Rabbi to Watch

Please, please, please: be careful.I was reading tonight about the rabbi who wrote a letter of apology to her congregation after being busted for driving under the influence. Rabbi Amy Bernstein of Temple Israel in Duluth, Minnesota had apparently shared a bottle of wine with a few people and then was speeding home in hopes of arriving before her daughter's bedtime when she was pulled over for going about 75 in a 55 mph zone on an icy night with a .11 percent blood-alcohol level.

There are some cringe worthy factors in her situation-- drinking and driving, icy weather, speeding-- at .11 she wasn't sober but she likely wasn't completely wasted, either, and it's not uncommon to drive over the speed limit, and certainly not unusual in the least for a parent to step on the gas a little in anticipation of time with their children. Fair enough. And, Rabbi Bernstein wrote a very humble and, I thought, beautiful letter to her congregation stating, “We have got to be really attentive to our own inner lives and our own best practices and the need to slow down in general — the need to stay centered and whole so that we don’t get careless. Because that’s what happened — I got careless. Those of us who teach about that need to take our own advice.’’ Rabbi Bernstein, who has been planning to take a three-month sabbatical in Israel since before this incident then wrote, "“This incident has shocked me into awareness that there are several important things that need my careful attention right now. I promise to make my time in Israel a time of real inner work and careful reflection on the meaning and direction of my life.’’

I like her letter. Her congregation is standing behind her, and I think that's honorable and I would hope I would and could do to same if my own rabbi was in Rabbi Bernstein's shoes. Also in her letter, she wrote, “… This has been a traumatic wake-up call for me and I can only beg your forgiveness and promise that it will, of course, not happen again.”

Personally, I hope she means what she wrote, which I'm sure she does. I'm sure she's a fine person, a wonderful person, even, and I don't think she's a bad person for what she did. But more than anything else, I hope her congregation was listening, and I hope with everything I have that her congregation took her words personally, and took them in and will think very hard about their own actions.

You see, that is my hope because, I have a little bit different perspective on DUI. I lost a beloved family member to a drunk driver when she was only twenty-four years old. The driver responsible for her death was, like Rabbi Bernstein, driving with honorable intentions, eager to reach family on the other side of his drive. He was certainly a fine enough and well-liked person in the community, certainly not meaning to hurt anyone and, I honestly believe, absolutely not intending to kill anyone, but, in his case, tragically and quite accidentally, did.

If you have a problem with alcohol and you are ready, please consider talking to your Rabbi or family, or whoever, or maybe touching base with JACS, or checking out many of the meetings that are starting to be held in shuls now, instead of just churches. A lot of us, and I'll be the first to admit I've caught myself thinking this, have this thinking that we, Jews, because of reverential feelings for kiddush or for whatever reason, are somehow exempt from alcohol-related issues, but it's just not true and I've got to think that we're doing ourselves a major disservice by not recognizing members of our community who need our support.

But, let me be completely clear. I only mention substance dependency because we're talking about booze, but I do not, under any circumstances, think that people who are driving under the influence are alcoholics. Some probably are, but, honestly, I worry more about the casual drinkers. We all keep our eyes on the big boozers in the circles we run in and we know not to let them drive under any circumstances. But, the casual drinkers who just catch a nice buzz then decide to head home seem like they're not doing too terrible of a thing, as if surely the "don't drink and drive" slogans aren't talking about them, surely not, but let me tell you under no uncertain terms that it only take a moment of lapsed judgment or a second of delayed reaction to make everything horribly different. And, let's be honest, we've all probably, at one time or another in our lives, driven or started to drive and only then realized we maybe were a little in the cups. We've probably all driven at one point when we probably should have not.

So, it's my hope that we all really think very carefully of Rabbi Bernstein's words, not only on this issue, but in many areas of our lives, and that we take them very personally and really hear them:

"We have got to be really attentive to our own inner lives and our own best practices and the need to slow down in general — the need to stay centered and whole so that we don’t get careless."

I'm not a sci-fi geek. But, almost a decade ago, I had a roommate that introduced me to the world of the cons. ComiCon, GenCon, something that seemed tailored for the renaissance fair, er, faire crowd, a couple of Star Trek cons and such. She and her boyfriend were sci-fi lovin', comic book readin', -Con attendin', role playin' folks. (It's not my bag, but rest assured, I'm not making fun. I'm all for people doing whatever they're into. Anyway.)

Even in a galaxy far, far away: You can still sorta-kinda keep Shabbes.During this time, it was explained to me that several of such -cons host wedding and religious services in theme of the event, and both admitted they'd only seem limited Jewish weddings or services in their travels, or at least always saw more activity from other religious groups, which always seemed odd to me, with so many comic superheroes having such good Jewish roots and with the Star Trek Dr. Spock "live long and prosper" hand gesture having a Jewcy base as well. Isaac Asimov? Harlan Ellison? David Brin? Mind you, that's only what I was told based on the events they attended. I never braved an event to verify any of their claims for myself.

About a month ago, Jewish Journal of Los Angeles ran a short piece that caught my attention and reminded me of these conversations with the roommate and her guy. LosCon, an annual weekend Sci-Fi invasion at the LAX Marriott had featured a Sci-Fi Catholic mass and a Sci-Fi pagan/wiccan circle and last year, thanks to uber-sci-fi-fan, Marsha Minsky, a minyan was added to the schedule of events, Beit LosCon. She's named herself "Rabbi of the Con", though she doesn't have a rabbinical ordination and her services, based on a conservative liturgy, brought about two dozen people of the thousand or so in attendance of LosCon.

Could one do a B'nai Mitzvah at a 'con? Has anyone?

I'd just like to eveyone to take a moment and imagine what a Sci-Fi or RenFaire Shabbat service might involve. And, if you've been to one, please tell us about it. I'm dying to know if it's tailored to the occasion. Discuss.

Torah 2.0: Should we make a bracha for downloading a Torah widget?You know Chabad has a Facebook application, yes? Rabbi Moshe Plotkin of the New Paltz, NY Chabad, who made the Facebook application, has turned to the open system being used by Google. Yep, you can add a Torah Widget to your Google Desktop and iGoogle pages. The widget, which I added on both my Google and my Facebook pages, contains Torah odds and ends for study and links to the weekly pasha. Viral Torah. Discuss.

Widgipedia has a few similar widgetot, as well, and then there is Digi.Torah (note the website boasts access to the "Holly Book of Torah"), and a favorite of mine, the HebCal widget for Mac.

 

At my brunch yesterday we had a brief but interesting discussion about a rabbi in the community who was deemed too Jew-y by some congregants. Yes, apparently even rabbis shouldn’t be too Jew-y.
How Jewy: Is too Jewy?
I’m not sure I can give any kind of summary of what it means to be too Jew-y. I assume that everyone has a different threshold for how much Jewiness they can handle, but as far as I can tell, with this particular rabbi, what people meant when they complained about him was that he was too Brooklyn. He wasn’t Chasidic, of course, he just struck people as nebbish, maybe not masculine enough, and mostly too stereotypically Jewish.

I’m not even going to address the complete insanity of calling a rabbi too Jewish, because it’s a fight I just don’t have the time for. I will, though, say that I think the Jewish community needs to get over itself and deal with the fact that some of us have big noses and some of us are miserly and some of us are bad at boxing, and that doesn’t necessarily undermine our future as a people. I can see that a congregation may want to present itself as somehow transcending stereotypes and/or reaching out to people who are not your typical Jews (whatever the hell that means) but I don’t think that abandoning people who do happen to conform to old standards is the answer.

I was thinking about this again this morning because there was a piece on Nashville public radio about the new Baptist hymnal coming out soon, and how it’s going to have lots of new songs in it, and fewer of the old standards. They interviewed a 78-year-old Baptist woman named Emile Selig who’s annoyed about the move to more contemporary praise songs. In an interview she said, “And my favorite expression is that now you have the 7–11 songs, you’ve got seven words you sing 11 times.”

Sometimes I worry that we’re pulling a 7-11 type thing in Judaism. Though it’s important to reach out to people who are unaffiliated (hi, GA, welcome to my city), I hope it doesn’t mean that we lose all sense of meaning, or that we have to abandon the older and more conformist members of our community.

Our own Rabbi Andy Bachman is making waves big enough to get him included in this year’s Forward 50, a list that the Forward explains thusly:

Membership in the 50 doesn't mean that the Forward endorses what these individuals do or say. We've chosen them because they are doing and saying things that are making a difference in the way American Jews, for better or worse, view the world and themselves. Not all these people have put their energies into the traditional frameworks of Jewish community life, but they all have embodied the spirit of Jewish action as it is emerging in America, and all of them have left a mark.

Go Rabbi!: Go rabbi, go!
Making a difference? Hell yeah. Making waves, too. Rabble rousing and generally getting people involved without shoving tefilling down their throats and expecting them to get all shidduched up ASAP.

Here’s what the Forward has to say about Andy:

In the past few years, the leafy Park Slope section of Brooklyn has come to rival Manhattan's Upper West Side as a hub of non-Orthodox Jewish life — only hipper. Alongside the neighborhood's five established synagogues — which run the gamut from Orthodox to left of Reconstructionist — several independent minyans have sprung up to serve the area's burgeoning bourgeois bohemian set. As much as anyone, Rabbi Andy Bachman has been in the thick of the Jewish renaissance in so-called Brownstone Brooklyn. In 2003, Bachman and his wife, Rachel Altstein, launched a group called Brooklyn Jews, bringing youngish Jews together for low-pressure text study, holiday celebrations and socializing. The group's High Holy Day services quickly became the place to be for local 20- and 30-somethings. Last year, Bachman took over the pulpit at Brooklyn's largest Reform synagogue, Congregation Beth Elohim. Even as he has taken on the challenge of leading an established congregation, he has continued to nurture the independent Jewish scene, keeping Brooklyn Jews going and making Beth Elohim's facilities available to local minyans on the Sabbath. Beyond Brooklyn, the 44-year-old Bachman is a rabbinic favorite of the creative crowd, having participated in the Reboot network and serving on the advisory board of the Web site Jewcy.

Of course we love the little shout-out at the end, but I think the awesomest part of this is that even though Andy’s got a big congregation to run he hasn’t abandoned his indie roots, and still makes sure that local minyans have space to daven on Shabbat.

Mazel tov, Andy! We’re kvelling.

Can I Get an Amen: Rabbi Sally J. PriesandAt the beginning of the summer, I met with a group of women from my temple to watch and discuss the award-winning documentary, And the Gates Opened: Women in the Rabbinate. The film chronicles the history of womens' struggle for the right to be ordained as rabbis. It features the personal stories of the first three women ordained: Rabbi Sally Priesand, Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg-Sasso, and Rabbi Amy Eilberg, of the Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative Movements respectively. Until seeing And the Gates Opened, I had largely taken women in the rabbinate for granted. My own parents were married by Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg-Sasso in 1974, and although the Rabbi who officiated at my Bat Mitzvah was a man, when we switched synagogues shortly thereafter, we joined a temple with a female Associate Rabbi who is vibrant, vocal, and involved.

For me, female Rabbis are as essential to my spiritual wellbeing as female gynecologists are to my physical wellbeing. True, I could survive without them, but certainly not as richly or comfortably.

Nearly 1,000 women had been ordained as Rabbis at the time of Rabbi Sally Priesand's retirement last summer.

Here are three of my favorites:

Torah the Explorer: Rabbi Jamie Korngold AKA The Adventure RabbiRabbi Jamie Korngold, AKA "The Adventure Rabbi", (Reform)

Rabbi Jamie Korngold is earthy. So earthy, in fact, that she's taken her whole dang congregation outdoors. Based in Boulder, Colorado (but always on the move) she utilizes camping trips, retreats, hiking, biking, skiing, snowshoeing, and any other outdoor activities she can come up with to bring people closer to nature and, consequently, to God. Having worked previously as an EMT and an Outward Bound Guide, it's safe to say that her congregants are in good hands. She's currently writing a book about the spiritual opportunities we've missed by moving religion indoors. From her MySpace page (Yeah. MySpace):

"Rabbi Jamie S. Korngold has experienced her most vibrant Jewish experiences in the outdoors. From scaling mountains to praying beneath the boughs of an apple tree in the backyard, she believes that the spirituality of the wilderness awakens Judaism. Surrounded by the raw wonder of creation, Rabbi Korngold helps people experience an inner peace and an abiding connection to That Which is Greater Than Ourselves. In the wilderness, she believes, it is possible to distance ourselves from politics and protocol and allow the awareness of the connectedness of all things to permeate our souls. Come join us; let the wilderness awaken your Judaism."

Rabbi Sharon Brous, (Ordained Conservative, Ikar Unaffiliated)

Laying Down Roots: Rabbi Sharon BrousWunderkind Rabbi Sharon Brous is the founding Rabbi of Ikar, the hugely popular, fast-growing Los Angeles Jewish community that brings together intellectual and spiritual development, and political and social activism. She has a serious knack for making Judaism accessible, and believes that there is no authentic religious life without a deep sense of responsibility in the world. Rabbi Brous is involved with both Reboot, a network of Jewish trend-setters, thinkers and activists, and Synagogue 3000, a national, not-for-profit institute dedicated to revitalizing and re-energizing synagogue life in North America. Ikar's stated mission:

"Our mission is to bring together a diverse and dynamic mix of Jews to study, pray, and work toward social change in a community of purpose, integrity and spirit. Through awakening a desire for meaningful and challenging Jewish experiences and community, we are also working to energize and catalyze change in the broader Jewish community and in the world."

Rabbi Naomi Levy (Ordained Conservative, Nashuva Unaffiliated)

We Will Return: Rabbi Naomi LevyAuthor of the bestselling book To Begin Again, and founder and spiritual leader of Nashuva, a groundbreaking Jewish outreach organization based in Los Angeles, Levy was the first Conservative female rabbi to head a pulpit on the West Coast. Through Nashuva, Rabbi Levy has been involved in drawing hundreds of unaffiliated Jews back to a Judaism that is soulful, committed to social justice, meaningful, relevant and fun. From the Nashuva site:

"We all have a need to return—to passion, to our dreams, to our essential goodness, to love, to our own souls, to our God. We spend so much time trying to succeed or to simply manage the chaos in our lives, that we rarely make the time to reflect and uncover our true possibility. Our souls are hungry for more. Nashuva is a haven from the hectic lives we lead. A place where we can leave behind our worries, receive the spiritual infusion we have been looking for, and emerge transformed. Nashuva is a time to pray, to sing, to be still and listen to the voice of your soul.

But the goal of prayer isn’t only personal peace. At Nashuva we believe that prayer leads us to action. It reminds us that we are here to heal this broken world. Nashuva is a service that leads to service. On the first Friday of each month we pray together, on the third Sunday of each month we serve together to bring light to some dark corner of our city."

What awesome women rabbis are on your radar?

Fiddling on the Roof: not traditionalBy now we've all heard about the Kutz Camp kids who walked out on a Jazz-inspired evening service this summer because "the prayers were very nontraditional." While at first it seemed like a singular event, it soon became evident that this particular children's crusade was actually representative of growing tension within the Reform movement.

While the tensions raised by this developing issue may have been more visible at Kutz than in other Reform-affiliated institutions, it is not the only place the interest in traditional observance is being seen.

Many young Reform rabbis are reversing choices made by their older colleagues, some of whom proudly eat shrimp and bacon.

David Singer, 24, is part of this new wave. Entering his fourth year of rabbinical school at HUC-JIR in the Village, he always wears a kipa and tzitzit, keeps kosher and doesn’t ride or use money on Shabbat.

But he does it all from a purely Reform perspective, which emphasizes personal autonomy in religious practice, a principle he regards as among the highest of values.

It's a major shift for a movement that has not been anchored in halacha, and that has generally been open to creative experimentation in its worship. Back in 2006, Rabbi Naomi Levy wrote an article in The Jewish Journal that discussed her sense of loss when she learned that Judaism was "losing" Jews to Agape.

I stumbled on this question accidentally. Five years ago, a colleague of mine, a rabbi in New York, called me to see if I could check out an organization his 25-year-old brother had become involved in. The following Sunday morning I found myself at Agape, a nondenominational church in Culver City led by the charismatic Rev. Michael Beckwith. There were 2,000 people there on their feet pouring out their hearts to God.

I was overwhelmed by a sense of loss as I took in this powerful experience. Why can't Judaism move thousands like this? Then I read the names of the Agape prayer leaders and was shaken to see so many Jewish names. Agape is attracting Jews who believe deeply in God, who want to pray, but who cannot find God in a synagogue.

The experience led her to found her incredibly well-loved and successful outreach organization, Nashuva, as a viable option for unaffiliated Jewish seekers who look to churches and Zen centers and yoga for what they seemingly can't find in a synagogue.

Nashuva has experienced great success with 20-somethings, but are its offerings a far cry from what a new generation--the Kutz kind--of Reform Jews seems to be seeking? Can more emphasis on lively prayer and text study coexist, and potentially even blend, with drum circles at the beach? Should they?

In a wonderfully smart and snarky response to the Kutz kids walkout, Vanessa L. Ochs offers a whirlwind history of Jewish "traditions" that were once met with shock and awe, but which today are taken for granted.

The rabbis of the Talmud knew that resisting change is a natural response. Nonetheless, they encouraged people to keep their prayer practices fresh and meaningful through innovation. Practices that don’t catch on will fade away. The “keepers,” Rabbi Steven Greenberg once told me, “become communal and in time, the ones that stick, like always and forever, become part of the inherited tradition.”

Evolution and experimentation are essential to survival and growth. The rabbis of the Talmud knew it, and with time, the Kutz kids might, too.

As Borat Would Say: "Very Nice. How Much?"There have been quite a few recent posts here about issues regarding ketubot. In April, the lovely Laurel posted about problems of aesthetics and wound up discovering some pretty awesome options. Earlier this month, titillating Tamar took it a tad further with a conversation about the actual language in a traditional ketubah, and how the document mainly functions as an outdated legal and financial contract. A commenter on that post noted the "lack of a woman's voice in the traditional ketubah."

As a woman, a writer, and a Jew, I am deeply affected by words and symbols. When I first heard that the wedding tradition of breaking a glass might have been meant to symbolize the anticipated breaking of the bride's hymen, I was more than a little distressed. Likewise, when I learned that the traditional Jewish wedding is a legal ceremony in which the man purchases the woman I found myself looking for more evolved alternatives that might still satisfy my taste for tradition. The incredibly inspired and creative Rabbi Jamie S. Korngold led me to a book by brilliant author and professor, Rachel Adler, titled Engendering Judaism: An Inclusive Theology and Ethics.

Engendering Judaism considers how women's full participation can transform Jewish law, prayer, sexuality, and marriage. Chapter 5, "B'rit Ahuvim: A Marriage Between Subjects," concerns itself entirely with the "unresolved tensions between woman as possession and woman as partner [that] are embedded in the classical liturgy upon which all modern Jewish wedding ceremonies draw." Adler calls the traditional legal language for Jewish marriage "fundamentally incompatible with egalitarian relationships," and demonstrates how we may "engender a truly covenantal marriage" with "a lovers' covenant, b'rit ahuvim."

These texts depict the marriage of a young virgin as a private commercial transaction in which rights over the woman are transferred from the father to the husband. This commercial origin is reflected in the relational terminology. The word for husband is ba'al, the general term for an owner, master, possessor of property, bearer of responsibility, or practitioner of a skill. No specialized relationship term exists for wife; she is simply isha, woman. The owner of a house is ba'al ha-bayit, the man responsible for an open pit is ba'al ha-bor, the owner of an ox is ba'al hashor, the owner of a slave is ba'al ha-eved, and the husband of a woman is ba'al isha. The sole signifier for marital relationship is the grammatical form of the construct (semikhut), which binds man and woman as subject and object of an implied preposition: ba'al isha, the master of a woman; eshet ish, the woman of a man.

Rabbinic espousal -- kiddushin -- bridges the girl's passage from her father's hands to her husband's. This transfer procedure is designed to prevent the anarchic and world-disordering expression of autonomous female sexuality that could occur during the dangerous hiatus between these two statuses of daughter and wife, when a girl might consider herself in her own independent domain.

In the Mishna, there is only one approved method for appropriating a wife: monetary acquisition.

At the same time, the rabbis etherealize the commercial transaction of biblical bride purchase into a symbolic act in which, at the ceremony at least, only a token sum of money changes hands. This sum, as little as a penny (peruta) according to the academy of Hillel, represents the biblical bride price, now transformed into a marriage settlement, written into the ketubbah document and paid not to the father but to the woman herself in the event of divorce or widowhood. It is as if the woman were purchased with an annuity due to mature at a future time. As for the token sum used for kiddushin, Ze'ev Falk explains, "the amount was then returned to the husband together with the other items of the wife's property, so that the 'purchase' had become a mere formality."

Adler says that "some apologists argue that marital acquisition is merely a figure of speech and bears no relation to its literal meaning." Of course, modern brides know that they're not actually being purchased, even if that is what the ancient text implies. Why, then, with this intellectual knowledge, can it prove to be so emotionally and spiritually troublesome? I decided to ask my friend, Dr. Jennifer Kaplan, a Jew, a woman, and a practicing psychologist.

"You wouldn’t sign a contract for a house with terms that you didn’t agree to. Seeing is believing. When we see what’s in the contract, it has an affect on us. There’s a part of us that’s offended, and there’s another part of us that says, “Yeah, it’s okay, it’s not literal.” But there’s still that part of you that signs your name to something you don’t subscribe to, and that doesn’t feel good."

Adler argues that women have good reason not to "feel good" about the ketubah, and the ritual of kiddushin. She explains that while "the purchase of the bride may have dwindled to a mere formality in the rabbinic transformation of marriage, her acquisition is no formality. The language of acquisition still accurately reflects a relationship in which the woman has been subsumed and possessed."

So, how do we reconcile our love of tradition with our desire for evolution? Adler has been kind enough to conceive of an alternative ceremony and contract, all the while working to ensure that as many elements as possible from the traditional ceremony were preserved. Here's a description and outline:

The b'rit ahuvim section that replaces the elements of kiddushin (the erusin blessing, declaration of acquisition, giving of the ring, and reading of the ketubbah) is both preceded and followed by traditional words and traditional melodies -- and, of course, the ceremony is performed under a huppah. The order of the service reflects this "frame" of traditional elements:

1. Mi adir 'al ha-kol (traditional invocation of blessing for the couple).
2. Officiant's speech (traditional). Following the invocation is a traditional time for the officiant to speak briefly, outlining and explaining the ceremony and its meaning and speaking personally about the couple. The officiant should take this opportunity to explain what a b'rit ahuvim is and to distinguish it from kiddushin.
3. Blessing over wine (analogous to the tradition, but distinct from it). In the kiddushin ceremony, this blessing would be followed by the erusin blessing, and only the couple would drink from the cup. Here, the officiant should explain that a blessing over a cup of wine is a way to begin a holy celebration. To distinguish this cup from the erusin cup, it may be passed to all those around the huppah.
4. Reading of the b'rit document in Hebrew and in English (analogous to the reading of the ketubbah but clearly distinguished from it by its contents).
5. Kinyan, acquisition of the partnership by placing symbols of pooled resources in the bag and lifting. This will be the most unfamiliar part of the ceremony, but it may also be powerful precisely because it is new. If the partners have put in distinctive personal objects and intend to talk about their significance for the partnership, they should do so before lifting the bag. Wedding rings can be placed in the bag at this time. The partners then lift the bag together and recite the blessing. They could then put on their rings.
6. The Sheva Berakhot, Seven Blessings (traditional).
7. Shattering the glass (traditional).
8. Yihud (traditional). Immediately after the ceremony, the partners go into a room to be alone together.

Adler's approach is deeply respectful and truly inspired. You can check out an example of a b'rit covenant in PDF form, courtesy of Rabbi Korngold, who chose a b'rit ahuvim for her own wedding.

B'rit or no B'rit, women ill at ease with the idea of being symbolically purchased can take this dilemma even further, turning it into an act of Tikkun Olam. The way I see it, we are the lucky ones. We get to question and debate the symbolic meanings of ancient rituals, then we get to choose what we want, dance the Horah and eat wedding cake. Our concerns are linguistic and theoretical. Not so for the thousands of women and children who are sold into slavery around the world each year. According to the Not For Sale Campaign, an estimated 27 million people around the globe are the victims of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation from which they cannot free themselves. Perhaps the best thing that those of us who are uncomfortable with the idea of being commodified can do, whether we choose a ketubah or b'rit or neither, is take that passion and emotion, and funnel it into working on behalf of those who truly have been sold.

I’m creating an SIQ-test. It stands for “Spiritual IQ”. So far, I've only written one question:

What was the greatest impediment to Jewish spirituality in all of history?

A. Idolatry
B. The destruction of the Temple
C. Persecutions
D. False messiahs
E. Economic prosperity
F. None of the above

What do you say? I vote for F, none of the above.

This is because I believe that the greatest stumbling block to Jewish spirituality in all of Jewish history was...

A guy named Michelangelo.

Well, it wasn’t really him as much as something he created: Michelangelo gave us (quite literally!) a cartoon image of God. Do you know what I’m talking about? The Sistine Chapel image of God creating Adam? God is depicted as an old man with a long white beard:

So for the past 500 years we have been saddled with this cartoon image, and the word “God” has become for many associated with the old man and long white beard.

If you think about it, though, didn’t Michelangelo have a point? After all, it says in Genesis that God made Man in His image....So doesn’t that mean that God looks like us?

Well, no.

The God that Jews have always imagined is an Infinite, unknowable...something. I don’t even want to say “being” because the word “being” like any word, begins to define or limit God and we’re talking about something that is non-definable, not finite, a.k.a., infinite.

So, when Moses asks to see God in Exodus 13, God says, “No one can see my face and live” - this limit of human perception is consistent with an Infinite God.

A close reading of Genesis leads to an even deeper idea about God. Genesis describes humanity as made “in the image of God”. So according to the Torah, it is we who have God’s characteristics, not the other way around. Yes, God has a “hand”, but our hand is only an image of that. We don’t know what God’s “hand” looks like because our entire perception is trapped within the framework of this physical realm, and God is transcendent.

Therefore, the only way for us to glimpse what is meant by God’s hand is via some kind of transcendental technique, such as meditation. That’s what Micah and Isaiah and other sages were doing when they glimpsed God. But they weren’t seeing God’s essence, only a spiritual projection that is more subtle than this finite world (which is also a projection) but not God’s true essence, which is likened to seeing God’s face.

In other words, God isn't anthropomophic. We are theomorphic.

I’ll end these holy thoughts with two tools, one practical and one amusing.

The practical tool is a superb on-line test you can take at beliefnet.com to determine your religious affinity. It is remarkably well-designed; someone put a lot of thought into it. Here’s the online test. After you take it, please share your results in the comments section below. My own results were a surprise, which I'll share after a few other people get a chance to comment.

The amusing tool is this video series on youtube – the later episodes are not quite Jewish, but the first one (below) is universal. If you subscribe to my Friday Table Talk blog then you saw this already.

Roll over Michelangelo. The God of the 21st Century wears black-rim frames and sports a goatee.

Tomorrow: What’s a mitzvah and what difference does it make?

Rabbi Seinfeld: Faithhacker's new guest bloggerThis week we're lucky enough to have guest blogger Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld, author of The Art of Amazement. Rabbi Seinfeld has degrees in Classics and Anthropology from Stanford University, and also studied Buddhism before he was ordained as a rabbi. His book explains how Judaism should lead to a transcendental life full of amazement, and is full of exercises and tips for a fulfilling spiritual life. Faith Hacker Tamar Fox interviewed him on some of the concepts he covers in his book.

TF: What was the impetus for writing this book? It sounds like you see a real lack of amazement and appreciation in contemporary culture and life, but was there a specific incident that lead you towards this understanding on Judaism and fulfilling transcendent thought?

AS: When I started life as an adult, I had read a lot of Plato-to-Nato philosophers, and had you asked me, I would have called myself a Buddhist. So I was tuned-in to the concept and practice of meditation and transcendent awareness. But I was still exploring. I did not think that I had found the ultimate path, only one that was working for me at the present time.

So my explorations took me to many corners, including Paris.

Eventually I found myself in Israel, trying to reconcile who I was at the time with 3,300 years of Jewish tradition. I honestly had no idea what I was doing or where I was heading, both geographically and emotionally. I was a wandering Jew par excellence.

One day I wandered into a class on a youth hostel rooftop in the Old City of Jerusalem. The rabbi teaching the class was young and clean-shaven, and the minute he opened his mouth, a thousand and one preconceptions were shattered in my mind. He sounded like a Bodhisattva but looked like me and everything he said was...Jewish.

The amazing thing is that the more I learned Hebrew and was able to crack open the ancient books, the more I learned that Judaism has all the tools anyone needs for a completely transcendent spirituality, and that before arriving to Jerusalem, I had never met a Jew who "got it". That's when I started to think about writing a book.

The Art of Amazement: by Rabbi SeinfeldTF: In your book you define Judaism as a system for cultivating pleasure. If that's the case, why don't we see more pleasure in the day to day life of most Jewish communities? I know many observant Jews who don't seem to be enjoying much pleasure these days. If observing the mitzvot isn't enough to achieve transcendence, are the lives of observant but not transcendent people meaningless?

AS: The key to the transcendent approach to Jewish thought and practice is not in being Reform, Orthodox, Conservative, Recontructionist, Jewish Renewal, Ju-Bu (listed in chronological order), nor is it in NOT being one or more of those Jewish labels. I've met Jews affiliated with all of the above who get it, and those who don't.

So what's the secret?

In my opinion, the secret to a great sense of connectedness and pleasure in your life is learning how to do one single mitzvah with what we call kavana - focus or attentiveness. It's all about kavana. This is similar to the Buddhist idea of mindfulness, but has specific meaning in each practice. Kavana is not merely being mindful of what I'm doing, it's also being mindful of the specific transcendent value (as defined by Judaism) of what I'm doing.

Surprisingly (even to myself) I don't talk about the concept of mitzvah in the book. I was intending to save this for the next book. I will blog about this topic this week (and perhaps doing so will help me get that next volume out!)

TF: The Art of Amazement struck me as a book for people who are just beginning a journey with Judaism. What about those of us with a strong background in Judaism who are familiar with the meditations of the Shma and the Amidah, who even say them daily? I found it harder to integrate your ideas about the Infinite and amazement into my davening because my habits are so firmly formed already. How can we teach ourselves to turn off the autopilot?

AS: This is an interesting question because many traditionally-trained readers have told me that the book has helped their kavana in their prayers and davvening. If you make a bracha without pausing to think about what you are doing, or without concentrating on the meaning of each and every word, then you're saying it wrong. And if you think that "Baruch atah" means "Blessed are you" (or "Blessed art Thou" then you're saying it wrong. I've just described 95 percent of the brachot of 85 percent of people who make daily brachot.

Now, our sages advise that if you make a bracha with the bare minimum of kavana, then that's good enough, even though it's not ideal. What about the Sh'ma?

Answer: If you say the first line of the Sh'ma without 100 percent kavana, it's as if you didn't say anything, and you are supposed to say it again. According to one sage, this rule applies to Baruch Shaym K'vod etc. as well!

It seems to me that just knowing this importance of kavana should help the more observant person get off auto-pilot.

There are other tricks for the observant person that I'll blog about this week.

TF: The Art of Amazement is so sophisticated and involves such careful examination of self and the Infinite that I wondered about how these ideas can be successfully transmitted to kids. Many of us are dedicated to Jewish education, but I can't imagine how these ideas could be taught to a second grader, or even an eighth grader. Are there ways of conveying the Art of Amazement to kids? What are they? Or is this something you have to come to as an adult?

AS: It's easy to teach the Art of Amazement to children. We use the wonders of creation to instill awe in them. We teach them to eat slowly and with kavana. See the Appendix in my book, there is a section called "The Seven Minute Orange" which is an exercise that works great with kids. My five year old daughter occasionally corrects me while I'm eating: "Abba, you forgot to close your eyes!" So I hope that means we're doing something right for her.

TF: What of a non-Jew who reads your book? Should he or she pursue the guidelines of the Torah? How does a non-Jew achieve transcendence?

AS: It is not unusual for non-Jews to ask about incorporating Jewish wisdom and practice into their lives. According to the Torah, they have fewer mitzvas but can certainly achieve transcendence through their seven mitzvahs and even through some of ours if they elect to do them. I will comment further on this topic when I blog about mitzvahs. But the short answer is that the simple practices that I teach in Chapters 4, 5 and 7 are certainly open to Jew and Gentile alike. The other chapters require more discussion.

TF: I applaud your discussion of the importance of self-respect before consideration of looking good. But what do you make of all of the programs, specifically fitness programs, that try to synthesize self-respect and good looks? The message is often that you can't achieve self respect without a hearty fitness regimen. Do you think this a lie, a half-truth, a manipulation...? How much should physical well-being complement self-respect?

AS: The mitzvah of taking care of your body goes at least as far back as the Talmud. But it has nothing to do with how you look, only your health. The only spiritual justification I can think of for paying attention to one's physical appearance is to please one's spouse. I'm not talking about basic grooming and hygiene. I mean appearance for its own sake. If that's part of your self-respect, then you are thinking like a body and not like a soul.

That said, I think there is an ulterior spiritual benefit to a fitness regimen. It takes a tremendous amount of will power to get onto such a regimen. Doing so requires overcoming the body's laziness. Overcoming laziness is a key to self-control, which is a primary spiritual value. So even if there were no health or beauty benefits, a fitness program might be recommended.

TF: You talk about men and women not being equal, but being perfect complements of one another. What kind of implications do you think this should have in terms of day to day life for men and women? If women are better suited for home life, cooking, cleaning, and raising children, what of women who work outside the home? Are they throwing off the balance of the complementary structure? And what of men who stay home with their children?

AS: I don't think that I ever said women are better suited for home life than men. They are definitely better - on average - at nurturing young children. I think we all know both women who have balanced children with a career and women who have not balanced them so well. It seems to me that each woman (and man) should examine themselves honestly and make a decision based on who they are.

I like to point to my own mother as a great role model. She waited until her youngest child was able to dress herself and in school before going to graduate school herself. She then proceeded to have a very successful and fulfilling career. Is this the only way to do it? Of course not. But it worked for her. She was able to do both. But she decided at a young age that she would be most successful as a mother if she started that "career" early and I don't think she ever regretted her decision, not for a moment. What percentage of women who put off family until their 40s can say the same?

Now, for the substance of your question, the complimentary nature of the yin-yang does not require that one partner be at home while the other is out, but it seems to work out that way often. There is nothing in Jewish thought that I have ever seen that relegates the woman to the home and the man to the outside, or vice-versa. It often works out that way because of the mother's unique abilities with young children.
But most fundamentally, I hope that this yin-yang idea will help people appreciate rather than rue the differences with their spouses. We are two halves of a whole rather than two partners in a joint venture.

The fact that we are so different in certain ways forces me to get out of my own narrow perspective and see life from a radically different perspective. Doing so requires humility and detachment from ego, both of which are the most basic building blocks of a spiritual life.

This week, I would like each day to explore a topic that does not get enough treatment in my book. These will include:

God as an anthropomorphism v. Man as a deomorphism (I invented that word).
Mitzvah - what is it and what difference does it make
Shabbat - if it's not a day of rest, what is it?
The nature of evil

Comments are welcome, questions even more!