Reflections on our country, our times

Dear faithful readers,

I haven’t been with you for a while now, not since the shooting of George Floyd. That horror literally stopped me in my tracks, making whatever wise advice I had recently accrued seem meaningless, as were the photos of my garden finally with poppies in full bloom; now the poppies have come and gone.

I saw an interview Sunday night with Sherrilyn Ifill, President of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund https://www.cbsnews.com/video/60minutes-2020-06-07/ - I recommend it (start at 2:09). One of Ifill’s many insights was in answer to the question, What was different about this racist murder? To which she responded, It was long. Indeed, exactly, so long. So much time to be aware that you are forcing the life breath out of a person So much time to ignore the cries of a human being as you are taking his life from him. And the look on the cop’s face, indifferent, casual, arrogant, one of the faces of murderers throughout time. That film clip haunts me, every time, and should haunt me for the rest of my life, calling for action, propelling me to action.

One action of many involves the police in our small town – how can we redirect some of the funds they are allocated in the city budget to be better aligned to the actual needs of the community? The police are not best trained or best equipped to serve/respond to the homeless, to substance abusers, to snarky kids testing boundaries, to those acting out emotional extremis, to family violence; in fact, what we need are more professionals trained with relevant skills.

And what are some of the institutions which offer opportunities and support for the advancement of members of the black community who’ve been so long held down, under the knee, unable to breathe? There are so many things to do, so many worthy causes to support. And never leave out voting. Without justice, there can never be peace.

A very different video my friend Martha Ackelsberg sent to me via Dorothy Zellner who writes, I know you, like me, are getting hundreds of emails and links, etc., but this one is exceptional.  Please watch the Rev.Joseph Lowery, a veteran of the civil rights movement (recently deceased), tell one of his favorite stories as only he could, the meaning of which is so relevant for today.  It's short and riveting and oh so important,  https://youtu.be/4OsT7L3-Xgs.

Contrary to newly relaxed restrictions and the rejoicing of some that numbers have declined, the coronavirus has not gone away, nor have the stresses on those still working to offer medical care, emotional support, vital community services. So I’m still helping rabbis in hospital chaplaincy, synagogue rabbis who are working so hard with unprecedented responsibilities – those who need others to listen, to care, to share strength.  Therefore, I’ve decided to take a bit of a break from A Time to Write. I will let you know when I’m back in business. Till then, try the other writing program on the Derekh site, Writing in the Paradigm of Prayer; stay well, continue distancing and wearing masks – we’re not there yet.

What have been your reactions to the murder of George Floyd? To those charged for his murder?

What is your view of the United States and how/has your view changed with regard to race relations?

If you are a POC, are there stories you want to tell, stories you want others to hear, about your experiences growing up, living, working, going to school in the US? If you are not a POC, how can you be an ally? For all, how might you work to create a better, more just way of life for all - locally? nationally?

Do you have others with whom you can honestly discuss racism in the US? If not, how can you find a network? Identify who can help you find books to read, films to watch, so that you can become more educated on race matters.

What have you considered/what might you consider to add your voice, your resources, toward solutions?

May our pain and brokenness heal as we work to create a just and equal society.

Approaching Sinai

All my adult life I’ve been making this pilgrimage. At first, it was so lonely. The young women I knew who valued themselves as equal turned away from that which was Jewish – It’s the toxic patriarchy, they said. And the young ones who above all treasured being Jewish were not daring back then, not bold, they were afraid to stand apart and say, the role carved out for me as a woman in this tradition is unjust, far from full, complete, and I will do anything and everything I need to do to fight my way to the table. (Perhaps even more, they didn’t see that anything was awry.) And then I met Rachel, who cared enough to cry, fierce and broken tears, but never allowed her tears to be the end of it – no, for her, tears were the beginning of it. I held onto her as sister, held on in every way, as comforter, as ally, as pioneers together – they hurled insults and stones and threats at us but we were undeterred. Our passion never faltered.

And then Judith and Esther, who said, I see you, I see you are a sister – there are others too, come join us, and I did. Through the years, sharing fire, we warmed one another, sparked one another, illuminated one another, and yes, sometimes burned and scarred one another, but we kept coming back, kept coming back, we persisted. We dared and challenged and dreamed, we were always seeing new visions and working to make them reality. And, like Elaine Stritch, we’re still here.

Now there are so many visionaries and builders, darers and doers, there are too many to number, so many I don’t begin to know them all; we are like the stars in the heavens, like the promise that was made to us so long ago – yes, of course, we were promised as Abraham was promised – what was he going to do alone?! And even now, like Sarah, we bear children in our old age – female and male, nonbinary and trans – we bless them, and they bear children, and they bear children…

As I keep imagining myself toward Sinai, I realize ever more deeply why God the Father never worked for me – the father never worked for me, never, never. This past Sunday, on Skype, I was asked to join many others in blessing a couple celebrating their love, awaiting a day when they can stand together under a chuppah in real time with flesh and blood family and friends gathered round to shout mazel tov, to dance and rejoice and lift them on chairs. But for now, Skype.

Is there anything in the advice I would offer a new couple that has bearing on approaching Sinai? Well, for one, it’s hard work. You have to keep hanging in there, the work never stops – if you get lazy, if you succumb to the habit of taking it for granted, the relationship stops growing, and a relationship that isn’t growing is in danger of dying. What exactly constitutes hard work? Well, with Jew-ing, it’s learning, and doing, and being in joy; it’s asking questions, looking for old answers and new answers still only forming, and best of all, new questions; it’s finding a community in which to wrestle and celebrate and study. And sometimes isn’t it doing things you’d rather not do – I mean, surely that’s true in a marriage. Maybe that means making time to be in a minyan for someone saying kaddish, even when the timing is inconvenient. That seems like a decent start.

And listening. Listening for the call of the sacred, being on the lookout for the sacred. I’m fond of saying, listening is the exact opposite of riding a bike – every day you must learn all over again how to do it and practice anew. How to listen? Quiet your heart to receive, allow your breathing to slow. Just let go – of the busy you, the you who has such important, urgent things to do, the you who knows a lot. Instead, let go, and focus. Some say focus on your breath, for me, I take an imaginary journey deeper and deeper into my being, to the deepest part of – my heart? my kishkes? my memories, my dreams? I soften my heart, I close my eyes, I listen… Not by coincidence is this also one of the ways I write poetry.  

When the listening is done, maybe do some writing, compose a song, paint, study, ask some questions, undertake some holy action in the world, walk the road to Sinai, or maybe realize you’re already standing there and take off your shoes for the ground under you is holy.

~ ~ ~

For the Jewish life I’ve been privileged to live, I offer appreciation and gratitude to the many with whom I’ve walked and walk the road. I also appreciate and acknowledge my own agency in making a place for myself and others when none was offered us.

What is it like for you to approach Sinai? How/is it different this year?

Have you felt/do you feel “othered,” disempowered, rejected by Jewish communities, institutions, insiders, as I did because I was a woman? If you are reading this, you haven’t given up, walked away - what are you doing? what can you do? How can others support you, welcome you, be allies?

If you are someone who’s “on the inside,” be on the lookout for the vulnerable, the stragglers in the rear. Ask how you can help, then do it. Welcome them, walk alongside them.

Do you think you’ve become lazy as a Jew, too comfortable? How can you wake up?

What do you need, what are you listening for this year as you stand at Sinai?

May you make and enjoy and share a meaningful Shavuot!

Support from the Calendar

Today’s post comes from brilliant and passionate Michelle Dardashti who serves as the Rabbi of Brown RISD Hillel and Associate University Chaplain for the Jewish Community at Brown.  I never fail to enjoy and learn from Michelle’s originality of thought and her insights.

“Man plans, God laughs.” Though I doubt God finds Covid-19 particularly funny, this Yiddish expression – “Mann Tracht, Un Gott Lacht”- has felt all too apt. In the Corona era, planning can feel rather futile. But experiencing this pandemic through the lens of the Jewish calendar has been both striking and grounding.

First, there was Purim. The holiday of topsy-turvy coincided with our world turned upside down. We were yet naïve about how bad this would get; my mishloah manot featured Coronas and lime and I put up signs that read: “In order to prevent the spread of the AchashVIRUS, remember to Vashti hents!”

Then came Pesach. It offered us Seder, order, amidst the chaos. But it was also sobering. Sickness and death from plague, spread swiftly and suddenly through our country, as it did through Mitzrayim.

And thus began the Omer, with its daily count, allowing us to make sense of and distinguish between the passing days, each spent repetitively – in our homes, in front of our screens.

The new moon of Iyyar followed; an acronym for “I am God, Your Healer,” Iyyar has brought our wounds into stark relief, and made desperate our pleas for healing…

And throughout all of this, of course, we’ve had Shabbat: our weekly lifeline and marker, our taste of eternity and glimpse of majesty amidst the morbidity and monotony.

Coming our way next is Shavuot, with its climactic promise of revelation. That would be nice – to have revealed answers which have alluded us:  When will this be over?  Will I make it through in life and health? Employed? Will my loved ones?  Will the holidays happen in person this fall? Will my kids’ school? Will anything?

The hard truth is that it’s unlikely we’ll have much greater clarity in these realms by the 6th of Sivan, the day we celebrate receiving the Torah (any more than the Sinaitic experience responded to the Israelites’ questions – What will we have to eat and drink? When will we arrive “there”? And where exactly is “there”? But in a way, Z’man Matan Torahteinu does reveal, or remind us, of everything we really need to know.

Through the experience at Sinai, the Jewish people forge a covenant with God and with one another. It is at Sinai, through together receiving the Torah, that we transform from a band of refugee slaves into a people with a purpose and a plan. Shavuot reminds us that we are still that people and that our purpose and plan are not only still relevant, but in fact more vital than ever.

The prescriptions for leading a meaningful life—found in the Torah and built into Jewish communal life—address the critical yearning for connectedness that is timeless and so palpable amidst this pandemic. We’ve had to grow ever more nimble and creative in how we navigate the Wilderness, but we can rely on Judaism to help guide us through. We learn to put one foot in front of the other and we learn to pause. The map inherited at Sinai is as basic as it is profound.

In this coming week, look here for entrees into Shavuot which starts next Thursday night. Meanwhile, a few prompts for writing or meditation -

How has the continuity and rhythm of the Jewish calendar been helpful to you now?

In what particular ways has the Jewish calendar been a support, a frame for you, in these disorienting and painful times? Which holidays (including Shabbat) have given you something you badly needed?

What Jewish values have felt especially important to you now?

What aspects of tradition and community have been a renewing resource for you now?

Blessing liminal moments and spaces

This week’s pre-Shabbos post appeared last night on the FB page of Rabbi Kara Tav, a chaplain and the manager of spiritual care at N.Y.U. Langone Brooklyn. It follows many many weeks describing heartbreaking stories of tragic deaths and the unstinting work and bravery of hospital staff stretched beyond all human limits. (For just one excerpt, see her post here from April 17 before reading the following). I’m honored to call Kara dear friend and my first student.

When I walked in this morning, the Surgical ICU had already called. Since our census of covid+ ICU patients is going down, the units are starting to reconfigure to what they once were. 

The SICU was the first one to be a quarantine unit. I'll be honest, it was "the death unit." It is the last and most complicated to switch back, but now that we are having regular surgeries, the hospital needs the SICU back. This means shifting patients (delicate work), re-painting walls, waxing floors, replacing equipment; staff who were once like a family, and who were separated into far reaches of the hospital, are now returning. A homecoming of sorts.

The call was because the SICU team wanted us to come and "bless the space." 

My mind races. 

Thought #1: this isn't about the space as much as the people needing blessing.

Thought #2: transition is hard, no matter what.

Thought #3: fear of surge returning reigns.

Thought #4: they need to process what they've been through, but we don’t have the time or the place. 

My chaplain (B.) and I arrive and it's so weird. There are no paper bags hanging, it’s empty, quiet and shiny clean. There are no patients - they are waiting around the hospital in other ICUs to be brought in. I know why they called. It's as if the place was inhabited with the spirits of all those who had so recently died really tough deaths, right there. I could see the faces of the ones I had "known."

The staff (nurses, doctors, clerks, painters, electricians...) gather quietly and we begin with a spontaneous prayer for the reunion of this family, which ends with the idea that God works through their hands, and no matter what they've been through, healing still happens. We distribute little slips of paper with the chorus to this song (how do I even know this hymn??):

Sanctuary https://youtu.be/o_eIJalH8z4 [M: The first two or three repetitions are inclusive and universal, later ones Christological.] And we hum and sing. And boy, do we cry. And I say the shehechiyanu blessing (thanking God for sustaining us, and bringing us to this new time) and explain that we are grateful to see the re-dedication of this temple, this sacred space of healing. We asked everyone to say what they were feeling (we heard things like excitement, anxiety, fear, relief, anger...) and when the room got quiet, we sang again. 

We thanked them for asking us to help with their transition and said goodbye. I moved on, with damp cheeks, to palliative rounds (A. sitting up in a chair and practicing deep breaths!!).

The song stayed with me all day long...

What is your gratitude this week as you enter Shabbos?

Wishing you blessings, peace, rest, renewal.

What can we do?

In the course of my day yesterday I spoke with a wonderful rabbi working hard to serve her congregants in this treacherous time. She bemoaned that all she could do was sit remotely with one family after the death of a parent -Normally I’d rush to be with them, to accompany them, I’d hold on as they cried and grieved, I’d be there to conduct the shiva minyan, I’d linger after others had left to sit some more. Now all I could do was be there at a distance, a virtual image. How to get through to her effectively that doing everything you possibly can is all you’ve ever been able to do?

I believe Rabbi T’s dilemma is one most of us are facing now - when I try to help, it feels so paltry. (The easily identifiable exceptions are those working on the front lines who are indeed physically present to help heal bodies and souls, and their souls if not also their bodies are paying an exorbitant price for their valor.) But what of the great majority of us, what can we do?

For starters, we can and should reach out to those facing harm up close and personal, keep expressing gratitude for their courage, stay open to listening when they talk and help them release some of their pain at what they’re witnessing. Donate what you can to your local hospitals, whether masks or money for buying PPE. In general, be as generous as you can with your tzedukah - lately I’ve been getting double bang for my buck by making donations in honor of dear ones whose spirits are then lifted by a shout-out. Stay alert to those in your circles of friends, colleagues, neighbors who need help shopping, running errands, call to check in on them, especially those who live alone. And remain active in the social justice networks you committed to before - all those problems will still be there when we emerge from quarantine. When you’ve done all you can in a day, declare that “enough.”

What work are you called to do in the day?

How can you offer something meaningful even though you may feel like a tiny David facing monstrous Goliaths? (see yesterday’s post)

An email this morning invited me to contribute to several worthy causes in honor of a friend’s new grandchild - the list of options included Essie’s Black Mama’s Bailout which supports releasing from prison women who couldn’t come up with exorbitant bail. If you’d like to draw attention to other less-well-known projects or organizations, please leave a brief explanation and contact info in comments below.

What are the needs you see looking out your window, at your town, your neighborhood? What do you see looking beyond and what might you be able to offer?

I see her out the window

I woke this morning with a broken heart. Not unusual for me, haunted by ancient demons. Forced myself out of bed, washed, got dressed, looked at overnight emails. And then I pulled back the curtains and, gazing down from my window, I saw a little girl all in pink running circles in the parking lot below. I smiled, mesmerized, and my heart lifted with pleasure. I stood there watching her joy, irrepressible, and her joy filled me. After a few seconds I thought, I don’t see anyone watching her (always whenever possible, going to a dark anxious place) but then I thought no, of course, she couldn’t run with joy if she didn’t know somewhere in her being that she was safe with someone watching. Sure enough, my view of him blocked by a large leafing maple, there was a man, patiently waiting, the car running. I could see her moving her circle closer to him, making two more rounds – a tiny bit of a tease? - I’ll come when I’m ready? - finally presenting herself at her side of the car, waiting to be lifted inside.  

And I thought, again and again, as I do many times in the day, look at all the richness of your life Merle- crucial, most of all now, to acknowledge and feel gratitude for what we have. Gently, I began to visualize my many blessings and give thanks, to dwell in the blessings, to resist the undertow of sadness. But here’s the problem - the sadness is not only particular and personal, there’s an almost infinite litany of the brokenness of the world and even when I find ways to do battle, I am the tiniest David with a sword so small as to be invisible. So then I remind myself that I am not alone on the battlefield, and identifying a dream as impossible is no excuse not to pursue it with fervor because legions of one constitute a powerful force.

Still standing at the window, I saw that sometime during my reverie father and daughter had driven away, and my mind went to a favorite poem by Israeli poet, Dahlia Ravikovitch. Her work was beloved and celebrated in her lifetime (1936-2005) though only three of her books are translated into English – well worth ordering The Window from your local bookstore (please, give them the business, they really need it). This particular poem, last in a collection which also bears its name, “The Window,” is one of those poems that has a life inside of me; I retrieved the book from my study and began to read. I wish I could offer the poem here in its entirety, instead, a few lines.

It opens with “And what have I done after all?/For years I didn’t do a thing./I only looked out the window.” (This from a woman who, like me, was a poet and an activist, her politics sometimes the subject of her poetry, that and the inner existential anguish of a person fighting depression.) The poem then goes on to describe the changing landscapes of the natural world she is looking at and ends with, “Whatever a person needs/I saw in that window.” I’ve always drawn profound strength from that insight - how much can be seen in and into ordinary things when you look deeply. I hear her saying, remember to honor what’s smallest, most familiar.

The rest of this morning I spent lost in her poetry. And now, beginning to focus on my work today, I reach back to the joy of the little girl in pink…

I thought of us, in this time, so many peering out the window.

What do you see? What are you looking for?

What do you need as you look out the window?  In what way might it be nourishing?

We acknowledge that it’s also important to see the needs of others, to answer calls for help - finding ways to help both accomplishes something real and also empowers, reactivates, our goodness and hope. Maybe let’s save that conversation for next time.

Meanwhile, return to the image of the two-year old bursting with joy and take some deep breaths.

the soul, heroes, laughter

So many people are being heroes right now. When I go to the supermarket – once a week, with mask, gloves, wipes, self-check-out aisle, groceries straight from cart to bag – I make eye contact - of course from the requisite distance - with as many employees as I can and say “Thank you for being here.” They are pleased to be seen, they say, “You’re welcome, I’m just doing my job,” but I say in response, “I couldn’t eat without your being here.” EMT heroes, hospital support staff heroes, doctors and chaplains and truckers. My particular window on heroes is rabbis because they are my regular clients.

It’s been a long week listening to hard stories, compounded by having signed up for shmira every day this week (symbolically guarding/accompanying the dead who have not yet been buried). [See April 20 entry] I sit for half an hour at a stretch, a half hour that it turns out I otherwise would have used for breakfast or lunch or just quietly relaxing, as best any of us manage to do that these days. As the days have progressed, the weight of shmira duty has felt heavier and heavier. I didn’t find it meaningful to follow the tradition of reading psalms; singing certain niggunim has felt appropriate and allowed me to focus and connect well, envisioning my efforts as holding/comforting/helping to raise souls, I’ve also found myself more and more pondering what I’m actually doing.

While I’ve never been able to imagine any sort of credible afterlife, I do firmly believe that of course we are more than our bodies, and it seems quite reasonable to call that “something more” part of us the soul. So where does the soul go when the body gives out? And what does the soul need when the body  dies? And what help might the living offer to the souls of the dead? These questions feel urgent but they are far above my ability to ponder alone. I need to ask a rabbi, a whole bunch of different rabbis, What does the tradition have to say? And then I need to talk with many friends, many different kinds of people, those of faith and those without an easy way to talk of faith. What do you think? Do our souls make more than one trip here, do they recycle? Isn’t that what we’re really saying when we describe someone as “having an old soul”?

My week ended with stories of a very young soul, and I took great pleasure in hearing about the exploits of this 1-year old, even as she shelters in place. I was reminded of the infinite wonder children are capable of, the radiance of their smiles, the contagion of their giggles. I laughed at the tales and took delight in this fresh new soul, feeling deep gratitude, cleansed of sorrow, ready to enter Shabbat.

What are your thoughts about the journey of the soul? What do you believe? imagine? With whom would you like to discuss these questions further?

Remember some small miracles you have witnessed this week. Release into describing them. With whom would you like to share these stories?

Wishing you a peaceful, restorative Shabbos.

My People

This morning reading the NYTimes I was drawn to an article I found deeply touching about HS principals responding in unusual and lovely ways to their graduating seniors in the face of canceled graduation ceremonies, proms which will not be happening, and an uncertain future ahead of them. “The absolute most important thing is that they know that they’re cared about,” said a principal in Texas who drove 800 miles to visit each of his school’s 612 graduating seniors, taking a selfie with each grinning, surprised student. (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/03/us/coronavirus-high-school-principals.html)

There are countless principals, teachers, parents, siblings, friends, grandparents wondering how to respond to this conundrum, how to help young people mark a life achievement in the altered universe in which we now are living. Each will come up with their own ways to celebrate, like the young couple who are near neighbors of ours who we saw the other day all dressed up and getting into their car - where were they headed? “We’re going to a drive-by wedding celebration,” they said excitedly and off they drove.

Whatever the creative solution people find, one special rabbi I know, Laura Bellows, beautifully articulates below the loss and the sorrow. I think we need to grieve and acknowledge loss before we can move on.

My people

My people are bored, resigned, restless, resilient.
They are charting maps of the rabbit holes of uncertainty, 
air quality, isolation curves, climate crises, cute cat videos. 
And perhaps also the emails from camp cancelling 
their long-awaited Israel trip, emails cancelling the prom, 
pranks, commencement, fill-in-the-blank cancelled.

They are tired of their parents, tired of school, dreaming of 
hugging their best friend whose girlfriend just died. Yes, 
their age. Yes, just one of many losses these days.
Oh to long, to be nostalgic together, to remember and resolve, 
to experience the sweet relapse of memories, shared as we sit 
squeezing hands in commencement rows, glance back 

at our parents, and say bittersweetly that now, at last, 
and with equal doses relief and anxiety, we let go 
our high school selves and step forward.       Instead, I see 
my people, my high school seniors crying, stressed, restless,
zombied by screen time and trying to just. show. up.
Without their best friend’s hand; stepping into their own 

parents’ kitchens (the ones they were supposed to have left) 
again and again.     When does it come? a step, forward?
When does the worry and longing end, when does excitement, 
deep bellied butterfly excitement, begin? 
Show me your grief and we will try to laugh together
through the losses. This is no oppression Olympics – 

this is a deep communal cry, a communal prayer for all 
left incomplete, undefined, unrealized, and for entering 
the kitchen each morning instead of the next chapter 
of one’s dreams.

Are you yourself poised on the brink of a new life’s chapter? Are you able to express your feelings about this? How does this poem speak to you? Have you and your friends found things to do that help? What is your fantasy of being treated “royally” that is possible in this moment?

Perhaps you have a loved one graduating from high school or college - are you able to talk across generations about the tensions and pain and disappointment? Of course you cannot fete them in all the traditional usual ways, but how can you celebrate them in the here and now?

 Rabbi Laura Bellows is the Director of Prozdor and Teen Learning at Hebrew College and, among her other creative endeavors, is currently designing an online graduation ceremony with her teens.

May

May 1.

All day I’ve had a song running through my head. Julie Andrews playing young Queen Guinevere opposite Richard Burton’s King Arthur in Camelot – “Tra-la! It’s May! The lusty month of May! That lovely month when ev’ryone goes blissfully astray!” (Side bar – what sane woman would have chosen Robert Goulet over Burton?!)  I’m told you can sign up for free films of shows on BroadwayHD but truthfully, I’m a simple girl and enjoy singing for myself.  The more actively engaged, the better. It would take me many moons to exhaust my inner trove of Broadway show tunes.

Actually, speaking of singing reminds me of my second week signed up to sit Shmira (see my post here from April 20 for how and where to sign up). At first I tried my hand at reading psalms, but it didn’t work for me, too cerebral somehow, I wanted something that would allow me free reign to express what I was feeling, to respond to what it seemed to me the need was of souls released from their bodies but not yet laid to rest. So I sat quietly ruminating until I came up with what proved to be satisfying for me. 

In 1976 when my mother died, I was still in my 20s, unprepared for such a monumental loss – I guess somehow I imagined then that one could be “prepared” – of course not, never. After the medical staff had pronounced her dead – she’d been in a coma and the family surrounded her in the hospital room – I started singing spontaneously, a psalm after all, “Pitchuli shaarey tzedek, avovam odeya.” I think it was a tune I had learned as an undergraduate in Hillel a few years before. I rendered it in English as, “Open the Heavenly gates, so the righteous may enter.”

For shmira, I sang that sitting on my porch in the sunthis week, sometimes with my eyes closed and sometimes open. When open, I watched a robin flying back and forth to the nest which was safely hidden on my porch roof, after each reconnaissance offering worms to her babies. I fleetingly recognized it as a great photo for a blog post, but no sooner would I have tried to capture it in a photograph as to take a picture of someone davening. It was such a holy intimate moment - I could see their little necks craning, stretching up above the rim of the nest, and their beaks open in yearning and need. Imagine it in your mind’s eye.

Toward the end of the allotted time I had volunteered to sit (you sign up in ½ hour segments for shmira) I began to alternate the Hebrew words and melody with the spiritual, “Rock-a my soul in the bosom of Abraham,” envisioning myself rocking souls to comfort them and to be present for them.  And in fact, I see my kavanah/my intention, as bearing witness and offering the comfort of sitting shmira to all the souls, not only the Jewish ones. So many souls are waiting. Each time I’ve performed this mitzvah now, whether on my porch or in my study, I’ve finished with a sense of peace, a sense of having brought peace, and a sense of that peace having entered me. Each week I sign up for more time slots.

With that sense of peace still lingering, I wish you all a good Shabbos.

How do you envision souls? especially of the departed? How does the tradition envision souls? (If interested, ask your rabbi - of course you could do a Google search, but a conversation is better than just “information.”)

Why do you think it’s a mitzvah to sit with the dead before burial?

Sign up for one 1/2 slot to sit shmira - what was your experience?

Briefly, the rain stopped

I’ve invited some of my rabbinic mentees as guests to A Time to Write, an opportunity for them to give expression/testimony to their experiences at this time, and also to allow us a view into their often difficult and painful worlds, to see the extraordinary ways in which they serve. Writing is a way to give voice to our deepest feelings, and listening is a way to witness, opening the opportunity to offer comfort and appreciation.  You are welcome to comment below or to send me thoughts you’d like me to pass on. Our guest contributor today is Rabbi Ariel Russo, spiritual leader of Congregation Sons of Israel in Upper Nyack, NY. 

Raindrops landed on my windshield as I was about halfway to my destination.  I remember feeling annoyed at myself that I hadn’t checked the weather and packed an umbrella.  Prioritizing my mask, gloves, rabbi’s manual, and water bottle took precedence. ​Cones blocked the parking lot of the cemetery, a rare sight for me as a not infrequent funeral officiant.  Instead of the parking lot, there was a row of hearses in lines followed by one or two cars. There were so many deaths and so few mourners.  I found my hearse and waited for the foreman to direct us - just me and the hearse - to the grave.  I was told to stay in my car as a team of men dressed in yellow protective gear carefully and quickly took the deceased to her grave.  Protocol now dictates that they are the only ones who can handle the casket, especially when the deceased suffered from COVID-19.  There were no mourners to follow the casket and no shovel with which to place earth on the casket.  The gravediggers cautioned me to stay healthy and be cautious.  Even though I didn’t know the deceased, there was an intimacy as the funeral director and I stood over the grave.  I gave a eulogy about someone I had never met.  Reaching down into the earth, the non-Jewish funeral director and I, with bags under our eyes, threw the dirt onto the coffin.  I am still getting the dirt from out of my fingernails.  The Psalms, the El Malei Rachamim recited into the quiet outdoors, oddly gave me comfort as I tried to honor this woman.  An entire life lived with people and at the end, there was no one there who knew her.  

A few hours later I called her daughter to let her know that everything went as expected.  She asked me about the weather.  “How odd,” I thought to myself that of all the things to ask me, she was most curious about the weather.  I thought about it and realized that the rain had stopped for the 25-minute funeral.  On my way home I once again activated my windshield wipers, reminding me that there was no rain during the burial itself.  My unease from conducting the burial alone dissipated as I heard the voice of the daughter relax in her Florida apartment.  

It feels like it is always pouring right now.  The funeral director has me on his speed dial.  My colleagues are all tired, weary, and soaked with the enormity of the losses our communities and extended communities are facing.  But today the rain stopped for just a few minutes and it made all the difference.  The hospital down the street from my home just released its 300th patient who came in with COVID-19.  In celebration, the hospital played “Here Comes The Sun” echoing throughout its hallways and corridors.  There will come a time when familiar rhythms will return.  When we will gather, celebrate, and mourn together.    

Have you lost someone close to you, been prevented from being present to lay them to rest? How have you been living through your pain? What has been of comfort?

Have you been at a virtual funeral in these days? a virtual shiva? How did those officiating/leading work to create meaning? What seemed helpful to the mourners? What were your feelings?

Are you yourself, like Rabbi Russo, bearing the weight of this plague for others? How? How can we be of help to you? What do you need from us? Can you give yourself some time to write about it, to release and relieve some of what you carry? Might it help you to also share what you’ve written? With whom?

How can those of us who are at a remove from the front lines show appreciation, support for those who serve us? Those we know and those we don’t know? What are ways you can “hold” them when you can’t hold them? How has listening become like holding? To whom can you offer an ear?

Part 1 - While the challah is rising

I’ve always thought that would make a good title for a poem but I never got past the title and not every good title pans out as a poem. (Feel free to try it yourself if you like.)

But indeed, the challah is rising – two weeks after Pesach ended, I was finally able to get my hands on some flour. Apparently there is something called stress baking going on, and people are hoarding flour – really friends, remember to share.  I’ve been subsisting on matzah but by the end I was prowling the kitchen unsatisfied, desperately “looking for something.” Arghh!

I’ve been baking challah my entire adult life, I’ve taught many others how, from the earliest days in Hillel at U of I to the 19 years at Princeton – one early Princeton grad now texts me photos of her twin grandchildren “helping her” to bake challah – nothing sweeter!

But while the challah is rising actually provides me with a good time to remember the week as Shabbos approaches. Meaningful work with rabbinic clients and students – I feel privileged to help; delivered material to the local mask-makers having admitted to myself my sewing by hand was inefficient; Zooms and Skypes with family and friends, celebrating at a Zoom birthday party, and on Yom HaShoah, watching a gripping docudrama telling the story of the Holocaust rescuer Aristides de Sousa Mendes who saved thousands of lives in the spring of 1940, including that of playwright and dear friend Jean- Claude van Itallie.

The sweet high note of the week was discovering a robin nesting at the corner of our porch roof. So discrete you could easily miss it, but some sharp-eyed neighbors have also noticed this small miracle. I discretely check on the bird several times a day, giving thanks for this gift

What has been the routine of this week for you? What has been difficult, maddening, frustrating?

Remember, relax, and let go of the petty, the annoyances. Look at them from a bird’s eye view and let them drift away.

What special moments stand out?

Who were you able to help this week? How did you help, and how were you able to find energy and awareness to help?

Take some time now before Shabbos to notice, recall and write about small miracles.

Good Shabbos!

Yom HaShoah - a day of questions

I’ve been writing this all day. As I try to find words I am accompanied by resistance and fear.

Growing up, I had endless fascination to know about my forebears (three of my four grandparents died before I was born).  I had broad strokes for grandparents. My father’s parents came from huge families, one side from Kiev, the other from Rumania, and when they gathered for seders, the kids slept the width of the beds to squeeze in more little bodies. My father’s mother loved the theater - Yiddish? American? She baked challah for her Brooklyn immigrant neighborhood. It turned out she and I had much in common.  

From my mother’s side there were stories – we’d beg our grandmother Bertha, Tell us stories, stories from the Old Country. And she did. Also of great value to me were the shoeboxes of old photos. The ones that captivated me most were those of my grandfather’s family taken in a Slovakian town called Zilina, especially the photo from 1910 when my grandfather Maurice returned from America for a visit: seated in the center are Fanny and Hermann Uhrbach, standing behind, the five adut children, my grandfather Maurice the man on the right; I knew no other names. It wasn’t until I was well into adulthood that the genealogical sparks I had tended as a child burst into flame: by blessed serendipity, I met and became fast friends with a second cousin who was born during WWII and grew up in Florence.

Erica knew the address of the family home in Zilina, Erica had a family tree created by her father who knew it all. For the purposes of this writing, I’ll move aside the anecdotes and precious details I discovered subsequently and focus on the family tree. I discovered the other names, and what became of them. Maurice’s brother Ferdinand died in 1934; then there were three sisters – Anna who left Zilina as a bride and wound up in Italy where granddaughter Erica was born, Lina and Kati who remained close to home. Kati’s son Ernest seems to have been deported in 1942; in 1943 Lina and her husband (he nameless, they childless) took poison and lay down together in their bed just before the deportations; widowed Kati was deported with her daughter Lola, Lola’s husband (also nameless) and their 12-year old child Hans in 1943.

That’s what it says on the family tree – “deported”- to my mind, a step or two at a safe remove from the truth – murdered, gassed in a concentration camp by the Nazis.  More and more I’ve wondered through the years, why was I never told I had family - my grandfather’s sisters, their husbands and children - who were killed by the Nazis? I am certain my parents knew – there was correspondence throughout the war between the cousins in Florence and the cousins in Brooklyn. Why the silence? Did the New York Uhrbachs feel guilt that they couldn’t/didn’t/help/enough to save their family? Did they feel shame, as if it somehow made them less worthy, less kosher Americans to be connected to those who’d been slaughtered? Did the Shoah stir their own fears of anti-Semitism, and so arouse a need to bury or deny how close this genocide was to them, proof of how vulnerable they were? Was it just too monstrous to talk about?

This morning I joined in my synagogue’s Shaharit Zoom in order to say kaddish for Lina, for Ernest, Kati, Lola, Hans and the nameless husbands, feeling in my gut how difficult it is for me to do that, wanting to honor and remember them but somehow strangely resistant. I ask myself - what is this resistance? I feel unworthy, inadequate, not even legitimate to stand and honor them. I feel guilty, though I wasn’t even born then. What could I offer that would be enough against the agony they suffered? Unable to summon the release of emotion, stuck in a place where there are no tears and no words, I stand and recite the prayer.

May their memories be for a blessing.

[A note of explanation: I am hesitant to address survivors or children of survivors, not wanting to cause harm or pain, aware that for you these questions are ongoing, lifelong questions. They loom huge in your lives, not just a subject for Yom HaShoah. Please forgive me if my grappling wih this feels clumsy or hurtful to you. I am trying to articulate what this has been for me and many others like me who are not intimately connected to the Shoah but nonetheless tied by a slender thread which pulls and puzzles.]

Perhaps members of your family died in the Holocaust or were survivors–how did you learn about their experiences? How has it affected you and your life’s commitments?

Are you someone like me who has stories of extended family members who died in the Holocaust? What were their names, their stories? Who told those stories, and when, and how? What has been the power of those stories for you? Have you passed them on? Have you found satisfying ways to honor them?

It’s known that Jews in the generation after the war “didn’t want to know,” that that was commonplace, that survivors who wanted to speak felt silenced – why do you think that was so? Is this perhaps related to my parent’s inability to share family stories with their children?

How does the Shoah impact you? Are there ways in which it has informed your life? As a Jew? As an American?

Shmira - accompanying and honoring the dead

Yesterday I was saying to friends on a Zoom call that one of the things we need most now is a sense of meaning - the suffering is so enormous. I’m helping with mask making in our town, giving tzedukah, checking in on friends, continuing my work mentoring rabbis, offering appreciation to loved ones and strangers, but I yearn to do more. This morning I received an unususal and very moving email sent by a NY hospital chaplain to her synagogue community.

Dear Chevre,

We are living through an unstable and upsetting time.  The COVID19 virus has changed our sense of safety and altered the lens through which we see the world around us as strangers and people we know are sickening and dying. 

The morgues in every hospital in New York City are housing the bodies of many deceased individuals.  Most hospitals have created morgue extensions.  When walking past the Morgue Extension made up of refrigerator trucks at my hospital, I was reminded of reading psalms at the Medical Examiner’s office after 9/11.  Different circumstances and yet some startling similarities.

Our Jewish tradition offers us many ways to help regain a sense of agency and balance even during this time when everything is upended. 

Would you join me in the practice of Shmira, of reciting psalms to guard these bodies until they are removed for burial?  I can only imagine that the souls of those lost to this and other illness during this time are disoriented, destabilized, and hurting.

[The tradition of shmira is for people to stay with the body round the clock reciting psalms until the burial. Normally shmira takes place in a funeral home in the presence of the deceased, but obviouosly in these circumstances, Shmira would take place from your home or sheltered location. If you need a resource, Sefaria has all 150 Psalms: https://www.sefaria.org/Psalms?lang=bi ]

If you are able to read or chant or meditate for 30 minutes or more, one time or more, please click the SignUp Genius scheduler below.

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090E45ADAB2AAAFD0-reading1 [Please scroll all the way down to see the 24 hour available time slots.]

With gratitude,

Linda Golding

Blessings to all - may you find meaning and centerdness in the day, time and space to notice and enjoy the small pleasures of birds and flowers and kindness.

What kindness have you been able to offer others in this time? What kindness has been bestowed on you? What beauty can you see looking out your window? How might you add to the beauty in your day?

Two rabbis at work

Today I am offering 2 voices, one telling of horrific realities, the other an assertion of hope. I begin with recent FB posts from Rabbi Kara Tav, a deep and precious soul. Kara is a chaplain and the manager of spiritual care at N.Y.U. Langone Brooklyn. (See recent NY Times article about her and other chaplains, “The Men and Women Who Run Toward the Dying.”)

April 6. Every morning now we split up the list of deceased to make condolence calls to families. Every day the Palliative team gives me certain patients whose families need a check in. Everyone is grateful for the call. Even the angry, exasperated ones. And everyone cries. Today I called the 18 year old daughter of a deceased 41 year old man. She was about to drive to Manhattan to her mom’s house so that she could tell her sister. Her sister is 4. I talk her through how to speak of death with a 4 year old and what not to say (daddy is not sleeping). What to expect, how to keep it honest and keep it concrete (his heart doesn’t pump anymore, his eyes don't see, etc.). She became the adult in the family overnight. Funerals and money, and oh, that poor thing.

Call #2 A Jewish woman whose husband is in hospital. She begs me to daven for him. She has been bargaining with God, she confesses. Whatever God wants, she'll do. She's never spent a single night apart from him in 30 years. 30 YEARS!! "Such a tzadik, learned, generous.. .he’s the manager of a nice kosher grocery. How could this be happening"?? She begged me to tell her he was doing better (I cannot) she begged me to tell her he'll be home for Pesach (I cannot). I know this illness sometimes tricks doctors. It looks like patients turn a corner, and then they suddenly die. I promise her that prayers help. I promise we'll do everything we can. Zei gezunt, I say and when I put down the phone I cry…
These two vignettes were the first half hour of my day. What if I told you it only got worse?
אשע עיני אל ההרים מעיין יבא עזרי? My eyes look up to the mountains, from where will my salvation come?

April 16. It was a full day. There was normal administration to do - notes to write up, follow up calls, the diocese dilemma continues, the palliative care roster to review, etc.

My team and I continue to absorb the environmental pain, fear and despair. The humor around is darker, the skins are thicker, the fuses are shorter. At least it's not silent any more. I guess we're growing accustomed to this new normal. I notice they're discharging geriatric Covid+ patients back to their nursing homes... I learned that the homes are setting up communal rooms for them, to stave off loneliness and delirium.

Besides my administrative duties, I cared for 10 different patient families by phone today, 3 Catholics, 2 Jews, 1 Greek Orthodox, 1 Muslim (Bengali), 2 Christians and 1 "no religion." Each story was heartbreaking and complex… I gently use expressions which are starting to feel natural like: "I cannot imagine what these conversations must be like when you are so close to hearing of the end of your father's life".

I heard desperate messages from around the hospital today: from the geriatric unit "We have some beds open, that has to be a good sign, right"? From the EMTs: "We are getting more calls than ever, but people are gone when we arrive. People are afraid to go to hospital. They know they'll die alone there." From the palliative team: "This is happening in waves and we had only 10 deaths overnight - we must be on a hiatus. It reminds me of the early days of A.I.D.S.".

And so another evening rolls in, I'm getting used to the routine - handing things over, piece by piece by the door. Kobi [husband] wipes each one down and sets aside: glasses, mask, shoe, shoe, phone, phone, wallet, badge, watch - until it's just me, my scrubs, my socks and my hair elastic. I'll go into a scalding hot shower. Kobi will wash my clothes in the tub later (now who's the hero?!).

Rabbi Amy Perlin, a beloved friend and the first female rabbi in America to start her own congregation, writes today about Comfort in Continuity:

Nothing is normal now.
Parents are teachers and teachers are home.
Some are able to work remotely, 
and for others the possibility of work is remote.
Human touch and contact are discouraged, even as 
human yearning for connection fuels the courage of the distanced.
And those who are essential sacrifice their lives to save lives, 
as we redefine priorities and prioritize that which is a necessity.

And so, I open to this week’s Torah portion to prepare for Shabbat Shemini,
as I have done for decades, and find that it is still there.
Moses and Aaron; sacrifices both animal and human; 
Once again, 
I struggle to find meaning in the death of Aaron’s sons,
even as I embrace his silence.

The weekly order of Torah continues, 
immutable in a plague and pandemic.
Here in Leviticus, the biblical saga continues to unfold.
It doesn’t stop, because we have stopped. 
And that is a comfort to me now.

Now, rather than struggle to find meaning in the words, 
as I have for what feels like an eternity,
I find solace in the fact that they are still here for me to struggle with, 
and that the weekly portion we all share is still there for us to share.

We may be socially distant from the Torah scroll itself, 
unable to kiss or touch it in person, 
but the words are there on the page before us –
Eternal, Enduring, Everlasting.
And I find comfort
in this ceaseless cycle of readings –
They give order to the current chaos of my life
and structure and direction as I drift from day to day.

This week in our haftarah from Second Samuel,
King David dances before the holy ark,
as he brings it to Jerusalem. 
We can feel the mixture of his holy joy as a Jew and
the sting of the criticism he faces as leader of the Israelites.

And I realize that I don’t have to find a message in the words, 
At this time, their existence is a haven, 
And their coming this week, reliable and unfailing, 
is all I need right now. 

I find comfort in the continuity of Leviticus on this spring morning,
as the trees begin to bud green,
and the daffodils break through the still chill earth.

Vayikra, Tzav, Shemini… 
And next week the big two:
Tazria-Metzora, filled with its assorted diseases,
will most certainly follow.

I find comfort in the continuity,
as Shabbat is coming.
And right now, that is enough.

Do you know essential workers like Kara? How can you be of help to them? Do you know any of those who’ve been infected, or are the most vulnerable? How can you be of help to them?

This is a very difficult time for all of us, some of us struggling to just get through the day, What are the needs of the people you are closest to? How can you be of help to them? What challenges are you having to surmount to get through your day?

Amy finds comfort in cherished traditions, in the regularity of Torah reading and Shabbat. Where do you find comfort?

Good Shabbos, stay safe and find peace in the day.

There's only one word today, gratitude

I had been so afraid that Wednesday night when we started the seder I would burst into tears at what was suddenly a miniature table with two place settings. That didn’t happen. I had found magnificent tulips in our local Stop and Shop and their glory precluded sadness. Also, we were busy trying to set up Zoom and overcome beginning glitches, then so happy it worked for everyone, grateful to see beloved faces even in two dimensions.

Some participants had volunteered to lead a particular section, I was drafted to ask the four questions this year. (Last year I had realized I never got to ask the four questions as a child though I was the youngest in my family – discounted as a girl. So everyone agreed I should fulfill that role at the next seder.) I stumbled a bit – had failed to rehearse – but all in all it was good and I was thrilled. We went through the Order, and when time came for telling the story, we shared our own stories, shared with courage and intensity; the conversation was as compelling as ever.

I had made a last-minute cooking decision – while I was just preparing for two, and Eddie and I have different favorites, I made a few of the dishes I love, just for me. It was challenging to divide rather than multiply ingredients, but I wanted those tastes and have been relishing them each day.

I’ve made my peace with the reality that it’s ridiculously slow for me to sew masks by hand, that I can’t keep up with the quotas, but I can donate fabric to those who have machines and can donate money; now refugees who need work are getting paid per mask they make and so have enlarged the local sewing circles.

A lot of the increased inner calm and peace I feel is flowing from this shift in perspective and attitude – what can I do, what do I need to let go of. It has also helped each day to do five minute segments of cardio dancing – sometimes with a CD playing, sometimes just with songs in my head. Today I’ve done three segments so far and it’s only mid-afternoon. So good to get the blood flowing, especially on a day without a walk - our mayor himself announced in a pre-recorded phone message that there will be high winds until 7pm and requested we all stay indoors.

I am grateful for so much, above all my health so far and that of those I love. Grateful for a home in which to shelter, for the lifelong companion with whom I share that home. I am grateful for food, for opportunities to write and to read; for loving friends to call, to check in on, grateful for tzedukah money now that the needs are even greater than before. Grateful for the magnificent tulips from Stop and Shop.

 Did you participate in a seder this year? How was that different? Were you sad? about what? What was nourishing about it?

What realities have you made your peace with? How are you keeping/how can you keep your spirits up?

For what are you grateful?

What's different and what's the same

Our Passover prep started about a week ago. Day after day we chose a room, a project, vacuuming, polishing, sorting. attacking the pyramid of books on the night table. I went through a variety of purses I’ve traveled with this year, looking for forgotten contraband - stray protein bars especially. I did the annual cleaning off of my desk, with the traditional triumphant whoop - I can see the wood!

Unsure if we still had the collective strength for the task, together we lifted our mattress, the box spring, both encased in a wood frame rendering them inaccessible for 364 days of the year. But in the end, we managed and found the odd mementoes that had made their way underneath - My watch! I wondered where that had disappeared to - some newspapers and tissues and the usual loose change. Each room, hard to do, but especially our bedroom and the kitchen.

It’s been many years since I’ve been without a couple or a team of cleaners, a generous daughter to help bear the brunt of powerful scrubbing, endless trips to the basement and attic, heavy lifting, all easing the way to the seder table. This year I had real fear - just the two of us tackling this house, it won’t get done, it won’t happen, we don’t have the strength we had in our 20s, 30s, even 50s. We are the senior generation, the vulnerable ones, at high risk.

The kitchen gleams, I smell the self-cleaning oven work its final magic. Tonight or tomorrow morning we will fill the now empty cupboards with boxes of matzah, with olive oil, with fresh spices, a bag of dried figs… The empty refrigerator will receive its cottage cheese, its butter, its jam, its mushrooms and salmon. And then the cooking will begin. For two.

I imagine like most of us I’ve been trying to envision and have been avoiding envisioning what it will look and feel like Wednesday night, my table set with its accustomed seder plate, the extraordinary ceramic Elijah’s cup, the wooden chalice for Miriam. And two place settings, no extra leaves required. The image knocks the breath out of me - no family gathering downstairs to fill the salt water bowls and shell endless pistachios for the Sephardic charoset, no friends coming through the door with strawberries and wine and chocolates and questions they’ve prepared, both ancient and new.

This morning I had my breakfast on the porch. I listened to the birds, the sweetest spring cacophony. I remembered a poem I had written a long time ago in which I wondered about bird conversation in the morning - what were they saying - and decided it was like children and teens, telling each other their dreams. The birds and the poem reminded me of youth and hope, anticipation of the future.

And isn’t that one way of looking at Pesach and the seder - the excitement and joy and terror and wonder - we don’t know the future, we’ve never known the future, but tonight we celebrate leaving behind our enslavement, our stuckness, the old suffocating ways. the narrowness that inhibits our best selves. With hearts bursting open, we are running into the future. As I used to say to the friends I’d call just before the seder began, I’ll be looking for you when we are all going out of Egypt tonight. The seder, it turns out, is still about what it has always been about, an act of imagination and hope - just what I need now.

For Pesach poems, prose, writing prompts and seder questions, see the program also on this site titled Reaching for Meaning at the Seder Table.

singing, moving with the music

This seems a time for me to learn and practice new ways of being, or to bring to life old forgotten ways. When I was a child growing up in Brooklyn, we didn’t have access to musical instruments or to lessons, we didn’t own a record player. We had the radio, and my mother who liked to sing. Music was a constant background in the apartment, mostly WVNJ which favored songs from beloved Broadway shows of the 40s, 50s, 60s, also popular music of those eras and of the Depression as well.

Lillian had a lovely voice, and though fate had made her of neceessity one of the original multitaskers, balancing work, shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry and caring for 3 children and a troubled husband, she dusted and sang, cooked and sang, ironed and sang, hung our wet clothes out on the line and sang. When she washed dishes after supper, I dried and put them away - that was our special time together, and we sang. When I helped her shop and pull the heavy cart coming home, we sang together as we walked. Sometimes we’d dance the polka togther in our tiny apartment, a la Anna and the King of Siam; if a favorite Cole Porter song came on the radio, my father would occasionally take the dustcloth from her hand and dance with her there in the living room.

Please be clear that this was not an idyllic happy home - nothing like that. It was a sometims violent often terrifying home. But my mother’s singing and her radiant courageous spirit anchored us and offered hope of better days ahead. (Spoiler alert for Unorthodox - think of the extraordinary Shira Haas as Esty.)

Somehow, mysteriously, over the years, I lost the practice of my mother’s singing, perhaps because I had no need to escape the home I built as an adult, perhaps because my saving grace has been writing, and for that I need focus, silence. In any case, this past week I’ve been starting the day by playing a favorite Judy Collins CD and singing along to the well-loved lyrics. I do stretchs to the slower songs, I dance it out to the strongly tempoed ones. Of course walks in nature bring calm and pleasure, but I also need to get my heart pumping.

I recommend dancing and music to all as we shelter in place, but especially to those with kids at home, and particularly to parents tending pre-schoolers, suddenly bereft of babysitters, daycare, grandparents, nannies - these parents are truly in the category of first responders, with, as ever, no credit. I am wracking my brain for how to help you - I hope this is of some small assistance. If others out there can offer more to parents of young ones, please do so below in the comments.

No writing prompts today - your “homework” is to embody what you are feeling.

One day at a time

I wake every morning peering through the small opening between the bedroom curtains, trying to discern if what I’m seeing is merely the light of a new day or if the sun is actually shining. How it lifts my spirits to see sun. I balance the reality that each day is unique with a striving to establish some sort of loose schedule. What is already unique about today is the piece of paper I left on my night table before I went to sleep. A dear friend is having cancer surgery today, another friend shared with us a prayer for him, so I began the day with a deep focus on her soulful words and will continue to keep the paper close, repeating the words for the next 7 hours until I hear he is in recovery. And then in the days and weeks which follow, continue to hold him and his wellbeing close.

I sound so pious - in the previous post, my poem offered a prayer, and here I am praying again. Truthfully, I never can say when I am praying to whom I am addressing those prayers, what concept or faith I have when I offer those prayers. (There’s a wonderful scene in West Wing when Zoe Bartlett has been kidnapped and Debby Fiderer tells Abby Bartlett in the aftermath that she is so happy all is well and that she prayed for Zoe, then adding that since she is an agnostic, perhaps God would have been affronted by her prayers, so maybe it would have worked against Zoe…)

Add to that uncertainty a difficult childhood in which my prayers seemed never to be heard. And yet as I write these words I am close to tears - always I pray for those I love and those I don’t know but whose existence demands my prayers. I pray earnestly, with full strength and force - the prayers are after all not about me and my questionable faith - they are about those who need the prayer and the heart with which I offer it. I will be with you, my friend, in these next hours, praying, and in the weeks and months to follow, I will fold you into the long list of others who also need my ongoing prayers.

What are your prayers today?

Those, and those

Welcome into the new week, shavua tov. I hope you were able to have some time connecting to a loved one this Shabbat, maybe to cherished community via Zoom. Virtual connections can both fall woefully short of a real hug and kiss but still sustain us by breaking through isolation. In just a little while, we’ll Zoom with our havurah which normally meets for Shabbos afternoon study and a potluck supper, rotating from home to home. When I sent out the “invite,” I playfully added, “I’ll be bringing challah and salmon as usual,” and people responded - “I’ll bring the salad” and “I’ll bring bourbon cake.”

In that vein, the first of two very different offerings to share today, a video I’ve repeatedly enjoyed since I saw it on YouTube. Each time I laugh all over again at its truth, its fierce and stubborn spirit: an Israeli mother of four protests homeschooling, releasing her tension and ours with defiance and humor - bless her! [You’ll need to maximize the screen to see the subtitles; then minimize to return to this page.]

The second offering is a poem I woke up with one recent morning, unable to block from my mind the dark realities of those who are suffering most right now.

I pray for those, and those

How vastly different, the lives of those at home with toddlers
and small children, suddenly no reprieve, no relief, learning
the hard way about life in the trenches, 24/7.

And those at home with a violent parent who rages. They too,
without reprieve, watching, listening, waiting.

Those at home with a so-called partner, respect having eroded
and crumbled years before, so many hours with nothing to say.

Those at home with the invalid, the incapacitated, who demands,
demands, who’s forgotten please and thank you,
if those words were ever known.

Those at home, bereft of shopping therapy, not able to walk
the malls, dazed, sedated - deprived of the escape the mall offers.

Those at home with an addict, desperate, withdrawing.

Those at home with the first newborn, terrified, nascent parents
like the seder child who does not even know how to ask a question.

Those at home with loved ones far away, or just down the street –
immeasurably separated, the yearning burning.

And those fleeing what was once home, now on the long immigrant
road, suspended in space.

And those in prison, struggling to hold onto one sweet memory of home,
or bereft of such a memory altogether.

And of course, those who sit on the streets with hand-lettered signs –
I’m homeless, please help.

Merle Feld (c) 2020

What’s hardest for you in these days? Who/what are the lifelines you can reach for? What inner strengths and capacities can you call on? How can you cultivate compassion for yourself?

As for me, I struggle to maintain my equilibrium. Sorrow for the pain of others can immobilize me. When I find concrete ways to help, to be of some use, I lift my own spirits.

Is that true for you? Who can you help, and how? [Offer to shop for those who cannot; ask parents you know if you can read/tell stories virtually to their young children; continue paying those who work for you; dig deeper to financially support food banks and other local/national programs…]

Please share your own ideas of how to be useful, how to help, in the comments section below.

Shabbos approaches

I’ve been lighting Friday night candles now for about 55 years. Lost in the mists of time is the particular Friday night when I began giving myself permission after kindling the flames to pause with my hands covering my face, and before reciting the traditional Hebrew blessing, to conjure all those I wanted to encircle with love, with healing intentionality. Since that night, each week the parade of faces passes before me – family, many dear friends, students, those I know who are ill or mourning or suffering, the peoples in the world who are in crisis. I reach out, I hold them each and all, and then recite the blessing.

The following poem was written in 1990, shortly after I returned from a year living in Jerusalem during the first Intifada, when I regularly visited the West Bank to facilitate dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis, to engage in demonstrations against the occupation – in so many ways and places, to pray with my feet. My dearest friend, my mentor and companion in this work was Veronika Cohen, a fearless and indefatigable visionary for peace. Coming back to the States, I missed her terribly, I missed our shared efforts, our shared yearning and hopefulness. I would think of her especially when I lit Shabbos candles, and still do.

Tonight as many of us light candles, let me invite you to pause before you recite the blessing and conjure those you especially love, those to whom your heart is attached, those who are suffering now, those who are in need, those who for the moment you cannot touch, and send them your silent blessing.  Remember to include yourself please, for blessing and for peace.

On the other side of the world

                     for Veronika

I closed my eyes
to light the candles,
and it was you I saw
on the other side of the world –
you were lighting candles too.

 I could see the tracks of the comb
through your wet hair,
the part that shows
under your kerchief.
I saw the blouse you were wearing –
white with blue embroidery,
I saw how it stuck to your back,
not quite dry from the shower.  

Your hands covered your face
but I could feel the concentration
with which you said your prayer.
I imagined that as you paused
to bless the candles
you included me as I included you.

 I write these words tonight
to reach out to you,
as I reached out to you
when I lit the candles,
as I reach out to you now
in all my best prayers.

 Merle Feld © A Spiritual Life: Exploring the Heart and Jewish Tradition (SUNY Press, revised 2007)

Good Shabbos!