I Have a Dream

If you’re a dreamer (we all are), read on: this post is about you.

“I have a dream.” With these words, dreamer Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. propelled the American nation along the arc that bends toward justice. With these same words, in this week’s Torah portion (Vayeishev), dreamer Joseph propelled Jewish history along the arc that would bend toward Egyptian exile, bondage, redemption, covenant and renewal.

Torah’s first recorded dream evoked neither justice nor journey. Joseph’s father, Jacob, dreamed a skyward ladder laden with angels (Gen. 28:12). Dreamer Jacob didn’t interpret his dream for meaning, justice or journey. Instead, he felt pure awe transcending himself. Only after waking a second time did Jacob use his rational mind to interpret his dream – at the price of his wondrous awe.

This move, from Jacob feeling a dream to Joseph thinking a dream, is what Rodger Kamenetz calls killing a dream. Kamenetz’s The History of Last Night’s Dream tracks this shift in parallel with the history of psychology – and along the way stifling spiritual experiences of heart and soul that dreams can open. Many wisdom traditions teach that thinking and rational mind are important, but that excess thinking can crowd out feeling and being – and thereby kill the dream.

So what’s a thinking dreamer to do?

First, we can become more aware when we interpret (explain) rather than experience or feel. The mind is a meaning-making machine: its narrative impulse is natural and is ignored or suppressed only at a cost. We can learn much about ourselves by looking at the stories our minds tell us about our dreams. We will learn most with awareness that our interpretive stories are just that – stories about experience, not experience itself. It’s the difference between what Jewish spirituality calls the Large Mind of awe transcending self (mochin d’gadlut) and the Small Mind of routine reason (mochin d’katnut).

Second, we can more fully feel our emotions around (and even in) our dreams. Meditators, artists and therapists know that the emotional world (olam ha-yetzirah) has a rich landscape that reason can’t fully know or control. Inhabiting this world in dream life takes practice, courage and sometimes expert guidance, but the payoff is what Kamenetz calls a “hidden path to the soul.”

The hidden path to your soul is as close as your next dream. Its arc might bend you toward justice, or awe and wonder, or an adventurous journey beyond your wildest imagination.

Rabbi David Evan Markus – This post is dedicated to my teacher, Rodger Kamenetz.

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Wrestling in the Dark Night

The human mind is a marvelous machine – always scanning and planning. Among the mind’s “programs” is worst-case thinking, wrestling to assert control over potential threats. Maybe you do this: I know I do. A delayed diagnosis could be an incurable disease! A work mistake could cost my job! An encounter could ruin a relationship! If we’re honest, we might sense that we live life on the run from feared consequences of worst-case thinking. We might know this consciously, or we might sense it deep within – just beyond routine awareness – in feeling unsettled, vulnerable, stressed or afraid.

Those feelings are byproducts of holy wrestle. Humans are wrestlers, and our wrestles are gateways to the soul. Jews are named for this. Before we were “Jews” – Yehudim, descendants of Judah, son of Jacob – we were “Israel,” descendants of Jacob renamed “Israel” because he “wrestled God” (Yisra-El). The story of Jacob’s wrestle is the story of our own.

Jacob came to his fateful night unsettled, vulnerable, stressed and afraid. On returning to Canaan from Haran, he feared that his brother Esau would be violent. Jacob tricked his father (Isaac) into giving him the birthright that was Esau’s; to escape Esau’s wrath, Jacob fled to relatives in Haran.  There Jacob earned further intrigue, manipulating relatives to acquire flocks and then sneaking away.  Now with two cousins for wives and twelve children, Jacob returned to Canaan wealthy but unsettled, vulnerable to others’ anger, stressed at the risk to himself and his family, and afraid for the future. He sent his family ahead, then spent the night alone.

Jacob’s night alone was his “dark night of the soul,” as theologian Eckerdt Tolle described it.  Perhaps you’ve known this anxiety that keeps you awake wrestling mind and heart. You consider your life – not in comfort, but in feeling vulnerable, stressed or afraid. The mind’s “marvelous machine” kicks in.  Worst-case thinking focuses on looming loss, real or imagined. Maybe you don’t sleep, or maybe you do sleep but restless from wrestling.

What is that wrestle?  Jacob sensed his wrestle as an angel. Jacob’s wrestle left him renamed (“Israel”) and limping – and also more whole. The risky encounter Jacob feared with Esau portended not war but peace: the estranged brothers fell on each other in tearful reunion.  Jacob’s worst-case thinking had been incorrect factually – but it opened his heart and brought the dark night that renewed his soul.

What is our wrestle? Is it mind and heart battling? Is it soul struggling to set psyche straight?  Is it deep-seated psychology and inner gears turning, or is it a message – Hebrew’s first definition of an “angel” (messenger) – trying to get our attention?

After the dark night, life can have new purpose or different meaning. Perspective can shift: what seemed important can become trivial, what seemed peripheral can become core, and fear can give way to gratitude.

The dark night of the soul “works” its magic because, in the wrestling hours, a kind of death occurs. Part of the self-protective ego dies, and with it protection from perspectives and priorities that had battled for attention. The wrestle sloughs off a layer of skin that, in tradition’s words, was a “foreskin over the heart.” Inner vision grows clearer; perspective on life becomes more honest.

That’s our wrestle, our namesake as “Israel,” and our human purpose: to slough off whatever keeps us from our best and most honest selves. Life’s challenges – and feelings of guilt, anger, remorse and shame – conceal the holiness of a struggle for our souls. We might run afraid from the dark night, and the wrestle can leave us limping. But Jacob shows that we can emerge stronger and more whole – with renewed purpose and a fuller sense of what it means to be alive.

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

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Rolling Stones

Consider this: the most ordinary stone can be rolled into a state of holiness. The most ordinary thing can become holy – but it can require our active effort.

In this week’s Torah reading (Vayetzei), Jacob journeyed from his home in Beer-Sheva and, on his first night, prepared to sleep by placing a stone beneath his head. Jacob dreamed of angels on a ladder and hears several promises from God including that he’d have innumerable descendants who be blessings for others. On waking, Jacob said that “God was in this place and I, I did not know.” Jacob took the stone under his head and set it upright to mark “God’s abode.” The ordinary pillow became a holy pillar.

Why did Jacob sleep on a stone? A rough rock as a pillow couldn’t have been too comfortable; even a marble sculpture as beautiful as Michelangelo’s David is cold and lifeless. Given his family background in shepherding, Jacob might have taken a more comfortable wool blanket or sheepskin. So why a stone?

Another stone mentioned later in the text that offers insight. When Jacob resumed his journey, he came onto a well covered by a large stone. His future wife Rachel appeared and Jacob rolled the stone off the well so her father’s flock could drink.

In mystical tradition, these two stones are examples of kelipot, coverings that can act as impediments to experiencing divinity. Kelipot are compared to shells that encase and inhibit the flow of holiness. There are many forms of kelipot, but all convey hidden potential to power spirituality when we use them appropriately.

The potential energy of stones depends on how we use them. Rocks can become a wall, an arch, a roadway, a hammer, a knife sharpener or a weapon (as in young David’s slingshot). God is called “Rock of Israel,” – an allusion to Jacob’s pillow-stone and the protection-promise of Jacob’s  dream.  In Vayetzei, stones represent the dichotomy of the physical and spiritual, and their potential to roll into unity.

Jacob’s pillow-stone was small enough to rest his head and yet its placement opened heaven’s gates. The larger stone that covered the well needed more exertion to roll away and access life-sustaining water.  Both served a purpose, but the first stone required little effort: Jacob was basically passive and just had to fall asleep. But for the story to continue, for Jacob to meet Rachel and launch the next generation of God’s relationship with the Jewish people, the move required more effort.

Jacob’s journey began with a dream on a pillow stone, but he didn’t begin to achieve his life’s purpose until he moved a heavy boulder. Dreams can inspire us, and then it takes our own active effort to roll away the blocks and reveal holiness in the world.

Louis Marmon

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The Cosmic “Why Me?”

If you or someone you love ever suffered, you probably asked why. “Why me” is a constant echo in history and the human psyche – and it doesn’t matter whether the echo is spoken aloud or asked silently within. The human heart wants to know why, even if the mind knows that there’s no knowing why.

The “Why me” question (and how we feel asking it) reveals much about us – and gifts us a springboard for meaning and resilience if we pay close attention.

In this week’s Torah portion (Toldot), Jacob’s wife, a pregnant Rebecca carrying twins, feels wrestling in her womb. She famously asks Lamah zeh anochi – “Why is this me?” (Gen. 25:22) – not just “Why is this happening,” or even “Why is this happening to me,” but “Why is this me?” In despair, Rebecca conflated happening with identity, plot with character, occurrence with essence, body with soul.

We do this often. The “Why me” impulse arises from an inner sense of unfairness so poignant that its suffering consumes our identity. Daring to ask “Why me” is a defiant act of resistance that reclaims the truth that we’re more than our suffering.

We also are more than the stories we tell about suffering, which often make it worse. To Rashi and Ibn Ezra, Rebecca’s question lamented that she’d longed to become pregnant – as if blaming herself. To the Sforno, her question recalled that others wanted her to become pregnant – as if blaming them. To Ramban and the Radak, her question was aware that her pregnancy was unusual relative to other women – as if jealously comparing herself to others.

Amidst suffering, often we blame ourselves (for our predicament or how we bear it), or blame others (for causing it or not helping enough), or compare ourselves to others (and feel worse doing so). The “Why me” question so potently demands an answer that it can conjure its own answers – even answers that are false. Along the way, often our manufactured narratives make suffering worse.

Instead, what if the “Why me” question rivets our focus on just this truth – that the subtle stories we tell about suffering often are false? When we hear ourselves ask “Why me,” what if the question cues us to pay close attention to our inside stories of blame and comparison? This path “de-laminates” experience from narrative that only make matters worse, with a mindfulness that Jay Michaelson likens to the difference between “I am sad” (identity) and “This is sadness” (event). By mindfully paying attention when we ask the “Why me” question, we can see our narratives of mental momentum for what they are – and that’s how they lose their power to hurt us and our loved ones.

Asking “Why me” is human and healthy. What we do after this timeless question can make the difference between despair and resilience, anger and peacefulness, hurt and hope.

R’ David Evan Markus

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Women Deserve Better

“No woman deserves to be treated this way. None of us deserves this kind of abuse.” – Michelle Obama, October 13, 2016

I am dismayed that in 2016 we are still debating how women deserve to be treated. Before the last presidential election I hoped that this conversation would soon be over. I was wrong. From salary disparity to sexual assault, women are still sometimes treated as second-class citizens. Starting with the women in Torah, we can see great strides have been made over millennia. And Torah can serve to remind us that women deserve even better treatment today.

In Parashat Chaye Sarah, Abraham sends his servant to find a wife for Isaac. Directed to find Abraham’s kin, the servant happens upon a cousin, Rebekah. She appears to be the perfect wife for Isaac. The servant greets the family, offers gifts of gold, and insists on leaving the very next day with Rebekah in tow. At first, her brother Laban and father Bethuel accept the offer on Rebekah’s behalf. As the servant prepares to leave, Rebekah’s mother chimes in with Laban, insisting on a ten day cooling period and a check-in with Rebekah. “They called Rebekah and said to her, “Will you go with this man?” And she said, “I will.”

Torah suggests that with her mother’s intercession, her family finally thought to ask Rebekah’s opinion before trading her off for some gold nose rings. Or perhaps the family was truly saddened by her departure and hoping that she would decline to leave. Either way, once asked for an opinion, Rebekah has a clear response.

We are left with this troubling reminder of our patriarchal history and misogynistic tendencies – men don’t own women and women don’t need men’s permission to make decisions about their lives. Sometimes Torah offers us stories from which we discern a need for humans to evolve. Sadly, it has taken millennia for men to even contemplate treating women as equals.

It doesn’t matter that my wife and my daughter are both smarter than I or that they are generally more sympathetic people. Precisely because of their role in my life, I became aware that gender should not matter at all with regard to how one is regarded in the work place or respected in society. And when it comes to health care, neither lawmakers nor doctors should second-guess women’s choices about their bodies and reproductive rights.

I write this as a “note to self.”  I know that when I speak to my daughter, Sarah, I express greater concern for her safety than I do with my son. I question her choices more frequently as if I can guarantee best outcomes. I can’t help myself sometimes. This world continues to treat women differently, as inferiors or objects or worse. And men of power speak in “locker room” talk that embarrasses decent people and that has shaken Michelle Obama to her core.

So to all the Sarahs and Rebekahs and Rachels, and to the Aminas and Tinas and Fatimas, I pledge to provide positive support, loving encouragement and refined trust in you, even as I am worried by the men in this world who threaten your rights and your well being. I hope to see you on January 21, 2017 at the Women’s March on Washington to remind the world to pursue justice and equality. My son and I plan to be there too.

R’ Evan J. Krame

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Hug a Muslim

The first time I attempted to write this blog post, I included the suggestion that we hug a Muslim. It was not an original idea. Social media was peppered with the suggestion that we Jews should hug our Muslim neighbors to assure them of our concern in the wake of anti-Islamic sentiment expressed by our President-Elect. Why? Because Jews know what it is like to be singled out because of our religion.

My editorial board, being my two millennial adult children, first voiced skepticism.  My son asked, would I go around asking people if they were Muslim and offering pats on the back? Hours later, my daughter shared with me that a Rabbi and a small group of Jews greeted worshippers arriving for Friday prayers at the Muslim Center of New York University. They handed out roses, held signs of support and offered words of comfort.  Quote my daughter: “maybe dad wasn’t far off the mark.”

A key Jewish value is reaching out to the stranger, hachnasat orchim, which we learn from this week’s Torah reading. Abraham was sitting outside his tent and warmly receives three unexpected strangers. We might not have the opportunity to invite wanderers into our home, but we can extend care and comfort in other ways. Despite some calls to “get over it,” I believe we must first acknowledge that this election has triggered pain for many – women who have been abused, holocaust survivors, immigrants, Muslims, African Americans and the LGBT community. While hugs are welcoming gestures, they are not enough. We need to do more.

My sentiments were echoed on Friday night, November 11, when the Jewish Studio was honored to have Liz Schrayer speak after services. Liz brilliantly analyzed the election informed by her decades of bi-partisan work in Washington. Her comments both acknowledged the pain and made room for hope. Her message was that we must actively participate on issues that matter to each of us – immigration reform, gun control, women’s rights, race relations, or voter protection. As Liz reminded us our tradition teaches, “It is not incumbent upon you to complete the work, but neither are you at liberty to desist from it” (Avot 2:21, attributed to Rabbi Tarfon). And as Hillel asked, “if not now, when?” (Avot 1:14).

The first step is to be knowledgable about the issues. On December 2, the Jewish Studio’s Friday night services will be followed by a discussion of women’s rights. And throughout 5777, we will continue to explore issues of concern in a Jewish context, and do so in a container of respect and caring.

So, let’s open our hearts just as Abraham opened the doors of his tent. And let’s be vigilant in continuing the work of improving this world, even if we can’t complete the task. The hugs and our efforts should begin today.

R’ Evan Krame

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What’s in a Name?

Odds are good that you know your names. You received one or more names at birth, and maybe you changed name at marriage, divorce or another formative moment. Maybe you also have one or more nicknames, private terms of endearment with a partner or friend, childhood monikers, familial titles (“Mom,” “Uncle,” “Grandma”), and professional titles or other honorifics (“Doctor”). All of these names are laden with history and meaning – if only because they’re yours and help people relate to you.

Names are important for just that reason: they encode history, meaning, role and relationship. In this week’s Torah portion (Lech Lecha), God decrees that Avram becomes Avraham (Gen. 17:5) and Sarai becomes Sarah (Gen. 17:15). Their name changes depict that God is with them publicly – literally in their names. The added letters in AvraHam and SaraH evoke the Hebrew “H” representing divinity.

If Abraham and Sarah have new names, what about God? This week’s Torah portion offers not one but six names for God. Torah presents God as the ineffable YHVH (Gen. 12:1), El Elyon (“God of the Most High”) (Gen. 14:19), YHVH Elohim (“Supernal YHVH”) (Gen. 15:2), El Roi (“God who sees me”) (Gen. 16:13), El Shaddai (“God of Sufficiency”) (Gen. 17:1) and Elohim (“Supernal”) (Gen. 17:9). Later, Moses would learn a seventh name for God, Eyheh Asher Ehyeh (“I will be what I will be”) (Ex. 3:14).

This multiplicity of names – each encoding history, meaning, role and relationship – means that no divine name is absolute. It means that as a matter of essence, God cannot “be” only YHVH, or El Elyon or Elohim. It’s not just that all of us are more than our names (and how much more so for God!).  Even more, it means that God – while a singular unity – connotes countless qualities (in Hebrew, partzufim) like the infinite faces of a single shimmering crystal. It also means that God is an ever evolving and ever becoming that defies the pinning-down limitation of any singular name.

But names are still important, because we humans need names to encode history, meaning, role and relationship. We’ve been naming things since the mythic Garden of Eden: it was the primordial Adam that gave names to all creatures to seek relationship with them (Gen. 2:20). We’ve been at it ever since.

Naming for relating is more art than science. It means we can call God by any of Torah’s names – or many others both traditional and modern – for the qualities that these names encode in our evolving relationship with the infinity we name God to be. We can call God Melech (“king”) to invoke a sovereign, Avinu (“Our Father”) to invoke an ideal parental love, or Avinu Malkeinu (“Our Father, Our King”) to invoke both together. We can call on Chei HaOlamim (“The Eternal Life”), HaRachamim (“The Compassionate One”), HaRofeh (“The Healer”) or Dayan HaEmet (“The True Judge”). God is all of these and more, and also God is none of these alone.

This is what Avram (er, Avraham) did: he “invoked God by name” (Gen. 13:4). We can do likewise in very personal ways, in our very human lives of love and longing so much greater and grander than any name we could imagine.

R’ David Evan Markus

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Our ancestors were refugees

My ancestors were wandering refugees. Yours too. We should remember that now. Lives depend upon it.

The Torah reading this week, Noah, ends with the start of Abraham’s journey.  It reads: “Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and they set out together from Ur of the Chaldeans for the land of Canaan; but when they had come as far as Haran, they settled there.” Genesis 11:31-32.

Genesis gives no indication why Abraham’s father, Terah, would suddenly uproot his family and head toward the city of Haran. Archeologists have an explanation. They discovered and interpreted cuneiform tablets from a city in Syria in the 18th Century BCE. They are known as the Mari tablets. The tablets describe political and cultural strife around Abraham’s time that scholars think offers clues to his migration.  That migration to Haran was a long and hazardous journey. Haran was located in what is now Syria, some 500 miles north and west of the Babylonian city of Ur where they started.

Most likely, Abraham’s journey was that of a refugee escaping instability in what is now Iraq. In recent years refugees from the war-torn areas of Iraq and Syria travel north and west seeking safety.

This year 3,740 refugees are reported to have died attempting to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. More refugees have died this year crossing the Sea than in previous years. And this year is not yet over. While overall numbers of refugees journeying have decreased, the danger of the crossing has increased.

How many young men with the potential of an Abraham may have been among the refugees?  How many have not survived the ordeal?

Refugees escaping economic hardship and political oppression are again seeking safer status. That’s the story of our ancestors, starting with Abraham and continuing today. To be Jewish is not merely to be the descendant of refugees but also to not turn our back on the stranger, the widow and the orphan. The memory of Abraham is calling out to us to assist the refugees today. Please go to the HIAS website and learn more about how the Jewish people are helping refugees today.

R’ Evan J. Krame

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Creating Creation (Bereshit)

More than two trillion galaxies exist according to a recent report from the Hubble Space Telescope. My brain long ago reached its limit of understanding, just trying to fathom just the mere existence of our galaxy, the Milky Way. How did it all begin? Does it have an end? While such questions of cosmology are beyond my comprehension as a scientific topic, I still can approach the story of the universe as a sacred drama. In fact, our future may depend upon it.

Sometimes I want a divine explanation for the origins of the universe. I like the concept of a master architect who keeps the planets spinning. I pray that there is some orderliness to existence, which gives our lives meaning. At the same time, I don’t doubt the scientific discoveries. My problem is that with only a cosmological approach I feel anxiety and despair. Our planet seems so insignificant and each of its living components appears to be negligible.

Rather, I can find the laws of physics and divinity to be interrelating. I prefer to read our sacred creation myth as incorporating the science of cosmology. The notion of two trillion galaxies created with reference to a Divine source, confirms for me the authorship of God. As Rabbi Arthur Green writes in Radical Judaism: “A God who has no place in the process of how we got here is a God who begins in the human mind, a mere idea of God . . . but that is not God.” Rabbi Green describes a God who “underlies all being” and the cosmological and evolutionary processes are among the many descriptions of the Holy One. New scientific discoveries enhance God’s identity rather serving as a negation of an indescribable Creative force.

As the reports from the Hubble Telescope keep challenging our notions of the universe, our creation myth should change with each discovery. Neither is distinct. We should not absent God from science. In fact the future of our planet could depend upon sustaining the role of God in cosmology and evolution. Here’s why.

In a God centered creation myth, everything matters to God. With God as the source of life, I don’t simply marvel at creation. I am moved to action. I am compelled to protect the environment, respect animal life, and see every person as if created in the image of God. I anticipate an earth based, creation focused Judaism lead by people like Michael Pollack, a rabbinic student. He has a “ministry” to protect our world, protesting against fracking and lobbying for human rights. In this way the Jewish religion has a key role in our future and the future of our planet.

My belief in a God inspires me to cherish life and improve this world. Please join us in the holy work of being God’s partner in the ongoing creation of our world.

R Evan J. Krame

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Balancing the Scales

Amidst hopes for a good and sweet new year, this week’s Torah portion (Ha’azinu) between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur brings the swan song of Moses as he prepares to die. It’s no coincidence that these two poignant moments come together now.

In a sense, Moses’ preparation to die evokes our own. Each year, tradition calls us to rehearse our death at Yom Kippur – a reminder of our mortality, arousing our courage to act, forgive, repair and transform our lives while we still live (B.T. Shabbat 153a).

For many of us, however, rehearsing death asks too much (its difficulty might distract or inhibit us) – or it asks too little (death is an easy way out: as “George Washington” sang in the musical “Hamilton”, “Dying is easy, young man. Living is harder”).

If “rehearsing death” seems too hard or too easy, then Ha’azinu offers two alternatives.

One is to write the poem of your life. That’s what Moses did: this week’s Torah portion is Moses’ poetic song of his life. We can do likewise not to prepare for death, but to launch the life we most yearn to live. This time is especially potent for its power to inspire transformation: why not now?

Another is to see in Ha’azinu a chance to re-balance our lives: the ideal life is lived in balance. Unique in the Torah, typographically Ha’azinu lays in two perfectly balanced columns, evoking the balance for which Moses yearns. Even the word Ha’azinu means balance: its Hebrew root also means to “balance the scales” (Lev. 19:36).

Now is when we balance the scales. We seek renewed balance in our lives. We balance the renewal of our lives with the poignant reminder that all human life is finite. Rebalanced within, we remember anew to treasure each day, that we may attain a heart of wisdom (Psalm 90:12).

L’shanah tovah tichateimun: may you and your loved ones be sealed for a renewed life of balance and goodness in the year ahead.

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