An Early Winter Tale (with apologies to Isaac Luria)

In these days when dark lingers well into the day, and steals away precious minutes of every afternoon, I often wonder about the nature of light.  Me (being me), I leap from light to God to redemption and healing in the blink of an eye-- quicker than thought, more natural than my heartbeat: there it is (there I am)

Merry new year to all.  


Chapter One: in which Heaven and Earth-- and Light-- are created.  
1.  In the beginning, there was God.
2.  God was (is) (will always be) endless and forever.  There was no place that was not God.  In fact, there was no Place.  No Something or Nothing or Anywhere. Not even an Anything as finite as a Somewhere.  There was just God.
3.  And because there was no Place, there was no space into which God could bring forth Creation.  And creating was God's greatest and truest desire.  So into the Infinity that was God, into that Divine Everything, God gathered in Her (His) breath, so that there could be an Emptiness into which there could be created a Somethingness.
4.  And in that breath, into that Divine contraction, God spoke, and the World came to be.  There was Heaven, there was Earth, and into this roiling, riotous, joyous and searing Act, into this rending of the Endlessness into Somethingness, there was Light.
5.  And God declared that it was Good.
6.  Now understand: this was like no  Light you have ever seen.  It was neither sunlight nor starlight (they would not be created for several more Days).  It was the Light of Creation itself.
7. This Light was pure and luminous and filled with Everything that God thought to speak into being.  God didn't miss a thing (as if God could!), The Light of God blazed forth and illuminated the All, growing brighter and brighter, creating shadows where once there was only God.
8.  "What a shame," God thought, "that My Light should overshadow all My other creations."
9.  So God thought to capture His (Her) (or no Pronoun at all) (remember that God is an Endlessness, defying division)-- so God thought to capture the Light, and contain it.

Chapter Two: In which the Light is Contained.  
1.  God crafted ten Vessels, making them from Earth and Air and Fire and Water.
2. (Because God is okay with inconsistency, and even though some of these elements hadn't quite been created yet (and weren't on the docket for several more Days), God didn't let that get in the way of a good story).
3.  Into these Vessels God placed the Light of Creation, that shone with the holiness of God - that illumined the Everything of Creation and Eternity with God's own radiance, and which contained all the sacredness and transcendence that God could gather, but it was an awful lot of holiness to occupy the same Place at the same time as Anything or Everything all at once.
4.  The Light stretched itself up and out, seeking a path in which to flow and leap and dance.  The Vessels, though, were static, being made of Earth and Air and Fire and Water.  They could not hold that holy radiance, though they tried - oh! they tried to stretch with the Light, and move with it, and so contain it.
5.  Instead of moving with the fluid grace of that radiant Light, those Vessels (crafted by God, made beautiful and holy by God), those Vessels shattered.

Chapter Three: in which the Light, along with the Vessels, is scattered.
1.  Then the shards of those shattered Vessels were scattered into the Everywhere.  The Light, once contained, rose and leaped and was free again.
2.  It soared and danced and sang a psalm, a joyous hymn to God.  "Hallelujah!" cried the Light.
3.  The Light grew brighter, illuminating Heaven and Earth and All that was in between, brighter and faster and more luminous--
4.  More holy, infusing the darkness with Light--
5.  More radiant, wrapping around the Everything it touched--
6.  Over and under, everywhere and and all at once, holy, holy, holy!  In the space of a heartbeat (though hearts were long from being Created), in a moment of Endlessness (though there were Beginnings), the Light, with each turn and tumble and leap, left behind a Spark, nestled in the subtle curve and rough-edges in each of those myriad and broken pieces.
7. And so the Vessels, though they could not contain that holy and sacred Light, could instead be sheltered by It. Could instead offer shelter to It.
8. A multitude of Broken. An Infinity of Holy, bound together, scattered to the Everywhere of Heaven and Earth.

Chapter Four: In which Things are Revealed
1.  God watched that shimmering cascade, reminding Him (Her) (God) of celestial fireflies on a clear summer night (for while there were finally fireflies, Summer was still a long way off) (But God can remember forward, so it was Good).  God saw, but was sad.
2.  Creation, by its very nature, is an Act of separation.  It is a Breaking-- glorious and breathtaking in its wondrousness to be sure-- but a Breaking nonetheless.  Creation makes a space where once there was none, separates the Not into the Is. Creation has the power to break vessels and scatter Light.
3.  So if God's greatest Desire is to Create, God's greatest yearning is to Complete and bring to Wholeness (because God is, ever and always, ok with inconsistency).  God watched that glorious, electric, magnificent display, and decided to Fix it.
4.  Now God could not un-Create: what was brought into being, what now Was, could never be Not (not anymore).
5,  Just as God breathed in to make a Space for Creation, so now God exhaled, in a great and gentle rush of breath.  As with the Light, God's breath danced and leaped and rushed over the All, and those shards, those broken pieces made of Earth and Air and Fire and Water danced with God's breath, and they flowed and shifted through the Everything.
6.  But they were not yet repaired.

Chapter 5: In which a Path is Made Clear, and a Purpose made certain
1.  Into each piece of Broken that lay shimmering before Her (Him) (God), into that infinite field of possibility, God breathed a Name, a Soul, a Heart.
2.  And with that singular, miraculous breath, God declared (into the Was and the Is and the Yet to Be): "What I broke, in My desire to Create, let My creations, in My yearning for wholeness, be charged with its repair."
3.   And into that glorious, wondrous swirling cascade, God sang out: "Heal the World." And God knew (because God is smart like that) that it would be Good.
4.  And so it is, and so it shall ever be: each of us-- every Heart, every Soul, we each have a piece of the Broken that is ours, to find, to heal, to bring together with all the other infinite pieces of Broken. Some infinitely small, some excruciatingly large, waiting to be found, aching to be healed. Yearning, as God yearns, to be made Whole again.
5. And so let us say, "Amen."

A Desperate Act of Love

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 thirteen, he is becoming keenly interested in the whole democratic process that is 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; 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 office, and went about my day, and started to write during some of the blank spaces in my crazy busy day.

Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman.  

In 1964, they joined with so many others -- members of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE), the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) the NAACP and a bunch of college kids, the twenty-somethings of their day, and 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 to Mississippi, 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 had 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 -- that's what they did.  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 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 who were 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 2012.  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 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 them, 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 for 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.  And 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. 

Opening the Door

There is a moment during the Neila service on Yom Kippur that stays with me, always.  I want to say that it haunts me, but that's really not the right image.  It's more a flooding, a rushing-out-and-rushing-in-at-the-exact-same-moment kind of thing.  It is the instant of my surrender-- to the moment, to God, to being. 

I love that moment.  I stand and pray and sing and fast and ask and wait and thirst and hunger, all day long, again and again, in a ritual that takes me to the desert wilderness and back again.  I stand at those gates, and finally, near the end, when I am cold and dry-mouthed and my skin is fairly buzzing with weariness, I give.

I give, and all the artifice, all the ritual, all the expectation goes out in a single breath of air and lightness, replaced in an instant with quiet surrender.  I stand before the gates, ready to walk through, and know that as I do, I will be met by God.  Neither in nor out, but exactly there, time flows again, and I step through.

A gate.  A doorway.  Redemption.  I am transfixed by the notion of standing at the gates.

That said, it should come as no surprise that I am also caught by the doors of Passover. The first door is an invitation.  "This is the bread of our affliction," we say.  "Let all who are hungry come and eat.  Let all who are needy come and celebrate the Passover."  There's more, but this is the heart of it: open the door.  The first time I read those words, I wept.  The first time?  Who am I kidding-- every time I read those words I weep.  There is a world of hurt and need, just beyond our walls.  Open the door and let others in.

The second door is Elijah's.  As children, we waited so expectantly, so watchfully.  Did the wine shiver and disappear-- even a little?  Did something brush against a cheek or bump a chair?  Year after year, we opened the door, bowing to ritual, but mostly just welcoming in the fresh air, and almost-but-not-quite believing that this would be the year that Elijah would come-- to visit, to herald, to usher in Moshiach.  Even as children, did we really expect such a miracle?  Do we now?  But we open the door, to Elijah and the hope- or perhaps merely the thought- of redemption.

This year, as we have every other year, we opened the door during our seder, first for those in need, and then later for our redemption.  It was no different than any other year.  Not really.  Certainly, it was noisier (the best kind of noisy: kids and adults engaged, excited, participating, singing, talking, laughing, sometimes even praying).  It felt more crowded and more relaxed and more wonderful than seders I had experienced over the last handful or two of years.  But not different.  Not really.

We opened the doors.  We recited the words.  We closed the doors.  And then we got on with it.  It felt, if not different, then perfunctory and unfinished.  Sitting in Shabbat morning services a week later, I was struck with this thought: how utterly un-Jewish those Passover doors are. 

And there it was, the source of my unease, my dissatisfaction:  Since when do we, as Jews, require that those in need come to us for aid?  Since when do we wait?

We are not a people who sit idly by.  We act.  We do.  We repair.  And we do this, when we do it most Jewishly, joyfully, purposefully.  We climb the ladder that Maimonides showed to us so that we can reach out to others-- enable others-- to become independent and productive.  And always, always, we repair our world with compassion: no shame, no fanfare, no tickertape parades.  To wait for those in need to come to us, to announce to us their need, seems to fly in the face of our teaching.

I am reminded of a story that was told to me a decade or two ago.  A woman was talking to a friend, bemoaning the lack of relationship-worthy partners.  Her friend thought for a moment and said "Write a list of all the qualities you want in a partner.  When you're done, come back and we can talk."  The woman went away, thoughtful.  She worked diligently on her list; if it was to be her List (with a capital "L"), then she wanted it to be her List in the best of all possible worlds kind of list, covering all the bases and every contingency.  At last she was done and she came back to her friend, handing it over somewhat triumphantly.  She was quite proud of her list of qualities.  The friend glanced at the list, nodding her head occasionally.  In short order (too short, thought the List creator), she handed back it and said "Now, become all these things."

How Jewish!  We climb that steep ladder of tzedaka, we practice the obligations of tikun olam (repair of the world), yes,  because it is the right thing to do, but also because we do not wait.  Do we want the Messaiah to come?  Then we must build a world in which the Messaiah would like to be.  To put it another way: we must become the change we want to see.  We must act to build a better world.

Those doors of Passover-- so filled with hope and potential!  But it is not enough to just open the door and hope.  It cannot be.  There is no time to wait for those who hunger, or thirst, or need to come to us.  We must step through those doors, into the world, to heal and repair, to be the change we want to see.  We must step through the doors of Passover, and know that, as we do, there is God-- there, exactly there.  Perhaps it is there, exactly there, that we are redeemed.