Our passport to the New Year is the practice of teshuvah, often translated as “repentance,” but I prefer its literal meaning is return or reconnection. Think of teshuvah as reconnection: returning to other people, returning to God, and returning to our deepest selves.

Here are some ancient and modern practices to help us on our journey—including nature practices of course!

Returning to Others

One of the simplest traditions of this season is sending Shanah Tovah greetings. Remember actual Jewish New Year cards? I miss them! But we can broaden that custom. Elul can be a time to reach out to someone we’ve lost touch with, or someone we want to thank. Write a note, make a call, or even send an email.

We can also strengthen the relationships that create community. Remember the phrase “Relational Judaism”? That’s part of what makes our community special. Perhaps invite someone for the holidays who is new to the area or may not yet have many local friends.

Elul can also reconnect us with those who came before us. There is a custom of visiting the graves of departed loved ones before the High Holidays. If that isn’t possible, we can simply take time to remember them, do a mitzvah in their honor, or create a little corner in our homes with photographs or memorabilia.

And we connect to the larger community through tzedakah: making an extra donation, or buying and gathering food for our Yom Kippur food drive.

Then there is the harder—and very traditional—work of seeking and granting forgiveness. Jewish tradition teaches that Yom Kippur can bring forgiveness for sins between ourselves and God, but for wrongs committed against another person, we first have to approach that person ourselves.

So Elul is a time for making amends and seeking forgiveness. You can even use this article as your excuse to reach out to someone you have offended. (Note that full teshuvah means more than saying we’re sorry. It means making amends where we can and trying to behave differently in the future.)

Forgiving others is more complicated, and our tradition does not treat forgiveness as one-size-fits-all. There are different levels: mechilah, letting go of a small offense; selichah, a deeper forgiveness that results from compassion for our shared humanity, and kaparah, atonement, reconcilliation—allowing a painful past to be incorporated into a larger story. Like Joseph who was able to forgive his brothers when he learned to see his life from a larger, even Godly, perspective.

Returning to the Divine

Elul is also traditionally understood as a time primed for spiritual closeness: to God, your soul, your inner life.

The Hebrew letters of Elul—אלול are traditionally read as an acronym for a verse from Song of Songs: Ani l’dodi v’dodi li—“I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.” The relationship between ourselves and the Divine is imagined not primarily through fear, but through love.

There are many traditional practices for cultivating that connection. The shofar is sounded each weekday morning during Elul as a kind of spiritual wake-up call. We begin reciting Psalm 27, with its message of trust and hope. We prepare for Selichot, the special penitential prayer (we’ll gather for those here on September 5). Some people also choose a book to accompany them through the season, such as Rabbi Alan Lew’s This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared.

One of my favorite images for Elul is “the King is in the field,” a teaching of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad Hasidism. He compared the High Holidays to the time when a king is in the royal palace. Approaching the throne is formal and intimidating. But before the king reaches the palace, he travels through the countryside. Anyone can approach him there. The point is that during Elul, God is especially accessible, in our everyday lives.

Returning to Ourselves

And finally, Elul invites us to return to ourselves.

One traditional practice is Heshbon HaNefesh—literally, “an accounting of the soul.” It means taking stock of our lives, not simply to judge ourselves but as a springboard for growth.

The Mussar movement developed a methodical approach to this practice. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Leffin’s Heshbon HaNefesh, published in 1812, offered a systematic way of working on our middot, our qualities of character. During Elul, for example, we might spend each week paying special attention to one quality: patience, kindness, generosity, humility, or zerizut—alacrity, the ability to act promptly on our good intentions. A number of folks in our community have been studying and engaging in Mussar for years, and you can find modern adaptations of this practice online, such as the Mussar Institute.

But there are many ways to make a Heshbon HaNefesh. You could devote each week of Elul to a different dimension of your life: body, relationships and emotions, mind, and spirit.

There is even a modern version of this called 10Q, and I heartily recommend it. Beginning on Rosh Hashanah, you receive one question a day for ten days. Your answers are then “sealed away” in an online vault and returned to you a year later, giving you an unusual opportunity to see how you—and your life—have changed.

In the Field - returning to Nature

Lately, though, I find myself drawn to practices that help me return not just to my thoughts, but to my body, my senses, my personal relationships, and to acting locally when I feel overwhelmed by all the thinking globally. That can include the very physical pleasures of preparing for the holidays: finding or baking a round challah and honey cake, choosing crisp apples, soft dates, sweet honey, pomegranates and new fruits—even choosing something new to wear for the New Year.

And personally, I love connecting with nature at this time of year.

Remember the teaching that “the King is in the field”? A contemporary Torah teacher, Gavriel Strauss, suggested taking that image literally: go out into an actual field. Go outside and experience the natural world as a place where we can encounter Divine presence.

For me as a nature lover, this is a perfect way to prepare for the Days of Awe. Go outside and notice the subtle change of seasons beginning. Hear the crickets and cicadas. See the echinacea beginning to dry and the first hints of fall foliage. Feel the changing texture of the late-summer air. Open your senses and attention.

If the image of a “King” in the field seems too patriarchal, I sometimes prefer to say, “The Majesty is in the field.” Even more beautifully, the Zohar describes the Shechinah—the feminine, indwelling Divine Presence—with the imagery of a fragrant, verdant field.

Perhaps that is the deepest preparation for the New Year, not trying to become an entirely different person, but learning to return: to one another, to the Divine, to the world around us, and to the deepest part of ourselves.

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Consider:

If teshuvah means “return,” what is something you would like to return to this Elul? How will you do that?

The Black and Jewish communities in America share a long and meaningful history built on memories, suffering, and resilience (and I always pause to say that it’s not a binary since up to 15% of American Jews and about half of Israeli Jews are people of color). In the early twentieth century, Jewish leaders helped found and support organizations such as the NAACP and the Urban League. Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears Roebuck & Company, joined forces with Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois to support education for rural Black children. During WWII, Black and minority soldiers serving in segregated units were among the rescuers of Jews and witnesses to the horror of the concentration camps.

In the Civil Rights Movement, Black and Jewish Americans marched, organized, and advocated together. Although only 3% of the US population at the time, young Jews constituted the vast majority of civil rights lawyers and about half of the white Freedom Riders. Rabbis stood alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, and on the National Mall. The 1964 murders of three voter-registration volunteers by the KKK: , a young Black Mississippian, James Chaney, and two young Jews from New York, Michael Schwerner and An­drew Goodman, galvanized the country for Civil Rights action. In turn, Black leaders in the clergy, journalism, and academia have joined the struggle against antisemitism and all forms of hatred to the present day.

The Black-Jewish Alliance was built on a recognition that our stories are intertwined. Both of our communities carry memories of oppression and resilience. We know the importance of protecting human dignity and extending freedom to others. This is not to deny the reality of white privilege and intersectionality. Although there have been and still are some divisions and misunderstandings, the work continues today right here in my Southern Delaware community as Black and Jewish leaders join together to combat racism, antisemitism, and all forms of hate, with organizations like SOAH. Members of our congregation and of the local African-American community have started a Black-Jewish Allyship group to further dialogue, understanding, and contemporary work for civil rights.

This Juneteenth, may we honor those who came before us by renewing our commitment to the Jewish teaching that every human being is created b’tzelem Elohim—in the image of God—and by working together toward a world of greater justice, freedom, and compassion for all of God’s children.

How are you celebrating Juneteenth or working for greater understanding between communities where you live?

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Winter of 2021 was the hardest part of the pandemic for me. We were living in the Hudson Valley of New York. The snow, beautiful at first, just fell and fell and fell, wrapping us in cold and silent isolation. I glumly empathized with all the people in the world who had lived in remote cabins on the prairie. We couldn’t safely gather indoors to ward off the gloom, and it had been weeks since the family could visit.

Miraculously, vaccines for Covid were produced in record time and begun to be distributed to an eager public. I had understood and celebrated when medical personal, teachers, and essential workers were first in line, followed by the elderly. But there was no clear timeless when I personally would be eligible to receive one. Even though I was a rabbi and so much of my work involved visiting the sick and infirm, clergy had no priority for vaccination in New York. My frustration mounted and depression dug in deeper from day to day.

One bitterly cold and damp day, I ventured out for a walk at my favorite place, Rockefeller State Park Preserve. Frozen rain was falling, making tapping sounds on my purple and black umbrella. I trudged deponently through icy slush in my mud boots, along the shores of the snow-and-ice covered lake. But I told myself, “At least I am here. I’m filling the form and moving around outside my home every day.” I explored an icy stream that flowed from the lake, but there were no sparkling patterns of light on this gloomy day, and my mind filled with anxious thoughts about the future. As I headed back by the end of the lake, I gazed across to the giant oak tree on the other side and decided to stop for a prayer. I took that tree as my prayer partner somehow. I had let go of any ability to control events, but I could always pray.

“Please God,” I prayed. “Please help us move on from this pandemic. Help us to find a way soon to better days ahead.”

As I concluded the prayer, again without thinking, I said, “And please give me a good sign.”

The next second I lifted up my eyes and looked at the lake.

The Great Blue Heron, who hadn’t been seen for months, was standing on the snow-covered surface of the lake, gazing at me calmly.

It was like a spiritual reset-button had been pushed.

My tall blue soul bird sauntered across the cold surface, inviting me to photograph his unique beauty. Then he spread his wings and slowly flew away into a world that was still cold but inexplicably brighter.

I’d love to hear from you now. How is this winter going for you? What lifts your spirits during challenging seasons?

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Note: Photos of the Great Blue Heron on the ice were taken that day. Photos of the Great Blue Heron in flight were taken on another winter’s day in the same preserve.

This Shabbat, Jews around the world started our annual rereading the book of Exodus from the Torah. The story of our Exodus from enslavement in ancient Egypt is not a distant one that happened in a mythical past. It’s a story that is always happening, in countless iterations, throughout the ages. The Biblical Exodus is a story that has inspired people around the world in their own quest for liberation through the centuries, right down to the Civil Rights movement of our own time.

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Like the book of Exodus, stories of oppression usually begin with the demonization of foreigners or minorities. The biblical Pharaoh was not the last leader to wield propaganda against “outsiders” as a wedge issue to galvanize his people and distract them from his own harshness and exploitation. Propaganda led to oppression which eventually led to violence and killing. It’s a technique used by tyrants and authoritarians throughout history.

And be assured, the persecution of one group eventually leads to suffering for everyone. To paraphrase Pastor Martin Niemöller after WWII, if we don’t speak up when they come for others, there will be no one left to speak up when they come for us.

As a response to this xenophobia, the Torah’s most repeated divine commandment is some version of “love the stranger,” “know the heart of a stranger,” “remember that you, too, were strangers in the land of Egypt.” The Hebrew word for stranger, Ger, means a foreigner, non-local, an immigrant or refugee.

As I spoke on Shabbat about the Torah portion, I couldn’t help but draw parallels to our world today. Today, immigrants are being targeted, refugees are being stripped of their protections, and like in the Exodus story, the suffering is spreading. When families are torn apart, when innocent people are being assaulted or killed on American streets, it’s no longer a matter of politics; it is basic human rights and Torah values. Yes, it’s fine and healthy to disagree on the particulars of policies and priorities. The Torah wasn’t dictating a certain immigration policy, but it was commanding that everyone, no matter where they were born, be treated with the dignity befitting a human being created in the image of God.

The great Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, a close friend and fellow civil rights activist with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said, “In a free society where terrible wrongs exist, some are guilty, [but] all are responsible.” Our society is still free and terrible wrongs are happening. It is time for us to speak up and to respond. It is up to us to work together to heal our community, our society, and our nation.

In memoriam: Renee Nicole Good

How’s your heart right now? What are you doing to resist oppression, who’s your community, and how are you caring for yourself to stay centered and well?

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Featured Image: Members of T’ruah the Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, marching for immigrants with the slogan, “Resisting Tyrants Since Pharaoh.” Photo by Monay Robinson.

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After the terrorist attacks in Paris in 2015, as the sidewalks of the city were covered with flowers and candles, a video went viral in which a young child told his father that he was scared of the bad people with guns.

The father responded, “They may have guns, but we have flowers.”

“But flowers don’t do anything…” says the child.

The father assures his son that the masses of flowers and candles will indeed protect them.

When I first saw that video, I thought of Hanukkah, the holiday of contradictions. At first it celebrated a military victory, but later our Sages changed the focus to light and miracles. They chose a prophetic reading from the book of Zachariah for the holiday: “‘Not by might, and not by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord of Hosts.”

These Sages taught Jews to place their Ḥanukkah lamp by the front door, so that the mezuzah of the right hand and the Ḥanukkah lamp on the left, creating a portal of sanctity to the home. The boundaries of our community against the world were no longer swords and arrows, but sacred words and lights. Candles were our weapons against the outside world when we didn’t have a Jewish army. They stood sentinel in the doorway, symbolic of our Jewish integrity.

Around the world today, in secular as well as religious settings, when violence takes place people often set up spontaneous street altars with candles and flowers.

In Bondi Beach, Australia, citizens have responded to the antisemitic attack by bringing flowers and the Jewish community coming together en masse to rekindle the menorah the next night.

The Sages’ view of Hanukkah makes me think of that famous old black and white photo of a Hanukkah menorah in the window opposite a Nazi banner on a building across the street. It was taken on the eighth night of Hanukkah, before candle-lighting. Rachel Posner, wife of the local rabbi, wrote on the back of the photo: Chanukah 5692, (1932), “Death to Judah”, So the flag says, “Judah will live forever”, So the light answers.

That menorah made its way with the family to the land of Israel in 1934, and was donated to Yad Vashem. Each year it is given back to the family, who light it over the Hanukkah holiday. Indeed the light did live on and triumph, but only because Jews had a safe haven defended with might.

With the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948, Hanukkah was renewed for a time with a focus on the Maccabees and their brave military fight for identity and independence. Miracles and spirituality were de-emphasized by the early secular leaders.

History has taught us the painful lesson that we must have Jewish power to protect our people. Rabbi Yitz Greenberg taught that after the Holocaust, we should recognize that it is immoral to be powerless – but power alone can lead to cruel and even more immoral acts unless it is tempered with spirit and ethics. Power alone can’t keep us safe, either, as we saw too painfully just a few days before with the release of a video of the “beautiful six” hostages lighting a menorah in a Gaza tunnel, 8 months before they were all murdered by their captors.

So, how do we go forward in this world today?

Hanukkah itself offers us a model of standing up for who we are and increasing the light, even in dark days. But at times, that notion seems like cold comfort, almost a cliché. For me, the deeper source of comfort is knowing that millions of Jews around the world are kindling these lights together, night after night, on this holiday. While the mezuzah reminds us of our mission in the world, the Hanukkah lights proclaim our message to the world: life is a miracle, not by might but by spirit. Strength also comes from knowing that we have allies of every faith, like the Muslim man Ahmed al-Ahmed who risked his own life to help save others at Bondi Beach.

It is normal to feel afraid in moments like this. But we should never have to feel alone.We must continue to confront hatred wherever it appears, while refusing to let extremists define our lives. We are blessed with great sources of resilience in our heritage, our faith, and our community. As we say when completing a book of the Torah: Hazak, Hazak ve-nitzhazek, be strong, be strong, and together we will strengthen each other.

We can also learn from events like this how important it is to show up for other communities who are threatened, targeted, or made to feel unsafe, affirming that dignity and human life are sacred for all. This week, I saw the documentary: Elie Wiesel, Soul on Fire. He said that he had come to believe that the Messiah is not one individual whom we await but each of us creating messianic moments for another.

Stephen Colbert, while receiving the Ripple of Hope award this month, paraphrased a message from the famous speech that RFK Senior delivered in Capetown, South Africa, 1966:

“Few will have the greatness to bend history; but each of us can work to change a small portion of the events, and in the total of all these acts will be written the history of this generation… Each time a [person] stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, [they] send forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

Or you can envision this ripple as a tiny spark of light, lighting one another’s candles of rededication until the light stretches around the world.

Make a messianic moment, light a candle, send a ripple. And like the menorah, join with others to increase the light.

What’s your ripple or your little candle, or your holiday gift to our world right now?

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Wishing you and all of us courage and joy at this season and always.

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Hanukkah is meant to be a time of joy and light. This year, the holiday began under the shadow of a horrific terror attack against Jews celebrating Hanukkah at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia. Fifteen people were killed, including two rabbis, a Holocaust survivor, and a young child, and many more were wounded.

It might have been a world away, but we feel it personally, because Jews around the world are deeply connected. Those gathered in Sydney were not only coreligionists; they were mishpachah, family. What happens to Jews anywhere is felt by Jews everywhere.

It is not surprising that many of us feel shaken or anxious. And yet, as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks taught, “Despair is not a Jewish emotion. Od lo avda tikvateinu—our hope has never been destroyed.”

Hanukkah itself offers us a model of standing up for who we are and increasing the light, even in dark days. For me, one of the deepest sources of comfort is knowing that millions of Jews around the world are kindling these lights together, night after night, on this holiday. Strength also comes from knowing that we have allies of every faith, like the Muslim man who risked his own life to help save others at Bondi Beach.

It is normal to feel afraid in moments like this. But we should never have to feel alone.

We must continue to confront hatred wherever it appears, while refusing to let extremists define our lives or diminish our joy. We are blessed with great sources of resilience in our heritage, our faith, and our community. As we say when completing a book of the Torah: Hazak, Hazak ve-nitzhazek, be strong, be strong, and together we will strengthen each other.

We can also learn from events like this how important it is to show up for other communities who are threatened, targeted, or made to feel unsafe, affirming that dignity and human life are sacred for all.

May the rest of Hanukkah bring many moments of hope, joy, and light.

Rabbi Julie Hilton Danan

Take a mini-retreat:

If you can be outside, take some time to stand on the earth, breath deeply, and call upon the strength of the earth’s elements: land, water, air, sunshine (whatever you can find about you whether in a rural or urban setting)—to give you strength.

If you light Hanukkah candles or other candles, take some quiet time to look into the flames and consider what candle you want to light in the world right now, what holiday gift you have for the world.

Where do you find your strength right now? With whom do you connect?

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As a nature photographer, I’m hyper-aware of the shifting light throughout the day, including the magical “golden hour” just before sunrise and sunset. The right lighting can make a big difference to photo quality. Even before I got into photography, I’d always loved watching the play of light and shadow on water or sifting through leaves.

Both natural light and the lights that we kindle can be powerful points of spiritual connection. Light was the first creation in the Torah (Genesis 1:1-3), and the Kabbalists often described God as a boundless, infinite light. On a physical level, sunlight is necessary for life on earth to exist. On a spiritual level, light has a universal meaning of goodness, hope, and healing. In The Encyclopedia of Jewish Symbols, Ellen Frankel and Betsy Platkin Teutsch describe light as, “the primary link between divine and human worlds.”

Thus, it’s no surprise that the simple act of lighting candles or oil lamps is an important spiritual practice in Judaism and many world religions. An ancient Midrash (scriptural interpretation) imagines God, the creator of divine light, as inviting us into a partnership of illuminating the world by bidding us to light candles in our homes and holy places.

Each Jewish candle has its own purpose. Shabbat candles are lit each Friday before sundown to provide lighting for the Shabbat meal, harmony in the home, and today, when we have electric lights, a special more “golden” atmosphere. Lighting Shabbat candles is also a traditional time to say personal prayers for loved ones or send them a blessing.

A braided havdalah candle is kindled on Saturday night to signal the end of the Sabbath and beginning of the week and its labors. For me, the sight of its torch-like fire evokes the Torah’s descriptions of the burning bush in which God appeared to Moses or the pillar of fire through which God appeared to the Israelites (Exodus 13:12).

Hanukkah lights have a different purpose. They are not for lighting the home but are placed in a window to “publicize the miracle” of the holiday (which is much more than the little jug of oil, but the miracle of survival, faith, and triumph against the odds). I find a lot of meaning in the unspoken message of candles or oil lights increasing from day to day, from the idea of “lighting a single candle rather than curse the darkness” to the growing light of fellowship and community.

Since ancient times, human beings have lit candles in memory of the dead. In remembering departed loved ones, Jewish people traditionally light a tall candle that lasts for the shiva (week of mourning), and subsequently light smaller Yahrzeit candles every year, recalling that “God’s candle is the human soul” (Proverbs 20:27). Lighting a memorial candle is a way to bring the person’s life into our world, a light that, like the flame, we can contemplate and admire but not physically touch.

Lighting candles or lamps seems to be a universal impulse, from Hanukkah to Diwali to the Chinese Lantern Festival. This summer, on a visit to Denmark, I learned that for Danes, lighting candles any time of day is a big part of making life “hygge,” an untranslatable term connoting an atmosphere of coziness, contentment, and friendship essential to their culture.

For a mystical teaching on candles, I turn to Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, a great modern Torah scholar and physicist who pioneered modern Jewish meditation based on ancient sources. In his books Inner Space and Jewish Meditation: A Practical Guide, Kaplan used the metaphor of a candle flame to represent the soul’s five levels, based on Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism). The black base of the flame represents Nefesh, the physical, animating soul. The blue of the flame represents Ruach1 the emotional soul. The bright glow of the flame represents the Neshamah, or higher spiritual consciousness. The surrounding aura of the flame represents Chaya, a transcendent level of soul encountered rarely in this lifetime, one that I would call “destiny.” Finally, there is Yechidah, the Divine Unity. Beyond the individual candle, it is the One who lights them all. It’s simultaneously the spark of God planted like a seed in each of us, while also the transcendent divine source beyond-the-beyond.

My teacher, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, loved to share this ancient Midrash:

Rabbi Shimon ben Yehozadak asked Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachman, saying: “Since I hear that you are a master of Aggadah [sacred lore], tell me how light was created.”

Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachman replied: “God wrapped God-self in a white garment, and the radiance of God’s majesty illuminated the world from one end to the other.”

Now he had answered him in a whisper, and so the former observed, “There is a verse which states it explicitly: ‘You wrap yourself with light as with a garment’ (Psalm 104:2), yet you say it in a whisper!”

“Just as I heard it in a whisper, so have I told it to you in a whisper,” he replied.

Genesis Rabbah 3:4

Two Practices for a mini-retreat with light:

Outdoors

Everyday experiences, from sunrise every morning to glimpsing the night sky, can assume miraculous importance when we approach them with awe and reverence.

Next time you see beautiful light outdoors in nature, instead of walking by or even grabbing your phone for a photo, pause to take it in, to let the light and its colors enter your soul. You can even take a cue from the Midrash above and try whispering, “You wrap Yourself with light as with a garment.”

Indoors

When you light a candle for religious celebrations or personal meditation, take a few moments to gaze into the flame until you can discern the different levels of color and illumination. Imagine a light glowing inside of you as the dimensions of your soul: Nefesh (vital life force), Ruach (creative spirit), Neshamah (higher spiritual awareness and contemplation), and even the connection to Chaya and Yechidah, the higher dimensions of soul that represent destiny and divine unity. As you contemplate the light, sense your inner light connected to the divine light that illuminates the world. Slow down and feel your inner and outer glow.

Do you have any spiritual practices that involve lighting candles or just appreciating light? I’d love to hear about them.

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Note: When obtaining candles, it’s healthier and more ecologically sound to choose beeswax, soy, or coconut oil with natural (or no) scents, rather than a petroleum-based paraffin. Make sure the room has ventilation and never leave a candle unattended.

A version of this post first appeared in The Wisdom Daily as “Wrapping Ourselves in God’s Light.”

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On the day before Rosh Hashanah in 1943, Rabbi Marcus Melchior stood before his congregation in Copenhagen’s magnificent Great Synagogue. It was the holiest time of year, but instead of preparing his people for prayer, he warned them to flee.

Through a chain of messages, beginning with the courage of Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz, a German diplomat stationed in Denmark, Rabbi Melchior had learned that the Nazis were planning to round up the Jews of Denmark on Rosh Hashanah. He instructed everyone to go home, gather their families, notify their friends, and not to be home for the holiday, when unscheduled “guests” would be arriving.

The 46-year-old rabbi, his wife, and five children would be taken in by Pastor Hans Kildeby, Lutheran minister at the Church of Ørslev, sixty miles away. They had only met once, but the Pastor was willing to risk his own life and safety to take them in.

Word spread quickly, through whispered phone calls and quiet visits. That night and the next day, Jews across Denmark disappeared. Some were sheltered by old friends. Some were hidden by strangers. In the coming days, thousands would be ferried across the Øresund Sound to neutral Sweden. When the Nazis came, they were not at home.

I grew up hearing this story. As a child, I pictured a dramatic midnight flotilla with dozens of boats making their way across the strait. This summer, I visited Denmark and learned that the reality was far messier, more frightening, and more human than my childhood imagination. At the Jewish Museum in Copenhagen, I watched a film narrated by Rabbi Melchior’s son, Bent, who himself later became Chief Rabbi of Denmark. He described his own escape as a boy of 10.

Their family was crammed into the dark, smelly fish hold of a small vessel. For seven nauseating hours they were tossed about on the choppy sea. At dawn, they were relieved to see a lighthouse and land—until they realized the sun was rising from the wrong direction. The inexperienced captain had lost his bearings, and they were back on the Danish coast.

The fisherman turned the boat around, and at last they reached Sweden, where the first sight was a small boy was playing on the beach. He spotted the exhausted refugees, ran to get his parents, and the family welcomed these strangers into their home. The boy and the Rabbi’s son became lifelong friends. Even in Sweden, life as a refugee was difficult. But they were alive. While two-thirds of European Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, 99% of Denmark’s nearly 8,000 Jews survived—and most returned home after the war.1

It was not a flawless rescue. It was not a single heroic act. It was a messy, improvised, sometimes desperate effort. It depended on the Swedish government, some of the Germans looking the other way, donations from the wealthy, and the bravery of the Danish Resistance. And yet it worked, because countless Danes—neighbors, pastors, fishermen—chose to help. They each brought their small boat, their courage, their willingness. And together, they formed an armada of goodness.

Denmark 1943 was not the only time people formed an impromptu fleet in a moment of crisis.

• On September 11, 2001: When Lower Manhattan was sealed off and hundreds of thousands of people were stranded, the Coast Guard put out a call for boats. Within minutes, an impromptu armada of ferries, tugboats, pleasure craft, police launches, and private fishing boats converged on the harbor. For nine hours, they evacuated half a million people to safety. The “9/11 Boatlift” remains the largest maritime rescue in history—not because of military planning, but because ordinary captains and crews answered the call. The Boatlift demonstrated the extraordinary heroism and selfless actions of everyday citizens who risked their lives to help others during the chaos and despair of that day.

• During Hurricane Harvey, 2017: When Houston was flooded, the so-called Cajun Navy—an all-volunteer armada of private boat owners—drove in from Louisiana and beyond. They rescued more than 4,500 people and delivered vital supplies. At a time of growing political and social division, they were a shining example of Americans uniting to help others. They simply saw neighbors in danger and stepped forward.

The Danes and Swedes in 1943, the boat captains on 9/11, and the Cajun Navy, are all examples of people who stepped up and did their part in a crisis far beyond their making. They even endangered themselves for the greater cause of preserving life. We often talk about the tough or even “unprecedented” times in which we live but consider those times and the people who did their part in even more perilous circumstances. Each of them had good reason to think of themselves and save themselves, but they chose to show up for others.

Today, it’s not just one crisis. We are living in a time of multiple crises, a storm that threatens to capsize the very societies in which we live. Every day, the news brings waves that can overwhelm our sense of safety and hope:

• A warming climate with fires, floods, and storms.

• Political violence and growing polarization.

• Mass shootings in schools and houses of worship.

• Refugees and asylum seekers searching for safety.

• Rising antisemitism and hatred of all kinds.

It is easy to feel overwhelmed, paralyzed, or hopeless. Many people ask me: “Can one person really make a difference? Do my small actions matter in a world of such vast problems?”

Our tradition answers with clarity. Rabbi Tarfon said: “It is not up to you to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.” Hillel taught: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? When am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” The call is not to save the whole world. The call is to bring our boat—whatever its size—into the fleet, and if not now, when?

Every day people respond to the crises of our times by stepping up, becoming part of the solution in creative ways. I could not possibly name everyone in our community who serves others in impressive ways. Some members of our congregation serve as presidents or officers of large philanthropic organizations. Some shine in political organizing. Others continuously support the young people, the ill, and the needy in our local community. Tonight I just want to share a few examples of people who saw—or personally experienced—something very wrong, and responded like those boat captains, by taking others on board and doing good.

• Seaside members Leslie and Alan Slan are longtime social activists. But when they personally experienced antisemitism, they didn’t just think of themselves. Their Black friends had experienced racism and they were well aware of the rise in hate and prejudice. So together with friends in the Southern Delaware Alliance for Racial Justice and Seaside members Peter Schott, Zita Dresner, and Jan Kliger, they founded SOAH—Speak Out Against Hate. Soon, the groups was drawing hundreds of people to their gatherings and working with business leaders, elected officials, faith leaders, school and youth leaders and first responders, encouraging them to speak to their communities about the need to confront hatred and substitute love.

• After the horrific events of October 7, 2023, many of us felt paralyzed with grief. When Seaside members Sol and Nina Glasner chose to act, they found they were not alone. In early 2024, they joined volunteers from age 22-82, from many countries around the world, to work on Israeli farms, harvesting crops that would have been lost. Each night, they shared stories with fellow volunteers. Sol wrote home (see on this Blog Post): “People are grateful for the opportunity to do something positive and meaningful at a time when so much in the world is going wrong and beyond their control…one said the experience helped ‘lift the darkness.’ Being in our group [said another] proves ‘there’s a worldwide conspiracy to make the world a better place.’”

  [Note: that was almost 2 years ago. In my Rosh Hashana sermons, I stressed that Jews who care about the future of Israel and her neighbors need to face the terrible toll of war, and to speak up, spotlight, and support the many Israelis demonstrating to end the war in Gaza. We need to help the peacemakers and revive a vision for making the next generation of Israeli and Palestinian children grow up as neighbors instead of mortal enemies.]

• Reverend Vicki Gordy-Stith, our beloved colleague at Epworth United Methodist Church, and her husband Rev. Bo endured the unimaginable loss of their son Elijah to gun violence. Her response was “to do what I can to make sure that no other mother goes through the heartbreak we endured.” Rev. Vicki founded the Delaware Beach Chapter of Moms Demand Action, working for safer communities with a multi-faceted approach. Her boat was not alone on that sea. The group’s umbrella organization, Everytown for Gun Safety, now numbers 11 million supporters, including 1000 city mayors, teachers, survivors, gun owners, and students who continue to make a difference on the community, state, and national levels.

• At my previous congregation, I spoke, as I often do, about the plight of refugees and the Torah’s most repeated command: “Love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” One couple, both children of Holocaust refuges, really internalized the message. They gathered an Interfaith Group to support and resettle refugee families. Today, members of our congregation and local community hear the Torah’s call and are working with immigrant communities to protect their rights.

And those are just a few examples. We can imagine that we each captain a different metaphorical vessel, large or small, luxurious or simple. Your boat may seem small, but it matters. In Denmark, the rescue depended on every kind of boat—from fishing vessels to small skiffs. On 9/11, ferries and tugboats worked side by side with pleasure craft and kayaks. In Houston, flat-bottomed swamp boats joined aluminum canoes.

Each of us, everyone individually and all of us united together can make a difference in the world. Find others and feel your joint energy and dedication, that Armada of Goodness, what one of the volunteers Sol met called, “a worldwide conspiracy to make the world a better place.”

Tonight, on Kol Nidrei, we gather at the threshold of Yom Kippur. Last year is over, and we release the vows we could not keep. We acknowledge our failures together, sins of commission and sins of omission. Jewish tradition says that we are all responsible for one another. Look around and see that none of us is alone. We sail together.

The storms are real. The seas are rough. But history shows us that even in the darkest times, when individuals bring their small craft and join together, they can form an armada of goodness strong enough to change history.

Mini-meditation: Imagine yourself in a port or shore as your personal craft appears. What kind of boat are you piloting right now? Who can you take on your ship? Where can you find others who are doing the same work?

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Featured Image: From October 1943 Gerda II was used to ferry Jewish refugees from German occupied Denmark to neutral Sweden. With a group of some ten refugees on board the vessel set out for her official lighthouse duties, but detoured to the Swedish coast. The little ship and her crew (Skipper Otto Andersen, John Hansen, Gerhardt Steffensen and Einar Tønnesen), ferried some 300 Jews to safety.

Photo credit: Ad Meskens - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20743183

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“To Life, to life – lechaim!” This Jewish toast (and favorite song from Fiddler on the Roof) encapsulates the Jewish value of life. Life is a supreme value and Pikuach Nefesh – saving a life—takes precedence over almost all the other mitzvot / commandments in the Torah. But it’s in danger of becoming just a slogan if we don’t put our actions where our prayers are.

I call heaven and earth to witness this day: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life—so you and your descendent ill live— by loving YHWH your God, by heeding God’s mitzvot, and by cleaving to the divine (Deuteronomy 30:19-20)

As a rabbi, I chose “LeChaim – To Life” as my theme for this year’s Days of Awe. It’s my thing; I like to have a theme to organize my sermons, remarks, the Cantor’s special songs, and even my swag. (Yes, I have High Holy Day Swag; here’s a selection from over the years):

It’s remarkable that Judaism is so life-affirming, after two millennia that included a large measure of persecution and martyrdom. Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, one of our most important living Jewish theologians, recently published a book on this theme, The Triumph of Life. He taught that after the Holocaust, the seeming triumph of death, the Jewish people could have given up. We felt abandoned by God and man and we in turn could have abandoned the covenant of life. But instead, we voluntarily renewed our connection to the divine, making it now, in his phrase, “a voluntary covenant.” We affirmed and increased life by rebuilding great Jewish communities around the world, particularly in Israel and in North American. We rescued vulnerable Jewish populations from Yemen to the former Soviet Union to Ethiopia. We entered even more fully into the modern world, in dialogue with other religions and cultures searching for a better tomorrow.

Rabbi Greenberg wrote that upholding and expanding life is our central mitzvah. In his words, “The single most potent way to come closer to the hidden Divine is to seek out or deepen the presence of life … Every interpersonal ethical action should represent the appropriate response evoked by a creature of infinite value, equality, and uniqueness. Every action affecting the environment and other species should reflect recognition that the planet and all biota, the dwellers therein, are representatives of life.”[1]

I believe that Judaism gifted the ancient world with the radical idea that each person, great or small, is created in the divine image and that each life is a world entire. We still have much to teach the world about the value of preserving and enhancing life on this earth.

But to paraphrase the great Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, we are sometimes like a messenger who has forgotten the message.

If we truly value life, we have a lot of work to do. It’s not enough to pray or sing about life and peace. In America, we need to join with all who work on making American children safer from gun violence, poverty, and preventable disease. We must treasure and conserve the planet that our grandchildren will call home. We have to find ways to listen to and dialogue with people with whom we disagree, without resorting to ever more vile speech or violent acts.

For Jews who care about the future of Israel, we need to face the terrible toll of war, and to speak up, spotlight, and support the many Israelis demonstrating to end the war in Gaza. We need to help the peacemakers and revive a vision for making the next generation of Israeli and Palestinian children grow up as neighbors instead of mortal enemies.

These and more are the kinds of issues that I will encourage my community to learn about, care about, and engage in this Jewish New Year. I invite you to join us, because no matter your religion or creed, we all share life on this precious planet. In the year ahead, let’s bless the world by Choosing Life.

What does it mean for you to “choose life” in today’s world?

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[1] Greenberg, Rabbi Irving (Yitz). The Triumph of Life: A Narrative Theology of Judaism (pp. 293-294). The Jewish Publication Society. Kindle Edition.

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As a rabbi who finds inspiration and solace in nature as well as ancient texts, I love to share Jewish wisdom insights and practices that have helped me and may be useful to others, based around the four ancient elements of earth, water, air, and fire / light. Each and all of these can be ready gateways to foster connection with nature, tradition, and our inner lives. Today, I’m considering air in its manifestations of wind, breath, and spirit.

Those who attended a Jewish summer camp or youth group have probably heard the Hebrew word Ruach (ROO-ach, “ch” as in Challah), to convey the energy and spirituality of heartfelt songs and prayers. Ruach is the power of animation, whether stirring the branches of a tree, lifting an eagle, or enlivening a human being. A related word, Rei-ach, means scent, a sensory experience that holds the key to many precious soul memories, whether we are breathing in the smell of challah baking or of the spice box at the end of Shabbat.

Another Hebrew word for breath, Neshimah, comes from the same Hebrew root as a word for soul, Neshamah. Just pausing to breathe with awareness can instantly center us, reduce stress, and connect us to our inner life. Neshamah (Soul) and Ruach (Spirit) can be synonyms, or in the nuances of Jewish mystical thought, they represent different layers of our inner lives. Consider what nourishes your Neshamah, the contemplative aspect of the soul, and your Ruach, the emotional, creative aspect. Are you getting enough of each in your life right now?

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Take a Mini-Retreat: A Simple Breathing Meditation

Find a comfortable position, put aside any burdens (physical or mental) for a while, and take a few deep breaths. Then, just breathe naturally but with attention. As you breathe in, feel your belly expanding, and as you breathe out, feel it contract. If you experience discomfort or tension anywhere in your body, send your breath there. If you like, you can imagine each breath filling your body with healing light or see it as a color bringing relaxation to your body. Or you can simply feel the breath and luxuriate in it. If you like, repeat softly: Elohai Neshamah, My God – My Soul (from a morning prayer thanking God for our breath and soul).

I learned from my teachers Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Rabbi Arthur Waskow that the sacred, unpronounceable, four-letter divine name YHWH contains within it the breath of life. The sacred name is made up of consonants that are also vowels in Hebrew: Yud (Y), Hey (H), Vav (which was originally a Wav – so W), and Hey (H). Listen attentively to the sounds of your own or a loved one’s breathing and you can feel that God is not far away. The divine presence is as close as every breath. Give thanks for the gift—the miracle of each breath and the spirit from God that keeps us alive.

A version of this post first appeared in The Wisdom Daily.

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Growing up spending time in the Texas Hill Country, I found joy and peace in rivers and creeks. Often seen as symbols of time and life, rivers represent change and flow. As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, “No one ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and s / he is not the same person.”

The pace of change can seem relentless these days. My teacher, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, z”l, (Reb Zalman) liked to say that life is seldom smooth as Lake Placid, but (mostly!) not like going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. It is often more like a flowing river, sometimes calm and sometimes full of rocks and rapids. We don’t get to choose most of the currents that shape our lives, but we have the freedom to paddle among them with the best skill we can muster as we set our course.

Like a river, life is always changing, and being aware of that can make joy more precious and challenges more bearable. Reb Zalman also liked to share the folk story about King Solomon searching for a ring that could make a happy person sad and a sad person happy. A wise silversmith fashioned a ring with the words ”Gam Zeh Ya’avor,” “This too shall pass.” (Reb Zalman had that printed on a silicone bracelet along with another saying, Gam Zu Le-Tovah, “This too is for the good.”)

We are living on the water planet. Water covers over 70 percent of the earth’s surface and comprises about 60 percent of our own bodies, bodies that developed in the waters of the womb. Water, Mayim, is one of the most powerful and pervasive forces in Hebrew tradition, appearing as the first element of creation and going on to symbolize life and Torah. Springing up in the arid landscape of the Land of Israel, our tradition developed prayers for rain and dew and rituals for washing and immersing.

Crossing the modest Jordan River, our ancient ancestors arrived in the Land of Israel, known primarily as a land of creeks and wadis that flow in the rainy season, a “land of brooks of water.” Rabbi Herbert Weiner suggested that the yearning for rain to fill the rivers of Israel drew our ancestors’ gaze heavenward and influenced our spiritual people’s development.

In Hassidic and mystical thought, a river can be a symbol of the Shefa —the abundance or flow from God to humanity. There is a sense that if we can serve properly and pray with true intention, we will open the faucet, as it were, to receive the divine flow into the world. Another way to see it is that the flow is always there, but through prayer and meditation we become more conscious and appreciative of it.

Rabbi Avraham Weinberg of Slonim wrote about this spiritual flow in his book Birkat Avraham, which I got to study with the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. Inspired by a passage in the biblical book of Numbers (Chapter 21) that describes the “nachalim”—the Wadis or creek beds that the Israelites came across in their desert wanderings, the Rebbe explained that there is an “upper stream” from God that is aroused by the “lower stream” of our prayers to flow with love, joy, blessing, and goodness into our lives and consciousness.

Diving deeper into the river, the deep mystical level of their flow is explored in the book The River of Light: Spirituality, Judaism, Consciousness, by Lawrence Kushner. Rabbi Kushner explores the nature of consciousness—the river of light that pervades the cosmos—as perceived in Midrashic myth, theology, and scientific inquiry. He writes, “In Jewish mysticism, the river is a metaphor for the Holy Oneness that unifies all creation. Just imagine it: a sacred stream, luminous and ubiquitous, a river of light.”

Psychology has given us the concept of a “state of flow,” in which our attention and actions become one when we are fully engaged and in the moment. I think it’s doubly powerful when we are in the flow near some actual flowing water! “Blue Spaces” with natural water are known to foster calm, stimulate healing, and foster positive habits.

Take a Mini-Retreat with Water:

Your ability to connect with Blue Spaces (natural water) obviously depends on a lot of factors, so get creative. Maximally, find a place where you can safely be near or in flowing water. If that’s not available to you, you might seek out a fountain in a park or a water feature in a garden.

Depending on the setting, you might:

• Swim and immerse in the water, like a natural Mikveh, to feel a sense of renewal and refreshment, and to emerge with a kavannah or intention for what you need to feel and do.

• Wade in the water and sense its coolness on your feet and ankles. Wading shoes are good if the ground beneath the water is rocky. Dip your hands in the water and scoop some up as a spiritual washing and lifting up of the hands. You might choose to take this moment to dedicate your hands to some good work or deed.

• Sit or stroll by the water, watching the play of light on water and trees, breathing the fresh air, listening to the birds. Take some time just to be present and restore yourself. Conclude by sending a blessing from this place out to the world and considering one way that you could share this goodness with others.

• Whatever practice you choose, you might meditate on or repeat the phrase, Mayim Chayim, Waters of Life.

Go with the flow!

I’d love to hear your ideas. What’s the most calming and refreshing way that you like to experience natural water?

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A version of this post originally appeared in The Wisdom Daily.

Shortly after I wrote this post, my beloved Texas Hill Country was stricken with severe floods that took many lives. To help the affected communities, consider the Kerr County Flood Relief Fund:

https://cftexashillcountry.fcsuite.com/erp/donate/create/fund?funit_id=4201

How are you staying grounded these days? I use the term advisedly, since for many of us, our overly-digitized lives can lead to living in our heads, bombarded by alarming headlines on our smartphones. Often, connecting to what’s under our feet can help to calm what’s in our heads.

Human as Earth Creature

According to the first chapters of Genesis, the first human, “The Adam,” was formed from the ground, the Adamah (Genesis 2:7). Midrash (ancient Jewish lore and commentaries) describe the first human as containing both male and female within them (Genesis Rabbah 8:1), to be separated into genders with the creation of Eve (in Hebrew, “Chava,” mother of all life). Another beautiful teaching is that this first human was made with soil from all over the world, in a variety of colors, so that they would be at home anywhere on earth, and poignantly, so that the earth anywhere on the planet would be willing to receive their remains. As soon as the Adam is made from the Adamah, they are put to work tending the garden; in other words, gardening was the first profession. The Garden of Eden is the image of a primal home, both verdant and beautiful, that I see as a symbol of Planet Earth itself.

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Genesis is only the beginning of the Torah connecting humans and the ground beneath our feet. When Moses stood at the burning bush, God told him to remove his shoes, because he was standing on admat kodesh, holy ground (Exodus 3:5).1 At this moment of sacred revelation, going barefoot was mandated, as it was for the Kohanim (priests) in the ancient temple service. Some Jewish spiritual teachers read the text creatively: removing one’s shoes was both symbolically and linguistically connected to removing narrow and habitual ways of thinking and seeing the world.

Reconnecting with the Earth

Both these and other biblical scenes point to the spiritual power of reconnecting with the earth. I find it very grounding (literally) to stand barefoot on the earth whenever I can, or to walk barefoot on the beach near my home. Contemporary science hints that it may also be healthy. “Earthing” includes modalities of going barefoot, lying on the ground, or other techniques to get the body into direct contact with the negative electrical charge of the earth, a practice purported to convey benefits to health or mood. With the current level of research, it can be hard to sort out the measurable benefits of earthing from the placebo effect and the known positive aspects of being outdoors in the sunshine and fresh air. Whatever the scientific basis, being outside and connected with the earth is something that many people (including me) find comforting or emotionally supportive.

Similarly, science is showing the positive aspects of Adam and Eve’s first job: gardening. Not only does tending a garden offer healthy outdoor exercise and an improved diet, but the dirt itself may contain healthy bacteria that enhance mental and physical well-being.

I know many people who find their greatest comfort and grounding as they get their hands dirty working in the garden, their own little Eden, or in a community or congregational garden (some of which grow food to feed those in need). But even if you lack a green thumb or garden patch, you can seek out ways to make life more of a garden by growing houseplants, putting a plant on your desk at work, buying from a farmer’s market or farm stand, making a centerpiece of flowers and herbs, or just strolling through a public garden as your senses absorb the sights and sensations.

Mini-Retreat: Feet on the Earth Practice

Here’s a practice that you can try for getting more grounded: Taking off your shoes like Moses can be a great way to make a fast connection with the strengthening power of the earth. (If the situation isn’t conducive to going barefoot, you can do this with shoes on, but do try it barefoot sometime if you can.)

Standing or seated, plant your feet firmly on the ground. Take some time to feel the textures and temperatures on your feet and sense your connection with the earth.

Let your posture be straight but not stiff, like a tree or Jacob’s ladder, linking heaven and earth.

You can imagine your feet like plants or tree roots, rooted into the soil. Sense the earth’s energy flowing from two directions, upward and downward, earth and sky each offering its nourishment in turn as you breathe. Or, as you breathe in and out, picture the exchange of your breath with the trees and plants in your environment.

Imagine the power of the earth from its molten core through its bedrock and topsoil, supporting and strengthening you right here and now. Imagine the layers of the past under your feet, giving you guidance.

Let your senses absorb the sights, sounds, scents, and sensations of your Makom,2 the place upon which you are situated.

If you like, you can repeat this phrase in Hebrew or English to yourself: Admat Kodesh, Holy Ground.

Try this exercise—in a quick or extended form—whenever you need to feel more grounded.

Blessings! Let me know how it goes.

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A version of this was originally published in The Wisdom Daily, including links to sources.

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Shema Yisrael: Listen Israel…

For over 660 days, the soundtrack of Israel has been playing in my house. That’s because my (Moroccan-born) Israeli husband has been listening non-stop to the Hebrew language news from Israel.

It started with the shock and horror of October 7, 2023, broadcast in real time, a litany of terror, atrocities, murders and kidnapping by Hamas, the brutal terrorist organization that rules Gaza. But it didn’t stop there.

Over nearly 2 years, over breakfast and lunch, I’ve heard stories of heroism on October 7, followed by almost daily sobbing eulogies of families who have lost beloved sons and daughters during the ensuing war. I have heard the sounds of sirens and exploding munitions with the iron dome, sending people rushing to bomb shelters. I’ve heard anti-government chants at huge rallies and the desperate pleas of the hostage families to make a deal that gets their loved ones home, as well as the occasional joyful reunions when some were returned. I’ve listened to interviews with people whose lives and livelihoods have been upended, and I’ve heard about suicides by soldiers overcome by the PTSD and moral injury of the war.

Many of the things that I’ve heard have drawn me closer to Israel, our ancient Jewish homeland, the country where half the world’s Jewish population lives, and the place where we have many extended family members and friends. The words and sounds that I have heard have cracked my heart open and bonded me even more with my people as they struggled not only with the terror regime of Hamas, but with attacks on multiple fronts.

And…there is one thing that I haven’t heard much in that endless soundtrack of war, and it really bothers me. I haven’t heard many words of concern or compassion for civilians in Gaza. Indeed, until recently, I barely heard any Hebrew language reports on the conditions those civilians are facing. I’ve heard how their homes and schools and hospitals were commandeered by Hamas (true), and I’ve heard people contend that the Gazans are all Hamas (not true). Sadly, I’ve even heard their dire situation analyzed as a public relations problem rather than a humanitarian crisis.

It wasn’t always this way. In times past, I used to hear a lot more from Israel about empathy, caring about the other, and the struggle for peace. As Rabbi Jill Jacobs points out (and I vividly remember), Israelis formerly spoke out and demonstrated en masse for the lives and welfare of Palestinians. Personally, I can understand why Israelis find it hard to empathize, not only after October 7, but after failed peace initiatives and violence. Nonetheless, I am sad about it.

Thankfully, my Israeli news marathon has included some powerful interviews with Israelis with military, legal, and educational credentials who not only pleaded for the hostages but also raised concerns for Gazan suffering. Yet after they speak, I frequently hear responses that make me shake my head. For example, the president of Tel Aviv University (my Alma Mater), was recently interviewed after he and several other university presidents sent an open letter to the Prime Minister stating that Jewish values and historical experiences should make us sensitive to the suffering in Gaza and make its alleviation a priority. The two men interviewing him insisted that the hunger in Gaza wasn’t Israel’s fault and even implied that his letter was demoralizing, blaming, and harmful. Perhaps they weren’t really listening.

While I’m hearing all these things in Hebrew, people around the world are seeing photographs of the rubble in Gaza, families weeping for their dead or clamoring for food, and most recently emaciated children. Most Israelis only see this in the foreign press or the left-wing Haaretz (available in both Hebrew and English). But it is starting to bubble up in the mainstream Israeli press. David Horowitz, editor of the middle-of-the-road (English language) Times of Israel, wrote a recent editorial in which he concluded, “A war that began because of the absolute imperative to destroy Hamas’s military machine and get back the hostages has metastasized into an Israeli military takeover of most of Gaza, overseen by a government dependent on the support of would-be permanent occupiers of Gaza, with some 45 soldiers killed since the last ceasefire collapsed, and hundreds of Gazans dying in search of food.” He writes that the Israeli government has refused to confront the future governance of Gaza by non-Hamas Palestinians, and has therefore, “made itself responsible for Gaza, and all the death, hunger, and destruction there.”

There was a time when I sat with Jews and Palestinians as we listened to one another’s stories, when our dialogue group brought Palestinian peace activists to a large conference of Jewish educators who listened to them with rapt attention. Even then, during the second intifada, it was hard. But in this current era of polarization and extremes, liberal Zionists like me feel stuck between those who insist that Israel can do no wrong and those who shout that the very idea of Israel is all wrong. It’s hard to criticize Israel’s actions when our friends and family are going through the war while I’m just hearing the soundtrack. It’s challenging to point out the suffering on the other side when anti-Israel sentiment is growing and sometimes spilling over into antisemitic acts. But that’s no excuse to wallow in the sounds of silence. It is not only a Torah imperative to speak up now for innocent children and families in Gaza; I believe that it’s a mitzvah to start talking about a better way forward for all our children and generations to come.

As we approach Tisha B’Av, the fast day that marks the destruction of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem along with all of the exile and hardship that followed, it’s time to expand our circle of concern to the families on the “other side” who, to paraphrase the book of Lamentations, “get their bread at the peril of their lives, because of the sword in the wilderness, whose skin glows like an oven with the fever of famine.”

After Tisha B’Av comes Shabbat Nachamu, with its prophetic vision of comfort and redemption. Can we allow ourselves to dream again that our people who exhibit vast courage and ingenuity in war can rediscover the courage and creativity to pursue peace? Yes, it’s not all up to us – but it is also up to us. On Shabbat Nachamu, we read the Shema from the Torah: “Listen Israel, Adonai is Our God, Adonai is One.” Our first Jewish prayer is a call is to listen. For nearly two years, I’ve been listening to the sound track of war and suffering. I pray that we can all learn to listen better, to stop shouting past one another and to hear one another’s stories, until eventually we hear the shofar call for peace.

How do you hold complex truths? Is listening part of it?

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Mini-Retreat on Healing the World

Bring to mind a vision of Tikkun Olam, healing the world - not the whole entire world, but one little corner, one little scene. Don’t overthink it; just let it well up within you. What does it look, sound, feel like? Who is there? Allow yourself to bask in this vision.

Then consider one action that you can take to bring that vision a step closer to reality. Write it down to remind yourself to take it.

Last week my sisters and I, along with my youngest daughter, traveled from four corners of America to our hometown of San Antonio to attend the closing on the sale of our parental home. Our mom died in 2008 (our dad back in 1979), and since then first our stepfather, and then some tenants, lived there. We didn’t have to be there in person for the sale, but it felt like the right thing to do, and it was. Not just to reconnect with the multicultural charm and natural beauty of the place we grew up, to visit a few favorite places and eat more than a few favorite Tex-Mex dishes, but to visit our parents’ graves, to walk through the now-empty house with a sense of closure, and to read a sweet thank you note from the two little girls who will be growing up in the same house that we did. We all stood together in the center of the house, under the skylight, as I offered a spontaneous blessing for us to take the energy and memories of the place with us and for it to bless its new inhabitants. And then my daughter gave us each an Andes Mint, the sweet treat that my mom always had in the fridge.

This seems like a good time to share a bit of memoir from the previous trip that I made in 2018, to start clearing out our mom’s things.

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2018

Only formal guests used the front door. I still had the key to the side door that opened off the carport and led unceremoniously right into the kitchen, where family and friends came inside.

The front lawn of my childhood home was drought stricken, dry, and almost treeless. But it still had ivy on the wall by the front door, and my mom’s colorful glazed pots filled with ferns. I grabbed my carry-on from the trunk and waved goodbye to the taxi driver who had dropped me off from the San Antonio International Airport. The steam bath of July Texas heat was already raising a mist of sweat around my face, but opening the kitchen door, I slipped into a cool blue air-conditioned oasis.

Coming back to Texas felt as relaxing as opening my top pants button after a big meal. I could just breathe easier. This was the house my sisters and I grew up in, and that I lived in with my own family for several years in adulthood, before my mom and Joel moved back and we bought a house three blocks away. But since then, the kids had grown up and I had lived coast to coast.

When my sister Melissa arrived, we would go out for Tex-Mex, come home and excavate the closets. Glad I wasn’t doing this alone. Mom’s husband, Joel, was recuperating and rehabbing from a broken hip, and had made the decision that as soon as he was better he would move back to Baltimore near his daughter and sister, and rent out the house. Technically, Joel is our stepfather, but since he married our widowed mother when I was 30, I thought of him more like an uncle. Who would have thought that Joel, out of shape and with a host of health problems, would survive our active mom when she died from a brain tumor nine years before? She left the house to me, Melissa, and Alison, but stipulated in her will that Joel could live there or rent it throughout his lifetime.

I breathed in the familiar smell of books and furniture polish. Here were my parents’ smooth teak furnishings in mid-century modern style, along with the white leather couches that Mom and Joel had bought together. His piles of papers and vitamins had taken over the shining planks of variegated burnished wood in my parent’s custom dining table. My dad would never have approved of Joel’s tacky table lamp with a stand of a fishnet-stockinged leg. Mom’s upright piano, an extension of herself, stood silent in the den, flanked by built in bookshelves adorned with knickknacks like our bronzed baby shoes.

Where to sleep? The owner bedroom was too weird, even though it had been mine and my husband’s for six years when our kids were young and mom lived in DC and Maryland. I pulled my suitcase down the hall to my childhood bedroom, the one that used to have pink walls and curtains that glowed like the inside of a conch shell each morning. The shelves had overflowed with hardcover illustrated books, from Little Women to Anne of Green Gables. Now there was a queen-sized guest bed with a boring white spread, and bookshelves stuffed with paperbacks of mom’s old mystery novels and Joel’s sci-fi.

Opening the sliding glass doors of the den, I stepped outside to sit on the shady back patio. The comforting soundscape hadn’t changed: coos of mourning doves and the constant whir of cicadas, as well as periodic jet noise from the nearby airport. But almost everything in the lush green backyard was gone: a childhood swing set and hammock on a stand, the later gazebo that we used to turn into a sukkah, the mimosa tree with its fuzzy pink flowers that smelled like grapefruit. The birdbath was still there to attract blue jays and cardinals, but not the little surrounding miniature forest that my father had landscaped “as a gift for me.” Vines of honeysuckle flowers from which we used to sip nectar drops as children still crept over the chain link fence, while aromatic jasmine adorned a simple wooden pergola that my mom had added by her bedroom door.

Only one thing had grown and flourished over the years since I had moved out: a five-foot Live Oak tree that my dad and I planted my senior year of high school* was now a giant that dominated the entire sloping backyard. Its massive branches shaded all the way to the house.

Sinking into the old porch swing, I could almost imagine Mom grilling our weeknight dinners out here on the barbecue. I remembered sitting outside while she strummed folk songs on her guitar, and we girls sang along to her sweet voice. I liked all the songs except the one about the cowboy in Laredo, “as cold as the clay,” who was going to die. Also that calf in “Dona, Dona,” doomed to the market while the swallow above flew to its freedom. One day mom said we shouldn’t sing, because the neighbor’s wife had died, and it wouldn’t be considerate. I was young and didn’t understand why that might be a problem, but was glad to skip the dying cowboy and doomed calf. I was scared to think about death, but my parents assured me that it was far away and we would be together for a long, long time.

My mind fast forwarded to Mom sitting out on the patio in her final illness, as long as she could. She was not in physical pain, but her last months were a series of losses: no more wallet, breakable jars, words. Still, going outside, she had treasured the fresh air.

I let myself drop into the feeling of home-not-home. The sense that my parents could come in the kitchen door at any moment but never would. Still, this much was left for now, and I gathered it in with my breath.

Have you been home again when it was really changed? What was it like? I’d love to hear from you.

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*Pictured in my note on Substack - my sister remembers that she was the one to help plant it. Maybe we all did!

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For quite a while, I was on a Substack streak, posting without fail every week. So where have I been? Well, I stuck my head out of my turtle shell, saw the state of the world, and have been hiding in my portable home ever sense.

JK!

But seriously, it’s partly true. I’ve been AWOL mostly because my schedule has been packed, work as a congregational rabbi has been satisfying but exhausting, and my personal life has had its challenges.

But the backdrop to everything has been the constant, anxiety-provoking flood of shocking news. I don’t know what to write about first. Heck, I don’t know whom to call first. Should I check how my friends my hometown of San Antonio, who are coping with historic floods? Call my daughter in Minnesota where a political assassin was on the loose?

I called her, and also family in Israel running to bomb shelters as Iran retaliates on civilians. (Was the attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities necessary, reckless, or both? Above my pay grade to analyze but there must be an alternative to endless war and conflict.) I add the scenes of missile destruction in central Israel to the ongoing war and suffering in Gaza, the promising, vibrant young people killed on both sides, and the unknown fate of the remaining hostages.

The news continues like a bad infomercial: “But wait; there’s more!” Here in the US, we’ve had series of horrendous antisemitic attacks—arson at a Jewish governor’s residence one state over, a young couple murdered at a Jewish event in DC (one state over), a peaceful gathering in a town I often visit attacked with firebombs—and barely hearing from any non-Jewish allies. (And I must stop reading the news comments with people hating on or blaming the victims.)

Our country is seriously divided, vulnerable people (refugees, migrants, trans youth) targeted, democracy imperiled. Family and friends are impacted by smoke and floods, but what happened to climate action?

Sometimes I feel like making like a turtle and hiding in my shell.

However, that isn’t an option. Like the old joke of the kid who wants to stay in bed because school is so stressful, until Mom pulls off the covers and says, “You have to go to school. You’re the principal!” I remember that I’m a rabbi and people are looking to me to be the “non-anxious presence,” uplift them, give them hope. I need to stay centered and poke my head out of my shell long enough to share my support, and prayers, and the resilient resources of community and tradition.

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How are you coping these days? How do you know where to focus?

After my mystical experience at the ranch at age 12 (described in my last post), I continued to find a spiritual connection outdoors, and like so many it happened at summer camp. Around the same time as my experience in the Hill Country, I attended a Jewish “Y” camp in the Poconos where my parents had worked in their youth. Although the camp wasn’t heavy on Jewish content, the vibrant experience of Shabbat at camp shaped me forever.

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At home, all I knew about Shabbat (the Jewish Sabbath from sundown Friday until stars-out on Saturday night) was that my mom put a Kleenex on her head (apparently we belonged to the Kleenexite sect of Judaism), waved her hands three times around some candles and sang a blessing. At camp, I realized that Shabbat was a 25-hour holistic experience: changing from our grungy weekday clothes into Shabbat white and dancing down to the lakeside amphitheater as the sun set to sing and dance and welcome the Shabbat queen. I made up my mind to experience that again.

Between the ranch and camp, I was well on my own winding path to a calling of service in the Jewish world, and nature would always be a part of that. When I finally entered the ALEPH Rabbinic program decades later at age 36, many important moments in my training would take place at outdoor gatherings, particularly at Elat Chayyim retreat center in the Catskills (now incorporated into Isabella Freedman), with its woods and organic garden.

Judaism is a religion tied to land, first to the Holy Land, and to the planet itself: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof” (Psalm 24). Our holidays are connected to the seasons in agricultural Israel, our ritual objects are full of nature motifs, and once a year we spend most of a week in a leafy hut! As I’m learning right now in an online class with Dr. Melila Hellner-Eshed, the Zohar, that great book of Jewish mysticism, emphasizes that Torah and encounter with the divine happen best as one strolls outdoors. Indeed, for the mystics, nature is the outer garment of the Shechinah, the divine presence herself.

With the rise of environmental consciousness, nature and spirituality are coming together once again. As a rabbi, I lead my community on contemplative “Soul Strolls” on some Shabbats, among other outdoor activities on our beautiful Delaware beaches. In previous congregations, I’ve led religious school mountain retreats and B-Mitzvah class hikes. My congregation has a Green Team leading our environmental mitzvah projects, and our religious school families participate in such events as Jewish ocean environmental group Tikkun HaYam’s “Reverse Tashlich” (an international beach clean up day prior to Rosh Hashanah).

Today, the ALEPH Rabbinic Program in which I studied offers studies in “Earth-Based Judaism,” and across Jewish denominations there is a burgeoning movement of JOFFEE (Jewish Outdoor Food, Farming, and Environmental Education), typified by such organizations as Adamah and Wilderness Torah.

As an adult, I’ve been fortunate to live in proximity to beautiful natural places that nourished my soul, including four years in Israel when I was in college. Back in the states, I continued to connect to the Texas Hill Country, before life took me to Northern California, the Hudson River Valley of New York, and now to the beauty of Coastal Delaware (with a pit stop and ongoing connections in the Philly area). Thanks to these wanderings, my family and I have gotten to experience some of the most diverse and spectacular scenery that our country has to offer.

When I finished my rabbinic studies in 2000 and graduate school in 2009, I turned to a new project, creating Wellsprings of Wisdom, a website about Jewish symbols in nature. Since I’d been shaped by summer camp and retreat centers, I aspired to create a kind of virtual retreat center where people could ponder the meaning of these symbols in Jewish tradition and their own lives. I incorporated Jewish texts, personal experiences, nature photography, video clips, soundtracks, and meditations, and related social media on Facebook, Instagram, and now here on Substack.

One thing led to another and soon I was getting serious about the art of nature photography. Eventually I started a second website to share my nature photography. But I didn’t really grasp how much this holy hobby meant for me until others pointed it out for me. In an exercise at a group meeting during a rabbinic fellowship, we were asked to describe some mundane object that we used each day, and our relationship to it. I chose my camera. Others in my circle noticed my enthusiasm:

“Do you realize how you light up when you talk about your camera?”

“You become more animated.”

“This is your unique gift as a rabbi! Embrace it and share it,” they said.

Since coming to Seaside Jewish Community here in Coastal Delaware, I’ve used nature photography as a tool in my rabbinate. Not only do nature photos adorn some of the synagogue walls, but during High Holiday services, held at a local church, nature photos are shared on large overhead screens at various points during the service. I use prints of my photos to make cards and small gifts that I use in pastoral care and education.

I truly believe that the earth is our greatest Mishkan, our holy sanctuary and divine dwelling place. More and more, I find my own deepest spiritual practices in Nature, strolling and engaging in nature photography. I hope that my Nature Rabbinate in person and online will inspire folks to connect with their community, their heritage, and our planet.

Your Turn:

Do you have a holy hobby or a special gift that you share with others? Anything related to nature? Please tell me about it in the comments.

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My soul was awakened to nature in the Texas Hill Country. When I was twelve years old, my parents bought the “ranch,” a small county place near Utopia, Texas (our livestock was “one head of cat”). Ninety miles northwest of San Antonio was the perfect distance for my workaholic dad to get away from the demands of a busy pediatric medicine practice. On most weekends he could escape dinner calls about the colors of little Johnny’s diarrhea, and shift his prodigious energy to the endless upkeep required by an old Hill Country property. Whether removing an undulating snake from around the front porch hummingbird feeder to release it in an empty field, or using a rowboat to tow away the carcass of a dead goat from the creek to where turkey vultures would pick it clean, Dad embraced the moment.

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We started trekking to the ranch on weekends during a mild Texas winter, when nature presented a palette of browns and grays. Once we had been away a couple of weeks and didn’t realize that the seasons were changing. We arrived late Friday night, and on Saturday morning, I got up before the rest of the family and made my way down to the river.

As I stepped outside our backyard and descended the steps to the river bank, I felt like I was entering the movies and stories that captivated my childhood imagination: Dorothy landing in a technicolor Oz, or the children passing through CS Lewis’ magic wardrobe; but they had stepped into winter and I was stepping into spring!

Giant cypress trees pushing skyward, purple-flowered vines tumbling down the limestone cliffs, the cool now-green Sabinal river flowing tantalizingly below. A new world hummed and buzzed with vitality: wind animating the trees, birds singing and mourning doves cooing, a turkey buzzard circling far overhead. Their chorus was backed up by the buzz of bees and rising whirr of insects. I breathed in the fresh country air, rich with aromas of the giant cypress trees by the river and the cedars along the cliffs as I glided down the stone and wood steps on sneakered feet.

Then I stood transfixed, beside the little river glistening with its magical dance of sunlight and shadows.

What happened next is hard to describe with words. Standing by the Sabinal river, feet rooted in the grassy bank, my boundaries dissolved. Green flowing water, blue soaring sky, thick pulsing life: all no longer outside, but inside me, as I in them.

My senses opened wide to absorb everything at once, and to be absorbed into the whole.

I was no longer apart from the world, but simply another part of it, like a hummingbird or a cypress tree. I was as young as the budding flowers spilling down the cliff and as old as the ring of rolling hills in the far distance.

I was all of it and all of it was me.

I was nothing and everything all at once.

Time slowed to a halt and melted away. For how long, I cannot say.

I stood in silent awe for moments that tasted of forever.

And then I emerged, like a swimmer surfacing from the deep silence of water to the noise and bustle of the air. Back in the busy buzzing life of a spring morning, feeling again the separate integrity of my twelve-year old self, but touched forever by that brief eternity of perfect wholeness.

Instinctively, I wanted to utter some thanks, some deep word or prayer to acknowledge what had just happened. But what words would be worthy enough to commemorate the flowing, enlivening power of that moment?

The only thing that I could think of was one of the few prayers that I had learned in my sporadic Religious School attendance: Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheynu, Adonai Echad. At that moment of unitive awareness, I instinctively offered back to the whole the Jewish declaration of cosmic unity.

It would be a long time before I had such a powerful mystical experience again, but that moment in the Hill Country sent me on my spiritual quest that has lasted a lifetime and eventually led me to a calling as “The Nature Rabbi.”

More on that in my next post!

Take a Mini-Retreat:

Think of a favorite place in nature that has shaped your soul and make a quick imaginal visit there right now. Call to mind the sights, sounds, the feelings of the elements on your skin, the temperature and the scents.

If you can, take an outdoor nature break sometime today and engage your senses with a place you can find right here and now, even if it’s a leafy corner of a garden or park. Take a few deep breaths and see what offering arises to say, “thank you.”

What’s a special nature place for you, and what’s the last time you were there?

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Love Poetry from Nature

Passover is a traditional time to read or sing from the Song of Songs (aka the Song of Solomon), the Bible’s sensuous love poetry. It is full of descriptions of the beloved’s body in nature terms (eyes like doves, curly hair like flocks of sheep) and lush descriptions of the land coming to life in spring.

Here are a few of my nature photos inspired by Song of Songs:

Hark! My beloved!
There he comes,
Leaping over mountains,
Bounding over hills.

My beloved is like a gazelle
Or like a young stag.
There he stands behind our wall,
Gazing through the window,
Peering through the lattice. (2:8-9)

Catch us the foxes,
The little foxes
That ruin the vineyards—
For our vineyard is in blossom. (2:15)

My beloved is mine
And I am his
Who browses among the lilies. (2:16)

It’s beautiful to read the Song of Songs - maybe aloud to a beloved. As you read, you might even wonder how it got into the Bible. It was recommended by none other than Rabbi Akiba, who called it “the holy of holies,” perhaps because he had a great wife, Rachel, and saw human love as a metaphor for love of the divine.

Passover Foods from the Land

The most famous Passover food, of course, is Matzah, the flat unleavened bread we eat all week (I recommend whole wheat), to remind us of the unleavened bread that our ancestors baked in their haste to leave slavery in ancient Egypt.

Karpas, a green vegetable such as celery or parsley, is eaten at the beginning of the Passover Seder meal that opens the holiday, and dipped in salt water to represent tears - or the parting of the Sea. Eating these symbolic and seasonal natural foods helps to (literally) internalize the Seder’s message of freedom. Recipes varied from country to country after Jews were exiled by the Romans from the Holy Land in the first century and our diaspora spread throughout the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and eventually the Americas.

The Bitter

Maror, Bitter Herbs, are eaten at the Passover Seder to recall the bitterness of slavery. My husband’s Sephardic (Spanish and Mediterranean Jewish) family from Morocco observes this the original way by eating Romaine Lettuce. It is said to be sweet with a bitter after-taste, recalling how the Israelite sojourn in Egypt began sweetly but turned bitter. Although Romaine lettuce from the supermarket isn’t very bitter (and yes I did tease him that it was kind of a tame for a bitter herb) it can become so when the plant matures in hot climates. Historically, some Sephardim used artichokes as the bitter herb - sounds delish!

As an Ashkenazic (Northern and Eastern European) Jew, I grew up with horseradish as the bitter herb of choice. In cold places like Poland or Ukraine, my ancestors probably could not find fresh greens at Passover, so they used that root vegetable. It’s really easy to grow your own horseradish; a friend took a large piece of leftover root from his family seder and planted it in the garden where it grew for years, which inspired me to do the same. My experience is that horseradish is an invasive plant and it’s good to plant it separately. The Bible Belt Balabusta has all the tips for you to grow and use your horseradish for next year!

My teacher, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, encouraged people to experience gathering wild herbs for the Maror, as a taste of living from foraging, perhaps starting with dandelions. Or go gourmet- one year some friends brought a delicious bitter herb salad to our Seder that I want to recreate. Here’s a popular recipe.

The Sweet

The Haroset (or Charoset) is a sweet mixture usually containing fruits, nuts, cinnamon and wine. The Maror of choice is dipped in the Haroset to temper the bitter with the sweet. Plus we make it into a matzah sandwich during the Seder. The Ashkenazic version is apple-based, while the Sephardic versions often have dates, dried fruits and nuts. Here my husband got to tease me that my haroset was just a glorified fruit salad. But there are many and varied recipes to try from around the world.

While the most popular explanation of the Haroset is a reminder of the morter and bricks made by our ancestors in ancient Egypt, there is another and sweeter explanation: its sweet fruits recall the new fruits of springtime, the aforementioned Songs of Songs, and young lovers daring to find one another “under the apple tree” to keep the Israelite people growing and surviving through centuries of enslavement in ancient Egypt.

A Festival for the Earth

To learn more about how the holiday of Passover is intertwined with nature, I’m reading the beautiful Fruits of Freedom Haggadah1 from Torah Flora, an organization devoted to plants and nature in the Torah and Jewish tradition. And I’m grateful that I got to attend a class about The Promise of the Land Haggadah by spiritual environmentalist Rabbi Ellen Bernstein, before her untimely death last year. You can find some of her wisdom and a link to her Haggadah here.

How do you celebrate spring and how do your bring nature into your holidays?

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Lucky

“We are so lucky,” my dad used to say. It was a mantra that he repeated often, sometimes when we were up at our ranch in the Texas Hill Country for the weekend, or when we were driving to the Rocky Mountains for a vacation. He wanted his three daughters to appreciate everything that we had, including home, family, and the good fortune to be born in the United States rather than Soviet Russia or a struggling “third world” nation.

And yet, our Dad was sometimes spectacularly unlucky, even in his favorite place. On the way to the ranch from a country outing near Kerrville, he drove with the window open and a piece of tire flew off of a truck, slashing his arm and landing him in the emergency room. Another visit to urgent care came when he was mowing the lawn at the ranch and debris struck him, necessitating stitches.

Dad lost weight and took up sports for his health. When he was 46 years old, one weekend at the ranch he went out for a run on a remote country road and was struck and killed by an elderly motorist driving a pickup truck.

I was twenty years old when my father died, and after the initial shock and grief, I decided that I had to make a decision. Either: A) life was completely random and chaotic, or B) there was a Greater Plan, one that I couldn’t see with my merely human eyes. To maintain my sanity, I chose B.

While my theology would become more developed over the years, I continued to shy away from talking about good luck, even though I had the undeniable good fortune of being born healthy and able-bodied, to kind parents in a democratic country during a period of unprecedented prosperity. For any Jewish woman in history, could there have been a time with less prejudice and more opportunity?

But I couldn’t completely relax into that optimism, not only because of my father’s bad luck, but because it wasn’t the Ashkenazic Jewish way. Centuries of intergenerational trauma at the hands of hostile societies had led to a neurotic fear of feeling too good about anything. It was courting bad luck to be open about our worry or happiness. My mom and my sisters and I joked about (but somehow internalized) how my Polish-born great-grandma Rose responded to any open articulation of fear, even said jokingly, with a string of symbolic spitting and Yiddish exclamations: “Toi, toi, spit, spit, nish do gedacht (may it never happen) and God forbid!”

Conversely, a compliment about a cute chubby baby or a family member’s achievement merited a kenahura (“keep away the evil eye”) and another tphoo, tphoo. The message was clear: don’t get too comfortable with the good or it might disappear, and on the other hand don’t give satan or the Cossacks or your jealous neighbors an opening to do anything bad.

The Hebrew (and Yiddish) expression Mazal Tov, translated as “congratulations” literally means, “a good constellation,” meaning that your good fortune must be a sign that the stars are aligned for you. The rabbis of the Talmud (Nedarim 32a) were not keen on that pagan idea, and said that God took our patriarch Abraham out to count the stars in order to teach him that ein mazal le-Yisrael, the Jewish people have no constellation, we are above these changing fortunes and dependent only on God. (Of course, some wags in time to come read that literally and sardonically: ein mazal le-Yisrael, the Jews have no luck.)

Blessed

As the years passed, I went in the Talmudic direction and found a substitute concept for luck: blessing. Luck implies that life is kind of random. Blessing meant that a divine source provides us with what we need. The Priestly Blessing in the Torah (Numbers 6:24-26) has been sending out vibes of prosperity and safety, divine favor and peace for the past three millennia, and as I raised a family and embarked on my rabbinic studies, I felt truly blessed. But blessing, too, can be a problematic rubric, because it suggests that people always get what they deserve. It also scurrilously implies that people who are less fortunate must have done something wrong. Neither of those ideas stands up to scrutiny.

Each religion offers its own ideas about good or bad luck, curses or blessings. Hinduism has the powerful notion of Karma; you experience the results of what you earned either in this life or a previous one. Buddhism reminds us that good or bad, it’s all impermanent and illusory, so don’t cling to any of it.

Chinese folk religion seems to embrace the concept of good luck very openly. But it also acknowledges the paradoxical nature of luck, if I’m to believe the authenticity of a popular folk tale about a Chinese elder whose son finds a wild horse and tames it. The villagers tell the father, “What good luck!” but he just responds, “We shall see.” Sure enough, the young man falls from the horse and breaks his leg. “What bad luck!” everyone exclaims. “We shall see,” responds the elder. A few days later the Emperor’s forces come to town and conscript all the healthy young men into the army, but the young man recovering from his injury is exempt. “What good luck…”

Christian belief, of course, is manifold, but one of the most interesting takes about the notion of blessing that I have seen is that of contemporary theologian and cancer survivor, Duke Divinity Professor Kate Bowler, who wrote the bestseller, Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I’ve Loved. Based on her life experience, she criticizes the Prosperity Gospel promulgated by some American evangelical churches in which the Lord rewards the faithful with health and wealth. Instead, she invites her readers to embrace life in all of its suffering and imperfection.

My own Jewish tradition, Grandma’s spitting aside, took a equanimous approach to good and bad fortune. The rabbis, like the Chinese sage, understood early on that you never know what’s really good or bad except in hindsight. The Talmud bids one to bless God for good and bad alike. On the same page, it relates a story about the great first century sage Rabbi Akiva:

Once when Rabbi Akiva was walking along the road and came to a certain city, he inquired about lodging and they did not give him any. He said: “Everything that God does, He does for the best.” He went and slept in a field, and he had with him a rooster, a donkey and a candle. A gust of wind came and extinguished the candle; a cat came and ate the rooster, and a lion came and ate the donkey. He said: “Everything that God does, He does for the best.” That night, an army came and took the city into captivity. Alone outside the walls with no noisy animals or bright candle, he was spared. Akiba said “Didn’t I tell you? Everything that God does, he does for the best.” (Berachot 60b)

Not to second-guess such a great sage, but what about the people in the city who did get taken into captivity? Didn’t they deserve a little miracle, too? (Not to third guess me, but Akiba was the one who later praised God even when being tortured to death by the Romans.)

Centuries later, Hassidic Judaism popularized a mystical view of life’s ups and downs. Its devotees viewed divine blessings as a never-ending flow from above, often blocked only by our failure to notice them. Commenting on some particularly hairy curses in the book of Leviticus, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi (1745-1812) interpreted: “In truth, they are nothing but blessings!” His followers in the Chabad Hassidic movement continue to this day to wish one another “revealed blessings,” since even life’s bad experiences may be “hidden” or “concealed” blessings – but not ones we want to wish on others.

A famous study1 of people who had lucky windfalls, like winning the lottery, or very bad luck, like losing mobility due to an accident, found that as time passes, the lucky and the unlucky alike tend to recalibrate their hedonic meters so that their happiness in everyday experiences is not so far apart. In another study, British psychologist Richard Wiseman2 interviewed 400 volunteers and theorized that luck is mostly an attitude that can be learned, an openness to opportunity and a way of interpreting life positively. Maybe it’s an apocryphal story, but I’m told that once on the Tonight Show, Johnny Carson read an item from the lost-and-found column of a midwestern newspaper: “Lost dog—brown fur, some missing due to mange, blind in one eye, deaf, lame leg due to recent traffic accident, slightly arthritic. Goes by the name of ‘Lucky.’” That gets a chuckle, but maybe he was lucky after all, to be loved and cherished by a family.

As a rabbi, I’ve known people who had it all but complained constantly, and others who radiated joy and positivity despite considerable hardship. One example seared in my memory is a pastoral visit to an elderly man whose disability and incontinence kept him largely confined to bed in a state of undress under a thin blanket on rubber sheets, who kept telling me and our synagogue chaplain how incredibly lucky he was to have had such a great life and be taken care of by his loving family. And every modern rabbi has known Holocaust survivors who turned the most horrific experiences into a catalyst to build wonderful lives.

Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik (1903-1993), luminary of the Modern Orthodox movement, distinguished between Goral / Fate and Yi’ud / Destiny. Fate encompasses those things outside our control, the cards that life has dealt us individually and collectively. Call it luck, or chance, or a Bigger Plan that is above my pay grade to understand. Destiny, by contrast, is what we make of those things. Some people have all the luck, but squander it, while others with hardships and challenges find their way to a life ripe with meaning and appreciation.

Grateful

I guess Dad was right; we are lucky people. Not lucky to have lost him so young, but lucky to have had him at all and to carry on his legacy. Every evening, I write in a gratitude journal and each morning I counter my ancestral traumas by playing a wake-up list of religious and secular songs about how incredible it is to be alive on this earth. Despite all the challenges in the world, I feel awash in blessings and incalculably lucky to be here. The word that works best for me now is “Gratitude.” Gratitude for my living body and the gifts I’ve been given, for every moment of creativity or connection, every hug from a grandchild, and every little miracle I behold in nature on a daily basis. Whether luck or mazal or blessing, gratitude motivates me to share the good with others.

Please comment: What’s your personal relationship to luck, blessing, and/or gratitude?

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At last! Spring has officially begun (in the Northern Hemisphere). The seasonal wheel is turning toward warmth, light, and life renewed.

Did you ever ponder the shape of time? Is time an inexorable linear march, or a continually returning circular dance?

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In synagogues around the world, spring brings a special reading from the Torah that includes these words:

הַחֹ֧דֶשׁ הַזֶּ֛ה לָכֶ֖ם רֹ֣אשׁ חֳדָשִׁ֑ים רִאשׁ֥וֹן הוּא֙ לָכֶ֔ם לְחׇדְשֵׁ֖י הַשָּׁנָֽה׃

This month shall mark for you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you. (Exodus 12:2)

That month is Nisan (around April), the ancient Hebrew and Babylonian lunar month of spring, in which Passover falls. If you are familiar with the Jewish calendar, you might be scratching your head, since Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is seven months away in the fall.

But the Hebrew calendar has more than one new year, and it offers at least two shapes of time: linear and cyclical.

The notion that the Jewish people introduced linear time to the world was offered by historian Thomas Cahill a few years back in his bestselling book, The Gifts of the Jews. According to Cahill, human history truly began when God said to Abraham, “Go forth” (Genesis 12). Until then ancient civilizations looked at time and life like a big wheel: never ending, repetitive, with no room for individuality. Judaism gifted the world with the idea that tomorrow can be better than today, that each individual life has a purpose and goal, and that justice will someday be served, even if it be in some distant visionary future.

But there is another view which finds the sanctity of time not in linear progress but rather in sacred cycles. This position is articulated by Rabbi Arthur Waskow in his book Seasons of our Joy. According to Waskow, the shape of Jewish time is not a line at all, but round, like a circle dance. The sacred cycles of the year are tied to nature and the earth, to the phases of the moon and the textures of the seasons. To ensure our future on the planet, we must stop our obsession with mere material, linear “progress,” and return to our ancient appreciation of life’s cyclical rhythms.

I’m a both/and person when it comes to the shape of time: life is cyclical and we can grow and progress. I love an image offered by Rabbi Michael Strassfeld in The Jewish Holidays: A Guide and Commentary, describing the Jewish shape of time as a kind of rising helix, like the spiral ramp at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. We keep returning to the same lessons with the annual seasons and holidays, but each time we do it from a new vantage point that allows us a larger perspective.

And… here’s another way to view the shape of time: not as a line or even a cycle, but as an eternal present rooted in the landscape and the elements. According to David Abram, in his landmark book, The Spell of the Sensuous, many indigenous peoples sense that time is inseparable from place, with the future lying just beyond the horizon and the past hidden underground and inside of living things. I love to visualize time like that to keep me in the present (see the mini-retreat at the end of this post).

Time is life. In today’s world, with our ever-shortening attention spans pulled in a million different directions by our ubiquitous technology and media, time can often feel fleeting and fragmented. The ancients knew that time was sacred. By connecting with nature, with loved ones, with sacred days and moments, we, too can stretch and mold the shape of time into a sacred vessel of life.

How do you sense time? Is it something that changes, and can you shape it?

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Take a Mini-Retreat:

Consider author David Abram’s personal time exercise from The Spell of the Sensuous. Find a relatively open (and safe) space outdoors, Relax, breathe, and look around. Close (or soft-focus) your eyes, and imagine the past and future pouring into the present:

“[I] let myself begin to feel the whole bulk of my past—the whole mass of events leading up to this very moment. And I call into awareness as well, my whole future—all those projects and possibilities that lie waiting to be realized. I imagine this past and this future as two vast balloons of time, separated from each other like the bulbs of an hourglass, yet linked together at the single moment where I stand pondering them, And then, very slowly I allow both of these immense bulbs of time to begin leaking their substance into this minute moment between them, into the present.” (p. 202)

Slowly, the present moment will begin to grow and the past and future to dwindle to “mere knots on the edge of this huge expanse,” When you are ready to “let the past and the future dissolve entirely,” you can open your eyes and senses to the boundless vitality of the eternal present. If you wish, imagine the future is somewhere beyond the horizon, while the past is underneath the ground under your feet, and hidden inside of each living thing, including you. Immerse in being right here, right in the now.

Let me know how it goes.

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