Jewels 2015

Think ought. Not what is a Jew, but what ought a Jew to be. Not what is a synagogue, but what ought a synagogue to be. Not what prayer is, but what prayer ought to be. Not what ritual is, but what ritual ought to be. Focus from is to ought, and our mindset is affected. Is faces me toward the present; ought turns me to the future. Ought challenges my creative imagination and opens me to the realm of possibilities and responsibilities to realize yesterday’s dream. Ought and is are complementary. Without an is, the genius of our past and present collective wisdom is forgotten. Without an ought, the great visions of tomorrow fade. Ought demands not only a knowledge of history but of exciting

The seeking of spiritual light is gained through having faith and trust in God. Prayer provides the path, leading to inner strength and pushing us toward greater honesty with ourselves. With honesty comes clarity, as we come to see the truth of our condition. We can then change what we can and accept what we can’t. Whatever it is that you have, you must make work for you. In this way, we keep moving toward the light. When we minimize our own talents, when we envy what others have, when we give in to despair, we choose darkness. When we do so, we should always

Midrash tells us that our name, Yisrael, when vocalized differently, can become “Yashir Eil” – “God will sing.” We are God’s song in this world. Full of potential for harmony – tension, joy, sorrow, anger, comfort, pain, and majesty – God sings through each of us. Elul is the time to focus and question: what Godsong will be heard through my life in the coming year? Chasidic wisdom likens each of us to a shofar. Were it not for the breath of God blowing through me, I would make no sound at all. Elul is the time to tune up,

There is an enormous, untouched potential inside every one of us. It is hope. And hope’s incredible power enables us to survive. Hope contains spectacular power, a power that seems as though it captured bits of the bursting energy of creation. Psychologists at major universities are now discovering that hope is potent and that it plays a significant role in a wide variety of human endeavors – in school, on the job, and in the family. Hope also provides immeasurable benefits for our physical health and for all forms of depression. Hope can make us better prepared for our own promotions. It

For a long time, I thought that things – people, experiences, relationships, myself – could be fixed. I’ve since come to believe that while improvement, transformation, and growth are possible, and even desirable, fixing something is not. To fix something implies that you can make it what it once was – restore it to its original state, unblemished – as if it had never been broken. It’s a mistake, this logic: a misguided notion, an unattainable and even undesirable goal that kills potential. To want to fix things is honorable; it implies a sense of justice and fairness in the

I have gained perspective on the art of aging over the last decade of my 74 years. The gift of perspective is, in a word, “gratitude” – the conceit that my cup is half full, and each day more and more so. Years ago, my life was filled with excitement, wonderment, and adventure, but also beset with varying degrees of anxiety about what tomorrow might bring. Now, I truly pass my days without such concern, and with few lapses, I feel grateful for what I have, for those I love, for work that satisfies – and, happily, the focus of

“The smoothest path is full of stones.” Yiddish Proverb One day my daughter, Noa, who has physical disabilities, asked me if she could have a rock climbing party for her twelfth birthday. I froze. I’d always been so careful to protect Noa from disappointment. I’d gone to great lengths to create parties where she wouldn’t get left out or feel that her friends surpassed her. I said, “No, I don’t think it’s a good idea.” “But why?” she pressed me. “It’s too expensive,” I said. But day after day Noa kept pushing for the rock climbing party. Eventually I gave

I used to think that every person on the street held a secret, every storefront a story now I drive past them without wondering what they know. My life has changed in ways I never could have prepared for. I only get whiffs of what has changed: a glimpse of a memory of how we all stared into one another in the weeks after the earthquake, why orange flower blossoms and jet fuel make it smell so good to walk out into the air after landing at LAX; what midnight felt like, back when it was easy to stay up

“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” Leonard Cohen Once again Moses is wearing himself out carrying the burden of the Jewish people on his shoulders. God intervenes by taking some of the spirit that is in Moses and sharing it with others. How can this happen without diminishing Moses? Commenting on Numbers 11:17, Rashi says, “He was like a light that is placed in a candlestick from which everybody lights his lamps, and yet its illuminating power is not diminished.” I love to seek the light of holiness by studying sacred texts or by sitting

Write a letter. Address it to those you love – your spouse, your children and grandchildren, your friends. Put into this letter everything life has taught you: what you learned from childhood, from growing up, from your education. What you learned from marriage and raising children. What you learned from work, from your triumphs and successes in the world, from your failures and disappointments. What you learned from the death of loved ones, and the path of mourning. What is the meaning, the lesson, the wisdom of your life? What is your message? Do this for three reasons: Do it

It was early September. My husband and I went on a high-speed car chase around the valleys and mountains of the Grand Tetons to capture a glimpse of the setting sun. With five minutes to spare before the spray of light turned dark, we found a spot nestled in a valley on the side of the road with no mountain crag to obscure our view. Simply the horizon, the setting sun, and majestic colors of miracle and awe. As we watched the spectacle before us, I heard a sound that I had never heard before. I rolled down the car

The great thing about the world of the spirit is that gravity doesn’t apply. Inertia can be overcome.   Our secular culture teaches us to focus on ourselves when we have problems – whether through healthful things like self-help books and therapy, or through numbing things like comfort food, self-medication and complaining to friends. A teacher once shared with me a special tool for lifting oneself out of sadness and depression. It is a very Jewish way to lift yourself up, and it isn’t something you might expect to hear from a rabbi. He said to turn your focus away

As someone who fell in love with God and Torah as a collegian, I dreamed I would have a child with whom I would share my newfound passion. At my rabbinical school, I would see professors and their children swaying together in prayer or over a text, and I would imagine the thrill of sharing that piety with my (as yet unborn) child. When my wife, Elana, and I were told she was expecting twins, my heart and my fantasies soared. Yet, my beloved daughter, Shira, is not drawn to religious services. My son, Jacob, diagnosed with autism at age

I learned in bodybuilding that the best way to gain strength was to take my muscles to their absolute limit – to the point of failure – where they were so out of energy that they couldn’t even lift a small amount of weight. Then, after a few day’s rest, they would not only be ready to lift again, but they would also be bigger, stronger and able to lift more than ever before. Just like in bodybuilding, failure is also a necessary experience for growth in our own lives, for if we’re never tested to our limits, how will

As the new year approaches, I resolve to focus on joy. This has been my kavannah every year since September 11th. It isn’t easy for me. I’m good at worrying. I’m good at crossing things off my to-do list. Hey, I am the daughter of Holocaust survivors. Don’t talk to me about joy; it’s not part of my culture. We Jews have filled libraries with the historical litany of our losses, our pain, our despair. Besides, you get to a certain age as an individual or as a people, and joy becomes a tall order. And yet, the challenge sticks

Imagine riding in a speedboat on a lake with an automatic pilot set to go east. If you decide to reverse and head west, you have two possible ways to change the boat’s direction. One way is to grab the steering wheel and physically force it to head in the opposite direction. By sheer willpower you could overcome the autopilot, but you would feel constant resistance. Your arms would eventually tire of the stress, you’d let go of the steering wheel, and the boat would instantly head back east in the way it was internally programmed. This is what happens

Last summer, I met a group of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) Jewish teens at a Shabbaton for LGBTQ youth. Each teen described the experience as “the first place I’ve felt like I could be both queer and Jewish, like it was a normal thing.” I will never forget their expressions of joy and profound relief at finding a community where they could just be. The teens shared a sense of wonder at how good it feels to be fully seen and understood. When you can be your full self in a community, they reflected, you do not

The l6th of January, 2009, is the day when my three precious daughters and niece were killed by Israeli shells. I do not want anyone in this world to see what I have seen. What I have lost will never come back. I need to go forward and be motivated literally by the spirit of what I lost, and to do them justice. I lost three precious daughters, but I am blessed with five other children and the future. I believe that life is like riding a bicycle, as Einstein says, “To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” I will keep

Where can we who walk in darkness find brighter light? I suggest we look no further than to the preacher/poet, John Newton. He was a former slave trader who saw the light. Today he is best known as the composer of the hymn, Amazing Grace! Again and again in the Bible, we read the invocation, “Let me find grace in thy sight, O Lord.” Find grace? Perhaps most of us wait for grace to find us. And often it does. When grace finds us, we come to see God’s sight is not the problem, but our insight: I was blind but now

1978-2014. My younger self awaits me in that old home. He stares at the future that would be me; I ponder the past that was him. We connect on a bridge made of yearning and nostalgia. Hesitantly, we embrace. We fall to our knees and sob. I ask if he ever told dad about how he bounced the ball that cracked the chandelier in our living room. He asks if I will ever stop doing and start being. I say, “You should have told the satin-haired girl you loved her when you had your hand on her shoulder for the

What makes us different from or better than God’s other creatures? A cheetah is faster, a butterfly more beautiful, and a lion mightier by far. Scientists tell us that dolphins can laugh, elephants can exhibit altruism, and malamutes can love. Animals procreate and they protect; they grow ill and they die. But we alone know that we will do so. We exist, with the sure knowledge that one day, we will not. And yet we build bridges, read books, half-listen at cocktail parties, decide between puce and magenta, and cultivate flowers. Years from now, will anyone care what I was

Rosh Hashanah is “Head (rosh) Changing (shenah) Day.” You can’t have a new year with an old head. So if you want a new year, you are going to need to get a new head.A new head is a story-free head. Your stories define you. If your stories are positive and loving, then you are optimistic and loving. If your stories are negative and fearful, then you are angry and afraid. Regardless of their emotional charge, however, stories are not reality. A new head is story-free. A new head engages reality with compassionate curiosity, going into what is without the

Poppy is four years old. The only shelf in the cabinet she can reach is the one with the plastic Tupperware. She has started filling containers with water, snapping on lids, and placing them about the house. It is her new favorite game. One for Mama, one for Papa, one for Tessa, one for Ollie. Her hands can hold one at a time. Her dress is the color of marmalade. She chirps songs that have no words. When Poppy is twenty-five, she will follow a love to France. In the summer time she will make jars of cold tea, place

There is much I have learned in a journey that has taken me from Beverly Hills all the way to the Beverly Hills Post Office with a brief sojourn in the Fairfax district. I have learned that no sojourn in the Fairfax district is too brief, and that by cutting through Loma Vista, I can avoid the rush hour traffic on Coldwater. My mother tried to instill in me an ethos of toughness and self-respect through the oft-repeated aphorism, “Never let anybody spit in your kasha.” I have taken those words to heart and have never, not once, served kasha.

Recently I had a conversation with someone who said to me, “You wrote a very beautiful book; it’s very uplifting and encouraging. However, isn’t there a dark side to aging?” And he is right, there is a more somber side. I find myself now in my December days. In my book I spent a lot of time on October, becoming an elder, and November, serving as an elder. I was much more skimpy on December. The reason is clear: I wasn’t there yet. Now I am. Now is one of the best periods of my life. I’m harvesting so much of

As we age, our brains are hardwired to reject change. We are conditioned to resist new challenges and remain within our comfort zones. However, growing older should not mean that we must exist within self-imposed boundaries. In the 1960s, President Eisenhower received the gift of a rare, white tiger named Mohini. For years, Mohini lived in the Washington Zoo and spent her days pacing back and forth in a 12-by-12 foot cage. Finally the zoo decided to build her a larger cage so Mohini could run, climb and explore. But when Mohini arrived at her new home, she didn’t rush

Judaism is all about life – love of life, reverence for life, building new life. But life also brings death. The pessimist says, “You begin dying the moment you are born,” not only referring to the steady decline of our own lives but also the universe around us. We consume resources to clothe, feed, educate, and protect; we use up animals, plants, water and air as we spiral along the continuum from birth to death. Yet Judaism teaches a more powerful lesson about life: “Therefore choose life” (Deuteronomy 30:15.) Although God is the giver of life, human beings have great

My mother-in-law’s mind is full of holes. She spends most of the day in a placid fog, a place where there’s nothing left to do but walk the dog and wonder what’s for dinner. Every time it’s chicken, she rolls her eyes and kvetches, “We had this last night!” No one argues with her anymore. The situation is undeniably tragic. She’s only in her early 60’s, has already suffered through cancer and a mastectomy, and her dementia has been diagnosed incurable. Yet, her disease has set into motion a certain regeneration: both of her sons have returned to Savannah to

I was young and earnest with a dream summer internship at the Justice Department, living in dorms crowded with college kids from around the country. My roommate was coming a week late and I anxiously awaited her arrival, certain we’d be best friends forever. Way too early one morning, there was a knock on my door. “Hi. I’m your roommate” she said coolly, pushing past me. “So happy to finally meet you!” I said. “Where are you working this summer?” No answer. “Have you lived in DC before?” Still no answer. “There’re some great people on our floor – I’d

We think of self-examination during the month of Elul as a path to repentance. But it is more fundamental than a step toward something else: We examine ourselves to know who we are. Our darkness and our sins are part of us, stitched into our soul. Without coming to grips with what you have done wrong, you can never understand your own soul. Our character is reflected in our actions and our relationships. But neither is the whole story. Some revelations call for introspection. Who am I? Have I become the person I was meant to be, or am I

How do you measure 10 years of life? 10 years is a fifth of my adult life, a third of my marriage. 10 years is a third of my children’s lives, a decade in which they moved out and became independent adults. 10 years marks my transition from leading Friday Night Live at Sinai, to running a multi-faith cultural arts center at the first home of Sinai Temple. 10 years is a basket which holds personal battles with the deaths of family members, pets, and friends – even as I am blessed to have my parents and Louise’s parents in