February, 2024 Megillah
RABBI'S NOTES
We’ve just had two inconsequential presidential primaries and can expect a bunch more over the months to come. I know I wrote my very last “Rabbi’s Notes” about the virtues of not predicting what hasn’t happened yet. And don’t worry, I won’t do that here. But I’ve been thinking….
A dreadful war is underway in Israel and Gaza. Another dreadful war is underway in Ukraine. There are other terrible armed conflicts in the daily headlines. Authoritarian leaders are already long in place in some countries and are rising to power in many others, possibly including our own. Meanwhile, violence against people based on their race or religion or economic situation or gender presentation or political affiliation or… is on the rise, including acts of antisemitic violence. Severe climate and events are more frequent and everywhere sea level rise is causing problems. It is just possible—and this is not a prediction—that things will get more difficult in days to come.
So I am starting to look at the interval that we are in now—between this moment and, say, next January 20—as a time to ready ourselves, individually and as a community, for the possibility of hard times. I hope with all my heart that this is not inevitable, that life will become easier, safer, more sustainable, more welcoming, for us and for everyone. And of course life is never all one way; it can be hard one day and easeful the next, or catastrophic in one house and peaceful next door.
But we may face challenges in weeks and years to come that are beyond what many of us have ever faced before. As I think about this (ever hoping against hope), I ask myself, what we could be doing now that would make us more resilient and equable in a scary future.
To whatever extent I have any answers, and they are minimal, what comes to me are spiritual more than practical. I am asking myself, and anyone else who is up for talking with me about this, what are the traits, practices and understandings that would help us face future challenges if and when they arise? This is a kind of mussar question: what middot, what qualities, can we strengthen in ourselves, and help each other to strengthen, that will enable us to meet hardship with as much grace as possible?
As I’ve been posing this question to my wise and beautiful friends, one sent me to the book Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman, who is best known as the writer of the “I Have a Dream” speech for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I got a copy and started in. Interestingly, Thurman writes at length about how the religion of Jesus was shaped by his being Jewish. Judaism at the time of Jesus was preoccupied with political and cultural struggle with Hellenism. There were Jews who sought to ally with Syrian Greeks, and others who felt intensely nationalistic (we know this history from Hanukkah). Thurman writes:
[Jesus’] message focused on the urgency of a radical change in the inner attitude of the people. He recognized fully that emerging from the heart are the issues of life and no external force, however great and overwhelming, can at long last destroy a people if it does not first win the victory of the spirit over them. Again and again he came back to the inner life of the individual. With increasing insight and startling accuracy he placed his finger on the “inward center” as the crucial arena where the issues would determine the destiny of his people.
Thurman goes on:
The urgent question was what must be the attitude towards Rome. In essence, Rome was the enemy; Rome symbolized total frustration; Rome was the great barrier to peace of mind. And Rome was everywhere. No Jewish person of the period could deal with the question of his practical life, his vocation, his place in society, until first he had settled deep within himself this critical issue. This is the position of the disinherited in every age.
Another friend gave me the lovely little book Practicing Peace by the Tibetan Buddhist teacher Pema Chödron. She begins by talking about patience, not only in the sense of waiting calmly for the plumber to call back, but in a way which is both larger and more personal. Chödron writes: “There is a teaching that says that behind all hardening and tightening and rigidity of the heart, there’s always fear. But if you can touch fear, behind fear there is a soft spot. And if you touch that soft spot, you find the vast blue sky.” She counsels, “This is the real work of the peacemaker, to find the soft spot and the tenderness in that very uneasy place and stay with it.”
Touching the hard spot where fear resides and taking all the time needed to allow it to open. These are beautiful cues for us as we decide what to cultivate in order to face challenges, personal or worldwide.
I’ve shared these two beautiful teachings from different traditions because they were given to me by people mulling this same question. Of course the treasure box of Jewish tradition is brimming with tools and teachings to help us be strong and resonant during even the most challenging times. We can unwrap some of these together over the months to come.
I hope that we strengthen ourselves and each other, building bonds of love and courage, curiosity, deep listening and faith. And I hope that, even as we do, we find that life is beneficent, and we have strengthened and deepened as individual souls and as a community even though no crisis ever came. All we did was love each other more, touch that inward center in each of our souls and in each other, move past fear to see the vast blue sky. I hope that’s all we had to do.
PAIGE NOTES
February greets us this year as the faithful Shevat moon wanes towards the new moon of Adar next week. We happen to find ourselves in a leap year in both the Gregorian and Hebrew calendars, so in addition to adding February 29th, we’re also adding an entire extra month of Adar! Every year we always have the month Adar Bet, but every few years, we add Adar Aleph. This is because in a lunar calendar, the holidays get pushed around between the seasons. For example, in the Islamic lunar calendar, Ramadan falls in any season, depending on the year. However, since Jewish holidays tend to be so Earth-based, with Pesach beautifully aligning with the sentiments of the spring, Sukkot rooting in the autumn harvest, and so on, we add a leap month in order to keep the holidays in their appropriate seasons.
This means this year we get a breath between Tu B’Shevat and Purim. Were we not to add this extra month, we would have three holidays three full moons in a row: Tu B’Shevat, Purim, & Pesach. By adding Adar Aleph, we get an extra full moon in there all to ourselves. Maybe consider doing something meaningful on this bonus full moon. It happens to fall on Shabbat, February 24th, so it could be an opportunity to honor Shabbat a little differently or add in a personalized holiday that speaks to your soul’s faith.
I love that we call it a “leap year” because the main other phrase with the word leap is a “leap of faith.” Reb Zalman (z”l) beautifully plays with this notion in his book Jewish with Feeling. He notes that,
The expression 'a leap of faith' is so true. Faith is not something we can arrive at by a careful, step-by-step process. It is not something we can square with our intellect. Faith does not make sense, nor does it feel safe. It is what takes us further after the questions that can be answered logically have been exhausted. To have faith, we must let go. Faith is like swimming the backstroke, reaching above and behind into an unknown we cannot see. Faith is like driving forward with only the rearview mirror as a guide.
So may this leap month of Adar Aleph feed our faith, in all the mysterious ways that life does.
with leaping faith,
rabbi paige
