Can I Leave My Jewish at Home?

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Hi everyone,

Hope you had a good week.  I was reading this week’s parshah, Ki Teitzei, and how it discusses who you are when you venture out of your home, your community and your comfort zones.  In fact, Ki Teitzei means ‘when you venture out’.

It made me think of questions like whether someone is comfortable showing their identity in the world at large.  Would you wear a Magen David on the outside of your shirt? The parshah tells us that we need to carry our identities with us wherever we go.  When an Israelite soldier is attracted to a war captive, he must allow her time and space to mourn her previous identity. Then he can marry her and she gains full rights as his wife.  Her identity has changed and he remains true to his Jewish identity and its code of ethics.

In today’s world, we’re always sensitive to anti-semitism and the line between the public and the private.  The Torah can tell us that we must be firm in who we are, no matter where we are, but that is far easier said than done.  A few years ago, my family and I vacationed in rural Texas at Christmas time. We didn’t know it was rural Texas, we thought it was a suburb of Austin.  It seems that Texas has quite a bit of open land, so what they consider a suburb is what I would consider ‘the bush’.

But, we only realized that when we arrived at the lovely cabin on the lake…in the middle of nowhere.  There were neighbouring cabins we could see here and there. When we walked around the lake we came across a pick-up truck parked with fishing gear, extra clothes and what looked like a rifle or two.  As it was December, we definitely noticed all the Christmas decorations and lights around us. In fact, the trees in the forests by the highways were decorated as well. It had the appearance of Christmas tree forests that were growing already decorated. 

Living in the city, we’re quite comfortable with the Christmas decorations around this time but we didn’t realize that we are also comforted by the diversity that surrounds us.  There was no diversity in this ‘suburb’ in Texas. And so, we had “the” discussion of what happens if we run into a neighbour who might ask about our lack of Christmas doo-dads. Some of our answers ranged from ‘we’re not Christian right now, but thank you so much for asking’ to ‘airlines are so inconsiderate with your luggage these days, am I right?’  We never considered explaining that we’re Jews.

Let me be clear, no one had made us feel unwelcome or was anything but warm and friendly.  People in the shops, market, on the road or by the lake were all open and lovely. No one ever asked us about our religion but they always wished us a merry Christmas and we always thanked them and wished them the same.  

The question of who we are when we leave our homes, pass the mezuzah on our door, and enter the world, is a real and daily question.  How do we navigate multiple identities? When Superman wants to hide his identity, he puts on a suit and glasses and apparently no one is any the wiser.  But when Clark Kent sees crime happening, why does he have to change into his Superman suit? Why can’t Clark Kent save the innocent? Superman’s vulnerability isn’t kryptonite, it’s someone finding out that he leads two lives – God forbid someone finds out that at home he lies around in a cape and tights.

I made a new friend this summer.  This woman is a devout Christian and her church is central in her life.  We shared time together and enjoyed each other’s company and humour. The more she talked about her church, the more I worried about whether it would matter that there was no church in my life.  She asked me if faith was important to me and I toyed with the answer: ‘airlines are so inconsiderate with your luggage these days, am I right?’ Instead, I made eye contact and said that religion is very much a part of my life, I’m a Jew.

She couldn’t have been more thrilled.  She saw faith as one more thing we had in common.

The parshah this week challenges us about our identities.  Who are we when we go to war? Who are we when we encounter vulnerable people?  Are we ever willing to re-identify our children as criminals and who are we when there are no witnesses to our actions?

But long before we get to those extremes, we can sit every morning with our coffee, think about the day ahead and ask ourselves who we are when we shut the door behind us.

Open Wounds

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Hi everyone,

Picture it:

A dead body found outside city limits with no witnesses and no one to blame.  It means no government is taking responsibility for the crime and no one is attending to the body.  No CSI team is sent and no police tape will cordon off the crime scene. In a very short time, the animals will claim the area and the victim will be forgotten forever.  A crime with a suffering victim and no closure in sight.

And now you have the picture painted in part of this week’s parshah, Shoftim.

Ok, I’m being a bit Hollywood dramatic, but only a bit.  The problem mentioned in the Torah is, in fact, a dead body between cities and no one owning the problem.  But whenever there is suffering involved, the Torah has made it clear that it cannot go unanswered – it must come to a close.

And so we arrive at discussing closure in our lives.  It’s nice when things tie into neat parcels with beginnings and endings.  Whenever something new occurs in our lives, we say a ‘shehecheyanu’, the blessing that acknowledges our gratitude for arriving at that new moment.  But, we don’t say ‘shehecheyanu’ for new things that don’t have endings. For instance, we don’t say a ‘shehecheyanu’ when we get married or at our first intimacies because we intend those relationships to last unendingly.  The blessing is for those moments that have closure: like the beginning of a holiday that will end in a week.

And though we know some things end, that doesn’t mean we’ll find closure.  Closure involves picking up the loose thread and tying it to something.  

But it’s not that simple, because if the loose thread involved our getting hurt, then we might revert to that primal element within ourselves that wants the person who hurt us to be hurt back. 

I saw this play out years ago when I was waiting for a flight at the airport.  I watched two kids playing at the gate. They were clearly brother and sister, around 6 or 7 years old.  The longer we waited, the less they got along (shocker). After about an hour, their now aggressive playing ended with the little boy crying and running to his mother.  Through his tears he told his mother that his sister hit him. “So now I have to hit her back, right? And I have to hit her HARDER, right?”

His words were brilliant.  Of course, she should feel what he felt, so he should hit her back.  But isn’t there a price to be paid for initiating the violence, and shouldn’t there be a deterrent built in to prevent future preemptive hitting – so he should hit her harder.  

His point was driven home to his mother when she told him she would talk to his sister about it immediately.  His response: “TALK to her??? Aren’t you going to YELL at her?!?!”

And there it is: the moment we confuse closure with justice.

And now it’s helpful to go back to that dead body in the Torah.  There will be no justice because there are no witnesses and no possible way to solve the crime.  But having no justice does not mean we cannot have closure. The Torah instructs the two closest cities to measure their distance to the body and the closest one assumes jurisdiction.  Then there is a ceremony performed to symbolically punish the guilty party and bury the dead. It is symbolic justice but effective closure.

But not everything can tie up so meaningfully.  Most of our moments are complex relationships with other people involved.  We feel the loose thread of conversations we didn’t have or injustices that were left unaddressed.  How can we find closure when the other person doesn’t know how wrong they were? If they only realized we were right, then we could finally close the matter.  And, again, we confuse closure with our fantasy of justice and so we go round and round.

How to break the cycle?

I think about the Torah’s statement of symbolic closure.  Once we realize we are not the ultimate Judge and therefore justice alludes us, we can begin to entertain symbolic closures.  There’s a great Yiddish saying that translates as: ‘not everything I think needs to be said; not everything I say needs to be written; not everything I write needs to be sent’.  There are stages of expression and I can choose one for closure.  

So, maybe we go somewhere private and say what needs saying, or maybe we write a letter and destroy it when we’re done.  Closure means we acknowledged our ‘jurisdiction’ and finish the loose thread.  

So…picture it:

A dead body found outside city limits with no witnesses and no one to blame but no longer a hanging thread and now it’s a model for the unfinished moments we all carry.

The Beautiful Places I Don’t Want To Go

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Hi all,

Hope everyone had a great week.  This coming weekend is the start of the Hebrew month Elul, which means the High Holidays are around the corner – and as daunting as it is confronting our mortality at the High Holidays, a close second is encountering all the family politics, shul decisions and meal prep…what was God thinking?!

But Elul is the month before the High Holidays and it’s a wonderful month of transition.  The word itself is often seen as an acronym for the verse: “Ani ledodi vedodi li”. That’s the verse many brides say under the chuppah when giving a ring to their groom.  I said it years ago under the chuppah, I think, though, to be honest, that hour is a bit of a blur in my memory. I remember circling my husband right after getting under the chuppah.  I remember thinking I’m weaving our souls together to create a new spiritual entity and I would be with him for the rest of my life and was I crazy and did we really think this through enough and honestly how solid were the plans we made and maybe we should talk about this some more and I’m not sure that’s the music that should be playing right now.  As I was walking around him, deep in my moment, I realized I had no idea how many circles I had actually completed. I passed in front of him, locked eyes with him through the veil and he quietly said: ‘that was 5’. 

So, I said that verse under the chuppah as my declaration to him.  The verse from Song of Songs, ‘Ani ledodi vedodi li’ is often translated as: ‘I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine’.  That’s actually the wrong translation and anyone who knows me knows I am a stickler for translations. The phrase in English implies ownership, I belong to my beloved and my beloved belongs to me.  It raises a two-fold problem: not only do I not want to belong to anyone else, but I certainly don’t want to own anybody – too much responsibility. I don’t even consider that I own my children and I actually made them from scratch.

Here’s how the verse actually translates: “I am for my beloved and my beloved is for me.”  It’s a verse said by the woman about her lover.  It is a declaration of support and loyalty – it is not a declaration of ownership.

In fact, elsewhere she says: “My beloved is for me and I am for him, he shepherds among the lilies,” yes, lilies, not roses (I say this because it’s always translated as roses).  In biblical Hebrew that word means ‘lilies’, it’s only later in Hebrew that it means ‘roses’.  

Why do I care, you ask?  Because lilies are poisonous, so she’s not saying her beloved is so deep and romantic (roses), she’s saying he leads her into beautiful, dangerous places.  Though, interestingly, she never goes there to look for him. She knows that’s where he is but she doesn’t feel the need to follow him there.

How does all of this relate to Elul, the month whose name stands for ‘ani ledodi vedodi li’?   It is not only the month I explore my relationships, it’s also the month I reflect on my personal relationship with God.  In this analogy, God is my Beloved. And yes, as the High Holidays approach I realize that God can lead me into beautiful and dangerous places.  When the thought of the mortality of those I love dawns on me, I can sometimes dwell on it and it will grow inside me, it can paralyze me, the fear can be overwhelming and it becomes poison to me.

So I choose not to follow my Beloved there.  I create my High Holiday filters so I can enjoy the holidays without being overwhelmed.

The Sages have taught us many times that Torah truths can often be heard in the words  of children and I was lucky enough to see this profound truth unfold at the park the other day.  A 4-year-old girl was at the park with her twenty-something aunt (I know these people). The aunt was enticing the little girl to go on the big slide.  The girl said she doesn’t want to. The aunt told her several times that there’s nothing to be afraid of and that at the top of the slide she could see the whole park and lots of things she can’t see from the ground.  The aunt said she would even go with her so it wouldn’t be scary. The girl kept saying ‘no thank you’ to each offer. Finally, the little 4-year-old looked directly at her aunt and said: “I know that I can do it, I just don’t want to.”

So happy Elul everybody.  Enjoy time to consider who are the beloveds in our lives, who has our backs and whom do we protect.  At the same time, consider the unique nature of everyone’s journey and maybe the beautiful places they enter that we prefer not to explore.

Mussar Monday

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Hi everyone,

Welcome back to my Mussar blog.  Remember that Mussar is about real life moments and expanding our free will so I will always share a Mussar moment of mine and end with suggestions for you.

Before we jump in, here’s a dictionary for today’s post:

Middah/Middot = Hebrew for: Measure / Measures (not a character trait / characteristics, I’ll explain as we go)

Tikkun Olam = Hebrew for: repairing the world

Mussar =  The Hebrew word referring to learning about our middot to expand our free will in order to heal the world

Mundane = regular or everyday, seemingly insignificant

Holy = the level above the mundane

Automatic Mode = when our Middot readjust themselves without us knowing or choosing

Quick theory review: If we imagine for a minute that all our personality traits are held in cups.  Some cups currently hold more than others and when we encounter things in life, the cups pour their contents around without us knowing. Mussar is the study of how much is in each cup and how we use our free will to actively rebalance what’s inside them.  We try to become the masters of our measures, the sommeliers of our own cups (as it were).  

So, here’s my Mussar moment: I went for a manicure a few days ago.  It took my nails 20 minutes to dry. Twenty minutes of not using my hands, not touching anything, not going on my phone.  Twenty minutes to patiently wait, literally, for paint to dry. It was agony.

I had never realized before that twenty minutes can sometimes feel like a lifetime – Einstein is dancing a hora somewhere as I write those words.

I never realized that my measure of patience could reduce to almost nothing in an instant.  The description of one’s patience is measured by the middah of patience. People who are perceived as  ‘patient people’ have more patience in their cup so it takes longer for their patience to run out. My patience cup seemed to empty  after a few minutes of waiting for my nails to dry. I thought I had more in there, I was surprised by how quickly it emptied, how fast the ticking of the clock on the wall became really really loud.

In Mussar language, my middah of patience set itself without me consciously choosing the measurement, which is called functioning in ‘automatic mode’.  My free will stays dormant, my patience middah reacts to the world, and basically I’m along for the ride.

The obvious problem with this is that the world will never change if we’re all functioning in automatic.  The only thing that can possibly repair the world is to use my free will and make active choices.

So, back to my nails…the twenty minutes that simply wouldn’t end.  If I weren’t in automatic mode, I might have realized that I had been gifted twenty unexpected minutes.  I could have met someone new, struck a personal moment with someone who works there who might welcome a conversation.  I saw none of it, I was frustrated so I couldn’t see I still had choices.

It is a mundane moment, but Mussar is defined by entering the mundane and finding more choices.  The world heals a tiny bit when we see that mundane frustrations can be opportunities of choice. I know I won’t see it every time, but maybe now I will see it one more time than I did before.

Here’s my Mussar suggestion for you: ask yourself when your patience middah readjusts itself without you choosing. Find a moment of challenge in your everyday where you might see a new choice, a new opportunity.

Comment below with your Mussar moment.  Mussar is about engaging with each other – but let’s also remember our measure of ‘respect.’

Food Glorious Food

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Hope everyone had a great week.

This week’s parshah is Eikev and, as always, there’s a lot of things in there.  But there’s one verse about how we should handle food and God, so I started thinking about food and I started thinking about being the food-giver.

When I had my first baby, I decided I would nurse her, I mean how hard could it be?  It was always ready to go and I had images of a long line of women before me – I was ready to be nature woman!  I was also a student and nursing was free.

Then my daughter had her first meal and the red streaks of pain that flashed across my eyes was indescribable. I let out a loud yelp and literally saw stars.   Back in my day, women admitted that labour was painful but we told each other it was a ‘good’ pain. I’ve had five children and by my fifth labour I asked the nurse if I could have an epidural ‘to go’ for when I got home.  I’ve concluded there’s no such thing as good pain. Whether a woman births through natural or surgical means, it will be scary and it will hurt. But in spite of being told about the good pain of labour, no one, and I mean no one, told me nursing would hurt so much.

Ironically, the only thing that solves the pain of nursing is (wait for it) to nurse some more.  Add to the mix that while you’re dealing with all of this pain, the baby is hungry and not understanding any of the explanations you are tearfully putting forth, so you just have a screaming infant in your arms.

You are the food-giver and the receiver is screaming, demanding and anything but understanding or grateful.  At the end of the day, after baby has been fed, you hope for that final statement of thank you that will come in the form of a burp.  

For 40 years in the desert, we were the infant, God was the food-giver and we complained and cried and kvetched about food constantly.  The number 40 is not random in the Torah. It is used with Noah and the ark, it is used with Moses on Mount Sinai and it is used with Israel in the desert.  It is also the total number of weeks of gestation. It takes 40 weeks to birth something new. The new world in Noah’s time, the new law from Sinai and the new nation that will enter Israel.

So we hungered in the desert and we demanded and screamed that God nurse us – hardly the portrait of a spiritual and holy interaction.  But the focus isn’t on what we do when we’re hungry, it’s what we do when we’re full.

When I’m hungry, I’ll probably agree to almost anything you want me to do.  My mother taught me that if I wanted the food on the table I would help set the table.  If she asked me to make salad, I would. I would get a bottle of pop from the basement and I would call everyone to the table – without shouting ‘Dinner’s ready’ – she made me do it again if I shouted.  I would have combed out her beehive hairdo then and there – anything to get dinner on the table. 

But once I ate, my inclination would be to run from the table with no more than a ‘howdy do’ to anyone.  If I got to the den first then I could choose what TV show to watch, since family viewing was a ‘first come first choose’ proposition.  My parents taught us that we had to ask to be excused from the table to stop the mad bolt to the TV. In other words, once my stomach was full I was no longer the sweet, giving and obedient little elf.

So it’s clearly not what we do when we’re hungry, it’s what we do when we’re full.  This week’s parshah says: ‘you will eat, you will be satisfied and then you will bless God.’  That’s why we say Birkhat Hamazon after we eat. We experience what it means to have the food warm us from the inside and we thank the Food-Giver.  We aren’t babies anymore, it’s not coming to us and we’re not doing it so that we’ll get the food. We learn not to bolt from the table but that food either builds relationships or keeps us behaving as animals demanding and taking – it’s our choice.

I ended up nursing all my children and it was a strain and adjustment each time.  Each relationship that developed taught me about my baby – one of my kids couldn’t wait and would try and nurse through my shirt while another one thought biting was funny.  Whether it’s nursing or feeding from a bottle or a can or any of the many ways to provide food, the animal in us will view food as the end goal but the Torah reminds us that food is the medium and the relationship is the end goal.

Learning To Listen

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Hope everyone had a great week.  

My brother recently celebrated a birthday which got me thinking about my siblings.  I remember a moment with my brother from our childhood. I was sitting in our kitchen with my father when my brother shouted down from his room: “Hey Rach, grab me some water!”

I was very touched that my older brother would ask me to do something for him, since our relationship to this point mostly consisted of jabbing each other with our elbows at dinner because I’m a righty and he’s a lefty.  The jabbing was obviously deliberate.

So, in my innocence, I thought he was reaching out to me as someone he could rely on for water…silly me.

For anyone who doesn’t remember kitchen sinks from the 1970s, next to every faucet was a spray nozzle that would shoot a strong spray of water directly forward when the handle was squeezed.  Unbeknownst to me, my brother had wrapped an elastic band around the handle so it was depressed and ready to shoot water at whomever turned on the faucet. My brother had moments of evil genius!

But God had a different plan for him.  After he shouted to me asking for water, I immediately said ‘of course’, feeling all grown up and worthy of taking my rightful place as someone he could rely on.  But then my father told me it’s ok, he would pour the water. I watched as my father turned on the faucet. I watched as a shower of water shot out and drenched him completely and I watched it go on and on for what seemed an eternity until my father figured out what was happening and shut the water off.  

That wasn’t the first time I’d ever heard my father yell, but it was the first time I’d heard him yell a curse word over and over…it was the ‘s’ word.

My brother ran into the kitchen, saw our drenched father and went a sickly colour of grey.  Then he kept yelling at me: “I thought YOU were getting me water!!!” I just sat at the table listening to all the yelling and trying to figure out what I had done, since I actually hadn’t done anything.  

My brother and I grew very close over the years and this is one of the memories that we cherish. 

Why do I remember this incident now?  Because this week’s parshah, Vaetchanan, has the verses that contain the prayer ‘Shema’.  It is our proclamation of monotheism and it translates as: “Hear, Israel, my Master, our God, my Master is One.”  We recite it in prayer and we recite it when we go to sleep. We learn to say it out loud and tradition says to cover our eyes when we say it so our ears will hone in.

But it is not a prayer that we direct to God, it is a prayer that we direct to each other.  In fact, we clearly state ‘hear ISRAEL’, and we cover our eyes so we will, in fact, hear ourselves and each other.  It is a moment of unity and commonality that we express to each other and it stands in opposition to any of our divisive moments.  We argue over everything, as siblings do, we compete over attention and justifications, as siblings do, and we tease each other and play pranks, as siblings do, but at the end of the day we unite and affirm our loyalties and our allegiances.

When my kids were little and I would put them to bed, I often stood outside their rooms to hear if they were falling asleep.  Many times I heard them whispering to each other and I would catch the words ‘mama’ or ‘papa’. They were clearly sharing their confusion, angst and frustration about their parents, or perhaps plotting pranks of their own.

Whenever they would get me with a good one, I would wonder if that had been planned in one of their late night secret meetings.  I loved that they shared this with each other because who could better understand it all than a sibling?

Moses has outlived his siblings at this point in the Torah.  He did not have sibling moments and he did not have strong family connections.  The parshah begins with the word ‘vaetchanan’, which means ‘and I pleaded.’ Moses is referring to how he begged that God allow him to enter Israel but God refused.  In fact, God told him not to speak of it anymore, never to ask again. Moses has been told he should no longer pray to God on this matter. Our hearts should break at that moment for the complete ear-shattering silence that God is demanding.  Especially because Moses is the one teaching us to say ‘Shema’: ‘Listen’.

So when we say the Shema, perhaps at that moment we are honouring Moses by acknowledging how well he taught us to hear each other.  Perhaps God told Moses to stop pleading because maybe the moment was difficult for both Moses and God. Maybe to protect Israel and answer its needs, Moses and God endured the difficulty.  If so, our personal moment of Shema is more loaded than we ever knew.

Moses stands alone as the sole survivor of his family.  His parents are long gone and his siblings have all died.  Nature prepares us for the loss of parents but a sibling is a lateral companion, they are meant to stand with us from cradle to grave.

Back in the book of Genesis, when the Torah begins, we meet the first siblings: Cain and Abel.  It ends horribly as Cain kills Abel over the perceived love of God, the Parent. When God questions Cain about it,  Cain asks God a fundamental human question: ‘Am I my brother’s keeper’ and his question is left unanswered in the Torah.  

Ultimately, in this week’s parshah, in the last book of Torah, we learn to say Shema to each other.  We learn to listen to each other, for that brief moment, and to finally understand that God is the Parent, we are all siblings and we can finally answer Cain’s question by saying ‘yes.’

Fear of ‘The Button’

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Hope everyone had a great week.


I had an interesting moment this week. I realized that I am afraid of computers.  Actually, to be honest, I’m afraid there’s a hidden ‘delete’ button somewhere that will activate when I am trying to do something else.  Some kind of ‘control’, then press the ‘capital R’- spell my name – button that will erase everything I’ve been working on. I do not come by this fear lightly.  

Years ago, I was working in a Jewish organization where 30 people were sitting in cubicles in one big room.  It was my first day and I was setting up my work space (I like to personalize things and I get very sensitive to the objects in my surroundings).  I noticed that when I pulled my chair closer to the keyboard, my foot banged on the computer box under my desk. I crawled under the desk to move the box closer to the wall and give myself more leg room.  As I was moving the computer, a cable from the computer loosened – which I only realized when I heard that terrible noise of a droning hum powering down and then silence. The silence lasted a few seconds and then the whole room exploded as 30 people shouted: ‘WHAT HAPPENED?!?’  

Luckily, I was still under my desk because people started moving quickly from computer to computer to see if everyone had lost power, and subsequently, all the documents they’d been working on.  All 30 computers were dead.

My supervisor came into the room and saw me under my desk.  She asked what I was doing and I explained that my knees needed more space.  By this time I was standing up and I noticed the chaos in the room. People were scrambling and my supervisor asked about another worker and was told she went for a walk to calm down.  I found out later, she had been working on a grant proposal online for 3 days and if she logged off, the site kicked her off without saving any of her work.

I also subsequently found out that all the computers on the floor were plugged into my computer, to save money on wiring each of them independently.  Yes, it was a fire hazard. Yes, it was ignored until that moment. A hidden positive: now it would be fixed. However, it made no difference to me. I still owned that terrible moment.  As I revisit this now, I can still taste the adrenaline.

So I am left with a fear of the hidden ‘button’ on a computer.  I have concluded that I am not a technology person. I know it is an emotional conclusion and not a rational one, but it makes no difference.  The conclusion about myself limits me, scares me and creates false boundaries. But I am in good company…Moses did that too.

When Moses meets God, at the Burning Bush, God tells Moses to go speak to Pharaoh and Moses replies by saying: ‘I am not a man of words’, he is not an ‘ish devarim’.  The word ‘devarim’ means ‘words’ or ‘things’ or even ‘stuff’.  We don’t know why Moses thinks of himself that way, but it proves to be an incredible limiting factor for him.

When he went out of the palace and saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave, Moses strikes and kills him.  A man of words might have commanded him to stop, especially considering Moses is part of the royal family.  But because he does not see himself that way, he does not behave that way.

Later, Moses will climb Mt. Sinai to get the Torah.  He brings down what will be known as the Ten Commandments.  But in Hebrew, we call them the Ten Utterances (Aseret haDibrot), a form of the word ‘devarim’.  The Ten Statements, ten of the things Moses said he couldn’t do.  The man who is not a man of words will bring ten statements to the world that will change humanity forever.

And he still doesn’t see it.

Ultimately, Moses will stand in front of a rock that God commanded him to speak to, but he will hit it. He is still in Egypt in his mind, he is still facing the Egyptian bully.  He refuses to accept that he has become a ‘man of words’ and so he cannot speak to the rock, he must hit it. Egypt must never enter Israel and so Moses will die in the desert.

Before he dies, Moses recites an entire book of the Torah: Devarim.  We begin to read it this week. We call this book Deuteronomy, which in Greek means ‘Second Law’, because the Ten Commandments are recited again in this book.  But in Hebrew it’s called Devarim, meaning ‘words’, or ‘the things in his head that will now gain expression’. Everything in this book speaks of Moses’ perspective and his processing of events.  They are his memories and his fears and the book ends with a beautiful song he has composed.

The Midrash asks why this book is included in our Torah if it is the product of Moses, rather than dictated by God.  The Sages respond that this book is offered by Moses as a prayer and God accepts it and answers: ‘Amen’.

In his last moments, Moses understands that his life had defined around a limitation he imposed and could not exceed.  We all do the same thing to ourselves repeatedly and pray to find those moments of realization.

So, I decided that maybe I’ve been unfair to myself.  Maybe I could be a technology person. I experimented with something safe…the TV remote control.  I noticed my husband was watching tv, but then I noticed that although he was holding the remote control, there was a second remote in the other room.  I picked up the second remote, quietly stood outside the room where my husband was and pressed the volume button until the sound muted. I watched his confusion as he reached for the remote next to him and increased the volume.  I then decided to change the channel. His face was priceless as he went into the settings menu to try and figure out what was going on. I had never felt such power – this moment was magical (any married person knows what I mean).

By the fourth time, my husband discovered what I was doing because I was laughing too hard to keep quiet.  I had crossed the threshold and saw the joy technology could bring to my life.

I still cringe when I remember that moment under my desk from years ago.  I still have a moment of hesitation about hidden buttons on the computer, but I also accept that I am a person who can ultimately pull the plug and liberate myself.

Monday Mussar: An Introduction

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Welcome to my Mussar Monday blog.  I am excited to explore Mussar together as it is a fantastic skill to learn in today’s busy and stressful world.

What is Mussar, you ask.

Excellent question.  Of course, because it sources from the ancient writings of Judaism, it is safe to assume there are many layers to the answer.

Layer 1: The word ‘mussar’ means ‘to give to another’

Layer 2: It centres on a methodology of ethics

Layer 3: It is an approach to the world that intends to heal and repair damage

Layer 4: It is a universal that applies to all of humanity

Layer 5: It is a skill set with practical outcomes so it must go beyond theory

Layer 6: The skill set involves introducing the mind to the soul and developing a dialogue

Layer 7: It results in noticeable changes with only positive outcomes

As this is the first blog, I’m going to have to get a bit technical, cover some of the basics and then we move forward from there.

Mussar sources all the way back to the Torah and appears in all Jewish texts.  The Mussar Masters flourished in Eastern Europe in the 19th century but the School of Mussar was all but lost during the Shoah.  We are so fortunate to be able to rebuild something that answers so many of the challenges of today’s world.

Here are the foundational concepts:

We are all created in the image of God and therefore we all share the same ingredients.  What makes each of us unique are the measures of those ingredients. The word for measure in Hebrew is ‘middah’ (plural is ‘middot’).  Usually ‘middah’ is translated as ‘characteristic’ but that is not correct. It is the measure of the particular characteristic that I focus on.  My ‘middot’ are my measures of patience, compassion, anger etc.  

So, the very first step to everything is to ‘snapshot’ who I am at this moment.  Since I am in the image of God, I will use the text description of God as my framework.  In the Torah, God identifies 13 Divine attributes so I will try and identify 13 of my characteristics.  Then I will decide the measure of each: small, medium, large. I now have a list of my middot that I will work on.

That’s enough technical stuff for now.  I’ll include more technical details each week so stay tuned.

Now to the practical side.

I like to use common examples of things.  We’ve all been taught that if we’re seated on a bus and an older person gets on, we should offer our seat to them.  What happens if we offer it and they decline? Do we sit back down?

Ethics would say we sit back down because we offered and they said no.  Mussar would say something inside of us felt it was wrong to sit while they are standing.  Whether they accept the seat or not is irrelevant, it is still wrong to sit while they are standing.  So, according to Mussar, you do not sit back down. Two ethical systems with two different outcomes.

This brings us to the strongest foundation of Mussar, in fact, the strongest gift humanity has at all: free will, my choices.  I have infinite choices everyday but I never own someone else’s free will. Whether another person chooses to sit in the seat I offered is not something I can decide.

All too often we intrude into someone else’s free will because we think we know better.  In case you missed that attribute, it’s ego, something we all have huge measures of. Don’t get me wrong, ego is vital for us, in fact every attribute is vital.  That’s why it’s not the attributes, it’s the measurements of them.

Here’s the sad reality: most of the time we all function in automatic mode and don’t actually make choices.  We have programmed responses to social settings and interactions so we don’t think about things. Of course the world can’t change, we’re not actually changing it.

So, here’s the homework for this week (Mussar will always have homework suggestions, remember it’s a practical skill).  Starting down this complex road is about small changes that reverberate so let’s start by becoming aware of our automatic modes and making small choices.

This week, whenever someone says ‘thank you’ to you, change your automatic response of ‘you’re welcome’ to ‘you’re MOST welcome’ – you don’t have to emphasize the word ‘most’, I just did that so you’d notice it.

Watch how it changes your awareness of the moment and watch the reactions you get.  The moment you notice these changes is the moment you’ve stepped through the door into the world of Mussar – it’s not for the faint of heart but you’ll find it life changing.

The Oy of Peoplehood

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Hope everyone had a great week.


This week’s parshah, Matot-Masei, might as well be titled: ‘oy’. It talks a lot about war and
booty and prisoners and revenge. All I can say is to remember we are never commanded to do
that, we are reading about warfare in the ancient world – it’s a slice of hell.
But there’s a defining moment in there that talks about two tribes telling Moses they prefer to
live outside of Israel and not set up their homes within the borders of the land.
Every time I read this section, I am taken with the fact that from the moment we had a nation
of Jews enter the land of Israel, we had a group within the nation saying that life in Israel is not
for them. In other words, there are no Israeli Jews without simultaneously having Diaspora
Jews.


And now I arrive at today.


I am the generation born into a world where there is a modern state of Israel. I can’t imagine a
world without Israel, though my parents lived in a world that produced the Holocaust so that
answers that question.


But I struggle with the relationship Jews in Israel have with Jews outside of Israel and visa versa.
I’m not sure we’ve figured out how to do ‘peoplehood’. Our realities are so vastly different and
while we share Jewish history and culture, those of us outside of Israel have mastered living in a
different culture as we layer our identities. Where can we connect?


A few weeks ago, I visited Israel. There were days I struggled with what I saw and there were
days of such connection words fail. At one point, while talking with an Israeli about Judaism,
they listened to my views and then said, ‘so you’re a Reformit.’ I was a bit confused and
explained that I am not a Reform Jew as some of my Jewish choices wouldn’t fit that
community. They explained that I seem liberal, but I also keep commandments, so I have to be
‘a Reformit.’ I could see there were no other categories of Judaism possible in this discussion,
so I said nothing.


By the way, this week’s parshah clearly states what the Talmud later repeats as a Jewish
precept: silence is agreement. I said nothing and therefore chose to agree with him at that
moment. You choose your battles.


My thoughts go back years ago to when I was saying Kaddish for my father. I was also leading a
trip to Israel at that time and was strategically finding a minyan every morning so I could say
Kaddish. We were in Tel Aviv for a few days and I found a minyan in a small shul on a main street not far from my hotel. It was a group of men on their way to work stopping in quickly to
pray. It was ten men with no rabbi or chazan leading them.


The first day I walked in, I went to the women’s section which was on the same floor as the
men, a pretty flimsy mechitzah that allowed us to see each other and hear each other. They
definitely knew I was there because I had to climb over all the stalked chairs, tables and books
filling the women’s section. Actually, I was happy to find a place where I could sit alone with
my thoughts, so I didn’t mind the clutter.


One morning I was delayed and ended up running to get to the minyan in time. As I ran in, the
men were already finished and were putting away their Tefillin, ready to go to work. I
remember standing there and saying: ‘you’re finished??’, in English and then starting to cry.
These were not quiet, subtle tears. I mean sudden, anguished sobs. It was the first time I had
missed Kaddish all year and I didn’t expect the pain I was feeling. The men stopped and one
man asked me what happened. I told them I was saying Kaddish for my father but now I missed
it.


In Hebrew, I heard some of them ask each other why I’m saying Kaddish, don’t I have brothers.
One man quietly asked if it was allowed. Only one man asked the group who I am. All of these
comments were happening at once as these men are standing there, late for work, watching a
strange foreign woman crying.


The man who first spoke to me said to the group, ‘she’s saying kaddish. She needs a minyan, so
no one is going anywhere.’ Before I knew it, they all put down their Tefillin, stood around me in
a circle while one of them handed me a Siddur and said ‘Read!’ The page was already opened
to Kaddish and I quietly recited it as they all answered me.
That was peoplehood.


I have no doubt that most of them walked away confused by what I was doing. I’m also pretty
sure some of them agreed to be there so I would stop crying. The reasons don’t matter, we
created holiness together and fulfilled an ancient intent of unity.
O this week’s Parsha, when the tribe of Reuben tells Moses they don’t want to settle in Israel,
Moses argues. Actually, Moses threatens them. They stood their ground and the two sides
worked out a mutually agreeable arrangement. It strained the relationship of peoplehood then
and by the end of the book of Joshua it almost causes a civil war. The challenge of
understanding our peoplehood remains with us today and we inherit the challenge honestly.


A few weeks ago, when I was in Israel, I argued with some people I met and after I left, I missed
it. Like any family visit.

Numbers in all the Wrong Places

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Hope everyone had a great week.  

The parshah this week is Pinchas and it has some wonderfully powerful points.  We meet five sisters who challenge Moses and God on the laws of inheritance and end up carrying the day, changing the laws forever.  We see God’s reaction to a High Priest who kills a man and woman for worshipping God through their sexuality. All great stuffy, but I don’t want to talk about those.

I want to talk about the stuff in the parshah that makes us yawn and ends with raising an eyebrow at a spiritually eternal and Divine document that seems to love numbers the way the Torah does. 

In this parshah, God tells Moses to take a census of Israel in order to form an army.  Each tribe will now be listed with its original founder and every male descendant and their male descendants, and so on and so on.  In total, over 600,000, which sounds like a lot of people but it’s actually a pretty small army. In other words, every victory Israel has will never be because they outnumber the enemy. I understand the need for the final figure,  but I really don’t need the initial numbers and then every number in between…

…or do I?

To most of us, me included, numbers need to be meaningful, they need to speak to me in a plain and direct way that allows me to use them as I need.  I don’t love numbers for their own sake. My accountant loves numbers for their own sake and whenever we meet, my eyes glaze over within minutes. When he pauses, I assume he asked a question and I usually nod.  He knows me well enough that at that point he picks up my phone and turns on the recorder and explains the numbers into the phone. I will listen in bits and pieces later. God bless my accountant.

So, I need meaningful numbers.  I learned an invaluable lesson about meaningful numbers when I was a student teacher.  I was placed in an elementary school in a violent section of the city. It was filled with gangs and drugs and we were cautioned to visually check our students every morning without being obvious.  We were looking for cuts, bruises, physical abuse. Every absence was to be noted.

I was assigned to teach the class fractions.  As a student teacher, I did the classic ‘draw a pie on the board, divide it in half, divide it in quarters’ and so on.  The class was quiet as I went my merry way with my apple pie drawing. Every time I turned to look at the students, they sat quietly staring back.  I felt like I was fractions’ gift to education (yeah, ego can convince us of that in a fraction of a second…) I got all the way to one-eighths without a peep from them.  Something wasn’t right. I asked if they had questions and one brave soul put up his hand and said: ‘I’ve never had pie, do you know how to draw a pizza?’

Meaningless numbers, they’ll get us every time.

So why is the Torah insisting on the numerical details?

The numbers are important when we plug in the age-old resolution: ‘cherchez la femme’, ‘look for the woman’.   In other words, behind every mystery will stand some woman, or some issue that leads to a woman, or some man who is searching for a woman – basically, everything sources to a woman.

The Torah leaves a huge issue unresolved and that is the double matriarchy of Leah and Rachel.  Jacob only wanted Rachel but also married Leah. Leah is fertile while Rachel is loved. We have the unresolved dichotomy of a woman: is she mother (Leah) or lover (Rachel)? 

Since the Torah won’t resolve it, tradition tries to figure it out by looking at who the next leader will be.  Clearly, the model for a woman would be the one who birthed the heir. Not so fast, Leah gave birth to Judah who will give us the great king, David.  But Rachel gave birth to Joseph who was a leader in Egypt. David was a warrior king while Joseph was the great negotiator. WHICH IS OUR MODEL?!

As if that weren’t complicated enough, there is a tradition of the Messiah ben David (son of David) and also a tradition of the Messiah ben Yosef (son of Joseph).

So far, no clear answer, so as a woman, I have ambiguity of role model.  Am I to be mother or am I to be lover?

Here’s where all the numbers from the parshah come in.  Maybe the biggest tribe will be the leader and then I can resolve who is the matriarch?  Except, when you look at the census in this parshah, you see the Judah and the Joseph tribes are coming in very close in numbers.

I can’t resolve the issue.  

I believe that things in the Torah are deliberate and therefore if I can’t resolve the issue it’s because I shouldn’t resolve it.  I am to cherish both Leah and Rachel. I am to be an integrated woman balancing between ‘mother’ and ‘lover’.

In the end, the ‘eyes glaze over’ numbers in the parshah told me how Israel built its first army in the ancient world while simultaneously showing me how I find my identity in the modern world.

Now I wouldn’t give those numbers up for anything.