Shana Tova

I have been giving quite a bit of thought over the last week to the upcoming Yamim Noraim (The Jewish High Holy Days) and what it means for people of faith and for people who are questioning. This season is a time of reflection for Jews around the world, and while many of us look inward in order to find a sense of purpose and meaning for our lives, others choose to take a more arms-length approach to self-examination.

But here's the thing.

In whatever manner we choose to observe these sacred days, we need to be less critical of those who do not do as we ourselves might do and those who do not believe as we ourselves might believe. We are a fragmented people, us Jews. Some will attend synagogue this week and next and some may not. Some may have family dinners or break fasts and some may choose to eat alone. Some may pray and some may abstain. Some may be altogether uncomfortable with the notion of God and some may actively attempt to summon a Divine Spirit. Some may hopefully seek to right their wrongs and some may not believe that there are wrongs that need to be righted.

After spending a career trying to understand community needs and responses for these days, I have finally come to the conclusion that there is no cookie-cutter approach that will work. We as a people must seek to discover and actively maintain a sensitivity for those who have become disenfranchised by the product our organized religion has been selling. There is a reason that putting "Jews in the pews" has become so challenging and most of it stems from our lack of listening to those concerns. So, in order to start the new year off with some much-required balance, I offer a few tips for all of us observing over the next ten days. Hopefully, we can put these days into their proper perspective.

For those attending synagogue.

1) Stop worrying about what the people next to you are wearing. This is supposed to be the time when judgement should come from a higher place and not you. Are my prayers any less worthy if I choose to wear jeans? What matters is what is in the vessel, not the vessel itself.

Once Rabbi Elazar son of R. Shimon was coming from Migdal Gedor, from the house of his teacher. He rode along the riverside on his donkey, and was feeling happy and elated because he had studied much Torah.

 There chanced to meet him an exceedingly ugly man, who greeted him, "Peace be upon you, my master!" R. Elazar did not return his salutation but instead said to him, "How ugly this person is! Are all the people of your city as ugly as you?"

"I do not know," said the man. "But go to the craftsman who made me, and say to him: How ugly is the vessel which you have made!"

Realizing that he had done wrong, R. Elazar dismounted from his donkey, prostrated himself before the man, and said to him, "You are right. Forgive me!" But the man replied, "I will not forgive you until you go to the craftsman who made me and say to him, 'How ugly is the vessel which you have made.'" (Talmud Taanit 20a-b)

2) Don't search for fault in the rabbi's sermon and stop with the critiques. You may not always agree with what she/he has to say, but understand that great thought and care went into those remarks. Try and find the meaning beneath the surface.

3) Don't be so caught up in your own experience that you neglect the stranger or the newcomer. Find that person and invite them to sit with you. Synagogues can be giant cliques. Seek out the new person. We make new members when old members remember what it was like to be new.

4) Take five minutes during the service, any five minutes, and close your eyes. Breathe deeply. Listen to your own voice, your own thoughts. Try and remember why you decided to come. Make this place your holy place. You have to do the work if you want the results.

5) Stop looking around for who isn't there and focus on who is. Other people's decisions should have no bearing on your own. Remember that repentance, prayer, and charity temper judgement's severe decree.

For those who gather outside the synagogue.

1) Try and remember that there are reasons for these days that don't only involve food. Have some serious discussions at your tables about the themes and realities of the Yamim Noraim. Jews around the world are facing some difficult realities today. Let's not whitewash them with honey cakes and gefilte fish.

2) Add one extra ritual to your tables. Maybe it is some environmental experience for the "Birthday of the World" or maybe it is simply lighting festival candles that you haven't in years. Let the youngest amongst you hear and try to blow the Shofar. Do something to make the experience more than just dinner.

3) Make an effort to understand why some members choose to go to synagogue instead of gathering for dinner. Their feelings and beliefs matter too.

4) Don't dismiss religious observance as fantasy or fairy-tale. We who find meaning in it have our reasons for prayer, just like those who have no use for it have theirs. We need to respect each other's choices.

And to those who won't be doing anything during these days.

We will miss you. This is a time when all Jews can hopefully find some common ground for our concerns and our experiences. If this is not the year for you to rejoin us, then maybe next year will be. We just want you to know that you are always welcome. We are your people.

Shana Tova U'Metukah. I wish everybody a happy, a healthy, and a peaceful New Year. May we write our own stories and our own pathways, whatever they may be, in the Book of Life. 

Almost Wordless Wednesday

My final Almost Wordless Wednesday image for this year's blogfest is from Rosh Hashana this year. As I explained in yesterday's post, The Husband and I spent the second day of the holiday hiking near our home and finding new ways of connecting with our Judaism. It was a perfect September morning as I blew the shofar.

Gus and The Art of Teshuva

As autumn settles onto a city that still longs for summer, and as I still pine for a Blue Jay team unsaddled by season ending injuries that might have propelled us into October baseball, or a hockey preseason unfettered by greedy billionaires and millionaires, I finally have a moment or two of solace to reflect over the just completed High Holy Days.

I have often wondered (sometimes aloud) about others who lead their communities in prayer and music over the Days of Awe. Do you all find it as difficult as do I to discover an inner space in which to reflect, contemplate, and to perhaps converse with that still small voice found deep within? Are we so immersed in the task before us that we tend to overlook our own teshuva-repentance? I have attempted mightily to avoid this....

but I often fail miserably as my mind and voice are always set several pages ahead to avoid dry spots and gaps in the services. I struggle greatly to find that personal space. 

This year something happened to compel and encourage me into conscious and meaningful acts of teshuva. What happened? He happened. 

Meet Gus. Gus is the new adoptee of Younger Son and His Young Lady. Since the aforementioned are currently (and temporarily) residing with us, so is Gus....and all of Gus' paraphernalia. Now...regular readers of this space will know me to be both canine loving and canine friendly. I have been actively lobbying for a dog ever since our big goofy Labrador left a huge hole in both heart and home, so having Gus arrive on Shabbat Shuva, right smack in between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur was an excitement I could barely contain. He is sweet, lovable, easy on the eyes, and smart. Although there have been some frustrating training moments that have challenged two sleep-deprived, working young adults, he really is learning fast. He loves to cuddle (as I type this post, I am contorted into a still to be invented yoga position because he has decided to fall asleep in my lap) and he rarely barks, putting aside the stereotype of small and yapping dogs. 

But....Gus is a puppy...a baby. He requires constant attention and even more supervision. It has been almost 20 years since we have had a puppy in this house. I hadn't forgotten it all as much as I had romanticized it. The schedules, the chewing, the worrying about inadvertently poisoning the poor creature because he is digging in a houseplant, the standing in the rain waiting for him to....well you know. And believe me when I say that I am happy to do it all. I have become quite attached to this little guy, but I must admit that 20 years is a very long time. I seem to remember that I had an endless storehouse of energy back then. To where did it all disappear?

Gus is a walking advertisement for teshuva. He has reminded me to consciously curb my temper, to re-develop my patience gene, to refocus my attention on something other than myself, and to willingly accept the wondrous affection and unconditional love that goes hand in hand with sharing one's space with a dog. In these past ten days, I have become a grandparent. I have had to listen to and follow the demands of my children when it comes to how they wish to rear their child, all the while curbing my selfish instincts to shamelessly spoil the creature rotten and let him have free reign of the house. (I must admit that it would be so easy to do. He is just so damned cute!) But I refrain and restrain, knowing that I must act in the best interest of Gus and his long term well-being and the long term mental health of Younger Son and His Young Lady. I have turned inward and have rediscovered a long-dormant part of me. Gus made me remember what the Yamim Noraim are about. U'tshuva, u'tfillah, u'tzedakah....But repentance, prayer, and charity temper judgement's severe decree. 

It is so very easy to get caught up in the extraneous stuff around the holidays, so much so that the purpose often becomes camouflaged. This year I was reminded of it all by a 7 pound Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. This year I found that still small voice within.

Sweat Equity

This post was cross-posted to the URJ Camp & Israel Programs Blog-A division of the URJ!!

As strange as it might sound, many of my earliest and most intensely personal Jewish experiences are closely associated with sweat. No, I don't have a glandular issue that might cause me to break out in perspiration at the first words of the Shema. I am one of the multitude of the most fortunate who attended Goldman Union Camp in Zionsville Indiana. Anybody who has ever spent a summer in the midwest knows full well from where I speak. And yet, in spite of the three-a-day showers, the moisture running into my eyes and blinding me during song leading sessions, the constant water breaks needed during shiur/shicha to ensure that campers and staff wouldn't drift into dehydrated lethargy, and mosquitos large enough to saddle, this place is where the bulk of my Jewish identity was nurtured and formed. I do what I do today in large part because of Rabbi Ron Klotz and the experiences that I had as both a camper and a staff member at GUCI.

I have been an animated poster child for Union Camps ever since. Whenever I am asked where I received my training, my first answer is "camp". I put my oldest son on a plane to GUCI at the tender age of eight and a half. When I tell that to people they stare at me with dumbfounded looks that suggest perhaps calling social services, but I simply reply he was going to camp. (It should be noted that GUCI was our area camp here in Toronto until Camp George opened.) One or both of my children attended as campers and staff for the next fifteen summers. They became active youth groupers, both of them serving as TYG president and my younger son on the NEL regional board. They both were teachers in our synagogue religious school with the younger one still acting as our lead music teacher. My older son travelled with NFTY and the younger attended Kutz camp for leadership and song leading training. I'd like to think that my husband and I had a hand in all of that, but frankly it was the influences that they received at camp that pushed them harder than we ever could.

Years later, I am still one the biggest cheerleaders for Reform Jewish camping. My synagogue, Temple Kol Ami here in Thornhill Ontario has been at the forefront of encouraging and sending our kids to Camp George since its inception. We are a fairly small congregation, but we regularly see several dozen of our young people attend camp each summer. Many go on to staff positions and some attend other Union Camps throughout North America. We have been so successful at encouraging our families to make Reform Jewish camping their priority, that some of our adults have volunteered their summer vacations to act as camp doctors, nurses, and other faculty positions.

Several years ago, our rabbi at the time was looking for a way to tangibly demonstrate Temple Kol Ami's commitment to Reform Jewish camping. He invited Jeff Rose, the new director of Camp George, to attend our second day Rosh Hashanah services and honoured him with the first aliyah to the Torah. Almost on the spur of the moment, the rabbi decided to invite every single person in the congregation-young and young at heart-who had ever attended a Union Camp in any capacity to join Jeff on the bimah for the aliyah. More than fifty people gathered around as Jeff chanted the blessings. It was so overwhelming and emotional that we have continued the practice annually. This past Rosh Hashanah another fifty or so individuals, including some as young as eight and a half, made their way to the bimah to join Jeff for his aliyah. The excitement on their faces was easily visible and the physical demonstration of our community's commitment was on display for all to see and hopefully there to convince the next family to consider Reform Jewish camping for their kids' summer plans.

A few weeks ago, I had dinner with friends and their daughters who had just returned from their rookie sessions at Camp George. Their mother complained bitterly that she had barely heard from the girls all summer. The girls of course ignored their mother, were deliriously happy, and have already made plans to return next summer. Theirs were the faces that I first noticed with me on the bimah this past Rosh Hashanah, along with those of my husband and grown sons. The sweat equity from GUCI has certainly paid off.