Here I am sharing some of the most common questions couples have asked me along the way of their wedding journey.

 “We are an interfaith couple. We plan to raise our kids both Christian and Jewish. What do you think of that?”

This is one of those articles that’s easier to just not write!

Once you write it, you have “staked a position” and it’s a position that, however you couch it, will be met harshly by a certain percentage of readers.

The question of “how to raise kids” in two-faith families is one of the toughest issues in Jewish community today. It is estimated that more than 50% of Jews marry non Jews. Of those, 70% of them are not raising their kids as Jews.

It’s no wonder so many parents and grandparents come up to meet me at weddings, visibly relieved that a Jewish officiant is there, but visibly shaken by the situation. It isn’t that they don’t love or even adore the new (non-Jewish) bride or groom joining the family. They’re just terrified of what their grandchildren will be. Being Jewish on paper matters very little to a Bubbie or Zayde, looking down on her familial line and trying to imagine what it will look like when she is gone. The only question she really wants answered is: “In three generations, will my family still be Jewish?”

Of course it’s impossible to answer that question with certainty. Children all grow up and become whoever their inner souls call them to be. We parents don’t get to decide. But the decisions parents make in how they celebrate holidays in their home, and how much formal Jewish education they give their kids – these things can all significantly “stack the decks.”

Intermarriage has been going on strong for two generations now, so we have a fair amount of concrete, scientific data on interfaith families, and how different practices have shaped kids’ identities. Here, in a nutshell, are the findings:

 If you plan on raising your kids as both Christians and Jews, they will probably grow up as nothing. They will not have a strong attachment or identity to either faith tradition.

How can that be, you might wonder?

Well, for starters, we live in a larger secular-Christeo world where everything about our broader culture is not Jewish. Our Sabbath day is not the national rest day. Or holidays don’t confirm to academic and professional work calendars. The language of our ritual life is hard to learn and never taught outside Jewish institutions (Hebrew). Hanukkah songs are not the “holiday” songs playing at the mall each December.

Judaism, unlike Christianity, is simply not “in the air”. You can take your child to experience isolated Jewish rituals if you want – here is Passover seder with Bubbe =– and here are some Hanukkah candles to light in December. But such brief dabblings in Jewish holidays will not instill in your child a deep passion or burning love for Judaism or the Jewish people.

Likewise, it is probably unlikely to instill a deep, burning passion for Christianity either. Their services are built up upon an entire architecture of beliefs and history which, if you don’t learn them, render the rituals at best curious and worst meaningless.

The superficial observance of any holiday does very little to instill the values, beliefs and history that unites a faith group. That kind of identity formation requires much more work: Learning the group’s values through books and conversations in the home; Forming relationships with others in your group and having shared experiences; Working together with your group on common goals and ideals.

Studies show that Jewish day schools do great work in formulating Jewish identities. But, they are expensive.

Supplementary Hebrew schools are a great second option but here you have to make a choice: Church schools and Hebrew schools both fall on Sunday. So … which are you going to choose? You can only be in one place at one time!

Perhaps one of the most effective things parents can do is send their kids to a Jewish summer camp. That creates experiences, memories and bonds that often last well into adulthood.

 Here is my challenge to you parents, who are wrestling with these issues.

You say that you want you kids to grow up respecting and understanding both parents’ religion. That’s great! In our world that values pluralism, no one would ever discount the value of this kind of exposure. Thousands of families just like you are out there doing this every day, and they are raising culturally sensitive kids to respect both Christianity and Judaism.

And, when your kids grow up, researchers might snag them in a survey pool and ask the question “What religion are you?” Most likely, they will say something along the lines of this: “Well my mom is Christian and my dad is Jewish, so I’m kind of both.” They won’t join a synagogue or a church. They’ll probably marry non-Jews. They’ll stop attending any religious events of any kind. And there is a 5% chance their children will be raised with any formal Jewish education.

Reading that, how does it make you feel? Are you okay with that? Do you feel you want to give your kids equal exposure and let them chose, and if that’s the likely outcome of that series of choices, so be it?

These are sincere questions because only you can answer them.

As a parent myself, I see these kinds of study outcomes and I’m left with a very strong feeling that parents really need to choose one religion that they celebrate in the home, and that’s it. If you raise them Jewish, really raise them Jewish. Send them to a Jewish school program – whatever kind you can afford. Teach them Hebrew and plan their bar or bat mitzvah. If they have Christian grandparents, by all means enjoy Christmas dinner with them, but the dinner should be at their house, not yours. If Daddy goes to church once in a while, that’s okay, you just explain to the kids: “Daddy is Christian and he likes to go to church sometimes.”

Likewise, if you choose Christianity, don’t give your kids the disservice of a Christianity stripped down to fireplace stockings and Easter eggs. Have them study the hymns, the theologians who built up the religion, the writings of the Hebrew Bible that were the basis of Jesus’ teaching. Give them something meaningful to guide their ethical evolution through childhood; give them something sophisticated to think about and wrestle with as they enter adulthood.

So many people reject religion when they never really studied or understood the religion they are rejecting. As parents, you can’t choose what your kids will ultimately accept or reject. But you can determine the quality and depth of what they learn.

Other articles in this series:

“We are an interfaith couple. Should a rabbi or minister marry us?”

“How can I make my Jewish or interfaith wedding unique, funny or even funky?”

I love to hear from readers. Please post your comments below. To inquire about my wedding services, write me directly at joysa@aol.com.

Tagged: Interfaith weddings, Raising kids both Christian and Jewish, Raising kids in interfaith families ]]> http://wanderinghebrew.com/2012/02/18/we-are-an-interfaith-couple-we-plan-to-raise-our-kids-both-christian-and-jewish-what-do-you-think-of-that/feed/ 0 WanderingHebrew cross church http://wanderinghebrew.com/2012/02/10/we-are-an-interfaith-couple-should-a-rabbi-or-minister-marry-us/ http://wanderinghebrew.com/2012/02/10/we-are-an-interfaith-couple-should-a-rabbi-or-minister-marry-us/#comments Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:55:42 +0000 WanderingHebrew http://wanderinghebrew.wordpress.com/?p=501 ]]> This is a series of posts informed by my experiences officiating weddings. Most of my weddings incorporate Jewish traditions – some lightly, some a lot. But others have been fashioned entirely on other faith traditions, and especially from the secular world. 

Here I am sharing some of the most common questions couples have asked me along the way of their wedding journey. 

“We are an interfaith couple. Should a rabbi or minister marry us?”

I think the answer to your question lies not in what’s right for your wedding, but rather what is right for your future household. Your wedding should reflect the spirit or nature of the home you plan on creating together.

So, what kind of home do you plan on creating?

When it comes to identity, people almost never fit into the neat black-and-white depictions I will give here. But hopefully these examples shed light on the larger idea.

 You are NOT planning on having kids, and …

•    the bride goes to church regularly and the groom never goes to synagogue.

~ It sounds like your future home will be more Christian than Jewish, in terms of holiday and ritual expression, so a minister sensitive to a half-Jewish audience would make the most sense.

•    neither couple identifies as “religious.” You plan on celebrating Christmas with the Christian side and a Passover seder with the Jewish side, and that’s pretty much it.

~ It sounds like a secular ceremony (whether officiated by a rabbi or a minister) is the best reflection of your future household. The officiant’s “credential” (ie, whether “rabbi” or “minister”) won’t matter nearly so much as finding the right person. Some officiants have agendas. You need someone who can embrace a multi-faith audience.

 •    the bride cares about her Jewish heritage (though doesn’t religiously celebrate) and the groom is basically atheist.

~ Probably a rabbi is best for you, but a rabbi who will create a Jewish ceremony that emphasizes the cultural aspects of Judaism over the theistic ones. Also, she or he needs to be comfortable working in multi-faith groups (which includes “atheists” – who are their own distinct faith group with their own set of beliefs.)

***

The examples I have given are for a couple not intending to have children. That was intentional. When no kids are involved, it makes the conversation a little easier and more straightforward.

If you are planning on having children, the same principles apply, but the shades of gray get more complex. Your choices after all, will not only affect you as adults, but will also shape the childhood experiences of your kids, as well as have a major impact on their evolving identities.

Please see my additional post specific to raising kids in an interfaith home.

Other articles in this series:

“We are an interfaith couple. We plan to raise our kids both Christian and Jewish. What do you think of that?”

“We are an interfaith couple. Should a rabbi or minister marry us?”

“How can I make my Jewish or interfaith wedding unique, funny or even funky?”

I love to hear from readers. Please post your comments below. To inquire about my wedding services, write me directly at joysa@aol.com.

Tagged: Interfaith weddings, Jewish weddings, Minister or rabbi? ]]> http://wanderinghebrew.com/2012/02/10/we-are-an-interfaith-couple-should-a-rabbi-or-minister-marry-us/feed/ 0 WanderingHebrew kiddush cup shavuot http://wanderinghebrew.com/2012/02/05/how-can-i-make-my-jewish-or-interfaith-wedding-unique-funny-or-even-funky/ http://wanderinghebrew.com/2012/02/05/how-can-i-make-my-jewish-or-interfaith-wedding-unique-funny-or-even-funky/#comments Sat, 04 Feb 2012 20:35:13 +0000 WanderingHebrew http://wanderinghebrew.com/?p=481 ]]> This is part of a series of posts about my experiences officiating weddings. Most of my weddings are Jewish in one fashion or another. But many incorporate readings from other faith traditions, or even secular tradition.

Many of the couples I work with are devotedly “agnostic” in their beliefs (whether “Jewish” or not). They bristle at the classic hierarchical God language that so dominates traditional blessings and liturgy. Hey, no problem, here; I do too! For me, this discomfort is a bright open door inviting me to create the words that do capture my heart and soul. It is my deepest honor to be asked to do this for others too…

Here, in these posts, I am sharing some of the most common questions couples have asked me along the way of their wedding journey.

“How Can I Make My Wedding Unique, Funny or Even Funky?”

No cookie-cutter weddings here!

Wedding are supposed to be times of great joy – not somber sobriety! They’re a time to bring out the best of our traditions, but not bury ourselves in them. It IS possible to create a wedding ritual that mixes meaningful words of love with joyful, even unexpected elements that will have your guests chuckling about your wedding for years to come.

There is no “recipe” for creating a funky, unforgettable wedding. It comes about by brainstorming, thinking creatively, and most importantly of all – giving me the license to go! Once I know what you are open to a funny curve ball, I promise you, I can come up with one!

Example 1: “No God, Two Cultures, Please Make ‘Em Laugh”

Eric and Maria wanted a non-theistic wedding that was light-hearted and not overly serious. They were an “older” couple, with grown children, who each had small parts in the ceremony (playing instruments, for examples). I came up with two surprise elements in their wedding that I felt proud of:

1)    First, I read, in Spanish, a poem about love by Pablo Neruda. The bride is Spanish, and I knew her family would be watching the wedding later via YouTube, and would be delighted to suddenly hear some of the ceremony in Spanish. I practiced it for hours and think I got the accent decent enough!

2)    Then, with a little behind-the-scenes sleuthing, I dug up some dirt about the couple’s younger lives. Then, when it came time for the vows, the “repeat after me” part, I mixed in serious vows, with funny ones they totally didn’t expect.

“Repeat after me. I, Eric, promise to not get drunk and wake up naked beside the Colorado River.” {Insert riotous laughter here!}

“Repeat after me. I, Maria, promise to always make you really great mojitos” …

You get the idea. It was the best part of the ceremony!

Example 2: “No Religion, No Time To Plan, the Funkier the Better”

Claire and Collin got a sudden job offer in Europe so they had a quickie wedding with very little preparation time. But they were careful to throw in their own quirky touches in all aspects of the day.

First, my favorite, they had the groom’s sister dressed identically to all the groomsmen, and she was also called a “groomsman!” Then they had a wall of tea lights, before which we conducted the ceremony. It was gorgeous! They also had everyone pitch in. The bride’s 13-year-old sister played all the entry music on the violin; a friend sculpted the bride’s hair.

Their main ritual request was that I not use any traditional God liturgy (either Christian or Jewish). They also had an aunt and uncle whom they wanted to honor by doing a blessing or reading for them.

After giving my rabbi-ly advice on the secrets to lasting love, with quotes from the great poet Kahlil Gibran, I called up their aunt and uncle to dispense their marital advice. That advice, much to everyone’s surprise, was a spirited reading of Dr. Seuss’ “Oh the Places You Will Go!”

The audience loved it. A few days later, I received a nice note from one of the moms, Ruth, telling me that their crowd of Jews, atheists and Christians of all stripes had been touched by the ceremony. As an officiant, I couldn’t have hoped for more!

Example 3: “Christian-Jewish Interfaith … And Honor Both Religions”

My last example is a showcase of how it’s possible to do a wedding that is religious both Jewishly and Christianly, without offending either side.

For this wedding, the couple was not personally religious, but they had agreed to raise their children Jewish. Thus, they wanted a Jewish wedding and rabbi officiant. The groom’s family, however, was very devotedly Christian. While they weren’t upset about having a Jewish wedding, the groom didn’t want them to feel “left out” or to feel like they were watching some alien scene out of a movie they didn’t understand.

I’ve officiated many Jewish or Jewish-lite weddings for interfaith couples. But this was the first time I was asked to do such a wedding actively incorporating something distinctly Christian. The million dollar question was: What to incorporate without totally “crossing the wires” of the two traditions? What Christian thing could we say that was authentic to Christians, but not alienating to Jews?

After much discussion, we did two things:

1)    The mothers came up and lit a unity candle. This beautiful ritual, which symbolizes the creation of a new light by a new family, comes from Protestant tradition. But there is nothing “Jesus-specific” about it.

2)    We also included a reading from the Book of Corinthians on the nature of love. The passage, while from the New Testament, does not quote Jesus, and thus would not have made the Jewish members of the audience uncomfortable.

At virtually every interfaith wedding I have been blessed to officiate, some very old Jewish grandmother or great-grandmother comes up to me afterward with tears in her eyes, grateful that a rabbi officiated. She is, I know, scared for the fate of her grandchildren. Will they still be Jewish? Will the Jewish family lineage live on?

This wedding was the first time I also had the Christian grandmothers come up to me, crying. “Thank you,” they said, “for making our faith feel so respected. We feel so apart of this family now.”

Ah, what a joy. What an honor. I would have made my dear Christian grandmother, Zelda, of blessed memory, proud. I felt proud too.

This is why I love what I do!

Other articles in this series:

“We are an interfaith couple. Should a rabbi or minister marry us?”

“How can I make my Jewish or interfaith wedding unique, funny or even funky?”

I love to hear from readers. Please post your comments below. To inquire about my wedding services, write me directly at joysa@aol.com.

There is a story of a king who sent his son a great distance to study all the wisdom of the world. The son went, studied, and returned wise. One day the king asked his son to take a massive rock and place it up upon the roof of the house. But the rock was too huge, and the king’s son was unable to lift the rock. Unable to fulfill his father’s request, the king’s son was … terribly upset.

When his father found him sulking in his room the king said to him, “You thought I wanted you to lift that giant stone? Even with all your wisdom you thought I asked you to do something as impossible as that!? All I intended was for you to take a hammer and break the stone up into a bunch of little pieces – then you could have placed the stone on the roof!”

Just like this, God commands us to lift our hearts up to heaven. But our hearts are these giant heavy stones – totally impossible to lift. All you can do is take a hammer – which is speech – and shatter the stony heart. Thus you can lift your heart up to heaven.

Keep in mind, they were written in a culture (Babylonia) where there were no trade schools or formal educational institutions. All skills and knowledge were passed down person to person. So … to refuse to ever teach another person seems like it would be the ultimate “f*#k you” gesture to your neighbors – and the ultimate act of selfness and sabotage against your own community.

What hilarious and vivid images they invoke!

1) From B. Yoma 38b

Hygros ben Levi excelled in the art of singing but would not teach others. It is told of him that when he was about to make a high trill, he would put his thumb into his mouth, place his index finger between the two parts of his mustache, and produce all kinds of sounds at such high intensity that, to a man, his brother priests would be thrown backward.

2) Also from B. Yoma 38b

Our masters taught: Ben Kamtzar would not teach [his art] of writing. It is said of him that he would hold four pens between his five fingers, and if there was a word of four letters, he could write it in one movement. He was asked, “What reason have you for refusing to teach [your art]?” The others mentioned earlier provided an explanation for their refusal, but Ben Kamtzar provided none. To the former apply the words “The memory of the righteous shall be for a blessing.” While to Ben Kamtzar and his like apply the words “But the name of the wicked shall rot.”

… In other words Don’t Be A Jerk!

Who Am I?
I have completed four years of rabbinical school and have taught supplementary Hebrew school for 15 years. After teaching other people’s children for so long, I’m excited to have my own child to teach!

My daughter is a precocious, very verbal 3-year-old (born July 5, 2008). But, like so many things in life, experiences are best when shared. I would love to find two or three other young children to take “class” with her.

If you have a 3- or 4-year-old and are interested in having a fun, play-based Jewish experience for your child once a week, please drop me a line. Our home is in Havertown (almost in Ardmore/Wynnewood).

I believe Jewish education — and particularly education at young ages — should be experiential. We will cook Jewish recipes, do crafts, read stories, and have time for free play.

My Jewish values are best described as “very progressive” and leaning toward the Secular Humanist side of the theological spectrum. GLBT or interfaith? Absolutely — I’d love to have your child participate!

Send me an email at joysa@aol.com if you might be interested.

Debbie Friedman

In 1995, I was living in Nashville, Tennessee, and belonged to a small Conservative congregation. One day, I saw a flier on the wall advertising a concert for some woman named Debbie Friedman. I had no idea who she was, and I imagined that whatever this “Jewish music” of hers was, it was probably cheesy.  But, I bought a ticket anyway. When you live in a Jewish desert like Nashville, you are so desperate to hang out with other Members of the Tribe, you are pretty much willing to attend anything!

That night, I packed into the tiny sanctuary, which was filled way beyond capacity. I was wedged in some tiny little nook where I could barely see a  thing. Fire code? What fire code. And, when I walked away a few hours later, I remember thinking one of those rare thoughts you have in life: “Wow. That was really something.”

Her show was so transformative, I went home and ordered all of her CDs and proceeded to share them with my friend Kathy, who hadn’t been there. I don’t remember doing this, but when Debbie Friedman died on January 9 this year, Kathy sent me an email from Nashville. “Hey Nator,” she said, invoking my nickname. “Remember when you came back from Debbie’s concert, and lent me all her CDs, and I spent the next 5 years playing them in my car? Well, I know every song we sing in my synagogue now, because of those CDs!” Debbie’s concert had been so transformative, it shaped the future Jewish life of someone who hadn’t even see it.

Just what is so powerful about Debbie’s  music? Well, for one thing, it’s beautiful. She takes simple, memorable melodies and blends them with ancient words from Torah or liturgy. Her songs have depth, and that rare sense of openness and vulnerability. If you listen to Debbie’s music, it’s just a matter of time before something she says will ignite a tear.

What makes her music even more powerful though, is to think about how she single-handedly transformed Jewish ritual life in the 20th century. Music has always been at the heart of Judaism — the Torah tells us that Moses and the children ofIsraelsang after crossing theSeaofReeds. But the cantorial tradition as we know it didn’t really begin until the 14th century, in Germany, when R. Jacob Molin codified the high holy day melodies. This became the foundation of a whole new cantorial tradition, carried on by other composers like Louis Lewandowsky, of fixed songs and melodies shared across congregations and countries.

The cantorial tradition, like the rabbinic tradition, was not just an exclusively male enterprise — it was also a familial enterprise, much like the history of medicine. To become a doctor, or a cantor or a rabbi — you pretty much had to be the son of one. These were prized family trades that you didn’t just give away to the Am HaAretz, the poor of the people. And you definitely didn’t give them away to women.

There’s another reason women’s voices have been literally silent when it comes to the composition and performance of Jewish music — and that is a rabbinic concept called Kol Isha.

Kol Isha literally means “Voice of a Woman,” and it means that a man is not allowed to hear a woman sing, lest he have lascivious thoughts. This idea that men might think improper things — and that the solution to this problem is to shut the women up — dates clear back to the Talmud, to the year 500.

It’s laughable to me that in this day and age, anyone could argue that a woman‘s voice might spark an improper thought in a man — but it doesn’t work the other way around. Obviously, these rabbinic authorities have never been to a Neil Diamond concert, where there are literally thousands of screaming women screaming thousands of improper thoughts.

It’s funny — but it’s also sad – because there has been a very real consequence to this idea. As far as I could find, a woman never performed a cantorial role in the Jewish world until the early 1950s in theUnited States. Even then, they were not technically cantors. The first woman wasn’t invested as a cantor until 1975.

This was the world Debbie Friedman grew up in. Debbie had no women role models in the Jewish musical world. In fact, she had no musical role models at all. Incredibly, the woman who has done more to innovate Jewish music had NO formal musical training, and NO formal Jewish education.

Debbie was born in 1951 inUtica,NY. At the age of 16, when working at a summer camp, she picked up a guitar and tried playing the songs the kids were singing. A few months later, she went to a Reform retreat; the group needed a song leader, and she was, as she said, “elected by default.”

At the age of 21, in 1970, she wrote her first original piece, “V’ahavta.” When she taught it to the kids at a Reform retreat, the teens stood up, crying, and wrapped their arms around one another. “I realized,” she said, “that something important was happening.”

Over the next 41 years, Debbie would release 23 albums, containing songs that are now ubiquitous in Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist congregations worldwide.

It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise, but Debbie was not always embraced by Jewish leaders. As rabbi Daniel Freelander explained, “During the late ’70s to mid ’80s, Debbie was really demonized by the Jewish musical establishment. She was seen as someone ruining synagogue music. She was hurt by it, but also courageous. It was probably the most creative period in her life. In the middle of this difficult time when people were devaluing her, she created a whole new genre, a new idiom.”

By the last decade of her life, Debbie was officially embraced by the Reform movement. The American Conference of Cantors made her an honorary member, andHebrewUnionCollegehired her to train cantorial students.

Debbie died at the young age of 59. When I met her, over 20 years ago, she was just beginning to suffer the effects of a degenerative neurological disorder called dyskinesia, which sporadically paralyzed her legs. She also suffered from seizures and adrenal problems. The struggles of her physical life powerfully infused her music with a depth and a humanity that can often only be borne from human suffering.

As the Forward explained, in her obituary: “Friedman’s gift was her ability to make Jewish prayer accessible … Her English lyrics frequently dealt with the empowerment of women and other disenfranchised groups. Her spirituality was rooted in her own feelings of being on the margins.”

Women feeling like they are on the margins of Jewish leadership is the whole reason associations like the Women of Reform Judaism were founded. Groups of women first began banding together under the name “Sisterhood” in the 1800s. It was a way to socialize and do charitable work, but it was also a way to have a voice in organized Jewish life, generations before women could officially take such a mantel.

It is amazing that in only a century, our synagogues have undergone a complete transformation. We now have women rabbis, cantors, and lay leaders galore. Our challenge has gone from empowering women, to making sure our men continue to be inspired and involved. 

Debbie knew she probably would not live into old age. When asked about the legacy she hoped to leave behind, for a 2007 book called Jewish Sages of Today: Profiles of Extraordinary People, she had this to say. It is one of my favorite Debbie Friedman wisdoms:

“When I finally do leave this world, I want people to understand that they are the essential element in the universe, and that without them, the universe wouldn’t be the same. They are the essential element not in a narcissistic way, but because they have a heart and soul and the capacity to do good … and that the person (sitting) next to them, is the same.”

Amen to that.

***

One of my favorite Friedman songs: All silly and no serious!

One of the common refrains in his writings is the importance of striving for a life of humility, curiosity and wonder. It is, I think, such an inspiring recipe for meaning!

Here is how Einstein would answer these age-old questions:

How Do You Stay Young?

In a letter to Otto Juliusburger, in 1942, Einstein wrote: “People like you and I, though mortal of course, like everyone else, do not grow old no matter how long we live. What I mean is that we never cease to stand like curious children before the great Mystery into which we were born.”

How Do You “Succeed”?

From a letter to Mein Weltbild in 1934: “The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.”

What Really Matters?

In an address in 1936: “The aim [of education] must be the training of independently acting and thinking individuals who, however, see in the service to the community their highest life problem.”

***

I had the pleasure — and at times Not So Much Pleasure – of thinking a great deal about these big Life Questions a few months ago, during a long hospital stay with my pregnancy. For five weeks, I shuffled up and down the maternity ward of Bryn Mawr Hospital, contemplating the little life that was overly anxious to come into this world.

What would I say at my son’s bris, if I could dare plan so far ahead? What kind of world was I bringing him into, anyway?

What was, without doubt, one of the most trying experiences of my life also gave me an awesome opportunity — the opportunity to see just how many other people in my religious community obviously embrace Einstein’s values. These were people who extended themselves, adding to their own burden in order to ease mine. People who saw “service to the community” as one of their highest life values. This service came in so many ways: cards and phone calls, food deliveries and babysitting offers. I could try to recount them all, but with a healthy little newborn in my lap, I blessedly don’t have the time.

In a day and age when synagogue and church membership rolls are lagging, it is experiences like this that remind me of just why it is we create these institutions to begin with. We create them to stay connected.

The Chasidic sage Rabbi Levi Yithak of Bereditchev once said that: “Whether a person really loves God can be determined by the love that person shares with other people.”

What you or I or anyone thinks when we hear that word “God” doesn’t, to me, really matter. What matters is that by linking our lives with each other, we transcend our finite existence and become closer to liberation from the self. The lovingkindness so many people demonstrated to me in the past three months has helped me do that, and for that, I am grateful.

• Set the alarm for 15 minutes before I have to leave the house.
• After the alarm goes off, jump out of bed, spend 7 minutes in the shower, wring my hair with a towel, and throw on some clothes.
• Feed the cats, throw a frozen dinner in a plastic grocery bag, and head out the door.
• Upon walking into work, head for the bathroom, where I put on eyeliner and run a comb through my hair, which had dried on the car ride over.
• Two hours later, when the first work deadline has passed, take a break and eat the frozen dinner I had packed for breakfast.

I couldn’t believe those shlub coworkers of mine, with their crazy stories of waking up at 5 or even 4:30 in the morning to get to work on time. How could it possibly take that long to get ready in the morning!? I wondered. How could they give up on those precious extra minutes of morning sleep?

Twenty years later, let’s just say, I have a different perspective. I have become one of those shlubs who spends an hour getting ready in the morning, although not — I confess — because I’ve developed some higher standard of personal hygiene or concern for my outward appearance. And I still can’t be bothered with breakfast. 

Now I take that long to get ready in the morning because, like the Tin Man on Wizard of Oz, I just can’t convince my middle-aged body that it actually wants to move.

This is what my morning routine looks like now:

• The night before I am expected to be somewhere by a certain time, concoct some reason why I can’t make it at that hour, and move it to an hour later.
• Set the alarm for 60 minutes before I have to leave the house.
• After the alarm goes off, spend the next 20 minutes hitting the “snooze” button. Each time it goes off, scream F*#k! in my head and slam the button down again.
• Four snoozes later, trudge into the shower. Start out standing, but after a few minutes feel too tired to stand, so sit down in the shower. After several minutes of being pelted in the face, switch to the bath faucet, and spend 20 minutes soaking in the tub, thinking F*#k! Do I really have to go somewhere? Wring hair with a towel, throw on some clothes.
• Amble into the kitchen, glare at my husband — just because the poor guy happens to be there — and plop down at the kitchen table. Kick the cat that walks over, meowing for food, and spend 20 minutes sipping highly caffeinated tea, thinking F*#k, if I don’t leave in 10 … 9 … 8 minutes, I’m going to be late.
• Go back to the bathroom, put on some eyeliner, grab my purse and go out the door.

The sages taught that each Jew should try to say at least 100 brachot (blessings) a day. Our traditional prayerbook offers some beautiful ones to start out the day, known as “Birchot Hashachar.” The blessings offer thanks to a benevolent God for such things as opening the eyes of the blind, freeing the captive, and clothing the naked.

Those are mighty ambitious sentiments for any time before 11 a.m., me thinks.

My birchot hashachar — my morning blessings — are a bit more modest. If, for example, I can get from the bed to the kitchen table without thinking the word “F*#k!” one single time — I’m actually doing pretty damn good ~er, I mean darn.

Can an absence of profanity count as a bracha?

I’d like to suggest Yes.

On other good days, I might actually think a positive thought in that first hour of my waking. Something like: “Wow, the sun is out, and I don’t, for once, wish with every fiber of my being that I were waking up in Miami. Maybe Smelly-delphia isn’t a total hellhole after all!”

Can an absence of despair count as a statement of gratitude?

I like to think so.

Then, on my most best, golden ticket days, my morning Grouch turns into a bona fide innocuous human being. You know, one of those basically pleasant people who doesn’t glare at her husband and kick her cat, and otherwise wishes she were dead in that first painful hour of the day. On these days, I’ve been known to actually hug the said husband and feed the said cat.

Can an absence of jerkdom count as an act of virtuousness?

I like to hope so.

Blessed are you Adonai, creator of the universe, who has enabled me to start the day like a reasonable human being.  

Amen. Selah.

It makes sense that people would have this assumption. Christianity is so singularly focused on the resurrection of Jesus – and Jews have developed such a knee-jerk reaction against anything remotely resembling this concept – equating human resurrection with Christianity is a pretty natural thing to do. It was only as I got deeper into my Jewish learning that I began catching hints that maybe, this idea wasn’t entirely born out of Christianity at all!

In Hebrew, the word for "resurrection" is "gilgul"

Background: Jewish Biblical and Rabbinic Views

The Jewish belief in resurrection finds its origins in the Bible, but the only explicit references to human resurrection after death – two of them – are fleeting and appear in the later-written portions of Tanakh. (The first is in Daniel 12:2-3, and second is in Isaiah 26:19.)

It’s obvious that later exegesis would find allusions to resurrection in other biblical texts: For example, Deuteronomy 32:39 says of God: “I slay and revive; I wounded and I will heal.” Passages from Psalms, Job and Isaiah speak of misery and dire peril as death-like states, where the victim descends to Sheol and God “restores to life.” 

Despite these later interpretations, however, such passages are not explicit statements of a bodily resurrection after death. To interpret them as such is actually a contradiction of other biblical statements that clearly argue against after-death resurrection.  One clear example is in Job 7:7-9 when Job says: “Remember that my life is a breath; My eye will not again see good … A cloud dissolves and it is gone; So is one who descends to sheol; He will not ascend.”

This then leaves an unanswerable question: Did Jews living in the biblical era really believe in resurrection? It could be argued either way. I would suggest that given the relative dearth of clear statements in its favor, the concept was a later idea that was retrojected into the biblical era by late-era writers, or even rabbinic-era editors.

By the rabbinic time period, the Pharisees clearly did have an evolving belief in physical resurrection – and this was one of the most significant points of dispute between them and the competing Sadducees. After the destruction and the ascension of the Pharisaic viewpoint, this belief made its way into many rabbinic-era texts. Two examples from the Talmud include: Ketubot 111b, which states the dead will resurrect wearing their clothes; and Sanhedrin 72a, which says the righteous, whom God will resurrect, will not return to dust. The rabbis also canonized this belief in liturgy, such as the second half of the 18 benedictions of the Amidah.

How exactly such resurrection was viewed in the rabbinic era is up for debate. Louis Finkelstein, in his book Mavo le-Massekhtot Avot ve-Avot de-Rabbi Natan, offers two schools of thought on the matter, which he believes go back to the schools of Hillel and Shammai. In Shammai, the soul descends to Sheol upon death and inactively awaits physical resurrection of the righteous. In Hillel, souls arise to be judged immediately after death. The rabbis’ later use of the term “the world to come” is meant to be deliberately vague, so as not to side with one school or another, he says.

While Finkelstein’s view is not the only theory regarding rabbinic views on resurrection, it is a very intriguing one to me from the perspective of Jewish vs. Christian origins of the resurrection belief. If Finkelstein is right – there really were two major competing schools of thought coming from two major Jewish groups in the early 1st century – then that indicates that “resurrection ideas” were very much swarming in the cultural milieu out of which Christianity emerged. [Hillel’s lifespan is dated to around 60 BCE – 20 CE; Jesus is dated to around 5 BCE – 30 CE]. And the Christian view was firmly rooted in the Pharisaic, rather than the Sadduceean, tradition.

Mormon scholar James Edward Talmage indirectly echoes this idea when he points out that, in the Acts of the Apostles, the Sadducees are often depicted as opposing the early Christian communities “doubtless due to the prominence given the resurrection of the dead among the themes of apostolic preaching,” he writes.  [Jesus the Christ: The Messiah and His Mission According to Holy Scriptures, p. 73]

Resurrection in the Middle Ages

www.mostlymusic.com/the-gilgul.html

What we have established so far is that the idea of bodily resurrection found its origins in Judaism, not Christianity. It was perhaps in a nascent state of formation in the biblical era, and by the rabbinic era, it had been embraced and was being expanded on by one of the leading powerful sects of the day; and it was this sect whose ideas ultimately won out after the Roman invasion.

Resurrection was an idea that quickly became a part of early Christian communities, but there can be little doubt that it was Judaism, and not Christianity, that invented the concept. (In fact, to be clear, the oldest foundation of an individualized resurrection theology would best be attributed to the Greeks, but here I am merely trying to address the Jewish vs. Christian origins.)

It was not, however, until the Middle Ages, that we see the notion of resurrection becoming a popular topic of conversation and a cornerstone of belief – for both Christians and Jews – although there were clear differences in how, exactly, resurrection would work. Even within the Christian and Jewish worlds, beliefs were extremely fractured, to the point that it is quite difficult to generalize what the “medieval view” really was.

“Among the medieval Jewish philosophers there were many differences of opinion with regard to the resurrection,” explains the Encyclopedia Judaica. “These controversies depend for the most part on the fact that it was not clear, or certainly not explicit, that there had been controversy in the talmudic period. Consequently some thinkers accepted one of the talmudic opinions, and others contested their views, without realizing that they were simply following different sides of an old argument.”

Here are some highlights of how key medieval Jewish theologians viewed resurrection:

• Saadiah Gaon said dead souls remain in a treasury until the resurrection, but does not endorse a physical resurrection. This is in line with the Beit Shammai point of view.

• Maimonides lists belief in resurrection as the 13th of his 13 principles of faith in his commentary on Mishnah Sanhedrin. However, the little writing he did on the topic left him open to complaint that perhaps his views were not genuine. Toward the end of his life, he wrote a defense of his view, in Essay on the Resurrection. His explanation of resurrection was, however, somewhat unorthodox. He believed God, and not a human messiah, would bring about resurrection. The resurrection would also be temporary; a second “death” would occur and at that point, the human soul would be what is everlasting.

• Nahmanides challenges the view that the resurrected dead will eventually die. He believes resurrected bodies will be somewhat ethereal compared to truly corporeal bodies, and he does not believe that they will eventually die. This can be seen as a synthesis between the two rabbinic opinions.

• Hasdai Crescas is the first medieval writer to note that there appears to be a contradiction in rabbinic resurrection views. He maintained that everyone but the greatest sinners will be resurrected, that there will be a court of judgment, and that the righteous will live forever in refined bodies.

What all of these views do have in common – apart, perhaps, from Maimonides – is that body and soul are seen as important. The body is not merely a vessel for housing the soul, but rather is used as a way of ensuring accountability for human actions. “Whether it is understood that all people are resurrected for judgment, body and soul together, or whether only the bodies of the righteous are resurrected to enjoy the redemption, the central stress is the same,” the EJ explains. The human being is one essence, a unit, not merely a soul housed in a body which itself is of no worth.”

Over on the Christian side of the aisle, we see, at the meta-level, the same fundamental belief: human bodies do resurrect, and this resurrection is based on some kind of divine judgment.

In what is deemed the preeminent scholarly investigation into Christian views of resurrection, Caroline Walker Bynum traces, in meticulous detail, the evolution of the idea – and the impassioned debates around it – in Christian communities between 200 and 1336.  In doing so, she demonstrates that “Christians clung to a very literal notion of resurrection despite repeated attempts by theologians and philosophers to spiritualize the idea.”

Her book then goes on to analyze in detail all of the major Christian works to address this theology during this time period; suffice it to say, the sheer number of works produced, and the focus they took on the tiniest of details, far exceed any hope for summary! (Peter Lombard is captivated by such issues as what age, gender and height a resurrected body might be; Albert, Thomas and Giles debated endlessly over risen fingernails and embryos, not to mention the fate of genitals and intestines in heaven. These are just to name a few.)

One of my favorite writers, as well as my favorite Jewish-American writers, is Marge Piercy, who has lived an enviable life, on her own terms, as a poet, author and liberal activist. She lives in Cape Cod with her husband and a whole lot of cats. This excerpt is from her memoir, and feels particularly poignant these days as I’ve been blessed to have the time to do a lot of writing:

Cats continue to teach me a lot of what is important in my life, and also, how short it is, how we need to express our love to those for whom we feel it, daily, nightly, in every way we can. With everyone we love, we have only a limited time, so we must learn to celebrate it body and soul. They have taught me how precious every moment we can enjoy can be with whatever we love, because it all passes and so do we. 

What I love about this painting is its focus on the people who stood at Sinai -- rather than on a divine and supernatural revelation.

Today I noticed an interesting synchronicity. The Torah portion we read during the first week of the new year (Veira) is the portion that begins the three-part chronicle of the Exodus. In it, God instructs Moses to demand that Pharaoh let the people go, and the first of the 10 plagues are reined down on Egypt.

Why is this synchronicity?

Well, the Exodus is, at its heart, a story of setting forth. It’s about going out into a new life and reality that is largely unknown. It is the beginning of a new chapter — just in the way the start of the (secular) New Year is also the beginning of a new chapter.

Like many Jews, the Jewish new year of Rosh Hoshana carries more emotional weight for me than the secular New Year does. It’s when I make my resolutions and really commit myself to inner reflection.

But the secular New Year carries its own gravitas. There is a certain magic to watching the numbers flip from ’10 to ’11. Every time I fill out my checkbook, sign a form or even look at the calendar, I have a very concrete and graphic reminder that another year of my life has passed, and can’t be reclaimed again.

In some ways, this makes the secular New Year a little less ephemeral, and a little less in need of communal reinforcement, than the Jewish new year does.

For the ancient Israelites — so the story goes — their new birth was punctuated by the revelation at Sinai. Their going forth was under the very clear instruction of Torah and God itself.

But what do we have that frames our going forth, our new beginning? In our post-modern, post-Enlightenment world, Torah and halacha are interesting traditions and guideposts, but they hardly carry authoritative sway. Their only authority is the authority we choose to assign them, which really, when you think about it, isn’t authority at all. If Torah had true authority, we wouldn’t feel perfectly okay picking and choosing from it!

Given this, under what values and principles do we enter this new year? If we choose to find them in Jewish tradition (and yes, even that is a choice), from where do we pluck them?

One of my favorite poets, Rivka Miriam, offers a poignant answer to this question. An award-winning writer born in Jerusalem in 1952, Rivka is the daughter of the famous Yiddish writer Leib Rochman.

Here is what she has to say in a poem from her collection, These Mountains: Selected Poems of Rivka Miriam, by Toby Press.

One Day the Torah Will Leave Us To Go Forward
by Rivka Miriam

One day the Torah will leave us to go forward
and we, used to feeling that she’s like our own body
like a landscape
that even when she turns away she keeps returning
coming and going –
as if she were one of our parents, or a child emerging from our
            loins –
suddenly we won’t know whether to cease
or to chase
we won’t know if one of our organs has been taken, the lungs, for
            example, or the blood, or the heart
the hidden light, the direct light, the encompassing light
or the surrounding light
and maybe she was only a childhood garment taken off
like a shirt that a growing child changes –
and maybe it wasn’t a garment at all, but a veil, a scarf
a curtain removed
the ancient fig leaf, passed from the first to last generation
or the very memory that was born before time
and keeps moving between spirit and flesh.

So, one day, without the Torah we will remain.
And no man among us will know if he’s still alive.
And each into the other’s eye will stare in search of Sinai.

I believe what Rivka is saying is that the answer can only be found in looking to each other. Our values and guideposts must be born out of relationships, and those I-Thou moments of turning toward the Other and seeking out our common humanity.

It is not the reception of Torah at Sinai that mattered. Rather, it is the fact we were all standing there, together, to receive it, that is the glue, and the lesson, that has lasted.

Nu — What do you think?

Still he delayed. So the angels seized his hand, and the hands of his wife and his two daughters – in God’s mercy – and brought him out and left him outside the city.

When they had brought them outside, one said to Lot, ‘Flee for your life! Do not look behind you, nor stop anywhere in the Plain; flee to the hills, lest you be swept away!’

But Lot argued with the angel, ‘Evil may take hold of me if I flee to the hills,’ he said. ‘Look — there is a small town nearby. Let me go there and save my life!’ The angel relented. ‘Go quickly,’ the angel said, ‘for I can do nothing until you get there.’

As the brimstone and fire then rained out of the heavens onto Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot’s wife looked behind him and became a pillar of salt.
(Genesis 19:15-26)

I confess, I have always had a certain affection for the woman in the Bible we know only as “Lot’s wife.” Any way you look at it, she got the raw end of a really raw deal.

For starters, she was married to a dolt — and even that descriptor is too generous when you look at just how incompetent Lot really was.

First, in Genesis 19:8, he offers his two virgin daughters to the men of the town to “do with as you please.” It is only thanks to the intervention of the angels that the young women are saved. Then, in verse 20, when the angels urge Lot to take his family and flee the city before it’s too late, he dilly dallies so long, the angels have to physically take his hand and lead them out of town.

Once outside, the angels urge him again to flee, and what does Lot do? He stands his ground and argues with them! “It’s too far!” he complains. “Can’t I just go to that town over there instead!?!” The angels acquiesce again, holding back the brimstone and fire until the family has reached safety.

Then, in a final act of irresponsibility, Lot fails to tell his wife and daughters the warning one of the angels had given him in verse 17 — that crucial piece of information about how, if they look back at the destruction, they too will be swept away. The text states clearly that the angels warned him — “al tavit achareycha” — in the masculine singular. These crucial words of warning were only spoken to Lot, not to the rest of his family. And Lot, being the kind of guy Lot was, never relayed them. We all know how this tragic series of events ends. Lot’s wife looks behind them and turns into a pillar of salt.

The question that has been occupying rabbinic commentators ever since is: Why did she look? Some have answered generously.

Writing in 12th century Egypt, Maimonides said Lot’s wife was looking behind her husband to see who might be following him, acting as a rear guard for all his household, who were hurrying to be saved.

The  late 14th century agaddic collection Midrash ha-Gadol says she felt concern for her married daughters, whom they had left behind, and she was turning to see if they were following.

Other commentators, overlooking the crucial fact that she had never heard the angels’ warning, concoct far more damning explanations. The 3rd century midrashic collection B’reishit Rabba said she had once refused to give salt to a poor person, so being turned into salt was a punishment ‘measure for measure.’

Jacob Chinitz, rabbi emeritus of Beth Ami Congregation in Philadelphia, now living in Israel, imagines that she looked back only to delight in the destruction of her townspeople. “She could not resist enjoying their failure and her success even though it was only her good fortune to be married to Abraham’s nephew,” the USCJ explains.

Good fortune!?!? Being married to this schlemiel was good fortune!?!

To my thinking, the question isn’t why did Lot’s wife look back — it’s why wouldn’t she!?

Here she is, the world literally raining down on her in flames, and her future, her fate is entirely dependent on this man who has proven himself paralyzed by indecision. And when he finally does make decisions, they are disastrously bad ones!

Lot’s wife may very well have been looking back out of concern for her other daughters, or out of sorrow at the destruction of the people she knew. We can never know because the text doesn’t give a clue about her inner life.

But what I do know is that I would have looked back — if for no other reason that to make sure we were on a safe path, that we weren’t being pursued, that flame and fire were not lapping at our heels. I would have not only looked back, I would have looked forwards and sideways too, to check, and recheck, that this course of action was the right one. To make sure my inept husband was not leading us into disaster.

When you are tethered, without recourse, to an unfortunate man, you can never be too careful.

I respect Lot’s wife for not following her husband blindly. I admire her for being cautious in a perilous situation in which she had no power. I love the woman depicted by 20th century American poet Shirley Kaufman, who offered this to say about a person so brave and so resolute, whom our history-writers never saw fit to even name:

But it was right that she
looked back. Not to be
curious, some lumpy
reaching of the mind
that turns all shapes to pillars.
But to be only who she was
apart from them, the place
exploding, and herself
defined. Seeing them melt
to slag heaps and the flames
slide into their mouths.
Testing her own lips then,
the coolness, till
she could taste the salt.

Original artwork by Charles Dickinson.