Psalm for shabbat

A psalm for Shabbat...

Slow.
slow and sweet, like
honey.
like light.
like grace.
Shabbat comes
and my heart opens
like light
slow.
and I
breathe

Shabbat shalom to all I love and hold dear. <3 p="">

And I am filled: a poem for Shabbat

She comes, my bride;
She comes in all her glory,
and I stop, breathless
drawn in as I always am
into her eternity.
to rest in her palace
forever, for a day,
for the sweetness
of a moment
that stretches into
endlessness and grace,
and I rest, whole.
She comes, my Shabbos bride,
and I am filled.





























..

#Omer, Days 34 and 35, heading into Shabbat

Here's what I'm noticing most these days -

Life is not what I expected. Life is. That’s the deal. It’s bumpy and messy and scary and happy and joyous and perplexing, in infinite variety and subtlety. And most of all: changing. I get to participate in that. I get to do it well and fuck it up, find moments of grace and spar with demons of my own devising. In the midst of pain or doubt or joy or hope, it is not so dark: I am not so alone, as long as I put one foot in front of the other.

I get to find God, every day. I can be made whole, every day. I can be healed, every day. None of this comes naturally to me. It is still easier, at times, to disconnect than to willingly open up my heart. If I can just commit, just trust, just forgive, just love, then I would know I was in the presence of God.

But I have known God’s grace, and I have felt joy and love, and so I struggle gladly to be human, every day.

Shabbat shalom to all I love and hold so very dear xo

#countingtheomer #shabbat #expectations

Omer. Staring at 40 from the land of the 30s

This is a week of abundance and lying fallow,  of blessings and curses.

Here's my confession,  realized just now: I rarely know the difference between these seeming opposites. There are times I cling to the things I *know* are abundant blessings, only to find, somewhere down a twisting road, they are the very things that hold me in place, that drain me,  leave me barren.

And there are times that I run from what I know are curses and find out just how wrong my suppositions (and actions based on those) are.

And sometimes, I happen to be right at all - blessings are blessings, curses are curses, all's right with the world.

It's a crap shoot.

And here, on this leg of the journey, nearing the end, so close you can almost taste it, almost kiss it, it is Shabbat again.

And maybe,  just maybe, everything I *know* about that holy, sacred place - is wrong. Maybe what I bring to it, because of what I know, changes it, makes it something it's not. And maybe,  if I let it be, let it come and wash over me as it will, rather than grasping for it, pulling it close,  holding it in motionless place -

I have no idea how to finish that, except perhaps to give thanks for the blessing of not knowing and letting be.

Shabbat shalom to all I love and hold dear xo

#shabbat
#counting the omer
#omer

Making Shabbat. And Soup.

We did not keep kosher when I was a kid. The closest we may have gotten was the story my mother used to tell, about how, when she was growing up, her father yelled at her one day, as she went to pour herself a glass of milk to go with her Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato sandwich: “We don’t mix milk and meat!” Funny how that works – I still don’t keep kosher (though I toy with the idea these days), but I also don’t mix milk with meat.

 And, while we didn’t keep kosher, my mother always used a kosher chicken when she made chicken soup. “It tastes better,” she would say with a shrug. I have to say, she made amazing chicken soup. It was mostly for holidays, like Rosh Hashana or Pesach – big, extended-family meals that came out in a thousand courses. At least, it seemed that way. Every one of them started with soup. And noodles - lokshen – unless it was Pesach, and then it was matzoh farfel instead. Knaidelach were best when they were hard as rocks; my family held no truck with soft and fluffy matzoh balls! When my bubbe was still alive, there were always kreplach, too: chopped, spiced meat and dough, a cross between ravioli and a knish. God, but it was good!

It was heaven in a pot.

Every once in a while, my mother got it into her head to make “Shabbos dinner.” To her, that meant the whole shebang: brisket and roasted potatoes, challah, candles and wine. And it always started with soup. Homemade chicken soup. In the midst of running around – dealing with kids and carpools and family and home – she would stop. Pause for a minute, and return to something that had traveled up through the generations, a symbol and sanctification, contained in a pot of soup.

I didn’t have a huge connection to Shabbat s a kid, and that held true even as I moved into my adulthood; that connection came much later. Even so, I remember when I moved out of my parents’ house into my own apartment, every so often, when I wanted to feel connected to something older and more than just the passing of weeks and the rushing of time, when Friday started to slip and I could feel it tug at me, inviting me to slip with it, I would take out a pot and prepare to make soup.

These days, Shabbat is less about soup and more about --

Huh. I was about to write, “More about Shabbat. More about celebration and community and prayer.”

But you know – that’s the chicken soup of my Now. For me, for my family, the soup was the divider: it was special, out of the ordinary, a ritual that separated the everyday from something fine and rare, but connected me to family and tradition and love. It was Shabbat, in the same way that going to synagogue and being part of my community is now. It is the symbol, the sanctification of the moment, the pause – for breath and rest and peace – that welcomes in the holiness of Shabbat.

And, in case you’re wondering about my mother’s (and her mother’s and her mother’s mother ad infinitum) recipe for killer chicken soup, here’s the recipe (as it was given to me by my bubbe, with translation):

Bubbe’s Recipe	Stacey’s Translation
A pot, big enough to make soup	Use an 8qt pot or larger; I only know how to make a lot of soup, enough to feed a small third world nation. God forbid there only be just enough to go around.
A chicken	At least one, cut up. Kosher is good, but if you go kosher, don’t forget to pluck off all the tenacious feathers that seem to cling to the bird. Include the gorgle (neck bone), because that’s how bubbe did it
Carrots	Cut in chunks or a bag of baby carrots – but they have a different taste altogether than the “real” carrots
Celery	Cut in pieces, about 3 inches each, sometimes forgotten altogether
An onion	Whole; yellow preferred; don’t use Bermuda or sweet
Green pepper	A later invention taught to us by my cousin, the sabre, for flavoring only. This is optional, and certainly not part of the original recipe
Turnip	Forget it. My bubbe did not know from turnips in chicken soup. And if she didn’t know from them, they don’t belong.
Salt and pepper	Kosher, of course (the salt, not the pepper)
Fresh dill	The actual secret (as I’ve been assured) to real Jewish chicken soup. You need about 5 or 6 sprigs, not that huge bouquet the grocery store insists on packaging. Don’t be fooled; take only what you need and leave the rest at the store.

Put chicken in the pot, add water to cover, plus some more, over medium heat. Remember, the volume will boil down, and all the added ingredients only seem to make more broth because of displacement. Trust me; there will rarely be as much broth as you think you need!

Bring to a boil, skimming the bubbly, frothy, scummy stuff off the top every so often. After the first boil, lower the heat, add the rest of the ingredients. Remember – the slower the boil, the clearer the broth. Continue to skim the bubbly stuff, and simmer. Simmer for a really long time, until it smells like soup throughout the house. Taste occasionally; you’ll need to add salt to taste. Keep simmering. Taste it. Don’t forget to blow; it’s hot! When it smells like soup, and tastes like soup, it’s almost done. Simmer it more (you can’t over simmer it). When it is finally done (“How will I know when it’s done, bubbe?” “You’ll know,” was her knowing reply; and surprisingly, I did, every time), remove from heat, let cool.

Remove all the stuff – chicken, carrots, onion, etc. Strain the soup through cheese cloth and a colander. This will help “clean up” the broth, but it’s optional. Discard onion and whatever dill is still hanging around, that is usually tangled on the spoon. Remove bones from chicken**. I keep the broth separate from all the other stuff, mainly because my bubbe did, and my mother does. Certainly, if you’ve made noodles or matzoh balls, keep those separate from the broth. They are starchy, and that’s not good for the long-term health of the soup.

Here’s the important thing, the essential thing: do all this with someone – your kids, a friend, your mom. Someone. Talk about stuff while you’re making the soup – cutting things, skimming things, watching it simmer - like life and God and Shabbat and justice and how you’re feeling and love and memory. These add a particular flavor to the soup that cannot be had in store-bought items. Even kosher ones.

Chill overnight – because it’s always better the next day. As it warms for your dinner, light the candles to welcome in Shabbat. Say a few words over bread and wine – to remind us to be grateful for all that we have, all we’ve been given. 

And let us say: amen.

** In addition to having chicken to put in the soup, the absolute best meal of all was usually made for the dinner after Shabbat dinner: chicken-from-the-soup chicken sandwiches, on white bread with Miracle Whip and thick sliced tomatoes, potato chips (always Ruffles, because they had ridges, and it was the only time we were ever allowed potato chips), and cream of tomato soup, served in a coffee mug.

And When I Leave

I am not ready
To leave this place
this time
this rest.
I am not ready
for the separation that
must come, not while
I still smell
the sweetness
of cardamom and cloves.
I want to linger
in this holy time
this sacred promise
And be
Just be.
But the stars are dancing
One
Two
Three
A thousand
Infinity and
More,
They scatter like pebbles
strewn on a field of
velvet night.
And there are numberless shades
of dark,
broken by those infinite and
silvered pebbles.
And oh! my feet ache
to explore that vast expanse,
even as my heart yearns
to stay,
to linger
in this place,
where I can still
taste the wine
that teases my tongue.
But I have blessed
The thin line that
Separates
Dark from
Light,
From Sacred
And Holy.
I have found
Rest and
peace and
comfort
and God.
And when I leave,
Though I ache to linger,
I will take with me
the sweet scent of spice, and
the teasing taste of wine, and
I will hear, Forever
the guttering of a candle
into a cup of wine,
Which will Forever be
the sound of Promise
and the promise of
Return.

Lingering at the Center of Holy

Nestled
In the center
Surrounded by the sizzle
and the hiss and the
Plenty

Surrounded by voices and
Steam and flicker flames
Rising
Ascending

A prayer of thanks.

We prepared the banquet
Together
Laid the harvest in fragrant baskets there
Lingered among the sweet and
Liquid smells as the air

Settled
As the sun lowered
And the windows darkened
And the day quieted.

We lingered there
Nestled there
Around that center
Around that heart
And we rested.

A Quiet and Holy Current

Black tights.

Black knit dress.

Careful makeup, a touch of jewelry and heels. A hooded raincoat, to stave off the gusty downpour of rain and sleet. I grabbed my kippah (tastefully black, like everything else I wore) just before I shut the car door. One more funeral, after a handful of funerals in tha last month or two.

As I put the clips on, to keep it from slipping off, I heard Nate laughing in my head. Of course he would be laughing. At me. "What are you doing?" he would rasp. "Girls aren't supposed to wear yarmulkes (the Yiddish word for kippah)!" Then he would throw up his arms - dismissively, I think, when we first met, and then later, more in gentle resignation, while a proverbial "Bah!" slipped out under his breath. Or not so under. He wasn't shy about anything, especially in letting you know exactly what he thought about something.

I had no illusions about what he thought of me. I met him in my mid-forties. I was a girl to him-- not because he was thirty-some odd years my senior, but because I was, well-- a girl. My gender, the two Xs of my chromosomes declared me to be a girl forever. Not a woman. Not an equal. A mere girl.

And yet, there I was, every Saturday morning, talking Torah with the guys. And praying with them. 

And more-- I argued (in the best, most philosophical sense of the word) with them, and with the rabbi,  too. Sometimes I argued with myself. I disagreed as easily and as often as I agreed. But I was an uppity girl, who had the temerity to talk Torah with the guys, and then stay to pray with them. Every Saturday morning, for years.

It was the best part of my week, every week, for years. Me, and my guys.

They had been coming together for Shabbat morning services for almost as long as I'd been alive. Maybe more. These men, these remnants of a different world and another time-- they were the captains of industry, the craftsmen and the doctors, the scientist and industrialists, shop owners and salesmen. They were the symbol of the American landscape writ large, across the small backdrop of our synagogue: mainly second generation Americans who were taught that the rhythm of Jewish life was the undercurrent of everything else. It held them and sustained them and became the bedrock upon which they created and lived their lives.

After a while, when it looked like I wasn't going anywhere, that I was maybe perhaps a regular, they would tell me stories of what it used to be like, when the synagogue was in a different place, a grand old building on another side of town, a growing and thriving and tightly-knit community. Over lunch, they would talk of births and deaths and weddings that arced through the steady stream of b'nai mitzvah-- boys (with the occasional girl on a Thursday or Friday night) who would make their way to the bimah and stand so stiffly in a suit and tie, waiting with a butterfly stomach before leaning over the Torah, with its yellowed parchment and hand-scribed letters, while they, the fathers simply kvelled. It was a life they were making, for themselves and their families, bordered on every side by this holy place.

I don't know that they would have defined it as holy. Not then, when they were young and ambitious and feeling their way in the footprints of their fathers. Then it was brick and mortar and salaries and schools. There were rabbis to hire and committees to fill and teachers to find. There were leaks to plug and money to be raised. Lots of money-- a never-ending stream of money to fund a never-ending stream of fixing and hiring and need. They would get quiet, my guys, my Saturday morning minyan guys, and let slip the stories of the time (those many, many singularly repeated times of compassion and humanity and righteousness) when one of their group-- nameless, because that's how it worked -- who made sure that this one or that one, that kid with the patched clothes or the rumbling stomach, had tuition, or a bar mitzvah or a book. Or that his parents could pay dues. Or a car note.

They were a community. They were a family, forged by shared ties and shared faith.

For all of that, time moved and landscapes shifted. While faith might be constant, the synagogue -- and the community -- morphed, and then morphed again. From Orthodox to Conservative to Reform, moving farther west into different, newer, more modern buildings, this once large and thriving community was changing, growing smaller, more diverse. Faces changed more frequently, custom was lost, traditions changed.

But these men, this Saturday morning minyan of men, gathered together, every Shabbat morning, to study and pray and connect. And slowly, like the drift of planets and time, they let me in.

Every week, we would study some, and pray some and eat some. They taught me their rhythms, their quiet. If Friday night services were a joyous, raucous dance with God, Saturday with my guys was an inward journey, a solitary yet shared walk. It was no less joyous, but we seemed to find God in the stillness, in the gentle stream of light that came in through the windows, and the dancing of the dust motes as we moved in a slow and steady cadence through the service. They taught me to listen for God, that listening and quiet and service to others were their own kinds of prayer, and that every prayer was holy.

I was an uppity girl, but they made a place for me, right next to them. I am infinitely blessed to have been able to stand with them, these captains of industry, these men of quiet faith. Every Saturday morning,  for years, we stood together, and prayed some and learned some. We celebrated and grieved some, too. We were a family. A community. 

I don't know if I ever mentioned how much I loved them. Love them still. They brought a depth and richness and a thousand points of brilliance that had been missing into my life. I was changed because I knew them and loved them. My guys, my Saturday guys. They are fewer now. I am shocked, when confronted once more with the reality of their absence, just how much smaller the group is now.  I have had to say good  bye far too many times of late. But we come together, to grieve and remember, to tell stories of our lives and the lives of those for whom we gather. We are carried by the rhythms of faith and love, a quiet and holy current. 

Zichronam liv'rachah -- may their memories be for a blessing. I carry you with me always, and remember you in the quiet stillness of a Saturday morning, as I listen for the voice of God and find community and benediction there. Thank you for the gift of your lives, the song of your prayers and silence.

And so let us say: Amen

A Lesson in Leaping

Author's note: In October 2010, a handful of teachers and students and musicians and seekers and faithful and doubters got together for a long weekend of -- I don't know that any one of us would describe the weekend in exactly the same way. I am convinced we were each changed by this weekend. I cannot begin to express my profound gratitude for what was given to me. This was the first Shabbat Shira. I have been so very fortunate that I have been able to attend every year since, and am eagerly looking forward to this year's retreat, which will begin next week.

In honor of the upcoming weekend, I am re-posting this (in somewhat truncated form) (and feel free to take a look, here, if you want to see the whole thing). This is the essay I wrote after that first weekend, and is dedicated to all of my teachers, but in particular, to Debbie Friedman (z"l), Craig Taubman and Josh Nelson, who reminded me, again, what faith and love and prayer can do: everything. 

Thank you all, who continue to teach me, and show me, ever day, how to leap. 



This past weekend, I got to learn something about faith.  Again.  I get to learn this particular lesson again and again.  God laughs and waits and applauds for me.  Every so often, God dances and catches me, pillowing my fall with grace.

I was at a retreat.  It was possibly all about music.  Or maybe about prayer.  Or God.  Or community.  Faith, perhaps.  All of the above.  Certainly, music was the base, a foundation of sorts.  Shabbat Shira--- Sabbath of Song.  A few dozen people came together to learn and stretch and grow and teach.  Silly me; I thought I was there to learn more about Songleading-- using music and song to lead congregants in prayer.  Simple stuff.

Ha!

What I learned was all about love, and community and faith.  Yes, faith.  That damned elusive thing, that spark of God and hope that I chase with all the singularity that a drowning woman chases a life preserver floating just out of reach on a dark and wave-wracked sea.  Throw in a bit about vulnerability and truth and honesty and you have the weekend.  Our teachers stood before us, offering themselves, whole and pure and unafraid, without pretense, and made a glorious noise as they lit a path to God.  I followed.  We all did, joyously, surrounded by love and faith and hope.

How?  I asked.  I demanded.  I pleaded.  How do you do it?  How do you show up, vulnerable and raw?  How do you give?  How can I?

And really, that was my prayer.  My quest had gotten me this far: from "Fuck you" to "How can I?"  I want to serve.  I want to give.  I want to be an unsheathed flame, dancing along a path to God, letting others in to find their own paths, their own joy, their own prayer.  I want to leap.  Please God, let me leap.  One more time, let me learn the lesson of soaring.  Let me believe that I will be caught.

And my teachers, every one of them, whether they stood in front of us in service or beside me in prayer (because everyone at Shabbat Shira was my teacher), they all answered so simply, so stripped of artifice: you just do.

It is not what you pray; it is that you pray.
It is not what you do, it is that you do.
It is not what you sing; it is that you sing.

Do.  Act.  Pray. Sing.  Serve.  The grace (and gracefulness) will follow.  God will catch me, soaring or stumbling in the dark., God waits to catch me  And, after I have rested a bit, caught my breath a bit, then God and I, we'll dance.

Dedicated to my friends and teachers of Shabbat Shira 2010.
Thank you  <3

Saturday Afternoon Amidah

Strange,
To realize suddenly
That the soft murmurs
Of intensely--
Personally--
Public
Conversation
Buzz
at the exact same frequency
as the hum of the
espresso machine.
They clearly go together:
A droning
Confluence of
Coffee and conversation.

There is benediction here
And blessing
In publicly private
Circles and squares of
Contiguous community,
Coming together
As many ones:
Fluid, with
Bittersweet offerings
On coffee-stained altars
Of smoothed wood
And hard-backed chairs.

Rising
In the bronzed light
of late afternoon
Dust motes, like rain
dance;
Rising
Amid the hiss and clatter
of steaming milk
to stand;
Rising
in the too-chill air
warmed by the opening
and closing
of the door.

Kadosh, kadosh, kadosh!

We move
And stand;
Shifting through--
From here to there,
To different--
To separate--
To pause,
In the in-between
Afternoon light
That lingers and lengthens
Into softening shadow.

Rising,

We stand--

At our coffee-stained altars,

In between dust motes

And late afternoon.
Rising,
Again,

To the opening 

of closed doors,

To the closing of opened,

And offer a prayer of
Thanks.

Open My Lips: reflections on the Amidah

It's funny, but when I was a kid, I thought that the Amidah was The Silent Prayer (intoned portentously, with a deep and booming echo).  We would stand.  We would mumble some Hebrew-sounding words.  And then we would go silent. 

There were no instructions, no words of wisdom from the bima to bend and bow, chant or sing or speak.  Nothing.  But we all went silent together.  Our prayer book contained some Hebrew, but mostly old and dusty English, littered with "thees" and "thous" and a very male (and very stand-offish, kind of angry) God on high.  So, we would come to this silently screeching halt, and I would try to keep focus, read the English (but really: who could get through that English with a straight face) (or worse, stay awake while reading it), and wait (fidget) until time started up again in a forward motion.

Who knew?

Who knew the sweetness, the power, the community contained in the Amidah?  Why did no one ever tell me of the raw vulnerability offered at its start, and the answers that can be found later in its passion and hope?  Yes, there is silence, but not the silence of the fidgety and bored.  Rather, it's the silence of  thought and consideration and yearning.  It ascends in a delicate spiral, a plea-- for connection, for redemption, for past and present, peace and holiness.  It is all there, a silent prayer, shared.


So, my own offering, another of my Bar Mitzvah poems.  This one a reflection on the Amidah.  Feel free to read it aloud. <3

Open My Lips

Prayer.

It is a reaching out
A yearning
Desire wrapped in longing
Despair wrapped in joy

We cry out into darkness
And luminous silence
And glorious, sheltering peace
And offer
The sacrifice of

Of what?
What do we sacrifice?
What do we place on the altar of our hope?

It is not what we pray that matters
It is, ever and always
That we pray
That changes us
And redeems us
And heals us

Prayer is the heart of us
The center of us
We open our lips
And let our souls fly
Free

From Generation to Generation

Just a few weeks ago, Nate and I were in Rosenblum’s Bookstore, ordering kippot for his Bar Mitzvah-- those omnipresent black suede head coverings, imprinted with his name (in both Hebrew and English) and the date, to be given away at the service-- and on impulse, I asked him to pick out a yad (a pointer to use while reading from the Torah).  He walked over to the case and carefully inspected the array displayed there, and then said “Mom, I want to be able to pass this down to my children.”  

Here's a surprise-- my eyes instantly welled with tears. But my primary thought was "He's getting it."  All the years of talking and teaching and trying to live what's important, and he was getting it: family and connection, from one generation to the next, stretching out to forever in every direction, what was and what will be.  We are a part of it all, the center of it, the border of it, a link in a chain as fragile as memory, as strong as thought.  

So my beloved boy steps into the whole messy, vibrant, jumbly mix, with his own offering: a yad.  It is small and delicate, gold wire wound around a garnet sheath, ending in a hand poised to guide him (and all who will follow) through Torah, that whole messy, vibrant, jumbly and beautiful gift that generation after generation have studied and chanted and struggled with and wept over.  All the love, all the questions, all the doubt, focused at the end of that small and delicate yad.

As he creates a new tradition with that beautiful yad, we practiced an older tradition on the day of his bar mitzvah: I presented him with my grandfather’s tallit. My grandfather wore it as he prayed, and as a cohan, he wore it as he blessed his congregation with the priestly benediction. My father, in turn, gave it to me.  It was the first tallit that I wore, and now I’ve passed it to Nate, l’dor vador –from generation to generation. It is my hope that he will feel the blessings and love of all the generations who have worn it before him.

And so he stands, poised himself, right there, at the entrance-- to adulthood, to community, to his Judaism, to the adventure of his life.  It all waits for him, waits for him to step through. 

In honor this day, I also composed a series of poems to introduce each section of the service. The poem that follows, The Gate, can be just as much about how we all wait to step through, to enter, to begin as it is about how we gather together to pray.

I hope you enjoy this.  I hope we will meet all together at the gate one day soon.

The Gate

We start, as we always do, standing at the gate.

It’s a good place to wait,

This gate.

It is the entrance to our service,

to a holy place

and a sacred community.

As we step through,

We step outside of

Place

and into Time.

We come together

to celebrate

with friends and family,

with strangers and loved ones,

with song and prayer,

words and silence.

As it happens every Shabbat morning,

We start at the gate.

We start with mystery and wonder,

If we allow it.

We welcome small miracles

And stretch our souls

Outwards and

Upwards

And meet one another at the gate

This gate

This holy gate

And we enter

Together

Love and Loose Threads

This is the second of The Bar Mitzvah Writings-- the poems I wrote to introduce each section of the Shabbat morning service, to honor my son for his Bar Mitzvah.  


For me, this section, the Sh'ma and its blessings, is all about sound, the calling out and the coming together, declaring and rejoicing: a rich jumble of noise that goes up and out, higher and sweeter and made more pure with every voice that is added.  I heard someone ask once, during Torah study, why do we come together as a community to pray? Is there a difference in that than in praying on one's own.  The only answer that made sense to me was all about sound and harmony: when I sing with others, there is a richness and a depth that is impossible when I sing by myself.  There can be beauty, but there is no harmony.  I sing-- I pray-- with others, to hear all the notes that can make a joyous noise.


This is the song I hear, all the notes rising and falling, a transcendent arc bordered by love and loose threads...

We call to one another

Into the quiet

Into the burgeoning clamor of the day

We call

To one another

To come together

Prayerfully.

We listen

     We hear

          We declare

That there is Oneness in God

And majesty

And glory

When we call

When we hear

When we love.

And love we must 

Because we are bound--

To God

To one another

By loose threads and ancient words

By truth

And faith

And freedom

By love.

Bound by love for

Beloved of

In an endless spiral,

A double helix

That ends (begins) on the shores of a distant Sea

Shabbat, song and prayer and light

This has been a long week. Lately, they all seem long.

The days push and pull at me, demanding my attention, my devotion, my energy.  At the end of the day, when darkness gathers in small corners and the noise of the day skitters at the edge of consciousness, I lay, exhausted but wired, willing my mind to calm, to rest, to slow down (please God! let it slow down) so I can sleep. But I don't.  I court sleep like a coy lover.  It is elusive, teasing me with a promise of rest, only to flee at the last possible second, leaving me tangled in sweat-dampened sheets.

Again and again, I repeat this dance, and eventually I sleep. For a couple of hours, I am at rest.  But the alarm rings too early, its shrill buzz shattering the morning quiet. I am awake, even as my cramped fingers scritch across my nightstand in search of the snooze button on my alarm, which screeches, incessant and raucous and deafening.  I am awake, mostly.  I drift on a sea of not-quite: not morning quite yet, but no longer night; neither asleep nor awake, but aware.  I just need a few more minutes, hours, days.  Please.

And just as suddenly as the days tumble and race through the week, barreling (seemingly) into one another, it is Shabbat: timeless and in-between, outside and separate.  Suddenly, I can breathe. I am at rest.

I love this time of year. I sit in the sanctuary on Friday night, my skin still buzzing with the noise of the week, my head in a million different places everywhere at once, and I watch the light outside the window as it ushers in Shabbat.  I cannot see the sun, only the light as it changes, mellows and deepens. The wild grasses are tipped in gold and a single tree, dusty green and brown, gathers shadows under a darkening sky, a slow study in purple and grey and black.  The sky goes from the pale blue of a summer day to a luminous cerulean blue.

Shabbat is here at last, the beautiful bride, dancing in from the fields just as surely as the Kabbalists rejoiced a few hundred years ago.  It is a celebration, a promise in song and prayer and light.  Is it the light of creation?  Some have argued it is, that the light of Shabbat is so pure, so perfect, it is the remembrance of creation that shines on us for a brief and timeless time.  I don't know; I would like to believe it, and so I do.  

My heart is not as calcified, as protected as it once was, when I was angry with God and my only prayer was a quick "forget you." I declared my disbelief in God to any who would listen, and to many who wouldn't.  What I didn't share was my secret belief that it was God who didn't believe in me.  It has softened, my heart; it is not quite so protected these days.  God and I are pretty tight, I think.  And so, with all my weary heart, I take comfort that Shabbat is a gift, a promise from God: we can rest, we can breathe.  We step outside of time, to celebrate, to study, to renew, to listen, to love, to find the sacred, remember the holy.

And for this brief and timeless time, I find rest, I find God, I find peace.

Shabbat Shalom.

Choreography in Holy Time

When my son was born, I cradled him against my heart, arms wrapped gently yet surely around his small and fragile body.  I would stand, holding him, our breaths mingled, our hearts beating in an elegant call and response, one beat to the next, and I would sway, a slow and gentle side-to-side rock that lasted for the eternity that exists between heartbeats.  I could feel his body relax into the motion, like oceans, like drifting, like peace.  I loved the simplicity of that rhythm, the warmth of him, the smell of his newness and his infinite possibilities.  As he drifted, as he gentled, my own body would react in kind, and I followed him.

These moments became our own Fibonacci sequence: the delicate curve of our bodies, in motion, at rest, in motion again, twined in an eternal spiral, more intimate than a lover's kiss, repeated again and again and again (world without end, Amen).

So, when I found God again---

No.  When I found the need to find a communal God---

No again.  When I found the need to be part of a community in order to engage and have a conversation with God as part of that community, I began to pray more formally.  I began, as it were, to daven.  In earnest. 

It started with Friday nights, happy, joyous celebrations that welcomed in the Sabbath Bride.  With music and prayer (and clapping, with an occasional crash of cymbal or the downbeat of a drum), we ushered in Shabbat, remembering the light of creation, the promise of wholeness and completion. I needed the community raucousness, the loud holiness of erev Shabbat to ease me into a different kind of worship.  My voice was rusty after years of disuse; there was comfort in the foot-stomping, toe-tapping, almost giddy prayer of those nights.

Saturday mornings came later for me, when I learned how to be still, when I learned that listening was as much a part of prayer as words and song.  They were all about quiet joy.  Intense, but soft and gentle.  If Friday nights were all a communal romp at play in the fields of the Lord, Saturday mornings (and, later, festival mornings) were a way to find individual sacredness in the midst of a holy community.

As I prayed, as I found my voice, something surfaced for me.  It was so familiar, a recognition that washed over me like pools of light: warm and gentle and cleansing.  As a child, I had seen my grandfather daven often enough.  In shul, he and his congregation would shuckle as they bentsched, a quick, rhythmic motion back and forth, as if they were all about to walk forward but were rooted in their places.  The more impassioned their prayer, the faster they moved.  Now, decades later, I found an odd connection to my grandfather: a choreography in holy time.  Prayer moved me, not just emotionally, but physically as well. 

There was a difference, though.  Where my grandfather rocked, forward and back, so ready to be propelled outwards, or upwards, to soar wherever it was that his prayer led him, my dance was different.  Mine was that gentle sway, the side-to-side rhythm I had found in my son's infancy.  Unlike the shuckling of my grandfather's generation, my sway seemed to be centered, to be grounded.  Don't get me wrong: one was not better than the other.  Just different.  I was not meant to be propelled, but to flow.  Like oceans or time.  Like light.

I cannot shake the feeling that there is something holy in that movement.  I can lose myself in that tidal sway, let the sacred wash over me and through me.  I can believe, in those moments, that the movement itself, that easy to-and-fro, is a prayer.

In fact, I know that it is: sacred and holy and eternal.  Like oceans or time.  Like light.

Like love.

My son is preparing to become a Bar Mitzvah.  To be fair, he is a Bar Mitzvah, having passed his thirteenth birthday just last month.  But in fine American Jewish tradition, he is preparing to lead a service, chant from Torah, teach us something about what he chants.  As I've tried to teach him, now, not only does the community have something to offer him, he now has something to offer the community.  It's a two-way street, and he has obligations to fulfill as he steps onto the path of burgeoning adulthood.

But as he prepares, I've really tried to stay out of it.  I'm his mom: I drive him to his tutor's, I remind him to practice (I remind him again to practice), I nag him a little about practicing, I'm planning the social festivities of the day itself (and thinking a lot about wardrobe.  Mine, not his.)  But I am not his teacher--- not for this.  Let others help him prepare.  I have, I hope, laid the foundation and given him guidance enough for him to follow his own path.  But there is a community upon whom he can depend, who have so much to teach and share with him.  Let him learn this lesson as well (I pray).

So I was surprised one day, when I reminded him, but had not reached the level of nagging at him, to practice, and he asked if I would chant with him.   Would I chant with him?  Would I pray with him?  Would I?

I held as still as I knew how, as if a delicate butterfly had lit upon my finger, shyly flapping its gossamer wings, so ready to take flight again.  I held my breath and nodded, hoping I appeared calm and nonchalant, while inwardly doing my little happy-dance-of-joy.  I did not want to frighten him away.

Would I pray with him?

And he came to me while I sat at the table, my not-so-tall boy, my almost man.  He came and stood and nestled his body next to mine, so that our hearts beat in time together, a gentle call and response.  And we prayed, my son and I, and we swayed, he cradled next to me, a simple back and forth, that gentle back and forth, slow and stately, a dance in holy time.  Like oceans, like time.  Like light.

Sacred and holy and eternal, like love.  Exactly like love.

Friday Night Kitchen

Nestled
In the center
Surrounded by the sizzle
and the hiss and the
Plenty

Surrounded by voices and
Steam and flicker flames
Rising
Ascending

A prayer of thanks.

We prepared the banquet
Together
Laid the harvest in fragrant baskets there
Lingered among the sweet and
Liquid smells as the air

Settled
As the sun lowered
And the windows darkened
And the day quieted.

We lingered there
Nestled there
Around that center
Around that heart
And we rested.

Week's end, with a promise

This has been a long week. Lately, they all seem long.



The days push and pull at me, demanding my attention, my devotion, my energy. At the end of the day, when dark gathers in small corners and the noise of the day skitters at the edge of consciousness, I lay, exhausted but wired, willing my mind to calm, to rest, to slow down please God! let it slow down so I can sleep. But I don't. I court sleep like a coy lover. It is elusive, teasing me with a promise of rest, only to run away at the last instant, leaving me tangled in sweat-dampened sheets.



Again and again, I repeat this dance. Eventually I sleep. For a couple of hours, I am at rest. But the alarm rings too early, its shrill buzz shatters the mornings quiet. I am awake, dammit! Really. Pay no attention to the cramped fingers that scritch across the nightstand, seeking the snooze button. I am awake! Buzz, buzz, buzz, incessant and raucous and deafening. Awake, dammit, until silence. Blessed silence. I drift on a sea of in-between: not morning quite yet, but no longer night; neither asleep nor awake, but aware. I just need a few more minutes, hours, days. Please.



And suddenly, it is Shabbat. God's cosmic snooze button. Timeless and in-between, outside and seperate. Suddenly, I can breathe. I am at rest.



I love this time of year. I sit in the sanctuary on Friday night, my skin still buzzing with the noise of the week, my head in a million different places everywhere at once, and I watch the light outside the window as it ushers in Shabbat. I cannot see the sun, only its light as it changes, mellows and deepens. The wild grasses are tipped in gold and a single tree, dusty green and brown, gathers shadows under a darkening sky, a slow study in purple and grey and black. The sky goes from the pale blue of a summer day to a luminous cerulean blue.



Shabbat is here at last, the beautiful bride, dancing in from the fields just as surely as the Kabbalists rejoiced a few hundred years ago. It is a celebration, a promise in song and prayer and light. Is it the light of creation? Some have argued it is, that the light of Shabbat is so pure, so perfect, it is the rememberance of creation that shines on us for a brief time. I don't know; I would like to believe it.



My heart is not as calcified, as protected as it once was, when I was angry with God and my only prayer was a quick "screw you." I declared my disbelief in God to any who would listen, and to many who wouldn't. What I didn't share was my secret belief that it was God who didn't believe in me. It has softened, it is not quite so protected these days. God and I are pretty tight, I think. And so, with all my weary heart, I take comfort that Shabbat is a gift, a promise from God: we can rest, we can breathe. We step outside of time, to celebrate, to study, to renew, to listen, to love, to find the sacred, remember the holy.



And for this brief and timeless time, I find rest, I find God, I find peace.



Shabbat Shalom.