God of the Desert

We walked in the shadow time,

in the sun's reflected light.

The sun is like God in the desert,

We cannot look upon its face and live,

not while we walk,

not while we flee

not while we search for home.

We are the shadow people.

Mama carries my brother on her back,

I carry water. We both carry life.

Water is like God in the desert,

Hidden and precious

and a trickster illusionist,

a mirage that shimmers.

Still, it makes the desert bloom

I am thirsty, but I do not drink.

My stomach is tight, unfilled,

but I am used to this gnawing hunger.

Food is like God in the desert,

A gift to be gathered,

just enough and no more.

Too much will spoil.

Too much might kill you.

We have learned to live with hunger.

We reached the gates

in the almost light of dawn

Mama lifts my brother down,

and I see her shadowed face -

Careworn lines, desperate worry,

and bruise-smudged eyes of infinite compassion.

She is like God in the desert,

Abandoned. Exiled.

Deserted, with

forgiveness on her tongue.

Forgiveness is a balm in the wilderness.

The gates spark with the rising sun.
Hard iron delicately filigreed.

I imagine our footsteps are
a trail of sand and tears,

leading us home. 

Gates are like God in the desert,

welcoming strangers.

Opening. Closing.

Offering redemption to all who seek it.

I am a stranger everywhere we go.

We walk on cracked earth, 

forward on swollen feet,

to the gate of Heaven

while my mother cries out,

her arms suddenly empty and bare,

but the God of the desert

has already forgotten.

Open the Gates

An alternative reading for Psalm 118

Open the gates of justice.
They are rusted shut
and chained.
Weeds  and brambles
choke the path
that leads there.

Open the gates
and let all enter -
the orphan and the widow,
the poor;
the stranger,
whose heart you know,
for you were once a stranger
in a strange and narrow land.

You were tortured and
enslaved, hunted,
humiliated,
stripped of your humanity
and your lives,

because you were
differently skinned,
otherly colored,
your faith
your ideas
and clothes
and loves
were not the same.

Open the gates
for the despairing and desperate,
for those whose
hope has been stolen.

Oh, My children!
Open the gates that
you have nailed shut.
I beseech you -
I beg you!
Open the gates.
Let the light of justice
shine; let all of
My children. rejoice.

If Not Now - a poem for Charlottesville

Who would have strength
to stand, truth to power -
a tightrope walk
against the wind,
with no net below
except for the hand of God?

Who would walk the road
less traveled, the one of
rocky crags and razor wire?
That curves into a
perilous wood and
still look up with hope?

Who would sing the song
of dissonance when it
is easier - far easier!
to slip into the stream
and be carried
by its current?

Who would dare
to demand justice,
show mercy,
offer comfort
shout defiantly -
who would love
in the face
of hate?

Who will stand
now, if not for me?
who will rise
now and march
now and sing a song
of freedom's call
now? Who,
if not for me?

Once more, and yet again
if not now, then
When?


In response to the terrorist attack by Nazis and white supremacists at Charlottesville.

If not now

Who would have strength
to stand, truth to power -
a tightrope walk
against the wind,
with no net below
except for the hand of God?

Who would walk the road
less traveled, the one of
rocky crags and razor wire?
That curves into a
perilous wood and
still look up with hope?

Who would sing the song
of dissonance when it
is easier - far easier!
to slip into the stream
and be carried
by its current?

Who would dare
to demand justice,
show mercy,
offer comfort
shout defiantly -
who would love
in the face
of hate?

Puah stood, and Shifra
by her side, choosing life
and the cry of babes over
one man's harsh decree.
And Miriam, the one of
timbrel and drum
she danced across a river
and sang a song
of freedom's call.

Who will stand
now, if not for me?
who will rise
now and march
now and sing a song
of freedom's call
now? Who,
if not for me?

Once more, and
yet again
if not now
When?

One Vote

I voted this morning.

I almost didn't. For a split second or three, I actually considered not voting. Because it was out of the way. Because I was running late. Because really, what would my one vote not cast cost?

And I went and voted anyway, because really-- if I didn't, what the hell? Would it really matter? (Never mind that I couldn't think of what I would say to my son, what excuse or lie I might offer him. At fifteen, he is keenly interested in the whole democratic process unfolding before him. History in the making. Democracy in action. We talk politics all the time, my son and I, and seriously, my heart swells several sizes when we do, and I can see him get the issues, when he makes the connections and connects the dots, even if his opinion is not always a parroted version of mine. Especially when his opinion is not a parroted version of mine. I could have fibbed, told him I'd voted, but that lie sounded hollow, even to me, so - what the hell; might as well vote.  Get it over with.)

As I drove to my polling place, really not so much out of the way, a name popped into my head: Mickey Schwerner. And then, almost immediately: Goodman. I couldn't think of his first name (dammit), and it bothered me, teased my brain. What the hell is his first name? And the other guy? Dammit again; I can't ever remember the other guy's name. But for some reason, I always remember Mickey Schwerner.

So I voted, and drove to my next appointment, and went about my day

Mickey Schwerner. James Chaney. Andrew Goodman.  

In 1964, members of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE), the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) the NAACP - a bunch of college kids, the twenty-somethings of their day - created Freedom Summer. Their goal: register African- American voters in Mississippi. Well over a thousand people, white, black, Christian, Jew, young, old -- it didn't matter. What mattered was that these people saw a broken world, filled with violence and ignorance and hatred, and they believed it was their obligation - their responsibility; their right; their joy and purpose - to heal it.

In mid-June of that year, Schwerner and Goodman headed south from New York, filled with passion and hope. They met up with Chaney, a native of Meridian, Mississippi and fellow civil rights worker. They believed that every person, regardless of the color of their skin, had the right to vote.  

So they started registering voters: men and women who'd been kept from the polls by fear and intimidation and law all their lives.  That's it: registering voters - black voters in the deep South - during the Freedom Summer of 1964.  On June 21, the three of them went to investigate the burning of a black church in Philadelphia, Nashoba County, Mississippi.  In addition to believing that all people had a right to vote, they believed all people had a right to worship and pray as they believed, safe from harm. They were arrested by the police on trumped up charges, held for several hours, and then released, after dark, into the hands of the Ku Klux Klan. They were beaten there, somewhere in the dark, beaten and terrorized and murdered by a group of 18 men (though only seven were eventually convicted of conspiracy, eight eventually were acquitted by an all-white jury and three cases ended in mistrials).  

Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman were beaten and murdered that night by savages rooted in hatred and violence and fear. They were murdered in the dark, alone, because they believed they could heal a broken world. 

The world is still broken. We see evidence of that every day: people in desperate need, driven by poverty or illness or hunger or hatred; a planet that is being choked and starved.  There is greed and ignorance, intolerance and indifference. Even now, access to the polls is being threatened, and there are many who are being deprived of their right to vote.  In 2014.  Not 1964, not 1865 - this year, this week, this day, there are people who are being disenfranchised. There are a thousand thousand ills that plague us - that can break our hearts and cripple our souls. And yet, in the midst of this desperate need, there is light. Kindness. Healing. Small acts - great acts, even - but acts of desperate love that stem the tide of hatred and bring grace and healing.

They changed the world, those murdered men. All of them, all of the bright and brave and hopeful men and women from that Freedom Summer. Not just them, but all of the bright and brave men and women who have fought so valiantly, with courage and conviction and commitment, all of them, from every age-- they gave their lives to change the world. And I? I thought about not voting this morning, because it was inconvenient. Because I was late and it was one vote among millions and really: what would be missed?  

What would be missed?  What would be missed would be my own desperate act of love, to heal a broken world. One person. One vote. One voice. To heal and change and bring light to the darkness. Do I care how you vote, for whom you vote?  Of course I do.  I have my own ideas and visions and beliefs on what is right, what is good (for the community, for the broken, for those who cannot speak, for those I love and those I don't).  What is more important, though, to me, is that you vote.  That matters. Exercise your voice. Make a choice. Demand that you be heard. Your voice, your vote- that desperate act of love matters.

People have died defending the belief that voting matters. People continue to die, every day, for their acts of desperate love and courage and faith, for their belief that they can heal a broken world. And here's the tough part: we may never see the work complete, our world healed. But (and this is the big part, the harder part): we are not excused from starting the work, from committing those desperate acts of love. Our Jewish sages have been teaching this for centuries: Lo alecha ham'lecha ligmor v'lo atah ben chorin l'hitabel mimena. It is not your duty to complete the work; neither are you free to desist from it.  (Pirke Avot 2:16)

Schwerner and Goodman and Chaney. They were murdered in darkness, surrounded by hatred and fear. They were killed for their belief that the world needed healing and their lives - their voices, their ideas, their actions - could heal. The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King once said "If you haven't found a cause to die for, you haven't found a reason to live."  These three men, and the countless, nameless hundreds before and after who were murdered and tortured for their own desperate acts of love - from Tienanmen Square to the Berlin Wall, from Tahrir Square in Cairo to any trackless, endless place where there are men and women who demand that they be heard, that their voice - all our voices - be heard, they found their reason to live.  Let us say: zichronam liv'rcha (may their memories be for a blessing).

Let us celebrate their lives. Let us take courage from their faith. Let us vote - and argue and debate and learn and disagree and demand that our voices be heard. Let us commit acts of desperate love, because we can heal our broken world-- one voice, one act, one vote at a time. 

09 Tishrei 5774: Justice

Sometimes, Justice is a sword, slicing cleanly through anything that stands before it. I have walked into its cutting blade, and I have not been unscathed.

Sometimes, Justice is a mighty river, rushing through in a grand sweep, cold and pure washing us clean and bringing about change. I have swum in its quickening current, slaked my thirst in its icy depths, been carried and cleansed and renewed.

We pursue it, always: Justice, justice shall you pursue. So central to our beliefs, it was named twice. We are called to it, commanded to practice it. It is the foundation of who we are as a people. A few months ago, during our tikun leyl Shavuot (our study session to usher in Shavuot), I had one of those Aha! moments that change us, even just a little. One of my greatest joys in Judaism is my continued struggle with it. I wrestle with God and Torah and my doubt. I have severe issues with our ancestors (the original Family Dysfunction, writ large). Don't get me started on God, so often (as I see it) capricious and cruel and uncaring.

And yet, I have this thing with God. I have met the God of Infinite Compassion. I have danced in the palm of God's hand, and found shelter there. I have wept and cursed and prayed to God, and have found healing there. 

But this is not the God of the Torah. Sorry. I just don't see it. So what keeps me coming back to this well, this gate, again and again? How do I navigate this disconnect?

On Shavuot, we had a discussion on our relationship with God and Torah. And it came to me, in a rush, and filled me-- the beauty of Torah (and yes, I believe it, we, all of life is Torah) is that we have been given all of it-- all the holes, all the inconsistencies, all the brokenness. But we also get those moments of shining transcendence, those take-your-breath-away pieces that show you not what is, but what could be, what should be. We are commanded to create a world that should be. This is a holy thing. 

This is the God of Justice, and we are b'tzelem elohim-- we are made in the image of God. This is what we could be. This is the God I seek. This is the God to whom I return, again and again. This is the God who redeems and renews. 

God may be the One who changes me. I am the one who is given the holy task of changing the world. My Aha! moment. The reason I have sought to reflect and prepare, make the long and bumpy journey from my narrow places to the center, to this gate, to this day. Why I seek God and forgiveness. To return, to be redeemed, so I can step through the hates of Justice and change the world.

One more story, because I love it. A short midrash for Yom Kippur:

An old man, stooped with age, made his way to his synagogue on erev Yom Jippur. One of his greatest joys was to hear the simple yearning, the exquisite longing in Kol Nidre, the prayer that begins it all. He couldn't remember a time that he did not weep when he heard it, not once, but three times, every year. He walked slowly, enjoying the just-beginning-to-cool, almost-fall air. One hand held his cane that tapped and scraped against the sidewalk. The other hand cradled two heavy notebooks.

He entered the synagogue, that smelled of lemon oil and anticipation. He paused to offer a prayer as he put on his white tallit. He stopped at the memorial wall and remembered friends and family who had died. Each year, there were more, and he let his grief and sorrow flow through him, letting it go with love and sorrow. 

It was early still; he was alone in the sanctuary. There was still time.

He continued his slow and stately walk down the aisle, making his way to the bima, draped in heavy white cloth in honor of the day. He paused in front of the Ark, nodding his respect, and carefully placed his notebooks on the dais side by side. One book was tattered and dog-eared, obviously well-used. It was thick, at least and inch or so of thin paper, no longer blank. The other was also tattered and worn, and perhaps double the size of the first-- two inches at least of thin paper, small, cramped handwriting filling both sides.

The man placed one hand on the first book, lifted his face, and said clearly: "Ok, God. Here are my sins for this year. I confess them, and am sorry for them, and have asked forgiveness for them. I'm here, to make tshuvah, and ask Your forgiveness for the sins I have committed against You." He was silent for a moment, obviously having a private conversation with God.

When he was done, he placed his hand on the second, thicker book. In a clear voice, he spoke again: "And here, God, are your sins. Let's talk..."

Justice, justice shall we all pursue. <3 p="">

Shana tova

Gmar chatima tova. 

08 Tishrei 5774: Mercy

Justice is a sword. I have skated along its razor's edge, graceful pirouettes on bloodied feet. Justice works that way-- delicate, exacting, with no give or sway. Mercy is not its opposite. They are twin sides of the same coin. If Justice is hard and uncompromising, Mercy is grace, unlooked for, a gift.

A story about Mercy.

I visited my cousin Larry (z"l) when he lay in the hospital, recovering from brain surgery. He had a brain tumor. It was slowly killing him. It was as if he was on the losing side of a war of attrition: with lightening strike precision, the tumor took away everything meaningful, all the parts of his life and his soul that made him him. If it was painful for us, the people who loved him, to watch, what must it have been like for him, to see everything slip away and be powerless to save anything?

There were complications with his last surgery. How could there not be? He had been engaged in battle for twenty long and hard years. He was tired. His body was exhausted. His soul was stretched thin. The doctors induced a coma, in hopes this his body would repair itself, that he would find rest and healing. It was a lovely hope.

They forgot to tell his pain their plan.

Even in a coma, pain ravaged his body. I watched the pain spasm throughout his body, making him writhe. When the spasm passed, he still moved restlessly, unable to find a place where the pain didn't live in him.

My uncle, his father, sat beside him, watching. A completely different flavor of powerless, and just as cruel. He watched his son; I watched my uncle. He felt every bit of Larry's pain. I saw it in his face, in the tension of his body that seemed to echo each spasm. I knew he would take Larry's pain away if he could, take it into himself if he could, if it would give Larry any respite.

The machines whirred in steady rhythm, a strange harmony to Larry's fitful moans. My uncle sat, in an unmoving vigil, a witness. Willing. Watching. Perhaps praying, perhaps cursing. Probably a little of both. Time stretched. It slowed; it may have stopped at one point. 

Finally, my uncle shifted. He reached out his hand to touch Larry-- soothe him, comfort him, connect in a very real and visceral way. Helplessly hoping-- no harlequin romance, but his motion-- focused, slow, gentle -- his whole body was a prayer. 

And he couldn't. He couldn't touch his son, stroke his son's fevered skin. He was terrified that he would cause more pain. But his prayer was in motion already. Raw and naked and filled with absolute love, his body was a prayer.

So he lifted his hand and held it, closerthanbreath away from his son, an almost-touch. He held out his hand, afraid, desperate, his sorrow and love so present in that darkened room.

Grace then. A gift. Mercy. 

He held out his hand, an aching, almost touch, caressing the space closerthanthis away from his son's body , and Larry stilled. His restless, pain-wracked body quieted. My uncle held out his hand, a prayer, a benediction, a blessing. Love. it was all he had to offer. It was enough. Mercy could not bring healing, but there was comfort there, there was rest there. There was love and there was God.

And that was enough.

19 Elul 5773: Ask

Why is the sky blue?

Can I go out to play?

How high is up?

Where are you going?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Where are you going?

All day long, all our lives, we ask: why? Can I? Will you? Should we? It's another holy grammar-- the conjugation of petition. Tone changes, of course. Inflection is important. Under it all, there is a bedrock of want and need.

We ask constantly and without thinking in our insatiable need to know.

And I know it sounds as if I have an issue with this. I don't. I thirst for the whys and the wherefores of my life. I read encyclopedias and dictionaries as a kid. OK-- as an adult, too, but it sounds so much less geeky to admit to the practice from my childhood.  These are the public questions, the ones that can be paraded in front of God and everybody, and they often come with handy source books and reference guides.

Then there are the somewhat less public questions. Who am I? How do I fit? Where am I going? These are the good angsty, existential questions that hounded me early on, that I hid from for what seemed like forever, that I came to terms with at some point, and which, these days, still pop up, swirl around my head for a while before settling down in some dusty box I keep in storage in some dark corner, buried deep. 

As I'm writing this, I am noticing something curious: all these questions-- I ask them of myself. As Elul goes, they're perfectly fine and natural questions. That I ask them throughout the year? It's all good. During Elul, I shift the world, bend the light, change the perspective of my questions. I dive deeper and with more intention, I go out to meet the questions here, rather than notice them as they come buzzing. 

Who am I?

How do I fit?

And because this is Elul, I find I cannot stop here. this is a time to dive in and reach out. This is the leaping part, the scary part. Lana Del Rey's song, Young and Beautiful, has been haunting me all afternoon, as I've been writing this-- the chorus, at least. "Will you still love me when I'm no longer young, and beautiful? Will you still love me when I got nothing but my aching soul?" (If you haven't heard it, take a minute to listen. Go ahead. I'll wait.)

This is raw and naked need. These aren't the Colorform questions, the ones I stick up on a shiny board to dress them with shiny shaped plastic, trying on all the pretty colors to see what works best. These are the questions that sear your soul, the ones that keep you up at night, and make your skin clammy. 

Will you love me? 

Will you forgive me? 

Can I come home? 

Will there be anyone around to care? 

We can't not ask them. They're a part of who we are and how we fit. They're also a part of Elul-- the reaching out and up part, the part that stretches us and redeems us. The part that can make us whole.

This would have been enough -- dayenu -- , I think, for my blog post of the day (18 Elul). It would have, but then I saw some postings from Women of the Wall, and what is happening at the Kotel (the Wall, in Jerusalem). The Minister of Religious Services has announced his support of a plan that would erect a balcony at the Robinson Arch, effectively exile women-- and any Jew who prays in a way that does not conform to ultra-Orthodox tradition-- away from the area of the Wall where Jews have prayed for generations. It is another effort, in a long series of mindful, concerted efforts, to keep women who want to pray at the Wall separate from, exiled from, excluded from this place. This holy and sacred place. 

So they are sitting in. Now, even as I type this, they are sitting in, and praying and coming together and asking that we join them This is also raw and aching need. They are not asking for crumbs or second-rate solution. They are asking for a place. They are asking for a place at the Wall, to pray and celebrate and grieve and hear the still, small voice of God. A place that has been denied them, again and again. 

This weekend, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Dr. King's march on Washington. We asked questions then, too. Can we be one nation? Can we demand fairness and justice? Can we declare the rights we all have, to vote, to work and learn and live as we choose? Can we eradicate the intrinsically unfair notion of Separate but Equal? It was a bloody and difficult battle, but we declared, from Selma to Stone Mountain, Chicago to Detroit to Birmingham to Watts-- from sea to shining sea-- we answered: "There will be justice." 

Part of asking is also the obligation to respond. 

     Will you love me? 

     Will you forgive me? 

     Can I pray, and lift up my voice to God, in this sacred and holy place? 

How will you respond? 

Humanity enough

“It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.” 
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

I wrote to my Rabbi this morning. It was easier to write to him than, say, to write a "Dear God" letter, or worse, "Dear diary." But I had to write, because I am so disheartened, so saddened and sickened by the events that seem to have consumed us,  moving rough shod in a random swath of destruction and hatred and death. Here, in part, is what I wrote:

I hate what has been happening in Boston. It makes me ill, to think of this kind of carnage and innocence and hatred and loss, all rolled up together into a messy, bloody heap. Like so many, I feel impotent and aggrieved and disheartened and uplifted by the events. Heroism is such a transcendantal moment: offers of comfort to complete strangers, running one way rather than another, all of it.

It is this mounting blood-thirsty quest for vengeance that makes me shudder again, though. And it is blood thirsty: Kill them. I hope they die. Catch them and kill them. Again and again, I hear it-- not even whispered, not even a hesitant question. Just: Let me see them bloody and dead.

Is our sense of justice, and tolerance, and (for many of my friends) inflatable? So: the death penalty is a bad thing, except when we're really angry? Or scared? Tolerance is demanded, except when we need to be intolerant? I do not condone the actions of these two men. And really-- they have been tried and found guilty in our heads, in our hands-- they have not been convicted in a court of law. Isn't that supposed to mean something? 

I am NOT saying these were innocent. I don't know if they were, could only guess. But my heart is breaking nonetheless. Yes, there should be justice-- but have we suddenly made a weird turn somewhere and landed back 2500 years ago-- an eye for an eye justice? Is that what we want? Is that really justice?

I'm simple, perhaps. And quite naive. And terrified to say what I really feel about all of this, for fear of instant castigation. But I always thought that goodness and justice and love and all that crap should cover all the bases, even when -- especially when -- it makes you uncomfortable and angry and sad. But all I hear right about now, is this salacious and triumphant howl of victory over more dead bodies. I guess, it's just the right bodies that are lifeless right now...

There is a quote from Gandhi that has been making its rounds on facebook over the last week, about evil individuals and the mass of decency and humanity. I quoted Anne Frank (above), reiterating her belief in the basic goodness of people, even as she hid in fear of the mob that was howling outside her door, thirsting for her blood and her death. And make no mistake, her pursuers were absolutely convinced of her guilt, of their righteousness. She was an animal to be hunted, vermin to be exterminated. She was not human.

It was Hillel who asked us to strive to be human in a place where there are no humans.

I saw the face of that terrorist, in the news feeds on my computer, and during the sound bytes on every erstwhile news program on television. That terrorist; that boy. He is not too much older than my son. I hear the howls for his blood. For his death. The cries for vengeance to be paid for the death he brought to innocents. The deaths that we are convinced he wrought. Did he? Did he commit these acts of terror and atrocity? I don’t know, with 100% certainty, that he did. As I said—we can guess, but that boy’s voice is lost forever. Who knows, perhaps, had he been captured, he would have spewed hatred and invective and confession for those horrific acts. But I cannot say for absolutely certain that he would have, and that will haunt me for a very long time.

There is a midrash, a story that our rabbis tell, about the rejoicing and jubilation that God’s angels made, when the waters of the parted Sea crashed over the Egyptians who pursued the children of Israel in their flight from slavery into freedom. The angels danced at the death and destruction, laughed as those Egyptian soldiers and taskmasters drowned, and hard-hearted Pharaoh was no more. They celebrated – until the Angel of Death silenced them with a cry of anger and pain that went all the way to God’s very center, to God’s very heart. “Why do you rejoice?” God cried out. The idolaters are dead!  replied the Angels. And God’s Angel wept, saying “Are they not God’s children, too?”

There are no easy answers. Terrorism and violence must be eradicated. But we cannot accomplish this at the expense of our humanity. We must not, or what will we have become? 

In a place where there are no humans, let us all strive to be human...