can help solve “many of the problems of the modern soul” (pp311-312).

My soul, however, does not need to be quarantined from the full gamut of my religion in order to thrive. Indeed, I am quite happy to keep on exploring the laws and customs of my heritage and culture, practicing rituals and contemplating ideas from within Judaism. All I need is my community.

Shira Sebban, a writer and editor based in Sydney, Australia, worked as a journalist for the Australian Jewish News. She previously taught French at the University of Queensland and worked in publishing. She also serves as vice-president on the board of  Emanuel School, a pluralistic and egalitarian Jewish Day School. You can read more of her work at: https://jewishwritingproject.wordpress.com/category/australian-jewry/ http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=13636  and at http://shirasebban.blogspot.com.au/

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July 30, 2012 · 10:07 am

The Inner Palace

by Ilan Braun (Le Tour-du-Parc, Brittany, France)
Little Adam sleeps and dreams
In his mother’s inner palace
Little Adam in his tightly closed fists holds Knowledge
Like a delicate full bloom flower
He knows everything about the universe
And the world above
He knows the Divine Law
From the first letter, Alef, to the last one, Taf
Little Adam knows and understands the Creation’s mysteries
All of them without exception
Why the whales sing under the rolling waves
Why the moon shines during the darkest of nights
Why the sun breeds the day every morning
Why Man and Woman like one unique being
And why this, and why that, and so much more
Little Adam in his mother’s heart
Even with closed eyes, sees All
The huge Time space before his birth, and right after
Yesterday, today and tomorrow on the same horizon
With closed eyes, he smiles
Because Angels, with love, surround him
And rock him with melodious lullabies
Till he dreams again
Alas, the long and sweet inner Night is ending
And being torn apart
Tender dreams suddenly ending
The Day is rising blinding Little Adam with too much brightness
From his mother’s heart expelled
Crying and moaning from alien pain
As an Angel, with his finger, has given him total oblivion
Here is Little Adam on his own on this earth
And forever seeking the lost Palace
Ilan Braun, a retired French journalist who wrote for L’Arche, is a poet, writer, painter and amateur historian on the Holocaust and post-war Jewish clandestine immigration to Israel. He has lived in Israel and Australia and visited over 30 countries.

You can read more of his work in Labyrinthe poétique: De la terre au ciel (Publibook, Paris, 2009) and in English (“The Oak of Tears”) in Under One Canopy: Readings in Jewish Diversity, edited by Karen Primack (Kulanu Inc. Silver Spring, MD. 2003).

For more information about his work, visit: www.ilanbraun.dr.ag

 

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August 30, 2010 · 7:05 am

On Teshuvah

by Louis E. Newman (Northfield, MN)

All of us at one time or another have had the experience of losing our way. Sometimes, perhaps when we’re traveling in a foreign place, we become completely disoriented. At first we think we know which way to head, but when we set out in that direction we discover that our own sense of direction has failed us. When we realize that we don’t have the foggiest idea where we are or how to get to our destination, we are thoroughly lost. Such moments can arouse profound feelings of helplessness and even despair.

Being morally lost likewise involves a sense of despair. We have fallen into the same patterns of hurtful or self-destructive behavior so often we feel that we’re beyond the point of being able to change. We don’t know which direction to turn in order to find our way back to a life of honor and integrity. And before long we may come to believe that, for us at least, there is no way back. I have known many addicts who have lived for years with such feelings of helplessness.

Ultimately, though, the point of all these metaphors of movement is that the same steps that led us into the ditch of transgression can lead us back to the high road of ethical living. Teshuvah—returning—is the name Judaism gives to this process of retrieving our sense of direction. Repentance is the ultimate form of return. After turning our gaze away from God and straying from the straight path, we can still find our way back. And it is as simple as taking just one step in a new direction. For turning in a new direction, by as little as one degree, will lead us over time to a wholly different destination.

Louis Newman has been thinking, teaching, and writing about Jewish ideas for over 30 years.  One of the country’s leading scholars of Jewish ethics, he is the John M. and Elizabeth W. Musser Professor of Religious Studies and the Humphrey Doermann Professor of Liberal Learning at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. His most recent book is Repentance: The Meaning and Practice of Teshuvah (Jewish Lights 2010).

This excerpt is from Repentance: The Meaning and Practice of Teshuvah @ 2010 by Louis Newman (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing). Permission granted by Jewish Lights Publishing, P.O. Box 237, Woodstock, VT 05091. www.jewishlights.com.

To read more about Dr. Newman and his work, visit http://www.jewishlights.com/page/product/978-1-58023-426-9

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January 18, 2010 · 9:54 am

As the sequoias

by Chaviva Edwards (Storrs, CT)

The first time I went to a Conservative synagogue, I was told by a friend that when the mourner’s kaddish is recited, to stay seated unless I actually am in mourning for a lost loved one. I sat there as a few of the 20 or so people there stood up on old, worn ankles, tired hips mustering the strength to stand tall in the sanctuary while reciting the prayer that does not once mention death. I mouthed the words to myself, because it was what I knew — when reciting kaddish, the congregation stood together with those mourning, each holding each other up. This is an across-the-board kind of thing, though it varies from shul to shul. I can confidently say that most Conservative/Orthodox shuls are the kind of places where only the mourners will stand.

But last night at Erev Rosh Hashanah services, the rabbi gave probably the most poignant explanation for why all congregants should stand during the kaddish. He told the congregation about an article he had read about the seqouias — the tall trees that grow thin and high. The roots of these trees are pretty much at surface level, that is, they do not grow very far below the immediate surface. So how do these trees stand so very tall when threatened to be blown over by the smallest breeze? The roots are intertwined across entire forest areas. The roots lace together, creating a strong, solid structure, a base of root upon root that allows each tree to hold his neighbor up, and in turn, to hold up the entire collection of sequoias. Without one, they all would falter.

How appropriate is this? How beautiful an analogy for why a congregation should stand, arms intertwined and souls laced together tightly in a sanctuary space with those mourning and those not mourning, simply to support one another in a time of extreme sadness? Like the sequoias, Jews, too, should interlace themselves, standing tall and help one another brave the wind that blows soft, then hard, across our cheeks.

Chaviva Edwards, currently residing in Storrs, Connecticut, is in her second year of the master’s program in Judaic studies at the University of Connecticut. In her past life, Chaviva was a copy editor for such publications as The Denver Post, The Daily Nebraskan, and The Washington Post. Alongside her master’s work, she is rekindling her insatiable desire to edit through special projects involving Judaism and Jewish topics. She is an avid photographer, devotee of her many blogs, and a Web 2.0 connoisseur.

You can find more of her work at www.kvetchingeditor.com, chaviva.yelp.com, www.twitter.com/kvetchingeditor, and flickr.com/photos/kvetchingeditor

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December 7, 2009 · 7:51 am

Following the Lead of My Radical Foremothers

by Dina Ripsman Eylon (Thornhill, Ontario, Canada)

The idea to start an academic journal on Jewish women came to me while researching the lives of Rachel Yanait Ben Zvi, Mania Shochat and Netiva Ben Yehuda for an article on women in the military in pre-state Israel. I realized that despite the fact that these women were instrumental in military organizations prior to the establishment of the Jewish state, nothing about them was mentioned in history textbooks of the period. Growing up in Israel during the 1960s and 1970s, I was not aware of the contribution of any of these women, except for Rachel Yanait Ben Zvi, (the wife of the second president of Israel) even though during this time in North America, the Second Wave of the feminist movement flourished.

Confounded by personal reflections and undefined theories forming slowly in my mind, I devoured books in the fields of women’s history and feminism. I wanted to know more about complex issues like Jewish marriage and divorce, and the role women were expected to play in the family. I wanted to understand political and social structures that propagated discrimination and inequality.

Through this personal quest for enlightenment, I was introduced to the works and philosophy of the renowned novelist and author Virginia Woolf. In the late 1920s she explored the subjects of women’s history and writing. Woolf delivered two lectures on the topic of women and fiction at the Cambridge women’s colleges of Girton and Newnham. She examined women’s writing from all possible angles and famously concluded that “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction,” and inevitably, if she is to write anything at all, or be written about. In A Room of One’s Own, her subsequent work, she articulated women’s inopportune historical exploits and boldly stated: “For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.”

In Israel, the question “what does it mean to be Jewish?” does not surface except for the need to affiliate oneself with either the secular majority or the observant minority. When I arrived in Canada in 1980 to pursue my graduate studies, I learned that being a Jewish woman was not limited to being merely secular or religious. Jewish identity was not inherent but actually a product of one’s self-search or desire to belong socially. Assuming a Jewish identity was a choice that many women wanted to make.

As the eminent Jewish feminist Susan Weidman Schneider wrote in her seminal work Jewish and Female, “the tension for Jewish women today comes from the struggle to stay within the tradition yet not compromise one’s identity and integrity as a woman.” Weidman Schneider described a variety of ways in which these identities are sought: changing and feminizing known rituals, “rediscovering” new aspects of Judaism that may relate to women, studying sources and texts to discern women’s input, and moreover, “transforming traditional Judaism and Jewish institutions so that they include women…”

Schneider’s book was another milestone in shaping a more defined view on the life of Jewish women in North America and helped to crystallize my feminist ideology. It was an ideology based on a determination to empower women by the only weapon I had – education.

As the founder and editor-in-chief of Women in Judaism in 1997, I wanted to help create ‘a paradigm shift’ within the field of Jewish Studies and build a new one reintroducing the findings to what is considered now the ‘mainstream’ or “malestream” study of Judaism. Since its inception, the journal has gained international readership and is listed in dozens of directories and indexes. In addition to publishing prominent scholars, the journal promotes young and emerging scholars and makes it a priority to give a voice to materials that most likely would have never been published by “malestream” Jewish periodicals. The journal welcomes a diversity of points of view, conflicting or harmonizing, in order to develop a genuine dialogue.

Our primary goal is to give Jewish women an uninterrupted voice, a place where all voices are heard and listened to, devoid of any patriarchal sponsorship or censorship.

Author and publisher, Dina Ripsman Eylon has a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. She has been teaching various undergraduate courses at Carleton University and at the University of Toronto. For the past twelve years, she has served as the publisher and editor-in-chief of Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal (http://www.utoronto.ca/wjudaism/journal/journal_index1.html), a gender-related publication, which has engaged and promoted new feminist scholarship in Jewish Studies. Her book, Reincarnation in Jewish Mysticism and Gnosticism, was published by Edwin Mellen Press (2003). Eylon founded the Vaughan Poets’ Circle and serves as the Thornhill branch manager of the Ontario Poetry Society.

This piece is based on Dina Ripsman Eylon’s “No More Anonymity,” which appears in Living Legacies: A Collection of Inspirational Contemporary Canadian Jewish Women (edited by Liz Pearl). It’s reprinted here with permission of the author.

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September 29, 2009 · 10:26 am

The new year cometh

by Chaviva Edwards (Storrs, CT)

Tomorrow at sundown begins Rosh HaShanah, one of four Jewish new years, also THE Jewish New Year by practical terms.  We feat this weekend and then, on Oct 1-2, we consider the trespasses of the past year; how we turned our backs in the field to a G-d so presently standing before us with openness.

I want to share a bit from my “A little joy a little oy” desk calendar. Every now and again it has something fruitful and funny. I always put my calendar a day ahead so I don’t get behind or confused when editing for tomorrow’s paper. In reality, I work a day ahead. But I was poking far ahead to see what the calendar had to offer, because I won’t be here this weekend because of the holiday. For Sept. 23, the calendar quotes Rabbi Neil Comess-Daniels in his 2000 Rosh HaShanah sermon.

“… it’s time to put your hand in the hand of someone you love … and recognize that we only have a very short opportunity to be the humans upon the sand and not the pebbles. … It’s time to recognize that the real value of our lives is … experiencing the … seemingly insignificant things. It’s time to recognize that things don’t need to be the slickest … to be great … and appreciated. It’s time to repent but not wallow in repentance. … It’s time to take a stand for … what we believe. … It’s time to realize that we are as small and as very large as the pebble upon the sand, no matter how we count the years. Amen.”

I think it’s incredibly well written and speaks to the essence of the High Holy Days. I look back on the month of Elul at this point and think about a rebirth and renewal I wasn’t expecting. I’ve met someone who makes me feel alive and happy — someone who speaks to my heart without wanting to change me (Ani L’Dodi V’Dodi Li). As the new year approaches, I’m thinking about how life has handed me something precious, something to be truly thankful for as the new year approaches. Yom Kippur will give me a chance to consider the past year and some of the horrible, insane things that went on and that made me turn my eyes downward and away, into the dirt at my feet instead of the figure in the field. It’s funny how long and changing a year is and yet how we can catalogue its events like a shopping list. I intend to mark things off of the list and leave it in the dirt near my feet as I walk away from 5766 and into 5767.

In this week’s parshah, Moses sings to Am Yisrael, saying “Remember the days of old / Consider the years of many generations / Ask your father, and he will recount it to you / Your elders, and they will tell you” how G-d “found them in a desert land.” Moses tells them how G-d made them a people, chose them as His own and gave them a bountiful land. So I remember and give thanks for my people, past and present, not to mention the future of the Jewish nation.

Also something to consider: Ramadan begins on the second day of Rosh HaShanah. Two religions and nations in strife must share a day that happens to be holy in both spheres. I only hope that, with this in mind, perhaps the Middle East will sit still for a day, relishing in the gifts they’ve been given — the Jews for their Torah and Israel and the breath of life and the Muslims for the giving of the Koran to Muhammad. Neither religion or nation is blemish free. I’m not going to argue politics or history, for both peoples have committed crimes and acts that G-d would sooner mark us off than have to watch. But let us hope, and pray, that on Sept. 24 both groups — and all of those who live near — can calm their minds and hands to reach not for triggers but apples and honey.

Chaviva Edwards, currently residing in Storrs, Connecticut, is in her second year of the master’s program in Judaic studies at the University of Connecticut. In her past life, Chaviva was a copy editor for such publications as The Denver Post, The Daily Nebraskan, and The Washington Post. Alongside her master’s work, she is rekindling her insatiable desire to edit through special projects involving Judaism and Jewish topics. She is an avid photographer, devotee of her many blogs, and a Web 2.0 connoisseur.

This piece first appeared on Chaviva’s blog, Just Call Me Chaviva, www.kvetchingeditor.com , in September, 2006. It’s reprinted here with permission of the author.

You can find more of her work at www.kvetchingeditor.com, chaviva.yelp.com, www.twitter.com/kvetchingeditor, and
flickr.com/photos/kvetchingeditor

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