Tag: moments

All that we ever really have.

Wonder Standing

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 more than I did – though considerably less than there is to know.

Youthful dreams don’t always come true. But sometimes, their ripples may reach beyond imagination. Here’s to absent friends – and the open sea.

New & Then

(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?“

G?d’s Hamsters

(With welcome help from special guest star Ann Autumn.)

“The end is in the beginning and yet you go on.” – Samuel Beckett, Endgame

You can’t know who you are without knowing where you’ve been.

Mr. Beckett, most famously the author of Waiting for Godot, was not Jewish. By all accounts, though raised in a religious home, he identified as atheist. Yet the above quote could have been describing this week’s Torah portion, Devarim (Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22), the first parasha of the Torah’s final book.

Moses begins “his” book – a 14,294-word Mosaic monologue – by recalling in some detail the Israelites 40-year desert trek; i.e., the events of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers.

In doing so, our greatest prophet reveals an important truth: You can’t know who you are without knowing where you’ve been. What do you see when you reflect back on your journey? As with Torah’s cast of characters from Genesis forward, along the way there have been others shaping your path – your malachim (“angels,” or “messengers”), your pharaohs, even the occasional stranger pointing the way. As someone once said, “I promise you that along your path you have been helped by people whose names you will never know.”

May we each and all continue forward, looking back when necessary, recognizing that – just as Deuteronomy takes us directly to Genesis – endings are also beginnings, and yet: we go on.

Reverse Coarse

(Sermon delivered yesterday morning. Feel free to skip it if Jewish resilience isn’t your thing.)

HERE’S A QUESTION: Why are we still here?

The traditional opening of any Jewish morning prayer-service, and also what Jews say upon first entering the synagogue, is “Mah tovu ohalecha Yaakov, mishkanotecha Yisrael.” The best-known translation is, “How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling-places, O Israel.”

After all, we’re called the “stiff-necked people” for a reason.

According to tradition, the reasoning behind this practice is nuanced. It expresses the awe and reverence we should feel on entering the Beit Tefilah, the house of prayer. And given its origin, which we’ll examine in a moment, Mah Tovu marks the notional connection between Jews and the outside world.

As we learned by what our Torah reader just chanted, Mah Tovu’s first line appears in this week’s Torah portion. The wizard Bilaam was hired by King Balak to curse the Jews – but every time he opened his mouth, out came blessings instead.

Wouldn’t that be nice? Wouldn’t it be great if the people who cursed us had a change of heart, or at least of tongue? Especially now, given our post- October 7th hellscape?

It takes great courage not to focus on the negative these days – to believe, as Jews have for millennia, that this world can and will be redeemed from oppression and darkness. To believe that if we work very, very hard for it, hate and fear will one day fade into memory. To believe that shalom – peace, harmony, and integrity – will eventually reign for all peoples everywhere.

We are too stubborn to give up this determined and well-ingrained optimism. After all, we’re called the “stiff-necked people” for a reason.

But times are scary and bad right now. That’s one reason why, instead of the traditional Mah Tovu, Shir Shalom’s services are beginning with, “Hinei mah tov uma naim, shevet achim gam yachad” – roughly translated as “How good it is, and how pleasant, for siblings to sit together.”

Because it is.

We’ve sat together during other scary and bad times: under the Egyptians, who enslaved us. The Babylonians, who destroyed our first Holy Temple. The Romans, who banned Torah study upon pain of death.

But I don’t want us to wallow in injustice and pain. I want to emphasize that despite the most unspeakable circumstances, we have always survived. More than that, we’ve thrived, serially outliving one oppressor after another, and another.

So my question is: What’s our secret? How is it that we continually overcome Jewish curses with Jewish blessings? Jewish misery with Jewish joy? Again: Why are we still here?

[pass the mic: the congregation’s dozen-or-so answers included “that we teach our children to be Jews,” “chutzpah,” “G?d’s love/covenant,” and “chicken soup.” One woman captured the general spirit by saying, “I am proud to be Jewish – and I wouldn’t want to be anything else.”]

Thank you, everyone. May we all have the strength to go forth and do likewise. Shabbat shalom.

Elder Weisenheimers

THERE IS MUCH VALUE IN friendships – even more so in those that are decades long.

In 1986, I began working at the Northern California Renaissance Pleasure Faire’s fencing booth. Dubbed the privateer ship “Cardiff Rose” (after the 1976 Roger McGuinn song/album of the same title), we taught people to swordfight using foils; we also staged exhibition bouts with epee, saber, shenai, main-gauche, and other martial implements. These shows drew in many guests, as did our hawkers (myself among them), and an unspeakably tightknit and rollicking good time was had by all – until our much beloved Black Point Forest site was sold to condo developers ’round 2000.

It’s important for Village Elders to know how to pass on what they know.

After that original RenFaire closed, some of us migrated en masse (swords included) to similar “living history” events, including The Great Dickens Christmas Fair. But we also see each other at annual picnics in an undisclosed East Bay park. My copilot (then coworker) and I met at RenFaire in 1988, and recently attended one such reunion. As we drove regretfully home (it’s hard to say goodbye to unique friends you’ve known for almost 40 years), the following discussion ensued, dutifully recorded elsenet (edited here for clarity):

Friends, Roses, countryfolk – lend me your brains.

It was so good to see, connect with, and learn from everyone, which is invariably the case whenever we gather. The thought occurred – and I’m still puzzling the why of it – that our longtime, lifetime Cardiff Rose association-web is good training for becoming Village Elders.

Stay with me here.

1. We are for the most part a generally and generously accepting group of people (we’re all misfits on some level, which helps), except when it comes to militant/willful stupidity. Village Elders may welcome the strange(r), but they also don’t take no guff.

2. The prefatory acronym AKICITR – “All Knowledge Is Contained In The Rose,” which we all use to pose online questions to activate our “hive mind” – is amusing, yes, but also true thanks to our vasty array of eclectic educations, singular experiences, and multiform talents. And what we don’t know, we know how to learn about. Village Elders must be, or at least be perceived to be, sources of wisdom.

3. Strictly as a collective, it would be fair to say that “we’ve seen it all” (see point #2), while mostly avoiding the discomfort of world-weariness by dint of a sardonic sense of humor. Village Elders without such a humor-sense are just crotchety old fussbudgets and get-off-my-lawn shouters.

4. Many of us have (or teach) younglings. It’s important for Village Elders to know how to pass on what they know.

Anyway, that’s the view from behind these eyeballs. What do you think?

This can’t at all capture our seamless friendships’ ineffable essence, but I hope it conveys some of the flavor; we would not be the people we are today without each other. Here’s to good (and sadly, some now-absent) friends – and to life! [clink]

Where Are You?

(Sermon for Parashat Vayikra [Leviticus 1:1-5:26], 4/5/25.)

THIS WEEK’S TORAH PORTION, LIKE the entire book of Leviticus it’s taken from, asks: “How do we get close to G?d – and survive?”

Leviticus’ answer is excruciatingly detailed – so much so that it strikes fear into b’mtzvah students whose birthdays fall anytime during its reading season. But this third book of the Torah opens simply enough, with G?d having Moses tell the Israelites: “When any of you presents an offering to Adonai…”

Note the operative word: “when.” Not if, but when. The Torah assumes that our ancestors would do like their surrounding cultures, and worship their deity by sacrificing slaughtered animals on a flaming altar. So ingrained was this practice that if Moses and his charges could see us gathered here this morning, they’d wonder why we don’t offer animals like they did – as the Torah tells them to do.

In fact, the purpose of this “offering” is built into the Hebrew word that depicts it: “korban,” which shares its kuf-reish-bet root with the word “kiruv,” meaning “to draw near.”

There is something very moving about the idea of sharing an intimate meal with G?d.

The esteemed Torah commentator Rashi emphasizes that our portion begins by talking about voluntary offerings – not those brought to atone for a sin or other trespass. When someone felt the need for a spiritual boost for whatever reason, they would bring to the Altar whatever their means allowed – domestic ruminants, turtledoves, matzah, or even raw flour. If they wanted to express to G?d their gratitude, for example, their animal’s fats and organs would burn on the Altar, and its meat would be consumed by the worshipper and their friends and relations.

There is something very moving about the idea of sharing an intimate meal with G?d. It’s quite the contrast to the people’s attitude at the foot of Sinai in Exodus 20:16. There, they heard G?d’s voice and subsequently begged Moses: “You speak to us and we will listen; but let not G?d speak to us, lest we die.”

The word translated as “we will listen” is “nishma” – from the root shin-mem-ayin, or “Shema.” (Sound familiar?) Indeed, the concept of Shema is so important that we’re commanded to focus on it in prayer twice daily. That’s reminiscent of the twice-daily offerings burning on the Altar of the Mishkan (Tabernacle) – and later, the Holy Temple.

But the question remains wherever religious folk gather: How do we experience G?d, the Divine, the Holy One, or however you think of It? Through study? Prayer? Acts of kindness? Something else entirely? Let’s listen to each other, and hopefully learn a little something…

[PASS MICROPHONE]
The handful of replies included “In nature,” “Random moments of intuition,” and finally, “Just sitting in silence.”
[THEN]

Thank you, everyone, for your input and insights. Riffing on that last answer, the Sufi poet Rumi once said, “G?d speaks in silence. Everything else is a poor translation.” Shabbat Shalom.

We’re All Americans, Dammit

I’VE SAID THIS BEFORE, BUT it’s more important now than ever:

“I pledge allegiance to the Constitution
Of the United States of America
And to the ideal on which it stands:
One nation of individuals
Indivisibly intertwined
With liberty, justice, and peace for all.”

(So help me, G?d. And so help all of us.)

False Economy

SO THERE I WAS, PEEPING through the window of the Eureka, California post office, waiting for my elusive boss to enter her across-the-street cafe.

The year was 1988 – a time of great personal upheaval, both good and bad. Through a combination of circumstances, my then-new girlfriend and I were trying to make a go of it in that sleepy, downbeat North Coast city. Jobs were hard to come by, at least for a journeyman printer like me, and when I saw a newspaper ad promising to train someone as a coffeehouse clerk I sprang into delighted and determined action.

At first, things were pleasant. The cafe’s owner, who I’ll call Simone, was friendly and easygoing, as were the customers, and once I had figured out the espresso machine and sandwich-making regimens I felt reasonably financially secure (and competently useful) for the first time in weeks.

Then “Dave” walked in, an itinerant handyman who lived in a big blue van well-stocked with tools of every description.

“You’re new here, huh?” he said as I handed him a double espresso and a roast beef on rye. “Simone paid you yet?”

“I’ve only been here a couple days,” I replied. “Payday’s Friday.”

“Yeah? Right. Good luck.”

Friday arrived, and at closing time, I asked Simone for my wages.

“I’m a little short right now,” she said wistfully, “and I have to move some things around at the bank. Can you wait until tomorrow?”

“Well …. I suppose so.”

Tomorrow became today, and Simone appeared late that afternoon as I was building a turkey croissant.

“I’m SO sorry,” “she said wistfully. “I just missed the bank’s hours. Can I pay you Monday?”

“I don’t know, Simone…”

“I promise. Monday morning, as soon as the bank opens.”

Monday’s dawn broke, typically foggy and grey, with me outside the cafe waiting for Simone to arrive.

She didn’t.

Neither did she on Tuesday.

Nor Wednesday.

Meanwhile, my daily phone messages went unanswered, both at the cafe and at the number purporting to be Simone’s home.

Hence, my Thursday-morning stakeout.

I can’t believe I’m doing this, I thought with one of many impatient sighs. Who am I, James Bond? But I also can’t believe I’m not going to make rent or buy groceries this week.

Suddenly, Simone’s red Gremlin pulled up across the street. As she exited her car, I exited the post office.

“Simone!” I called, breaking into a fast trot. “Hey! Simone!”

Her beseeching eyes reflected helpless and apologetic dread, but before she could say anything, I spoke with uncharacteristic bluntness.

“Look here, Simone,” I said. “I like you, and I like working here, but I need to get paid – like right now!”

Tears came to her eyes. “You don’t understand!” she sobbed. “I can’t afford to pay you. All I have is this cafe and what’s in it. I owe so many people so much money; my life is in shambles, and I’m just as much a victim as you are…”

“I don’t mean to sound harsh, Simone, but frankly, that’s not my concern. I’m not going to leave this place without your paying me.”

And that was how, and why, my girlfriend and I feasted that week on thick sandwiches of roast beef and turkey breast. Victory is indeed sweet – and sometimes, savory.

“Room 101 Amusement Park”

RELAXING IN PUBLIC CAN SOMETIMES bring unexpected consequences.

Seated in the Walnut Creek BART station in the spring of 1980, I was reading my well-thumbed copy of 1984. So engrossed was I in Orwell’s pessimistic prose that I didn’t hear the man approach.

“You’re only reading this NOW!?” he demanded in an outraged bellow.

His intensity belied his nonchalant appearance: mid-30s, cleanshaven, plaid shirt, blue jeans, loafers. Although he seemed a normal human (for some values of the words “normal” and “human”), it also seemed best not to provoke him.

“No,” I replied with calm sincerity. “I’ve read it a couple of times.”

His blue eyes speared mine with an emphatic glare.

“Good!” he declared, and stalked off toward the escalator.

I guess it pays to be polite.

“You Can’t Avoid the Void!”

IT DOESN’T REALLY MATTER WHERE or when I was, beyond that it was a high place from which I felt an overwhelming urge to jump.

I felt neither depressed nor sad nor suicidal. But I did feel scared, though mostly of the compulsion. In fact, I retained an echo of those feelings, not to mention utter perplexity, until happening across a healthline.com article which told me that such compulsions are very, very common. Normal, even.

It’s known as the “Call of the Void.” (In the original French, because the French have words for everything experientially interesting, “l’appel du vide.”) In clinical terms, it’s referred to as “High-Place Phenomenon,” and can also involve other aspects of self-harm: leaping in front of a train, steering one’s car into oncoming traffic, or sticking one’s hand into a garbage disposal. Naturally, these urges are quickly suppressed. And no one quite knows why we have such episodes – they may simply be an artifact of our neurological wiring – but it seems related to anxiety: the more anxious one is, the louder the Void calls.

We humans seem to be repelled by, yet attracted to, vast emptiness: the gulfs between stars and galaxies; abyssal ocean depths; wide-open deserts; untenanted warehouses; the view from a mountaintop. (BTW, the worst vertigo I ever experienced was while [very briefly!] standing on my head atop Northern California’s Mount Diablo – I literally felt as though I was dropping into the sky. Brrr.) Perhaps such things remind us of our insignificance. Perhaps we just don’t know what to do with (or in) them. Getting lost in immensity carries a deep discomfort; it blurs the lines we draw between Is and Is-Not. And that can be downright scary.

The most important thing to do when the Void calls? Don’t answer.

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