My name is Alon Nir. I'm a 25 year old graduate student from Tel Aviv. About 5 months ago, I started a Twitter service that lets petitioners tweet their prayers to the Western Wall. I take the tweeted prayers, make them into tiny scrolls, and then place them in the crevices of the Wall. I'll be honest, it is very time consuming, and other than studying it's pretty much all I do (and, to be completely honest, I could be investing more in my schoolwork). The service is free, and will remain such because I believe the Kotel should be accessible to all. I won't lie to you though: I have some hopes that one day a benevolent person of means will help out with the expenses.

I was recently asked why I am doing this if it takes such a personal toll on me. After answering this question to myself, I answered it to the inquiring friend. I thought I'd share with you what I found out about myself and my motivation.

First, I realized that as time passed and the service evolved, my reasons for doing it transformed as well. When I launched, I just wanted to try and do some good on Twitter, and make use of its platform, even without knowing any programming. I thought sending prayers to the Kotel might be a nice service to some, might benefit people around the globe, draw some positive attention to Israel, and wouldn't consume too much time or effort.

THEN, it got big.

Less than three weeks after launch, the service got a lot of media attention, which instantly brought in thousands of new prayers. I stuck to my word and (somehow) got control over the situation. Having placed thousands and thousands of prayers and having received countless thank-you emails and testimonials, I can tell you I have earned some perspective about myself and about this service.

For starters, I have learned that this service means more to people than I thought. For so many people around the world, having their prayer delivered to Jerusalem means more than words can describe. This is true for people of other religions too, which has completely surprised me. Some people told me I give them hope, I give them strength, that I inspire them to lead better lives and help others. While those who surround me might not understand why I'm giving so much from myself for complete strangers I don't know and will never meet, knowing I can affect people's lives so much motivates me to work even harder and reach more people. I was given such a wonderful gift- the ability to help others - and it makes me want to make the most of it.

Another reason for doing this, and an even more bizarre one, is the love I get from people. I have a loving family, a loving girlfriend and good friends, but I found out that getting some love and appreciation from the strangers I serve is indeed important to me. Not a day goes by without receiving emotional emails from people thanking me for this service. Those emails energize me whenever I feel tired or overwhelmed. This weird relationship I've developed with the petitioners brings me joy because it proves that there is goodness in this world; that people from different countries and faiths can get along and show love without judgment or preconceptions. The love I get makes me believe that in the end, a better world is possible, and the microcosms of my twitter service shows exactly how: just do some good and disregard any differences between people. They'll mirror what they're receiving. Make love and take love. It can actually be that simple if we only try it out.

So, I invite you to check out my service at www.twitter.com/theKotel and www.tweetyourprayers.org. Spread the word and help me reach more people out there. Thank you.

Josh Nelson is the Cantorial Soloist and Musical Director for the 92nd Street Y's High Holiday Services. He recently managed to find time to sit down with Jewcy's Rina Raphael to discuss whether cantors get more women than cantorial soloists and what Jews can learn from Christian rock.

When did you start to make the connection between your faith and performing music?

I knew I wanted to be a musician at a very young age, but it wasn't until much later that I found a connection between my loves for Judaism and music. In college, I began to question why the music I experienced in worship didn't connect with my aesthetic sensibilities. The Jewish community at large seemed to have an unspoken belief that these melodies were "traditional," as if they had come directly from Sinai itself.

The reality is that many of these melodies were appropriated from European popular music. Jewish music has regularly reflected, in one form or another, the contemporary music of its time. While nusach plays a critical role in Jewish prayer, there is also space for additional music that is reflective of the particular era in which we pray.

So, I set out to explore the relationship between music and prayer, and found a calling in the process. I continue to find connections between the power of music and the power of worship, and I believe that these connections can enhance prayer in an incredibly moving way.

Plenty of bands have borrowed from the scriptures/prayerbook (Ultravox from "Lord's Prayer"; The Byrds from Ecclesiastes). If you could nominate one band or musician to sing a specific tefilah, which would it be?

Annie Lennox, davening the Mi Shebeirach prayer for healing. Sometimes a singer can reach right into the heart of you with only a few notes... The power of that prayer is palpable, and I can only imagine the combined impact of her voice and those words.

Which is the most underrated Jewish prayer?

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Jewish spirituality is, in large part, in the state-change business.  At the better synagogues-i.e., the ones which actually care about prayer or spirituality or at the very least a good community feeling-you show up thinking about mortgages and to-do lists, in the middle you're feeling a holy presence, and afterward you feel refreshed and re-energized.  This is what state-change is: moving your mind from one way of being to another.  And we Jews, like all religious groups, have developed a wonderful array of tools to enable it to happen.

For most people-indeed, I'd say for about 95% of people-state change is what it's all about.  As I'll describe in a moment, spiritual states have the power to open the mind, nourish the heart, and change the world.  They are, I think, the most important force for social and environmental sustainability on the planet.  And they can be lots of fun, too. 

But, states can also become dead-ends, or misconstrued, or actually dangerous.  For every one hippie becoming one with the universe, there are five fundamentalists ossifying their experience into dogmas of hate and ethnocentrism.  So, do the costs outweigh the benefits?  Is there a way to get the good stuff without the bad?  And what lies beyond spiritual states for those of us experienced enough in the spiritual path to have grown weary of them?  Let's take a look.


1.The Benefits of (Temporary) Transformation


The first value of spiritual states is what might be called their "negative" capacity: you get to see that you are not your "box" of identity, predilections, and mind.   You get a break from being you, and that is really important. This you can experience easily.  Go to a drum circle.  Let go totally, get into the rhythm.  Forget yourself, like hopefully you do during sex.  Lo and behold!  Mind, ego, and all the rest of your personality finally shuts up-and look, you can experience life just fine without it!  Maybe even better, and more alive!  So, states are really useful, if only for that.  Many people never do it, and as I described in an earlier Zeek article, I think that's part of why so many people seem locked into traditional values, conformity, and narrow thinking.

States also have a "positive" capacity.  There's something important about those experiences when the walls of self are lowered.  Drum circle ecstasy isn't just Not-Usual-Me; there's a glimpse of an oceanic oneness beyond ego, a melting into the Goddess that is deeply profound and important.  This is some of what Gilbert and I experienced on our first retreats: a dissolving into the One, a glimpse of the numinous.  At least as an experience, holiness is real.  All those spiritual weirdos-they're not nuts.  I don't know what they're experiencing (more on that in a minute), but there is an experience, and that experience is really valuable.  And if it gets mixed in with a notion of Shechinah or deities or spirits or whatever, these are useful concepts, even if they are only concepts. 

Third, mystical states have a tendency to shift one's priorities, in useful ways.  You experience this joy and bliss and compassion, and you get a little less obsessed with competition, career, and materialism.  At least for a while.  These states, transient as they are, yield a deeper, wider perspective on life's "stuff."  Would we really have as many angry people, hunters, sexual predators, stressed out neurotic nuts, or conservatives if everyone underwent a real state change every Friday night?  I don't think so.  It wouldn't save the world, but it would help if we were all a little more calm, and more infused with a joy that doesn't depend on consumption.

More specifically, genuine spiritual states invariably lead to compassion.  I don't know why that is; it's kind of a miracle.  And that compassion leads to all kinds of good things: less selfishness, more justice, less greed, more generosity, less hate, more love.  I can hear my social-justice-obsessed editor clucking her tongue at spiritual narcissism, so let me emphatically state that, in my view, nothing would be better for the global pursuit of social justice than for more and more people to meditate and cultivate compassion on a personal level first.  As I suggested last month, there is just no convincing a conservative that it's worth caring about some unfortunate marginalized person.  They have to feel it themselves, and that takes changing the heart-and that takes spiritual practice.  I don't see any other way if what we're after is durable, systemic change rather than fighting about the cause of the moment.

Finally, states lead to lasting insight.  First, experiencing spiritual "highs" can provide a little more perspective on, and a little less thirst for, highs of other kinds, like sex, spirituality, drugs, love, music, food, travel, and other experiences.  Again, I've had a very rich and wonderful life filled with all of those, but as anyone can tell you, chasing kicks forever is both puerile, and a little addictive.  Mystical states can provide some of that joy and ecstasy without the side-effects and without all the clinging.  Last month, you may recall, I described some of my own strongest spiritual experiences ("A Jewish Perspective on the Jhanas".  They were so intense that afterward, I would  sometimes feel like, this is it, okay?  I have gotten higher than I ever thought it was possible to get.  Okay.  Whew, that was great.  I'll do it again.  Okay.  Now I'll do it fifty times over a two month retreat.  Okay.  Now I'm even tired of it.  So what's next?  What lies beyond "kicks," even the most sublime ones?  This is very useful: good spiritual highs lead to a better relationship to highs in general.

In fact, states lead to insights of all kinds.  Again drawing on my recent experience, coming out of jhana, insights into dharma, Torah, and Jay's messy life popped like popcorn.  One time, the "wisdom light" in the third and fourth jhanas healed me of grief over a broken relationship which I'd been carrying around for six months.  Honest-it's much later now, and the anger and heartbreak is gone, replaced only by a reflective, wistful sadness that feels sweet and appropriate.  Other times, I would exit jhana and instantly see the radical impermanence of all sensations: here one moment, gone the next.  I could poke through any wall of loneliness, anger, or greed.  These insights do last, even though the blissful or content or equanimous states which produced them do not.

So, states heal us, they re-orient us, they motivate us, and they teach us.  What could be bad?


2. The Limits of Spiritual States


In fact, the limitations of spiritual states are as perhaps as important as their strengths. 

First, what really matters-God, the Unconditioned, Emptiness, Nirvana, call it what you will-is not the state, the bliss, the light, et cetera.  Let me repeat briefly from last month that there's a tendency that all of us have-but particularly spiritual Jews have-to deify and thus idol-ize certain states.  Oh, that gorgeous warmth of lighting candles.  Oh, we were so high during that drum circle / Kabbalat Shabbat / whatever, that was really mamash it.  But that's not it.  It is what's always here; Ein Sof, everything.  If it wasn't always here, it isn't it.  Real devekut has only one attachment: Is.  Totally colorless, totally omnipresent, and in fact, if you look closely, the only thing that doesn't come and go.  There is no state that is it.  This is it; just this.  Not feeling special about this, not feeling relaxed or wise or anything in particular-although sometimes those feelings may arise in the wake of letting go. Just is. 

In fact, mistaking a state for It is idolatrous, and the gateway to fundamentalism.  The reason is "fetishizing the trigger," which I wrote about a few years ago.  Fetishizing the trigger happens when we find a trigger to amazing mystical states, and then mistake the trigger for the state, the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself.  This is the root of fundamentalism: this ritual is holy, that one is not; this religion is right, that one is not.  And it's the root of the "right-wing hippie" phenomenon in Israel, in which well-meaning neo-Hasidic types get really seriously high off of the holiness of the Land of Israel, and end up hating Arabs and being incredibly ethnocentric.  States are powerful, and that means they can be dangerous.

Even when they're not dangerous, states can lead to a whole huge pile of suffering when the conditioned state passes and you're left wondering what the hell went wrong.  Believe me, I've spent many months in just that sense of bewilderment.  The answer is actually pretty simple: I mistook something conditioned for the unconditioned.  You just can't relive those peak experiences after awhile.  I've tried.  I've tried really hard.  It just leads to suffering.  The only thing you can do, over and over again, is let go.  Let go of everything.  Every desire, every identification, every place your ego is hiding out and saying "I'm this."  Let go, let go, let go, and keep on falling-because there ain't no place to land.  Yet this falling, I am here to tell you, is the same as flight.

It is also bad, bad news to get addicted to bliss states, as many people do.  It's a spiritual dead end, a kind of masturbatory spirituality that's basically not so different from being addicted to drugs.  You get high, you get withdrawal, you get high, you get withdrawal.   It's kind of tragic, since as I just mentioned one of the many benefits of spiritual highs is that they tend to reduce clinging to getting high.  But sometimes it doesn't work that way, and one addiction is simply substituted for another.  I've met a lot of "spiritual" people who really are just looking for their next fix, and it's sad.  It is also irresponsible, imbalanced, and even if its less severe forms, can actually increase selfishness-as in, "stop bothering me with your needs!  I'm trying to have a bliss state!" 

Now, again, some perspective.  I was told on one of my first retreats that concentrated mindstates can become narcotic.  I understood, but I wanted them anyway-and I don't regret it.  Those four or five years of concentration brought on all kinds of insight, compassion, and the other benefits from above.  They were also freaking amazingly awesome and beautiful.  (See "Meditation and Sensuality")  So, if you're just starting out: cultivate states!  Just try not to get too attached to them, or think they're something they're not.  Love, learn, and let go.

But for those of us who have eaten the apple, tasted the forbidden fruit, and been transformed by it-is there anything beyond?  Are we just to go on loving and letting go?  Or is there something beyond the holiest of spiritual states?


3.What's Beyond States?


There is-but let me take a short detour first to reiterate why for the vast majority of people, states are still the way to go.  Really, where the work of spiritual teaching and the work of social justice actually intersect is not in the more esoteric or refined realms, but in what you could call the "retail business" of spirituality: bringing spiritual change to more and more people, usually in somewhat gross ways.  Ultimately, while I personally am interested in the further stages of the spiritual path, and try to write about them in this magazine, as someone concerned about the fate of our planet, I am actually more interested in the initial stages.  I believe that spirituality can bring more and more people over to the good side of the fence-the side with more concern about equality and justice, more respect for the environment, and more pluralism on global and local levels.  And I think spirituality can make people less racist, violent, overly conservative, greedy, and materialistic. But to do that, spiritual teachers need to interact with the not-so-good side of the fence, and cheapen what they are doing in order to reach more people.

Eckhart Tolle, after the huge success of The Power of Now, took a year of silent retreat to discern what should be his next step-not as a matter of a career, but as one of mission.  What he did next was not unveil the next stage of the path, what lies beyond "now," but rather adjust the way he was teaching, simplify it, and, in a way, translate it into more coarse terms.  The result was A New Earth, worldwide success, and, through Oprah, the largest audience a spiritual teacher has received since perhaps Deepak Chopra.  (Chopra himself is an educated, enlightened nondualist.  His teaching is often quite coarse in presentation-live forever, never age, etc.-but I think he's really trying to reach the most people with the most light.)

So, to rethink Jewish spirituality does not mean to junk its reliance on spiritual states, because for most Jews, like most people, states are still what is necessary.  We still need to promise that you'll feel good, and deliver the goods.  And let's remember that the majority of synagogues in America can't do even that; they don't even know there are goods to deliver, or that there might be goods other than coming together as a community, celebrating our religion, and repeating half-believed notions about God or commandments.  For most people, the first step is still yet to be taken.

But if you've read this far, I'm guessing you're not one of those people.  I'm guessing that you've had powerful spiritual experiences, and that, like me, you've struggled with what to do next: how to integrate them, or have more of them, or perhaps move from "state to stage," in Ken Wilber's terms.  This is the real goal, right?  Not to go off on retreat and feel close to God but shiviti adonai l'negdi tamid-to set YHVH ("Is" / Being) before you always.  So for you, what's the next step?  I'm still very much on this path myself, but here's what I've learned so far.

First, states must be refined and made increasingly subtle, so much so that they approach omnipresence.  The jhanas, which I wrote about previously, are instructive in this regard.  The first jhana is pretty over-the-top, filled with intense rapture.  Then that gets too coarse, and the second jhana takes over, with pleasure and delight and amazing, shimmering light, but without some of the intense concentrated effort.  Eventually even that gets coarse, and the mind moves to the third jhana, with pleasure and bliss, but not rapture and amazement.  And eventually, even the love and bliss of the third jhana gets a bit coarse, and the mind moves into the fourth jhana, which is equanimous, transparent, and so subtle it's barely there.

The first jhana's coarseness is its strength: without that brute force, it's very hard to get "in."  As I write this now, transitioning out of retreat, the fourth jhana has become difficult to sustain-it's just very subtle.  Likewise with all spiritual states.  At first, we need to get our socks knocked off: some amazing, wild ecstatic prayer service, or an upwelling of love so beautiful it makes us cry.  As we progress, however, what I've found is that the states become more subtle-and thus approach ordinary life more and more.  The title of Jack Kornfield's book After the Ecstasy the Laundry is apt, and the book deals frankly with some of the painful hangover-periods that inevitably come after ecstatic highs.  But the ultimate point is for the laundry itself to be holy, to be good.

That does not mean that the laundry provides ecstasy.  Rather, it means that by refining spiritual states, you don't need ecstasy to feel connected anymore.  I remember after my first few retreats, I would try to re-experience the joy or devekut I felt on retreat.  For a while, it would work, but eventually, I'd get too distracted, and eventually even bored with trying.  Now, however, I'm looking less for a spiritual state than just to let go into "what is."  It's tricky, because "let go into 'what is'" sounds like "relax, feel connected, be holy"-but my point is the opposite: that it's really just letting go into what is, and being deeply, profoundly okay with that.

If you've not experienced any of these states and progressions, that must sound rather banal.  But imagine having the sense of okay-ness that you have when you're snuggling with your lover-just now, snuggling in with the "present moment."  Not the love, necessarily (though that too may arise), but just the... yes.  This is it.  This really is it.  This is God, this is the point, this emptiness that underlies all of my transitory states of mind... yep, this is it.

The result need not be an aching sense of holiness, or the belief that you can fly.  (Though those too...)  It is mostly a negative capacity rather than a positive one: it's mostly in the letting go, the relaxing, the un-distracting, the remembering.  Poke your head up out of the huge flock of self-absorbed sheep that all of us collectively are-oh yeah, you're awake.  Consciousness.  Emptiness.  Even "God," if you like, though that term is inevitably freighted with associations and expectations.  My God is named "is."  So, for me, it's sometimes easiest to just say "is it is?"  Which... it usually is.

This is the process of making states so transparent that they slowly turn into stages.  What we're looking for, "it", the goal, enlightenment, whatever grows increasingly thin.  The "trigger" is always available.  What you're looking for is always available-indeed, it's just your ordinary awareness, if you can believe that.  Remember: if it hasn't always been here, it isn't the unconditioned.  And it is, in my experience, slow, gradual, and filled with fits and starts.  But it does seem to be working.  "To see the light in everyone and every thing," Surya Das told me.  Yes-and not radiant, shining, first-jhana light-but just the ordinary light that is, all the time.  Nothing special-and yet, with enough practice, just as special as that which is most special.  Sorry if that seems paradoxical. Walk the walk, you'll see what I mean.

So, at first we have mundane consciousness, the space of I-me-mine and work and the rest.  Then, we have spiritual states, where those boundaries and demands are relaxed.  And then, we have some notion that the real goal is not any state, but what Wilber calls "the simple freedom of being."  This is rather like negative theology in our own experience: not this, not that, not this thought, not that idea, not this ego, not that possession.  Ayin is everywhere, but it has taken me, at least, a lot of work to be able to refine consciousness so much that I'm not mistaking it for a pleasant state of mind. 

And then, finally, there is the re-embrace of the ordinary itself-but, please, don't do this too fast.  First, have the states.  Then, refine them away.  And then see that in every ordinary moment, lonely ones and lovely ones, there is the unity of form and emptiness, nirvana and samsara, yesh and ayin.  Don't rush.  But do move forward.

Now, in order to enable this negative capacity, of seeing God without "God", there are at least four necessary ongoing factors.  First is a regular spiritual practice: meditation, yoga, prayer, reflection, that sort of thing.  You've just got to take out the garbage, every day.  You have to interrupt the torrents of thought, to-do lists, plans, senses of self, and so on, because otherwise "letting go" just won't take.  A lot of times, when I ask "is it is?" I get a response of "yes, but so what?"  This is a good sign that I'm identifying with factors in my mind, such as restlessness or unhappiness.  It's a good sign to take a nice, deep breath and try to remember that "I" am not restless; restlessness has just arisen.  There is no "I."  Okay, whew.  Regular spiritual practice maintains the base level of presence of mind necessary to do that.

Second, you've got to extend the spiritual practice beyond the mat, beyond the mind, and into action.  If it's all about you, you're going to get too wrapped up in your feelings, your journey, your states, your shit.  Take some time out of your head and go work in a soup kitchen.  Council somebody who needs help.  Volunteer for a cause you believe in.  Whatever it is, there has to be some measure of spiritual practice in the world-not just to heal the world, but to ensure that spirituality doesn't dead-end in you.

Third, I think-and some would disagree here-that in addition to awakening, there needs to be some kind of "purification of mind," to use the Buddhist term.  Theoretically, one can be a fully awakened, enlightened human being and still be a total schmuck.  Enlightenment does not have to do with being a nice person; it's about seeing through the veil of illusion, knowing all things to be totally conditioned and transitory and thus unclingable.  What's left depends on how you see the world-it could be God, or Emptiness, or liberation, could be All Mind, or No Mind; doesn't really matter, the point is what it isn't, which is any thing.  Now, if that's true, it doesn't much matter whether what's in the mind is peace and love, or sexual desire, or simple obnoxiousness.  It's all God, right?  This is how many clearly enlightened people still have psychological baggage and other hangups.  For me-and again, not everyone would agree-I think there's still a lot of delusion that needs to be cleared up in order for it not to eventually block clear seeing.  I still get very, very tied up in the illusion of "I", in large part because of the way neuroses from my childhood still continue to operate.  They are very hard to see through sometimes.  So, for me at least, the ongoing process of cultivating patience, equanimity, lovingkindness, and other illusory, transitory qualities remains part and parcel of the overall spiritual project, if only so I don't get jammed.

Finally, I think you've got to take a good look at your life, and see if it is really conducive to taking the "next step."  Maybe it just isn't.  Maybe you're at a stage in your life where you're working really hard and building something, and so you need to stay with cultivating really juicy states once a week.  No harm in that.  Or maybe you're raising a family, and the stress is just too much for subtlety.  This is why monks are monks, and not householders.  In my own life, I've shed three entire careers in the last two years, and am working much less-for me, anyway.  I've chosen to take large chunks of time out and focus on contemplative work.  I've stopped fighting with Jews about how their religion should be, and I've cut back on my political writing and work.  And I've stopped living in New York City.   These steps have often been painful; I'm a greed type, and I want it all.  But I want one thing more, and that thing requires quiet of mind and body.

So, that's what I've learned.  It is possible and necessary to move beyond spiritual states, but it takes work, the right conditions, and ongoing maintenance.  And to repeat, I am not claiming to have completed this work, or attained anything.   As a final aside, if I were really beyond identifying with my "ego," I probably wouldn't be writing at all; the more awake I become, the less I am interested in teaching or writing, and even less in impressing anyone by doing so.  Compassion still motivates me somewhat, but humility counters it: do I really think I am so wise, or that I am saying something that can't be found elsewhere?  I can imagine many realized beings who see no possible purpose in doing anything or going anywhere except Being itself, except perhaps in direct, compassion-motivated helping of others.  So, if you are reading any book or essay, including this one, you must be getting something less than the totally genuine article.  Beware of anyone who writes or teaches.

At this point in a Zeek essay, I often try to conclude with a poetic image, or a recollection of a spiritual moment at which all the veils dropped away and the nakedness of the Divine was so radiant and cleansing.  Having just finished a jhanas retreat, I have a big satchel of such moments.  But the point of Zen poetry and ritual, as I understand it, is to get beyond all that.  Whatever it is you're looking at now-that's the scenery for your enlightenment.  So I'd rather not write any conclusion at all.

Get it?  :-)


All images by artist Judith Joseph

My first real experience with a Jewish prayer services took place several years ago in someone's living room where I, with little idea of what I was doing, davened and shared in a pot-luck dinner.  My then-boyfriend (who had suggested we attend) was of course late that evening, so I had to walk in alone to the small group of 20-and-30-somethings gathered for the biweekly independent egalitarian minyan – Kol haKfar.

Of course, I survived that first Shabbat evening. In fact, over time, as I continued in my Jewish learning, I found myself drawn to the independent minyan scene. I generally liked the communities and felt far more comfortable in the casual nature of the davening in apartments, church basements, and parks (weather permitting) on various Friday nights.  Sure, I was utterly lost at first, but it wasn’t any better at shul.  At least at minyan some guy (after my boyfriend left for India) would more often than not lean over my shoulder to point out where we were in the service and usually ask for my number.  

Being willing to travel on Shabbat opened me up to many communities (New York is great like that) which I made part of my weekly routine – Kol Zimrah, Hadar, Tikvat Yisrael, Romemu and even Altshul in Brooklyn.  Then by chance the minyan in closest proximity to my apartment, Techiyah of Harlem announced that its founders were leaving the city and the minyan was in need of administrative assistance.  Since I’m a total sucker for doing time-consuming thankless things for free, I volunteered to help out.

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Every year, the Israeli Postal Authority receives thousands of letters from around the world addressed to God. The issue of this specific type of undeliverable mail is presumably faced by postal authorities in other countries as well, but in Israel the mailman actually makes an effort to deliver. Last week, Postal Authority Director-General Avi Hochman handed over a few boxes with letters to God to the rabbi of the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinovitz. The rabbi subsequently placed the letters in cracks in the wall, which according to popular Jewish belief will boost the chances of one's prayers being heard.

Submitting the Requests: Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitz places letters to God in the Western Wall.

It turned out that this event actually was considered a news item, judging by the sizable pack of press photographers that covered it. I am sure there were more important things going on in Israel that day (just a hunch), yet the news crews acquiesced when they were diverted to the Western Wall.

The Government Press Office, which had sent out emails announcing the event, probably thought that it would reflect well on Israel: the Postal Authority going out of its way to find a creative solution to that growing pile of undeliverable mail and Rabbi Rabinovitz getting a chance to say a few words about how God accepts the prayers of all mankind, Jews and non-Jews alike. It kind of felt like Christmas, an illusion that was shattered when the rabbi recited Shir Lama'alot (Psalm 121) instead of singing Joy to the World with the Director-General.

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Live Long: and text message The Greek Orthodox Church has come up with a creative way to keep ex-pat Greeks feeling connected to the church. Now, anyone who can’t make it Hey God: can you hear me now?to the church of the Virgin Mary on the Aegean island of Tinos for the August 15 pilgrimage can email a “heart-felt prayer” to a priest, who will read their name in front of the icon of the Virgin Mary.

This is part of the Greek Orthodox Church’s strategy for being more appealing and accessible to a youngerDevout Or Devilish?: using cell phone cameras to photograph the dead pope community. Similar strategies have been going on in Israel for more than four years. You can email a message that will be printed out and concealed between the stones of the Western Wall. This sounds a Mecca Phone: god this waylittle suspicious though. I mean, whenever I try to put even a tiny note in the kotel it’s hard to find a place to put it, let alone pages and pages of emails and faxes.

In other prayer technologies, there’s a cell phone that will always point you in the direction of Mecca, remind you when the five daily prayer times begin, and contains the entire text of the Koran. And there’s a prayer gadget with candle-type-things that light up when you swipe prayer cards.

There are a few things that I think are better done in a low-tech fashion. Praying might be one of them.

11.05pm: Jaffa Gate, Old City, Jerusalem.
Far from the madding crowds flowing out of Jerusalem’s ancient stone walls, a white car was waiting at the bus stop down the hill, ready for the first leg of our journey to another holy city, one less trodden by tourists: Shechem (or Nablus, as it’s commonly known). Kever Yoseph, the Tomb of Joseph, son of Jacob, lies in the center of Nablus, which has a population of over 160,000 souls, making it the largest Palestinian city – and also one of the most hostile. In brighter days Jews could worship there freely but the Kever now falls under Palestinians Authority Area A and is thus forbidden for Israeli citizens to enter the city. The only way there is under cover of darkness – and with an army escort. So be it.

11.40pm: Ofra, West Bank.
Within seconds of getting out of the car, an American in his 20s ran towards us, gleefully waving a book in the air--On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society--whilst muttering clichés about wimpy ‘liberals’. Welcome to Ofra, one of the first West Bank settlements established by the messianic right-wing Gush Emunim movement in the 1970s. We were early for our bulletproof bus but, in true Israeli style, we had to wait an hour before boarding. On the pavement, the atmosphere was starting to get festive, with a mix of starry-eyed settler youth, mainly from the central and southern West Bank, whose knitted skullcaps and long peyos dangled alongside those of the Breslav Hassidim, some of whom sneaked into the Tomb in 2003 in defiance of the military, leaving seven with gunshot wounds. But not everyone had registered with the authorities, a necessary requirement for entering ‘enemy territory’, leaving dozens stranded. It was too much for one teenager, who threw himself under the bus, narrowly missing its wheels.

12.13pm: Tapuach Junction, West Bank.
Word had spread that there was going to be a knisah [entrance] to Joseph’s Tomb, and the Tapuach checkpoint was packed with over 100 people trying to get in. Some had given up hope and resorted to davening in the middle of the road, whilst some ingenious haredim attempted to hide in the luggage compartment of our bus. Things were getting serious. It had been several months since the last Knisah, and it seemed like Joseph had never been so popular; “There’s lots of pent up demand,” said the American rabbi sitting next to me, who had prayed at the Tomb twice before--once recently with an army escort, and another time more freely in the 1990s, before the days of checkpoints and intifadas (and with half as many Jewish settlers in the West Bank).

12.55pm, Huwara Village, south of Nablus.
After leaving Tapuach, we found ourselves in a convoy with three other buses flanked by army vehicles, all of which soon came to a halt at the next Palestinian village where Jewish pilgrims were trying to outsmart the bewildered border police. Aizeh balagan. We took a right past the notorious checkpoint to which the village lends its name, and that serves to keep would-be terrorists from Nablus at bay whilst maintaining a virtual siege on the rest of the city. We climbed the hill in the direction of the Elon Moreh settlement (not a place I thought I’d be returning to so soon after my last jaunt there).

01.24am: Army checkpoint, somewhere east of Nablus.
The 50 people on the bus burst into song and chants of “Od Yoseph Chai” and “Yoseph, Yoseph, Yoseph HaTzaddik” as soon as we burst through the checkpoint. “It’s nothing physical, they just want kesher [contact] with the Tzaddik,” said the Rabbi. “It’s ridiculous. This is our land and we have to sneak in at the middle of the night.” The irony escaped him that the Palestinians in Nablus/Shechem feel the same: This is their land, but are barred from traveling freely inside it whilst settlers zoom through the checkpoints and freshly-tarmaced roads and with ease.

01.39am: Joseph’s Tomb, downtown Nablus.
We officially arrived. The tomb itself is a shadow of its former glory, covered in ash and rubble after being partially destroyed by Palestinian riots in 2000, but that didn’t dampen the euphoria of the crowd, who filled the building’s central chamber with songs of exultation. Outside, the streets were deserted, save for our bus and two army vehicles straddling them. I get the feeling that if the locals wanted to take a potshot at us, it wouldn’t be too difficult.

For once, I found myself in agreement with the rabbi: The situation was ridiculous. As exhilarating as it is to visit the resting place of our forefathers, the price to pay is steep: soldiers putting their lives on the line, whilst Nablus and the rest of the West Bank are on lock-down. No one wins. It’s a similar story at the resting place of Joseph’s mother, Rachel, sliced out of Bethlehem by the ominous separation wall, and the Cave of the Patriarchs in the walking Kafka novel that is present-day Hebron. Jews should have access to our holy places, but it makes me wonder if the apparatus of checkpoints and settlements encircling them help ensure our rights to them or the opposite? The experience of the last 41 years is less than conclusive.

02.27am: Evacuation, Joseph’s Tomb. Soldiers with loudhailers round up the excited worshippers, no easy task when half of them are tucking into the steaming cholent that appeared from nowhere (via Bnei Brak). After a pause at Tapuach, a hitchhike arrives and we’re homeward bound.

04.19am: Jerusalem, Israel. The car pulls in near King George Street, passing Israeli teenagers wandering home after a night on the town. I glide up the four flights of stairs, take off my Nike Air trainers, painted black by the soot from the Tomb, and head to bed to ponder the night’s surreal events.

Me me me: Is Eat Pray Love a little self-obsessed?Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love has been endorsed by Oprah and become the second-bestselling book of 2007, so of course it was due for a backlash. USA Today reports a growing trend of disdain for Gilbert’s easy spiritual epiphanies, suggesting that people resent her depiction of India and Indonesia as shortcuts to inner peace.

The New York Post started the anti-trend with a teardown of the piece back in December that called the book

the worst in Western fetishization of Eastern thought and culture, assured in its answers to existential dilemmas that have confounded intellects greater than hers. You may be a well-off white woman, but if you are depressed, the answer can be found in the East, where the poor brown people are sages.

At Old Hag, blogger Lizzie Skurnick put it more succinctly: “Nothing is more boring than your epiphanies.”

Gilbert has responded to the criticism, saying that she gets that her book smacks of “loosey-goosey spiritual seeking” that’s “just a free-for-all of well-heeled Westerners randomly shoplifting rituals and symbols from all the world's more exotic religions” but adding that she’s just trying to understand her relationship with the divine. (Which sort of brings us back to the “boring” accusation, doesn’t it?)

I haven’t read the book – last time I was at the airport I went with The Audacity of Hope instead – but I’m told that the sections on prayer seem really foreign if you come at them from a Jewish perspective. Then again, Gilbert’s not exactly looking for a Jewish epiphany, or she would have gone to a different country starting with the letter “I.”

Also in Jewcy: The JewBu's Guide to Eat, Pray, Love 

I don’t think I’ve ever prayed for someone else’s downfall. At least, not in the specific. This is apparently reason number 589 that I wouldn’t really fit in at First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park, where they pray for vengeance.
Dear God,: Please let my orthodontist get hit by a car. Love, Jimmy
Prayer for opponent's misfortune finds little support

Until last week, "imprecatory prayer" was not in many people's vocabularies.

But then Rev. Wiley S. Drake, pastor of the First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park, urged his supporters to use Psalm 109 to focus prayers directed at the "enemies of God" -- including the leaders of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Drake was urging the use of imprecatory prayer -- prayers for another's misfortune or for vengeance against God's enemies. Now such prayer is the talk of blogs and letters to the editor.

The controversy flared Aug. 14, the day the Washington-based group asked the Internal Revenue Service to probe the tax-exempt status of Drake's congregation.

Churches, as tax-exempt organizations, are prohibited from campaigning for candidates. Drake had earlier issued a statement on a church letterhead endorsing former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican presidential candidate.

Drake told his supporters that he attempted to talk to Americans United for the Separation of Church and State about the issue. He cited a verse from the Gospel of Matthew that says "if your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you." Drake said his efforts were rebuffed.

"Now that all efforts have been exhausted, we must begin our Imprecatory Prayer, at the key points of the parliamentary role in the earth where we live," Drake wrote.

The article goes on to consult with various religious experts about what their faith tells them about praying for someone’s demise. Here’s what the rabbi has to say:

Rabbi Stephen Julius Stein, of Wilshire Boulevard Temple, said the kind of prayer called for by Drake is not "normative" in Jewish tradition.

"We ask God certainly to do justice and to bring those who are errant to justice, but what I would consider an imprecatory prayer is not normative in Judaism," he said. "There is a difference between saying, 'May the wicked be brought to justice,' and 'May John Smith be cursed.' When we start naming names, that takes 'prayer' to an entirely different level."

Full story

It’s interesting to me that so often in the Bible there’s discussion of how bad things should happen to our enemies, but we’re not allowed to request it specifically. Why is this? And why do we even care of some guy is telling people to pray for other’s misfortune. Do we think God is up there going, “Well, if you say so…”? Doesn’t God have a reasonably good moral compass?

I think it’s clear that Wiley Drake is an asshat, but I’m still not sure why imprecatory prayer is so bad. I’m not particularly tempted to go out cursing people anyway, but I don’t see what difference it makes. If people want to let off steam by praying for Osama Bin Laden’s death, or even if they want to wish that their algebra teacher gets scabies…who cares?

Temple Mount: Isn't she lovely?Over at Haaretz, a story about how an increasing number of Religious Zionist Rabbis are encouraging people to visit the Temple Mount. 

Currently, rabbinic consensus in the religious Zionist and the ultra-Orthodox world prohibits Jews from entering the Temple Mount. This is because the exact location of the Holy of Holies is not known, and therefore Jews who have not properly purified themselves may accidentally walk there or through other prohibited places.

And that's changing right now, just in time for the 40th anniversary of the unification of Jerusalem.  Cool, right?  But it seems you can't pray there.  Which I didn't actually know until just now. 

Why?

The policy was set 40 years ago by then-defense minister Moshe Dayan. Dayan argued that the national and territorial dimension of the Arab-Israeli conflict should be separated from the religious dimension, and for this reason Jewish prayer and ritual should be prohibited on the Mount. At the same time, it was decided that ultimate responsibility for security on and around the Temple Mount would be in the hands of Israel, while religious and administrative autonomy at the Temple Mount would be under the Waqf (the Muslim religious authorities), a situation that prevails to this day.

This is fascinating to me.  I never think about this aspect of regulating prayer.  In America we argue so much about whether to allow prayer in schools, but when we talk about it, we don't mean to actually restrict PRAYER.  We simply mean to restrict the public and community aspects of prayer. We mean to keep ourselves from sliding into enforcing prayer.   

But on the Temple Mount, they mean to RESTRICT prayer!  Check it out:

Nahum relates a story of a religious woman who, upon touring the Mount, was tired and sat by a tree to rest. She closed her eyes and it looked like she was meditating. The police detained her for violating the ban on prayer.

I find myself thinking again about something I learned in Israel-- that context is everything.   I remember one day, in Jerusalem, being massively relieved to see a cop (there's a long back story to this, but suffice it  to say I was scared).  And I thought to myself then that it was funny. Since as an American teenager I hated cops. I was offended by the existence of cops. Pigs.  The people who broke up Peta rallies. Etc. But when I saw this young guy in his military garb, with his gun, I wanted to hug him.

And this feels a little like that to me. 

While I am, as an American, pretty violently opposed to "prayer in schools"... if the context shifted, the cultural setting, the mindset...  I might be all for it.  I would most certainly be bothered by an attempt to KEEP anyone from praying on a personal level. That kind of restriction freaks me out.

So maybe I'm a bible thumper. Who knew?

Lesson: Never name the well you won't drink from.

I guess I kind of dropped the ball yesterday, because I failed to mention that the first Thursday in May is National Day of Prayer. And if that’s not practical news, I don’t know what is—right??
People Praying: On NDP day. Otherwise they'd be off stealing cars and punching each other in the face.
If you want more info about the National Day of Prayer it would be natural for you to head to the official website of the NdoP. You might expect to find one of those nifty search engines that lets you look for the nearest church/synagogue/mosque. And probably pictures of all different kinds of people praying together. And maybe a kind of neutral vanilla statement about believing we all came from a higher being, and today we come together to praise that higher being. That seems like the obvious content for a website about a day when all Americans are supposed to pray. But in fact, when you head over to the About NDP page on the official website you find this heart-warming statement:

The National Day of Prayer Task Force's mission is to communicate with every individual the need for personal repentance and prayer, mobilizing the Christian community to intercede for America and its leadership in the five centers of power: Church, Education, Family, Government and Media.

Then there’s a place where you can click to buy a $163 print of ‘The Prayer at Valley Forge.’ What a bargain!

But seriously, how strange is it that the task force for the National Day of Prayer has an exclusively Christian doctrine? (And how scary is it that they have a task force? Are they, like, the enforcers of the prayer community?)

The site then lists the NDP’s “Vision and Values” which starts with “Foster unity within the Christian Church” and continues “Publicize and preserve America's Christian heritage.” Are you feeling the multi-cultural, inclusive spirit yet?

Way down at the bottom of the page is something called, “Official Policy Statement on Participation of "Non-Judeo-Christian" groups in the National Day of Prayer.” It seems to me like it should read “Participation of ‘Non-Christian’ groups” since there’s nothing Judeo about anything we’ve read so far, but let’s get right to the Offical Policy Statement so you can judge for yourself:

The National Day of Prayer Task Force was a creation of the National Prayer Committee for the expressed purpose of organizing and promoting prayer observances conforming to a Judeo-Christian system of values. People with other theological and philosophical views are, of course, free to organize and participate in activities that are consistent with their own beliefs. This diversity is what Congress intended when it designated the Day of Prayer, not that every faith and creed would be homogenized, but that all who sought to pray for this nation would be encouraged to do so in any way deemed appropriate. It is that broad invitation to the American people that led, in our case, to the creation of the Task Force and the Judeo-Christian principles on which it is based.

Wow! People who aren’t “Judeo Christian” (whatever the fuck that means) “are, of course, free to organize and participate in activities that are consistent with their own beliefs.” That’s awesome! Thank you, NDP, for allowing me to lay tefillin on Thursday. I really appreciate it!

It turns out yesterday was also National Day of Reason, a little holiday started by the American Humanist Organization to combat the bullcrap spewed by the NDP Task Force. Their own mission statement starts off reasonably, then gets kind of angry, and then calms down again:

Humanists see the National Day of Prayer as a dividing intrusion instead of a chance to seek commonality…

Millions of Americans don’t see prayer as an answer to any question, especially now, after the American Heart Journal published the damning results of the most scientifically rigorous study of the efficacy of prayer to date. Millions more Americans who retain faith in prayer see it as a private matter and are offended by politicians’ attempts to hijack their deeply held religious beliefs to boost their poll numbers.

“But all Americans, regardless of their worldview, can join us in
celebrating a National Day of Reason,” said AHA president Mel Lipman. “Reason is commonly recognized as a sound basis for decision making. Scientific reasoning explains much of human progress and potential, and no one, religious or not, wishes to be unreasonable.”

Good point!

But is National Day of Reason listed on all Hallmark calendars, like National Day of Prayer? I think not. Take that, atheists!

It’s too late anyway. If you didn’t pray or act reasonably yesterday you didn’t celebrate either holiday, you foolish heathen! Don’t worry, though, there’s always next year.

Benny Hinn: Is not a religious studies expertI just read this story at the New York Times, about the growing popularity of faith and spirituality on campus... and while that there may be a religion trend right now, and while I'm all for faith and spirituality... 

when I read this bit:

A survey on the spiritual lives of college students, the first of its kind, showed in 2004 that more than two-thirds of 112,000 freshmen surveyed said they prayed, and that almost 80 percent believed in God. Nearly half of the freshmen said they were seeking opportunities to grow spiritually, according to the survey by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles.

I couldn't help thinking, "Whoa!  I think that's a load of crap..."   

I don't mean that kids don't believe in God, I just do NOT believe that 80% of college kids believe in God.  Not really.   Though maybe they think it's kind of neat to be thinking about God, or thinking they might someday want to pray to God.

Think about this... if 80% believe in God, and only 66% pray, why don't the other 14% pray?  Do they HATE God, or do they all belong to some religion I've never heard of where God doesn't want you to pray?

 My gut tells me they answer "yes" to the question because they aren't atheists.  Because they God is a neat idea.  Because they wernt to Sunday School when they were 5.  And because, as we all know, there's a trned... and kids are trendy.  Of course, my reaction is not academic... or based in ANYTHING, really. It's just my reaction, but I'm not sure I'm wrong. 

See, the story goes on to explore the "WHY?" of such numbers.  It mentions a rise in religious studies enrollment, a rise in evangelical attendance at secular schools, and a rise in Christian student groups on campus.   

And that's all true.  But are these very differen types of numbers actually realted to one another directly?  There's more beneath the surface, and what I really want to know is what we're pointing to when we acknowledge this trend.  What are we saying?  It seems pretty general to look at all of this as, "Campus is just more religious."

For instance... What do we think is the nature of claiming an evangelical  religious belief system... or an academic religious interest?  I'm not sure these two things  are related.

In the world today, surrounded by religious evangelical extremism and violence related to that kind of faith, it makes complete sense that secular-ish students are trying to understand religion.  But I don't see what those "religious studies" numbers necessarily have to do with the simultaneous rise in the number of kids attending Campus Crusade for Christ meetings. Faith is a trend right now.  But the kids studying faith in the world, and the kids devoting themselves to worship... do they have to be the same kids?  Do we have to merge these populations in the study of faith?  Do they describe one trend, or several different reactions to a set of events?

I'm not sure I'm making myself clear, and I'm not sure I can divorce my strong reaction from my own personal experiences as a college kid.  But somewhere in my gut, I have to say I think 80% seems awfully high.

Depending on how we're defining "God" of course.  And "pray".  And "believe". 

Do you "believe" in God?  Do you pray? 

I don't, not really, though I'm reaching toward such things. 

But I don't think, as someone "interested in faith and prayer", that  I would answer a survey in the affirmative if I were asked such questions...

Though I'm not 18 and living in a climate, a trend, a "rising tide" of faith.

As I’ve been reading the op-eds about Virginia Tech I’ve started getting irritated with the random spiritual advice that’s being espoused. Aside from the political arguments against the second amendment, and discussions of mental health on university campuses, we’re getting lots of calls for prayer.
Don't Leave Loners: Alone
The BBC aired a Thought of the Day today that dressed down the US for poor gun control and violent video games. Tom Butler carefully tells us all to grieve in our own way, and reminds listeners that religion is about coming to terms with themselves, one another, and the great mysteries of the world. He says we should all start praying. And e-mails I got from Hillel, Vanderbilt, and friends on facebook made similar requests and suggestions.

I’m all for prayer. I pray every day, and so do a lot of my friends. But while I still think that prayer is important, my response to a tragedy like the one at Virginia Tech is different. I don’t want to try, I want to be with my community. I want to sit with my friends, and if we talk about VT then fine, but mostly what I want is the company, the sense of a connection to others.

Prayer is great for long term fortification, but it’s hard to argue that it works as a quick fix. When we’re grieving, the best thing we can do is be with other people. And that’s notable because in all of these horrific situations—University of Texas, Columbine and Virginia Tech—the shooters are described as loners. They didn’t have communities to pull them in during the hard times. I’m not saying that not having a support group means someone is going to go shoot up a school, but I do think that people who have strong ties to others seem a lot less likely to engage in scary stuff like this.

So today, if you feel like praying, go for it. But a more powerful action might be to call up that guy you met once at synagogue who never came back, or chat a little with the woman in the cubicle next door. Try to make a connection with someone who seems like they might need someone to talk to. Remember how important your support network is to you, and try to make sure you reciprocate for others.

But praying won’t cut it. Not today.

There are precisely two parts of Passover that I like. One is making my family’s charoset, which I do with an old meat grinder, as per my grandfather’s custom. This is What Charoset Should Look Like: Meat grinders NOT optionalThe other is the prayer for dew, tefilat tal that we say on the first day of Passover. I missed tefilat tal because I wasn’t in walking distance of a synagogue on the first day of Passover, but I’ve been thinking a lot about it today since it’s pouring in Nashville.

Twice every year Jews praise God for providing us with water and rain. On the last day of Sukkot, during the Musaf Amidah, we open the ark, and the person leading services dons his or her kitel and sings tefilat geshem, a special prayer that recalls all of the forefathers, plus Moses, Aaron, and the tribes of Israel. Each is connected to water. Abraham’s gardens were saved from fire and from water, Isaac’s blood was almost spilled at the sacrifice like water, Jacob struggled with a creature of fire and of water, Moses hit the rock and out came water, Aaron purified himself and the other priests with water, and the twelve tribes were lead through walls of water to freedom. At the end of each stanza of the poem we beseech God to grant us water (i.e. rain) in the coming months. It’s a really beautiful prayer, and one that I think about every time I hear that the Kinneret is at record low, which is pretty much always.

For the next four months or so we add a line in the beginning of the Amidah asking God to cause the wind to blow and rain to fall. These four months are the rainy season in Israel, and if you’ve ever been in Jerusalem for a thunderstorm you know just how intense they can be. God is not kidding with that wind stuff, either.
I Dew: Love Dew
Then, on the first day of Passover, during the musaf Amidah we open the ark again, the person leading services again dons a kitel, and we say tefilat tal, the prayer for dew. But where tefilat geshem focuses on the spiritual and theological history of water, tefilat tal is much more practical. We need dew in order for our agricultural work to be productive. Urban life, too, is dependent on dew, we remind God, and we connect the role of dew in maintaining livelihoods in Israel to the return of Jews from the Diaspora. Though similarly structured, and composed by the same guy who wrote tefilat Geshem, Rabbi Eleazar Ha-Kallir, who lived in 7th Century Palestine, it’s interesting that the prayers for rain and for dew are pretty different.

It always struck me as weird that we don’t go ahead and ask God for rain even after the rainy season has pretty much ended. I mean, we could get lucky, right? And it’s not like we don’t still need rain after Pesach, it’s just less likely that we’ll get it because the wet season is almost over.

I once asked a rabbi about this, and what he reminded me of the famous lines from Kohelet: 3:1-2

To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born,
And a time to die;
A time to plant,
And a time to pluck what is planted;

As Jews we have to recognize that there is a time for a rain, and a time for dew. We don’t get things randomly. Ours is a religion about respecting borders, and among the borders we have to respect are those of the seasons and the rains. We also have to learn to ask only for what we need without being greedy or wasteful.

These are all messages that resonate with me post-Passover. As I helped friends pack up their Passover dishes and uncover their counters and toss out uneaten macaroons it occurred to me that one of the most challenging lessons of Passover is to buy and make only what we really need. There’s a tendency to freak out and buy every K for P product one can find, especially in places like Nashville, where there aren’t many to choose from. But every year, when we’re left with extra food what we should be thinking about is how to ask for and buy only what we really need without going overboard.

You know how environmental activists are always goin on about sustainable ecosystems? This year, make a pact to make your kitchen a sustainable environment. It should be able to provide for you and your family, but think about cutting back on the extras. It’ll put more cash in your pocket, and maybe even a few extra drops of dew on the hills of Galilee.

The last time I was at the Kotel there was a group of guys from the Bat Ayin Yeshiva there and they were all singing and dancing and generally carousing in the name of Hashem. There were all these tourists crowding around in the general vicinity of the Bat Ayin minyan taking pictures and watching as if it was some kind of staged event. And I don’t know, maybe it was staged, but the sense I get about Bat Ayin is that they're just like that. And hey, I think enthusiastic davening is great, but I think being a davening spectator, taking video of yeshiva boys saying hallel to show to all your friends back home is kind of creepy.
Whirling Dervishes: Exhibitionists or Cultural Ambassadors?
I was thinking about that experience at the Kotel yesterday because I went to go see the Whirling Dervishes of Konya Turkey, who were performing in Nashville courtesy of a nonprofit organization called the Society of Universal Dialogue. SUD says its mission is to “facilitate spread and ultimately progress interfaith and intercultural dialogue among all faiths and cultures.” That’s great, but I have to question the whirling dervishes choice. Essentially you had five hundred people in the theater watching five guys pray. Granted, they were wearing skirts, camel-hair hats and twirling for fifteen minutes at a time, but still. The management kept making announcements about how we shouldn’t applaud because Sema (that’s the act of whirling) is a spiritual act, a kind of prayer.

Religious voyeurism creeps me out. I mean, do you really have to watch me lay tefillin to appreciate my religion or my spiritual connection? I’m sure there’s a fine line between appreciating someone else’s religious practice and eating popcorn while you watch them “perform” their prayers for you, but if the line is so fine, why not just skip it? I knew all about the dervishes before I saw them, and though I wish I appreciated them more now that I’ve seen them in person, I really don’t. I trust that for them it’s really meaningful, but just watching seems kind of smarmy. And it’s hard not to question their spirituality when they’re being paid to pray.

I also think it’s kind of silly to bring in the whirling dervishes in the name of interfaith and intercultural dialogue. Of all the sects of Islam, do we really need to make peace with Sufiists? Aren’t they the only ones we already get along with? Have there been tons of cases of American violence against dervishes? I’m not saying there’s no cultural value to a whirling dervish’s performance, but if we’re going to watch people pray why not just invite the local mosque? Actually, I know why not. I bet local Muslims would be offended by a request to put on a praying show for other Nashvillians. Which is exactly my point.

Jewcy is proud to introduce a second regular Hacker of the Faith: Our Hanukkah blogger Tamar Fox.  

"Little Rebbe": Lior Liebling

Last weekend, at Limmud NY, I attended a session about the “Technology of Prayer” led by a med/rabbinical student named Yonah Feldman.  Together we looked at a bunch of texts about methods of praying that are and aren’t allowed according to various rabbinic sources.  I was shocked to read in two different Talmudic sources that the prayers of a rabbi are more effective than the prayers of a layperson. 

Maybe I’ve been naïve, but I always had a kind of communist view of prayer.  I respect rabbis and everything, but I have a hard time believing that getting smicha (rabbinical ordination) means a direct line to the Big Guy.  And I mean, what about all those stories about the Baal Shem Tov telling little boys they could pray by playing the flute?  Isn’t the whole message of Hasidism that you don’t have to be learned to have a connection with God? 

Also at Limmud NY, I saw a preview of a fantastic documentary called Praying With Lior about a Philadelphia kid with Down Syndrome who is known for his passionate and enthusiastic prayers.  The woman who made the film, Ilana Trachtman, talked about how impressed she was with Lior because she has such a hard time davening and he’s so good at it.  In fact, the film shows various members of Lior’s community talking about how amazing he is at davening.  Watching him daven on screen, it’s hard to disagree.  But the contrast between the message of "Praying With Lior" and the message of the "Technology of Prayer" session was pretty extreme.  I mean, either there’s a hierarchy of prayer or there isn’t.

 Personally, I think there isn’t.  For one thing, I know plenty of rabbis who don’t seem particularly confident about the quality of the connection they have with God, and so I can’t imagine asking them to put in a good word for me.  Plus, I just don’t like the idea that the time I set aside for God is less important to him because I never finished learning Bava Kama. 

All things being equal, I see no reason why God should prefer one person’s prayers over another.  But I have to admit, most of the time, all things aren’t equal.  I pray every morning; I use all the accessories and everything.  But usually I’m praying because it’s the first thing on my to do list every day, and I’m in a hurry to get to the second thing.  And if I tried to claim that I’m able to stay focused for even the twenty minutes that I spend davening, well, that’d be a big lie.  So yeah, some people are definitely better at it than I am.  Lior, for one.  And any number of rabbis who have longer attention spans than I do.  I’m operating under the assumption that I’ll get better with time.  And I’m hoping that my prayers don’t get knocked too far back in line because I have a Modest Mouse song stuck in my head all the way through Alenu.   

Jewish food... as prayerWhen I moved to Israel for a year abroad, I was a vegetarian. Not long after arriving at my kibbutz, I ate meat for the first time in about 6 years, because... well, because so much about my life felt regulated, and my vegetarianism was one thing I could decide for myself.

But when I came home, a meat-eater, I made another decision. I decided to stop eating pork and shellfish. After years without steak, I wasn't willing to go back on that one... so I gave up the bacon.

Why?

I mean, I don't call myself kosher. Why give up random foods for no dietary reason? I don't know, it just felt... right. It felt Jew-ish, connected to Judaism, and it was a less limiting set of limitations (I'd had some trouble with anemia).

For me, it's about intention. About carefully considering what I eat, as I eat it. For me, when you observe kashruth, hallal, vegetarianism, gluten-free, macrobiotic, organic rules... you are joining a club of people who... when at a party, have to THINK before popping canapes into their faces.

And in a weird way, it's a kind of prayer. A moment of thought, meditation. A moment of eschewing one thing, or being grateful that what you want... you can have. It feels good. Limitations can be broadening. I really do try to take a minute before I eat... to think about what I'm eating.

So I guess I'm saying that I think Slow Food = Prayer, in a way.

In a world where we run around like chickens with our heads cut off, it's nice to stop and think. And I'd advise that for those who've never been restrictive with their diets might enjoy the experience. Just pick something... nuts, the color red, oil... and spend a week seeing if food tastes different when you can't "have it all."

It's true, the things we can't have... make the things we can have taste sweeter.

When I think of the phrase "say your prayers" I picture a little child, kneeling angelically by their bed. 

When I think of the phrase, "Jewish prayer" I think of old men chanting Hebrew too fast for me to follow in the book (even the transliteration!)

But prayer is meditation. Prayer is a way of calming down. Prayer is a way of stepping back from your insane life and chilling out.  It's like singing, running, taking a bath. It's a break from the world. A chance to go inside, or outside yourself, depending on how you see it.

Back when I was living in Iowa, I sometimes went to the afternoon service at a Catholic Church, located halfway between the class I taught, and the diner where I worked in the evenings.  Not because I believed in those particular prayers, but because the sound of hymns and prayers was such a clear-cut break from one kind of work... and another.  Like a stiff drink or a short nap.

So when I saw this page over at AISH, it struck me as useful.  This sentence seemed expecially interesting:

Mincha is usually a 10-to-15-minute prayer service, but for much of the Jewish world, it has become almost a forgotten prayer service. It is not the length of Mincha that has caused this, but rather its inconvenience in coming in the middle of a busy working afternoon. But in that fact alone lies perhaps its major importance and necessity.

I think this is true, and while I'm not likely to start chanting Mincha everyday, the idea of trying it on for size intrigues me.  Hmmmm.....

Whether or not the Hebrew prayers (or their translations) are especially meaningful for you is not really the point.  Think of it as a broader kind of prayer.  Think of language as a way of zoning out.  You can meditate ON the prayers, or you can meditate THROUGH the prayers.

Connect to something, or disconnect...

I'm not sure that this story is so much about prayer as the title indicates, but it makes me think...(and yeah, the Revealer almost always makes me think.)

Not about Palestine (though that's worth a few ponderous moments too of course) but about the process of praying for others.

Once, when I was in college in small-town Tennessee, I went to services with a friend, to her Presbyterian church. And at one point, we were all asked to join hands and pray for the "heathens."

There I was, holding hands with a bunch of Christians, praying for the salvation of my own fucking soul. I left. It was really hard and weird.

But here's the question...

Does praying for someone else to "come over to the truth" make you a supremacist?

I've always liked that Judaism allows for other people to "do their own thang" (see this morning's post) but growing up in the bosom of that ideology (which is not so much pluralism as "I don't give a shit what you do since you're wrong"-ism) makes it really hard to understand the exclusivity of my Christian friends.

And this article, at the Revealer, is interesting for me... because I do have a fundamentalist tendency when it comes to politics. So maybe politics is the bridge for me.... to understanding evangelical thinking.

I have really mixed feelings about that.