September, 2021 Megillah
RABBI'S NOTES
Life feels so thick these days—and then it seems to get even thicker. We all know the vectors: At the largest scale, climate and then its local particulars: drought, fire, smoke, trees which could be sinking carbon and shading the ground getting logged instead. Then the whipsawing of COVID, which seemed for a minute to be getting better, then got worse, here and around the world. That has local particulars too: a stressed hospital, sick friends, schools and businesses struggling, and a million personal decisions about masking, gathering, traveling, sharing food, indoors, outdoors. There are aching spots all over the world. As I write it is about the fifth day of the horrifying struggle to get endangered people out of Afghanistan. Was Myanmar just yesterday? Syria the day before? And Gaza. As well, Black Lives Matter and the deep reckoning we are being called to undertake in order to address and repair the legacy of slavery. Parallel horrors were inflicted on indigenous people right here on Pomo land.
Many of us carry worry and anguish more personally: children and other family members not doing well, finances insecure, death of beloveds, being alone when you want to be partnered or partnered when you want to be alone. Plus that most local particular of all: getting older, injured, ill—physically and mentally—isolated, and frail, aware of the looming inevitability of death.
All this is so real, and it’s not likely to end, at least not all of it. Here we are in the midst of it, trying to help, trying to cope, trying to stay steady, trying to take care of what needs taking care of.
I hink a lot these days about agency. With many of these painful realities there is very little most of us can do to make them any better. Most of us can’t do much to get women, journalists, aid workers and other people out of Afghanistan, as much as our hearts ache for their plight (though there was a moment last week when our community network was able to advocate together to make a hopeful difference for 100 women). Where do we actually have capacity to make a difference?
I think there’s one way we can make the world significantly better, for ourselves and for others: by strengthening the bonds of our community. We have deep cellular knowledge of community. Here on the Coast there is the legacy of what Ellen Saxe so beautifully described many years ago, when blessing her son Max at his bar mitzvah, as “country ways.” Whether we have lived here for many decades or have come more recently, we live in a place with an abundant history of caring for each other through all the pleasures and ordeals of life.
People here have nursed each other’s babies, helped to build each other’s houses and plant their gardens, raised money and provided intimate and extended care for people when they were sick or injured.
People have provided entertainment and education for each other, made art together, planned for and supported each other through natural disasters, mediated each other’s disputes, built circles of care around people who needed particular help. People have built cradles and coffins and laid their neighbors into each.
People here have nursed each other’s babies, helped to build each other’s houses and plant their gardens, raised money and provided intimate and extended care for people when they were sick or injured.
People have provided entertainment and education for each other, made art together, planned for and supported each other through natural disasters, mediated each other’s disputes, built circles of care around people who needed particular help. People have built cradles and coffins and laid their neighbors into each.
There is the even older and deeper cellular knowledge of care and community that comes from being Jewish. We are not alone in this; most traditional cultures teach their members how to care for each other, but our ancestral knowledge in this realm is long and wide. My beloved list of “deeds without measure” is more than 2000 years old and it has been realized in countless Jewish communities around the world ever since. We know how to visit the sick, welcome guests, celebrate and mourn with each other, care for our dead, learn together, pray together, and make peace with each other.
The details are homely: schedules made, food cooked, equipment lined up, funds gathered, phone calls, meetings meetings meetings, and lists lists lists.
I’ve come to think that almost any difficulty in life is bearable if we don’t have to face it alone. Still, the habits of individualism die hard. It is hard to share our burdens and admit that we need help. It’s hard to keep up relationships in between difficulties and crises, so that we know what is going on in each other’s lives. It is tiresome to go to those meetings and make those lists. It’s hard to deal with problems when they inevitably arise, especially when we’re already stretched thin and feeling fragile. Especially when, as now, we mostly see each other in little boxes on our computers or through masks for a moment at the store.
A theory about community I like very much holds that you can measure the aliveness of a community by looking at the number of interactions people have with each other. Count how many people shop in each other’s stores, eat at each other’s houses, meet in book groups or PTAs or scout groups together, go to parties with each other, or join committees and projects together. More interaction equals more community. Not every interaction has to be intense, but deep and meaningful connections only arise when you have prosaic associations in the first place. I don’t think that this quantitative measure is the end of the story, but it’s a good place to begin. Call each other more. Walk with each other more. Drink more coffee or tea together.
In this new year 5782—which is also a shmita year—when we have the opportunity to step back from enterprise and effort, I think we might give extra attention to nurturing community relationships. Obviously, I’m thinking about our beloved Jewish community, but most of us are blessed to participate in many linked circles of community. And all those circles matter.
Recently, I was mulling this in the middle of the night, when I tend to think about such things, I began to retranslate Psalm 23 like this:
EACH OTHER is my shepherd; I shall not want.
EACH OTHER makes me lie down in green pastures;
EACH OTHER restores my soul.
EACH OTHER guides me in right paths for the sake of the name of EACH OTHER.
Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I fear no harm, for EACH OTHER is with me.
The rod of EACH OTHER’s correction and the staff of EACH OTHER’s support comfort me.
EACH OTHER spreads a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
EACH OTHER anoints my head with oil.
My cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of EACH OTHER all the days of my life.
L’shana tovah, my dear community! May it be a year of friendship and connection, among ourselves and out into the world.
