RELIGION, OR AT LEAST JEWISH religion, and certainly a root cause of religion’s comfort, appeal and danger, is simply and little more than people doing what they like to do in the way they like and feel compelled to do it.
Tag: It.
… can’t really be named, only experienced.
Gritty Comfortoir
AND AFTER ALL IS SAID and done, and the horrible truth revealed
The bodies taken away, the last question answered
Comes William S Burroughs
(the gravelly graandpa who’s done things the grownups won’t let you ask him about).
“Interdimensional Alka Seltzer,” he says, proffering a grey fizzing mug,
and sits down beside you.
You take the cup.
He speaks volumes with his eyes
(they’ve seen it all, long before you were born)
but his mouth only says
what you wish it always wouldn’t:
“That’s just the way it is, Out Here.”
Slake The Bitterness
FOR MY NEXT TRICK, I will attempt to adapt 1st-century Judaism for 21st-century Americans.
For untraditional Jews, it’s a time of wondering why traditional Jews are so upset over something that happened so many years ago — and deprived us of nothing more than the old-time religion of animal sacrifice. But let’s look past the sheen of nationalist memory and peer into the realm of psychological function.
Continue reading “Slake The Bitterness”
“Judaism As Art”
or, There and Back Again Without Leaving
(BECAUSE OF WORDPRESS, I’M REPUBLISHING this 2002 piece — it works better as a “post” than as a “page” — and although my kippa-wearing has become a bit less pronounced of late it still reflects my approach to finding a place in Judaism. If you’re not hot for apologetics or manifesti, you have my permission to read something else.)
Despite that I’ve worn a yarmulke most of the time since 2000, I don’t define myself as Orthodox. Or Reform. Or, for that matter, as Conservative, Reconstructionist, Renewal or otherwise adjectivally Jewish.
Continue reading ““Judaism As Art””
5 Thoughts: How To Lead Services
0. THE FOLLOWING MAY BE PARTICULAR to Jewish worship services, which are the only sort I’ve led (not counting five weddings and various improvised blessings/moment-summonings). But I’ve tried to adapt the advice for anyone whose worship tradition includes structure and text, and who finds oneself in the liturgical spotlight. Hope it helps; I learned it all the hard way.
1. Know your material. This may sound fairly obvious, but I mean it in a deeper sense: The service-as-conducted is a living breathing entity whose skeleton is the service-as-written. Know the latter like you know your own breathing. At least know how and why it’s structured — what each piece hopes to achieve, and how it leads to the next — and, most importantly, what page everything’s on. (PostIts are a big help here, as is having your own siddur (prayerbook) to notate.) Likewise, see in advance to the functioning of candles, wine, microphones, guitar strings, etc.; there’s nothing like a last-minute surprise on a solemn occasion (ah, but see thought #4). (And if you’re feeling terribly insecure, keep in mind that for group readings you really only need to emphasize the first five words. It takes that long for people to catch on and start drowning you out.)
Continue reading “5 Thoughts: How To Lead Services”
“The Guest House”
SOMEONE WHO LOVES ME SENT me this poem. I offer it to you in the same spirit.
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
(By the 13th-century Persian Sufi poet Jalal al-Din Rumi. Coleman Barks is the translator, but the original was written in Truth.)
Pithyism #5b
SEEING IS BELIEVING — BUT FEELING is experiencing.
Why Eclectic Spirituality Will Not Endure Half So Long As Traditional Religion
NO HOLIDAYS.
Game of Life: Rules
THE UNIVERSE IS FULL OF “Learn Here” stickers, each with a different adhesive strength. Collect enough and you win.
PS to my friend, Lillian, who says, “Define ‘enough'” — if you’re still collecting, you haven’t won yet.
I Am a Religious Man Unthreatened By Science, Secularity And Reason
I Am a Religious Man Unthreatened By Science, Secularity And Reason • 2011.06.09 • 400 words
(IN FACT, THE WHOLE “REASON” I “am” “religious” in the first place is only due to a direct perception [some might say delusion] that the Universe is, in some essential and indescribable sense, alive and conscious. I can’t help seeing that, feeling a part of it, and celebrating it.)
(Also, as much as I love science [and I do!], I’m even more fascinated by rituals and customs, folkways, folklore, manners, stories, legends, and myths. Continue reading “I Am a Religious Man Unthreatened By Science, Secularity And Reason”
Hasidic Zen Riddle
Q: WHAT’S BEYOND GOD?
A: More God.
Your Orders
RESIST ENTROPY.