O PATIENT READERS:
Please enjoy this modest mix of rusty recollections, offbeat observations, friendly particularism, tasty recipes, unpretentious poetry, and wry spirituality. And if you’re eager to meet my short-story hero Prosatio Silban, the self-defrocked holyman in a fantastic land who ekes out a meagre but honest living as a mercenary cook, allow me to introduce you!
Thank you for your patronage, and be well,
The Mgt.
THE UBER DRIVER’S HAND was warm and calloused, but its electric charge was unexpected.
It shouldn’t have been, though, since for the past forty-five minutes we had free-associated on topics that don’t lend themselves to easy or uncomplicated conversation: God, mind, the uselessness of AI, Self-realization (not a typo) and ego-death, gurus, the constancy of change, the Indian fashion-industry, meditation, capitalism, health and healing, life’s unpredictability, Hindu holyman Ramana Maharshi.
His car was a late-model Tesla – ironically, since we also agreed we shouldn’t colonize Mars – enroute to a faraway hospital, where my copilot was undergoing heart surgery. I told him this toward the end of the ride, and he reached back a ringed and metal-braceleted hand to take one of mine.
“Aw, man,” he said. “Blessings come from God.”
That was when something unexpected passed between us.
“For your wife,” he said with earnest intensity.
We conversed a bit more before pulling up to the hospital.
“Thank you,” I told him as I got out. “And thank you for your blessing.”
“Aw, man,” he said. “Blessings come from God.”
“Yes,” I replied. “But thank you for being the conduit.”
A few minutes later I stood next to my copilot’s bed. She had just come out of surgery, pale and weak-voiced and pained of expression. Her escape from the Beyond had been a close one, but her doctors were skilled. With a why-not-it-couldn’t-hurt shrug, I touched her leg with the hand the driver had grasped. Nothing unexpected this time, just a loving gesture of comfort.
Mind you, I am a skeptic in the original sense of the word: an open-minded soul who doesn’t chase after explanations of the inexplicable. And really, earnest handshakes are common enough. But over the next few hours, she went from colorless and tentative to walking with me about the cardio unit, beaming a delighted smile at everything we passed.
Perhaps that’s the way her sort of surgery is supposed to work. I like to think it does.
But on the other hand, every little bit helps.
AS A TEACHER of Jewish children and adults, it’s my job (and joy!) to soak up as much Torah as I can – in the broad sense of “Torah” as “the entire corpus of the Jewish textual tradition.”
Fortunately, there’s no end to it, which makes for some pretty challenging (and rewarding!) job security.
What dwells among those who study Torah together?
But Torah isn’t meant to be studied alone. As it happens, I am blessed (or, if you prefer, lucky) to be involved with a tightknit community of very learned and dedicated individuals, some of whom I’ve known for years, who continually teach me more than I can ever impart to them. Please allow me to introduce you.
The first group of Torah scholars hails from 2001, when my copilot had the great idea to study the weekly portion with our co-congregants on the Shabbat mornings that we weren’t studying with our rabbi once a month. We all met in our living room, and though many no longer walk this planet, others have taken their place, and the dozen-or-so of us now converse online (thank you, COVID) for ninety engrossing minutes every Saturday.
Around 2014, a handful of would-be learners commenced living-room meetings on Thursday mornings at the behest of RM, who wanted to study Mussar (Jewish ethical spirituality). Once again thanks to the pandemic, we shifted Zoomward for an hour on Wednesday mornings and collected a small number of fellow students. Though we’ve now worked our way back to Mussar, we’ve also tackled the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Ezekiel, as well as the pithy rabbinical wisdom of Pirkei Avot.
Then there’s the hourly dive into various texts with two veterans of the preceding collectives: Thursday mornings with RT (a wise and humble night-owl with whom I’m now learning one of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks‘ Torah commentaries), and TR (a brilliant and outspoken mathematician-philosopher with a taste for Maimonides) on Monday afternoons. For nearly two years, it has also been my great pleasure to study by phone for fifteen minutes on Wednesday mornings with BE, a hyper-articulate professional writer, as part of the ongoing program Partners in Protection. And just this past Wednesday, my longtime convalescent friend RR and I took up the weekly Torah portion – partly to learn, and mostly to take her mind off her poor health.
Our rabbis tell us that whenever people speak words of Torah together, the Shekhinah (Divine Presence) dwells among them. Whether or not that’s true, I do know what dwells among those who study together: joy. And isn’t that the same thing?
THE MUSIC KNOWN AS “The Blues” is really only one continuous and endless song, shot through with instrumental solos and deeply pained warbling, as played and sung by a variety of lamentful musicians.
And that’s just fine.
THREE YOUNG MEN relaxed inside an enormous paper-recycling bin circa 1980, musing over their preferred futures.
Youthful dreams don’t always come true. But …
“I want a huge apothecary and knowledge of all kinds of medicinal roots, herbs, and such so I could heal people,” said the short blonde one.
“I want my own piece of land, so nobody could tell me what to do,” said the tall Japanese one.
“I want the world’s biggest library, filled with books of great wisdom,” said the bearded Jewish one.
The first young man left his companions in 2002, mission largely accomplished; the second, last year and likewise. The third is still working on his (the library, not the leave-taking).
My buddy Sputnik’s apothecary existed in considerable and connected chunks strewn throughout his relatively brief life; not to romanticize it, but his curiosity-fueled meanderings (medical and spiritual) always seemed to end up benefitting everyone around him.
My buddy Ralfh took a dark turn. Kind and gentle, yet terribly, terribly lost, he did eventually get his land – and also some serious incarcerations, which he bore as marks of grim defiance.
My quest for “the world’s biggest library” resulted in inheriting the textual legacy of one of this planet’s oldest and most misunderstood peoples. I don’t know it all, by far, but I do know much more than I did – though considerably less than I’ll ever be able to.
Youthful dreams don’t always come true. But sometimes, their ripples may reach beyond imagination. Here’s to absent friends – and the open sea.
YOUR SPIRITUALITY is none of my business.
(A recent sermon. Skip it if you like – you won’t hurt my feelings.)
THERE IS AN OLD STORY about a rabbi who was so engrossed in his Talmudic studies that he didn’t pay attention to the weekly Torah reading. When he was asked by his congregation to deliver a sermon, he ascended the bimah and said: “A good sermon should be about the week’s Torah portion. It should also be true and concise. I do not know what this week’s Torah portion is. That is the truth, and it is concise. Shabbat shalom.”
Not yesterday or tomorrow – but today.
Moshe Rabbeinu – Moses our Teacher – has a similar concise moment in this week’s Torah portion from Deuteronomy. The book is Moses’ recounting and personal perspective of the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. According to the 13th-century Torah commentator Nachmanides, our portion finds Moses wrapping-up the mitzvot – the 613 commandments incumbent on all Jews. Nachmanides says that Moses finishes this long and winding list with Deuteronomy 26:16-17, which reads: “Your G?d Adonai commands you this day to observe these decrees and laws; observe them faithfully with all your heart and soul. You have affirmed this day that Adonai is your G?d, in whose ways you will walk, whose decrees and commandments and laws you will observe, and to hear [G?d’s] voice.”
Notice the repetition of the phrase “this day” – “hayom hazeh.” In verse 16, G?d commands us to keep the mitzvot. In the very next verse, we affirm our willingness to do just that. And what is the upshot, the payoff? That we will hear – “shema” – G?d’s voice. Not yesterday or tomorrow – but today.
One understanding of this could be that doing the mitzvot will add a perception of the Divine to our lives. Keeping Shabbat, welcoming the stranger, paying our employees on time, and observing the festivals – including the upcoming High Holidays – might not bring us material success. But the mitzvot might benefit us in other, more subtle and transcendent ways. They help us become better people by keeping us mindful of the fragile interconnectedness of all things – and in turn, by making us more appreciative of life’s great and small miracles.
But that’s harder than it sounds. After all, keeping hundreds of commandments is a heavy responsibility. And having to keep them every day for the rest of our lives? Help!
However, one of our most famous Torah commentators proposes a solution. Rashi – wine merchant by day, devoted scholar by night – speaks to us from 11th-century France. He says: “The mitzvot should always seem as new to you as on the day you were first commanded to observe them” – this day!
Time can be experienced in two different ways. Sometimes, it’s linear – each day slipping from the future into the past. Sometimes, it’s cyclical – with different seasons bringing their own special blessing, including birth, life, death, rebirth. Jewish time is both linear and cyclical. For example, we celebrate the holidays in the same way every year. But each year finds us in a different physical, intellectual and spiritual place. We grow more mature and – we hope! – more wise, or at least more experienced.
But all we really have is “hayom hazeh” – this day, which has never been before, and will never be again. So my question today is, “How do you make your observances fresh and new, and meaningful to you?“
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