Ah, it’s the time of year again; time for me to struggle with that very rabbinic of holidays, Shavuot. I love the original Shavous — a day celebrating the first fruits and vegetables to appear in the season, and a reason to travel long distances to share one’s bounty with neighbors and priests.

Then the stodgy halachists got ahold of it. Now the holiday has been emburnded with the story that Moses received revelation on Sinai. So then it was the pass of law — not the passing of rains and seasons — that have become the basis of our celebration.

I could use a little Rami Shapiro at a time like this and indeed, in a quick google search, I find one! Here is a prayer R. Shapiro offers as an alternative alaynu, for a kabbalat shabbat on a Shavuot service. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Please, readers,  share you reactions too!

These readings hit home for quite a few people in my class, particularly in my own home, where we have been struggling with one setback after another for two years.

A year ago, right after our baby was born, my husband was crippled by the searing pain of an L4-L5 disc herniation; it was eventually repaired, but pain and other symptoms still linger. Meanwhile, I developed my own popourri of woes attributed to hypermobility syndrome — a condition whereby one’s joints become too flexible, because my body’s collagen is being manufactured incorrectly.

These experiences have given me a powerful lesson in what it means to “mourn.” I had always thought of mourning and grief as things that happen when a person you love dies. Arthur Frank, in his book “At the Will of the Body: Reflections on Illness,” offers a much broader perspective from his experiences battling cancer. This excerpt, from the chapter “Mourning What Is Lost,” flies open the doors to just how broad mourning and grief can go. He explains it like this:

The loss that accompanies illness begins in the body as pain does, then moves out until it affects the relationships connecting that body to others. My awkward attempts to avoid commitments I was not sure I could fulfill only made people think I was distancing myself from them. I acted not from lack of freiendship but because my body was taking me out of their natural flow of plans and expectations. I lost my sense of belonging … The inability to make specific plans is only the beginning of the loss of belonging. … Loss of the future is complemented by loss of the past. …

Middle age insinuates itself slowly into our bodies and lives. It is the time when on a good day you can still kid yourself into thinking you are as young as ever. Several nights before my surgery, I looked myself in a mirror. My body I saw was not the body I had had at 22 or even 30, but it retained for me a continuity of those bodies. The changes, the deteriorations, had been gradual.

That night I knew that after surgery, I would never be the same. It would irrevocably break my body’s continuity with its past. When you say goodbye to your body, as I was going that night, you say goodby to how you have lived. … Other losses went beyond the body. Cathie and I had always hoped that if the worst happened, friends and relatives would respond with care and involvement. Some came through. Other disappeared. We now find it hard to resume relationships with those who could not acknolwedge the illness that was happening, not just to me but to us. Those relationships were lost.

Together, Cathie and I lost an innocence about the normal expectation of life. At one time it seemed normal to expect to work and accomplish certain things, to have children and watch them grow, to share their experiences with others, to grow old together. Now we realize that these events may or may not happen. Life is contingent. We are no longer sure what it is normal to expect.

… These losses of future and past, of place and innocence, must all be mourned. We should never question how another person chooses to mourn. I was fortunate to have a wife to share my mourning. Sharing losses seemed to be the gentlest way of living with them.

***

Several hundred years ago, a great rabbi, the Rebbe Nachman of Bratzlav, scripted his own prayer for these moments of loss. Here are his words from The Gentle Weapon: Prayers for Everyday and Not-So-Everyday-Moments. I have chosen my own translations for his use of the word “God”:

Dear Soil From Which I Come,

suddenly I am alone; I am in pain.

As I search for some source

of comfort

the world –

the world so full so bustling –

seems so empty now.

It’s cold

and it’s frightening

in this hollow that is me –

in this hollow that once brimmed

with confidence and joy.

Creator, pull me back –

back to the world of the living,

back to the life of action

and human relationships.

(LM 1:277)

It’s a beautiful prayer that brings relief to simply read.

What are your thoughts? Have you experienced a loss that makes Frank’s or Nachman’s words resonate? I’d love to hear your stories or reactions.

***

Where’s a Good Yenta When You Need One!? No need to sulk; The Matchmaker Rabbi is in! To see Joysa’s columns for Jdate, visit here. Her forthcoming book on dating in Jewish suburbia is being represented by Red Sofa Literary Agency.

This “new” version is new in the most startling and thoughtful of ways. With just the slight tweak of a word here, and a phrase there, Carlebach attempts to open up the doors of a song and an anthem that has been excluding more than 20 percent of its own population.

The traditional HaTikva dates to the late 1800s. It was adapted from a poem written by a Jew named Naphtali Imber, who lived in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now Zolochiv,Ukraine. (As an interesting aside, Imber later converted to Christianity.) The songs words expressed the then-2000-year-old hope of the Jewish people to return to the land of Israel and reclaim it as a sovereign nation.

The Jewish people were kicked out of Israel and into their long trek into the “diaspora” in the year 70 CE, when the Roman Empire destroyed the Second Temple and expelled all the Jews from Jerusalem. (As a point of reference, it is believed Jesus died around the year 35 CE).

Of course there is nothing wrong with expressing the Jewish hope for teshuva, for return. The song was, and remains, one of the most beautiful and moving pieces of music in the entire corpus of our people. Even hearing the song on a chintzy jewelry box brings tears to my eyes.

The song has one fatal flaw, however, and that is this: Not everyone in the state of Israel is Jewish! What might we expect the non-Jews to be thinking and feeling when they are asked to rise, cover their hearts, face the Israeli flag, and then hear lyrics that begin like this?

“As long as in the heart within/

a Jewish soul still yearns/

and onward towards the ends of the east/

An eye still gazes toward Zion…” ?

Israel may call itself the “Jewish state” but Jews aren’t the only people who live there. In fact, a solid 20 percent of Israel’s citizenry are Arabs (either Muslim or Christian.) Plus another potpourri of Asians, Africans, and others constitute the legal population.

When I say “Arabs,” it’s important to keep in mind that we are not talking about the “Palestinians” here – those folks who have no citizenship and are living in the territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. What their fate is or should be is beyond the pale of this conversation. I’m talking about actual citizens ofIsrael, who hold Israeli passports and vote in Israeli elections, and elect their own Arab-Israeli members to the Knesset (Congress).

HaTikvah has unofficially been the national anthem of Israel since the state was founded in 1948. It officially became the anthem in 2004, by vote of the Knesset. But this song, by focusing exclusively on Israel’s Jewish character, essentially says that there is no one else there. The fact the song identifies Jews, and not Israelis, as the people of Israel casts all non-Jews (whether Muslim, Christian, Buddhist or atheist) into the disempowering position of invisibility. And everyone knows that invisible people are not equal.

This ideological problem has been a hard one for lovers of Israel to respond to. On the one hand, we can’t fathom not having this song as our anthem. It feels as crucial to Israel’s spirit and soul as a fresh-made falafel, the searing view from Masada, and the white stoned walls of Jerusalem. It would be less painful to cut off a limb than it would be to take down HaTikva from the mantel of national anthem.

On the other hand, people of conscience can’t in good conscience fail to be troubled by what Hatikva doesn’t say – by how silence makes a statement in and of itself.

It took someone with the sensitivity and raw courage of Neshama Carlebach to fix this vexing dilemma. And like all acts of courage meant to open doors, welcome in, and improve the brotherly love between people, she will no doubt be skewered for her actions by all the groups, left, and right, whose entire purpose for being is to keep divisions and antagonisms spinning on to the end of the next millennium.

Yasher Koah, Neshama Carlebach, for this beautiful, delicately done remake of Israel’s beloved anthem. Like the finest surgeon, you excised only what needed to go, and replaced it with a perfect, more inclusive alternative.

Now that the hard work is done, the really hard work begins. We need you, readers and lovers of Israel, to start contacting The Forward, the Knesset, and anyone else you can think of, to make these new lyrics a permanent change to the song!!

Here are the revised words below. Changes are in bold, with the original words following in brackets.

As long as the heart within
An Israeli [Jewish] soul still yearns
And onward, towards the East
An eye still gazes towards our country [Zion]
We have still not lost our hope
our ancient [2000 year] hope
To be a free people in the land of our fathers [our land]
in the city in which David, in which David encamped [land of Zion and Jerusalem]
To be a free people in our land
In the land of Zion and Jerusalem

Neshama Carlebach is very aware of the sensitive nature of the song. As she explained to the Jerusalem Post,

“I think it was a very controversial move, because to change the lyrics to a precious song like ‘Hatikva’ is a very big statement… It’s not about leaving the world we were in behind; it’s about opening our doors wider. I feel that if the world sees, in my own humble opinion, that Israel is not just a small exclusive group that they can’t touch, but a larger entity that’s willing to wrap our arms around the whole of humanity or even change our anthem, we’re opening our doors, and maybe the press would be better.”

***

Where’s a Good Yenta When You Need One!? No need to sulk; The Matchmaker Rabbi is in! To see Joysa’s columns for Jdate, visit here. Her forthcoming book on dating in Jewish suburbia is being represented by Red Sofa Literary Agency.

Hey, it was 5 boxes of FrootLoops for $5. What the heck would you have done!?!

I should mail this picture to the OU* and give them a heart attack. Why spend the energy engaging in abstract ideological debate when you can just send a sweet picture like this one?

B’teavon and Happy Passover Day 4, dear readers! May we all go from Redemption to Freedom in the coming year!

* Orthodox Union, the governing body of orthodox Jewish movements

In this particular case, pulling the plug didn’t matter much. It was not one of those Big Plug-Pullings, like ending a relationship or quitting a job. I simply closed the social club I had formed online (at Meetup.com) for Jewish parents with infants or small children.

I had 36 members (supposedly) in Mainline Mazal Tots, and had scheduled more than 20 gatherings or “outings” where we could meet (zoo, kids’ gym, etc). Most of us live within 10 miles of each other. We all have a child under age 3. And, over the course of two years, I only actually met 3 of these 36 people.

It may seem surprising, but this reality didn’t actually “hurt my feelings.” Hey, there’s one upside to surviving teenage social ostracism, right!? Besides, you can’t be rejected by people you have never met.

What endlessly irked me, though, and the truth which I will, knowing me, wrestle with for years, is the fact people simply didn’t care enough to come. Not Jewishly. Not parentally. Not any-lly.

I could have kept this Meetup group going indefinitely. At times, I thought I would. My family went to these places anyway, and we had fun. But the annual cost as an “organizer” on Meetup was $150 a year. At some point you have to level with yourself and admit: Well, I’m clearly an organizer of a group that doesn’t want to “be.” So what’s the point? I’m better off giving $150 to the Ocean Conservancy. The ocean will be grateful.

You, patient readers, are not my therapist. I could vent and raise my voice and flail my arms. But, I’ve already done that. That’s what spouses are for: To be an audience.

The more naked and poignant point is that we live in a society too tired, stressed and stretched out to think that something like this matters.

And / or  another possible answer is, we live among a people that no longer feels an innate bond to make that extra initial effort to form a bond.

We stood at Sinai and have now, literally, become strangers. We moved out of the shtetl, and have, the lot of us, said “good riddance.” Not just to the poverty, sexism, superstition and anti-Semitism (I concur!) — but also to the neighbors, sick bed visits and play dates.

Alas.

I look back at the rich forest of our history, longing for a sense of community not shared by the community I want to build community with.

Around the year 300 C.E., in the city of Babylon, a nucleus of learned Jewish men sat down and recorded their thoughts and verbal traditions. I could argue with any number of “truths” they offered up about the world, but some of them so resonate this mortal experience.

We human beings aren’t wired to live alone, operate in isolation or bring ourselves up when we have fallen. We, like all good primates, are wired for each other.

Talmud Bavli Berachot 5b tells this tale:

Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba fell ill and Rabbi Johanan went in to visit him. He [R. Johanan] said to him: “Are your sufferings welcome to you?” He replied: “Neither they nor their reward.” He [R. Johanan] said to him: “Give me your hand.” He gave him his hand and he [R. Johanan] raised him.

Rabbi Johanan fell ill and Rabbi Hanina went in to visit him. He [R. Hanina] said to him: “Are your sufferings welcome to you?” He replied: “Neither they nor their reward.” He said to him: “Give me your hand.” He [R. Hanina] gave him his hand and he raised him.

Why could not R. Johanan raise himself? They replied: “The prisoner cannot free himself from jail.”

Why the Unitarians? One answer to this question comes from an unlikely source: The Rev. A. Powell Davies (1902-1957). In 1944, he gave the following sermon at his church. Substitute the word “church” for “synagogue,” and I think he captured a crucial contemporary sentiment of liberal Judaism completely!

In his eloquent speech, the Rev. Davies gives several reasons for coming together to davven (pray).

Do we pray because God needs us to? No. We pray because WE need to.

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. Should a rabbi or minister marry us?”

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

“Can I be a Jewish atheist and have a Jewish atheist wedding?”

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

***

Where’s a Good Yenta When You Need One!? No need to sulk; The Matchmaker Rabbi is in! To see Joysa’s columns for Jdate, visit here. Her forthcoming book on dating in Jewish suburbia is being represented by Red Sofa Literary Agency.

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!

***

Where’s a Good Yenta When You Need One!? No need to sulk; The Matchmaker Rabbi is in! To see Joysa’s columns for Jdate, visit here. Her forthcoming book on dating in Jewish suburbia is being represented by Red Sofa Literary Agency.

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.)