Velveteen Rabbi

[JStreet] Plenary session: View from the Hill

I'm blogging this week from Driving Change, Securing Peace, the first JStreet conference in Washington, DC. You can follow my conference posts via the JStreet category. 

If you're new to Velveteen Rabbi, welcome. Here's some information about me, and here's my comments policy -- please read it, especially if this is your first time here. Enjoy the conference posts! And regular readers, have no fear: I'll return to my more usual balance of blogging fare in a few days.

The last formal session of my day is a plenary session entitled View from the Hill: Congress and the US-Israel Relationship, featuring Representatives Jan Schakowski (IL), Bob Filner (CA), Jared Polis (CO), and Charles Boustany (LA), moderated by former CNN correspondent Bob Franken. Big plenary sessions aren't usually my cup of tea; I tend to be more interested in smaller conversations, but since this was the only thing on the agenda at this hour (and I was actually able to get a seat in the room along with the other 1500 people here today), I figured it was worth a try.

Photo of Rep. Filner & Rep. Polis by Dan Sieradski, used with permission.

Bob Franken notes that he's here as a journalist -- "not to take one side or the other... what I want to be able to do is stand for an open airing of ideas from valid parties, which is what we journalists are supposed to be all about.

Representative Schakowsky begins by mentioning her support for a "secure and Jewish" state of Israel, and giving a shout-out to her rabbi. "From the earliest moment of her founding, the US has supported Israel," she says; a strong Israel is in US interest, as is peace in the region. Congressional support for Israel has been nearly universal over the years, even when the politics of various representatives differ. "After 61 years, Israelis live in a state of perpetual danger with only intermittent respite from deadly conflict. As Israel's best friend in the world, it is only natural that we would be debating how best to work toward longterm security." Her belief is that this involves a negotiated two-state solution. "The United States can, should, and must play a role." Also security means averting a nuclear arms race and bringing about a peaceful resolution to the problems caused by Iran's nuclear program.

"The obstacles to peace have been festering for a long time," she says, "but perpetual war is not the answer." President Obama enjoyed 79% of the Jewish vote, and has appointed George Mitchell as a special envoy to the region -- these are signs of his commitment to this cause. "The administration, and many of us, feel a sense of urgency," she tells us. "I am hopeful that the debate on what to do can be conducted within the Jewish community and within our country in a matter that acknowledges that differences of opinion do not reflect a difference of commitment to Israel."

Not surprisingly, this feels to me like grandstanding. She's a good speaker, but her remarks feel awfully "safe" to me. But part of what's fascinating is that these four speakers give me four different vibes, so read on:

This week's portion: milk

MILK (NITZAVIM-VAYELEKH)

God has never told me to write a poem
or spoken to me from within a cloud
or led me into the land, goat's milk
and date honey mingling in my mouth.
That crackly old-time connection is lost
and I don't know that it will return.

This time of year, everything's about return:
yellow schoolbuses inscribing their poem
on curving roads, one sandal lost
and forlorn on the beach, wisps of cloud
racing across the sky. In our mouths
honey gilds apple wedges pale as milk.

When the baby cries, the mother's milk
descends. Both yearn to return
to connection. But what if his mouth
doesn't know how to suck, if her poem
has nowhere to flow? Don't let my pregnancy cloud
the issue: I'm talking about us, lost

and wailing for God in the night, lost
and fearful that the source of milk
has dried up and disappeared. The cloud
of unknowing offers no comfort. Return
to Me the shofar demands, a poem
without words to carry in our mouths.

Torah isn't over the sea, it's in our mouths
and our hearts -- so why do we feel so lost?
Have we forgotten Moshe's poem
and its endless reprises? We milk
our alienation for all it's worth; return
seems as implausible as walking on cloud.

But God is never just in the fire, the cloud:
God is as near as our heartbeats, our mouths
and our hands. Elul's waning moon says "return
to your source; all who wander are not lost --
we'll leave the light on for you, milk
and cookies and a bedside poem..."

Even in the cloud, you're never lost.
Let your mouth taste the milk of repentance
and return, bearing your poem in your hands.

---

This week we're reading parashat Nitzavim- Vayelekh -- a double Torah portion, almost at the very end of the book of D'varim.

I haven't been linking to last year's Torah poems (you can find all of them linked in my Divrei Torah index) but rereading these portions this year, I remembered that the Torah poem I wrote for Vayelekh last year is one of my favorites, so I'll point to it again: This poem (Vayelekh).

It's been a while since I've written a sestina, and the repeated words and concepts in this double Torah portion seemed like a good fit for the form. (Alas, I wasn't able to make this week's ReadWritePoem prompt fit with this week's Torah portion. You can still read other participants' responses at the get your poem on #91 post.)

I'm trying to remember where I first heard the notion that "when the baby cries, the mother's milk descends" applied to our relationship with God; I think it was probably at DLTI, though I don't seem to have blogged about it. It's certainly central to the way I've been taught to understand prayer. Not surprisingly, it's a resonant metaphor for me these days.

The idea that Torah isn't over the sea, but is in our mouths and hearts, comes from the first half of this week's Torah portion. The idea that God instructed Moshe to write a poem and teach it to the children of Israel comes from the second half of the Torah portion. Both are powerful for me during this season of teshuvah, as Rosh Hashanah draws ever-closer.

[milk.mp3]

On divisions in the J-blogosphere, and President Obama's Cairo speech

1. About Haveil Havalim

Most weeks I try to submit something to Haveil Havalim, the Jewish blog carnival. (I hosted Haveil Havalim #36 back in 2005; it's been ongoing since 2004.) It's always interesting to see what is happening in certain corners of the Jewish blogosphere.

I say "certain corners" because it has always seemed to me that Haveil Havalim skews to the right. The Jewish blogs that I read -- Jewschool, South Jerusalem, A Big Jewish Blog, Judaism Without Borders, Mah Rabu, On Chanting, Every Day and Every Night, The Jew and the Carrot, Sustainable Judaism, JSpot, Shalom Rav, Rabbis for Human Rights North America -- don't tend to be represented there. The blog carnival is opt-in only; I guess progressive Jewish thinkers don't tend to submit posts. I don't know why that is: do progressive J-bloggers not know that the carnival is there? Do we not feel represented by it, and therefore not feel inclined to join in? Do we feel awkward about self-promotion? Do we feel uncomfortable expressing our political views in a space which tends not to include the voices of progressive Jews? (That last resonates for me. I only rarely submit political posts to the carnival; mostly I submit Torah posts, because those seem less likely to spark confrontation.)

Anyway, the most recent edition, hosted by Esser Agaroth, dedicated a whole section to "The Big Speech" -- President Obama's recent remarks in Cairo -- which made me realize again that I'm coming from a very different place than the majority of the folks who submit their material to Havel Havalim. Ben Yehuda framed this section of the carnival by comparing the President to Pee-Wee Herman, and suggesting that Pee-Wee knew more about his chosen subject than President Obama does about his. As I browsed the links in that section of the post, I was amazed by how foreign I found most of the responses to the President's speech. Our perspectives differ so strongly that we don't seem to have heard the same words. 

Praise, poetry, and prayer at the inauguration

That's a YouTube video of the prayer offered by the Right Reverend V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, at the beginning of the inauguration festivities on Sunday. From his prayer on Sunday to today's inaugural poem, it's been an amazing few days for me as someone who cherishes the transformative potential of language. In this post I want to explore the poetry and prayer of the various invocations and benedictions, President Obama's inaugural address, and Elizabeth Alexander's inaugural poem.

Terra Nova

A while back the Best American Poetry folks staged an Inaugural Ode contest. To be eligible, a poem had to consist of four quatrains, include at least three words from a prescribed list (honor, integrity, faith, hope, change, power), and make use of a line from one of the poems in The Best American Poetry 2008.

The BAP post Inaugural Poems in the News tells me that the Associated Press invited ten poets to write and record their own inaugural poems. Those poems are here, some accompanied by little recorded videos of the poets reading their own work. I especially like David Lehman's poem, and Yosef Komunyakaa's -- maybe especially because Komunyakaa ends his poem with an arctic image, and my submission to the Inaugural Ode contest takes its imagery from polar exploration.

I do feel like the United States under an Obama presidency has the potential to be a kind of terra nova: rife with unexplored potential and new possibilities. May we have the courage and the perseverance to embody those possibilities in the years to come.

---

TERRA NOVA

For the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

As this cold day dawns you stand at the prow
gazing over the ice. It creaks and groans
but your sixth sense will tell us where the floes
will let us through. Terra incognita awaits

and bright sundogs gamboling across the sky
and nightfall, though who wants
to think about that now? I have faith
you'll read the compass even when the needle wobbles.

I see you in profile as if sharpened and stenciled.
If you ask us to trudge until the sennegrass
rubs our chapped feet raw, if you tell us change
can be found just over the next jumbled ridge

we will walk. And what we find there will warm us
like a primus lamp in a reindeer-hide tent
because of how you gently, seriously reach
to hold our frozen hands to your beating heart.

"I see you in profile as if sharpened and stenciled," from "Faithful" by Dara Wier.

[terranova.mp3]

Technorati tags: poetry, Obama, inauguration.

RHR 2008: Beyond Guantanamo: Ending U.S.-Sponsored Torture

The conference's last formal session, Beyond Guantanamo: Ending U.S.-Sponsored Torture, featured Gita Gutierrez of the Center for Constitutional Rights alongside attorney Tom Wilner (read his essay A Righteous Indignation in US News and World Report.) Both of them work to defend prisoners who are imprisoned at Guantanamo. It was an unbelievable presentation, and by the end of Gita's remarks I was weeping uncontrollably. I know I've been asking you to wade through a lot of text, but even if you don't read anything else I've posted from the conference, I hope you'll read this.

---

Tom Wilner talked about how when he speaks alongside Gita, he speaks "as an American about what it means to me to be American." Listening to us, he said, he realizes that he needs to study how his Jewishness has shaped his commitment to the cause.

"I believe passionately in America, which is one of the reasons I've fought so hard in Guantanamo. It is said in our family, my great-great-grandfather was a rabbi in Vilna, and in the 1870s he read the Gettysburg Address and said, if there is such a country in the world, I want my children to live there."

"My father used to tell a story, how my grandfather would take them to Gettysburg and recite the address and also the preamble to the Declaration of Independence. There would be tears in his eyes. My father would say, it was like a prayer."

"Growing up in America, beliefs of freedom and liberty and rule of law were our religion. My father was one of four boys; only two of them came home from World War II. I think that put a special obligation on us." Wilner spoke about the fight to get habeas corpus rights for Guantanamo detainees. "All these cases have ever been about has been the right to a fair hearing, the right for an incarcerated person to defend themselves," he said.

This week's portion: first step

FIRST STEP (LECH LECHA)

It's not going to be easy.
All of your roadmaps are wrong.

That was another country:
those lakes have dried up

and new groundwater is welling
in places you won't expect.

You'll begin the journey in fog
destination unknown, impossible.

Don't be surprised by tears.
This right here is holy ground.

Take a deep breath and turn away
from cynicism and despair

listen to the voice from on high
and deep within, the one that says

I'm calling you to a place
which I will show you

and take the first small step
into the surprising sun.

November 4, 2008

---

In this week's portion, Lech Lecha, God tells Abram to go forth from his native land and his father's house to the land which God will show him. It's a story about setting out on an unimaginable journey. Abram's road won't be easy; he doesn't know where he's going; he's doing something almost unthinkable, leaving everything that's familiar to him on levels both physical and metaphysical. But he has faith that God is leading him to a good destination, and he trusts that the journey will bring blessings.

I wrote this poem yesterday, in a kind of anticipatory fugue state that already feels like a dream. As I wrote it, I wondered how posting it today would feel. I couldn't have imagined what it would really feel like to watch Barack Obama win the presidency of the United States. Today I am so filled with hope, so overflowing with joy -- and the message in this week's parsha rings even more true for me.

Some commentors translate the first phrase of this week's portion, lech-lecha, not as "go forth (from your native land)" but "go forth from yourself." Extend yourself, reach beyond yourself. Strive for something greater than yourself. Take the risk of opening yourself to change. Reading these lines this week, I feel like my entire nation is recapitulating this first step on Abraham's journey. We're going forth from our origins to a land which the Holy Blessed One will help us find...or shape, right here at home.

Because lech-lecha doesn't have to refer to a physical journey. It can mean the journey we're all taking, singly and together, toward a place of plenty; a place of prosperity; a place of hope. The historic change we witnessed (we co-created) yesterday is the first step on a journey toward an America which says Yes we can to justice and equality. Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity. Yes we can heal this nation. Yes we can repair this world. Yes we can.

May we be blessed in this journey, and may the journey itself be a blessing.

[firststep.mp3]

Technorati tags: religion, Judaism, Torah, poetry, LechLecha.

Protecting the right to vote

In my judgment, the presidential campaign is over; the American people has made its decision.

But the election itself is NOT over – and no matter what our own individual judgment about the candidates is, we can gird ourselves as citizens and as people of religious and ethical commitment to justice to make sure "Thou Shalt Not Steal" applies to this election.

That's Rabbi Arthur Waskow (who I recently profiled in Zeek!), writing in a recent Shalom Report email. (And this is a rare political post for me, because this is more important than my general feeling that y'all don't come here for my political opinions.)

The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County, Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP's effort to challenge some voters on Election Day.

That's from an article in the Michigan Messenger last month. During Sukkot we talk a lot about what it means to "dwell" in sukkot. We build, and inhabit, these flimsy, temporary little houses -- but we know we're (most of us) speaking metaphorically about the impermanence of our dwellings. A lot of people are losing their homes in this economic climate, and for those who are enduring the foreclosure process to be intimidated away from voting adds injustice to injury, both for them and for the country.

Republicans in Michigan are training volunteers to challenge voters at the polls. (Learn more about voter challenges, deceptive practices & voter intimidation at 866ourvote.org.)  Ugly shenanigans are afoot in Pennsylvania, too, like this spurious flyer circulating in African-American neighborhoods stating that voters who are facing outstanding arrest warrants or who have unpaid traffic tickets may be arrested at the polls on Election Day. (If you're interested, you can listen to that story at NPR.org, which also recently aired the related Worries about voter intimidation run high.)

Four years ago, the Onion ran a piece called U.S. Inspires World With Attempt At Democratic Election. It's funny and it's painful -- and it's going to be a lot more painful if the coming US Presidential election is marred by votes not being counted, or people being dissuaded from voting because they're harassed at the polls or incorrectly informed that they're not eligible to vote when they actually are.

If you're a lawyer or law student, please consider doing voter protection to ensure that people who are entitled to vote are able to do so, especially if you are in a battleground state. (It's my understanding that Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan top that list, though obviously this is important work everywhere.) You can sign up here.

Herein endeth the PSA. Thanks for reading, y'all.

Technorati tags: USpolitics, voterprotection, tikkunolam.

Rabbinic conference call with Senator Obama

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg just posted her liveblogging of a conference call in which Senator Barack Obama spoke to 900 rabbis. (Holy wow.) Here's a taste of Danya's report from the call:

[Senator Obama] quotes Rabbi Tarfon (not by name), "You are not free to complete the work, but neither may you desist from it." He talks about restoring America’s promise to care for the vulnerable, provide health care, care for children and aging, invest in alternate energy sources and create green jobs, to create an economy for all, not just for the rich. He wants to get back to "I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper" as a value in the country...

He talks about how the new year is a time not just for celebration but for reflection and hard work. "I think it's time for us all to turn the page... and complete the work of Creation." He talks about the shofar as a way to rouse us from our slumber and help us repent for our misdeeds, chart a better path, as a call to action.

After Obama's opening remarks, four rabbis, one from each of the major denominations, got to ask him a question. Danya reports his responses to those, too.

Full disclosure: if it weren't obvious from what y'all know of me after reading my blog all these years (or from the photo of the bumper sticker that adorns my car), I strongly support Senator Obama's bid for the presidency. If Rabbis for Obama had made the decision to accept rabbinic students into their ranks, I'd be a founding member! But I think the notes from this call are worth reading regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum. If you're interested in US politics and the coming election (and who among us isn't, these days?), pop over to Rabbi Ruttenberg's blog and read.

Technorati tags: religion, Judaism, politics, BarackObama.

Guest post at God's Politics

The folks at God's Politics, a blog by Jim Wallis and friends (presented by Beliefnet and Sojourners), asked me to write a guest post for them about the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel and how I wrestle with it as an American Jew. The post I wrote took the form of a letter to Israel on the occasion of her sixtieth birthday. It's here: The Velveteen Rabbi's Birthday Card to Israel.

Reb Zalman reminds us frequently that we should speak not only about God but also to God. So when the editors at God's Politics asked me to write this post, I decided to take that same tack, talking to Israel rather than merely about it. Writing the post as a direct address was both difficult and fruitful for me, and it made me realize that I'd love to see what others would do with the same assignment. If anyone else out there feels inclined to follow suit, drop a comment here and link to your post?

Thanks to the folks at God's Politics for the opportunity to send a guest post their way.

Technorati tags: religion, Judaism, Israel, GodsPolitics.