Seventh Night of Chanukah: Tell

A few years ago, I took part in a Passover writing exercise, offered by my friend, the Rabbi (who is also a writer, and a damned good one): write a short something-or-other, based upon a given prompt, every day for the 15 days of Nisan that lead to the first seder of Passover. I tried, I really did, I tried to write something every day. A noble attempt, but it didn’t happen. Even so, I managed to kick something out for one prompt: Tell. 

Of course, the first thing I thought about, given that Passover prompt, was Bye, Bye Birdie, replete with Hugo, Kim, and Ed Sullivan. Immediately after that brain-grinding shiver, though, I could think of nothing other than Chanukah. I just couldn’t get that Chanukah song to stop running through my head. You know the one - "Who can retell the things that befell us...?" (And now it's running through yours as well; you're welcome). 

It worked for the exercise
 just the same. At least the opening verse. Just substitute Moses and Aaron and Miriam and that cast of hundreds of thousands for all those Maccabees, and you can pretty much retell the story of oppression and slavery and freedom and bloodshed and war and miracles and redemption, there and back again.

That's the part that I get stuck on, the "...and back again." We tell and we tell and we tell, again and again and again. It’s an awesome story, filled with heroes and pyrotechnics that could keep the special effects masters at Industrial Light and Magic on their toes and at their drawing boards for years. Decades. Forever. The stuff of life is present in every word of this story we tell, all the drama and majesty and love and passion and danger and discovery and betrayal and loss.

Tell this story. Tell it to those who ask and those who don't even know there's a story to tell. Tell it as if you were there, part of the original action. Tell it as if you are still there, that we are all still there, living and experiencing it all right now.

Tell it, and tell it again. It is that important.

But here's what I'm thinking these days (as if my statement above were not hint enough): there are far too many "again's" in our story. That is, how many times do we find ourselves in need of heroes and miracles? How many times must we tell the story of soldiers and blood and war and terror?

Yes, and redemption. And yes, God. I love that  redemption and God  are the base of all of the stories we tell.

When, though, do we learn? When do we change? Of course we must tell the story of the Exodus, and the Maccabees, too! Of course we must celebrate our journey from the very narrow places into the wide open space of the wilderness where we meet God! Of course we must tell the story of our journey from slavery to freedom.

Let's face it, Moshe takes an entire book of the Torah to retell our story, and we had experienced it all live and in person. Is it any surprise that we are urgent to retell the story of our struggle a few thousand year later? There was war and defilement and miracles galore! There was redemption and rededication. They're were villains and heroes and or ragtag band of guerilla warriors triumphed over the superior forces of the evil empire.

We are out stories, good and bad.

It just seems that we tell this same story, with only slight variations, of oppression, of idols and enslavement and fear and war in every generation since then. That's a lot of generations, a lot of oppression and fear and bloodshed.

And sometimes, in the quiet, away from the flurry of cleaning and preparing and cooking and lighting, sometimes I wish we could tell the story with a different ending.

I'm a dork. I get that. Sometimes, I wish we could tell the story of a world that, because of our wondrous redemption, we needed no heroes, no magic, no soldiers, no war to save us yet again. I wish that we could finally learn that until all of us are free, none of us are. That the story we tell, year after year after day after month, ever and always is the story of everyday miracles, of peace and wholeness and grace...

Chag urim sameach
5780

What's the Story?

A few years ago, I took part in a Passover writing exercise, offered by my friend, the Rabbi (who is also a writer, and a damned good one): write a short something-or-other, based upon a given prompt, every day for the 15 days of Nisan that lead to the first seder of Passover. I tried, I really did, I tried to write something every day. A noble attempt, but it didn’t happen. Even so, I managed to kick something out for one prompt: Tell. 

Of course, the first thing I thought about, given that Passover prompt, was Bye, Bye Birdie, replete with Hugo, Kim, and Ed Sullivan. Immediately after that brain-grinding shiver, though, åcame Chanukah. I just couldn’t get that Chanukah song to stop running through my head. You know the one - "Who can retell the things that befell us...?" (And now it's running through yours as well; no good deed and all). It works, just the same. At least the opening verse. Just substitute Moses and Aaron and Miriam and that cast of hundreds of thousands for all those Maccabees, and you can pretty much retell the story of oppression and slavery and freedom and bloodshed and war and miracles and redemption, there and back again.

That's the part that I get stuck on, the "...and back again." We tell and we tell and we tell. It’s an awesome story, filled with heroes and pyrotechnics that could keep the special effects masters at Industrial Light and Magic on their toes and at their drawing boards for years. Decades. Forever. The stuff of life is present in every word of this story we tell, all the drama and majesty and love and passion and danger and discovery and betrayal and loss.

Tell this story. Tell it to those who ask and those who don't even know there's a story to tell. Tell it as if you were there, part of the original action. Tell it as if you are still there, that we are all still there, living and experiencing it all right now.

Tell it, and tell it again. It is that important.

But here's what I'm thinking these days (as if my statement above were not hint enough): there are far too many "again's" in our story. That is, how many times do we find ourselves in need of heroes and miracles? How many times must we tell the story of soldiers and blood and war and terror?

Yes, and redemption. And yes, God. I love that these are the base of all of the stories we tell.

When, though, do we learn? When do we change? Of course we must tell the story of the Exodus! Of course we must celebrate our journey from the very narrow places into the wide open space of the wilderness where we meet God! Of course we must tell the story of our journey from slavery to freedom.

It just seems that we tell this same story, with only slight variations, of oppression, of idols and enslavement and fear and war in every generation since then. That's a lot of generations, a lot of oppression and fear and bloodshed.

I love Passover. It’s my favorite holiday. How could it not be? I love that we are commanded to tell this story. As a writer, how could I not? But sometimes, in the quiet, away from the fury of the cleaning and preparing and the cooking, sometimes I wish we could tell the story with a different ending.

I'm a dork. I get that. Sometimes, I wish we could tell the story of a world that, because of our wondrous redemption, there in the wilderness, we needed no heroes, no magic, no soldiers, no war to save us yet again. I wish that we could finally learn that until all of us are free, none of us are. That the story we tell, year after year after day after month, ever and always is the story of everyday miracles, of peace and wholeness and grace...

Once we were slaves, now we are free.

Imeinu Malkateinu hear our prayer

I knew my mother was a queen.

She wore the night sky like a crown,

and she blessed us with her endless bounty. 

We feasted on cherries in the warm summer air

until our fingers were stained red

and sticky.

She held court at the kitchen table,

ruling us all with equal parts 

mercy and justice. 

Be kind, she commanded,

and oh! how we tried to please her,
live up to that mark!

But we were children,

and so were sometimes cruel,

and she would call us to account,

because she was Queen,

and she always knew.

We would tremble some,

standing before her,

waiting for her measured justice,

fear and shame twisting in our bellies

because we knew, always,

that we had failed her,

and so had failed ourselves.

Sorry, we would cry, every time -

time after time after time again -

Forgive us, we would plead.

We will do better,

we would promise.

Next time, 

we would say. 

My mother would gather us close,

Be kind, she would say again,
gentle, and merciful as a kiss,

and she wiped our red stained fingers 
with a soft cloth

until they were clean. 

Avinu Malkeinu

Today is a day of reckoning
And I can hear my mother say
"Wait ‘til your father gets home!"
Today we stand in our Father's house
King of the castle,
Lord and master,
And I am small again,
a child, waiting, trembling,
shuffling and awed

Will You hear us?
Will You save us?
We rise in Your house
Forgiveness and mercy on our tongues
standing on holy ground,
hearts bared,
heads bowed.

Please.

There is no place that god is not.
There is no time that god has not been.
But today the doors are open,
the gates flung wide,
and sunlight catches silver,
and it is holy holy holy.

We rise,
because we have fallen.
We have sinned,
missed the mark.
I have. We all have.

Who are we,
that You have regard for us?
Children of dust,
sins of ash,
and still You call us to return.

Avinu Malkeinu, hear our prayer

The Color of Sin

The color of sin is white;
this is sacrilege, I know.

Still, white is an everythingness,
a pervasive mess.

It is a blanket of snow,
or the eternity of death.

It stretches, like heat,
and it contracts and cracks

like ice.
Like sin.

Red hyssop will stain it
until it is not,

until the white -
and the sin - are not,
and I am clean.

Sin is tricky like that.

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.

Like Echoes: a poem for the approach of Nisan

These are the days,
these final ones,
when I can feel the gathering
up of time and pain,
when our crying goes
opaque, flat and
non-reflective.

The animals feel it.
They low at odd times,
thrown by the plagues
and the hope dashed by
gathering stones
and obsidian hearts.

Still, I can smell
spring, like an echo.

Perhaps, this is
what God sounds like -
that barely-there
sound that rests
on my skin
like water.

We are running out
of desert and
time, a wilderness of
waiting, which is the
hardest part.
and I wonder
if our voices
are merely echoes
to God,
like spring,
or water,
and rest too lightly,
and fade too quickly,
and disappear,
like echoes do.

In the Space of Tekiyah - a reflection on the birthday of the world

It seems I have been writing this particular essay every day for the last seven years. Some days, I merely rearrange a comma or two; others, I'm excising whole paragraphs or creating something completely new and brilliant. If I'm to be honest, I know I cannot rewrite my brother's life or his death. I cannot rewrite my search for God, nor my constant hope for redemption, even when I'm sure I deserve it least.

I fear there are too many words, too many ideas and things to say, floating around in my head. I know, somewhere, somewhen, that they connect.  I can feel that, feel them all jostling for position, taking up residence in some little known and cobwebbed corner of my head, leaving a faint pattern in the dust and clutter.

Except, when I poke around, to find which of the eleventy-seven stories running around loose in my head is whispering "start here..." I get lost.  That internal torch gutters, sending bizarre fun-house shadows to distort my visions, and then they all go skittering about, playing hide-and-seek with the shadows and light.

And, since I can't find the beginning of this thread, can't seem to be able to tease and coax the end out from the tangled ball of string it has become, I thought about starting at the end. I could, but I don't know what that is yet either. So, I will pick one bright and shiny things to start with, and see where that leads. It may be a beginning, though more likely, it will be a middle. There are many more middles than beginnings. I will pick one thing, and see what happens.  I'm pretty sure I'll at least recognize the end, whenever we get to that.

So. First - redemption.  It's all about redemption.  My redemption, to be exact, and my quest for it.  And my fear that I will never find it. Or receive it. And it's about God. It's all about God, too. Always. And my quest for God. And my fear that I will never find God or forgiveness. And that I will never be able to forgive God. The pain of this fear is almost unbearable.

I spent a couple of decades denying God and redemption both. That pain was unimaginable. I am reminded of the midrash of King David and the origins of the Adonai S'fatai, which is the prayer we say at the beginning of the Amidah. David, the rabbis tell us, had sent a man to his certain death for the sake of satisfying his own selfish need. The man, Uriah, was a man of honor. He would not be  dissuaded when David had a sudden change of heart. He was killed in battle, along with most of his troops. David got word of Uriah's death just before eveing prayers.

What was he to do? He knew that he would have to talk to God, to ask forgiveness. But-- and here's the hard part-- David's fear: what if God said no? What if God refused?David ran into the fields, running from himself, from his fear, from God, until he could run no farther. How could he ask God for forgiveness, when he couldn't forgive himself? He stopped, just as the setting sun hit the horizon, staining the sky with crimson and gold and purple, and he cried out, in his fear and longing "Adonai s'fatai tiftach ufid yagid t'hilatecha..."

God, open my lips, that I may declare your praise...

And with that prayer-- filled to its very edges with pain and humility and hope and despair, David was forgiven.

Well sure, the voices in my head whisper, God can forgive David. Let's face it: he's, well, David. His very name means "beloved..." And you're not. You're... you. All bet's are off.

It is my greatest longing, my unrequited quest-- to be redeemed. To be forgiven. To dance in the palm of God's hand. To believe, if even for an instant, that though I may not be David, though I may not be Beloved, I may find a small piece of it, and that that may be enough.

Today is Rosh Hashanah. A new year, and already such a busy, joyous one! The Book of Life and Death is opened and the Gates of Justice swing wide. It's the birthday of the world. Today, we stand with awe and trepidation as we undertake the breathtaking majesty of diving inwards, a deep and long and solitary dive, into murky waters that make us gasp and shiver with cold. But eventually, the water warms and the silt and grit settle and we learn to see, to shine a light on the inside, all the beauty, all the pain, all the hope and need.

It is all about redemption.

Today is redemption and majesty and reflection and God. It is joy and celebration and hope and...

Whatever today is, whatever the ritual and tradition that surrounds this day may be, what today is, what today will ever and always be, is my brother's yahrzeit. For all the pomp and circumstance of Rosh HaShanah, for all my desperate yearning for redemption and God, drowning out the music and prayer and the triumphant sounding of the shofar that opened the Book and flung wide the Gate - all I can hear is the steady cadence of "This is the anniversary of his death."

This is one of those days that I am less forgiving of God.  This is the second thing.

I know - absolutely know - that God is not at fault in this. God didn't set the butterfly's wings to flapping that ended in the hurricane of my brother's death. There was no Divine Plan here. Randy smoked four packs of cigarettes a day, existed on caffeine and nicotine. He was diagnosed with stage four metastatic lung cancer when he was 45, and died when he was 47. Not a day goes by that I don't miss him, though I don't think of him every day like I did. Stretches of time go by-- a handful of days, a week, some small length of time, and I will suddenly stop, feeling the ache of his loss like a stitch in my side, sharp and hot, receding into a dull throb until it is more memory than real. My breath doesn't  catch in my throat when I think of him. Mostly. I say kaddish at every yizcor service, and I do not weep.  Mostly.

He died because he smoked. He died because he got cancer. But he died today, seven years ago. On Rosh HaShanah, the day of pomp and circumstance and joy and celebration. I was with him in the hospital when he died, literally as the shofar sounded down the hall from his room, And so the Book was laid open and the Gates swung wide and my brother died, all in the space of tekiyah. And so today has suddenly become hard. And I am suddenly less forgiving of God.

And for all of that, when I stood in prayer and my knees began to buckle from the weight of my sorrow, when I was filled with an ocean of pain and loss, when I wanted to curse God-- when I did curse God-- there were hands that reached out to hold me steady, and strong arms to carry me through to firm ground. When I demanded of God, to God-- where the hell are You?  I was answered: here.  No farther than the nearest heartbeat, in the still small voices of all those around me, who showed me, again and again, that I was not alone. Even in my pain, even in my doubt and despair, I was not alone.

And so, the third thing: Redemption.

I started there, I know. Perhaps my ball of string, with its jumble of tangled threads and hopeless mess, was less eleventy-seven different things and more a giant mobius strip of one. Perhaps it is all reflections and variations on a single strand. Perhaps, at least for me, it is all about redemption.  And God.  Ever and always.

I have spent a lifetime yearning for redemption. I have spent an eternity of lifetimes searching for God. I have declared my disbelief in God even as I feared that God didn't believe in me. I have shouted my rage and demanded answers and whispered my praise. And the thing I come back to, again and again, like a gift of impossible and breathless wonder--

It is not what I pray that matters.  It is that I pray.

For all my yearning, for all my longing, what I don't ever realize is that I am redeemed.  I have not been abandoned by God. Neither have I been forgotten. David had it right in his psalms: we cry out to God and we are healed. He didn't tell us "God only hears the pretty words. Speak only of love and praise, only then will you be heard." No, it's pretty clear: we find healing and redemption because we cry out in our anger and our fear.

I do not believe in a Santa Claus god, who bestows presents on the deserving: God does not provide parking spaces or jobs, nor do we win wars or sporting events as the result of our faith and prayers. Good people will die, evil people will prosper, the sun will continue to blaze in the noonday sky. world without end, amen amen.

In my faith, in my prayer, what I find, again and again - what I am given, again and again, is grace. What I get is strength and courage to face what life has placed in front of me in that moment - even if that thing is the death of my beloved brother. My faith is not a guarantee that I will never know fear, or that only good and happy things will happen. My faith, my prayer, allows me to put one foot in front of the other and know that I will be carried through. And in that exact moment,  the moment I take that step, I am enough and I am redeemed. And in that moment, I dance in the palm of God's hand.

For my brother, Randy (z"l)

May we all dance in the palm of God's hand

L'shana tova u'metukah

May you have a good and sweet year

I Know the Heart of a Stranger

I know the heart of the stranger.
It beats
And bleeds
And breaks.
I know this heart;
It is my own.

But this I do not know -
this hatred,
this tearing
and rending.
I do not know this
suffocation,
this strangled
heart of
darkness

The stench from
this sacrifice is not pleasing.
it is a desolation.
There is no delight in this,
only death and a heart of stone.

I do not know that heart.

Will you bring a rain
of scarlet hyssop petals
to flutter and fall
against the broken bodies
piled against altars
slick with blood?

I would know You, God!
I would know the heart of a stranger.
I would sing of Your glory
and teach Your ways with joy.

But this heart -
this heart of death
and desecration -
I cannot know this heart.
I will not know this heart.

If I knew that heart
I fear it would be mine.

First of Nisan - Launch

I missed the launch. This should not surprise anyone. 

Yesterday was the beginning of the month of Nissan, and thus, the launch of #BlogExodus, a creation of my friend Rabbi Phyllis Sommer. The trick is to write, blog, post, snap or chat, based upon a prompt that she has provided, for the fourteen days that lead up to Pesach (Passover) and the Exodus.. Yesterday, being the first of Nissan, the prompt was "Launch."

As I said, I missed it. Oy. Well, almost missed it, if I can eke out a few words on the prompt before sundown. Glory be - Jewish days always begin at sundown (thanks to the original launch, otherwise known as Creation, where we read "it was evening, it was morning; one day"). Which, according to the prophet Google, is at 7:14 pm. So, I have plenty of time.

Which brings me back to "launch," and missing it - or just barely making it. I tell myself that I hate being latte, which I do. Late always meant sitting on the curb in front of the school, its windows dark and the sky going that lovely shade of gray just before dusk, waiting. I felt like Godot, every time, and wondered, will this be the time, out of all the times, that they forget to pick me up? They never forgot. They were just always late. So my mantra has always been "I'd rather be three hours early than 2 minutes late."

And I have awesome intentions of being on time. And I mostly am. But more and more these days, I run late. And the simply late is morphing into the merely late, into the very late, more and more often. So late, that I ran the risk of missing the launch altogether.

Which may not be a bad thing, in this case. One, I write better (so I like to think) under pressure. I hate having a blank screen to stare at, with nothing but time between me and the pixels. I spend most of that time writing and deleting the first sentence of the thing I think I am writing. My Editor, the one who lives in my head, has a veritable field day on those days. I don't have the time to dust off the eraser when I'm pushing a deadline (mea culpa (if I can borrow the phrase) on all my various typos and grammatical vicissitudes).

Two, though, now that I know I'm running late, racing for the launch (so to speak), I got to thinking about our ancestors of way back when, when they really were fleeing - and fast. And what about anyone who might have been late? 

Timing was tight, I think. We go from the actual passing over of the Angel of Death at midnight, to taking up their clothes and possessions, their cattle and goats and sheep, along with their bread before it was leavened, to "borrowing" the gold and silver from the Egyptians, who were weeping and wailing at all the death, to the journey itself - all those people, all those kids. Obviously, they had different kinds of kids back then - I have one (got a perfect one on the first try), and I have tried to leave lickety-split with him from infancy on, and quick - let alone orderly, with everything one is supposed to take for even the shortest journey on the first try - is a miracle of the highest order. For me, it was a miracle I could only dream about.

So maybe I re-think the "timing was tight" thing. There was a helluva lot of movement happening, and even more moving parts. Pharaoh was (I presume) still in dazed mourning, so he wasn't yet amassing his hosts and their chariots. Still, with 600,000 men, plus the women and kids and anyone else - that's gotta take a helluva lot of time to communicate, coordinate and commence.

It had to take some time to launch. And so maybe everyone launched together. Maybe everyone got it together, so if little Joshua forgot his pet lamb, certainly his cousin Ya'akov would grab it. And maybe Yael really needed to polish her cymbals, so Ruchel packed up the last of the plates and cups. And they all knew, once they got where they were supposed to go, it would all get sorted out in the wash.

Still, there had to be someone who was late. Someone who wasn't quite as organized as her neighbors; someone who had a few extra treasures he wanted to bring - a rock that looked interesting, that would remind him of the home he had made in these Narrow Places, or an embroidered tablecloth that had been handed down since the last time they were in Canaan. Or something. Someone of those 600,000-plus people had to have been late.

So - what then?

So maybe, redemption comes when it comes. Maybe it comes when we do the work of it. And maybe - just maybe - it comes when we are finally willing to leave the Narrow Place in which we find ourselves, when we let go of the bondage to which we cling so tightly, when we are finally able to look up, to see, at last, the wonders being offered to us with an outstretched hand, and so begin  our journey. 

So, today, the first of Nissan, we launch into our journey, some together, some rushing to catch up. 

I'll meet you at the Sea, timbrel in hand xoxo

For anyone interested in Blogging Exodus, here are the prompts Rabbi Phyllis has created:

What's the Story?

A Passover writing exercise, offered by my friend, the Rabbi (who is also a writer, and a damned good one): write a short something-or-other, based upon a given prompt, every day for the 15 days of Nisan that lead to the first seder of Passover. I tried, I really did, I tried to write something every day. A noble attempt, but it didn’t happen. Even so, I managed to kick something out for one prompt: Tell. 

Of course, the first thing I thought about, given that Passover prompt, was Chanukah. I just couldn’t get that Chanukah song to stop running through my head. You know the one - "Who can retell the things that befell us...?" (And now it's running through yours as well; no good deed and all). It works, just the same. At least the opening verse. Just substitute Moses and Aaron and Miriam and that cast of hundreds of thousands for all those Maccabees, and you can pretty much retell the story of oppression and slavery and freedom and bloodshed and war and miracles and redemption, there and back again.

That's the part that I get stuck on, the "...and back again." We tell and we tell and we tell. It’s an awesome story, filled with heroes and pyrotechnics that could keep the special effects masters at Industrial Light and Magic on their toes and at their drawing boards for years. Decades. Forever. The stuff of life is present in every word of this story we tell, all the drama and majesty and love and passion and danger and discovery and betrayal and loss.

Tell this story. Tell it to those who ask and those who don't even know there's a story to tell. Tell it as if you were there, part of the original action. Tell it as if you are still there, that we are all still there, living and experiencing it all right now.

Tell it, and tell it again. It is that important.

But here's what I'm thinking these days (as if my statement above were not hint enough): there are far too many "again's" in our story. That is, how many times do we find ourselves in need of heroes and miracles? How many times must we tell the story of soldiers and blood and war and terror?

Yes, and redemption. And yes, God. I love that these are the base of all of the stories we tell.

When, though, do we learn? When do we change? Of course we must tell the story of the Exodus! Of course we must celebrate our journey from the very narrow places into the wide open space of the wilderness where we meet God! Of course we must tell the story of our journey from slavery to freedom.

It just seems that we tell this same story, with only slight variations, of oppression, of idols and enslavement and fear and war in every generation since then. That's a lot of generations, a lot of oppression and fear and bloodshed.

Here's a secret. I love Passover. It’s my favorite holiday. How could it not be? I love that we are commanded to tell this story. As a writer, how could I not? But sometimes, in the quiet, away from the fury of the cleaning and preparing and the cooking, sometimes I wish we could tell the story with a different ending.

I'm a dork. I get that. Sometimes, I wish we could tell the story of a world that, because of our wondrous redemption, there in the wilderness, we needed no heroes, no magic, no soldiers, no war to save us yet again. That the story we tell, year after year after day after month, ever and always is the story of everyday miracles, of peace and wholeness and grace...

Once we were slaves, now we are free.

Leaving Egypt

I carry Egypt with me
in a drawstring pocket
that I keep close at my side,
so that I can feel the nestled weight
of its sand and stone
and endless servitude.
Sometimes I run my thumb
along its gathered edge,
wondering if I should -
if maybe I could -
open that pocket,
just for a minute,
quick-like and easy,
so that I might feel
those sharp-edged stones,
Sun-warmed and ancient
and well-trodden
by Pharaohs and asps.

But I don't. I think the
stones might cut me,
or perhaps spill out:
All that sand and stone
that hangs so heavy at my waist,
that bows me just a bit
and fits against me just so,
It might scatter in a graceful arc
as I imagine river once did,
to escape the narrow banks
that bound it
and bent it,
shedding its great crocodile tears
Of feast and famine
in a sudden burst of freedom.

And just like that,
Egypt would lie strewn about,
Scattered by my stumbling feet
In some trackless wilderness
that has been trampled
by the feet of a thousand generations since
And by the time I stop
to do the math of
all those feet
and all that wilderness,
There would be nothing
left of Egypt,
and my drawstring pocket
would be
Empty.

#BlogElul 23 - Love

"And it kicks so hard

It breaks your bones.

Cuts so deep 

It hits your soul.

Tears your skin

And makes your blood flow.

It's better that you know

That love is hard."

"Love is Hard" 

James Morrison

I want love to be all hearts and flowers and grand romantic gestures. I want it to be noble and patient. I want it - need it - to be selfless even if it's selfish at the same time. And healing. And holy.

God - I need love to be holy.

What I get though, for all my wanting, is hard. Love is hard. And it hurts. It wraps around my heart and squeezes, slowly, so you can't breathe and you just want to stop feeling anything at all. But, you know, it's love, and it doesn't just stop when you want it to. It just keeps... hurting.

I am not in a happy-hearts-and-flower-love place right now.

I may never have been. 

Frankly, I don't get love. I don't think I ever have. Which is a terrible thing to say, I'm sure. But this is Elul, and I am called to be, if nothing else, honest. So this is honest.

I never doubted I was loved as a kid. Mostly. But love came with strings and conditions and secret codes that changed the minute you thought you decrypted them. And love hurt. It broke you into a gazillion pieces - pieces so small and jagged and sharp that your hands came away bloody every time you tried to gather all those gazillion pieces up. 

At some point, you just stop. Or at least, I did. You stop trying to figure it out, stop trying to feel it - or not feel it. You'd give anything to not feel that pain twisted with hope, that thing that makes you feel like hollow fire, that thing that just pounds you and pulls the rug out from under your feet and whispers all your insecurities to you in the dark. Because you know it will be taken away, the minute you give in to it.

You know that nothing you do will ever be enough to be loved for longer than a minute or three at a time.

And the stupid thing is - the stupid, naive, sad thing of it is: for all you know about love; for all you know how tragic and hard and ephemeral it is; for all you know that it will not last, will be taken away, you are a moth drawn to that incandescent arc of light, and you dance along that path and feel its warmth as long as it lets you, as long as you are able, until you are singed and burned and broken.

Again.

At some point, you are scarred enough that, really, you're more like the Sorceress in the fairy tales you love so much - and you love them (love, you're pretty sure, or whatever passes for that, because you just don't know) because the world they inhabit is so pure and clean, and the evil is evil and the good, good and it's all just so easy to get to happily ever after, even if there are horrible quests and adventures in the middle, because you know that Destiny is waiting to deliver that Happy Ending - but that Sorceress, she removed her heart, keeping it locked away in a secret hiding place, so that it would be safe. And if that meant she could never love anyone, not really - at least she could never be hurt again. Fair trade.

Safe. Protected.

And then you have a child. And that child finds all your secret places, without even trying. And that child looks at you as if you could slay dragons and heal plagues and talk with frikkin God, just to say hello - he just expects it. So you do. You do all of those things, and you find the heart you were sure you had buried somewhere long away and far ago, and you hand it over, as if it were nothing. As if it had never been broken.

You start to think that happily-ever-after may be a real thing, which, in your books, is just another way to say redemption. Not that everything with this child is heart-and-flowers all the time. That would be wrong and disturbing. No; this is a real child, who has tantrums and gets angry and snotty and demanding and is kind and giving and selfish and smart and annoying and you wouldn't give up a nanosecond of any of it - in hindsight; in the moment, sometimes you'd give anything to sell him to the highest bidder. But you don't. You just love him. And wonder if what you're feeling really is love, because this is the most singular and glorious thing you've ever experienced, until you stop questioning it and you just do it. You live it. Every day, you're just in it, with him, and it really doesn't matter if you can define it or nail it down or parse it six ways to Sunday. 

And then comes the day when he hurts to the breaking point. Or maybe just beyond that place. This isn't the normal, every day hurt of childhood - or even pending adulthood and the madness of puberty. This is a shattering. This is a hurt that snakes around his soul, and you thought you knew powerless before, when you got sober, and stayed sober for a couple of decades, but this is a whole new kind of powerlessness that brings you to your knees - because there is nothing you can do, at all, to heal that boy. Nothing. All you can do is watch him hurt. 

It's killing you, and you have no idea what to do, how to fix him, how to shield him. And you're sure that you have failed him and broken him. All you can do is love him, and hope that that's enough. 

And while you may not ever have done this for yourself, while you may know, without any doubt, that love is hard, and it huts and it cuts deep and gets taken away - for your child, that boy who is hurting and once looked at you as if you could dance with giants and play tag with the sun - for that boy, you are willing to believe that maybe, please God maybe, that love is, in fact enough.

(c) Stacey Zisook Robinson

2014

#BlogElul 18 - Pray

With thanks to Rabbi Phyllis Sommer, aka Ima on (and off) the Bima. I wrote this as a guest blogger on her site, which you can find at http://imabima.blogspot.com. She is an astounding writer; I hope that you visit her site (and her SupermanSam site) often!

I am reminded of the midrash of King David and the origins of the Adonai S'fatai, which is the prayer we say at the beginning of the Amidah. David, the rabbis tell us, had sent a man to his certain death, all for the sake of satisfying his own selfish desires.  The man, Uriah, was a general in David’s army, and David sent him to the front, knowing that it was certain death. But he really wanted Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba. And he was king, so he gave the orders. On the night before the battle, he had a sudden attack of conscience, and so sent Uriah a note, telling him to return home. But Uriah was an honorable man, and he would not be dissuaded by David’s sudden change of heart.  He was killed in battle, along with most of his troops.  David got word of Uriah's death just before evening prayers.

What was he to do?  He knew that he would have to talk to God, to ask forgiveness.  But-- and here's the hard part-- David's fear: what if God said no?  What if God refused?  David ran into the fields, running from himself, from his fear, from God, until he could run no farther. How could he ask God for forgiveness, when he couldn't forgive himself?  He stopped, just as the setting sun hit the horizon, staining the sky with the colors of royalty: crimson and gold and deep purple, and he cried out, in his fear and longing "Adonai s'fatai tiftach ufid yagid t'hilatecha..."

God, open my lips, that I may declare your praise...

And with that prayer-- filled to its very edges with pain and humility and hope and despair, David was forgiven.

Well sure, the voices in my head whisper, God can forgive David.  Let's face it: he's, well, David.  His very name means "beloved." And me? Not even close. All bets are off.

It is my greatest longing, my unrequited quest-- to be redeemed. To be forgiven. To dance in the palm of God's hand. To believe, if even for an instant, that though I may not be David, though I may not be Beloved, I may find a small piece of that forgiveness, and that that may be enough.

I have spent a lifetime yearning for redemption. I have spent an eternity of lifetimes searching for God. I have declared my disbelief in God even as I feared that God didn't believe in me. I have shouted my rage and demanded answers and whispered my praise.  And the thing I come back to, again and again, like a gift of impossible and breathless wonder--

It is not what I pray that matters.  It is that I pray.

For all my yearning, for all my longing, what I don't ever realize is that I am redeemed. I have not been abandoned by God. Neither have I been forgotten. David had it right in his psalms: we cry out to God and so we are healed. He didn't tell us "God only hears the pretty words.  Therefore, speak only of love and praise, for only then will you be heard." No, it's pretty clear: we find healing and redemption because we cry out in our anger and our fear. 

There was a time when I stood in prayer and my knees began to buckle from the weight of my sorrow, when I was filled with an ocean of pain and loss, when I wanted to curse God-- when I did curse God-- there were hands that reached out to hold me steady, and strong arms to carry me through to firm ground.  When I demanded of God, to God-- where the hell are You?  I was answered: here.  No farther than the nearest heartbeat, in the still small voices of all those around me, who showed me, again and again, that I was not alone.  Even in my pain, even in my doubt and despair, I was not alone.

In my faith, in my prayer, what I find, again and again-- what I am given, again and again, is grace.  What I get is strength and courage to face what life has placed in front of me in that moment...even if that thing is the death of my beloved brother.  My faith is not a guarantee that I will never know fear, or that only good and happy things will happen.  My faith, my prayer allows me to put one foot in front of the other and know that I will be carried through.  And in that exact moment, the moment I take that step, I am enough and I am redeemed.  And in that moment, I dance in the palm of God's hand.

I Knew You Once

I remember your kindness
In the desert.
We wandered there
In the dry air
that carried the scent of almonds.

Oh! my Beloved,
You spread salvation before me,
Cast in iron
and tasting of copper,
pockmarked,
eroded with the weight of centuries
and rain.
My bridal veil is trampled
before those walls
And the bread of
Blessing
is dust in my mouth.

But I remember your kindness.

I knew you once,
Before ever the land was sown -
This land that lays heavy with dew
And sacred grains
and the blood of princes
and priests
and children,
Who fought for
the glory of your Name,
Or no Name at all,
But for Glory alone.
They prostrate themselves before altars
That once were Yours,
Now reeking of incense and
Want.

But I remember your kindness,
My Beloved;
I knew you once,
and I felt the salvation
You offered
Like a cooling balm.
And I will weep for the land;
I will weep for the dying;
I will weep for the lost.
And I will sing praises to your name.



Based upon Jeremiah 1:1 - 2:3


c Stacey Zisook Robinson
July 2014

Lighting the darkness, even for the Exile (B'haalot'cha 5774)

I adore my son.

And, much as I adore him, much as I would lay down my life for him, without question or hesitation, there are times I would like to sell him to the highest bidder. 

"But Mooooom," he whines, "Please mom! Please. I'll be good! Pleeeeeeeeease!"

And then I want to put spikes through my forehead and shout: "Stop. Just stop whining and go away!" Though I adore my son, there are times I'd love to banish him to somewhere – anywhere – that is not here.

Banishment. Exile. It is, for us, in many ways, the ultimate punishment. The story of our people is littered with this threat—God tells us, again and again “Do as I command or you'll have to leave, your houses will be destroyed, nothing will grow, your children will die.”

We stumble, we're exiled, and we yearn for return. Psalm 137, one of the most achingly beautiful of the psalms, captures the essence of this desire, “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down/Yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion..."

So what does this have to do with this week’s parasha?

Though the essence of B'haalot'cha, we begin far from exile. God instructs Aaron through Moshe: “raise up the candles of the menorah and light them to shine in the darkness.” How awesome — shine a light into the darkness, and more—do it for eternity. Thus was born our Ner Tamid, the Eternal Lamp, not as a lamp lit to shine eternally, but to be lit every day, for eternity: a light in the darkness. I love that image.

After further instruction on a few other matters, we come to the main event. So much happened along the way, so much peril and danger and disaster—and now we must leave Sinai. The complaining begins:  “I don’t like manna!” “Why couldn't You have just left us in Egypt?” “Are we there yet?” Then, to add insult to injury, Aaron and Miraim voice complaints of their own. They moan, “How could he embarrass us so, by marrying that woman? How does it look to the neighbors? Aren't we prophets, too?”

God schools them both, and when they leave the Tent, Miriam is covered in white scales. She's become a leper. Aaron is horrified. No leprosy for him, but horrified nonetheless. Moshe prays “El na r’fah na la—O God, please heal her.” God isn't so willing to forgive just yet, and exiles her from the community for seven days.

For seven days, Miriam is to separate herself, live disconnected from her community. For seven days, Miriam is alone.

There is injustice here, and it's so easy to focus on the whys of it-- why would Aaron escape unpunished? Surely he was just as guilty. In fact—more so! He built the golden calf after all! The rabbis tell us that this, in fact, was his punishment, that he would know, forever, that he had done this. 

I don’t buy that. I think it’s an example of capricious Divine behavior. But I was reminded that I could just as easily look, not at the why of it, but ask, instead, what's the lesson we learn from it?

Miriam was exiled for her voice. How often do we exile the dreamers and prophets, the broken and damaged of us? We cringe, and we banish them, proclaiming their apostasy: "Get out. Stay out. You're not welcome here. We don't want your kind here."

Whatever the words, we exile the Other. We look the other way when confronted with need or pain. It's so easy to say “Pull yourself together! You've grieved long enough, suffered long enough, cried long enough, complained long enough-- just get over it."

Worse, we are often way too ready to exile ourselves. We've made it so difficult, so demeaning to ask for help, that we prefer to live in dark exile. For some of us, the pain is so great, the separation so complete, we choose to exile ourselves permanently.

Miki Raver, in her book, Listen to Her Voice, tells us that the lesson of Miriam’s exile is this: just as Miriam had waited by the river to watch over her brother Moshe in the river, so, too, did all of Israel wait for Miriam to be healed.

Not just the people; God waited as well. They moved when God did, so as long as the God hung about as a cloud over the Mishkan, the people stayed put. All during Miriam’s exile, for those seven lonely days, the cloud hovered over the Tent. 

Perhaps they could have done more. We can always do more, but we must never forget that, in the desert, in our own exile and darkness, we can only survive as a community.

This parasha began with instructions to raise up the candles, to light the darkness. It is my hope that we will find a way to bring the exile in, help them heal, light their darkness and share the burdens of their journeys, just as we hope and pray to find candles along the way to light our own.

c Stacey Zisook Robinson
June 2014

The Holiness of Silence

I remember the silence of the desert.
I entered those wild lands
of heat and cracked earth and wind
that twisted everything it kissed.

My shadow danced, a stumbling gait
on the solitary plains and morphing hills
that rose and sank and shimmered
under a sky absent of clouds.

I felt its blueness.
It lay heavy on my skin,
and tasted of bronze,
burnished--
polished--
swept clean
and empty.

I saw visions there,
and felt the echoes of stardust,
and still my shadow danced--
there was no hiding from it
in the silence and sere beauty
Of wind and earth and trackless glory.

I walked
And danced
And stumbled, weary,
in a vast and antique land
of desolate grandeur,
To gather together
my brokenness,
to return to the gate of Heaven
and rest, at last,
in the hand of God.

I remember the desert
and the holiness of silence.

Fear, Faith and a Really Big Sea: Freefall Redux

I have been here before.

I have been on this edge, this razor-sharp edge that offers no protection at all. It is merely a separation, a narrow space between one wilderness and the next. My feet are rooted, tangled in my fears, and my fingers turn white with strain, holding so tightly to this tether that keeps me bound to this place.

I have been here before, at this exact spot. Every time, I have stood, bent by the weight of my solitude and fear. Every time, I have listened to the howl of that mindless wind, felt the ache of static endlessness. Every time, I have stared, sightless-- or sight turned inward, searching for a path too dark and overgrown to be of use. Every time, I have stood immobile, and yet I spin madly, careening down a Mobius path to nowhere. Or, perhaps, everywhere.

I am exhausted. And I can't seem to let go.

Letting go feels so much like defeat, and I can't take one more defeat, one more loss, one more failure. I can't, I can't, I just fucking can't. I have been here. Exactly here. It is different every time, except for the howling of the wind and the ache of endlessness.

And yet. Goddamn it, and yet. Every time, every single time that I have been exactly here, clinging to wind and sound until I am broken and bloodied-- every time, I have let go.

Freefall.

And I have been caught, in the palm of God's hand. And I have seen God, in the kindness of strangers and the compassion of friends. And I have heard God there, and felt lifted and caught and freed. Such a simple thing, to let go. Such an monumentally difficult and tortuous thing. But there is grace in it, and redemption, and wonder and hope, when I find the faith, finally, to let go.

This year, I am again stuck. And afraid and not breathing well at all. This year, I am holding on for dear life and I am more exhausted and defeated in my efforts. This year, I stand at the edge of that endless Sea and I pray to have the faith, again, to let go, to enter the freefall that leads me to somewhere else, that is not that edge of howling madness. 

This year, once again, I reflect, as I have for the past few, on Fear, and Faith, and that really big Sea:

(Originally posted for Passover, 2010/5770)

I'm in one of those places: stuck, prickly, at the very edge of letting go, trembling with the effort to not tip over the edge into the abyss of the unknown, desperate to take that final leap of faith and soar towards light and wholeness. I am astounded, as always, when I think how inextricably intertwined my fear and my faith have become. I have heard (more times than I care to remember) that Fear (always pronounced with a capital F) is an absence of Faith. No. I think not. I demand Not. I am too intelligent--- God is too intelligent-- to demand unthinking blind faith like that, to insist that faith is a guard against fear.

Fear keeps the lights on at night and smells of sweat and tension and anxiety-- sharp and unpleasant. If the fear is great enough, it can keep me rooted and curled in on myself, covers pulled tightly over my head, unmoving. Paralyzed. Stuck. Tentative. Invisible.

But my faith: sweet and sure and graceful. It wraps around me like light, like breath, like life. It sometimes moves mountains. More often than not, it is just enough. Enough, not to beat back the darkness or vanquish my demons, but enough to put one foot in front of the other, to walk, however falteringly, forward. To know that, no matter what, I am enough, I will be ok.

And so, faith and grace being what they are, I think of my fear, and my stuckness, and I am reminded that it is Pesach (Passover). And in the midst of all of this darkness, there is also redemption, and release.

I got to tell the story of Nachshon at assembly a while back during Sunday school. It is my favorite midrash, I think. (For those of you reading this who are now totally lost in the tangle of my narrative, a midrash is a rabbinic story, a device used to fill in some of the blanks and the holes in the Torah. Kinda folkloric, they are the stories behind the stories.) So, Nachshon-- he was a slave with all the other Israelites who found redemption at the hand of God. He was Let Go, with a capital L and a capital G, brought out with a Mighty Hand. He packed and didn't let the dough rise and ran, breathless and scared and grateful, away from the land of Pharaohs and pyramids and crocodiles and slavery--- ran into freedom.

And then he got to the sea. He and 600,000 other un-slaved people. Stopped cold by the Red Sea. It was huge, and liquid and deep. You couldn't see the other side. It was so big you couldn't see any sides. Just wet from here to... forever.

And behind him, when he (and 600,000 others) dared to peek: Pharaoh and his army of men and horses and chariots. And spears and swords and assorted sharp pointy things. We really can't forget the sharp pointy things. Even at a distance, the sharp pointy things loomed quite large in the eyes of Nachshon and his recently-freed landsmen. Caught between the original rock and a hard place. Well, ok: between water and pointy metal stuff. At this point, I don't think anyone involved cared much about getting the metaphor exactly right. What they cared about was getting out from that perilous middle. Fast.

So Moses, because it was his job, went to have a chat with God. And just like that, Moses got an answer--- a Divine Instant Message. All that the Children of Israel needed to do: walk forward, into the Sea, that big, wet, deep forever sea. God would provide a way. "Trust Me," God seemed to say. "I got you this far, didn't I? I wouldn't let you fall now!"

And Nachshon and the 600,000 stood at the shivery edge of that Sea, staring at that infinite horizon in front and the pointy, roiling chaos of death and slavery behind them. And they stood. Planted. And let's face it: not just planted, but rooted in their fear and mistrust and doubt. They may have felt reassured by the image of God as a pillar of smoke or fire--- impressive pyrotechnics to be sure--- but the soldiers and the Sea were so there, so present, so much more real.

And then, in the midst of that fear and doubt, something changed. Nachshon, lately freed, trapped between death by water and death by bleeding, Nachshon did the miraculous-- he put one foot in front of the other and walked into the sea.  And the 600,000 held their collective breath, watching the scene unfold before them. Nachshon did what 600,000 could not: he decided to believe, to have faith. To leap. And tho the water covered first his ankles, then knees, then chest, then kept rising, until he was almost swallowed whole, he kept walking, kept believing. And just when it seemed that Nachshon was a fool for his faith, would surely drown in that infinite forever sea, another miracle:

The waters parted.

The Sea split and Nachshon, so recently in over his head, he walked on dry land. And the 600,000 breathed again, in one relieved whoosh of air, and they found their own faith and followed Nachshon into and across the dry Sea to the other side.  And then the journey truly began...

I pray to have faith enough to walk into my own Sea--- of doubt and fear and darkness. I want to walk and feel the waters part, to be released from the tangled web of thought that holds me immobile and disconnected. I have learned, again and again, without fail: when I take that step, when I find the grace and the faith to put one foot in front of the other, to trust, as Nachshon did, I am carried forward, I am freed from my self-imposed bondage. I am enough, and I can walk again on dry land to freedom.

I think I am finally ready to let go, to leave the desert, to stumble at last along a narrow bridge to light and hope. There is fear; yes. But there is also faith and grace and redemption.  Even for me, there is redemption. 

Once we were slaves, now we are free.

Chag Pesach Sameach. 

Happy Passover

2014/5774