July-August, 2024 Megillah
RABBI'S NOTES
This is more than you’ve ever wanted to know about me, for sure, but I have a real revulsion for gross body fluids. Even hearing about them can make my gorge rise a bit. So I’ve been noticing the yucky word “festering” lately. As in, “If you don’t speak up about something that bothers you, it stays inside and festers….”
I’ve historically been a person who speaks her mind. Some might even say “spews,” to use another unattractive word. But in more recent years not so much. Sometimes, instead, I let a thought, a feeling, a worry, a hurt stay inside and… compost? Mulch? Get absorbed? Transform? Maybe just live in there along with so much else? Or maybe fester. Less often, explode. I don’t always know.
I’m thinking these days about a continuum with “fester” on one side and “spew” on the other. Or maybe it’s a matrix with other less fluidy words like “listen,” “wonder,” “ask,” “consider.…” I think about this matrix in the personal realm, when someone says or does something that bothers me. Should I say something? If so, what? Recently I asked someone, “Can I give you some feedback about XXX that just happened?” And my friend wisely responded, “Not now.” With a little time since that exchange, I ask myself, “Did I need to say anything? To what end?” Now I’m not so sure. I’m mulling. Mulching.
I think of some people in my life as spewers, shooting like a firehose with anything that crosses their mind or heart. Others I think of as festerers, biting their tongues, seething in hot, wounded silence. I don’t think I even need to add that we live in a public world of vast spew. Just the other day I was driving along listening to those guys from Pod Save America, whom I usually find kind of cute and entertaining, going on and on about: “We have to… We must… Right now… Urgent…” And I thought, “If one more person says to me ‘we must,’ I’m going to crash my car!”
A few days after the horrors of October 7th we gathered in the shul in silence. At Hanukkah we danced the Five Rhythms with the kavvanah (intention) of processing our own responses in movement. At Purim we played a game that reminded us that we have consciences and can try to identify good courses of action. Sometimes on Shabbat morning the crisis in Israel and Palestine is mentioned, usually with just a word or two. We pray for peace every week. Paige hosted a Friday night gathering for people to share their hearts and minds, and she similarly held space for high school students to talk about how they were doing in this moment.
I’ve been pleased that a couple of people have sought out conversation partners with whom they feel comfortable to share their thoughts feelings, questions, sources. We had community resiliency training in June with Jo-ann Rosen and Margo Frank. But we haven’t as a community held meetings or teach-ins or had speakers or crafted statements.
I recently heard a wise teacher say that if we don’t figure out ways for our Jewish communities to speak about the catastrophe in Israel and Palestine, it will fester and eventually explode and cause damage. I wonder.… I am mulling, composting that idea. If we do get together and discuss, I worry a bit about being in a circle with the firehose-type folks as they spew boiling hot opinions and emotions all over the rest of us. If we don’t, I worry about the festerers of our community, the people who are keeping their distress inside and feeling isolated and frightened.
Meanwhile, our beautiful neighbors to the south, Congregation Ner Shalom in Cotati, recently issued a gorgeous (to my mind) statement about the current situation in Israel and Gaza. They went through some sort of reflective community process to arrive at words they could endorse as a group. You can see that statement here: https://www.nershalom.org/ceasefire. I read it nodding in admiration. But then I thought, as I often do about the whole world of political statements, to what end? What is accomplished through this difficult work of achieving something approaching unanimity in words? Not a criticism at all—just my true question.
I wonder also about the passionate battles over words taking place in many places these days: do we or don’t we use the word g - - - cide? Antis - - - - ism? Z - - - ism? I am struck by the amount of energy expended in so many settings on struggles over the language appropriate to this conflict. Again I am not saying that these battles are wrong; I am truly wondering about the emotional toll they take.
Even though I strongly support what I support and oppose what I oppose, I don’t think it bad that we have a lot of different perspectives. As I consider this, I think that there is another way to move as a community besides “fester” or “spew.” That is to trust each other—to trust that our different life experiences, our political leanings, our passions all inhabit souls that long for good. We may understand the path to good differently from one another. Actually, we definitely see the path to good differently one from another, but we all want a safe, healthy, sustaining world. None of us knows how to get all the way there. Someone we think is deeply wrong may hold a critical piece of the map.
I trust that in our Jewish community—and in every thoughtful, conscientious Jewish community—many of us are thinking and feeling deeply about this extremely distressing time in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. I know that many of us are reading and listening to sources that we believe illuminate the situation. I expect that many of us are contributing to charities that we hope will bring relief to some part of the crisis. Some of us may be signing statements, participating in demonstrations, writing letters, calling our representatives. I assume also that where we choose to focus our care and our contributions will not be the same for everybody. I imagine that the efforts of some people in our community may even cancel out the efforts of others who construe the situation differently.
When we pray for peace at a service, I almost always invite people to locate one fractured place in our world that they would like to lift up in prayer and to hold it in their hearts as we pray. I like to imagine that over the course of a Shabbat service and over years of quiet prayer, the globe will be sprinkled with our peace prayers. Some may be praying for the bereaved families of Israeli hostages. Others may be praying for Palestinians fleeing Rafah. Others may be praying for Haiti or Sudan. Or siblings or neighbors. This is a different kind of “statement,” lifted up by each of us to the heavens.
We are different from each other. We see the world as we see it. We all lift our prayers to the heavens. We all try to move as we are inspired to move in the direction of justice, peace and healing. As you all know, I am thinking a lot about the qualities to cultivate in my own soul and in our community as we live into such a difficult and challenging time in our world. I’d like to explore and enhance the quality of trust, of trusting each other even as we differ. To be continued…as long as we are in life together.
PAIGE NOTES
Chodesh tov! The new moon this week brings in the Hebrew month of Tamuz, named after the Babylonian god of heat in honor of summer heat, as well as the intensity of this season. Historically, the 17th of Tamuz was the day the walls of Jerusalem were first breached, leading to the destruction of the Temple, on Tisha B’Av. The three weeks between these two dates serve as a period of mourning. Just as metalworkers need a furnace to refine their art, we take this time in the peak of summer to burn off our ancestral grief. Currently, we find ourselves in a period of more intensity. I listened to a podcast recently about how the war in the Middle East has ironically taken news media attention away from the upcoming U.S. presidential election. The speaker suggested that many Americans have been feeling less anxiety about the election than they otherwise would, because they have been more focused on the war. When the podcast ended I thought, “What am I supposed to do with this information?”
I have been enjoying some fascinating conversations lately about the philosophical notion of the mashiach/the Messiah. One Jewish interpretation believes that the Messiah cannot ever actually come because the essence of Judaism roots in the experience of awaiting the Messiah. Being in this waiting period inherently cultivates hope—hope for world peace, hope for a just legal system, hope for personal health & safety, hope for the Messiah to come. If the Messiah were to come, we would lose this foundational source of hope for the future. Life seems to be one anticipatory waiting period after another: waiting to see how a conflict will be resolved, waiting to hear who will win an election, waiting to receive the results of a medical scan, waiting to find out if indeed the “good thing” or the “bad thing” will happen. Jane Goodall spent considerable time “waiting around” watching chimpanzees, and one of the primary lessons she learned is the same one as that associated with the Messiah—how crucial it is to maintain hope.
Just as too much sun can burn you, but a healthy amount of it nourishes you with Vitamin D, the heat of Tamuz can plummet you into mourning or it can kindle hope. May the heat of this moon cycle support us all in enduring this waiting period, by communally cultivating unconditional hope.
with warm blessings,
rabbi paige