Eyes on the East

"With love as deep as the colors of Jerusalem" 
A Mizrach by Eileen Shulman

Dear friends, 

A Mizrach is traditional Jewish art piece that is placed on the eastern wall of the house. It includes the Hebrew word, Mizrach, meaning east, meaning the Land of Israel, meaning the site of holiness, meaning the place of truth, meaning the way forward. Staring at the one my mother painted in her home in Jerusalem and now lives on my wall, I found some focus this week.

The Shloshim has passed, the thirty-day mark since the horrors began. We’ve been in a cloud of emotions and confusion that has rocked our understanding and shifted our perspectives. And then, on Wednesday evening, as I listened to Sally Abed and Alon-Lee Green of Standing Together speak in the Upper West Side, the haze seemed to scatter. “Stand up,” I heard them echo Lekha Dodi, “step out of the chaos.”

Many of us have been caught in confusion and pain that has left us frozen. We were so shaken that we questioned basic values that guide us. Unsure what to call for, we succumbed to the fury around us. I found myself envious of those who could clearly take a stand, no matter on which side, simply because they could put their emotions into action. For the first time in my life, I couldn’t find a single protest I felt comfortable going to. Free Palestine meant more than those words. Stand with Israel meant more than just that. Cease Fire came with “Genocide,” often with “River to the Sea,” sometimes with “By Any Means.” Release the Hostages came with a sea of flags, whose representatives had just spoken about devastating Gaza for generations, and then cut off basic supplies and destroyed tens of thousands of innocent lives. My entire adult life I have been fighting to end the occupation so that Jews can continue to live in the Land of Israel, and Palestinians can be free. Suddenly I couldn’t comfortably stand with either side. Justice, no matter whose, felt off the mark of truth.

The trickiest thing about being far away is that you can lose sight of the reality on the ground over there. You can stop looking for a solution and focus instead on some perfect notion of justice. Whether or not people have a right to act in one way or another is irrelevant to whether that same act is constructive or not. That should be our measure.

On Wednesday night a Palestinian woman and an Israeli man took the stage to state a simple truth: neither of them is ever leaving. No one is going anywhere. It is from that truth that I begin to find clarity, and from there that I stand up to act. (please watch the recording of that extraordinary event HERE. It gets going at minute 22.)

I do not act out of an expectation that it will “work.” I do not act out of an expectation that I will see peace tomorrow, or this year, or this decade, or even in my lifetime. Jews have been taught not to expect peace since the day we came into being. Instead, we do it Lishmah, for its own sake. When Sally and Alon-Lee speak about their work of “choosing a shared future,” they know the tremendous odds against them. They pay real prices for it, especially during these times. Palestinian Israelis, including very prominent ones are currently in Israeli jails simply for joining a demonstration against a war in which their family members are being killed in great numbers. Jewish Israelis are also in jail for expressions of solidarity and concern that this operation will come back to haunt them. But the activists of Standing Together and Spirit of the Galilee and Combatants for Peace and The Bereaved Parents Circle and Ta’ayush and other joint Jewish-Arab movements are steadied by the simple fact that no one is going anywhere, and this leaves everyone there with a simple choice between never-ending war, or building a shared future.

Sally and Alon Lee were asked what we in the US can do to help. Alon gave a four-point answer:

Support the movement financially.

Realize our influence in this moment. Blinken sits in on meetings with Israel’s war cabinet. He responds to our calls. Write to your reps, not with general heartbreak or concern but with clear demands. Alon didn’t outline these, and each of us can come up with our own, but a few obvious ones are: Release the hostages. Humanitarian pause. Humanitarian corridor. Basic supplies to Gazans. Stop handing out rifles to extremist settlers. Protect Palestinians in the West Bank from settler attacks. Freedom of dissent in Israel. A far more effective strategy to protect civilian lives in Gaza.

Realize our influence toward a solution to the conflict. Is there anyone who still thinks the status quo can hold? The occupation needs to end. The Hamas-Bibi era has to pass. You think it’s hopeless? Do it anyways. Understand the physical danger that hopelessness brings and step out of it. Hopelessness is what both Netanyahu and Hamas have sold these last several decades. Reject it. It was Carter who forced a right-wing Israeli leader to make peace with his sworn enemy. It can happen again.

Create a less toxic conversation here. The high fumes that we have witnessed in this country burn a palpable effect on the state of affairs in Israel/Palestine. Work peace into your conversations and expressions here. Check the way you speak, and get less offended and enraged, especially when you’re in conversation with Palestinians and Israelis. When, for example, a Palestinian says From the River to the Sea, remember that the very same language exists in certain Israeli circles (such as the founding charter of the country’s governing party.) When an Israeli says “I don’t care about Palestinian deaths,” imagine how you would feel if you lived there, where everyone in the country knows people who were murdered or kidnapped or both. Remember the videos these are seeing, and the ones these are seeing.

There is no doubt that we have our own problems over here in America, many of which have been brought to light by this war. But if we are going to be helpful to Israelis, and that has been one of the hardest elements of the experience for many of us, we have to keep our eyes on the Mizrach. There is a goal that we are striving for, which necessarily involves a shared future for Palestinians and Israelis. Let us begin working toward that now. Let us avoid language that erases one side. Let us resist division here so they can unite there. Let us amplify the voices of unity and help them build a future out of broken buildings and hollow hearts. To borrow a phrase from Netanyahu: this will be long and difficult.

My father has been miserable these days because since October 7th around twenty of the Palestinian villages in the West Bank that he’s been working to protect from extremist settlers have succumbed to their threats and been abandoned. The only times he is not entirely miserable about it is when he is in a Palestinian village under threat supporting them. Acting Lishmah, for its own sake has no rewards other than that fleeting feeling that you are doing the right thing. Does anything matter more?

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha

Humility of the Heart

Dear friends, 

One of the infuriating aspects of this war has been the decline of humility. So many people keep telling so many others their unshakeable opinions, often with a moral judgement of anyone who doesn’t hold their opinion. Even people essentially on the same side of the argument are expressing themselves toward one another in confrontational ways, which reveal a self-assuredness that leans dangerously close to arrogance. When Hamas officials were asked why they attacked in the first place, one of the first words they used was arrogance. Whether we believe them or not, humiliation and arrogance are two of the instigators and driving forces of this war. They create conflict, tension and weak thinking, and part of our work should be to tame those feelings, and instead work toward one of the great values of all religions, humility.

In the 13th century in Egypt lived the only rabbi I know of who earned himself the nickname “The Sufi.” Clearly, Rabbi Avraham Ben HaRambam had strong relationships with the Muslim thinkers around him. Being Maimonides’ son, he had tremendous knowledge of Judaism as well. In his masterpiece Hamaspik Le’ovdey Hashem, The Guide to Serving God, Rabbi Avraham devotes a long chapter to the Hebrew word Anavah, humility. Alongside countless examples of the humility of the ancestors and the prophets in the form of verses from scripture, we find one verse that is quoted seven times in the chapter, and which Rabbi Avraham uses to illustrate the single greatest expression of humility in scripture.

Attributed to King David, a man whose life was jam-packed with enemies, betrayals, fearful flight and humiliating defeats, alongside moments of great triumph, the verse comes from one of David’s highest expressions of being hated, Psalm 109. This bitter poem, in which he indulges in imagining all the horrible things people are saying about him, portrays David in a position that feels familiar nowadays. Despite his never-ending attempts to stand for love, not hate, for goodness in the face of evil, for peace and camaraderie in a time of division, he feels perceived as exactly the opposite:

I pour out love

But they see destruction

They’ve turned me into the devil

Treat me like a demon,

Repay good with evil

My kindness with hate

In these moments, David teaches, we have a choice between despair and hope.

What’s left to do, he asks. Comes the answer:

I am a prayer.

How can we retain that prayerful position? How might we maintain the goodness we feel is driving us, and not add more violence into the world?

Rabbi Avraham talks of two types of humility. External humility is easier. You could even fake it, or train yourself simply to think before you act by pausing, imagining the recipient of your communication, or remaining silent (often the best cure). But the real prize is the far more difficult and remote Anavah Pnimit, internal humility. This is the perfect honesty of a person who knows their faults, gets complexity, and does not demand that reality conform to their wishes, but bows down in the face of a painful impossibility.

לבי חלל בקרבי, says the poet, my heart is hollow within me.

This is the verse that I’ve been walking around with this past week as I watch the scenes of destruction and death from Gaza, the images of beautiful young men who have fallen in battle, pictures of people taking cover during a funeral as the entire world fills with sharp, nasty noise.

The second word in the phrase, חלל, can be understood in a variety of ways. In certain contexts it means a soldier killed in battle, in others a desecration or an injury, and often it means an emptying out, or simply a vast open space.

This verse fragment is, to Rabbi Avraham, the greatest example of internal humility. When my heart is a dead soldier I slow down. I may not even speak. I can't see myself as greater, stronger or smarter than others. When my heart is an empty space within me, it is connected to the vastness of space beyond, where opinions become mute. Our hearts, David tells us, are specific to us. They speak to us out of the integrity in our core. When they carry that non-judgmental space of loss, and the connection to the never-ending, they keep us from lashing out violently against other hearts, but instead, perhaps, they might bring one heart closer to another.

Let us be humble this week, and hope that our humility shields us from participating in the spiraling hatred.

For Adonai stands with him who has been drained of hope,

Protecting him

From the self-appointed

Judges of the earth.

Here is the full Psalm in a translation I made back in the (good old?) twenty-teens:

Psalm 109 / What’s Left to Do?

(For the Conductor

A song by David)

God of my psalm,

It’s time for you to speak up.

Stop answering my songs with whispers

No one hears.

Their mouths have opened over me.

Their wicked thoughts

Their deceitful words

Their tongues twisting lies toward me

Hatred surrounds me

A war that need not be.

I pour out love

But they see destruction

They’ve turned me into the devil

Treat me like a demon,

Repay good with evil

My kindness with hate

What’s left to do?

I am a prayer.

“Place some villain over him

Let Satan stand to his right.

Judge him to be wicked

See his prayer as sin.

Shorten his days

Make his business fail.

Orphan his children

Widow his wife.

May his sons and daughters be forever in motion,

Begging for food, searching for meaning among the ruins of their lives.

He always loved the curse, so give him what he likes.

Now let him wear his curse like a well-tailored suit

Let it constantly hold his waist tight like a belt

Let him be Infested with it

Let it sink into his belly with the water he drinks

Let it settle into his bones with the oil he consumes.”

That is what those who call me their adversary ask of God

Them, who advocate against my very soul.

What’s left to do?

I am a prayer.

And you, Adonai, my Master

Use me as your agent

Let me do your work here

in this little corner

Where goodness and kindness

Shade over me,

All comes from you.

I am poor

I am alone

My heart is hollow within me.

I walk around like a lengthening shadow

Thrown by the winds like a locust

My knees fail

I have no appetite

I am skin and bones,

A disgrace

People see me and shake their heads in woe.

What’s left to do?

I am a prayer.

Help me, Adonai

Love me.

Be kind, my God.

That will bring me back.

Their little curses are nothing

Your blessing is everything

Show them your hand

So that they understand.

Then they will stand corrected,

Acknowledge their wrongs,

Wipe their lips dry with shame,

Cover their faces in embarrassment,

Hide behind a coat of regret.

And your servant will be at peace.

Speak thanks, my mouth,

Speak thanks again

In private and among multitudes sing praise.

For Adonai stands with she who has been drained of hope,

Protecting her

From the self-appointed

Judges of the earth.

What’s left to do?

I am a prayer.

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha

Fear and Self-Righteousness

Dear friends, 

My favorite moment at our Shabbat two weeks ago, which fell on World Jihad Day, was when I asked whether people were scared to come, and Ricky, a community elder, with no hesitation yelled out “No!” About half of the crowd had their hands raised, admitting they came despite their fears. Fear showed itself to be a prominent feature of this war from the very beginning. While Arab Americans who have spoken their opinions in public have lost their jobs, Jewish students in Cooper Union were closed into the library with a mob of anti-Zionists banging on the windows. And of course, six-year-old Wadia Al Fayoum z”l who was murdered in Illinois (police is saying that it appears as though the murder of Samantha Wohl in Detroit last week “had nothing to do with anti-Semitism"). Whether you’re Jewish or Arab in America you are probably experiencing at least a minimal level of fear.

What does that do to us?

Not only does it make us fidgety, nervous and reactive, it also makes us speak and behave in ways that we normally wouldn’t. The national traumas have risen to the front level of our hearts. These fears often translate into justification of actions we would normally consider wrong.

What I’m hearing around me is primarily talk of right and wrong. Words like justice and injustice fill the stratosphere. “kidnapping children is a justified means of resistance.” “Killing 750 people in one night is justified in order to protect our people against further attacks.” These are very common attitudes among people who normally abhor hurting innocents.

A lot of the people I speak with in Israel and Palestine are not talking about justice. They don’t claim to be morally right, nor do they categorically call the everyone on the other side wrong. Most of my Israeli friends even admit that if they were Palestinian they would likely resist in some way. And many of the Palestinian voices I hear understand the Israeli need for self-defense. Even if they both reject the methods the other side is currently using, they understand this not as a battle between right and wrong, but simply a battle for survival. The terms right and wrong are relevant to the war of opinions, when Israelis and Palestinians are fighting for their physical lives, and my guess is that their leaders would behave in similar ways whether they thought they were in the right or not.

One thing I learned growing up in Israel is that there is a huge difference between righteousness and self-righteousness. Righteousness is an attitude that we hold easily when we don’t feel like we’re under attack. Self-righteousness is what happens to us when we act against the righteousness in our core, because we feel we have no choice. In an anguished act, we attempt to explain ourselves to ourselves. When our inner core, who knows full well that there is no just way to kill a child rejects our excuses we spiral off loudly into the world. It’s an expression of deep failure, of a terrible disappointment with the world, with God, with ourselves.

This has been the story of this conflict from the very beginning. Two nations, both of whom are filled to the brim with life-loving righteous people, are pushed to acts of destruction, inhumanity and violation of their core instincts for the sake of their physical survival. Biden spoke of Golda Meir’s idea of the Israeli secret weapon: “We have no place else to go.” That’s true for Israelis, and true in a much more concrete way for Gazans.

We can of course argue over the limits of right and wrong, and about how helpful or destructive these self-righteous acts of hideousness are. But I’d like to suggest what to me is a more constructive approach for those of us here in the diaspora.

Traditionally, diaspora communities play the role of cheerleaders for their home nations. As a gross generalization, Jews have gone to pro-Israel rallies and Arabs to pro-Palestine rallies. This is directly connected to the fear for our people over there. But we have a responsibility to remember that whatever fear we may be experiencing – real though it may be – is nothing in comparison to that of escaping bombing, shooting, kidnapping and murder over there.

Diaspora communities in times of war could be playing a different role. We could be using our insider perspective not to yell and scream but to educate those around us who don’t understand what antisemitism is, what the occupation is, what the State of Israel has meant to Jewish people, and what the Palestinian experience has been in the last century. And we could be using our outsider perspective to restrain our own communities back home, who are acting out of fear for their lives. Since co-existence between Jews and Arabs is easier far away from Israel/Palestine, we could be offering examples of how to do that. We could be reminding everyone back home of the righteousness in their core. We could be talking about what comes after this war, which might yet make some of the blood and tears come to something positive.

I’m not saying this is easy. It’s not. But as we ask ourselves: what is our task? Let us not forget the core tenets of our faith, the humanity that bursts forth out of the commandment “Do not murder.” I think that even those of us who stand in complete support of Israel could be doing it out of an attempt to preserve not only the physical survival of our people, but its ethical core. And those of us who are in complete opposition to Israel’s actions could be doing it with compassion for those soldiers risking their lives for their community’s survival.

This all takes a tremendous degree of humility and expansiveness, but if we can’t hold multiple perspectives we are failing our tradition and failing ourselves. If 85-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz can shake the hand of her Hamas captor as he sends her back home, we here can certainly work toward a less inflammatory conversation in the US.

In this week’s Haftarah we again hear words of consolation and encouragement from the prophet Isaiah:

הַחֲרִ֤ישׁוּ אֵלַי֙ אִיִּ֔ים וּלְאֻמִּ֖ים יַחֲלִ֣יפוּ כֹ֑חַ יִגְּשׁוּ֙ אָ֣ז יְדַבֵּ֔רוּ יַחְדָּ֖ו לַמִּשְׁפָּ֥ט נִקְרָֽבָה׃

Stand silent before Me, you islands

So nations can renew their strength.

First, approach. Then, speak.

Then we might come close to one another,

And move together toward a conversation.

Isaiah offers us a beautiful challenge: Let us not be islands yelling out our self-righteous noise, but humble, forward-looking communal messengers of hope.

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha

Flattening Gaza

Dear friends, 

In December 1941 a gutsy American daughter of a German rabbi showed up in Times Square to protest against the US joining World War II. Her name was Judith Malina, and about sixty years later I found myself with her protesting against the War in Iraq. Despite my decade making theater with Judith and the Living Theatre I could never bring myself to Judith’s committed Pacifism. This week I find myself asking whether she was wrong to protest in 41’. In these miserable wars between nation states the only position worth attaching yourself to completely is Judith’s. So no, she wasn’t wrong. I also ask myself whether she was right to protest as she did in 41’. Again, I come up with that same answer, no she wasn’t right. We’d probably all be dead had the US not joined the war.

Clarity, it strikes me this week, is an unbelievable blend of truth and falsehood. It’s what politicians rely on, reducing reality into actionable items. Thank God I’m not one of them. I find myself simultaneously suspicious and admiring of those able to take a clear stand in this moment. The people I surround myself with are ones who tend to be attuned to the complex truths around them, who see depth and richness in the multiplicity of subjective truths out there and inside them. To “flatten Gaza,” as the Israeli leadership has vowed to do, is not just physical. It’s happening in the realm of ideas. Anyone, for example who simply says “they had it coming,” about either side is ignoring the fact that we are talking about real people, who are all complex, scarred and beautiful.

To me, this week, with all of its destruction has made any clear position of pro or against seem both admirable and flat. And yet one must take a stand.

How do we do that?

A few years ago, my father was debating whether he could accept Israel’s highest honor, the Israel Prize. He abhors the cruelty of the state and spends much of his time working to defend Palestinians from the man who was going to hand him the prize in a glitzy event, PM Netanyahu. He consulted his sons. I answered him with a question: what does your god tell you to do?

This is the question I ask myself these days, and a question you might ask yourself too. There is something unique about each one of us, and a voice there at our core speaking clearly. It may send you out into the streets with an Israeli flag and it may send you to congress with a call to "stop the genocide," as has become one of the slogans some are using in this war. It’s the voice Judith Malina heard, which for her was absolutely true. This is a voice that contains all the truths buzzing around inside of you, and then tells you where you stand.

One thing I’ve managed to hear from this voice this week is that there is no justification for killing civilians. Another is not about Gaza. Since last Saturday over 60 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, many of them murdered in cold blood by extremist Jewish settlers. There are some videos of these killings online that look a lot like the Hamas ones from last Saturday. The settlers are really running wild. Several Palestinian villages have been abandoned this week due to settler violence. Perhaps if we spread the word about this unchecked violence we can play a part in stopping it.

Sometimes we can hear this voice in the words of our prophets. This week’s Haftarah gives us Isaiah’s words to the Jews who had just suffered the disaster of being beaten in war and exiled. In this moment of terror and loss, when the natural instinct is to close ranks and look inward, he offers the opposite advice:

הַרְחִ֣יבִי׀ מְק֣וֹם אָהֳלֵ֗ךְ וִירִיע֧וֹת מִשְׁכְּנוֹתַ֛יִךְ יַטּ֖וּ אַל־תַּחְשֹׂ֑כִי הַאֲרִ֙יכִי֙ מֵֽיתָרַ֔יִךְ וִיתֵדֹתַ֖יִךְ חַזֵּֽקִי׃

“Widen the space of your tent,

stretch your tent curtains wide,

do not hold back;

lengthen your cords,

strengthen your stakes.”

Specifically in times of grief and conflict we are invited to widen our tent, to think broader, to include and invite others, and to remember there is a future to be built.

רַחֲקִ֤י מֵעֹ֙שֶׁק֙ כִּי־לֹ֣א תִירָ֔אִי וּמִ֨מְּחִתָּ֔ה כִּ֥י לֹֽא־תִקְרַ֖ב אֵלָֽיִךְ׃

“Distance yourself from oppression,” the prophet continues, “then you won’t be afraid; brokenness and terror will not come near you."

As nonsensical as it sounds, the building of the future starts now, and begins with hearing that still, thin sound of our inner truth.

בִּצְדָקָ֖ה תִּכּוֹנָ֑נִי, says the prophet: you will build yourself up through righteousness. Whether she was right or wrong or both, Judith Malina knew how to hear her godly inner voice that cuts through time and space, and so must we.

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha

Full (and Wanting More)

Dear friends, 

Rabbi Abby was dancing in the corner. Frank was showering notes on the heavens with his trumpet. The band banging away a Moroccan rhythm. Not a face to be found in the house without a big smile. The emergence of an ecstatic happiness in the final minutes of the fast. When the gates close in such celebration you know the God we created and invoked is smiling and hopping with us.

I emerge from these High Holidays full: of gratitude to all of you for bringing your best, honest selves; of gratitude to the many community members who helped with every aspect of these special days; of so many moments in which the inner tides rose to the surface; of deep thoughts and feelings from the incredible speakers; of melodies offered by our incredible musical team; of pride in the beautiful young people who led prayers (ATHENA!!!!) and chanted Torah (ADELINE WOW!!!!); of amazement at the ease and beauty of a new collaboration with Daphna and Beineinu; of a building sense of love and community among us; of a deeply rewarding sense that Teshuvah happened this year at The New Shul.

I was especially moved by so many of you who were moved into action on the Day of Atonement. I heard about people calling old friends to smooth out a painful problem, of people reaching out to family members to reconnect or re-establish roots, of sincere apologies between community members. I also heard from several of you who have found ways to improvise in moments of difficulty. I'm sure those of us with basements will need that improvisation today....

Sukkot, which begins this evening is the holiday of joy and impermanence. I don't remember another year in which I felt so ready to embrace those two, so full of a non-verbal understanding of the connection between them, so ready to sit in the Sukkah.

One of my takeaways from these holidays is that I want more of what went down at VCS and Brooklyn Bridge Park. I want to keep singing with you guys, making ritual happen, finding the newness in the ancient and the ancient in the new. I want more music in my life. A week from today we're going to gather on a Greenwich Village rooftop for a Shabbat/Sukkot concert. Our own Dana Herz, who filled the skies with her singing of Kol Nidrei on Sunday night (no wonder it's pouring today) will perform some of her own music that she's been touring the world with, and some Shabbat melodies. I'm looking forward to breaking bread with you all there.

Last thing. I would love to hear from you about what you liked or didn't like these High Holidays, and how we might make this funky community the coolest, most worthwhile experiment in Jewish life it can be. I'm planning on spending much of the next few weeks hanging or talking with folks about all that, so please send a shout out my way.

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha

Opening and Repenting

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha

Sweetness Approaching

Dear friends, 

We are excited to come together this evening to bring in the new year together with music and light. We hope you can join us, either in person or from wherever you are on the globe, on this journey into the land of improvisation. It will be sweet and magical, like this life we get to live. 

From all of us at The New Shul we wish you a Shana Tova Umetukah, a year of health, happiness, peace and sweetness.

Let the year begin with its blessings!

Chag sameach and shabbat shalom,

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha

Excitement

Dear friends, 

Last week I was sitting by a river in the intense moonlight, when I realized two things: The moon is full, which means Rosh Hashanah is upon us. And these upcoming holidays will be happy and filled with light. I have spent the past few months preparing, and the moon reminded me that all this work I've been engaged in with Susan, Itamar, Judy, Daphna, Yonatan, Dana and many of you is designed to spread light. I find myself genuinely excited to be in community with you all, to make music and spirit, to learn and grow and bring in this new year with improvisation and joy. 

Here are a few things I'm especially excited about:

Our music is always a highlight, but this year the addition of the musicians from Beineinu will take it to a new level. We will be led musically by six top musicians, grammy winners, philharmonic soloists, band leaders all of whom are deep in the NYC music scene. 

Our prayer leaders this year are deep souls who come from the music world into the Jewish scene. Daphna Mor, Dana Herz and Yonatan Gutfeld are seasoned leaders whose voices are clear and communicative, and whose faith world is rooted in poetry and music.

Our guest speakers this year are both shining examples of the possibility to transform the world's deepest problems into goodness. Rabbi Abby Stein was raised as a boy by an ultra-orthodox rabbi, and then came out as a girl of transgender experience, and became an author and rabbi who teaches gender in the Jewish tradition anew. Erika Sasson (my amazing better half!) is a federal prosecutor turned leading Restorative Justice practitioner whose work in tough cases of violent crime and sexual harm embodies the bigger societal problems of race, class and gender - and the redemptive potential such cases carry when the process is directed toward healing. This week we celebrated Erika's acceptance of this year's prestigious David Prize for extraordinary New Yorkers. You can read about some of her recent work as published this week HERE.

Our in house artists this year are people who for years have been teaching me the art of improvisation. Martin Rekhaus, theater director and actor, will sweep us into the new year with his storytelling prowess. He will tell this strange and incredible story by Rabbi Nachman of Bretslov that holds the key to our salvation. Rabbi Jim Ponet, poet, teacher, sparkling mind is the one who introduced me to this story. He will be there to improvise some poetry for the new year, and to help us understand Rabbi Nachman's story.

I'm excited with the amount of community members who will be taking part in the services this year. All our Torah readers will be women from the community, including thirteen year old Adeline Walkush, whose gorgeous chanting melted our hearts at her Bat Mitzvah a few months ago. Other young members will lead us in prayer and song as well.

For even younger kids we're psyched to be offering a host of activities and services. Dana is especially excited to sing and pray with the 0-5 year olds in their special service, and Yonatan with the 6-10 year olds in theirs.

Our theme this year, improvisation is one I've been working on for decades as an actor, musician and rabbi. It will take us around the world, to Ukraine, Cairo, Istanbul, Zurich and Haifa, to different centuries in our past, and into the No-Time-No-Place where spontaneity resides. I'm very excited to dive into it with you all.

This preparation work that we have been engaged in has a purpose: it's meant to be shared. Please come share in these holidays with us (register if you haven't already), and please share word of it with anyone who might enjoy it. Everyone is invited, near and far (Our fancy multiple camera virtual set up that Jacob is masterminding will be top quality). The more people we will be the more luminescent a moon we will become. THIS is an easy link to share all the info and excitement.

I can't wait to bring in this new year with you all.

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha

Meet Daphna

We are excited to collaborate these holidays with musician and prayer leader Daphna Mor and the Beineinu community.

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha

Stillness And Motion In Teshuvah

Dear friends, 

Today is the first day of the Hebrew month of Elul, which marks the beginning of the season of Teshuvah. This word, Teshuvah is usually translated as repentance, or return, and indeed this week we began our study of Maimonides’ Hilchot Teshuvah, which we are calling The Laws of Repentance. In our class we dug into some of  the layers of the word. Elana pointed out the circularity implied in it, Shuv, Hebrew for “again,” a kind of turning around and around, turning to face ourselves facing the world.  Lashuv means to re-turn. What might we be returning to? God perhaps, to who we are, to goodness, to a more honest version of living maybe. 

For Maimonides, part of the return is to believing that we are capable of improvement and change. Every year we have to remind ourselves that we do have the capacity to change. We don’t have to remain caught in the same tendencies that limit our freedom. As a matter of fact, an important part of Teshuvah for Maimonides is rejecting the notion that we are destined by God, or conditioned by society to do or not do certain acts. He spends significant time convincing us that we really do have freedom of choice, and these ideas of predetermination or societal influence are, in the context of a Teshuvah, a shunning of our most sacred duty: ״שיהיה האדם משלים את עצמו ואת כל הנברא בשבילו״ “that each person should work toward perfecting themselves and all that was created for them,” in the words of the the Italian Rabbi Moshe Chaim Lutzato. 

Maimonides expresses this in part by expounding on an inner tension within the word Teshuvah. On the one hand, as we learned, the word implies movement through the meaning associated with turning and returning. On the other hand the word is also related to the word Lashevet, to sit. As TNS Rabbinic Chavurah member Yoni Kretzmer explained on Wednesday, sitting is associated with peace and blessing. After our wandering we will arrive home. Then we will “sit safely on your land,” and enjoy the fruit, the bread and the wine it provides. When Jacob says: “And I shall return peacefully to my father’s home,” his return, in the Hebrew is a type of sitting down. 

The inner tension of stillness and movement that is expressed by the Hebrew can be found in another verse about Jacob: “וישב יעקב בארץ מגורי אביו”, “And Jacob sat in the land where his father resided.” The word for resided “megurei,” comes from the word Ger, meaning a stranger in a strange land. Sitting too comfortably, without a slight sense of strangeness from where you live is deadening. We have to sit with the strangeness. Rabbi Tzadok of Lublin taught that Jews are meant to build ביתא באווירה דעלמא, “a house floating in the air of the world,” rather than one that sits on the ground. The Midrash tells us that “Vayeshev - And he sat - denotes sorrow.” 

On the other hand, from the first day of Elul until after Yom Kippur we add Psalm 27 to our daily prayers. This poem sits very comfortably on the central and most commonly sung line:

אחת שאלתי מאת יהוה אותה אבקש: שבתי בבית יהוה כל ימי חיי לחזות בנעם יהוה ולבקר בהיכלו״

 : One thing I ask of YHVH, only it do I seek: 
To sit in the house of YHVH every day of my life, to gaze upon the sweetness of YHVH, and to visit Her palace.”

This is Teshuvah. To step out of the internal motion for a moment of stillness and perspective, to be still with the movement. Then we might know that we are freer than we think: free to sit in the deep parts of who we always were, and free to step out of who we’ve been until today; Free to be and free to become.

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha

On That Night

Dear friends, 

Some history of, and a poem by the great Jerusalem poet, Zelda.

"The Ukranian-born Israeli Orthodox poet Zelda Schneersohn-Mishkovsky, better known as Zelda (1914-1984), belonged to a lineage of illustrious rabbis. Her father, Shelomoh Shalom Schneersohn, descended from the prominent Schneersohn dynasty of Chabad hasidic masters, and was the uncle of the late rebbe of Lubavitch, R. Menahem Mendel Schneersohn (1902-1994). Her mother, Rachel Hen, was a descendant of the famed Sephardic dynasty of Hen-Gracian, which traces its roots to eleventh-century Barcelona, Spain. Her maternal grandfather's grandfather, R. Elhanan ben Meir ben R. Elhanan, was a student of R. Shneur Zalman of Lyadi (1745-1812), the founder of Habad Hasidism.  In 1925 the family emigrated to Mandatory Palestine and settled in Jerusalem, a move followed by the traumatic death of both the poet's father and grandfather. Following her graduation from the Teachers' College of the religious Mizrahi movement in 1932, Zelda moved to Tel Aviv and then to Haifa, where she taught until her return, with her twice-widowed mother, to Jerusalem in 1935. In 1950 she married Hayyim Mishkovsky and from then on devoted herself to writing. Although she began writing in the 1930s, and publishing in the 1940s, Penai (Free Time), her first book, was not published until 1967. The book, with its rich emotive and contemplative images drawn from the world of Jewish mysticism, Hasidism, and Russian fairy tales, immediately established the poet as a major figure on the Israeli literary scene, popular with both religious and secular audiences."

I hope you enjoy one of these poems from her first book. The original Hebrew is below.
 

On That Night

 On that night,
 as I sat alone in the still
 courtyard,
 and gazed at the stars--
 I resolved in my heart--
 I almost took a vow--
 to devote every evening
 one moment,
 a single tiny moment,
 to this shining beauty.

 It would seem
 that there is nothing easier than this,
 simpler than this,
 still I haven't kept up
 my oath
 to myself.
 Why?
 Surely I've already discovered
 that my mind carries to its palaces
 the sights I see,
 like that bird that carries in its beak
 straw, feathers and dirt to repair the nest.
 Surely I've already discovered that my thought
 uses (if it doesn't have anything else)
 even my ailments
 to build towers.
 That it uses my neighbor's
 ailments,
 and the paper rolling in the courtyard,
 and the cat's footsteps,
 and the vacant look of the vendor,
 and that verse quivering among the pages of the book,
 and out of all this, yes, out of all this,
 out of all this, makes me.
 Why haven't I kept my oath
 to myself?
 Did I not believe
 that if I gazed one tiny moment
 at the heights of the starry skies,
 my mind would carry to the palace
 the light of the constellations.
 Did I not believe
 that if I gazed so
 night after night,
 the stars would
 slowly slowly
 become my neighbors.
 The stars would become
 my kinsmen.
 The stars would become
 my children.
 Why haven't I kept my oath to myself?
 Did I forget
 how envious I was of the seafarers
 and of those whose house was by the ocean shore.
 For I said in my haste
 the fresh sea breeze
 penetrates their lives,
 the fresh sea breeze penetrates their thoughts; the fresh breeze
 penetrates their relationships with their neighbours
 and their relationships with their family members.
 It glitters in their eyes
 and plays with their movements.
 For I said in my haste
 their deeds are measured
 by the measure of the sea
 and not that of the human street,
 not that of the human alley.
 For I said in my haste,
 they see eye to eye
 God's works
 and feel His presence
 without our barriers,
 without our distractions.
 I wept constantly
 for I was imprisoned
 among the walls of the house,
 among the street walls,
 among the walls of the city,
 among the walls
 of the mountains.

 On that night, when I sat alone
 in the silent courtyard,
 I discovered suddenly
 that my house too was built on the shore,
 that I live on the bank of the moon
 and the constellations,
 on the bank of sunrises and sunsets.

בלילה ההוא
זלדה

בַּלַּיְלָה הַהוּא
כַּאֲשֶׁר יָשַׁבְתִּי לְבַדִּי בֶּחָצֵר
הַדּוֹמֶמֶת
וְהִתְבּוֹנַנְתִּי אֶל הַכּוֹכָבִים -
הֶחְלַטְתִּי בְּלִבִּי,
כִּמְעַט נָדַרְתִּי נֶדֶר -
לְהַקְדִּישׁ עֶרֶב-עֶרֶב
רֶגַע אֶחָד,
רֶגַע קָט וְיָחִיד
לַיֹּפִי הַזֶּה הַזּוֹרֵחַ.

נִדְמֶה
שֶׁאֵין לְךָ דָּבָר קַל מִזֶּה,
פָּשׁוּט מִזֶּה,
בְּכָל זֹאת לֹא קִּיַּמְתִי
אֶת שְׁבוּעָתִי
לִי.
מַדּוּעַ?
הֲלֹא גִּלִּיתִי כְּבָר
שֶׁמַּחֲשַׁבְתִּי נוֹשֵׂאת אֶל אַרְמוֹנֶיהָ,
אֶת מַרְאֶה עֵינַי,
כְּאוֹתָהּ צִפּוֹר שֶׁנּוֹשֵׂאת בְּמַקּוֹרָהּ
קַשׁ, נוֹצוֹת וּסְחִי לְבֶדֶק הַקֵּן.
הֲלֹא גִּלִּיתִי כְּבָר שֶׁמַּחֲשַׁבְתִּי
נוֹטֶלֶת (אִם אֵין לָהּ דָּבָר אַחֵר)
אֲפִלּוּ אֶת מֵחוֹשַׁי
לַעֲשׂוֹת מִזֶּה מִגְדָּלִים.
שֶׁהִיא נוֹטֶלֶת אֶת מֵחוֹשֶׁיהָ
שֶׁל שְׁכֶנְתִּי,
וְאֶת הַנְּיָר שֶׁמִתְגּוֹלֵל בֶּחָצֵר,
וְאֶת פְּסִיעוֹת הֶחָתוּל
וְאֶת מַבָּטוֹ הָרֵיק שֶׁל הַמּוֹכֵר,
וְאוֹתוֹ פָּסוּק שֶׁפִּרְפֵּר בֵּין דַּפֵּי הַסֵּפֶר
וְעוֹשָׂה מִכָּל זֶה אוֹתִי,
כֵּן מִכָּל זֶה. מִכָּל זֶה.
מַדּוּעַ לֹא קִּיַּמְתִי אֶת שְׁבוּעָתִי
לִי?

הֵן הֶאֱמַנְתִּי
שֶׁאִם אַבִּיט רֶגַע קָט וְיָחִיד
אֶל גָּבְהֵי שָׁמַיִם-מְכֻכָּבִים,
תִּשָּׂא מַּחֲשַׁבְתִּי אֶל הָאַרְמוֹן
אֶת אוֹר הַמַּזָּלוֹת.
הֵן הֶאֱמַנְתִּי
שֶׁאִם אַבִּיט כָּךְ
לַיְלָה אַחֵר לַיְלָה,
יֵהָפְכוּ הַכּוֹכָבִים
אַט-אַט
לִשְׁכֵנַי.
יֵהָפְכוּ הַכּוֹכָבִים
לִקְרוֹבַי.
יֵהָפְכוּ הַכּוֹכָבִים
לִילָדַי.
מַדּוּעַ לֹא קִּיַּמְתִי
אֶת שְׁבוּעָתִי לִי?
כְּלוּם שָׁכָחְתִּי
מַה מְּקַנְאָה הָיִיתִי בְּיוֹרְדֵי-הַיָּם
וּבְאֵלֶּה שֶׁבֵּיתָם עַל חוֹף הָאוֹקְיָנוֹס.
כִּי אָמַרְתִּי בְחָפְזִי
הָרוּחַ הָרַעֲנַנָּה שֶׁל הַיָּם
חוֹדֶרֶת לְחַיֵּיהֶם,
הָרוּחַ הָרַעֲנַנָּה שֶׁל הַיָּם
חוֹדֶרֶת לְמַחְשְׁבוֹתֵיהֶם, הָרוּחַ הָרַעֲנַנָּה
חוֹדֶרֶת לְיַחֲסֵיהֶם עִם שְׁכֵנֵיהֶם
וּלְיַחֲסֵיהֶם עִם בְּנֵי מִשְׁפַּחְתָּם.
הִיא מְנַצְנֶצֶת בְּעֵינֵיהֶם
וּמְשַׂחֶקֶת בִּתְנוּעוֹתֵיהֶם.
כִּי אָמַרְתִּי בְחָפְזִי
אַמַּת-הַמִּדָּה לַמעֲשֵׂיהֶם
הִיא אַמַּת-הַמִּדָּה שֶׁל הַיָּם וְתִפְאַרְתּוֹ
וְלֹא זוֹ שֶׁל הָרְחוֹב הָאֱנוֹשִי
וְלֹא זוֹ שֶׁל הַסִּמְטָה הָאֱנוֹשִית.
כִּי אָמַרְתִּי בְחָפְזִי
רוֹאִים הֵם עַיִן בְּעַיִן
אֶת מַעֲשֵׂי אֱלֹהִים
וְחָשִׁים בִּמְצִיאוּתוֹ
בְּלִי הַמְּחִצּוֹת שֶׁלָּנוּ,
בְּלִי הֶסַּח-הַדַּעַת שֶׁלָּנוּ.
בָּכִיתִי תָּמִיד
שֶׁכְּלוּאָה הִנְנִי
בֵּין הַכְּתָלִים שֶׁל הַבַּיִת,
בֵּין כָּתְלִי הָרְחוֹב
בֵּין הַכְּתָלִים שֶׁל הָעִיר,
בֵּין הַכְּתָלִים
שֶׁל הֶהָרִים.

בַּלַּיְלָה הַהוּא כּשֶׁיָּשַׁבְתִּי לְבַדִּי
בֶּחָצֵר הַדּוֹמֶמֶת
גִּלִּיתִי פִּתְאֹם
שָׁאַף בֵּיתִי בָּנוּי עַל הַחוֹף,
שֶׁחַיָּה אֲנִי עַל שְׂפַת הַיָּרֵחַ
וְהַמַּזָּלוֹת,
עַל שְׂפַת הַזְּרִיחוֹת וְהַשּׁקִיעוֹת.

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha

On This Week's Death Penalty

Dear friends, 

After Adolf Eichmann was sentenced to death in 1962, several prominent Jewish intellectuals and artists wrote to President Ben Zvi a letter urging him to commute the sentence. Executing him, they argued, would be the not Jewish thing to do, and would put the country on a path of violence and retribution. Ben Gurion convened the cabinet to debate the matter. They decided against it, recommended to the president that the petition be denied, and hours later Eichmann was hanged. I thought of these events this week after the jury's recommendation for the death penalty was announced in the trial of Robert Bowers, who committed the mass murder at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018.

The cases are different, of course. But they are similar in attitudes toward capital punishment. The Knesset made an exception to the law in order to be able to execute Eichmann. Similarly, most American Jews oppose the death penalty on principal, but many are in favor of the death penalty in this case. 

The families of the victims are split on the matter. And so, it seems are American Jews in general. Some see the verdict as an important statement against antisemitism at a moment in which it is on the rise. Others experience it as a moral test that we are failing: can we live up to our values even when we are under attack? 

In June, Conrad spoke to these questions at his Bar Mitzvah. Looking at both the Torah and our society today, he asked: what is the purpose of punishment? "Shouldn’t we be asking how punishment can change people for the better," he challenged. When he spoke to this incident that followed the Eichmann trial, it was as an example of a case in which punishment cannot change the perpetrator. "When people cannot change, a different attitude is needed." This different attitude has to do with the other people involved: the victims' families, the synagogue community, the Jewish community and society at large.

It's hard to know what people need. But as a society I tend to think that we need less violence, so I felt sad when I read the verdict. Our ancestors in the Talmud expressed it like this:

"A Sanhedrin that executed [more than] one person in a week is called a “murderous” [court]. Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya states: “[More than] one person in 70 years [would be denoted a murderous court].” Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva state: “If we had been members of the Sanhedrin, no defendant would ever have been executed.”

Ultimately, I land somewhere between Rabbi Elazar Ben Azarya and team Rabbi Tarfon/Rabbi Akiva. There was a type of healing that the nation needed in 1962 when EIchmann's ashes were scattered into the Mediterranean. The world is better without him, like it would be better without Robert Bowers. On the other hand, Israel's path of violence that emerged since 62' is impossible to ignore. Perhaps that was the fatal moment in which the scales tilted. Perhaps the test was failed. Perhaps deciding whether another person lives or dies is an act of hubris that goes beyond considerations of benefit and loss, which should remain between a person and their God no matter how horrific their deeds.

I pray for the healing of the victims' families and friends, for the three congregations who lost dear members that day, for the demise of hate in this country, for the rise of softness and the fall of violence. Let us continue the final act of those who lost their lives that day: the act of coming together for prayer.

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha

This Week in Israel

The sign Ezzy made for the protest in front of the Israeli Consulate in Montreal.

Dear friends, 

A few people have reached out to me with concern and questions over this week's events in Israel. Here's a summary of events, with some reflections.

Tisha B’Av this year began early. On Monday morning, the sixth of Av the extremist Israeli government ignored millions of protesters out in the streets and passed a law designed to give the executive branch unchecked power. You can’t make this stuff up: the law removed the court’s ability to use the “reasonability clause,” which it has used many times to prevent the government from doing something completely unreasonable. The last time it was used was when Netanyahu wanted to appoint Aryeh Deri to Minister of the Interior, only a few years after Deri had been released from prison for corruption and bribery as Israel’ Interior Minister. This seemed unreasonable to the courts, so Netanyahu worked to undo the law in order to reappoint him. 

This is the first of a series of laws that would effectively end the separation of powers in Israel, and in the process allow Netanyahu off the hook for the corruption, bribery and breach of trust cases that he is currently fighting in the courts.  

But this isn’t just about corruption. It’s about the nature of the State going forward. The day after the law was passed, Ultra Orthodox members of the governing coalition brought forth a Basic Law, the closest thing Israel has to a constitution, that would make Torah study considered national service. This would solidify the current state of affairs for ever: ultra orthodox Jews get paid to study Torah, while all the other Jews go to the army.  

Though the law was shelved for now, the direction is clear: a corrupt theocracy. In a country that will be 25% ultra orthodox within twenty five years (33% of the Jewish population), and where the ultra orthodox have long abandoned their non-nationalist leanings in favor of massive financial support this is not surprising. 

This is why Israelis are in the streets in such huge numbers (recent polls show 2 in 3 Israelis oppose Monday’s legislation), and why Israelis and Israel lovers everywhere are so broken this week. Tisha B’Av is the day on which Habayit charav, "the home was destroyed." That’s what it felt like on Monday: We are witnessing the dissolution of the Israel that was. 

On Wednesday evening there was a special gathering of mostly Israelis to mourn together. We gathered on the roof of Kane Street Synagogue to sing classic songs we all know, speak our pain and anger, and cry as we listened to each other expose our inner fracture – all in Hebrew. On the traditional day of the destruction of our collective home we came home to our beloved language. Say what you will about the injustice embedded into the Zionist project, about the ethnocracy that calls itself a democracy, about the oxymoron called “Jewish and democratic” (all certainly up for debate) no one can take away the revival of the Hebrew language from the Jews of the 19th and 20th centuries. We came home to that greatest accomplishment of our people, and to fret over the possibility of losing the one place where Hebrew lives.  

None of us expect it to happen overnight. Practically speaking there are a few possibilities for what happens next with the legal coup. In September the court will discuss the appeal. If it sides with the people and strikes down the law, the government will either accept the court’s decision, which would effectively end the coup, or refuse to accept it. If it refuses, which Netanyahu has already signaled may be the case, the country will be thrown into a constitutional crisis. Then it will come down to who the armed forces will listen to, the government or the court. The head of the Internal Security Services has already told his team that in that case they will side with the court. That’s good news. But the court may choose not to intervene, in which case the government will continue to the next set of laws, likely fire those in positions of power that are in its way and appoint more corrupt cronies, all of which would spiral the country further toward dictatorship.  

Vulnerable groups such as LGBTQ, women, leftists and of course non-Jews are scared. Civil war is a real possibility. My friends and family express a strange combination of sadness, anger, despair and determination. I think a lot about my nephew, Inbal these days. In March he's supposed to join the army. He probably saw the huge sign that kids his age unfurled in Tel Aviv: לא נמית ולא נמות בשירות ההתנחלות, "We won't kill and we won't die in service of the settlements." He knows the injustice. He's been hearing about the thousands of reservists refusing to serve a dictatorial government. And he's also just a young dude who wants to do what his friends are doing, to serve like his father and grandfather did.

As the vote took place Monday morning on my computer’s live stream, my sound system was mysteriously playing in repeat Rabbi Nachman’s song: “Even in the hiddenness within the hiddenness the Blessed Holy One exists.” We don’t know where this is all heading. Certainly, the shades have come off of the eyes of the complacent Israeli center. That may end up proving more significant than any law this coalition can push through. And maybe this will all shake up the dilapidated structure of the country into a new, more just one.  

The most significantly hopeful thing I learned in that gathering Wednesday night was about traffic. Last week, when tens of thousands of Israelis were trying to get to the mass march up to Jerusalem organized by the protest leaders, people were stuck for hours in a massive traffic jam. I heard reports of people peeing in bottles as they wait, of old men and women climbing mountains by foot to protest. But the most amazing thing was hearing that in this traffic jam people did not honk once, nor did they try to cut the traffic line. This is unnatural behavior for Israelis. And possibly a sign of a deep consciousness shift. Who knows? 

For now, the protest leaders in New York are vehemently calling for American Jews to join the protests here. They make a difference. American Jewish voices against the legal coup make this government nervous. Look out for notices about upcoming demos, and join us in making our position clear. Democracy, however flawed, is better than the alternatives.

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha

Living With Disaster

Meanwhile in Prospect Park

Dear friends, 

This message won’t be helpful. I will suggest a positive, even a wonderful outcome of certain disasters. But that outcome will be experienced down the line, after we’re all gone.  Eighteen years ago in a talkback after a play of mine about Israeli Palestinian issues young me insisted that even if it doesn’t happen in our lifetime, there will be a solution, a positive solution to the conflict. One of the activists on the panel, Yigal Bronner took the mic and said: that solution does not interest me. And we all knew he was right. If you decide to keep reading, you’ll have to do it Lishmah, for its own sake, and give up on a temporary reward in feeling or thinking or experience. 

Yesterday there was a mini reunion of a big group of high school friends of mine. I video called in to say hi and see the excited old faces laughing, kissing one another, examining one another lovingly with their eyes that see the person that once inhabited the frame. Amidst the smiles there was a clear message: “Save us a spot in Brooklyn. Three bedrooms would be great.” A similar sentiment was expressed in my following phone call by a good friend who had just gotten back from Israel: “It’s finished.” They both meant that the country we grew up was done. Despite the inspiring protests – over six months of massive weekly demonstrations desperately and passionately trying to keep Israel from losing what’s left of its democratic structure – the feeling is that the disaster has already begun.  

I’m thinking about disasters this week because Tisha B’Av is this coming Thursday. That’s the day that commemorates the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and the beginning of exile, of being strangers and strange lands. From the 17th of Tamuz, just over two weeks ago, which marks the beginning of the Roman siege on Jerusalem, and culminating on Tisha B’Av, I allow myself to acknowledge the bountiful disasters we live in. I mourn and suffer them.  

Certainly the current state of affairs in Israel/Palestine is high on my list. There are countless horrors taking place there I could enumerate. But the one that broke my heart most palpably was the story of Eyad El-Hallaq. Eyad was a fellow Jerusalemite with autism who was chased down and shot dead by Israeli police on his way to his special-needs school. On the 17th of Tamuz, July 6th, the Israeli courts completely acquitted the officer who killed Eyad. His mother, who spoke days later at the demonstration to prevent the legal “overhaul,” said that "they killed her son a second time" that day. 

I don’t have to tell you that the Israel/Palestine is one tiny corner of the disaster-infested globe. Nor do I have to tell you that we carry these disasters with us and suffer from them every day. You may have noticed, for example, that it’s really hot out... 

And yet, we keep living, laughing like my friends back home, walking the narrow bridge. We can’t live in what Jacque Lacan, the French bad-boy Psycho Analyst called “The real,” this abyss where everything we’ve built to keep living is broken, shattered, dissolved. So, we escape into other realms, in Lacan’s language the Imaginary or the Symbolic, and in other terms maybe putting one step in front of the other. 

I promised you something positive. I believe I may have even used the wonderful.  

Our prime symbol this week for the disaster we live with is the destruction of the Temple. That event really did break down all of the structures we had put in place to make our national life function. But the truth is that the religion that began as soon as the Temple was destroyed is an enormous improvement to what preceded the disaster. Animal sacrifice, for example was replaced with prayer, or in some interpretations with acts of loving kindness. The attachment to land was softened and instead came an emphasis on learning anywhere. The tradition essentially embraced disaster as a central piece of our national psyche. We were wanderers in physical and spiritual realms, thanks to the disaster and the constant awareness to it. When we carry the disaster with us we can be awakened to the contradictory groundlessness of existence; contradictory because we walk the earth, one step in front of the other even as we sense the nothingness we’re stepping on. 

In the 17th century a series of disasters brought a spiritual desert into Jewish learning. “Wisdoms that aren’t wisdom,” חכמות שאינן חכמות as Rabbi Nachman might call it, took over yeshivas. They had lost touch with what was beneath the teachings and instead focused on impressive yet empty brain acrobatics known as Pilpul. It was out of this morass that the new Torah of Hassidism emerged, which continues to have a massive influence on our people. One of the central pieces of Hassidism is the value of prayer. In prayer any person of any level of knowledge or observance can walk into the garden of higher experience. The early Hassidim like Rabbi Nachman took the practice of mindless recitation of prayer as an expression of total devotion, and turned it into a living, transcendent experience in which a person can encounter the divine. Had the earlier disasters not taken place, people like you and me would probably not be gathering for Jewish prayer today. On a personal level, I think it’s fair to say that without that shift that took over the Jewish world I would not be a rabbi, and who knows what being Jewish would even mean to me, if anything. 

And yet, for the people experiencing those disasters, be it in 17th century Poland, First century Palestine, or any other time period there is, as the Book of Lamentations puts it: “no one to comfort me.” אין לי מנחם״"  We who live through disasters cannot escape suffering. We can, however, be edified by pausing our constant distraction of building up the Imaginary and the Symbolic, and turn our attention to the abyss of “the real.” We can stop our walking, not put one foot in front of the other, but sit them both down to be with what is, to know the mysterious cycles, to breathe in and out.  

I hope you can join me on Thursday at 10am at THIS Zoom link for our second class on Rabbi Nachman’s notion of The Vacated Space, which inspired much of this letter. You can catch up by reading part 1 of Torah 64 in Likutei Moharan.

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha

Scratched Consciousness and Subversive Scribes

Notice the Vav. Second word, second line.
From the scroll I opened this morning.

Dear friends, 

Several times a day a walk by the Torah scroll in my closet. It took some time to get used to living with it, getting over the fear of something happening to it, of being in the constant presence of such a revered, holy object. Holiness comes with a certain degree of intensity.

This particular scroll has a history that makes it even more precious. When I became its caretaker, the scribe showed me a stamp from 1968 of the Israeli Ministry of Religion in Tel Aviv. The stamp acknowledges receipt of the scroll from Romania, where it was found. “It’s around 100 years old,” the scribe told me. “We cannot know exactly when it was written, nor how it survived the war.  In 68’ it was brought to Tel Aviv, and in the early 2000’s it was brought to Brooklyn.”

There was one other detail that the scribe gave me: “The very stringent would not necessarily consider it Kosher.” You can see tiny corrections in a couple of places in the scroll. There are a couple tiny holes in the scroll in other places. When I took it to my rabbi before accepting it, he examined it and approved it for use. Since then this scroll has been central to the coming into Mitzvot of hundreds of people of different ages, has been studied and read by hundreds more kids at our school, and walked around in services and holidays with many of you.

I sometimes tell people that the scroll is a survivor. Survivors, be it of the Holocaust or any trauma, carry scars. They are teachers of deep wisdom and truth, who hold their experiences in their bodies. Such is this beloved scroll that I live with. How could it be right for this scroll to be unblemished?

And the truth is that we are all survivors, not in the sense that we physically survived the horror, but in the sense that we live in its shadow. Like this scroll, we live in the world in which that happened, which tells us us that things like it happen today. We live with a scratched consciousness. This Torah is kosher because it is like us. It is the Torah that makes the most sense today, without compromising the string that ties it to eternity.

Last week’s Parashah tells us about Pinchas, an imperfect being filled with rage and jealousy. After he kills someone out of righteous anger God promises Pinchas “my covenant of peace,” את בריתי שלום״”.

But the scribes perform a subversive act of Tikkun, of correction or healing to the text. They take the word Shalom, and leave a tiny chip in it. Every Torah scroll in every generation contains this slight adjustment, in which the letter Vav of the word Shalom; peace or wholeness; is chipped.

This morning, after my friend Ghiora taught me this amazing fact, I opened my Torah scroll and read the verse with the broken wholeness aloud:

הִנְנִ֨י נֹתֵ֥ן ל֛וֹ אֶת־בְּרִיתִ֖י שָׁלֽוֹם

I hereby give him my covenant of wholeness.

May we accept our covenant of chipped wholeness full heartedly, and may our subversive scribes and the scrolls they produce live long, beautiful lives.

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha

סתירה למישאל / A Contradiction Psalm

Inside a Korean Mountain, photo by Diane Sasson

Dear friends, 

 סתירה למישאל / A Contradiction Psalm 

Without contradictions we would be lost in a desert of boredom. 

Without contradictions there would be no depth. 

Without contradictions meaning would be lost. 

Without contradictions we would not laugh. 

Without contradictions living would be terribly easy. 

Without contradictions learning would have an end.

We praise You, oh awesome contradiction at the heart of our lives. 

Without contradictions God would be a comprehensible concept. 

Without contradictions friendship would dull. 

Without contradictions what would I love? 

Without contradictions judgement would thrive. 

Without contradictions no prayer would rise. 

Without contradictions our lives would make very nice sense.

We hate You, oh awesome contradiction at the heart of our lives. 

Without contradictions my faith would turn to stone. 

Without contradictions the inanimate would have no secret life. 

Without contradictions we could know it all. 

Without contradictions we would know nothing. 

Without contradictions death would lose its mystery. 

Without contradictions poetry would die. 

We love You, oh awesome contradiction at the heart of our lives. 

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha

Nothing

Turtles sunbathing

Dear friends, 

Dear friends, 

I’ve been immersed in thinking about nothingness, and then, at a bedtime story to Manu I came upon this. This is my inspiration for Shabbat this week.

“What I like doing best is Nothing”, Said Christopher Robin

“How do you do Nothing” asked Pooh after he had wondered for a long time.

“Well, it’s when people call out at you just as you’re going off to do it, “What are you going to do Christopher Robin?”; and you say, “Oh, Nothing”; and then you go and do it.

It means just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.”

“Oh!”; said Pooh.

― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha

Demanding Answers from God

Mazal tov to Oscar Samelson, who's Bar Mitzvah is tomorrow morning, and to all of the 23 other amazing TNS Bnai Mitzvah this past year.

Dear friends, 

Dear friends, 

I’ve learned a tremendous amount from thirteen-year-olds these five weeks. Nine Bnai Mitzvah ceremonies of Shul families took place between May 6th and June 19th, and another is coming up tomorrow morning (as well as our three Bnot Adult Bnot Mitzvah on Shavuot.) Each one of these events has been a unique, deep and energizing experience. It’s hard to describe the incredible thing that happens when a young person takes ownership of their faith world and shares what they’ve learned with their community. The musicians and I are simultaneously emotionally exhausted and uplifted by so many moving moments.  

Each one of these youngsters: Adeline, Annabelle, Boaz, Dov, Levon, Conrad, Sammy, Athena, August, and Beau (and I’m sure Oscar will be as well tomorrow!) left me with deep insights. Adeline’s gorgeous Torah chanting (which it looks like you’ll all hear these High Holidays) opened up my heart to the verse “each person will return to their home, and to their family.” Annabelle offered the amazing definition: “God is where I am right now.” Boaz brought in his community by asking several loved ones to read his deep Dvar Torah, in a way that made us all feel a part of a whole. Levon found a humble way to say God is me, and having confidence in myself is having confidence in God. Dov spoke personally and meaningfully to each of the four people in his immediate family in a way that few other kids his age would do. Conrad showed us how we, as a society not only have what to learn from the way punishment is treated in the bible, but he brought us in touch with the purpose of punishment in a way that made me question all kinds of behaviors I notice myself adopting. Sammy told his parents the ways in which they have taught him what good leadership looks like. Athena and August took their family on a pilgrimage Speyer, Germany, where their ancestors came from, and which they still carry as their family name, and there, in the place where the oldest synagogue in Europe still stands despite history, they cracked open such Hebrew words as “Tikkun,” or healing.  

The last one I had the honor of presiding over, on Juneteenth, was Beau’s. Since it’s a little fresher in my mind I’ll share a little more about it. The Talmud tells us: חנוך לנער על פי דרכו, “Educate each youngster according to their way.” This was an example of the tremendous rewards that come to everyone involved from a true listening to a young person’s way. Many young people struggle with the concept of God. Many struggle with the B Mitzvah and the huge amount of work it requires. Many struggle with religion, with the ancient that seems nonsensical, with the seemingly random particular requirements for this ritual. But few express it, and fewer still act on it. Beau did. 

Through continuing conversations between Beau, Aviya his wonderful teacher and me, we landed on a few important changes to the ceremony. Instead of Adonai, with its patriarchal tone (often translated as Lord) we used Havaya, a gender fluid reworking of the four letters of the name of God YHVH, which made more sense to Beau, who goes by the pronoun “they.”  

Instead of the V’Ahavta, Beau read a poem, which they followed with an honest explanation of why they chose to make this change. Unconditional obedience is the source of too many terrible human actions, they taught. We need a different formulation of the love at the heart of this prayer, Beau argued. 

Finally, after chanting their Torah portion beautifully, Beau proceeded to criticize it with all their heart. “We need to demand answers from God,” they said. That is a wonderful way to summarize what each of these Bnai Mitzvah did. They worked through their feelings about the tradition, about God, about family. They left no stone unturned as they sought to reach a clear understanding of their perspective on their parashah and the Torah in general. They demanded an answer for why they were doing this ritual, and shared some piece of that answer with us. 

I can’t wait to experience Oscar’s demands from God tomorrow morning, and to find out what answers he found during his process. 

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha

The Empty Space

The lake at Prospect Park at night.

Dear friends, 

On Wednesday morning I joined the Shul’s Meditation Chevrutah for the weekly meditation. I had spent the week studying the Hassidic master Rabbi Nachman of Bretslov, who was deeply interested in meditation, although his meditation practice was likely quite different to the sitting meditation of Buddhist influence that is most common today. Before we began, I offered the group a word about Nachman’s notion of החלל הפנוי, the empty space (not to be confused with Peter Brook's!) This is the space of not knowing, of doubt, sometimes even of depression. It is the space of lack, which is also a pregnant space, except that what will come out of it is not known. It’s the primordial space of pre-creation. And it also seems that this non-space is a desirable destination for meditators. 

Emptiness is a tricky concept for Buddhists as well. Like Nachman, they also refuse to make up their minds about whether emptiness is empty or full. My brother, a Buddhism scholar even wrote a book called The Fullness of Emptiness. The Heart Sutra tells us that:  

“Whatever is form is emptiness, whatever is emptiness is form.” 

In Kabbalah the empty space denotes the place from which God removed herself to allow for creation to take place. But this couldn’t possibly contradict the maxim: אין עוד מלבדו, Besides Him there is nothing. In other words, necessarily that empty space is God too. This contradiction may have something to do with why Nachman tells us that: 

אִי אֶפְשָׁר לְהַשִּׂיג כְּלָל בְּחִינַת חָלָל הַפָּנוּי, עַד לֶעָתִיד לָבוֹא.  

It is not possible at all to grasp the empty space, until Messiah comes. (or in his words: until the future comes). 

But all of this should not deter us from seeking to find that elsuive place of emptiness. The monastic Thanissaru Biku describes emptiness as “a mode of perception in which one neither adds anything to nor takes anything away from what is present, noting simply, "There is this." When we are able to simply hear sound, for example, without judging it or even categorizing it, that is an empty experience in the best sense of the word. In these moments we are able to lose ourselves to a simplicity of being.  

This is similar to the Hassidic notion of Bittul, or abnegation, of which Nachman was one of the early messengers. Bittul is the act of losing your self and becoming part of the אין, the nothingness. Nachman writes: 

דע שעיקר הביטול שאדם מבטל ישותו ונעשה אין ונכלל באחדות השם יתברך אין זה אלא על ידי התבודדות 

Know, that the principle of Bittul (abnegation), in which a person cancels their is-ness and becomes nothingness, and is enveloped in the oneness of the Blessed God, is only accomplished through meditation.  

I do have to note that the word I’m translating as “meditation,” Hitbodedoot is normally understood as a kind of self-isolation, in which a person goes out to the forest or some other deserted place alone. But the type of quiet and reflection that I imagine the Hassidic masters must have sought in the forest is exactly the empty space that we were seeking on Wednesday morning with our eyes closed in meditation. When you carve out a special space and time, Rabbi Nachman tells us, “at night when people are asleep, in a spot where people won’t show up, then you can vacate your heart from everything and anything, and you can arrive at the cancelation of all that is. That is when you will be a part of the oneness of the Blessed God.” 

May this Shabbat vacate our hearts and minds from everything and anything, and let us feel the peace of being a part of the unity at the heart of existence. 

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha

Alive and Wrestling

Dear friends,

I walk into a classroom at the Cobble Hill branch of our Hebrew school and find 9 eleven and twelve year olds singing Hineh Ma Tov. They continue with Shma, VeAhavta, Mi Khamocha, and the Amidah, ending with Oseh Shalom. None of them knew all these prayers a few months back. Several of them began the year with no knowledge of Hebrew, close to no knowledge of prayer, and a slight understanding of what this faith is that they belong to. To see them all, through their jaded pre-teen skepticism sing together, then read Hebrew and chant Torah trop amazes me. When a conversation emerges about whether a non-binary person should wear a kipah or not, I know that the deeper lesson has sunk in: this tradition is theirs to shape. They own it for themselves, and instead of ditching it because of its problematic history they have taken on its reframing in relation to what has been passed down to them. 

The fourth-grade class is busy working on a collective mural. This year’s theme was the Year of the Storytellers, in which students were introduced to stories and storytellers from different periods in Jewish history, in an attempt to give them a sense of the freedom with which our people have played with the Torah and the tradition. They learned about different forms of storytelling and different layers of Torah study: the simple meaning, the hinted meaning, the studied meaning and the secret meaning. The Fourth graders have spent much of the year making comics of their own midrashim, their takes on biblical stories. When I walk in they are working on their final project: a comic strip depicting many different options to understand the story of Jacob wrestling the angel.  

Their drawings offer answers to several questions: Was he asleep? Was it a dream? Did someone really come, or was it an internal struggle? If someone came – who was it? If it was internal – what was he struggling with? Some of their depictions come from rabbinic sources, others from their own imaginations. There are depictions of Jacob wrestling with himself, with a snake, with Death and with his brother. This is the work of Torah study. Cracking it open with the help of questions, empathy and imagination. 

The younger kids faced the story on a simpler level, but their life-sized painting also ended up looking like some nighttime depiction of two people either wrestling or hugging. Our small group of special needs students created a song about how Jacob felt in that moment before he goes to meet his brother Esau, whom he feared still wanted to kill him. Listen to the beautiful song by Yotam Ben-Or, Koby and Jacob HERE. 

The sixth and seventh graders took the notion of wrestling to a more personal level. They were tasked with taking photographs that depict their struggles with being Jewish, with the tradition and with the interplay between their secular lives and their faith world. Sol offered a photo of him playing a Christian hymn on the violin. Sebastian took a shot of a Kyrie Irving Jersey. Roni took one of Jewish objects in her home, including menorahs, a Yarzheit candle and a Jewish cookbook. Others shared photos they took during our spring tour of the Museum of Jewish Heritage. 

To end our year, we gathered with parents and grandparents on the eve of Shavuot to sing and read Torah. Our guiding question came from a six-year-old: Why do we even need the Torah? Kids of varying ages responded with answers about our history, about the importance of structure and laws, about storytelling and imagination, about connection with our ancestors. Am Yisrael Chai, I thought to myself: The people of Israel live! 

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha