Velveteen Rabbi

A Passage to India

I'll be offline for half of February thanks to a ten-day trip to India and the time it takes to get there and back. (I may be online less than usual beforehand, as I pack and prepare for the trip, and also afterwards, as I wade through the email messages that will pile up during my absence. If I'm slow in responding to comments, please forgive the delay.)

I'm deeply excited about going to India. Conventional wisdom holds that India is one of the most beautiful, and also most overwhelming, countries in the world. Everyone I know who's been there tells me I'll be stunned by the number of people, the sounds and smells, the crush of crowds, the poverty. Secretly I think I won't be so overwhelmed as all that -- how could I be surprised by the sensory overload of the developing world after visiting Makola market? -- but maybe I'll be bowled-over anyway. I'm looking forward to finding out.

Though I won't be anywhere near Dharamsala (our itinerary calls for a few days in Mumbai and then train travel through Rajasthan), as I get ready for this trip I can't help thinking about the India book which launched my adult journey into Judaism: Rodger Kamenetz's The Jew in the Lotus, which my friend David gave to me more than ten years ago, and which tells the true story of a group of rabbis who went to Dharamsala to talk with the Dalai Lama about Diaspora survival. My essay "Up the Spiral" talks about how that book launched me in this orbit, and kept me (t)here, too.

I still remember finishing it the first time, lying on top of the crazyquilt on the futon in Ethan's apartment, and beaming with the deep realization that Judaism comes in so many forms -- and that it doesn't have to be insular at all. The rabbis who went to pow-wow with His Holiness came from every corner of the Jewish world, and though they didn't always agree (indeed, they often saw important things very differently) their respect for one another, and for their shared enterprise, shone through their differences.

The Jew in the Lotus opened my eyes to the existence of a Judaism that is multifaceted and open to interfaith encounters. I was especially intrigued by the description of contemplative and mystical Jewish practices, and by Rodger's portrayal of Reb Zalman Shachter-Shalomi -- though I didn't quite believe he could be as cool as he sounded. (Turns out he is.) The book does a beautiful job of bringing people to life -- from luminaries like Reb Zalman, Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, and the Dalai Lama to the many ordinary people at the intersections of Judaism and Buddhism with whom Rodger spoke. Some consider themselves Jewish; others consider themselves Buddhist. Unsurprisingly, where the two traditions meet, both strong emotions and opportunities for learning can arise.

Thubten Chodron -- born Jewish, now a Buddhist nun -- wrote eloquently about the experience from her perspective. And in What I Learned about Judaism from the Dalai Lama,  Rodger Kamenetz has written a lovely essay about that trip, his return six years later, and why he had to go so far away to learn something so meaningful about home.

Travel broadens. It opens the eyes. It shakes one up. It surprises. It requires one to be flexible; it involves leaving one's comfort zone; it demands awareness that one isn't actually in control. (I've already had a reminder of that, in my scramble to get my passport renewed fast so it would be suitable for a six-month tourist visa. For a while there, the fate of my trip was entirely in the hands of the Indian Consulate General of New York.) I can't wait to see how India changes me, and what it teaches me about the world outside my usual stomping grounds. And I suspect that, like Rodger and the rabbis who went to Dharamsala fifteen years ago, I'll come home with new insights about the place (physical, emotional, and spiritual) from which I left.

Another award-related post

When I said I wouldn't be blogging much this week, I probably guaranteed that I'd blog again before I went to bed tonight, didn't I?

Just wanted to let y'all know that voting is now open in the Jewish & Israeli Blogs Awards. This blog is nominated for Best Jewish Religion Blog (group B).

Incidentally, though I thought one could vote once in group A and once in group B, it appears that one can vote only once on the page. Just so you know.

I won't be offended if y'all vote for Baraita. :-)

Visitations

It's a low-blogging week for me, because my father is visiting from San Antonio. So instead of spending my usual multiple hours a day basking in the glow of my laptop, I'm chauffeuring him around town to see the sights. Today we took in the current exhibition at MASS MoCA -- we agreed that we both liked the Matthew Ritchie stuff the best -- and sampled the wares of my two favorite coffee shops, both indie joints. (I also had the pleasure of showing Dad my picture in today's paper, which felt pretty neat.)

It makes me happy to hear the sound of my father's voice ringing through my house. The scent of his cigars and his aftershave is profoundly comforting, because it's such a familiar combination. We haven't lived under the same roof in thirteen years, so we're unaccustomed to one another's rhythms -- but I think we're both happy to have the chance to walk side by side for a few days.

It's a little bit strange to be away from my usual routines; away from the blogosphere; away from weekly meditation and the other practices that characterize, and ground, my day-to-day life. But it's good to be showing my father around my life: familiar haunts (we're returning to our favorite neighborhood pub tonight) as well as new experiences (we showed him his first episode of the Daily Show last night). I think of it as a practice of kibud av v'em (the mitzvah of honoring one's parents). Suspending my ordinary life for a few days when he comes to town is the least I can do.

I'll close this blog post with a link to one of my favorite poems, one which honors the poet's father for acts of lovingkindness performed without a word: Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays." May my time with my father enrich and inform me. See y'all on the other side.

Rabbi Rami's manifesto

Rabbi Rami Shapiro has written A SimplyJewish Manifesto (subtitled "toward a second American Jewish revolution") which I think is really worth reading.

Here are two of my favorite bits, one from near the beginning and the other from near the end:

We recognize Judaism as the Jews' ancient and on-going effort to effect tikkun through teshuvah, repairing the world to wholeness by continually returning our attention to God and godliness...

...We recognize all beings as manifestations of God, all religions as attempts to articulate the Ineffable, and all scripture as sources of Truth. We reject all notions of chosenness and uphold the equality of all beings in, with, and as God.

I've been a fan of Rabbi Rami's for some years now. Back in 1997 I participated in an online Torah discussion forum which he moderated; it was reasoned and reasonable, which felt like quite a rarity at the time! I also like his book Minyan. If memory serves, that was the first place I encountered the notion of nondualistic Judaism, which was fairly eye-opening for me.

And I like his manifesto a great deal. The principles he articulates fit neatly with my understanding of my tradition. Some of what he says may strike my more traditionalist readers as controversial, but I think the manifesto is worth reading regardless of where you fall on the denominational spectrum. To me, this reads as a very Jewish Renewal document, though I don't know whether he would characterize it that way himself. (In any event, it's a lovely encapsulation of why I feel so at-home in Jewish Renewal.)  It's short and sweet, and packed with good ideas. Read it here.

What makes Jewish literature so Jewish, anyway?

In response to Shawn Landres' recent post at People of the Book, I'm making available a paper I wrote a while back which addresses the question of what makes Jewish literature Jewish.

I spent a semester of grad school exploring a cross-section of Jewish literature, with the intent of trying to define (or at least more clearly understand) what makes a Jewish book. I read classics (some Torah, natch, plus Sholom Aleichem, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Delmore Schwartz, Malka Heifetz Tussman) alongside writers of today (Francine Prose, Hal Sirowitz, and Rodger Kamenetz, among others).

Aware that my own roots give me a tendency towards Ashkenazi-centrism, and wanting to combat that, I dipped into Ilan Stavans' Jewish Latin America series. (The Jewish Gauchos of the Pampas has one of the coolest titles ever.) I read secondary sources about Jewish literature (among them an excellent issue of the Pakn-Treger that happened to focus on this very question). I had a ridiculous amount of fun.

The...question I began with... [is] what makes a piece of writing Jewish. Must it be written by a Jew? If so, is the Jewishness of its author enough to make the writing itself Jewish? Conversely, what if a piece of writing (a story, a poem, a novel, a body of work) deals with Jewish characters and settings, but is not written by a Jew? What does it mean to deal with "Jewish characters and settings" in 1998, when  a "Jewish character" (or a Jewish author) could as easily be a black lesbian feminist Jew-by-choice living in California as a white man of Eastern European descent living in New York city? What is a Jewish character, a Jewish author, a Jewish subject? Does language matter -- which is to say, is a piece of Yiddish fiction automatically Jewish? How about Hebrew poetry? Is there such a thing as a Jewish "essence," a Jewish neshamah, in a piece of writing -- and if so, what creates it? When I turned my eye towards this project six months ago, I dimly sensed these questions on my horizon.

The question I did not sense on my horizon, although perhaps I should have, is this: is Jewishness about looking in or looking out? Must Jewish writing  be directed inwards within the Jewish community, or can it  be universal?

I wound up writing roughly 7000 words on the subject. I can't claim to definitively answer the question (the more Jewish lit I read, and the more I think about what I've read, the less possible I think it is to concretely define the genre), but there's some interesting food for thought there.

The paper is available for download here:

A Question of Reading: Nu, What Makes Jewish Literature So Jewish, Anyway?

Hopefully you'll enjoy reading it a fraction as much as I enjoyed writing it!

(Cross-posted to People of the Book.)

People of the Book

People of the Book is a new group blog dedicated to Jewish books, Jewish explorations of books, Jewish literary and publishing news, and general insight into Jewish literary life.  It's the brainchild of Miriam and Paul Shaviv (of Bloghead); other contributors include Shawn Landres of Religion and Society, Ayelet Waldman of Bad Mother, Harry of Off the Beaten Bookshelf, and me.

My first post there consists of musings on one of my favorite Alicia Ostriker poems. I hope to see the blog become a forum for good book discussions; go, give it a read, and join the conversation!

The Ayelet Cohen controversy

Dan Rosan alerted me to this story about Rabbi Ayelet Cohen, a Conservative rabbi who may lose her standing within her movement. Depending on who one asks, that's either because she didn't jump through some beaurocratic hoops, or it's because she's too outspoken an advocate for GLBT Jews. The New York Times just ran a pretty informative piece about it, which begins:

A rabbi who has officiated at the marriage of gay and lesbian couples has been threatened with expulsion from the Conservative movement's rabbinical association, though movement officials say it is not her activism that is at issue but her repeated defiance of the movement's rules.

(Read the whole thing here. Registration required; if you're not a subscriber, you can also read it here.)

Rabbi Cohen serves a denominationally-unaffiliated gay and lesbian congregation, which she has called her dream job. As this piece notes, GLBT shuls can't technically join the Conservative movement, so Rabbi Cohen had to get a special waiver to work there. She didn't get it renewed in time, and that may be coming back to bite her now. The question is, is her standing in jeopardy because she didn't dot her i's and cross her t's, or is it her radicalism that's gotten her in trouble?

The Rabbinical Assembly says she neglected to abide by organizational standards when she failed to apply to renew the waiver required for her to keep her current position. Rabbi Cohen's supporters are crying foul, implying that the waiver is a pretext and that she's actually being ostracized for her outspoken support of GLBT Jews. Rabbi Cohen wants to make use of the takkanah, the right of rabbinic authorities to "uproot" a law, in order to change how traditional Judaism regards queerness. She has been active in creating liturgies and rituals for GLBT Jews, and has spoken freely about her desire to see the movement change its policies.

In 2003, Rabbi Cohen delivered the keynote address at Tse Ulemad ("Come Out and Learn"), a "day of learning about sexual orientation and halakha in the Conservative Movement". In that address, she argued that gay and lesbian Jews must no longer be relegated to second-class status:

We are turning Jews away from our institutions and that is turning them away from the Conservative Movement and from Jewish life.  We all know that we cannot afford to lose people in this day and age.  We cannot afford to close the doors of our synagogues and schools on Jews who want access.

And it doesn't have to be like this.  We are the Conservative Movement.  Who understands better than we that halakhah is vital--in both of its meanings: absolutely essential and completely alive.  We do not fear approaching text with hard questions and innovative readings.  We are uniquely placed to read both our sacred texts and the world around us with a sophistication, a critical eye and a reverence that does not inhibit our minds but deepens our thirst for understanding.  If we feel in our hearts that this situation is unconscionable, if we wonder about the gap between our civic values and our religious laws, there is no one more qualified then we to meet that challenge.

I'm not a part of the Conservative movement, and I don't know what the "real" story is behind her RA standing (or lack thereof). But from what I've gathered, Ayelet Cohen sounds like a remarkable woman, a dedicated Jew, and an admirable rabbi. I think excluding her would be a loss for the Conservative movement.

If any of my readers can shed more light on what's going on, I'd appreciate that.

The sap is rising

One of the suggestions my friend Charlene gave me, when I was preparing to spend my first winter in New England, was "grow lots of plants." She too hailed from south Texas, and understood how green-starved southern eyes can get once northern winter sets in. That was a long time ago, but the advice still holds true.

My mother is fond of noting that both of her Massachusetts daughters seem to have green thumbs. (Each of us plays host to a small forest of cacti, philodendrons, and aloes.) I'm not sure Mom understands that the array of houseplants isn't just decorative -- it's necessary. I love the winter wonderland outside my window, and the  fact of greenery in my home helps me sustain that love through the months of ice and snow.

Today I made a happy discovery: my orchid (I think it's some kind of phalaenopsis) is sprouting again. My sister gave me the orchid some years ago, after I led a Passover seder at her house.  We'd divided the labor in our usual way: I handled the liturgical end of things, and she masterminded the food and the guest list. As decoration, she placed a potted orchid on each table. Afterwards, she gave me one of the centerpieces, as a thank-you.

I drove back across the state with the plant in a cardboard box. It blossomed for months, but by Rosh Hashanah the flowers withered and dropped, and then the stalk turned dry and pale. I snipped the stalk off at the base and kept watering the pot. The big oval leaves pleased me, springing from their nest of pebbles and moss.

To my delight, the following spring the orchid sprouted a stalk again. I kept watering it, fed it occasionally, and once the stalk was long enough bound it to the same curved stake that the first plant had grown to follow. It rewarded me with a ridiculous abundance of snowy blooms, fuschia streaks at their hearts. I put it on my seder table again.

The following year, the pattern repeated. This year will be the fourth, which is why I've come to think of this plant as my Pesach orchid. (Kind of like my so-called Christmas cactus, though that one actually blooms at Thanksgiving.) Today the new stalk is about two inches long, with a green tip. I have hopes that it will be tall enough to bind, and maybe even flowering, by Pesach.

It seems appropriate that this tropical plant shows signs of life as we approach Tu BiShvat. The sap may not be rising quite yet in the trees outside our house, but my orchid is waking! Blessed are You, Shekhinah, wellspring of all life, who manifest in so many small and exquisite ways.

Origins of Jehovah

This morning I mentioned to Jeff that one of the things I find odd in my spiffy new JPS Tanakh (given to me for Chanukah by my dear friend Cynthia -- no, not this one, the other one!) is that there are vowels printed beneath the Tetragrammaton. Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh (henceforth YHVH -- easier to type) is unpronounceable, so why add vowel markings to it? It turns out there's a reason for that, which leads to a funny historical note.

We generally substitute one of two names for the tetragrammaton: adonai or elohim.  A Rabbinic custom developed, of adding vowels to the YHVH in some editions (e.g. not Torah scrolls, but study texts, the ones with vowels and cantillation markings). We take the vowels which would go under the letters of the substitute name, and put them under the YHVH. (With me so far?) That way, when one sees the tetragrammaton in a study text, one can glance at the vowels and know which substitute name was meant to be used.

And what would happen if you pronounced, phonetically, the tetragrammaton with the vowels for "Adonai"? You'd get Yehovah! Which leads to the amusing historical note: the name Jehovah is  a mistransliteration of the tetragrammaton with "Adonai" vowels. Not knowing the Rabbinic custom of inserting the vowels of the substitute name beneath the letters of the unpronounceable Name, someone assumed that the thing to do was to read the letters with the vowels which were on the page, thereby creating the name Jehovah. Near as I can tell, that "someone" was a thirteenth-century  Spanish Dominican monk named Raymundus Martini, in  his 1270 C.E. work Pugeo Fidei.

This transliteration misunderstanding led, however indirectly, to the first religious argument I ever engaged in. At the age of eight, I got into a shouting match with our gardener (a devout Jehovah's Witness) about the name of God. Naturally enough, he insisted God's name was Jehovah; I, righteously indignant as only an eight-year-old can be, insisted it was Hashem. (Guess nobody had told me what "Hashem" actually means: "The Name." It's another workaround for the unpronounceability of YHVH.) Our housekeeper broke up the quarrel, horrified. Today I'd probably argue that the real problem was that we each believed we had the One True Answer; surely God has as many names as we can divine!

Really, this all just makes me want to watch that scene from Monty Python's Life of Brian again...

Koufax nominations

The official slate of Koufax Award nominees, in the "Most Deserving of Wider Recognition" category, is now online here. What a fantastic list!

Folks seem to be voting for their top choice(s) in the comments on that post. Allow me to humbly suggest that readers nip over there, check out the list, and cast a vote for your favorite(s). Of course, if your favorite in that list happened to be Velveteen Rabbi, I'd be delighted...