Starting From Brokenness

(I guess this is the beauty of a free blog—I can go for months without posting and not feel toooo bad. But I still do. Jewish guilt? No. Not giving myself a break? Yeah, I need to work on that...)

I recently conducted my family's seder here in Sepharad. One of the themes I like to highlight is the passage, textual and spiritual, from brokenness to redemption—Quitting Mitzrayim, for those who need the extra prompt—that we take throughout the course of the meal. Of course, in real life, redemption doesn't come in four or five hours. I feel like I'm always at the beginning of the road, broken in some new way. I suppose that's what the journey is about, though, assessing where you are at any given moment and proceeding from there.

I feel like the soul searching vis-a-vis rabbihood has been a bit like this. Granted, I have had a few other things to be preoccupied about, but I'm really no further now than I was when I started. Or rather I've swung to both extremes and ended up in the same place as I started. On the one hand, when I think about the time away from my family, the expense, and the endless hours of study that are involved in rabbinical school, I think this is not the right time in my life to do this. On the other hand, every time I hear of folks' rejection of the old Judaism which I know an alternative to, or for that matter, every time I pray, I think, "this is what I should be doing!"

On that note, and speaking of brokenness, I recently started wrapping tefillin in the mornings. It's a longer story than I want to tell here, but the very short version is that I found Maqom's tefillin gift shop and, after having them ship a set to my mom, who dutifully carried them here for me, I got my very own set of unkosher tefillin. There's something beautiful about wrapping broken tefillin. These were clearly worn with a lot of love for many years, and their scrolls are dust, for all I know. But in their brokenness, they are helping me on my journey to redemption. It's as if between the tefillin and I, there just may be enough parts to put something good back together. I think R. Abrams puts it beautifully on the site: We don't throw out people when they get old, scratched or worn down. Let these tefillin remind you that no matter what brokenness you have experienced in your life, you have great worth. It's a good reminder, especially on the days when I feel I don't know anybody anymore, I don't remember what I'm good at, and I'm not sure what I'm doing here in this land that so forcefully ejected my mishpocha long ago...but that's a topic for another post.

Dream, Brother

I wrote the rabbi last week with some of the questions I had — mostly for myself — on the last blog post. I have not yet heard back from him. Not surprising, as he's a busy man. I'll try back next week if there is still no answer. Hopefully, my email program will be back up and running by then.

Last night, though, I had a dream that I went to visit him. He was at a very crowded desk (though not nearly as much as his real one!), in a large basement for an industrial-type building that seemed otherwise to have been used last sometime in the 1950s. He looked up, glad to see me. I was glad to see him, too.

[Not part of the dream — we celebrated our first Shabbess in Seville last weekend. It was sweet, but a bit lonely and made us miss Beyt Tikkun a lot.]

We chatted for a while, and he asked me if I'd read the book he'd recommended. I don't recall what book it was or if it was real one. I told him that I had not. He commented on a recent email he'd sent out and asked my opinion. We chatted for a bit more, and then I asked him if he'd had a chance to read my email about the rabbinate. He said, "oh yeah, that. Let's go for a walk."

We walked outside, around what looked like condo complex. He was rather spry and walking briskly. He explained to me along the way that he didn't think it would be a good idea after all, my going to rabbinical school. "If you're looking to get political," he said, "it's not always good for people to know that you're coming from a spiritual perspective. It turns people off."

Then, dreamlike, we were joined by a few more folks, students, and we sat down for a Talmud lesson, which I also can't remember. End of dream.

It was good to see the rabbi, and talk, even if what he said was totally opposite of what he spends most of the time preaching!

This week, I want to find the congregation here in town. From what I understand, they're fairly traditional, but I'd like to get into the habit of daily minyan, and I can't do that alone. Once we're a bit more settled, I also want to start posting for a progressive English-language Kabballat Shabbat/minyan, to see if I get any takers out here.

Stepping Away

My favorite art period is impressionism because only when you step away does the painting come into focus. I feel like that's what's happening as I get farther and farther away from our lives in San Francisco. The preciousness of the friendships, bonds and community we had there gets clearer with every mile we drive away. Also, the shape of my life past and the signposts to what might be to come are becoming more evident.

Just as I write that last sentence, I have to check myself. On sleepless nights like these, when I get in the grip of a passion, the world crystallizes into a certainty that usually vanishes by morning. Even so, seeing my old friend Wendy today and talking ever briefly about the rabbinical school idea, I'm gripped once again. I think moments of transition call for thoughts of stability, a yin-yang. I expect that as we settle into life in Spain, where these competing forces are more equally balanced, my perspective will again shift.

Even so, the questions I need to explore seem pretty clear:

• Why do I want to do this?
• Is there something else I could do to fulfill this need?
• What will I do with it? (Is the answer to this different than that to the first?)
• Could I do these things in some other way?

Becoming?

Chag sameach, if a bit belatedly. This blog has gotten neglected a bit in my many goings-on relating to wine, food and Spain. We are on our way across the country right now, unemployed and homeless, so I find myself with more time on my hands.

I have also had an interesting turn of events as I was preparing to leave. In saying goodbye to Rabbi Lerner, he has started to encourage me to become a rabbi. The thought is not entirely his own, as it’s something I’ve half-seriously contemplated in the past. The rabbi, however, has put on the full-court pressure since our conversation, not letting a meeting go by without discussing it. As we broke the fast last week, he brought it up again. I hardly got any sleep that night, turning the idea around in my head very seriously for the first time.

After this many years, I have gotten to know myself and my passions. They run strong for a while before dissipating into nothing or becoming a real part of my psyche. So, I’m going to sit with this for a while and see where it goes. Christina likened it to the decision to get a tattoo — you let it percolate for about a year and then see how you feel about it. So, that will be the new energy for this blog: percolation.

It will be interesting to see what transpires in the course of the next year. From what I understand, Seville doesn’t have much of a (progressive) Jewish community, and Spain as a whole has very few Jews. I will be curious how our observances will play out and how that will affect my thoughts.

Stay tuned!