February, 2023 Megillah
RABBI'S NOTES
This afternoon has been a double-header for me: the Elders’ Conversation followed quickly by the Die-ers’ Club. Quick, send me some Play-Doh recipes and lullabies! Actually both gatherings were beautiful, and I was grateful to be part of both. I find it ever-renewing to hear people, especially people I love and respect, reflecting on how to live good, meaningful, whole lives. The topic today for the Elders was “living alone.” I can share that much, though not more, since the content of our conversation was intimate, revealing and, as always, confidential.
I can speak for myself, though. Not everyone in the group lives alone, but I now do. It has made me more aware than ever of the small challenges of daily life. The big ones I already knew about. I know who to call if the roof leaks, if my car breaks down, if I get sick. But what about when my cat brought a living squirrel into the house, who then ran under something and disappeared? Or when I want to make a burn pile and am not quite sure how to get it ignited? Or if I’m bored and cranky and really need to take a walk, but can’t get myself out the door? Or if I need help building my sukkah? Who do I call then?
I think a lot about that question, “Who do I call then?” Not so much for myself, as I am richly blessed with beloved neighbors and close-by friends who are used to my calls and lovingly responsive to my dilemmas and crises, small and large. But I am convinced that one of the keys to having a happy and a safe life here on the coast is to have good, dependable answers to that question.
Many years ago I took a sabbatical and read books and interviewed people about community. I read a book called Counterfeit Community: The Exploitation of our Longings for Connectednessby John L. Freie, which made a huge impression on me. I keep coming back to Freie’s basic argument. In fact, I’m sure I’ve written about it now and then here in the Megillah. Freie talks about how American loneliness makes us susceptible to all kinds of things that call themselves “community.” From Applebee’s “Neighborhood Bar” to gated senior communities to drive-in mega-churches, pseudo-community gets marketed to us. (Freie published this book back in 1998, when the internet was just a glimmer of what it is now. Imagine what he could point to today!)
By contrast, he defines real community almost entirely in quantitative terms: real community is where people have many interactions with each other. He describes a neighborhood where children play on sports teams together, parents sell hot dogs at the games and volunteer in the schools; where people shop in each other’s stores and bowl in the local bowling alley, go to neighborhood places of worship and drink in neighborhood bars, employ each other, even fire each other, fight with each other, oppose each other over issues. In a real community, people know each other’s back-stories. They know each other’s sorrows and needs and peccadilloes. More interaction equals more community.
I also interviewed (or really had a long, fun dinner with) the great local visionaries Jim and Judy Tarbell, right when they and some of their neighbors were beginning to organize the Caspar Community. What I remember from that conversation was the idea that one productive habit of community building is to take your needs and interests to the community, rather than trying to manifest them privately. So if you need help with childcare or want to work on your Spanish or learn to prune your fruit trees, you put that query out to the community and connect with the experts who respond. More interaction; more conversation; more community.
For a long time I observed these habits of community enacted all around me, in the Jewish community, and in Mendocino, and Elk and Albion, where I have lived. It seemed like people gave each other rides, helped with household tasks, counseled and consoled each other, ate meals together, knew each other’s extended families, circled around in times of crisis, and came together in ways that multiply the fibers of community.
I think and hope that this is still happening. But I wonder if there are some holes in that fabric? Maybe always, but especially these days when there are greater wealth disparities than I recall from earlier days, when people have moved here from places where they’re used to more services being available, when it takes more hours to earn a living than it might have in the past, when a lot of my old friends really are old now (not to mention myself…) and can’t climb ladders and stack firewood and drive long distances? Especially now, after three years of COVID isolation, after many of us are habituated to shopping and socializing and organizing online?
Some years ago Mina introduced me to the idea of a gemach. She learned of it from her daughter Elana’s orthodox community in Jerusalem. Gemach is an acronym for gemilut hasadim, deeds of lovingkindness. (It’s one of the “deeds without measure whose reward is also without measure.” You knew that!) The gemach in Elana’s community is a kind of catalogue of items available to borrow. Need a baby swing? a FAX machine? costume jewelry? something laminated? a hot plate? Call so and so. Various people in the community have these items to loan out to others in the community.
The gemach does at least two important things: it makes it so that everyone doesn’t need to buy their own baby swing or hot plate, and it causes people to call each other, to go to each other’s homes. It’s possible that there are chats in the driveway when the costume jewelry is being dropped off, maybe a cup of tea shared while the laminating machine is warming up. In these not-very-demanding ways, it ups the count of interactions between people that, over time, strengthen community. Maybe it even leads to new friendships.
Paige and I are excited about creating an MCJC gemach. She has created a simple database that allows any of us to say what we have to loan out and also what we might be looking for. Paige inaugurated it by offering the use of two kayaks. I added two pressure canners and some folding tables. We’re working on ways to make it really simple for both the tech-comfortable and the pen and paper folks in our community to be able to see what’s being offered and also to put out queries for things being sought. Look for the gemach clipboard at MCJC gatherings and add your offerings and requests. Or e-mail Paige at lincenberg@gmail.com, and she will add them. Or do it the new-fashioned way by going to this Google doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18VpVqbopG399GSnu6ScwR2R3PZqbfjENAobPaQ4gAiI/edit#gid=0
We’re both looking forward to growing our MCJC gemach into something that fits and serves and weaves our community. What do you wish you could borrow from someone in the community? What might you have to offer? Who would you call?
PAIGE NOTES
Chodesh tov! This Hebrew month of Shevat greets us right after the majestic rainstorms that brought some of us into the liturgical state of trembling in awe. Now we get to plant that many more seeds, having that much more water to feed them. We find ourselves in this sweet season of still very much being in winter, yet with increasingly brighter days and the sap in trees beginning to rise.
In autumn, with our High Holiday insights and the leaves falling, we might feel descending energy of Divine connection coming down to us.
In the month of Shevat, with sap rising, leading towards the expansion of Pesach and blooming ahead, we reach our arms up like branches, growing toward the Divine. As Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (z”l) taught, “We are all theotropic beings. Just as the sunflower turns toward the sun and we call it heliotropic, I believe that all beings are theotropic: we grow naturally toward God.” Whether “God” for you means Shechinah, the Oneness, Spirit, or whatever word most authentically resonates, may we together embody trees lifting their waters and sugars from their roots up to their branches, and reach up toward these post-rain sunny skies together.
with blessings on your month of slowly rising,
paige
