In this blog by Momentum COO Ruth Baars, she relates, “Over this past decade, and our intensive work in partnership, I’ve discovered that there is so much to gain from coming together with those who think differently and there is much to lose from being comfortable with the like-minded. The Jewish people are a kaleidoscope of differences and these differences can be used to collectively shape and strengthen our Jewish future.”
Read MoreThis past year has been one of unprecedented challenge. No matter one’s personal circumstances, the shifts and pivots we have all had to make on an individual, communal, nationa,l and global scale have been enormous. And perhaps, even greater than the changes we have had to undertake, is living with the uncertainty of not knowing what will come next.
While often the High Holidays are a time of self-reflection and a commitment to change, this year’s Holiday season affords us an opportunity to look anew at these Days of Awe, and utilize them to examine what we are certain of in this uncertain world.
Rosh Hashanna liturgy contains the sentiment, “Hayom Harat Olam”, today the world was born, and we often conceptualize Rosh Hashanna as the first day of creation. Yet, there is an important Rabbinic understanding that Rosh Hashanna commemorates not the creation of the world, but rather, the creation of the human being.
Read MoreIn Pirkei Avot 2:4, we interrupt learning about the importance of doing God’s will with fervor to hear that, additionally, Hillel says “do not separate yourself from the community.” We learn in one breath that community deserves and requires as much effort as mitzvot, an astounding comparison. Some commentators tie it to our prayers, others connect it to the mitzvot that can only be done with a minyan. Community, however, is more than just these components - it is a critical element of an actively Jewish life. Even for many who are more removed from “traditional” Judaism, many still find themselves drawn to the aspects that revolve around community. Why would community be an essential part of religion? What makes it important enough to insert into a conversation about the individual’s effort to do God’s work?
Hebrew has two ways of posing one of the most basic questions we can ask – “why?” One is מדוע (madua) and the other is למה (lama). Madua, shares the same root as the word for “science,” implying a more empirical response. Lama, can be read as ל-מה (l’ma) – towards what end, asking what we are meant to learn from that which we are asking about.
During the COVID-19 crisis, public health officials are crucially asking the first question: madua? They seek to understand the cause of the virus in order to slow its spread, develop a vaccine, and prevent its recurrence. This is the essential first response.
However, while living with this different reality, many who are not healthcare workers cannot help but ask the second question: lama? What lessons can we learn from this pandemic? While not a reason for the occurrence, is there some collective meaning we can take away which will serve us beyond these uncertain times?
Read MoreI write this sitting in a Hilton Rochester hotel room in what is known as “Med City,” Rochester, Minnesota. My wife Susie and I have been in this same room since February 10 when we arrived to enter the world-famous Mayo Clinic kidney transplant center. That amounts to more than 90 days, isolated from most family and friends. We were sheltering-in-place for weeks before the rest of the world, living like John and Yoko during their “bed-in” protest for peace at the Hilton Amsterdam in 1969.
The good...scratch that...the great news is that Susie’s new kidney - she named it “Sydney” - is working magnificently. When we arrived here, her function was around 13%. It is now 75%. Twice as good as mine. I donated my “spare” to a lovely woman in Florida, whose husband is a Southern Baptist minister who studied at seminary with my friend Pastor Rick Warren, and who, after Googling me, wrote in an email: “I feel so blessed to have a Jewish kidney!”
So, for the most part, we have been alone all this time. Yet, here’s the thing. We are hardly “alone.” We are surrounded daily by our kids and grandkids, our cousins, our friends, and our colleagues who call, who write, who send, who never let a day go by without letting us know how much they care for and love us. Much of this contact has come through the amazing CaringBridge platform where they see daily updates on our progress. We have come to depend on these virtual connections that lift our spirits. We have been alone....together.
Who knew that the entire Jewish world would learn this same lesson, simultaneously, across denominations and heretofore impermeable institutional borders?
Read MoreAs I write this, in San Diego, a funeral is taking place for Lori Gilbert Kaye OBM, who was murdered by a 19-year-old at a Chabad during Passover services. You know of this event, and others like it. When such things happen, we might experience many emotions: sadness, fear, shock, anger, numbness. But we have one job before anything else. We must feel the immediacy of the event, we must overcome its seeming distance, we must know that it is our own family that has been affected.
It is natural to protect ourselves from the pain of the world through abstraction. It is easy to put up layers of armor against the assault on our sense of safety, and our moral sensibility, through distance. But Torah calls us to oppose that distancing. It calls us instead to closeness.
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