Ahz mah (So what)

According to Jewish mystical tradition, each of us is born with a unique purpose. There is soul work, an inner transformation, that only we can do. We each have to walk our own path to do this soul work – you can’t walk my path, nor can I walk yours. Within this perspective, obstacles that we encounter on the path of life may be understood as opportunities for personal development and transformation. How you deal with difficulties is part of what makes you who you are. (The tradition goes even further, suggesting that obstacles are gifts, always meant for your benefit – but I find the notion of “opportunities” less theologically problematic than “gifts.”) The tradition also suggests that each person is born with unique soul characteristics, a unique combination of attributes and temperament. This too is related to the transformative work we need to do. For example, a person may need to transform the relative weight of anger and patience they were born with. In this week’s Torah reading...

I had a wonderful long talk about God recently with a seven-year-old friend of mine, who gave me permission to mention our conversation today. I had asked her to meet with me over the summer because I needed her help in thinking through how to talk about God.  My little friend told me that sometimes before she falls asleep she wrestles with the question of whether or not God exists. She then articulated for me the logic she was using: Either such-and-such is true, in which case God exists; or such-and-such is true, in which case God does not exist. It sounded like it was only a matter of time before she would come to a logical conclusion. As I listened, and as I heard the either/or nature of the logic, I tentatively offered her what I had been thinking about, as another way of framing the question of God’s existence. Then together we played around with ways to say it that would be understandable and useful. I hoped that this alternate way of framing the question would perhaps liber...

We tend to think of generosity primarily in terms of the willingness to give money or material possessions. But actually, in Jewish tradition, financial giving to support the community as well as those less fortunate is considered an obligation, not an expression of generosity. Tsedakah, which is often erroneously translated as charity, actually means righteousness. So financial giving is understood to be an expression of justice and covenant, not so much of generosity. Supporting the community as well as those less fortunate is just what we Jews do, regardless of how we feel. Generosity, on the other hand, is understood in Judaism to be a movement of the heart. There is a quality of openness and giving that arises in the heart and manifests as a sharing of self as well as a sharing of material possessions. I believe that generosity is both an attitude and an activity. It is a fundamental spiritual practice, closely associated with the practice of gratitude. Generosity is about acts of...

Wavy Gravy was, and continues to be, a serious social activist and philanthropist as well as a very funny clown. In his 70s now, he is perhaps best known for his role as m.c. at Woodstock 40 years ago. Many of his impromptu statements back then became enshrined as 60s slogans. My favorite: “We’re all bozos on this bus, so we might as well sit back and enjoy the ride.” Believe it or not, this is one of the deepest messages of the Jewish holy day Yom Kippur: We are stumbling, bumbling, goofy human beings. We keep trying, and we keep falling on our faces, and it’s all okay. We’re doing the best we can. And we’re all on the same bus, together. But as Elizabeth Lesser writes in her wonderful book “Broken Open,” the source of our suffering is that we keep imagining that there is some other bus on which the passengers are all healthy, happy, gorgeous, and well-dressed! But that’s an illusion, and Yom Kippur is about shattering illusions. We are all just lovable, flawed bozos on this bus calle...

In the Jewish mystical understanding of human nature (humans being a microcosm of the cosmos as a whole), there is a dynamic tension between the forces of lovingkindness and strict judgment. Chesed is the Hebrew word for lovingkindness. Gevurah is strict judgment. Too much of one at the expense of the other, and life is intolerable. Both in our emotional life, and in our interactions with others, the healthy goal is balance. What some people call the Inner Judge is a manifestation of too much Gevurah, strict judgment insufficiently balanced by lovingkindness. I know from personal experience, this voice of judgment can be merciless. Unrelenting. Taking it a step further, the mystics boldly assert that Gevurah untempered by Chesed is the source of evil in the world. Rosh Hashanah teters on this balance between Gevurah and Chesed. Our high holiday liturgy is filled with expressions of the cosmic quality of judgment. It’s hard to miss. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were designed by the anci...