Tag: people

Ones I have known, if even tangentially.

All Together Now

[Sermon delivered at yesterday morning’s service. Read on if you’d like a unitarian (sic) hug.]

This drash may sound a bit like a promotion for November 25th’s interfaith Thanksgiving service, or our Thursday afternoon KSVY radio show. And it is! But please stay with me – I’m going somewhere else with it too.

Our Torah portion, Toledot, is devoted to the early lives of twin brothers Esau and Jacob. Esau, a hunter, comes off pretty badly in classical Torah commentaries. The sages and rabbis complain about him as lazy, cruel, and for preferring a bellyful of beans over his birthright inheritance. They judge Esau unfit to carry forward the holy nation-building mission bequeathed him by his grandfather and father, Abraham and Isaac.

But the Torah also shows glimmers of Esau’s decency. When he learns that the local wives he’s married displease his parents, he tries to make amends. Earlier in the portion, the text implies that Esau wears his best clothes when feeding his father Isaac the food he craves most.

Nevertheless, these small kindnesses don’t count for much in the rabbinical mind. The Talmudic sage Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai even puts it this way: “It is well known that Esau hates Jacob.” In fact, the Talmud paints Esau as the progenitor of the most Jewishly oppressive authorities in ancient and medieval times: the Roman Empire and the early Church.

But the Romans are now dust, and ever since the Vatican II reforms of the early 1960s, the Church has largely welcomed us as long-lost siblings. And there’s even a Hebrew ambiguity in the Torah that prophesies – well, let me back up to the beginning.

In Genesis 25:23, Rebecca asks G?d why her pregnancy pains are so intense. G?d replies: “Two nations are in your womb, two separate peoples shall issue from your body; one people shall be mightier than the other, and the elder shall the younger serve (v’rav ya’avod tzair).”

Scholars like Richard Eliot Friedman and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks tell us that the grammar of “v’rav ya’avod tzair” is very fuzzy. These words can be translated as either “the younger shall serve the elder” or “the elder shall serve the younger.” The word “ya’avod” shares the same root as “avodah” – “service.” This service can refer to worship, but also to serving other people.

So important is avodah that Pirkei Avot calls it one of the three things on which the world stands: “on Torah, on service, and on acts of kindness.” Seen this way, G?d’s ambiguous prophecy might envision Esau’s and Jacob’s descendants serving each other. And you may (or may not) be surprised to find that this happens right here at home.

We all know that Sonoma Valley is a special place to live. One of the many, many things that make it so is Sonoma Valley’s Interfaith Ministerial Association. Once a month, more than a dozen members and leaders of Valley faith communities sit down together in our Community Room: Catholics, Presbyterians, Jews, Christian Scientists, Episcopalians, and Native Americans, to name a few. This group invites various city and county officials and nonprofit representatives to attend, and asks them a simple question: “How can we help?”

Those answering that question range from Sonoma’s Mayor and Chief of Police to Vintage House’s new elder care concierge. La Luz’s executive director. The founder of Care Partners dementia support. Hanna Center’s mental health team. Disaster responders. And a throng of others whose mission it is to serve – and by doing so, to build a better world.

It’s not everywhere that people of different faith traditions get along so well. In many places, it’s almost unheard of. But In Sonoma Valley, “interfaith” is more than a pretty and aspirational word. It’s a way of life – and of mutual service.

Shabbat shalom.

Shhhh. It’s “God.”

DEPENDING ON WHO’S reading this, I am about to sound either enlightened or nutty; I don’t really care which, and it doesn’t really matter. (As this blog’s tagline goes, “Those Who Know, Chuckle.”)

One of my favorite rabbis/writers, Jay Michaelson, wrote a book some years ago called Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism. R’ Michaelson’s thesis is that “nonduality” – the idea that everything and everyone is a manifestation of the Divine, rather than G?d being somehow separate from or “above” the physical universe – has as significant a place in Judaism as it does in other mystical traditions (e.g., Vedanta, Sufism, Zen Buddhism, &c).

I began reading this remarkable book a few days ago, and before I had gotten twelve pages in I fired off a fanmail to its author thanking him for having “validated every spiritual experience I have ever had” (if you’re curious, here’s the most profound and lasting one). What makes this book so compelling, at least to me, is R’ Michaelson’s style: matter-of-fact without being “woo-woo,” widely educated but without pretension, and warmly relatable without dumbing down.

Above all, R’ Michaelson emphasizes that the nondual experience can’t be fully described – not because description isn’t allowed, but because isn’t possible. (Or, as he puts it: “In the Jewish tradition, secret traditions are not secret because they are rarely disclosed. They are secret because they are experiential, and thus cannot be disclosed at all.”)

Despite that such experiences don’t lend themselves to words, some teachers make doing so look easy. Rabbi Michaelson is one of those teachers, and Everything is God is one of those books.

Speechless in Sonoma

AFTER SERVICES TODAY (one of my students was celebrating their b’mitzvah), I complimented their old grandfather (about my late dad‘s age: north of 85?), on his Ashkenazic (Eastern European) Hebrew accent. We began talking, and at one point he had me stand shoulder-to shoulder with him, each of us facing in the opposite direction.

“In my shul – I must have been 10? 11? – there were these two men who used to stand like this and pray,” he explained.

“Why did they do that?” I asked.

“They were in the camps,” he said. “And they weren’t allowed to talk.”

The thought of two Jews risking their lives in the mist of Hell to pray as Jews, while keeping their eyes open for trouble and torment, suddenly struck me speechless.

“Thank you for telling me that,” I eventually said in a hollow voice. “I will never forget this story.”

I hope you won’t either.

Hearing Aid

A message in today’s congregational newsletter. It’s a Jewish thing, but also universal.

Listening.

It’s one of the most important things people can do for each other. It’s so important, in fact, that our Torah teaches us to speak of it – in the Shema – twice daily.

The Hebrew root of “shema” is shin-mem-ayin. In this week’s Torah portion, Eikev, that root surfaces in its doubled/emphatic form (Deuteronomy 11:13) as part of the Shema’s second paragraph.

The word “shema” is usually translated as “hear” or “listen,” and when it’s doubled it means “really listen.” However, there is no single English word that perfectly captures its multiple shades of meaning – which can also include “understand,” “take seriously,” and “hear in order to act.”

“When you encounter a word in any language that is untranslatable into your own,” Rabbi Jonathan Sacks says, “you are close to the beating pulse of that culture. To understand an untranslatable word, you have to move out of your comfort zone and enter a mindset that is significantly different from yours.”

He goes on to define listening as a deeply spiritual act. It can also be painful, since what we hear may sometimes challenge our own worldview. But it’s through meeting that challenge – listening to others who may not agree with us, who may think and feel differently than we’re used to thinking and feeling – that we can open ourselves to growing and developing in ways that might never have occurred to us.

“Listening is the greatest gift we can give to another human being,” Rabbi Sacks concludes. “To be listened to, to be heard, is to know that someone else takes me seriously […] it changes not only the one who is heard, but the listener as well.”

May we all be strong and brave enough to really listen to each other – and to willingly go wherever that listening takes us.

Double Identity

IN ADDITION TO what else one may find in a wallet (money, DL, &c.), mine contains two cards that license me as a member of the clergy.

They’re neither what you think – I’m not a rabbi, nor will I likely become one in this life – but they do tell a semi-religious story nonetheless.

The first came c. 1999, after a friend who was a member of the Universal Life Church asked me if I too wanted to be ordained. “Sure! What do I need to do?” I asked him. After anointing my head with a frosty cold one (it was a very hot day, in the way that only Northern California Renaissance Pleasure Faire days can be very hot), he declared, “You’re in.” He then told me where to write and receive my free ordination credentials.

ULC espouses a single creed: “Know your beliefs and be true to them.” And because ULC is legally recognized in California (and other enlightened states) for solemnizing weddings, I have since married a handful of friends – which was, really, why I wanted ordainment in the first place.

The other ordination, also legally recognized in some places, belongs to the Church of the SubGenius. Those behind that inexplicable parody religion/religious parody/living art project published a trade paperback in 1983 which – much like science-fiction conventions and DEVO – assured lonely misfits that they too had a place, and a people, they could call their own. Of course, I took to it in a big, enthusiastic way.

Unlike the ULC, the CotS then charged $20 for an ordination kit. So, justifying it as for a good cause, I mailed a Jackson to their Dallas, Texas headquarters. Within a week I received an ordination card, a poster of Church frontman J. R. “Bob” Dobbs, and various pieces of SubG propaganda (some of which I distributed in the summer of 1985 at 2 a.m. in Times Square – but that story is classified.)

For a long time, my ULC and CotS “ministries” helped me feel as though I belonged somewhere spiritually important. I am grateful to be able to do that now in other ways. But I will always be respectfully grateful to the Revs. Kirby Hensley and Ivan Stang for opening their secretly famous doors and inviting me in.

Secret Signposts

HIDDEN SOCIAL NETS surround us everywhere we go, and those who know – know.

Example? Sure!

I was shopping in one of my favorite grocery stores earlier today when the guy behind the butchers’ counter noticed my black Firefly T-shirt.

“Nice shirt!” he said with a wide grin.

“Thank you,” I said, bowing.

Now, he could have added something like, “I’m a Firefly fan too.” Or “I really like that series.” Or even “How long have you been a fan?”

But instead, he indicated the leather bomber-jacket I was wearing (Sonoma mornings are cold these days) and said with a wider grin, “I see you’re a real Browncoat.”

If none of this makes sense to you, allow me to explain. Instead of stating the obvious, my fellow fan responded with another insider’s reference. You see, the shirt in question doesn’t feature the title of the show or anything like that – the only way to “get it” is if you recognize the image and motto: a burnt-umber image of the titular spaceship above the motto, “STAY SHINY.” If you don’t, then no harm done. His comment told me right away that he got it. And his grin told me that he was enjoying our little secret signpost as much as I was.

Connections. Isn’t that what it’s all about?

Put Your Hand on the Radio

A RABBINICAL ASSISTANT, two deacons, and a lay mystic walk into a radio studio.

Seriously.

Welcome to the Sonoma Valley Interfaith Radio Hour, a years-old, live and lively round-robin every Thursday afternoon from 3-4pm Pacific Time on Sonoma Valley’s independent station KSVY (91.3 FM and streaming/archived at ksvy.org). It features one Jew (me), the deacons (Presbyterian and Roman Catholic), and a Christian Science practitioner. (With occasional guesting by my rabbi, by an Irish Catholic priest, and by whoever else we can grab from our local ecumenical Cobb salad.)

Our informal discussions cover broad ground: e.g., different faith traditions’ understandings and manifestations of moral and ethical ideals; life-cycle events such as birth, coming of age, marriage and divorce, and dying/mourning; the multiform flavors of our worship services; observing holidays and holy days; encounters with the Bible and other holy books; and how we ourselves each came to our respective “ministries.” We have deep respect for each other’s religious backgrounds and deep attachments to our own – as our Presbyterian emcee puts it, “We’re all swimming in the same direction” – and are on the air not to convert or proselytize, but to educate, enlighten, and (we hope) edify.

What also makes the show work, I think, is that outside of our collegial collective, the Valley prides itself on a thriving interfaith fellowship; we’re so geographically isolated, it’s to our evolutionary advantage to get along as well as we do. It helps, too, that through our long association we have become quite close – itself a byproduct of sharing intensely real conversations every week. And speaking personally, I find that learning about others’ sacred practices makes me understand and appreciate my own that much more. Tune us in and see if that’s true for you!

Silent Revolution

PROPOSAL: EVERYONE-BE-QUIET DAY.

The Idea: We were fretting about leafblowers disturbing the local birds, and wondering what the world would sound like were all the machines to be turned off for a while…

The Action: On June 1, 2026, between 12:01 a.m. and 11:59 p.m. UTC, everyone in the world turns off all cell phones, computers, televisions, radios, games, leafblowers, lawnmowers, weedwhackers and cars — in short everything that beeps, rings, roars, rattles, or makes a sound louder than a normal human conversation and isn’t essential to maintaining human life. (Sort of like The Day The Earth Stood Still, but voluntary.) Conversation is optional during this period, but it might be fun (and instructive?) to enjoy the silence in silence.

The Method: Get the word out by linking this announcement through Facebook, email, Twitter, texting, DMs, Usenet, phone-pole posting, graffiti, listservs, Bluesky, letters to the editor, and whatever remains of talk radio. (Pretty please.)

Motto: “Shhh.”

The Cook For Any Price: Now With Art!

JUST A QUICK NOTE to announce that, thanks to the talents of locally famous Sonoma artist and musician Jon Shannon Williams, my e-books now have handsome new covers – which (I strongly believe) are reminiscent of The Brothers Hildebrandt (Google same if you weren’t a Lord of the Rings fan in the 1970s). Please check him/them out and bask in the glow!

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