|
|
Sept. 7, 2007
Jewish soul-searching
Transforming ourselves into more spiritual beings.
CYNTHIA RAMSAY AND ADRIENNE TOOCH
For the past few weeks, we have been preparing ourselves for Rosh
Hashanah; evaluating our lives and asking forgiveness for the wrongs
we have committed. Sometimes this task can seem overwhelming, especially
when thinking about changes we should make for next year. There
are four new publications that may help – with advice for the
day-to-day, suggested prayers for Jewish women and how Israel could
enrich your spirit.
In Living a Joyous Life: The True Spirit of Jewish Practice
(Trumpeter Books), Rabbi David Aaron tries to "offer uncommon
answers to common questions that people ask about Jewish identity,
faith and daily Jewish practices." And he doesn't shy away
from the tough questions, such as Who is God? Why pray? and Why
eat kosher?
Aaron approaches these and other issues from the perspective of
someone who wasn't raised religiously. In the book's introduction,
he writes that he mainly related to Judaism through the Holocaust
and anti-Semitism; that Hebrew school was boring and that, once
bar mitzvahed, he was "free." But, at 18, following his
sister's example, Aaron went to study in Israel for a year and his
transformation began. However, he doesn't forget his roots and believes
that people need to know the why's of being Jewish –
that being told all the things one should do will not bring
us closer to our faith. So, in Living a Joyous Life, he takes
on the task of correcting the misunderstandings that many Jews have
about their faith and re-introducing them to the positive aspects
of modern Judaism. According to Aaron, once this is accomplished,
a healthy spiritual journey will have begun and people will learn
to love Judaism, not just be proud of it.
For the most part, Aaron achieves his goal. He discusses complicated
issues in a straightforward manner, often using his own personal
experiences, some of which are very humorous, to drive his points
home. Living a Joyous Life likely will not appeal to cultural/humanist
Jews, or the atheists in the tribe, as Aaron assumes an openness
to God's existence. Also, for religious Jews, much of Living
a Joyous Life will be material with which they are already intimately
familiar – though it would be helpful if one were disillusioned
by a focus on ritual without meaning, rather than on the joy, kavanah
(spiritual intent) and mitzvot of Judaism.
As Aaron notes, everybody has a set of beliefs, be it religious
or not. These beliefs determine who you are, what you do and what
you will become: "Your beliefs can either empower you or destroy
you." For Aaron, Judaism "provides down-to-earth spiritual
strategies for living a more complete, joyful, meaningful and enlightened
life." And his book should help more than a few Jews realize
this fact and embrace their faith anew.
Another book that accomplishes this goal, but in a more participatory
fashion, is Reward Miles to Heaven: How to Instantly Upgrade
the Mitzvos You Do (Judaica Press Inc.) In it, Rabbi Shlomo
Schwartz considers mitzvot as the way in which human beings build
a relationship with God. While most of us perform many good deeds
or fulfil many commandments in any given day, he argues, we are
generally unaware of doing so – and "the awareness of
being engaged in a mitzvah make the mitzvah-doer's actions more
meaningful." In fact, he says, the moment you realize that
you are performing a mitzvah is when the act becomes a mitzvah.
This is where the "reward miles" concept enters. Schwartz
compares the act of fulfilling the commandments to earning reward
miles: when you buy groceries or airline tickets, which you would
purchase anyway, you use your rewards card and earn a valuable bonus.
"All we have to do is remember to use our card," he writes.
So, too, with a mitzvah: "All we have to add is our awareness."
Schwartz's book provides 30 brief, daily lessons showing us how
to turn routine activities into mitzvot. These are activities as
ordinary as driving to work, paying a bill or calling a friend.
When we perform these actions with conscious intent, and know exactly
which commandments they encompass, we earn a great reward and pave
the way for an even greater reward in the Next World.
The suggestions for how to put these ideas into action include asking
or motioning the car next to you to lower the volume on their blaring
radio (fulfilling the aspect of "don't resent silently")
or not reading news stories about wicked people, thereby not favoring
them. Some of Schwartz's recommendations, however, are difficult
to achieve in modern society – and aren't necessarily even
desirable from a humanitarian, global-village perspective. For example,
the suggestion to "avoid or minimize social time with non-Jewish
co-workers" is not altogether fair or realistic, even if the
reason for it, as Schwartz explains, is to safeguard the mitzvah
of marrying within the faith.
Overall though, Reward Miles to Heaven is very easy to read
and it includes some useful ideas, as well as pages on which to
record personal practices, notes and observations as you make the
30-day journey to mitzvot-filled Judaism.
As the adage goes, life is what happens as you make your plans.
And so, in Judaism, there are prayers for practically every occasion,
anticipated or not. No doubt editor Dinah Berland recited a blessing
when she came across Fanny Neuda's Hours of Devotion in a
used book store. According to Berland, Neuda's collection, written
in the 19th century and reprinted many times, in German, Yiddish
and English, was the first full-length book of Jewish prayers written
by a woman for women. The wife of a rabbi, Neuda spent most of her
life observing her community and devoting her life to her faith
– and her book brought Berland back to hers.
Berland had been estranged from her son for 11 years when she found
Neuda's book, and reading it not only gave Berland comfort, but
led her back to Jewish study and toward a deeper practice of Judaism.
This is why she undertook the recreation of Neuda's prayers, working
with a translator to put them into modern English and set them into
verse to make them more poetic. The result is Hours of Devotion:
Fanny Neuda's Book of Prayers for Jewish Women (Schocken
Books), a book that is not only beautiful to read, but attractively
presented.
There are, of course, regular daily, Sabbath and High Holiday prayers.
However, the substance of the book is the numerous remarkable prayers
written especially for women and, in Neuda's own words, "as
the product of a female heart, they might echo in women's hearts
all the more." There is a prayer for every life situation,
offering comfort, understanding of pain and love, guidance and solace.
There is a daughter's prayer for her parents, recitations for a
bride on her wedding day, a childless wife and a mother whose child
is abroad or in the military service, as well as prayers for an
unhappy wife and many others.
Hours of Devotion is a unique and enriching book that should
be treasured and transmitted from generation to generation.
While many people can access a more spiritual Judaism through prayer
and reading books, another – or, better, an additional –
path is via the Jewish homeland. This is where Prof. Faydra L. Shapiro
"nurtured a cautious but passionate curiosity about Judaism,"
as well as pushed herself beyond what she thought were her physical
and emotional limits.
Building Jewish Roots: The Israel Experience (McGill-Queen's
University Press) focuses on Shapiro's participation in the Livnot
U'Lehibanot program, which, she says, is designed to encourage and
aid all Jews, from "psychic healers" and "dope smokers"
to "budding careerists" and "all-American kids,"
to choose and shape their own Jewish identities.
While setting the scene of the experience with a description of
the campus and a detailed account of a typical day – from the
tasteless Israeli cornflakes to the grueling cleaning duties –
Shapiro lets readers in on what it would be like to be a participant
in the program. However, the book also offers readers an exploration
of how the educational and historical tours available in Israel
today can help instil in participants a rich Jewish identity.
"Anxiety about cultural assimilation and efforts to strengthen
Jewish continuity describe the communal, institutional role of the
Israel experience phenomenon," writes Shapiro, concluding that
every Jew should visit the Holy Land at some time in his or her
life.
^TOP
|
|
