Part of a year-long series about resilience in Jewish spiritual life.

The latest school shooting, in Parkland, Florida, got me thinking about the need for connection and those who feel cut off from society.  The tragedy of the victims and their loved ones – and, yes, the tragedy of the shooter – reminds about the critical link between resilience and connection.

In Jewish tradition, the consequence of certain sinful behaviors was to be cut off, – to be karet – not the diamond-size karet, but being separated from community.  The idea was that some behaviors so detract from holiness that they rupture a bond between us and God.  The result is being cut off from the community whose totality is called to represent the sacred.

How well does this karet idea work in our modern world?  What does being “cut off” mean in this internet age of connectivity?

Today’s cyber-world – seemingly obsessed with feeds, tweets, likes and swipes –sometimes seems to connect avatars more than it connects real people in their wholeness.  For all the internet’s awesome capacity to inform and bridge gaps, how often does the latest post so absorb us in our smart devices and click counts that we get cut off from real people, real communities and real emotions?  Count the number of times you check your devices at dinner and see for yourself.

On the other hand, technology powers real connections of transformation.  The internet made the #metoo movement possible.  It broadcast to the world last week’s news that Florida students bolted classrooms to lobby state lawmakers on gun control.  It helps people to share emotions and ideas that maybe they aren’t easily able or safe to share by other means.  By making communication possible as never before, technology makes connectivity possible as never before – and with connectivity comes the power of numbers and thus social transformation.

The issue is that connectivity and connection aren’t the same thing.  The internet invites trolling for victims, posts to build weapons, conspiracy theories and fake avatars spreading fake news designed to destroy, not create.  We forget that the internet – like any machine – has no values.  Its values are in how we use it (not how it uses us).

Someone who aims to abuse, mislead or destroy might be capable of connectivity – but that’s not real connection.  That person already feels cut off psychologically, emotionally and spiritually – but they still can troll online for victims, spread fake news, build bombs, buy guns and more.  In the digital age, more and more people feel cut off, but how possible is being karet if someone can get online?

The key is that community implies covenant.  We covenant to live basic ideals, and community responds by abiding basic standards.  So too in Judaism: karet (to be cut off) comes from koret, to “cut” a brit (covenant).  Our society, our technology, our tools, our machines, our devices – all ask a covenant of real connection and real values.

Resilience arises not in connectivity but in real connection, real community.  The price of breaking the covenant we cut is to feel cut off – but when the web links us all as never before, we all pay the price when someone feels disconnected.  No longer is antisocial behavior easily seen and contained: it can build an avatar, build a fake news site, build a bomb, buy a gun and kill.  And the price is so painfully high.

At the societal level, this new reality means that society must invest more (and more wisely) in people – and especially younger people.  We must trace causes of social disconnection to their sources and keep the covenant with them.  We must track down and actively fight the online hate mongers that gave succor to the Parkland shooter.  We must keep building healthy communities so that people feel more connected and less need to seek radical online hate.  In short, the internet age challenges us to renew the resilience of our social covenant.

At the individual level, we must reclaim our power over technology so that it serves us – not the other way.  Too often we are slaves to our devices.  We’re not supposed to be slaves to anything, and compulsions sap resilience.  Join me in the National Day of Unplugging, corresponding with the Shabbat of March 9-10.  Put down the cell phone, close the computer, unplug from the web, give all of these technologies a Shabbat, and see for yourself how real connection is so much more than connectivity.

We don’t have to be karet.  Nobody needs to feel cut off.  The power, so to speak, is literally in our hands.

– Rabbi Evan J. Krame & Rabbi David Markus

Rabbis by the dozens were arrested this year at a Senate office building. What was their crime? They sat to protest on behalf of the dreamers, the young men and women whose families brought them to the United States illegally.  What was their message? America was a sanctuary for Jews in peril, and Jews will continue to make America a sanctuary for others in need.  In fact, their cause is not merely the holiness of protecting lives but also the strength and resilience building of this country resulting from our standing as refuge.

The word sanctuary means a holy enclosure such as the Temple in Jerusalem. It also means a place of refuge and peace.  Essentially there is not much difference between the two as they are both places where God dwells.  In Exodus 25 verse 9, God says “build for me a sanctuary so I might dwell among the people.”  That sanctuary or mishkan, was a place to keep the tablets of the ten commandments in a holy ark. The mishkan was also a place of protection and peace where no one but the High Priest would enter. Shalom, peace, is another name for God (Judges 6:21).

Creating a space for God such as a mishkan is the equivalent of a safe haven for those in peril or beleaguered.  In this way, the United States is a good and Godly nation when it is a welcoming safe place. Such Godliness should be sufficient reward for opening our doors to refugees and sustaining the dreamers who have already arrived.  Yet there is further benefit.

A nation that is sanctuary is enhanced by the determination of the people arriving on its shores. Their energy and their perseverance add to our industry and fuel our economy. Refugees who have risked life and fortune to escape danger are often the risk takers who open new businesses and value higher education. Opening our doors builds a resilient country.

I learned from Rabbi David Ingber that New York Harbor is like a doorway to freedom from those in peril. By that reckoning, the Statue of Liberty is the Mezuzah on that doorpost.  The inspiration embodied by Lady Liberty remains as the energetic fuel for the resilience needed to build a new life in this country.  And the contribution of these newcomers makes America more resilient as a nation of opportunity for all.

God dwells among (בתוכם) the nation  when we make a sanctuary.  After all, Torah says that our ancestors who built that original sanctuary and gave the gifts to build it, were of the a mixed multitude.  As then, so now.

for Rabbi Mike Moskowitz and Kerry Brodie.

R’ Evan J. Krame

Part of a series on resilience in Jewish spiritual life.

The older I get, the more willing I become to admit that I don’t know it all and can’t do it all.  Life experience teaches all of us what the brilliant Albert Einstein recognized: “The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know.”

Our resilience journey asks us to learn this lesson well enough that we open – truly open – to receiving and accepting advice from others. In turn, we must become inwardly vulnerable, which means holding onto ourselves a little bit less.

This is Moses’ resilience lesson from this week’s Torah portion (Yitro), named for Moses’ father in law.

Yitro was Priest of Midian, where Moses had sought refuge from Pharaoh. After the Exodus, Yitro saw Moses overwhelmed resolving the people’s disputes – all of them, by himself, day after day.  Yitro saw Moses burning out and stepped in to give Moses unsolicited advice to delegate.

So was born western civilization’s first judicial system and first governance system.  And spiritually, so was born the sacred tradition of giving and receiving advice.

It’s telling that this tradition arises from someone unlike Moses.  Yitro wasn’t from Moses’ tribe.  He didn’t share the people’s experience of bondage.  He didn’t experience or witness the liberation.  In all of these formative ways, Yitro was an outsider.

That’s key: sometimes the best advice comes from outside.  When we surround ourselves with people like us and listen only to them, we’re likely to hear only the “groupthink” of that echo chamber.  It took an outsider to reach Moses, shift his momentum and change him.

Of course, Yitro was no stranger.  He was Moses’ father in law and kind protector.  Like Moses growing up in Pharaoh’s court, Yitro was affluent and worldly.  And like Moses from the Burning Bush forward, Yitro was spiritual leader of his people.  Yitro and Moses shared enough common attributes that they could empathize with each other.

That’s key also: natively we might not trust outsiders too unlike us.  As with many things, our task is to seek balance in our circles – people enough like us that we can hear them, but not so like us that we merely echo each other.  That’s exactly what Moses did, and thus was able to hear Yitro’s advice to delegate leadership to others, raise others into leadership and not burn out himself.

When we evolve this kind of balance, we surround ourselves (and help bring to others) the full palate of qualities needed for wisdom, self-reflection, course corrections and collective goodness.  We become practiced in opening ourselves to other perspectives.  Over time, we become ever more able to fulfill the wisdom of the sages: “Who is wise? One who can learn from everyone” (Avot 4:1).  In short, we become resilient.

Just ask Yitro and Moses, this week’s resilience teachers.

R’ Evan J. Krame and R’ David Evan Markus

Part of a continuing series on resilience

Did you ever wonder why there are so many New Years Days? Who decided that January 1 is the first day of the year?  Isn’t the Chinese New Year around this time? While most Jews identify Rosh Hashanah as the Jewish New Year, the Talmud says that Jews have four different new year days to celebrate. In addition to Rosh Hashanah there is one for animals, one for trees, and one more for our redemption from Egypt. What is the reason that we create multiple New Year days?

New Year’s celebrations are more than a song of remembrance and a stem of champagne. There is a combined psychological and spiritual boost to celebrating a New Year. We get to leave the past behind, put it in a box and place it on a shelf. With the New Year we open a door to possibilities.

One of the very first declarations made in the Torah was setting a New Year’s day. The commandment comes just before the tenth and final plague descends upon Egypt.  Imagine, you’ve been enslaved for a long time. A promise of redemption is made. Before your troubles are over, the occasion is declared a New Year holiday, this one coming in the Hebrew month of Nisan which always poetically falls in the springtime.

הַחֹ֧דֶשׁ הַזֶּ֛ה לָכֶ֖ם רֹ֣אשׁ חֳדָשִׁ֑ים רִאשׁ֥וֹן הוּא֙ לָכֶ֔ם לְחָדְשֵׁ֖י הַשָּׁנָֽה׃

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

Feels a little chutzpadik, no?  We aren’t free yet and already we’ve been commanded to mark the calendars to celebrate our escape.  Which actually demonstrates the psycho-spiritual genius of the story: hope. Hope is the enzyme that catalyzes the transformation from enslavement to freedom. Hope is the fuel that propels the engine.

Has there been some episode or condition in your life that has you stuck and unfulfilled? Can you simply try to envision celebrating its end with a New Year celebration? Stepping into the realm of possibility, being hopeful, is necessary to make the transition.

To be resilient in this world, even from the depths of despair, we need to find hope. And hope can be enlivened with the plans to celebrate our transformation as if the beginning of a new year on our life’s journey. Start planning a New Year’s celebration of your own making. It is an entirely Jewish way to find resilience in your life.

Rabbi Evan J. Krame

PS – While Tu B’shevat, the New Year for Trees, is on January 31 – and the Jewish Studio celebration will be on Friday Night February 2, with a four cups of wine tasting. 

Part of a yearlong series on resilience in Jewish spiritual life.

Pop the Champagne!  Cue the confetti!  It’s a new year!  Everything’s new and fresh!

Of course it ain’t so simple – but still we hope.  At new year’s, we offer intentions. We turn the page (though more and more people keep calendars without paper “pages” to “turn”). We make resolutions (even as studies suggest that most of us won’t keep them). We look ahead.

There’s something about the idea of a new year, even if mathematically it’s arbitrary, that gets our attention and invites our focus. Maybe it’s because all the new year’s talk of “new” years, new chances and new pages offers the blessing of discontinuity. Sometimes momentum steers us in wrong directions, and inertia lulls us not to change. Whatever presses a re-set button invites us to purposefully make life all it can be.

The path to resilience is partly about claiming those re-set opportunities and making them real. But resilience also wisely balances continuity with change.

This week’s resilience balancing act comes through the first interactions of Moses with God. Fittingly, this interaction, in this week’s Torah portion (Shemot), turns a page to begin the Book of Exodus.

This new chapter starts by leaping centuries forward from tribal pre-history to Egyptian bondage, but it does so in a peculiar way – by naming pre-history’s ancestors. Torah begins by naming Abraham’s descendants who became tribal leaders, then tribes, then slaves. One thing we learn is that whatever re-set button we imagine pressing, whatever this new chapter brings, we begin as who we’ve been. That’s the “continuity” part of resilience.

Now the “change” part of resilience: history isn’t destiny. Moses, Pharaoh’s once beloved adopted son who lost it all, meets God in a desert encounter at a burning bush. God deploys Moses as freedom’s spokesperson. Moses replies that he’s tongue-tied, incapable of speaking. God won’t take no for an answer. The history of who Moses is and what Moses thinks he can do isn’t his destiny: he will need to change. As for Moses, so for us.

Then the real emblem of “change”: Moses asks for God’s “name.”  The answer Moses hears – ehyeh asher ehyeh, literally “I will be what I will be” (Exodus 3:14) – is the antithesis of any name, label, history or fixity. Moses learns that God is the constancy of evolution, the limitless capacity, the undying hope, the perpetual re-boot, the answer that outshines every question. This expression of God is change itself.

That’s resilience – the capacity to balance continuity and change. We begin as we’ve been, move beyond who we think we are, and open toward infinitely possibility. Every page turn, every year and every breath invites this shift of awareness.

So make this new year new not by pretending away your history but by growing from it and toward the infinite. This turn from 2017 to 2018, even if it’s just a page on a calendar or a swipe of an iPhone, invites us to see afresh the potential for transformation that is the fabric of the universe and the tapestry of Jewish life.

From all of us at The Jewish Studio, may 2018 be the year in which we all fulfill this call of spiritual resilience for ourselves, each other, and a world too often weary and stuck. Happy new year. Now pop the Champagne, celebrate, and let’s go.

– Rabbi David Evan Markus