I have a strong urge to make St. Patrick's Day a Jewish event, because my name is Patrick, and for the past twenty years or so, people around me have acted like St. Patrick's Day was like my second birthday.

I'm not going to get into the particulars about who St. Patrick was. Bottom line: he was a Catholic missionary who went to Ireland and converted the natives. That simple. It's goy.

Like most great things in America, this holiday came from immigration. After the Great Potato Famine, Irish immigrants flooded the United States seeking better opportunities. They were met with strife: a Protestant nation that considered itself settled that did not want any more people "polluting" its shores. Yet, they came, and integrated into society. Eventually, their cultural practices blended with other cultures in the key metropolitan immigrant cities, and became normalized. As people left these large cities for smaller cities and towns to escape overcrowding and to find better opportunities, they took this Americanized Irish identity with them. Over time, people found themselves attracted to their culture and eventually we got the St. Patty's Day that we have today.

The Jews, like all other religious cultures that survived the Axial Age, are really good at adapting to the world that surrounds them and integrating other cultures' ideas to meet their needs. The Purim story is a great example. This tale of survival is most likely an adaptation of the Babylonian story of Ishtar (Esther) and Marduk (Mordechai). Most of what we call "Jewish food" is really "kosherized" versions of dishes that already existed in Europe and North Africa. The wearing of kippah is another folkway that found a means of expression in the Talmud and became the yarmulkes that we wear in synagogues.

 

Today, Jews celebrate St. Patrick's Day, like everyone else in America, in a secular sense. Wearing green, pinning a shamrock to your chest, searching for four-leaf clovers, eating traditional Irish dishes and of course, drinking copious amounts of dark lager, are all a part of the festivities. The fact that Jews can celebrate this holiday without feeling less Jewish is what makes the holiday Jewish! 

 

Our survival has been based on taking what the world provides us, and making it Jewish, so that we can always have a place to be. By being active in the culture around us, but with a Jewish inflection, Jews show that we are the same as everyone else. And it's this adaptability that makes us both attractive, and unique.

 

There are no "Jewish" people in the way that there are no "American" people. We aren't one culture, one language, one race. In fact, we are a collection of cultures, languages and races. But we fuse these elements together, each of us with a different slant, to create this amazing Oneness called "Jewish". This is the same way that America made an Irish holiday a favorite past time.

 

Shalom, and save a beer for me!

"I have been thinking a lot about Judaism, and I'm kind of pissed at it right now."

This IM from my friend Sarah* was strangely startling. She spent the morning before this conversation stoned off her ass. She had a stressful weekend, and she needed to relax. She got high, turned off all her electronics, and it was "the most spiritual thing [she had] done in a long time."

The best part came when Sarah told me she had a religious epiphany over fruit. "I ate an orange.  I peeled the orange and realized that it was probably the closest to G-d a food can be, because it was so protected from the rest of the world. So I said a bracha (prayer) over it."

This girl grew up in Progressive Judaism. When Sarah "does Jewish", it is to "connect with family and community and to eat." She told me that she lacked a spiritual education and bottom line, secular, non-spiritual Jews raise other secular, non-spiritual Jews. Many of these Jews, tired of their lack of "feeling" in Judaism, move onto esoteric faiths like Buddhism, or get absorbed into the atheist fold of America.

There is one group who completely shatters this idea: Baal Teshuva. Formerly secular Jews who had become religious as adults, Baallat Teshuva defy the myth that Orthodoxy is completely self generated. I recently spoke at the Jewlicious Festival, a three day Jewish learning and cultural event in Long Beach, California. I was surrounded by Jews who came from non-religious backgrounds and had embraced the difficult, yet rewarding, lifestyle of Orthodox Judaism. I admired their strong connection to spirituality, family, tradition and Jewish law. Part of me wanted to join them, to drink the Orthodox Kool-Aid and find a wife as fast as possible. It wasn't the first time: I am happy to have several Modern Orthodox friends who have inspired me to move to the other side of the fence. Like them, I strive to be better in the eyes of G-d and to make myself holy. But I can't bring myself to Orthodoxy, because their way simply isn't mine. 

Instead, I propose that the Progressive Jewish Movement create some form of New Baalat Teshuva. This would be a process where people can undergo intense spiritual learning about all areas of Jewish life, from different perspectives. This would allow our Baal-Teshuva-Version-2.0 to connect with G-d and the spirituality of Judaism, undertake a stronger Jewish life, without needing to seek out the nearest Chabad house. It would also radicalize Jewish institutions. While it's great that secular Jews work in the Jewish world and connect to Judaism in this way, it might be interesting to see what would happen if Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist Jews believed in their mission statements, not just out of cultural bias, but out of a religious devotion to a higher power.

What would happen if the secular, non-religious Jews of today became the Alterna-Frum Jews of Tomorrow? 

 

*Named changed to protect the innocent

With all this talk about non-dual Judaism, whether or not Orthodoxy is the "true" Judaism that Progressive Jews are just too damn lazy or stupid to accept, or whether G-d even exists, I like to propose an idea. That G-d can be explained with a simple, straight line.

Take a look at this image and ask yourself, "what is this?" It could be a letter: a lowercase "l" or an uppercase "I." It could be the number "1" or part of "11."

Imagine this image, from the perspective of a person walking through the woods. If you saw this image, say stapled to a tree, what would it be? Perhaps a sign pointing you in the right direction toward a walking path? Maybe it's a walking stick? Maybe it's some kind of warning or a piece of graffiti left behind?

Flip the image horizontally. What do we have? a picture of the horizon, a "negative" sign or a dash mark.

Now, let's take this line, and put it into a new context:

G - D

This single, straight line is now a part of something that philosophers, scholars, rabbis, priests and every day people have struggled with for thousands of years. It is everything for some, and nothing for others. It's the being so close that you can touch it, or something so remote that you can never truly know it.

With one straight line, we can find a million different perspectives. So what makes any of us vain enough to believe that something as huge as G-d can ever be agreed upon or argued in any way that isn't mental masturbation?

What is? G-d is! G-d is, is! And if for you, G-d is nothing, then G-d is still something. Thank G-d for that! 

"You can't have everything. Where would you put it?"
- Western sage Steven Wright

Anyone involved in new age spiritual Judaic practice has probably heard of Jay Michaelson; his influence extends to books, articles, publications, spiritual retreats, speaking tours and the like. He was even recently named as one of the Forward 50, an annual list of important and influential Jewish figures in America. In Everything is God, his magnum opus on the nondualistic Judaism Michaelson promotes, he attempts to bring "Jewish Enlightenment" to more traditional consumers. I assume.

His sources are not strictly Jewish; by "mapping" Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, Christian, and other religious traditions onto traditional Judaism, Michaelson and his ilk are syncretizing a new Judaism, one more compatible with mystical Eastern traditions. I'm many years out of yeshivah, but I recognize avodah zarah when I see it.

Traditional Judaism posits a anthropomorphic god, with human characteristics, who intervenes in the universe and gave positive commandments. Nondualism on the other hand sacralizes, well, everything, insisting that the whole universe is in the process of "godding." That is to say, that all existence is God's existence, that there is nothing that isn't god--and therefore God encompasses all existence--good and bad, pleasure and suffering--but does not necessarily have discrete characteristics or a personality (except when it does). God isn't just in everyone and everything, it is everyone and everything. The Kabbalistic name for this phenomenon, Michaelson tells us, is "Ein Sof," meaning "without end."

In Michaelson's universe, nondualism is a pervasive and obvious truth, but don't look to the book to make too much sense out of it. The true nature of God is constantly being described as both knowable and unknowable; ineffable but universally understandable. Nondualism, the focus of this book, is the idea that God is the universe. "Nothing is excluded," Michaelson writes early in the book. (It turns that out this is false, but not in the way you're probably thinking). Nondualism stands slightly apart from monism (everything is one) and dualism (there is a difference between the mental and the physical) by being unable to commit to either view to the exclusion of anything else: separateness (for example, the mind/body split) is an illusion, a series of masks God wears because he loves to play tricks on us, or something like that. Nondualism, the author tells us, is not exactly pantheism (all gods are the same god, who is within all of us) or panentheism (pantheism plus a bonus extra god outside of all of us), but encompasses both in a characteristically equivocal fashion.

Atheists call this kind of argument "conversion by bear hug" -- you don't have to believe in god, god is already inside you, therefore you can't realy disbelieve in god, QED. "Neither oneness or twoness, neither yesh nor ayin, but both, and thus neither. It's not quite paradox--it's enlightenment," explains Michaelson. "The Kabbalistic math of this reality is that 2 = 1 = 0. Fortunately, I don't have to be good at math anymore."

Continue reading...

I have to admit, I've been a little emo for the past three weeks.

I can't help it. The roller coaster of Rosh Hashanah dinners, heartfelt atonement, building the sukkah, pretty Jewish girls, the stress of my day job, the spectre of Hanukkah on the horizon, demands of PunkTorah, the pressure to study and pray every day and managing to have some kind of life that doesn't completely file me under a tragically Jewish stereotype...well, it all adds up.

Luckily, my new friend Alicia Jo Rabins, violinist from Golem and the frontwoman for Girls In Trouble (JDub Records) wrote the most beautiful album I have heard since...well, I can't remember. And I've been using my advance copy of the self-titled record (thanks JDub PR!) to help me move into 5770 without having a complete meltdown.

So pardon me if this interview is a little "touchy feely."

I started our conversation with a complaint: that when you have to write a press release about an artist and their material, you can never really capture the emotion behind what they do.

Pretty sentimental, right? OK, let's keep going.

Alicia agreed, saying that emotion is a "big part of [her] art...and that's where [her] spiritual essence is." Alicia wishes that she could just explain her music to everyone, in person.

Continue reading...

Raw Shabbat. Taco Truck Shabbat. Brown Bag Shabbat. Everyone is trying to re-invent the wheel, myself included.

I never really got the whole Shabbat thing until my cousin went to the Wailing Wall and decided he wanted to become a Rabbi. When he got back to the states he started having all his friends, Jewish or not, over for a Shabbat dinner each month.  Being the close knit fam we are, we got the invite too. I mean, it makes total sense. Our moms are sisters, Polish shtetl Jews, Auschwitz, keep the family close ... you've heard it all before, so of course we made the short list.

This is my older cousin, the one I've always looked up to but never really knew. He was the one that would hit these monstrous home runs every time I saw him play baseball. The one that saved me from the worst bad trip on mushrooms one Christmas Eve when his brother and I ate them so we could look at all the Christmas lights but decided to watch stand up comedy on tv instead. "Comedy is the good trip" I said as the shrooms kicked in but as the half hour ended and all turned to bad, I dropped to my knees and began to swim in the carpet. "We've been neglecting the carpet," I said as his friend screamed "Red, Blue, Orange" at the top of his lungs and the TV flickered on the ceiling of the room.  My older cousin came home some hours later while I was naked and curled up under a blanket, coming up for air to occasionally shout at the cop show we were watching "Why is it always the black guy?!"

Continue reading...

52% of Jews do not believe in G_d. Apparently, being G_d's chosen people does not preclude actual belief in said deity.

I have to admit that this is a problem for me. And it really shouldn't be. A quick mental check list of my Jewish friends reveals that most of the Jews I know are secular, atheist, "culturally Jewish," or whatever label you want.

I just feel sad that these Jews don't believe in something other than bagels and Seinfeld. Sure, you can connect to Judaism through your family, tradition, a sense of longing, history, culture. I'm not going to say that these things are wrong. They're amazing if they are right for you! I respect everyone's faith or lack of, as long as its genuine.

What I want to do is throw out a crazy idea: that believing in G_d is not as difficult nor archaic as anyone makes it out to be, and that believing in G_d can give you more than you can possibly imagine.

First, I have to tell a story. One that I don't tell a lot of people.

When I was 24, I had a profound religious experience. I was lying in bed, slowly waking up, and I felt this warm glow cover me. I had never had an experience like this before. I felt like I had a gallon of hot tea flowing through my whole body and this radiant spirit came over me. And I knew, despite disbelief in a Creator G_d, an absence of religious upbringing in my childhood and a general belief that this-is-all-there-is-to-life-get-used-to-it, that I had an encounter with the Holy.

I knew this G_d to be the Jewish G_d because the connection was singular. No Jesus, no Mohammed, no anything. It was one spirit, indivisible, that came over me and wrapped me in gentleness and love. I'm not going to explain it any further than that, because most people don't believe me and want more explanations. Sorry, I'm not here to give evidence to that.

As I began to learn my Jewish Path, I came across the Modeh Ani. Our Sages believe that our spirit leaves us in sleep and returns as we awaken. I understood that idea: it was dramatically similar to what happened to me.

So I lucked out. I touched this divine feeling without any work of my own. And I understand why it must be hard for the rational among us to believe in any of this. Frankly, I had my doubts to begin with.

But what I learned, from choosing G_d, is that the world is better when G_d is there. Simple things become easier to deal with, when you know that your life is worth more than what you make of it. Sure, there is still pain and stress, but my burden is not just mine, my families, or my friends to bear. Hashem is there to take it all on with me.

I believe that the world was created with love: that Creation is an expression of a deep, unwavering connection between all of Hashem's creatures and the Divine spark that is within everything. When you believe that the world is worth more than what you can pillage and rape from it, you develop a respect for Life that is profound.

The connection of Humanity to G_d is a relationship: part parent/child, part marriage, part adversary, part friend. And like all relationships, our relationship to G_d changes overtime. The spirituality I have as a senior citizen is going to be radically different that the one I have as a 20-something rock and roll douche bag. Through the revelations of our tradition, we find that our notion of G_d is free to change. We don't have to throw out the baby with the bath water.

The best part about loving G_d is that you realize how pathetic all the reasons to hate G_d are! Science and religion got you down? Believe in G_d, and you will suddenly find that you want to learn more about science, because you can connect to G_d through the tools used to make the world. Legalism and guilt mean nothing when you know that the sum of the entire universe times infinity is looking down on you, not scolding you for breaking the rules, but smiling because you are sincerely trying to do good for yourself, for others, and for Hashem. Tikkun olam is a great feeling: but it's even better when it goes from feeding the homeless, to feeding the Master of the Universe.

This may seem like pathetic dribble from a mindless Believer, pathetic and childish. That's OK. But here's a suggestion: if you don't believe in G_d, then fake it! Pretend like all the things I say are true. Live it. Take it in. Study it. You might find you like it. And when you do, maybe you'll feel a connection to G_d in your own way. And if you don't, what have you lost?

Wherever you are, wherever you want to go, G_d is there. Just reach out.

Niles Goldstein is famous for taking Judaism back to its roots: tradition, rebellion, mysticism and G-d. His last book Gonzo Judaism showed us the exciting, provocative and exhilarating parts of being Jewish and living Jewish lives. Now Niles get's a littler more personal in his new book, "The Challenge of the Soul," where his part memoir, part soul-help book proves that G-d really does give kudos to the badass.

All about using adversity as opportunity, Niles mastered a black belt in karate, founded the New Shul in Tribeca, and is about to move in on one of many new, exciting directions. We sat down with Niles to hear more about his life, soul search and yetzer hara, evil inclinations. Read what he had to say here.

Press has called you the "Bad Boy Rabbi." I don't know you well enough to say if that‘s true. Does the label resonate with you? Why, why not?

If that means, I'm unethical, then I'm not comfortable with that label. But if by "bad boy" - and this is what I think they meant in the article - that I didn't play by other people's rules, I was willing to push the boundaries, I broke a lot of people's presumptuous stereotypes, I was hard drinking, womanizing, and liked to push the envelopes in ways that most ordained members of the clergy wouldn't -- in that sense, I don't mind being called a "Bad Boy Rabbi."

Your new book, The Challenge of the Soul, is entirely immersed in G-d, spirituality, self-work. How much do you think these concepts will resonate with people in today's world? And was this a fear of yours in writing it?

If they're opened, they're going to get it. What I'm offering is a challenge. I would challenge even your assumption. I think you're 100 percent right, in the area of religion, that people don't want to do the heavy lifting, they don't want to do the work. But in other areas, going to the gym or starting up a business, people are willing to put long hours in those areas. So I would challenge the assumption that we live in an era that people don't want to do the heavy lifting. I would challenge a culture, and the men and women lazy in this area, and I would say Why the hell are you not willing to invest the same kind of time into working on your soul? And if you're not, I would say you are really missing the boat.

Continue reading...

G-d told me to go on tour with a punk band called CAN!!CAN.

No shit, I wish I were making this up.

I'd love to wake up in the morning, eat a bagel, go to work in a cubicle Office Space style and fly under the radar for the rest of my life. But I can't. As The Blues Brothers said, "we're on a mission from G-d".

It came to me like a flash in the dark; like a warm feeling in my stomach after eating hot tomato soup on a cold day. I need to go on tour with my band. I need to sing about spirituality, G-d's love for humanity, tikkun olam, olam haba and all the things that drove me crazy-in-love with my creator.

And I needed to do it through indie punk, hipster metal and noise pop. 

So I started messaging some friends; frum-punks, hippiedox kids, tattooed Reform rejects...anyone who would listen to what I was trying to do. 

It worked out. My tour is being guided by the great people at Shemspeed, Artists4Israel, ModernTribe.com, Frumsatire.com, HeebnVegan, Bahay Shalom, Birthright Israel - Next, PresenTense...you name it! And I get to work with some awesome cats like Y-Love, Matthue Roth, Diwon, DeScribe, Stereo Sinai, Juez, Darshan and others.

The greatest thing that ever happened to me was waking up and realizing that my life was no longer about me anymore. Luckily, G-d saw it fit that the one thing I'm good at, playing in a rock band, is the thing he needed me to do the most.

I'm one lucky guy. Shalom...and I better see you guys rocking out with your cocks out!

TH Aug 13 Louisville, KY @ Derby City Espresso

F Aug 14 Louisville, KY @ Adath Jeshurun Synagogue Patrick A Dvar Torah!!

SN Aug 16 Chicago @ Empty Bottle sponsored by Birthright Israel, PresenTense, Shemspeed

M Aug 17 Indianapolis, IN @ The Vollrath

T Aug 18 Teaneck, NJ @ Shemspeed Summer Music Festival - Mexicali Live

W Aug 19 Baltimore, MD @ Sidebar

TH Aug 20 Philadelphia, PA @ Shemspeed Summer Music Festival -The Raven Lounge

F Aug 21 Providence, RI @ AS220

S Aug 22 Trenton, NJ @ Millhill Basement 

SN Aug 23 Amityville, NY @ Broadway

M Aug 24 Asbury Park, NJ @ The Saint

TH Aug 27 NYC @ Shemspeed Music Festival - The Bellhouse

F Aug 28 Hickory, NC @ Drips Coffee House 

 

www.punktorah.com

www.myspace.com/cancanband 

Jews don't seem to care as much about Judaism as they used to.

This smacked me on the head recently when I learned that a friend of mine's step-father (born to a Jewish family) recently "accepted Christ" and attends an Evangelical Christian church.

Based on history, the two best ways to destroy Jewish populations are to kill or convert. Outside of extreme Islamo-Facsist nations, we really don't have to worry too much about Holocaust Part II. 

Conversion, on the other hand, is our own damn fault, and marketing is the only way to stop it.

Marketing has a principle called the Four P's: product (what you're actually selling), price (cost), promotion (what you use to convey your ideas) and placement (where your product stands in the market). For a company or movement to be successful, it has to have the right product, at the right price, promoted and placed well in the market.

Jews are leaving the "Jewish lifestyle" for three religions: secularism/atheism, Christianity, and Buddhism. So how does Judaism fail to meet the Four P's and how have these other religions been successful? Let's compare:

PRODUCT

Atheism: you get to be just like everyone else, living for yourself and nothing more. No rules, no responsibilities, just fun!

Christianity: you get to be like everyone else, only you get to go to Heaven, too! You have to go to church on Sunday, but there's one on every corner and every flavor you like.

Buddhism: if you're introspective and want to sit on your ass and learn the nature of everything just by chilling out, then you're in!

Judaism: you get to eat a restricted diet, can't go out Friday night or shopping on Saturday, and all your rituals seem quaint and mysterious, like a cult.

Continue reading...

Smith, an artist and former managing editor of GQ magazine, reflects on his youth in 1960s Miami. He wanted a father who mowed the lawn, drank beer, and fell asleep in front of the TV. Instead, his dad, Lew Smith, was a successful interior decorator, who went through a macrobiotic transformation and began tuning into mystical vibrations. Young Philip was introduced to fasting and yogic diets, while Lew explored esoteric spirituality, reincarnation, Bach Flower Remedies and such metaphysical arcana as the akashic records, an ethereal Library of Congress of every soul in human history: [Philip] wasn't sure if this endless invisible database also included reruns of I Love Lucy or Perry Mason, but it probably did. After a 1968 encounter with famed trance medium Arthur Ford, Lew found his true calling as a psychic healer, and overnight our isolated house became Lourdes central. Smith's fine flair for waggish anecdotes is especially evident in his riotous recall of being suckered into Scientology at age 17. He looks back at his father with much affection in this mirthful memoir that bounces between the comic and the cosmic. Smith is a gifted humorist, and readers are certain to request more merriment.

Philip Smith, author of the lauded memoir Walking Through Walls, spent last week guest blogging for Jewcy.  In that time, he wondered about the lasting effects of Jewish name changes at Ellis Island, noted that God probably doesn't have the time (or interest) to worry about issuing tickets for prayer, asked Jewcy readers to discuss the existance (or non-existance) of a common Jewish denominator, explained why the inexplicable should be embraced rather than shunned, and put his two cents in on the Muslim/Jewish conundrum.  Want more?  Pick up a copy of his book.

The opening scene of The Golem, a silent German film, features a rabbi, wearing a conical wizard's hat, looking through a telescope.  He sees a dangerous configuration of the stars and predicts bad times for the Jewish people.  Based on his astrological findings, he decides to go and create the Golem, a kind of robot similar to The Hulk who will protect the Jews.

As I watched this movie, it hit me that much of the mysticism and the mythology have been drained from modern Judaism.  This is the rich texture, the essence that keeps religions alive and deep with meaning.  Raised as a reform Jew, I still have no idea as to where this form of Judaism stands on an afterlife or what happens after you die.  Do you go to heaven?  My understanding is that heaven is a Christian concept.  Do you become a spirit, do you become a cat, does God welcome you?  I profess to be ignorant on all aspects of Jewish theology due to my upbringing in the reform movement.  Perhaps this is why the largest number of American Buddhists are Jews who are seeking a more metaphysical approach to life.

My attraction to the more mystical aspects of Judaism and in fact, all religions, emanates from my father, a Polish immigrant who as a kid in the 20s, read books on Christian Science, Buddhism, Hinduism, magic and Judaism.

When he came to this country, they branded him "Smith" and our history was erased.  With that he became an American Jew, frequenting the synagogue on high holiday days with family gatherings for Passover. 

Then one day, everything changed.  He discovered that he possessed extraordinary psychic powers and could talk to the dead and heal the sick.  Again, from my limited knowledge of Jewish theology, there are no guidelines or precedents for this.  The rabbi at our synagogue had no interest in my father's new found powers.  My father began to cobble together a philosophical structure to support his strange abilities wherever he could find it.  In short order he became a pan-theologist creating a stew of various concepts from every religion.

It is without question that my father was working with unseen powers that he attributed to coming from God.  I don't think he was wrong as I witnessed daily miraculous healings of people who had been given up for dead by the medical profession.  Over the years, he healed thousands of people from every conceivable type of ailment.  And yet, he could not find confirmation or guidance from any of the rabbis he approached.

Just like life itself, religion and human experience are much broader, more complicated and mysterious than what we hear from our sermons and what we read in our prayer books.  The inexplicable should not be shunned but embraced as it reminds us of our own miraculous being and our unlimited spiritual potential.

Philip Smith, author of Walking Through Walls, is guest blogging for Jewcy, and he'll be here all week.  Stay tuned.

Ommmmm: This guy's been hanging out in the mantra trailer"I Will Survive" + "I Am Nothing" = the truth is somewhere in between. From the addictive website for The Mantra Trailer:

Parked at the intersection of imagination, evangelism and propaganda, The Mantra Trailer is a traveling mediation space, recording studio and site of mysterious broadcast in the form of a 1972 breadbox trailer. The Mantra Trailer invites us to contemplate, chant, voice and explore our prayers, aspirations, desires, frustrations and petitions for the transformation of self and society, or whatever resonates within us, even the nonsensical. By-passers drawn to the Mantra Trailer are invited inside one at a time to contemplate and record their mantras in privacy.

Yes indeed, the mantra trailer is exactly what it sounds like! Click on any number of mantras (from the expected"Let It Go" and "It's All Okay" to the inscrutable "Pet The Wolf Run From The Rat") to create your own multi-layered mantra symphony. I especially like "Keep Your Eye on the Doughnut" plus "You Shall Know The Truth" plus "Concentrate and Expand." "Love" plus "Open Your Heart" is awesome. "It's All Gravy" goes well with pretty much everything. Go nuts.

The Sanskrit word mantra consists of the root man- (to think) (also in manas, or mind) and the suffix -tra (tool). So literally an "instrument of thought" or "mind tool." A mantra is a sacred word, chant or sound that is repeated during mediation to reduce our everyday material worries and elevate our worldly, spiritual aims.

Mantra Trailer mastermind Sherri Lynn Wood says mantras are "a homeopathic remedy for the mass media slogans of the day."

(Dig especially, then, the clever soul who chants "Visa takes Life.")

In 1954, Aldous Huxley published "The Doors of Perception," a famous essay observing that the effects of mescaline were remarkably similar to the unitive mysticism of the world's great religions, particularly Vedanta, the philosophical-mystical form of Hinduism which Huxley practiced. It caused an immediate sensation. Because He Got High: Aldous Huxley's classic essay, "The Doors of Perception"Many in the public were outraged by its pro-pharmacological spirit, and many in the academy accused Huxley (like William James before him) of flattening different mystical traditions, and of disregarding distinctions between "sacred and profane" mystical practice.

But many more were inspired. Huxley's essay, and other works like it, set the agenda for 1960s spirituality, and what later came to be called the New Age movement. He provided a philosophical explanation of what was important about mescaline—that our perceptive faculties filter out more than they let in, and that mescaline, like meditation, opens those doors wider—and a personal account of what a "trip" was like. He showed how entheogens (as they later came to be called) could be a part of a sincere spiritual practice. And he perhaps unwittingly imported a certain Vedanta agenda of what the "ultimate" mystical experience was like: union. As has been argued by many scholars over the last few decades, this claim of ultimacy—that unio mystica is the peak form of mystical experience, with others defined by how close they approach it—is actually a rather partisan one. Why is "union with the All" superior to, or more true than, deity mysticism, visions of Krishna/Christ/spirits, and the text-based mysticism of the Kabbalah? Sure, for Vedanta it is—but that's just Vedanta's view.

Two generations of spiritual seekers have been influenced, for better and for worse, by this hierarchy. From the naive hippie to the sophisticated yogi, Jewish Renewalniks to Ken Wilberites, hundreds of thousands of spiritual practitioners have implicitly or explicitly assumed the prioritization of the unitive over all else: the point is that All is One.

Most of these constituencies are also, like Huxley, influenced by the psychedelic experience, primarily that of mushrooms and LSD. While most contemporary spiritual teachers have long since given these substances up, in favor of meditation and other mystical practices which afford the same experiences in a more reliable container (and one greatly enriched by self-examination and introspection), if you ask them, as I have, they'll admit that the psychedelic experience formed an important part of their spiritual initiation.Do You See God?: Psychedelic experience can initiate a lifelong spiritual journey Whether it's what got them on the road in the first place, or confirmed their earlier intuitions, psychedelics have set the agenda for a huge percentage of contemporary spiritual teachers, across religious and spiritual denominations, and many of their followers as well.

These two trends — that "all is one" is the point, and that it accords with the psychedelic experience—have occasionally led to a distortion of religious and spiritual traditions. In the Kabbalah, for example, unitive mysticism is only a small part of a wide panoply of mystical experiences. Yes, there are texts which speak of annihilation of the self (bittul hayesh) and a unification with God (achdut). But these are, truthfully, in the minority. Many more are visionary texts, describing theophanies of all shapes and sizes; or records of prophecy or angelic communication; or less explicitly unitive accounts of proximity to the Divine. Yet there's a sense, among teachers of contemporary Kabbalah —and I'm not referring here to the Kabbalah Centre (where Madonna goes), which does not teach Kabbalah proper, but rather a unique and sometimes weird synthesis of Kabbalah, the Human Potential movement, and New Religious Movements like Scientology—that unitive mysticism is the summum bonum, the ultimate good.

Some Kabbalistic texts agree, but many others do not. For example, Rabbi Arthur Green, today one of progressive Judaism's leading teachers, in 1968 wrote an article (under a pseudonym) called "Psychedelics and Kabbalah," explicitly analogizing the psychedelic experiences to aspects of Kabbalistic teaching—but selecting those aspects of Kabbalah and Hasidism which fit the experience. Naturally, Green was also influenced by the many forms of non-Jewish mysticism popular at the time, most of whom asserted that "All is One," but in that essay, he makes clear that the psychedelic experience affected how he understood Kabbalah. Green, and a fellow practitioner-academic Daniel Matt, have been enormously influential: their anthologies of Hasidic and Kabbalistic texts are read far more widely than the texts themselves, and are widely assumed to represent the mainstream of their respective traditions.

I am not taking a position on whether this "distortion" is for good or ill; in my own practice, the nondual/unitive perspective plays a central role, and I am grateful for it, whatever its sources. But I have a hunch that it is about to change.

The reason it is changing is that more and more Jewish spiritual seekers are pursuing non-unitive paths. This includes earth-based ritual, shamanic ritual, and other disciplines which, while they may hold the view that "all is one," provide experiences of differentiation (energies, elements, visions, etc). But perhaps more importantly, it includes drinking ayahuasca, smoking DMT, and visionary shamanic-entheogenic practices which offer different experiences from the unitive one. The ayahuasca trip, unlike the mescaline one, is not especially unitive: indeed, one of its hallmarks is the sense of communication with other life forms or consciousnesses. And while a sense of "all is One" is sometimes reported in the midst of the ayahuasca experience, it's more common to read reports of visions of phenomena—manifestation, not essence.

Some of these accounts are strikingly similar to texts from the Hechalot and Merkavah schools of Jewish mysticism, which flourished between the second and ninth centuries. In the texts from this period, we read detailed accounts of heavenly palaces, Divine chariots, and angels; of ascents to other realms which seem somehow to be in outer space or an extraterrestrial locale; of a sense of great danger, but also great awe, beauty and love; and of beings which travel on some kind of cosmic vehicle. The descriptions are visionary and auditory, much like the accounts of ayahuasca visions. They are "shamanic" journeys, both in the sense of being journeys of the soul to other realm and in the sense of a transformation of the self. They yield information, prophecy, revelation, theophany. And they are not really about "all is one."

Hechalot and Merkavah mysticism is studied in the academy, but it is little known in the contemporary spiritual world. It's complicated, arcane, and literally other-worldly. But just as the unitive moments of Hasidism appeal to those who have had a unitive experience on mushrooms, so too the visionary aspects of Hechalot and Merkavah mysticism appeal to those who have had a visionary experience on ayahuasca. The similarities are striking.

What's more, Hechalot and Merkavah mysticism, related as it is to gnosticism, provides one of world literature's richest libraries of other-worldly mystical experience. It's eerie how similar some of these millennia-old texts are to the records contemporary journeyers provide of the ayahuasca trip: the sense of being in "outer space," the tenuous links to consensual reality, the sense of danger, and above all the colorful descriptions of chambers, angels, songs, palaces, ascents, descents, fire, music, and so much more. It also provides a sense of history, context, and "belonging" to those who affiliate with Judaism, Christianity, or gnosticism; like unitive experiences, non-unitive visionary/ ecstatic experiences have a lineage within these traditions. Perhaps, too, it might offer guidance for those seeking to integrate such experiences into their lives.

To reiterate, I am taking no position on whether unitive or non-unitive experiences are "better," and see nondual essence and dualistic manifestation as two sides of the same ineffable unity. My point, simply, is that much of contemporary Western spirituality derives from a particular psychedelic experience and a particular form of mysticism it approximates. With the increasing popularity of ayahuasca and similar medicines, the former element has changed — and I think the latter will too.

In the esoteric world, this kind of change and interchange has always been with us. Hechalot mystics learned from the gnostics, who learned from the Jews, who learned from the Babylonians. Medieval Kabbalists learned from the Sufis, who learned from the Hindus, who learned from the Buddhists, who learned from other Hindus. One need not make the facile, and false, claim that all mysticism is the same thing in order to recognize that mystics across space and time have understood themselves to be gesturing toward the same truths, albeit in very different ways. And those differences advance, not obstruct, the progress of realization. After all, when one can ultimately know nothing, it helps to learn from everything.

---------

NEXT: Drugs mix with spirituality. But can they mix with parenting?

Yesterday facebook had one of its daily surveys ask “Are you religious?” The majority of the 1000 respondents said no.

You can look over the stats here, and see the breakdown of how many men and women answered, how old the respondents were and so on. (You may have to sign in to facebook to see this info—I’m not sure).
Just Don't Ask: if I'm religious.
I didn’t respond to the question myself (I didn’t even find out about it until a friend emailed me) but it really annoys me. It annoys me first because it’s completely ambiguous. It’s not like it’s easy to pin down what “religious” means, especially when for a lot of people it’s more a state of mind than anything else, and thus fairly difficult to measure. And if it’s about observancy then you have the problem of where exactly you draw the line—in Judaism does it mean attending synagogue/Temple? Keeping Shabbat/Kosher? Marrying a Jew? Who decides?

But beyond that, I don’t like it because it seems like it just feeds into this whole thing of America dividing itself between religious whackjobs and Godless heathens. And the last thing I need is someone else trying to tell me why God can’t possibly exist.

Facebook surveys are hardly comprehensive, scientific or nuanced in any way, and I can’t imagine facebook would have any objections to that statement. Still, I see the survey as indicative of a larger problem: people define themselves by their religious identity in a way that’s no good for anyone.

Being Jewish is a big part of my life, but it’s not now and has never been the way I introduce myself to people. Even in my work here at Jewcy it’s important to me that people see that I do plenty of non-Jewish things, I have non-Jewish friends, and listen to punk music and generally balance the Jewish world with the non-Jewish world in a way that works for me. I just don’t like to see any population divided into bar graphs of religious and not religious.

You know what I just realized? I mostly don’t like it because it reminds me of life in Israel.

This week on FaithHacker our guest editor is Amy Guth, writer extraordinaire. Amy Guth is the author of Three Fallen Women, which she is perpetually schlepping around to pimp out. Between travels, she's the woman with the pink-stripey hair usually starting up the horah at MOT get-togethers. Keeping true to her stick-it-to-the-man Hebrew namesake (Shifreh), she has written about feminism, sexism, tikkun olam, tzedekah, blaxploitation, social reform, media literacy and all sorts of other things for The Believer, Monkeybicycle, Bookslut, Hungry Chicago, Four Magazine, JewishFringe.com, and The Complete Meal, among others. She blogs Bigmouth indeed Strikes Again about everything, Granola Bar D'var about jewy eco-kasher goodness, and a few other spots here and there, has collaborated on a few shows within Second City's Training Center and is an assistant fiction editor at 42 Opus. The select few remember the days when she dabbled in improv, as well, including the night she was the "Kill Whitey" crayon. Stalk her silly at Guth-a-Go-Go.com.

Amy Guth: gets all Jewcy Last week Amy and I met up at a coffee shop in Chicago to talk about what we love, like and wish. Plus, boys, tattoos, and lots of Jewcy goodness. Here's some highlights of our conversation:

 

TF: In your book, Three Fallen Women, there are a lot of non specific spiritual revelations. Why did you decide to keep Judaism out of it explicitly? Do you feel like there's a difference between Jewish spirituality and other kinds of spirituality? What is it?

AG: To me, the spiritual is the spiritual. I don't think there's one true path; I think that whatever you feel in your bones is right for you. I love Kol Nidre, for example, and during services, I can't help but feel like there's nowhere else in the world I'd rather be and nothing else I'd rather be doing. Any sort of spiritual practice that brings that feeling about is right for the person doing it, including, in my opinion, seemingly secular activities that anyone finds joy or meaning through. I had this coach that I trained with for my first marathon who used to say something like "running is my religion" and I knew just what she meant. She didn't mean anything about rote or routine, but that feeling, the same as the feeling I also get on a great run and in the example I used of Kol Nidre. It's right for her down to her bones, so she finds spiritual meaning in it. I can dig that for anyone from any background.

You know, I think I'm always thinking about the ethereal and the spiritual so much that I didn't really ever make a conscious decision, I just wrote about my world view, really. I had a few Hebrew words and some transliterated lines from Mourner's Kaddish in the original manuscript of Three Fallen Women, but I cut them in the end for accessibility. I was writing about pretty universal themes, and didn't want to exclude anyone from it, or alienate a reader for not, say, knowing a particular word, or knowing what it means to say Mourner's Kaddish.
Three Fallen Women: try it--you'll like it!
TF: What do you consider your most spiritual practice? Why?

AG: I think I already started to go here a little in my previous answer, because I don't necessarily weigh one thing as having greater spiritual weight than another out of the things where I find meaning. And, it's always changing. I find meaning in some things for ages then one day, it doesn't fit. To me, that's a very Jewish thing-- to have the freedom and sense of self-reliance to know when it's time to try something new, or do something in a new way or even to abandon it entirely, if need be.

I tend to not categorize things as "Orthodox stuff", "Reform stuff", etc., but just to do what feels right. I just try to listen to my gut and do well. But, if I had to pick one thing, I would have to say that I could boil my entire spiritual life down to trying to be as compassionate as possible. I try to know where my money goes when I buy something, how my products and foods were manufactured/grown, who my choices benefit/harm, and I try to just keep things simple and go with the kindest possible option.

I do this occasional feature on my blog Bigmouth Indeed Strikes Again, called Guthmantics where I interview an author. A few weeks ago I interviewed Margaret Sartor, author of Miss American Pie, who I read with in New Orleans last spring. She said something in the interview that I ended up blogging about a second time: I wrote, "I keep thinking about that beautiful thing Margaret Sartor said on here the other day when I interviewed her: 'I believe that compassion is a kind of power and kindness may be the one virtue that can save us all — if it's not already too late.' And, I believe that so hard that it almost makes my chest hurt. That sentence is my religion, my world view, a summary of everything I really believe in."

TF: What do you find to be the most frustrating thing(s) about the Jewish community today?

AG: I feel like there are a lot of things that people assume without really knowing and make a lot of declarations about what we should and shouldn't be doing as Jews, when I feel like Judaism is such an encompassing thing and, I mean, really, it's really constructed to find things for yourself, I feel. It's built to live and let live in a way, so when things arise, I really hear it because it seems so antithetical to what Judaism is to me. But, even in saying that, I'm sort of doing just that. I suppose in wanting to freedom to make Jewish choices, I have to give people the space to think there isn't room for anything but by-the-book.

TF: Where do you go to shul? What do you love or hate about it?

AG: Oh, my rabbi would be so mad if a stalkery type showed up at services. I like having a designated place to just sit and be and think, and I like the sense of community that being a member of a shul offers. What don't I like? Hmm, not much. I guess it's a little un-fun when it becomes about politics and committees instead of encouraging and supporting each other.

TF: What's your favorite part about the High Holidays?

AG: I love anything that feels tabula rasa. A new start. The High Holidays are so inspiring in that way to me. A sort of life inventory, outward and inward, and really sitting with myself and my thoughts (I tend to write a lot of essays around the High Holidays) and thinking about how my choices affect my life and the people around me I care for. Maybe a little hokey, but true.

TF: I know you have this blog, Granola Bar Dvar. What's the impetus behind the blog?

AG: I have my main, general blog, Bigmouth indeed Strikes Again, and a couple of side blogs, including Granola Bar Dvar, where I take the weekly parsha and think about it in the most practical, earthy and applicable terms I can, which usually ends up pointing to environmental, social and interpersonal issues. It was really something I did secretly for a while just to kick around ideas about the world and people, in my own sort of outside-the-box granola way, and it came pretty naturally to me. I hear something, anything really, and think about how it relates to my life in practical and applicable terms and I wasn't seeing much of that out there, so I tried my hand at it and really got a lot out of it. I like taking a time out and writing a piece for Granola Bar D'var and thinking about the spiritual and the things we can't know but can only really consider. That said, I'm a jerk and I haven't updated it in a bit.

What's your earliest Jewish memory?

AG: Latkes.

TF: It seems like you're a really disciplined writer. How have you gotten that discipline, and has it been helpful in other areas of life? How?

AG: Thanks, I try to be. I think I am fairly disciplined in most areas of my life. Maybe even too much in some areas, if that's even possible...? No, not really. I mean, I'm human, whatever. I do yoga, I'm a distance runner, and when do those things or write, I tend to put a song on a continuous loop for... something like mantra-like steadiness. It's not as compulsive as it sounds, and not based in compulsion at all, really, but in the way the repetitive sound and motion gets my brain to turn off of the daily blah-blah and lists and such and sort of open up and let me get down to the real things to think about and consider.

TF: Can you tell me something about your next book?

AG: It got a lot of stripped down elemental stuff in it. A lot of fire and water, but in subtle ways. Some of the woman-breaks-out-and-does-the-thing-people-think-she-cannot themes are in there that are present in Three Fallen Women, I think, but that just might be my thing, at least for now. I try to do new things and creep myself out to have new experiences. That's the name of the game, right?

TF: How do you feel about this whole "trendy Judaism" thing? Do you think Judaism is cool?

AG: Well, I have mixed feelings about it all. On one hand, I hate how Kaballah has been co-opted and made trendy. I hate hearing things like "Ashton and Demi were married in a Kaballah-style ceremony". I'm like, what the hell is that? Kaballah isn't a religion! That'd be like saying, "Oh, we had a Vacation Bible School-style wedding", I mean, seriously? It doesn't make any sense to me, and, frankly, I think it's so disrespectful to the people who-- according to tradition-- became both Torah and Talmud masters prior to Kaballah study. I mean you devote your whole life to this study and then Madonna and Paris put Kaballah on like a new pair of Blahniks. I can't stand that. If someone wants to convert, by all means. Get thee a Rabbi! But Brittney Spears running around with that Magen David seems trite to me. It makes me want to scream, "She's not my people! That's not how we are! She's not Jewish! I'm not like her! She doesn't represent me!"

I hear it's hip for non-Jewish guys to wear kippot and got to Jewish singles events lately, in order to pick-up Jewish women, which I think is both hilarious and rude. I mean, how different would the world be if we all were just our authentic little selves instead of crap like that? So, things like that feel more like a mockery of us that's probably a side-effect of the trendy-Judaism. Then again, I think maybe Jew Stuff being more on mainstream radar offers some myth-dispelling and maybe is a little bit helpful, at least in a positive way...? Maybe? I say that and I don't even know if I really believe it. I guess the bottom line is that I think there's probably more in the "unforch" column then the "forch", when it comes to this. I mean, VH1 has talking head shows devoted to Jews, Sarah Silverman did the "Give The Jew Girl Toys" song that was so funny, Borat made for great Satire, young non-Jewish Deadheads and Rasta kids are all over Matisyahu, and all of that's positive, but it's tricky (and sometimes awful) to see Jews represented when we're deadling with a religion that's so based in personal choices and practices. I mean, we all "do Jewish" differently, you know? It's nice to see non-Jews enjoying or appreciating our Jew Stuff because that's probably building bridges of some kind ultimately, but it's so uncomfortable when my neighbor asks why I don't wear a "red string bracelet like Madonna's".

All of that said, sure, I think Judaism is very cool. I'm proud to see the world through my own brand of Jewish filters.

I have always been a shul-goer. On Shabbat I get completely thrown off if I don’t make it to services. It’s an integral part of my weekly routine, and it frustrates me to have it disrupted. That said, I am not a fan of synagogues, Temples or shuls.

For one thing, too often they’re huge and anonymous, the rabbi is far away from me and boring, and the cantor is ridiculously showy. Also, though I have no proof to back this up, I get the impression that the population at most synagogues is aging. I rarely see young singles or couples, especially not at those massive 1000 family congregations. What I do see a lot of is really bad decorating, uncomfortable chairs, and those awful silk kippot.

So why are synagogues so tacky and uninviting? And what’s the alternative?
Does Stained Glass Put You To Sleep?: There *are* alternatives!
I think a lot of synagogues and Temples grew out of themselves, and are still adjusting to such mammoth proportions. People are also using synagogues less and less, generally only stopping in for life cycle events, and whatnot. Many synagogues, especially in suburban well-to-do areas, seem to have become just another venue to keep up with the Jones’. While the insides are fancy, they’re too massive and overly air conditioned to give any a sense of a warm and welcoming community.

There are a few alternatives, I think. First of all, I’m a huge fan of the indie minyan, a la Hadar, the DC Minyan, Chicago’s Egal Minyan, and the Library Minyan. Those are non-synagogue services that will give you your spirituality fix without a choir, or 400 people milling around the bat mitzvah girl at Kiddush.

But if services aren’t your thing, consider making a weekly volunteer commitment on Monday morning. You can search for volunteer opportunities near you at Volunteermatch.org. Serving at a soup kitchen, helping out at a homeless shelter, or sitting with patients at a hospital are great ways of connecting with your spirituality without having to submit to the awkwardness of a Kiddush luncheon where you don’t know anyone. If you already have volunteering as part of your schedule, Saturday morning might be a good time to work out, take a run, or do some yoga. Or maybe you hate synagogues but are interested in Jewish learning. I highly recommend you get yourself a chevruta (a study partner) and discuss what you’re interested in learning. You may want to poke around on MyJewishLearning where they have lots of good trigger articles and will point you towards all kinds of good books and other helpful resources. Or if you’re more of a Jewish culture person, tune in to Nextbook’s amazing podcast, and start buying (or borrowing from the library) the books they recommend. Sarah Ivry, the voice of the podcast, is awesome and has never directed me to a book I didn’t love.

The point is, hating shul doesn’t mean you can’t do something Jewish on Shabbat, and it certainly doesn’t make you a bad Jew. But thankfully synagogues aren’t the only places to go to get a spiritual pick me up

A couple of people have requested that I blog more about my sex life, which, frankly, is not going to happen, what with my parents, Bubbe, grade school teachers, and ex boyfriends all reading my posts every once in a while. Also, none of my romantic ventures of late have been anything even approaching spiritual (I did have an unfortunate revelation involving a man in Queens a few weeks ago, but it was something along the lines of God reminding me that I am incapable of being fully entertained by a Princeton man, so I should stop kidding myself and move on to Yalies already). Anyway, I can’t legitimately blog about dating on the Upper West Side on FaithHacker.
Birds Do It, Bees Do It: But I have to go to the mikvah to do it?
What I can blog about is the discussion I have with almost all of my observant friends at one time or another involving our decisions about sex. By the time we’ve graduated college, many of us have been in one or more serious relationships, and we’ve struggled with the conflicts that halacha places on our sex lives. There is, sadly, not a huge amount of wiggle room for those who want to have sex with their significant others. Theoretically, if one is in a monogamous long-term relationship, and if the woman goes to the mikvah and the couple observes the period of nidah, there’s no problem. Only a few of my friends have even considered this, because though it seems simple, it pretty much necessitates lying to the mikvah lady, which makes lots of women uncomfortable. One of my friends said simply, “It seems like cheating.”

The vast majority of my friends who have struggled with this issue have decided ultimately to just have sex outside of marriage. The one notable exception is an Australian guy I knew in Israel who, in a discussion of this issue with me one night at a Shabbat dinner table, slammed his hand down on the table and said, “Halacha says a man who sleeps with a woman who’s in nidah is issur koret, [or violating a commandment that requires the death penalty as punishment.] He’s the only one who has ever it stated it that way, but the general concern about the wrath of God has certainly scared the pants back onto a few of my friends who oscillate between observant and less-observant lifestyles.

My general policy has never been to look for outs within halacha. I’m sure that if I did enough digging and finagling of texts I could come up with something that would satisfy me ideologically, but it simply does not keep me up at night. As I’ve mentioned before, the Bible is full of Biblical characters struggling with sexuality, fidelity, trust, commitment and honesty, and more often than not, it’s these struggles that lead to real change and improvement in their characters. Ultimately, I look for role models in Tanach and not in the Talmud because the Talmud’s understanding and treatment of women is both problematic, and completely unrealistic/unhelpful in regards to making serious choices about how I conduct relationships. If I won’t go to a mikvah and lie to a mikvah lady about being married, then halachically I can’t justify touching any Jewish man who isn’t related to me. But if I open up my Tanach I see that Rachel and Jacob kiss upon meeting. Which do you think I’m going to find more instructive to my life?

The struggle for me, and I think for many of my friends, has been how much we let our spiritual selves govern our love lives. And how sure are we that by focusing on one we largely abandon the other? There’s little discussion outside of the kiruv-y Orthodox world about how to have a spiritual dating experience, or what spiritually conscious intimacy would involve, but more and more often I find myself wondering about how all this could/should work.

Close Your Eyes and Sway: Don't forget the guitarIf you’re interested in bringing the intense spirituality of Shabbat (back) into your life, head over to the Institute for Jewish Spirituality website and check out their upcoming events, including a big Shabbaton during the first weekend in July entitled ‘Re-Souling: Shabbat as a day for restoring our soul.’ Sounds pretty awesome. The Shabbaton will be held in Connecticut and costs $400 per person for three night and four days.

“Just looking.”

What is wrong with just looking?

Does it harm anyone just to look?

I had said that I would blog about evil today, but certain events this week have led me to write about lust instead.

One of those events was pricing a fence for our back yard. Sticker shock! Could a fence be so important that someone could spend three months' salary on one?

FrostWhat did Robert Frost mean by this line: Good fences make good neighbors. (Bonus points if you can recall the name of the poem.)

Is the poem about the irony of meeting your neighbor only when building a wall between you, or is it a metaphor for constructing social fences between people? Social fences make good relationships?

There are several religious Jewish families in our neighborhood. We’re even friendly with some of them. We recently saw some of these Jewish daughters hanging out with some teenage boys who are not Jewish. Normal for a secular teenage girl, unusual for a religious one. Then they were playing some kind of game that kids play. But one of the non-Jewish boys was overheard taunting one of the girls, “You can’t touch me because you’re Jewish!” I’m certain that he didn’t make that up.

Good fences....

Maybe he meant good fences as opposed to bad fences. The narrator’s voice comes across as critical of the wall, but acknowledges that his neighbor’s belief in the wall comes from his father – that is, from tradition. He has a tradition that good fences make good neighbors, but he may not know why.

Another Jewish fence besides the touching thing is the looking thing. If you have a significant someone in your life, man or woman, how do you feel when he or she looks at other women or men? How would it feel if you were absolutely certain that he or she never had eyes for anyone else?

How do you yourself feel when you're playing the seeker?

That feeling is totally physical. There is nothing spiritual about it. Once, after hearing me say this, some guy challenged me -”Isn’t it possible to look at a woman and just appreciate her beauty without it being sexual?”

Well, I guess theoretically, but not practical for 99.9999995 percent of the men out there.

The Entire PlanetMeaning, there are approximately three dozen men on the entire planet who can pull it off.

Judaism says that if you look merely at a woman-who’s-not-your-wife’s little finger in an aroused way, you are objectifying her, which is bad for you. Makes you more of an animal, less of a holy soul.

What’s a poor fella to do?

Well, he could start by finding a soul mate. And with her channel all of that physical energy into a synergistic spiritual fusion that can only happen when you’ve made a binding commitment to each other.

A soul mate isn’t the solution, but she can help.

Like any addiction, the surest way out of the wandering eye syndrome is a 12-step method. The first step is to admit you have a problem.

So men (and women) should at least be honest. Instead of “just looking” they should say, “Just lusting”. It’s not going to make your partner feel better, but it’s the way to start.

Here’s a little exercise you can do: next time you're out there - try counting how many times in one hour you wander after your eyes. Then challenge yourself to go an entire hour without seeking.

As usual, please share your results below!

This is my final guest blog of the week. Thank you to Jewcy for inviting me and thank you everyone for welcoming me here. Your comments and feedback have been always interesting, at times uplifting and occasionally moving. I will continue to blog my Friday Table Talk over at my usual space, (if there is enough clamor, maybe the good folks at Jewcy will invite me back some time!) Please stay in touch, and don't forget to check out the book that everyone's talking about.

Wishing you a truly Shabbat Shalom.

PS – Does anyone remember Opus the Penguin?

Opus

I don’t know how I feel about using online resources for meditation. Something about my laptop just doesn’t scream inner peace and tranquility. In a bind, though, I might give it a shot, and I found an awesome list of ten free guided meditations available online. You can read about all ten over at Be Conscious Now, but here’s the info on the first four.
Guided meditations: You are getting sleeeeepy
Ommmmm…

1. Universal Soul - 6 minutes: This is a video meditation, and it’s short, so it’s a nice one to do if you only have a few moments. The trick is to treat it exactly as you would a aural meditation. Plant both feet firmly on the floor and ground yourself. Place your hands in a comfortable position on your lap. Focus on your breathing and hit play. As you watch, drop all thoughts and judgments and just lets the words, images and sounds permeate your very being. See the meditation without thinking about it, and you will feel it’s magic working. This is a stunnig experience put together by Vera Nadine. Enjoy!

2. Meet a guide - 19 minutes: I had the honour of testing this meditation before it was posted, and I loved it. I’ve long admired Jeff Lilly’s posts on his meditations, and envied his ability to ’see’ the most amazing scenes unfold before him. He really does have a knack for the visual - so I was eager to see what would happen if he guided me through a meditation. I wasn’t disappointed. Both times I have done this lovely meditation, I have ’seen’ a guide and spoken to them. It’s the most concrete visual experience I’ve had from meditation so far. No doubt part of this is because I have been meditating more and more, but I think part of it is also Jeff’s magic. This is a meditation I will be returning to time and time again. (Plus it’s a great length at just under 19 minutes…) Don’t skip the article either, Jeff has some great stuff to say about meditation, and it’s well worth reading that before clicking on the meditation.

3. Brain Sync - 10 minutes: To get access to this meditation, you need to subscribe to their newsletter, but it’s easy to immediately unsubscribe if you’re not interested. This is a great practical meditation which focuses on the physical and real first, like the breath and relaxing the muscles of the face, before moving into imagery of a deep, still lake and a refreshing waterfall. It’s described as a health and well-being meditation, but I found it invigorating and especially enjoyed the very end, when it tells you that you have everything you need in life. (Discolosure: If you go on to purchase any Brain Sync products, I do receive an affiliate commission.)

4. Visit the Angels - 30 minutes: You need to download this file, and as it is quite large (27.5MB), it can take some time. It’s only good if you’re on a high speed connection. I really enjoyed this meditation though, and am glad it’s now saved on my desktop. It does use angel imagery and angelic realms, so if these don’t resonate with you, it’s probably not the meditation for you. I was able to see and sense my guardian angels on either side of me taking me into the angelic realms, and felt the joy and happiness described in the meditation. It’s a long meditation, but the time flew past.

Over at Zen Habits they’ve got an awesome list of 52 ways to make your life happy and productive. They’re not particularly religious or spiritual, but worth checking out.

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.

And all good things must come to an end -- sometimes, as with Godfather III or Clerks 2, after they've overstayed their welcome a bit.  The parallels with meditation retreat continue; on the last day of a retreat, it's really hard to sit still, because your mind has already started thinking about going home.  Likewise, I'm now sick of the spicy lemonade, because I'm ready to move to orange juice and veggie juice, which is what I'm starting tonight.  Plus I'm now up at my house, with my partner, who is microwaving veggie burgers and eating cereal and basically causing my appetite to roil.  And then, because I'm not drinking enough of the lemonade, I get headaches.  Which I know I'll get, because I've learned that lesson already.  But I'm sick of the lemonade -- and round and round it goes.  Lotta Lemon

So, what have I learned during this week of near-fasting (and drinking the juice of all the lemons at right, and then some)?

First, that we really don't need anywhere near as much food as we take in.  It really is amazing how high-functioning I've been able to be, just on lemon juice, water, cayenne pepper, and maple syrup.  I'm going back to eating not because I have to, but because I want to. 

Second, that I would really look great if I didn't eat so much crap.  I'm back down to my optimal weight of 160 -- I must've been pushing 170 before the cleanse, given how much thinner I look.  And not just thinner -- better.  Skin clearer, eyes clearer, and somehow, the lost few pounds were all in the right places; my face looks like it used to 10 years ago, and so does my gut.  I was thinking about posting some pictures online -- but I thought better of it. 

 Now, I still think that, on balance, enjoying the delicious variety of foods in the world is worth a little extra flab and a little less energy.  It's part of the delight of life, and this discipline is too ascetic for an everyday lifestyle.  But it is instructive to see what's really causing the paunches and big bottoms of America: eating garbage. 

Third, I've really appreciated, in a visceral way, the fact that I always have enough to eat in my life.  When your entire mental stability depends on one bottle of orange fluid, you can really see that clearly.  It's like that environmental parable about a civilization entirely dependent upon a single pipe.  They love it, take care of it, even venerate it -- now if only our dependence on the Earth were as clear for us to see.

Fourth, I think I've put some space between the sensation of hunger on the one hand, and the grouchy, crabby feeling I usually get when I'm hungry on the other.  This week, I always felt hunger in my belly.  But it was just part of the scenery, and part of the plan of the week.  I got used to it; it was really no big deal.  If only I'd feel that way when it's 2:30 in the afternoon and I haven't managed to eat lunch yet. 

And finally, I do feel, somehow, cleaner.  I've learned a lot this week about "toxins" and "cleansing" and other dubiously-defined touchstones of the wacky nutritionist fringe.  And I don't know about any of that.  But I can say that I feel somehow cleaner inside.  It's amazing how much crap (literally, in this case) was still coming out of me during my daily salt water flush, days after I'd stopped eating.  That stuff just sits there, all the time; who knows, maybe it does have something to do with toxicity, or loss of energy, or, well, something we don't yet fully understand.

  I'm glad I did the cleanse, and I'd recommend it to any healthy individual, if only for the adventure and for seeing how much of our ordinary responses to food and hunger are conditioned behaviors that have little to do with actually nourishing the body.  It was important that I was working with a nutritionist, in case anything did really go wrong.  Nothing did, but it felt good to know that my back was covered.  Not that I'm really out of the woods yet -- for many people, coming off the Master Cleanse is as difficult as the cleanse itself.  Which is why my shabbat dinner tonight will consist of vegetable juice.  Wow, look at the time -- time to light candles!  Shabbat shalom!

Depending on whom you ask, the Master Cleanse is either a highway to rejuvenation and mental clarity or a cayenne-pepper-saturated crash diet. For a minimum of ten days, cleansers consume nothing but a spicy lemon drink followed by a special saltwater chaser. Aside from its all-too-obvious laxative powers, this regime supposedly clears the body of toxins, making adherents feel energetic, lucid, and even euphoric. The cleanse has been around since 1941, but it recently moved from the new-age realm to the gossip weeklies when Beyonce used it to lose 22 pounds for her role as The Skinny One in Dreamgirls. Jewcy’s own Master Cleanser, Jay Michaelson, isn’t trying to out-diva Diana Ross; he simply wants to see what will happen when he gives up solid food for a week. Will he find a ...

            I mean, I guess you can get used to anything.  Dukkha day is over, and I feel fine; this is the Cleanse Feeling that the nutrition fanatics talk about.  Sure, my belly feels hungry, but I'm so used to that it's just part of the scenery.  My energy is up, my mood is good, and if I can't multitask all that well -- so much the better, I hate multitasking anyway.  It's really a little... strange.

            And it's not that I've been sitting in bed all day.  Today the new print editions of Zeek arrived at our office, and I and four other members of my staff sorted magazines, stuck on mailing labels, and even carted the things to the post office.  I got a haircut, saw the film "Year of the Dog" (if you liked 'You, Me, and Everyone You Know, see it), drafted a contract for my software company, even took some time to have a lengthy conversation with a colleague about the American Jewish inability to sustain a non-hysterical dialogue about Israeli politics.  No more dehydration, and no real cravings. 

mmm, sushi menu            I am remarkably susceptible to appetite; just a whiff of a bakery, or, this afternoon, finding a sushi menu stuck in my mailbox, is enough to start me drooling Homer-Simpson-style.  It's kind of amusing to watch.  Because I was in the closet, I was never that horny as a teenager, and feel like this is my opportunity to get instantly aroused at the slightest provocation.  It is a kind of deliciousness.

            What I thought I'd blog about today, before I realized that my spooky, Jack Lalainesque energy was the real subject, was about the great and perennial question: To Colonic or Not To Colonic.  For those of you blissfully not in the know, "Colonic" is short for a colonic irrigation -- basically, paying someone to stick a large tube up your rectum (did you know that thesaurus.com has no entries for "anus" or "rectum" -- what, are they policing the world against giggling twelve year old boys?) and fill your colon with saline solution (or coffee, or wheatgrass, or one of a large variety of liquids).  It's a cleanse, all right; it washes the insides right out.

            I was game.  I'd never done one before, but like Hillel said, if not now...  But then I met a doctor who warned me against forcing valves meant to open one way to open another way.  "If one valve breaks, none of them will function properly." stick it up yer ass I thought of the Asher Yatzar prayer -- "Blessed are you God, who created in the human being many openings and many holes... If one of them did not open or close properly, we could not exist even for a moment." -- and of the Hippocratic oath to "first, do no harm" -- and chickened out.  Besides, this morning's Salt Water Flush was quite, er, cleaning on its own.  (Go ahead, reader: try drinking 1 quart of lukewarm water with 2 teaspoons of salt dissolved in it, and see what happens. Advice: stay near a toilet.)  So -- no Colonic for me.

            Still, I can't help feeling that I'm not Maximizing My Cleanse by not doing one.    Who knows, maybe I will tomorrow.  But part of what's enabled me to do this in the first place has been the knowledge that I'm not hurting myself, and that I can stop at any time.  What if Colonics really are bad for you?  Then again, not even quackwatch.org mentioned my doctor-friend's Valve theory -- only a few cases of disreputable practitioners and dirty machines (yecch).  Will I feel like I didn't go the full monty because I didn't have a nurse stick a tube up my tuchis?  Aren't there more important things to worry about?

            Stay tuned.

Well, today was harder. Dukkha day, they'd call it on a meditation retreat; the "day of suffering" when the initial thrill is off and the hard work really begins. My dukkha day started early -- around 5:15 in the morning, when I woke up dehydrated and couldn't get back to sleep. You really have to drink the lemonade all the time; if you don't, you pay for it sooner or later. In my case, I just wasn't thirsty after about 8pm last night, so I didn't drink -- and it came back to haunt me with pre-dawn nausea, aching, and general lousiness. I did get back to sleep around 7, but had to be up at 9 for a conference call, which didn't go so well either.

I'm drooling already Now, my (even thinner) body aches, and I have started to get cravings at the mere mention of Entenmann's Louisiana Crunch Cake (I saw some boxes of it at the Rite Aid where I was buying more Spring Water... mmm, processed food). But at the same time, I have really enjoyed moving more slowly, noticing the limits of my body. I can't jump down the subway stairs two steps at a time. I just can't carry that much. And it feels good to just sit around.

I also really have appreciated, in a bourgeois-tourist sort of way, what it is to be nourished, and to be hungry. Walking down the street this morning, I felt a wave of gratitude for this lemonade, which really is a lifeline. In the Jewish tradition, we have all kinds of gratitude-practices for food -- blessings before and after, dietary laws, special recipes -- but it often takes a lot of work to really feel the emotions behind the ritual. But when you're hungry, it's easy. Of course, I understand that this is a privileged, touristic visit to the world of hunger; unlike people who are actually starving, all I need to do is open my fridge and eat some of the veggies rotting inside. I'm not claiming I really know what it's like to not know where your next meal is coming from. But there is still something to feeling, literally in your bones, that life hangs by the thread of this little bottle of liquid. Somehow that is easier, more tangible, than some more abstract and diffused notion of "I depend on food for my existence," or blessing God for providing sustenance.

I also learned today that I'm more disciplined than I give myself credit for. I recently counted a total of seven different careers that I'm trying to pursue at once. I have trouble saying no, and staying on task when Microsoft makes it so easy to alt-tab to something else. But on the listserv of the group of us doing the cleanse together, one person admitted she'd cheated on her cleanse by eating a donut, and another said that he was changing his plans entirely. (To be fair to the donut-eater, she'd been victimized by police harassment at the Empire Roller Rink in Brooklyn; the donut was a quite forgivable consolation.) I realized that, short of a serious health problem -- which I thought I might've had this morning -- there's almost no way I'm going to break the practice to which I'd committed. It feels good to assert some control. Of course, I'm aware that assertion of control is one of the reasons psychologists say many people begin eating disorders. But this feels more benign. I'm on a journey, one whose end is not so far off, and despite the allures of Louisiana Crunch Cake, I'm glad I'm sticking with it.

 

P.S. I don't really like Louisiana Crunch Cake that much. I just saw it in the Rite-Aid.

Since Laurel and I are hanging out together at the AWP conference today, I thought it would be appropriate to give some fiction recommendations for spiritual reading. Or as my high school English teacher liked to say, “Things to make you go hmmmmm…”

The Wholeness of a Broken Heart by Katie Singer – A book about four generations of Jewish women, Judaism ends up being the background that all the women learn to deal with. I admit I first picked it up because of the awesome title, and it did not disappoint.
The Gilded Chamber: Who doesn't like a novel set in a harem?
The Chosen by Chaim Potok – If for some reason you haven’t read this classic, please go pick it up now. Besides all kinds of insight into Hassidism and the trials and joys of the Orthodox community it’s fantastically well written. The first time I read it I was twelve and I immediately thought, “I’m an apikoros!” And I was all proud and shit. The movie is pretty good, too.

The Genizah at the House of Shepher by Tamar Yellin – I decided to like this book even before I read it because it was written by someone named Tamar, but I wasn’t disappointed. It’s the story of family that’s trying to hold its own religious history while competing with religious zealots, it does the whole back and forth in time thing without being annoying. A good thing to read when you’re trying to figure out how important it is to be Jewish when you don’t feel like being religious.

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant and The Gilded Chamber by Rebecca Kohn – You’ve probably already read the Red Tent, which is a fictionalized account of the story of Dina. The Gilded Chamber is the same kind of thing with the story of Esther. Both are fun and fascinating and make you think about Biblical women in all kinds of news ways. (And hey guys, one of my best guy friends read the Red Tent last year and told me he was expecting to hate it but he LOVED it. He swore me to secrecy, though, because he’s a pussy. But you’re not a pussy, are you? I thought not. Now get reading.)

The Dyke and the Dybbuk by Ellen Galford – I read this book when I was about fifteen, and I would read about ten pages and then put the book down, laugh and say, “Wow!” I was kind of a dork when I was fifteen. Anyway, the Kirkus review calls it “A fun, feisty, feminist romp through Jewish folklore as an ancient spirit returns to haunt a modern-day London lesbian.” A fun thing to read on those days you need to think about spirituality outside of religiosity.

The First Desire by Nancy Reisman – Full Disclosure: Nancy’s my fiction professor these days. She’s also a fantastic writer and doesn’t, to my knowledge, read this blog, so I’m not kissing up. This is the story of a Jewish family in Buffalo, New York in first half of the 20th century. Without being obvious about it, it examines the way Jews were treated by others, and the way Jews treated outsiders. A good examination of “the community.”

That should be enough to get you to the library. Anyone else have recommendations?

No, really. The Washington Post article I just linked to quotes lots of people basically saying that the fact that we get to dress up on Purim means that it really resonates with gay people. I mean, they say it fancier: “Purim is gay Jewish Halloween…Everyone has put on a drag Purim festival, including most straight organizations. It's a very gender-bending holiday.”

Wha?

There are some thoughtful quotes: "Me coming out as queer, as gay, part of the power of being able to do that comes from the Book of Esther…It really helps people understand oppression and what it looks like to fight for liberation . . . from the threat of death or slavery or the closet."

I respect that, but it’s not like Purim is the only Jewish holiday having to do with fighting for liberation. What about Hanukkah, Pesach, and Yom Ha’Atzmaut?

Also, let’s not forget that as far as we know Esther stayed married to the drunken king, which is to sThe Village People Do Purim: Now THAT'S Gayay she was stuck in a sucky marriage for the rest of her life. Not the best example of liberated sexuality.

But okay, I like the sentiment here. And if gay Jewish community leaders think it’d be good for Purim to be Gay Jewish Coming Out Day, that sounds cool to me, too. I just get annoyed with the “gay Jewish Halloween” crap, because if you’re connecting with Purim purely because it’s like Halloween and lets you dress in drag then you’re not actually connecting to Purim, you’re connecting to dressing in drag. Which is fine, but not intrinsically Jewish. I’m thrilled that gay Jews want more of a connection to Jewish holidays and ritual, but if they just want to get it through cross-dressing, well, that doesn’t seem particularly genuine. I’m just saying.