Prejudice

I've always tried to stand up with the underdog - with people who are persecuted.

Example on a small scale: when I was in fifth grade, at camp, several children began taunting and teasinf a girl I didn't know. I walked over and asked her to join myself and my friends. That little girl, from another state, wrote me letters until we were in our early-to-mid 20s.

On a larger scale: I've joined protests with black leaders, including controversial John Wiley Price, when they protested sleazy establishments trying to move near their residences, when cigarette and alcohol companies targeted them with billboards, and when companies and governments failed to adequately represent them.  There is no doubt in my mind that prejudice and discrimination against the black community remains rampant.

Now, however, there's a need to stand up against a black group in its protest against a Korean convenience store owner who killed a man after he ran off with his entire cash register. The man had just been released from prison where he had served time for committing "several robberies". That cash register probably held enough money to feed this poor man's family for a month - and he had worked hard to earn it.

The protests are now taking place six days a week by volunteers who steer potential customers away from this man's store. And the trouble all began when a Nation of Islam leader, Jeffery Muhammad, got into a verbal skirmish with the store owner.

The Dallas Morning News quotes Muhammad as saying this: "Pak must go. So should other Asian-American merchants in black neighborhoods. ..They are just the latest in a long line of people who have come to this country - like Jews, Italians, Indians and now Asians - who have sucked the blood of and exploited the black community."

Please be safe, but please stop by and buy something from the Diamond Shamrock Kwik Shop on Martin Luther King Blvd.

Being in a holy place often means taking action to make our world a more holy place. Fighting prejudice in all its forms, against its many targets, is one way of doing this.

See you at the Kwik Shop.

Mary

Pausing to Think About God

That's my kitchen mezuzah in the picture above and I just snapped the photo. I'm already getting prepared for tonight. The table is set, the challah is fresh and hot, bright new flowers are arranged alongside the candles and kiddush wine. We'll share our table tonight with friends. I'm excited.

But OK, this blog is about the mezuzah again. Really, I didn't expect that the simple, little ritual of kissing that pretty object hanging on my doorpost would change my life so much, but it has.

Since I've been pausing longer at the mezuzahs in my home to reflect on what I'm grateful for, I find that I'm thinking about God A LOT.

I have a friend, an attorney, who used to actually keep a tiny alarm that reminded her hourly to pause and remember God. I use the mezuzah for that purpose. And I'm finding that by lingering each time I walk in or out of a room for an extended period of time that it's actually changing my overall consciousness. I feel God's presence more frequently and more readily. I'm more deeply grateful for everything in my life. My very recent battle with negativity - my first ever - is dissipating. When people call and say, "how are you doing?", I spontaneously and sincerely find myself saying, "Fabulous!!". Stopping frequently to give thanks for each aspect of my life is changing the way I feel throughout the day and evening. I'm a little awed by these fresh feelings of joy.

Most of the time as I pause by my mezuzah, my gratefulness gushes out, but there are certainly times it's a struggle. Yesterday, for instance, I walked out of my office feeling utterly frazzled. Only a fraction of my to-do list had been completed. Four different telephone lines had rung incessantly all morning. I had woken up too early - a REALLY bad thing for me. I needed a new, part-time staff member and none of my assistants had been available all week to help me out. Trying to concentrate on any task was difficult because I kept thinking of something that was more important - how could I prioritize when it was ALL priority? How the hell would I figure out which task to tackle?

I walked out of my office and paused at the mezuzah like I always do. I couldn't figure out what to be thankful for, other than a job that at the moment was driving me insane. As I stood there, however, I felt a wave of serenity. The mezuzah, I realized, had become a simple and powerful reminder of God's presence, even when gratefulness didn't immediately bubble up. Even when I was having a bad day. The mezuzah prompted me to take a breath and move into a difference mental space as I moved into a different physical space. I took a deep breath and headed down to the kitchen for lunch. And as I did, I felt again a deep gratitude for my life.

Today I added something else to this ritual. The mezuzah contains the Shema and the verses that follow the Shema, so this morning when I arrived home from class, I stopped at the mezuzah to give thanks for what I learned today and what that learning is preparing me for (rabbinical school!!). But I also spoke the Shema aloud. Because while I'll always have something to be grateful for when I walk into and out of any room, as I leave or arrive home, I also simply want to remind myself that along with the blessings of my life, the greatest of all is the presence of God.

Shabbat Shalom!
Mary

Next Step with the Mezuzah

I'm deeply drawn to rituals. They help me concentrate, they're often beautiful, and when you absorb their meaning, they enhance the spirituality of the prayer or action you're doing. The problem is, rituals can become so habitual that we fail to pause and absorb the meaning embedded in them. Take the ritual of kissing the mezuzah. I've written about it before, but it's something I continually struggle with.

When I put up my first mezuzah, I placed it on the garage door entryway, the only way I usually left the house. I'd brush the mezuzah with my fingertips and allow a quick thought of God to pass through my mind.

Could I think about God, without a mezuzah, when I left my house? Of course, but I usually didn't. The visual reminder, the pause, helped.

Later, I began to think about putting mezuzahs up on other doors. Halachically we're supposed to have them on every doorpost except the bathroom, but this just didn't gel with me. Even if you kissed the mezuzah every time you passed through any doorway, wouldn't that make it all the more reflexive and meaningless?

I've been to friends' homes who aren't in the least Orthodox but who have mezuzahs on every doorpost. It looks beautiful, and I get their attraction to the ritual of hanging one on every doorpost. I've never asked them, but maybe every time they glance at one, it reminds them of a faith, of a God, they love.

But I still personally hadn't wanted to go that far.

Some time back, though, Joe and I decided to hang mezuzahs selectively - on the kitchen and bedroom doors, on the office door, and on all entry doors except the one that leads to our backyard. But a year later, I realized that I rarely noticed most of them. I certainly didn't kiss them or pause for any kind of reflection.

So several days ago I started doing something new and I have to tell you, I'm loving it.

Rather than grazing the mezuzah with my fingertips, I stop, touch it fully, and pause there a little while. I reflect on what the room I'm entering or leaving means to me.

As I walk into my office, for instance, I stop and fully touch the mezuzah, kiss my fingertips, then touch it lightly again, for several seconds. While touching it, I offer a prayer of gratitude for the work I'm privileged to have. Leaving or entering the bedroom, I lean against the mezuzah and feel its presence on my cheek. My heart wells with gratitude for a good night's rest and for the sweet husband who lies close beside me. Entering the kitchen, I stop for a half-minute, kiss the mezuzah and thank God for providing such an abundance and variety of food.

But why the mezuzah? For me, knowing the mezuzah contains Judaism's holiest declaration - the Shema - gives me the opportunity to make myself consciously aware that God, the One, permeates everything. I enter and leave a particular space and a particular task that's part of my life with a different level of consciousness.

As I write this, I'm anticipating placing mezuzahs on the rest of my doors. I want to pause, resting against this beautiful, visual reminder as I enter the room where I play guitar, the room where I read, the room where I study and write, the room where Joe and I curl up with popcorn and a DVD, the backyard where I listen to the frogs and smell fresh herbs growing alongside the pool...

Hear, people who struggle with God and with the rituals of our faith, God is One. Bring that Divine Energy into each of your tasks, into your rest and play, and into the world outside of your home.

That's what I'll be trying to do.

Shabbat Shalom,

Mary

Grow Together

Originally posted May 15, 2010

Today after prayer services at my synagogue, I headed to a church for a graduation ceremony for one of my best friends. My friend Samira had earned her masters in divinity. Samira grew up in Iran, a Muslim, had once tried to convert to Judaism, felt a deep connection to Sufism, converted to Christianity, became a devoted Baptist, and is now about to be ordained as an Episcopalian priest. When Samira and I met, I was a devoted Baptist, had become involved with Sufism, and five years ago, I converted to Judaism.

Samira's and my paths have diverged wildly as we've searched for our spiritual homes, yet we remain very close friends. A couple of months ago, her mom was visiting from Iran, and the three of us had lunch, Samira translating, since her mom and I don't know each other's languages. Samira and I meet for lunch or dinner, chat on the phone, say "I love you" before we hang up, and attend each other's life-changing events. Next month, I'll be at her ordination when she becomes an Episcopalian priest, and I'm so intensely happy for her.

So many recent events, including my friendship with Samira, have me thinking about relationships. I have friends from high school, grade school, even from church nursery! Several friends from junior high are like sisters to me. There is little I wouldn't do for them.

I've been to two graduations and parties for one of my nieces in the past few months. Technically, she's my ex-husband's niece, but outside of this blog, she's simply my niece - and one of my closest ones. We text, meet regularly for lunches and dinners, remember each other's birthdays, and love each other with an affection and devotion that we don't feel for everyone.

When I divorced and remarried, my husband Joe's family became my own, deeply and sincerely. I loved my stepchildren and grandchildren immediately and completely. In fact, every person in Joe's family has found a special place in my heart. They didn't replace anyone, and I didn't have to shove anyone out of my heart to let them in. The heart is expandable like that.

Of course, love isn't always returned. Sometimes people I love the most simply don't love me back.

But does that hurt me?

Oh yeah. Badly. And it has a domino effect. It hurts other people, too, and those hurts can last a lifetime.

When that happens, I'm tempted to close my heart, even if it's just a tad, because I really don't want to subject myself to more pain. But I know if I do that, it will close a little more the next time someone hurts me, and a little more the time after that. And that just isn't worth it, to me or to the people who might be affected by my withdrawal.

So if you're in my life, know that I love you. It doesn't matter to me how widely divergent our spiritual paths might be. It doesn't matter that years might separate our visits (as happens with some of my childhood friends), and it doesn't matter if we don't talk every day, or even every week. My heart remains open to you and I love you - sincerely and completely.

Mary

Dear Mom

Dear Mom,

The other day, during prayer, my heart suddenly became immersed in an amazing realization, the realization that every single moment of my conscious life has been marked by the Presence of God. Even before I had self-awareness, God enshrouded me. As the Psalmist writes, "you knit me together in my mother's womb. I am awesomely, wondrously fashioned {by God}." Many of my earliest memories center on God. This Divine Being has been the consuming Force of my life, cradling me through heartache, giving me occasional, ecstatically close moments that have remained with me and enabled me to become a better person.

You often told me, Mom, that from the moment you found out you were pregnant with me, you rose each and every morning, drove to the First Baptist Church, knelt at the altar, and dedicated me to God. You often reminded me of the time, when I was three, when you stood watching me ride my tricycle from one end of the block to the other, and then you asked who I was waving at. "God," I told you. When I rebelled and did some pretty horrible things, you told me God loves me unconditionally, and that nothing I could ever do would separate me from that love. Your greatest desire for me was that I never forsake God.

In the decades that have passed, my ideas about God have changed drastically, but my connection to God has only become more intense, deeper, stronger. A week ago I had one of those occasional, ecstatic moments of connection to God which affected my sight spiritually, emotionally and physically. As a result, I've finally gotten a grip on some of my emotional struggles. I've spiritually broken through barriers I'd erected in prayer. And yes, I'm even visually noticing amazing details of all the life in motion around me.

I want more of God. I long for more of the Divine. And my longing makes the Divine accessible, immanent.

A little more than a year ago, you left the earth to be with God and I'm wondering at this moment where you are in your journey. Recently, at kallah, we chanted parts of the kaddish, and were told to chant it not as a personal praise, but as an awareness of our deceased loved ones singing these words of praise through us. When I left that room, I was unable to speak for an hour. This was the moment I just wrote about, the moment I felt and saw sparks of the Divine in everything around me - the foliage and sky and even a pile of rocks emanating life. And I know that wherever you are in your journey, you are experiencing that ecstasy 1,000 times beyond this. Your being sings the same essential praise to God that I sang for you and dad last week. Your being is the same essence as that of the Divine.

I know that as I begin my studies to become a rabbi, it isn't what you thought would happen to me. You never even knew that six years ago, I became a Jew. I could never tell you because you had grown old, were entering senility, and I couldn't let you leave this world fearing for me, heartbroken that I no longer believed in the Jesus of your religion. But I think you know now that I'm vastly beyond OK. You know now that we're serving the same Echad, and that all of our theology is beyond the Being of God. You were the first to teach me of that encompassing love.

Thank you for dedicating me to God.

Love,
Mary

Tree of Life

I've never blogged about a movie - but then no movie has evoked so much thought, imagination and discussion for me. Through a mesmerizing array of dazzling images and a captivating story line, the ultimate question arises: why, with all the chaos and pain and cruelty we face, do we continue to believe in God?
The cinematography of Tree of Life is beyond stunning. I could have watched the movie just for its image. But the real purpose behind the imagery is its juxtaposition of beauty and destruction, of good and evil. And each image is a larger portrayal of the struggle of a young boy - and I believe of many of us.

The movie presents us with images of the chaotic and random beginnings of the universe and of life. One cataclysmic implosion begins the evolutionary process. One sperm survives and brings with it a particular life. An abandoned pet, ravaged by a horrible disease appears in this film, followed by a long, flowing image of a vividly blooming magnolia bush. A school of jelly fish float by and we're captivated by their beauty while remaining aware that their poison can paralyze. The ocean is serene... until it isn't. An animal lies helpless and we're certain it's about to be another animal's next meal, but the healthy one trots away without reason, possibly making room for the evolution of a new species.

This is the bigger picture of a particular child's life. Jack is born and knows only his parents' love and the simple desire to be good. "God, help me not to lie and help me not to be mean," he prays beside his bed. But new siblings arrive and Jack discovers jealousy. His daddy loves him, then becomes violent and distant, then tells him that he's all that matters, then ignores his little successes, back and forth, on and on.

"Father, you will always struggle inside me," whispers Jack.

On a particularly fun day swimming a child dies in front of him.

"Why should I be good when you aren't?" he asks God (for me, the most poignant line in the entire movie).

He watches an old man cross the street, and sees an emaciated man taken away by the police. Did his mother really give the man a drink of water or was that in Jack's imagination? How is it that one grows up an angry criminal and another grows up in order to take angry criminals out of society? And did that drink of water - if it was real - affect that man's life? We don't know. Do we ever know?

Jack sneaks into a home and does no harm but he's wracked with terror and guilt over his petty theft of an inexpensive item he finds beautiful and fascinating. The beautiful object swirls away in a torrential river.

He wishes his father dead then folds without resistance into his arms.

He "tortures" his brother as older brothers often do, but cradles him when he cries over leaving their home.

He "loves" the little girl at the desk next to him, follows her home.... does she slow down to let him catch up to her? The image vanishes and doesn't reappear.

Did this childhood moment affect him? Do all moments of our childhood affect us in some way?

What happens in the attic - a bare and scary and sun-filled room - and what does the image of the boy on the bicycle riding there in circles mean? I'm utterly fascinated by the constant juxtapositions.

"God, why can't I be go back to where they are?" Jack asks, looking at the trusting innocence of his two brothers. In the diary I kept at age nine, I wrote, "God, why can't I be good?"

The opening narrative of the movie draws us in: "My brother died when he was 19". Why this brother?

Of course we don't know that answer. And for me, that's the point of the movie and why it so resonated with me. Because while I don't believe in a traditional view of God and I don't believe everything happens for a reason, I have to ask myself the ultimate question:

I see both youth and death. I've known children who are disabled, children who have been raped, children who have died - and I've also known children who have been given the very best in life. I see the cruelty inflicted on animals and the pet who's smothered with affection. I've lain by the serene ocean and I've watched images of its horrific destruction. I carry the conflicts within me of those I love, lost the innocent connection with a God whom I once imagined destroying my demons, been stung by something that appeared beautiful, and survived foolish decisions alongside those who have not.

And yet in spite of all this randomness, I believe.

Why?

Hoping to discuss this movie with some of you....

Mary

Yom haShoah

Yom haShoah (Day of the Holocaust)

This past Sunday Joe and I participated, as we do every year, in a Reading of the Names ceremony at our synagogue, Congregation Beth Torah, in Richardson, Texas. Hundreds of synagogues and Holocaust museums around the world remember the victims of Nazi atrocities on this day in various ceremonies. In Israel, state ceremonies are held, flags are lowered, torches are lit, and sirens blare for two minutes while all cars and individuals stop whatever they're doing to remember those who perished.

Yom haShoah was signed into law in 1953 by Israeli Prime Minister David ben-Gurion and President Yitzhak ben-Zvi. Originally proposed to be commemorated on the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising (a problem since the date was too close to Passover), it was moved to a date close to Yom Haatzmaut, Israeli Independence Day.

Ed Matisoff brought this moving memorial to Beth Torah ten years ago by ordering a list of thousands of names of people who perished during Hitler's reign of terror. Individuals volunteer to read one name after the other in 15 minute intervals for a 24-hour period of time.

For every person there is a name.

It isn't enough to say that 7 million Jews died or even that 78% of the 7.3 million Jews who were alive before WW2 were killed by the Nazis. No, they have a name, and it's intensely moving to hear those names read, along with the person's place of birth, a parents' name, if known, their age at death, their location of death.

The tables and podium at Beth Torah are covered in black cloth, lights are dimmed, and candles are lit in a ceremony marking the beginning of the Reading of the Names. As someone takes her turn at the bema, a few people sit in the sanctuary quietly listening or reading the stories of survivors recorded in the back of the siddur (prayer book).

The picture I've shown here represent only a fraction of those who died in the Holocaust. Each page lists dozens of names, line after line. At Beth Torah, people have been reading for a solid 24 hours every year for 10 years -

YET -

the stack pictured above - all of the papers on which those names are written - contains less than 80,000 names.

Look at that stack again. If the name of every Jew who perished in the Holocaust was part of that stack, it would take hundreds of tables. The lists would be spread across the sanctuary, spill into other rooms and hallways.

It will take around 800 years to finish reading the names of all the Jews whose names are recorded as having perished during the Holocaust.

Nor can we forget others who died - gypsies,  gays, political dissidents, Christians and others who hid or aided Jews in any way. At Beth Torah, this year some of these names were read, also.

Although we can't blare sirens in our country, stopping traffic and activity, my hope is that a worldwide movement will arise in which we pause for a few moments, in synchronicity, to close our eyes, remembering those who died, and taking the opportunity commit to ongoing personal work which furthers peace and justice and ensures the safety of all people.

Mary