spirituality

A journey beyond self

“The Valley of the Shadow” by Michal Tkachenko.

Songs of Deliverance, a solo exhibit by Michal Tkachenko, opened last month at the Zack Gallery and is on display until Nov. 10. While its title is inspired by the lyrics of a Bethel Music song – “You unravel me, with a melody / You surround me with a song / Of deliverance, from my enemies / Till all my fears are gone” – its focus derives from three psalms.

“I really wanted to have a subject for the exhibition that would bind communities together and so I came to rest on the psalms, which span both Judaism and Christianity, but are also used in secular society as a means to reach out to a greater being beyond ourselves,” Tkachenko told the Independent. “For me, this is a huge departure from previous work in both subject and vulnerability. It is my most honest work so far and, as the exhibition falls on the two-year anniversary of everything I saw with my spirit, I feel myself rising from the anguish and am ready to speak about my experience now, to move towards creating what I saw was possible.”

Lacking the exact words to describe it, Tkachenko said she had a near-death, or mystical, experience two years ago, and she was in that state for more than a week.

“It instantly changed my entire outlook on life and death and it completely changed me,” she said. “I was so excited about it until I began to realize how isolated it made me and how those I reached out to didn’t always have a helpful response. I quickly spiraled into the dark night of the soul and have been traveling that road…. Two very deep things came to rest in me during this time. The first was a deep longing in my spirit for something greater than myself, to draw and stay extremely close to God. The second was a deep grief that all that I had seen with my spirit, particularly an unseen solid force of love that is everywhere and how we are meant to love and be vulnerable with each other as our primary purpose in life, were things I could not make happen however hard I tried.”

Psalm 23 – “As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil” – was with Tkachenko throughout this two-year period. “For me,” she said, “it was a psalm about my journey and how, in the midst of the darkness, God was always with me and more vivid than I had ever experienced outside of that extraordinary week.”

photo - Michal Tkachenko’s solo exhibit, Songs of Deliverance, is at the Zack Gallery until Nov. 10 — Michal Tkachenko’s solo exhibit, Songs of Deliverance, is at the Zack Gallery until Nov. 10. *(photo by Andrea Lee)*

As she approached the one-year anniversary of that week, Tkachenko asked two people to write her a blessing, as she made a vow to God and shaved her head. “One of the blessings,” she said, “included Psalm 63 and it reflected my own deep longing for God, ‘I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry parched land where there is no water.’… My hair that I shaved off is part of the exhibition in an aged box that is meant to suggest a holy relic of the past, when people had more vivid experiences with God.

“Psalm 139 is such a beautiful expression of God’s love and absolutely full of beautiful imagery as an artist,” she continued. “It is a psalm that has also kept me company on my two-year journey and moves me every time I read it.

“For this psalm,” she said, “I made a pile of sketches of different verses and the images that came to me. Of those, I chose seven to do larger pieces on mylar. In many of the pieces, the spirit of God is represented by the white negative space. In ‘You Hem Me in Behind and Before, You Lay Your Hand Upon Me,’ the image of a human is abstracted in a long, dark column down the centre of the page, but the figure is not the focus. Instead, the white empty space is the representation of God hemming that figure in from ‘behind and before.’”

Songs of Deliverance marks Tkachenko’s return to drawing and painting after this two-year period, during which she spent a lot of time writing. “My goal is to make short, layered videos using these writings,” she said.

She also took a break from painting during COVID, making art out of dollhouses that people were getting rid of in the decluttering that took place then. In these dollhouses, she created COVID lockdown scenes in miniature.

“My interest is not held by one medium or one style alone, although I do have a style that often emerges naturally,” she said. “The older I get, the less interested I am in creating what I think others will like or want to buy and more about what I want to say and what I am excited about making and expressing through the medium that seems best suited to that particular message.”

Tkachenko was born in Victoria but grew up in Vancouver. Her dad, an architectural technician, builder and musician, was a Ukrainian immigrant to Canada after the Second World War, while her mom, a teacher, music teacher and musician, was a second-generation Canadian with a Scottish/British background.

“My parents were part of the hippy movement in the ’60s and ’70s and, when I was young, we lived in communal housing,” said Tkachenko, who is the oldest of four sisters.

“Growing up in a big creative household, there were always guests and cooking parties (Ukrainian food), live music and all sorts of art projects going on,” she said. “My parents didn’t push the academics as much because they wanted to make sure we found what gave us excitement and joy and they invested in building our self-esteem instead.”

That said, Tkachenko has a bachelor’s and a master’s in fine arts. For her schooling, she has lived in Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary, Toronto, Florence and London (England). She has lived and volunteered in Haiti, Kenya, Malawi and Liberia, among other places. She has studios in both Vancouver and Manchester, as she, her husband and kids travel between Canada and the United Kingdom.

Despite knowing from a young age that she was going to be an artist, it took time for Tkachenko to recognize her skill and justify making art – “I considered it a luxury item, when the poor existed in the world,” she said.

“My hippy parents had driven us down to Mexico a number of times when my sister and I were young children (we are the oldest two) and we had been taken to the slums to understand how most of the world lived and how, despite our modest life in Canada, we were rich compared to rest of the world. It had made a huge and lasting impression on me as a child.”

At 18, she moved to Haiti to volunteer for a year, she said, “but before the year was out, I was in a life-altering car accident in which a friend died, my skull was shattered and my face smashed in on one side. I was flown back to Canada for reconstructive surgery and to recover.”

She volunteered for a spell in Kenya a few years later, but then finally decided to follow her calling in art.

Tkachenko works out of Parker Studios in Vancouver. She is also on the advisory committee for the DTES Small Arts Grant. “Being on this committee and working out of Carnegie [Community Centre] in the Downtown Eastside joins two things I value – the arts and working among the less fortunate,” she said.

Tkachenko’s husband is Jewish on his mother’s side – “her parents fled Czechoslovakia and Germany for the UK during WWII,” Tkachenko shared.

“Although they purposefully lost a lot of their Jewish heritage during the shift for safety reasons, my kids and I have become interested in it,” she said. “I came from a very open faith background because my parents were hippies that were part of the Jesus People Movement. They always encouraged us to find our own way to God and faith and, as a result, the people I am drawn to with my spirit are varied, from Jewish to Muslim, from Buddhist to Eastern Awakenings. The value of community does go beyond a single group [an idea she explores in one of The Journey series videos she is currently working on] and the more open and loving we become with each other, the more we can appreciate the differences that we each were gifted. And the more we see the bigger picture and what we all have in common.”

Sharing a personal journey

Son of a Seeker follows Kai Balin’s search for where he fits within Judaism and Jewish community. (still from Son of a Seeker)

Kai Balin’s documentary Son of a Seeker, which screened to a sold-out Rothstein Theatre last month, is an official selection of the 2026 Vancouver Jewish Film Festival, which will take place next April.

The very personal work that follows Balin’s search for where he fits within Judaism and Jewish community will be thought-provoking for viewers, generating questions about what religion, family and belonging mean to them.

“I think my mother, sister and even my brother have a more innate sense of security in who they are and in who they are as Jews,” Balin told the Independent. “My dad and I, on the other hand, have a more complex identity. It makes it harder to fully ﬁt in or feel completely rooted. However, I see it – and I know my dad does too – as a kind of blessing. It’s ultimately who we are. And, while it comes with plenty of challenges, being a seeker is also a beautiful way to live.”

Balin dedicates the documentary to his grandparents, who survived the Holocaust. “But survival is not the same as security,” he narrates in the film. “My father and I have spent our lives trying to understand what it means to continue.”

Having grown up in a Jewish but not religious home, where his deeper questions were not answered, Balin’s father, Jeffrey, began looking for answers elsewhere, notably, in Buddhism. And, while Balin’s mother, Jennifer Shecter, grew up in a traditional Jewish family and attended Jewish school, “bringing a strong sense of Judaism into the home wasn’t a priority, but I knew I was a Jew,” says Kai Balin in the film. “And I got to create a version of Judaism that I owned and I loved.”

The home video clips in the film highlight this love. As a child, Balin plays at being a rabbi, wants to be one when he grows up. But, over the years, he loses this connection, just as his father begins to return to Judaism. How the father and son negotiate their respective paths, while being respectful of the other’s journey, is a key aspect of the documentary.

“When I ﬁrst started making Son of a Seeker, I had no idea what the title would be, or even what the story really was,” said Kai Balin. “I knew I wanted to explore Judaism and what it means to be Jewish, but I didn’t expect it to become so personal. Early on, I interviewed a few dozen Jewish people from across the spectrum on camera. But, in the end, I realized I wanted this ﬁlm to be something much more intimate.

“My dad initially thought he’d just be one of many voices in the ﬁlm. He didn’t expect to become such a central ﬁgure in the story. It pushed him far beyond his comfort zone, but he ultimately believed in the project and gave me his full blessing to be a part of my documentary.”

Balin’s sister, Justine, and brother, Jackson, are also in the film, his brother in the background, while his sister is featured more prominently.

“My sister was my right-hand woman throughout the entire process – I truly couldn’t have made this ﬁlm without her,” said Balin. “She ﬁlmed what’s arguably the most important scene in the movie, when I’m walking through the town where our grandfather was born and raised until he was sent away to a forced labour camp and had everything taken from him and his family. My sister also spent countless hours in the editing room, helping make the tough calls about what to cut and what to keep. Without her input, the ﬁlm would’ve easily been two hours long and a lot less focused.

“My whole family really stood behind me on this project,” he said. “They gave me the strength, courage and conﬁdence to see it through.”

Balin came to filmmaking somewhat organically.

“I was studying kinesiology at Western University. After my second year, I worked on an indie ﬁlm, Volition, as part of the swing crew, helping with lighting and grip. Later that summer, I was the program director at Camp Hatikvah (2017), where the videographer/photographer, Denis Lipman, brought some super cool gear…. Right before my third year, I bought a camera – and, from then on, I started dedicating less and less time to what I was actually studying, and more time learning how to shoot and edit.

“I was running a nonproﬁt at school that threw club and bar events for local charities, and the ﬁrst video I ever made was a recap of one of those nights,” said Balin. “I started getting more involved on campus and around the city (London, Ont.), looking for any chance to shoot videos.

“My ﬁrst paid gig was ﬁlming a club event that featured a guy in a robot suit on stilts. I was also on the rugby team, so I made a few hype-up videos for them whenever I was injured (which was quite a bit). Over the last two years at my time in university, I got more invested in videography and less focused on kinesiology. I ended up shooting videos for all sorts of events and student clubs.”

After graduating, Balin pursued videography full time. Not wanting to make corporate videos, he started making a documentary about his dad’s work.

“He was a leadership development coach working mostly with heads of NGOs and social enterprises,” explained Balin. “I lined up a plan to travel to different countries, mostly in East Africa and India, to ﬁlm these organizations and their leaders. I started shooting, but I didn’t have a clear direction. Eventually, I lost the passion for the project – and for ﬁlmmaking altogether. I just wanted to travel.”

It would be almost five years before Balin made another video.

“It took about three months to put My 5 Year Video Project together – I wasn’t working any other job at the time – and we held a small premiere in August 2024 with around 70 people,” he said about the film, which can be seen on YouTube.

“I didn’t expect people to be so moved by what I had created,” he said. “That experience gave me the conﬁdence to pursue my next ﬁlm project. At the time, it was just a rough idea, and I had no clue it would eventually become something so personal – and so deeply centred around my father’s story as well.”

But, for Balin, it’s the personal aspects of art, films and books that draw him in, “even if I can’t directly relate to what the creator is going through,” he said. “I remember hearing years ago, from a few directors I really respect, that you ultimately have to make the ﬁlm for yourself – something you’d enjoy watching a hundred times over, and something that excites you to work on every day.

“For me, that excitement comes from sharing something personal. It’s my life, my questions, my struggles, and I ﬁnd them interesting. So maybe others will too.”

As for what comes next, Balin said, “One side of me just wants to let the river ﬂow, follow life as it comes without getting too attached to any future outcomes. But the other side of me dreams of being a famous, successful ﬁlmmaker making big-budget movies. There’s still something in me that maybe wants to be a rabbi one day as well.”

He added, “I know my relationship with Judaism will continue to evolve, but, for now, I’ve found a sense of peace. I feel like I have a steady relationship with it, and I’m much more secure in who I am as a Jew than I was when I started this ﬁlm.

“These days,” Balin said, “I ﬁnd myself seeking something else: my soulmate. That might even be the focus of my next documentary – exploring the journey to ﬁnd ‘the one’ – if that concept even exists.”

Meet new director of JACS

In February, Jewish Addiction Community Services (JACS) appointed Rabbi Joshua Corber as its new director. The Vancouver-born Conservative rabbi spent the last 10 years as a congregational rabbi in Calgary, Vaughan, Ont., and Louisville, Ky., before returning home in July 2023.

“Practically the entire time I was serving congregations, I was in recovery,” Corber said. “Prior to that, I was in active addiction. I’m in a unique position to serve the Jewish community in this way because I have the personal experience of having suffered from addiction, but I also have experience from my congregational service with pastoral counseling and, in particular, people going through severe life trauma. That will be of immense value to me in serving this community.”

Rabbi Joshua Corber is the director of Jewish Addiction Community Services Vancouver. (photo from JACS)

Corber noted that the Jewish community faces an acute risk when it comes to substance abuse. One reason is the misconception that Jews are immune to addiction, but another is the prevalence of alcohol in traditional religious observance. “There’s no religion other than Judaism in which alcohol is so present in almost all aspects of religious life,” he said.

“Alcohol is prescribed, sanctioned and encouraged in Judaism, and not just on Purim,” he continued. “There’s always a Jewish excuse for a l’chaim. For me, as a rabbi, that posed a unique danger because I could always justify it. Though halachic authorities strongly discourage drunkenness, that message won’t be absorbed by the addict, who will make a beeline for the l’chaim table – every single time.”

Corber’s polysubstance addiction, including alcohol, became acute during the pandemic. He said the most concerning addictions, that pose the most immediate threat to life, are opioids and fentanyl.

But, just as Judaism presents a risk in terms of addiction, it also has resources for recovery, the rabbi noted.

“Most of the recovery world, such as 12-step programs and AA, consider an addiction to be a spiritual problem, and spiritual problems require spiritual solutions. I have a deep knowledge of the ways in which Jewish tradition and Jewish wisdom teachings can be leveraged as a critical aid in recovery.”

Corber’s first community event will be held on April 15. The Third Seder: Understanding Addiction and the Path to Freedom is a communal, seder-like meal where the rabbi will discuss the connection between addiction, recovery and spiritual freedom. “We’ll leverage and focus the Haggadah around addiction and recovery,” Corber said, adding that “everyone should come.”

“This is not just for people who are in recovery or struggling with addiction,” he said. “It’s really important that the whole community be involved in the conversation around addiction. It can’t be that shivas are the only place that we’re talking about addiction.”

For more information or to book a seat, visit jfsvancouver.ca/events.

New umbrella for JACS

When Jewish Addiction Community Service was established in 2016, its role was to help members of the community suffering from addiction. Eight years after its inception, in 2024, the organization came under the umbrella of Jewish Family Services, meaning that, operationally, it will be under the auspices of JFS.

“We needed infrastructure and clinical support, so this is a big operational shift that integrates addiction-related services with other services that JFS provides,” said Tanja Demajo, chief executive officer at JFS. “When a client comes to JFS or JACS for support, we examine their needs holistically and connect them with different resources based on their needs. Going forward, it means people can get the support they need in one place instead of going to two.”

Demajo and her team hope the new development will remove barriers to service access and eliminate the shame and discomfort associated with requests for support, because the need is certainly there, she said.

“The percentage of people impacted by addiction in the Jewish community is very similar to the wider community: we know that every third community member is impacted by someone affected by addiction. But there’s a lot of stigma and judgment, so it’s not easy to ask for help,” Demajo told the Independent. “Education and awareness are things JACS and JFS really need to work on, to normalize the need to ask for help. The more conversations we have, the more it normalizes the need for help.”

JACS has hired Corber as a full-time director, and is relying on eight therapists contracted through JFS. Demajo said, as community needs shift and change, the organization will examine taking on additional therapists if needed. “We’re at the early stage of building a full program and bringing new energy to it,” she explained.

Demajo added that she’s deeply grateful to Howard Harowitz, the founder and chair of JACS, who advocated for addiction services in the Jewish community for years.

JACS’s mission is to increase education and awareness, provide community direct service, and offer guidance and referrals. For more information, visit jacsvancouver.com.

Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond.

A Purim-Ramadan oasis

Members of the local Jewish and Muslim communities who came together in the Downtown Eastside March 16 to commemorate Shushan Purim and Ramadan by giving out food to those in need. (photo from Rabbi Philip Bregman’s Facebook page)

On Sunday, March 16, on the corner of Main and Hastings, members of the local Jewish and Muslim communities converged for a joint commemoration of Shushan Purim (the day after Purim) and the holy month of Ramadan.

Both these sacred occasions call upon their observers to feed those who are food insecure, often through charity. Muslims refer to this as “zakah,” Jews describe it as “tzedakah.” Both words denote righteousness. United in this shared charge on that day, these two Abrahamic religious traditions met at ground zero of Greater Vancouver’s mental health, addiction and housing crisis to nourish some of the residents of the Downtown Eastside. This was assuredly a “righteous” act for all participants, inspiring renewed hope for our troubled world.

The gathering was mainly the initiative of Vancouver-Granville Member of Parliament Taleeb Noormohamed, a few religious leaders of the Vancouver Muslim community and rabbis Dan Moskovitz, Philip Bregman, Jonathan Infeld and Arik Labowitz. In a social media post describing the event, Rabbi Bregman wrote: “We may not be able to solve the world’s political issues but we can come together to deal with in a small way a local issue (feeding the hungry) that affects us all.”

It was my great honour to be a part of this group as an ordained cantor and member of the Vancouver Jewish community. My day job often places me at this street corner, serving a similar clientele. I work as a multifaith chaplain on Vancouver Coastal Health’s ACT (Assertive Community Treatment) teams, providing spiritual care to clients and staff as they navigate the existential angst, cumulative grief and moral distress that accompanies the city’s overdose crisis. Many days bring me to the same area to help provide spiritual comfort and solace through presence and song. The task often is daunting. (On the day that I wrote these words, our ACT team lost another longtime client to a preventable overdose death at the age of 29.) Standing alongside my Jewish siblings and Muslim cousins and handing out food that our respective communities had prepared and purchased brought a whole new level of hope.

I particularly needed the spiritual uplift that Sunday, which, like so many Sundays before, again witnessed my Jewish community’s impassioned rallies, calling for the release of all the remaining hostages – those alive and dead – who were taken to Gaza during the barbaric Oct. 7 pogrom that waged war against Israel’s right to exist.

I also needed the spiritual uplift that day because March 16 marked the date when 23-year-old American Jewish nonviolent human rights activist Rachel Corrie (April 10, 1979-March 16, 2003) was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer as she protested the demolition of Palestinian homes in Gaza. This horrific anniversary led me to spend that early morning reflecting once again on how to reconcile my abiding love of Israel with my vehement disagreement with those Israeli and American governmental policies that have violated human rights, killed innocent children and civilians and threatened ethnic cleansing.

As if to emphasize the point, earlier that same morning, I had breakfast with a Jewish friend with whom I had engaged in a book club to discuss Peter Beinart’s latest treatise, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning. Another Conservative cantor I know well and respect recently challenged me to open myself to voices I would not otherwise have considered regarding world affairs. I took that charge to heart and decided to read Beinart’s latest work, which I would not have been likely to peruse previously. Like the death of Corrie, reflecting on this book over breakfast proved sobering, as I continue to realize the many blind spots in my own thinking over the years.

While my mind and spirit were still reeling from navigating these concurrent realities, the Purim-Ramadan event provided me with a palpable spiritual uplift, as I witnessed Jews and Muslims standing in unity side by side with wide smiles, handing out nourishment to those deprived of food.

The spiritual boost also came from meeting devout Muslims in their bountiful humanity.

There was Aroun, who shared with some Jewish attendees and I how members of his mosque (Al-Jamia Al-Masjid) often come downtown to provide food to the poor on Ramadan. Aroun had us all in stitches when he jokingly indicated how hard it was to handle so many edibles while observing Ramadan’s required daytime fasting. In the same breath, he reminded us that though there are indeed extremists on both sides of the aisle, events like the present one proved that we do not have to toe their party line.

I likewise will never forget talking with another Muslim participant, Mohammed Zaid, to whom I explained the traditional duties of a cantor as a chanter of prayer. Mohammed responded by offering to demonstrate his own chanting of Quranic verses in Arabic, one of five languages that he speaks. I listened to his mellifluous voice echo the similar Middle Eastern musical modes that I employ when leading synagogue services. In his prayer, I heard words such as “Rahman,” an Arabic cognate for the Hebrew “Rachaman,” meaning Merciful One, and, of course “salaam,” which I knew as “shalom.” His singing reminded me of my late friend Imam Sohaib Sultan, z”l, who was a fellow classmate in my first chaplaincy training class years ago, and with whom I traded our traditions’ sacred melodies.

Our spirits were raised even during the traditionally dreaded cleanup time, as we together refolded the tables we had brought, and shlepped them into vans. My friend Ben Lubinizki and I shot the breeze with young Muslim men while we waited to gain access to the trash and recycling room. At that moment, I felt inspired to pull out my recent Purim costume’s toque, on which was boldly sprawled the phrase: “Canada is not for sale.” In response to this gesture, my Muslim cousins laughed and cheered me on in solidarity. Here was another front on which we were united.

As we said our chag sameachs, Ramadan mubaraks and salaam/shaloms, I realized that a key to interfaith dialogue – even on the most fraught issues – can occur through shared life-affirming experiences such as this one.

The memory of that Sunday morning gathering gives me hope that our mutual striving for lovingkindness can overcome all else. As Rabbi Moskovitz reflected on the occasion, two divided communities had aligned “to feed the hungry and also to collaboratively feed our soul’s hunger for shared humanity.”

May we never forget these universal lessons for our time, lessons brought to us from a very real temporary oasis, built on the most infamous intersection in the poorest postal code in Canada. If humanity can achieve this here, of all places, we can do so in Israel, Gaza and the world.

Cantor Michael Zoosman is a board-certified chaplain with the Canadian Association for Spiritual Care. He serves as a spiritual health practitioner for the Assertive Community Treatment teams of Vancouver Coastal Health, working with individuals in the community living with severe mental health disorders and addiction. He sits as an advisory committee member at Death Penalty Action and is the co-founder of L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty. He served as cantor of Congregation Beth Israel 2008-2012.

Opening gates of kabbalah

Rabbi Matthew Ponak recently released his latest book, Embodied Kabbalah: Jewish Mysticism for All People. (photo by Marilyn Wolovick)

Rabbi Matthew Ponak introduced his new book, Embodied Kabbalah: Jewish Mysticism for All People, this month both in a Zoom event and in-person at the Victoria Jewish Community Centre.

According to the book’s description, the objective of Jewish mysticism is to “touch infinity with your feet planted in everyday, ordinary reality.” The book contains universal teachings that Ponak believes are necessary to the world at this time.

Delving into a millennium of Jewish writings, Ponak hopes his approach will serve as a counterweight to the focus in modern spirituality on bliss and transcendence. Throughout the centuries, Ponak argues, Judaism – including Jewish mysticism – has held “being a good person” as the ideal.

Embodied Kabbalah, written in the talmudic style, in which commentary surrounds the original texts, looks to the mystic teachings for finding a healthy balance between one’s spiritual life and external commitments to family, work and community. Many of the book’s sources have been translated into English for the first time.

During the launch at the Victoria JCC, Ponak spoke of the personal journey that led to the creation of the book. In his initial studies, he observed two different paths. “One was a path of transcendence,” he said, “a path of bliss, that all is well in the world and we should be celebrating all day. On one level that appealed to me, but I felt there was something missing in it.”

The other path, he said, is one of transformation. “This is one of deep self-knowledge: that I could get to know who I was inside, and new parts of me would start to come forward. There is a deep, radical honesty that can liberate parts of who we are. Those parts can enter into our outer lives as we become more whole.”

Upon further exploration, he discovered there was a way to incorporate both paths into one’s life.

“I found a particular teaching that says there is a time to transform – the work week – and a time to rejoice – Shabbat. One day a week, it is time to celebrate all that we have and focus on the positive, to not get weighed down by the negativity,” Ponak said. “There is a time for the deep personal transformation of working on ourselves, the spiritual work week. On Shabbat, however, everything is whole and we are, too. We feed ourselves delicious food and take an extra nap to help our bodies know the world is complete.”

Ponak emphasized that it is not necessary to choose between the paths of rejoicing and of transformation. There is a time for working and a time for celebrating. If all one has is work, then there is the risk of missing out on the beauty of life, he said. Alternatively, if one is in a prolonged state of transcendent joy, then a spiritual leader, for example, might become unable to help others grow because they have “left the world, so to speak, unable to relate to people.”

He said, “It is good to come off the mountain. It took me a long time to understand the value of that. If I had a trauma or a difficulty in my earlier years as a seeker, it was with the bliss. The transformation stuff was hard, but I was able to get it once it was taught to me in an accessible way.”

Ponak retraced various aspects of his spiritual journey. He studied transpersonal psychology (or spiritual psychology) and other religions. Through this, he found he could be both a spiritual person and grounded. “But there was a deeper part of me that knew there was something else,” he said. “There must be something in Judaism.”

After several years of study at the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College, he was able to decode the texts on his own. He discovered the hidden treasure of grounded Jewish spirituality that had been there all along in lesser-known mystical writings.

“If I had access to Embodied Kabbalah as a teenager, it could have saved me a lot of headaches and heartaches, to say nothing of my family’s stress,” he said. “This is why this book is so close to my heart.”

Among those who would benefit from the book, Ponak pointed to those interested in Jewish mysticism, those who have Jewish ancestry but feel alienated from Judaism, and those who want to learn about universal Jewish teachings as part of the global spiritual landscape.

Yet, for him, “the call to action that feels most urgent is to help people who are ‘ungrounded,’ who are finding mystical writings or going to spiritual retreats but are not connected to the earth: to the body or to their emotions. It’s time to open up the gates of Jewish wisdom to all who can benefit from it,” he said. “I hope this effort will help spiritual seekers to be responsible, relatable, whole and healthy – along with spiritually connected – so that we can be of our greatest service to humanity.”

For more information or to order the book, visit matthewponak.com.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Sharing her inspiration

On Oct. 8, nonagenarian Gloria Levi was the featured speaker at the JSA Snider Foundation Virtual Empowerment Series session co-sponsored by Jewish Seniors Alliance and the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture. The topic was What Inspires Me at 90.

Gyda Chud, co-president of JSA and president of the Peretz Centre, welcomed the approximately 70 attendees and shared the background of JSA’s Empowerment series.

Fran Goldberg introduced Levi as a feminist, an activist, a COVID survivor, a gerontologist, a therapist, a social worker and a woman of tremendous confidence, who finds joy in even the darkest of moments.

From her talk, it seems that Levi does indeed find inspiration in everything around her, from rustling breezes and glistening sunsets to soulful self-discovery. She finds meaning in both everyday happenings and the larger matters of the heart and social justice. If we were to sum up Levi’s nuanced and profound wisdom in a word, it would be wholeness. She elevates the whole person with all their perfect imperfections.

To Levi, self-discovery and self-knowledge are paramount values. She illustrated the importance of being true to oneself with the charming story of Rabbi Zusia, who lamented to God, bemoaning his not being like Moses and Abraham. God advised him to be exactly who he is – Zusia. The goal in life is not to strive for perfection but to be authentically oneself.

Through Levi’s lens of wholeness, even a global disaster like COVID-19 has vital lessons. A COVID-19 survivor, Levi refers to the virus as the 11th plague, but also is passionate about the important issues that the pandemic has brought to light. For example, it revealed the discrepancy between the haves and the have nots: the ones who support our daily life – the grocery store clerks, hospital employees, delivery drivers and food workers, among others – in stark contrast with the wealthy. The pandemic has yielded an awakening, a heightened awareness that things need to change on numerous levels, both environmentally and socially, said Levi.

Along with her commitment to social justice, Levi draws connections and inspiration from Jewish sources; for example, she refers to Leviticus, in which God tells Moses to instruct the Israelites to give the land a rest. During the sabbath year, the land is to lie fallow and to be “released” from cultivation, she explained. Weaving rest and restoration into our physical and spiritual worlds is a much-needed change, she said.

In conclusion, Levi quoted Ecclesiastes and reminded us that “vanity of vanities; all is vanity.” Her advice: embrace life, enjoy meaningful relationships and small kindnesses – and find inspiration all around us.

Tamara Frankel is a member of the board of Jewish Seniors Alliance and of the editorial committee of Senior Line magazine. She is also a board member of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver.

Reaching younger Jews

Madison Slobin wrote a guide on the Jewish ritual of mikvah because she wants to help people navigate and change our world.

Madison Slobin appeared in the pages of the Jewish Independent a few months ago for two projects she helped create: YVR Yenta and Shivah Delivers. These initiatives take Jewish rituals, such as matchmaking, in the first instance, and how we comfort mourners, in the second, and put a modern twist on them. Her latest project is another such endeavour: the writing and compiling of Rebirthing Ourselves to Rebuild Our World: A Feminist Mikvah Guide.

The guide begins by answering the question, what is a mikvah? “Mikvah is an ancient Jewish cleansing ritual performed in a sacred bath or in a natural body of water,” she writes. “We can participate in a mikvah ceremony to mark moments of transition, to make our souls and bodies feel holy, and to metaphorically rebirth ourselves and start anew.”

The Jewish Independent spoke to her about the project.

JI: What motivated you to write this guide?

MS: I was motivated to write this guide for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I saw a lot of friends and loved ones struggling to go through the transition from summer to fall due to COVID-19. It seemed like everyone’s plans for school, for work and in their lives generally had been altered or put on hold. I wanted to create a ritual space for people to process their grief, feelings of being stuck and lack of transition. To me, mikvah is a Jewish technology, which means it is an ancient tradition that is relevant to our context today and provides us with a useful blueprint for how to navigate our world. Mikvah can help us to create a forced transition in the absence of one, where we ask ourselves questions about where we have come from, where we are going and who we want to be when we get there.

The second reason I wanted to write this guide and title it Rebirthing Ourselves to Rebuild Our World is because we are collectively living in a moment of reckoning, where violent systems are being exposed and revolutionary change feels possible. I don’t want the world to “return to normal” after the pandemic has ended. I want us to create new systems, where our society is organized according to human value and dignity as opposed to being centred around capital. I wanted a forum to ask together: what work do we need to do internally to prepare ourselves to fight for the new world to come?

JI: Can you share a bit about your background, as it is relevant to your being able to write the guide and to guide others in the process?

MS: I had never guided a mikvah before this year but I am often engaged in thinking and learning about Jewish rituals, as I feel they keep me grounded and connect me to my history and ancestors. I was a Hebrew school teacher for quite a few years and grew up going to Camp Miriam, which led me down a path of working for Habonim Dror in a number of different capacities over the years. Through coordinating educational activities and building curricula, I saw firsthand the ways that Jewish ritual was a hugely helpful tool for young folks in guiding them to work towards social justice and liberation. Mikvah stood out to me as something that I wanted to learn more about, and the more I learned the different ways mikvah is being reclaimed and repurposed, the more I wanted to be a part of the movement of people doing so.

JI: How long have you practised the ritual? In what circumstances were you introduced to it?

MS: A couple of years ago, while working for Habonim Dror in New York City, my team and I went through a tough time. We were all feeling the weight of leading a Jewish organization through some very complicated situations and, ultimately, were feeling collectively burnt out. We drove to upstate New York and one of our team members led a beautiful mikvah for us. That experience helped me to understand the myriad ways that Jewish ritual can be repurposed to fit our daily needs and struggles. It was my first mikvah and it successfully allowed us to let go of experiences that had been weighing heavily on us.

I always thought mikvah was something that was reserved for Orthodox women and that it was to be strictly used for niddah, weddings or conversion. Experiencing a mikvah that was being led for me outside of these confines really opened my eyes to the ways that mikvah could be used as a modern technology, as opposed to an unchanging tradition.

JI: What are some of the benefits you’ve personally gained from participating in a mikvah? Do you do it regularly?

MS: Throughout the end of summer into fall, in preparation for the Jewish New Year, I was leading mikvah about once a week. I felt strongly that I didn’t want to be paid for this work, as I am one of the few people among my peers who has a steady job and income right now. That being said, I benefited greatly in other ways from leading this ritual for folks. It allowed me to meet amazing people who are also passionate about their Judaism or Jewishly curious folks who wanted to learn more. It allowed me to build community, the kind of Jewish community that I want to exist in Vancouver, centred around young Jews passionate about social justice. It allowed me space to continually ask myself how I want to be reborn and who I want to be, as I facilitated others asking themselves these questions.

I also led a couple special mikva’ot that included Indigenous folks, who brought and shared their own ceremonies and teachings around water and cleansing. I learned a lot from those individuals and am thankful for spaces where we can come together and share traditions and teachings with one another.

Lastly, leading all of these mikva’ot meant that I got to go swimming more often!

JI: There are three kosher (indoor) mikva’ot in Metro Vancouver, I think. It’s easier to see, perhaps, how a religious person would find meaning in the ritual. In what ways do you see the experience being meaningful for less religious women?

MS: Before every mikvah we would sit down and participate in a circle. Together, we would do some learning around mikvah, its ancient uses and how it is being reclaimed today. We would share and reflect together what purpose we wanted the mikvah to serve each one of us personally. We asked ourselves the question: what am I trying to work through that today’s ritual could help me with?

I found that, when the ritual becomes personalized and the individual chooses exactly how they want mikvah to be used, it is more likely to have a positive and lasting effect. Ultimately, mikvah gave people the opportunity to meet and connect with other like-minded people safely, so, if anything, it can just be an opportunity to do some learning, then have fun and go swimming with new friends.

JI: In what ways is your approach feminist, or different from more traditional approaches?

MS: I think the way I approach mikvah (and all Jewish ritual) is that traditions have to change and work for us in our contemporary context. It doesn’t make sense to practise Judaism in exactly the same ways that our ancestors did 2,000 years ago because our reality and our society does not look the same. I want my ancestors to recognize the rituals I am doing, but I also want to make sure that the rituals serve a function for me and the people around me, and that may mean expanding what they look like and who can participate. Jewish people continue to change and evolve, so I want our rituals and practices adapt and reflect that. I want to cultivate a living and ever-changing tradition.

JI: As winter approaches, how do you see your guiding working?

MS: I would be excited to lead a polar mikvah or two but my guess is that most likely folks will want to participate in the ritual when things warm up a little bit come spring.

JI: If there is anything else you’d like to add, please do.

MS: I was super-excited to see the guide being picked up and used across North America. There were people writing to me that I had never met, saying that they used the guide and found the ritual to be extremely meaningful.

I wrote the guide to be general enough so that Jews of any gender/race/sexuality in any location could use it to lead themselves through the ritual. I found the positive responses overwhelming and they helped me to feel connected to Jewry outside of Vancouver, who were going through many of the same hardships we were also experiencing. In writing the guide, I wanted to position myself in community with a wider movement of young Jews, demonstrating how Jewish ritual can be expanded to work for us and provide deep meaning throughout our lives.

That which no one else can do

Listening to an online class by a Chassidic rabbi, I heard this: “We’re each put on this earth to do something unique, something which no one else can do. No one before you, and no one after you.”

A little pressure? No kidding.

He went on to say: “Fulfil your true and essential purpose. That’s where you will see and experience your ultimate blessings.”

High expectations? Heck, yeah.

I hear these words time and again. Why? Because they’re one of the countless mantras of Chassidim. What’s more, they’re encouraging, positive and impressive, so who wouldn’t be curious? Until you find yourself asking: “But what is my purpose in this world?”

I ask myself that regularly. There are days when maybe I do a good deed for someone and see that person benefit and I think, “There it is.” Maybe I call an elderly friend and wish them good Shabbos. Perhaps I bake a bunch of challah to give away and I think, “There it is. That’s my purpose. Or is it?”

The $64,000 questions are, How do we identify our purpose? And can we have more than one purpose in life? I think the answer to the second question is a resounding yes.

According to a wise rabbi I know, “Every element of our lives is an integral part of our purpose. It’s multi-faceted at every moment.” Sometimes, our purpose can be doing something that makes us happy. Sometimes, it’s the exact opposite – it’s something we struggle with that, in the end, serves a higher purpose and maybe even has a holy outcome. It’s certainly not random though.

As for identifying our purpose, that can be a bit trickier. My guess is that often we don’t even recognize it in the moment, but it’s there, nonetheless. If you have the privilege of recognizing G-d’s purpose for you, consider yourself lucky.

Some people are blessed to have one, humongous, overarching talent, like being an inspirational public speaker. Or a devoted caregiver. Or whatever. Most of us though – we fumble along searching for what resonates, not only with us, but with others. Because, in the end, we are a collective. What we do is never in isolation. Never. We always impact others. Even if it’s not immediately apparent.

We are not single humans floating around this world, alone, or islands unto ourselves. We’re an integral part of relationships – with G-d, with our loved ones, with our co-workers, with our friends. Even with strangers. What purpose we have in life only comes to life when it impacts others. We don’t exist in a vacuum, thank goodness, because those are filled with shmutz.

The thing is, the details of each individual’s purpose look different. Your purpose is something that no one else on earth can do. However, it all converges at the same point, which is to make the world a holier, more light-filled, compassionate place where G-d’s presence is revealed. Whoa, that’s some heaviosity! I dare you to unpack that.

Constantly dipping my amateur toes in the ocean of Judaism – Chassidism, to be specific – I am struck by how often I hear those words: revealing G-d’s presence in this world. Don’t ask me to explain it. I’m just a rookie, trying to understand it a tiny bit more every day. I have miles to go. But I’m certainly up for the challenge.

All I know is this: sometimes we seek out our purpose, sometimes it seeks us out; sometimes gently, sometimes it whacks us upside the head. It doesn’t matter how it happens. It only matters that it does happen. Sooner rather than later. Because sooner gives us an opportunity to do something great, even if it seems small or insignificant. Purpose is all relative. But to what? To the precise moment when that specific purpose finds its way into the world and affects another human being. That’s all it takes. Simple. Like neuroscience. Or astrophysics.

I don’t profess to have any answers or even suggestions, or insights. I just have my own experiences to share. For most of my life, it never crossed my mind that each of us has a purpose that we’re put on this earth to fulfil, except maybe for the obvious ones: teachers help kids learn, doctors heal people, mechanics fix cars. But what was my purpose?

I spent my working life as a librarian and communications officer at a public library. I mostly helped people find things and do research. For a short period, I was a children’s librarian, so I shared the love of literacy, reading stories, singing songs and teaching rhymes to little ones and their parents. Is that purpose? I’m not sure. Certainly it was fun. But it wasn’t what I would call meaningful, in the spiritual realm. Maybe I impacted a few people in some way, who knows. But did I change lives? It didn’t feel like it.

As a communications officer, I spent a good part of each day writing: annual reports, speeches, press releases, book reviews, brochures. Anything and everything. Was that my purpose in life? I doubt it. Maybe I touched a few people with the annual article I wrote in memory of my father’s yahrzeit. But did that give me purpose? Only momentarily.

Then I retired. And started volunteering.

First, I started baking challah buns, as part of the Light of Shabbat meals that Chabad Richmond delivers to homebound seniors on a regular basis, and delivering some of those meals. Now, I know it sounds kind of flimsy and trivial, but baking challah gave my life more meaning. I wasn’t just mixing ingredients, forming them into buns and baking them. As I learned from some rebbetzins, making challah is an auspicious time to give tzedakah and pray for what you want or need for yourself, for your family and for others. I knew that the people who’d be receiving my challah buns might not otherwise have challah for Shabbat. And, even if it wasn’t meaningful to them, it was to me. Oddly enough, that simple act of baking challah gave me a sense of purpose. Delivering it and shmoozing with the seniors was an extra bonus.

As my volunteer activities increased, so did my sense of purpose. When I began tutoring English to Israeli high school students via video chat through the Israel Connect program, I was terrified, but willing to try. After all, what did I know about teaching? Exactly bupkis. Little did I realize that the curriculum was only the supporting cast. The main actors were my student and me. While the goal of the program is for Israeli teens to become proficient in English vocabulary, comprehension and conversation – and they do – the meaningful stuff happens in our connection to one another. When you parse it, life is all about building relationships. About finding ways to connect. It’s about trust and compassion, learning and discovery. It’s about impact. Traveling both ways.

All that to say that having a sense of purpose in life doesn’t require monumental acts. It simply requires meaningful acts. Acts of giving.

So, go out and find your purpose. Or let it find you. Just get out of your own way.

Shelley Civkin is a happily retired librarian and communications officer. For 17 years, she wrote a weekly book review column for the Richmond Review. She’s currently a freelance writer and volunteer.

Women sail to Miriam’s Well

Left to right: Devorah Abramson, Yehudit Dribben and Sheva Chaya blow the shofar at Miriam’s Well on Lake Kinneret. (photo by Aviva Spiegel)

In the annals of the current COVID-19 pandemic, artist Maureen Kushner has a rare happy story – and likely the only one dating back some 3,500 years.

For the last 12 years on the anniversary of the death of Miriam the Prophetess on Nissan 10 in the Hebrew calendar, New York-born Kushner has been chartering a vessel from Tiberias-based Holyland Sailing Ltd. to bring a boat full of women to the spot on Lake Kinneret where, according to Midrash (Bamidbar Rabbah 1:1), the mystical spring known as Miriam’s Well now rests.

Typically, 126 women and children (corresponding to Miriam’s age when she died) equipped with rams horns, violins, harps, drums, flutes, guitars and tambourines have made the maritime pilgrimage. They sail on the Sea of Galilee, also called Lake of Gennesaret, to what Jewish tradition considers the exact spot where the miraculous spring that supplied the Children of Israel with drinking water during their 40 years of wandering in the Sinai Desert ended its own journey.

This year, the yahrzeit (death anniversary) of Miriam fell on Friday, April 3, immediately before Passover. Kushner – who is named in Hebrew after the miracle-working older sister of Moses and Aaron – booked the sailing for Thursday, April 2, in order to allow Sabbath-observant women from Jerusalem and other distant cities to join in the fête. All was set for this year’s celebration when Israel’s Health Ministry locked the country down in an attempt to halt the spread of the coronavirus.

photo - Many passengers short, because of COVID-19 restrictions, 40 women were still able to sail on the King David across the Kinneret to Miriam’s Well — Many passengers short, because of COVID-19 restrictions, 40 women were still able to sail on the King David across the Kinneret to Miriam’s Well. *(photo by Aviva Spiegel)*

Thanks to those regulations, which at their most severe restricted Israelis to remaining within 100 metres of their home and still prevent almost all non-citizens from landing at Ben-Gurion Airport, the pandemic has somewhat abated. Recently, the Health Ministry began lifting its pandemic regulations.

Without any tourists arriving, the pilgrim boats remained moored in Tiberias and at Kibbutz Ginosar for three months. But, on Wednesday, June 3, the ministry allowed Kushner and her social distancing-reduced group of 40 women and children – each bringing facemasks, water, hats, sunscreen and kosher snacks – to make their 135-minute voyage on the lyre-shaped lake. When the vessel King David raised its anchor, it was Holyland Sailing’s first boat trip since quarantine regulations went into effect.

“What a hallelujah for our beloved Kinneret!” said Kushner, who was the artist-in-residence at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver in 2005. “What a hallelujah in honour of our great, great, great Hakodesh Baruch Hu [the Holy One Blessed Be He], who is filled with goodness and compassion and love and blesses Am Yisrael [the Jewish people] with rain and dew and sustenance and a good life here in Eretz Israel, the good land.”

Kushner was especially excited that this past winter has seen heavy rains that filled Israel’s main freshwater reservoir to the brim, at 209 metres below sea level after five years of drought.

“The Kinneret is full! In great and abundant thanks to Hashem [God] in the zechut [merit] of Miriam Hanivia [Miriam the Prophetess], we celebrated with shofarim, drums, flutes and the harp,” she said.

Miriam the Prophetess today has become a popular figure for many Jewish women.

The Torah relates she was married to Caleb ben Yefunah. Though she died in the wilderness of Zin, her widower miraculously carried the spring named in his wife’s honour across the Jordan River on Nissan 10, the anniversary of her death, explained Kushner.

Miriam’s death is described in Numbers 20:1 and, in the next verse, the Israelites are described as complaining of the lack of water at Kadesh. The text reads, “Miriam died there, and was buried there. And there was no water for the congregation.”

In Jewish texts, this abrupt transition between her death and the lack of water was explained by postulating that a “Well of Miriam” appeared after she died. Further elaboration identified the rock that Moses struck to bring forth water in Exodus 17:5-6 with this well.

So powerful was the tradition of Miriam’s Well in Judaism that, even after the spring disappeared into Lake Kinneret some three-and-a-half millennia ago, it has occasionally miraculously appeared in the Diaspora.

According to Chassidic lore, once, just before Yom Kippur’s Kol Nidre prayer began, Yitzchak Isaac Taub (1751-1821), who was the sage of Nagykálló (Kalov in Yiddish) in eastern Hungary, called on his assistant Rabbi Yaacov Fish to harness his horse and wagon. The two set out to Fish’s fields, where they found a small pool. Immediately, the holy man disrobed and immersed himself, while Fish stood by transfixed. After the Day of Atonement, Fish returned to his fields, but the pond had disappeared. Fish asked his master, “Rabbi, as you know, despite our long friendship, I never mix into your affairs. But I beg you to enlighten me about the pool of water that appeared and disappeared so mysteriously in my fields.”

The holy man, who founded the Kaliver Chassidic dynasty, smiled: “If Rabbi Yaacov had had the sense, he would have dipped himself the same as I did, for, at that moment, Miriam’s Well passed by.”

Gil Zohar is a writer and tour guide in Jerusalem.

(Note: This article has been updated from the print version to note that Maureen Kushner was the artist-in-residence at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver in 2005.)

Jewish surety in Shabbat ritual

We have two Jewish dogs. When we sing Shabbat blessings, our dogs come over, sit politely, and wait until we’re done with the Hamotzi, the blessing over the bread. Then, they each get a small chunk of challah. This is the only people food they get. We don’t feed them while we eat and they don’t beg. However, when they hear us start to sing blessings, they know what to do!

On Chanukah or Passover, we are ready with alternative treats. Every night after we light Chanukah candles, they get dog biscuits. On Passover, they get matzah.

Our lab/pointer mix, Sally, who is more than 15 years old, has been doing poorly. Bigger dogs don’t usually live this long. She’s had a good life. We love her dearly. When she started having trouble eating, despite pandemic vet visits and several medicines, we were ready to try anything. She vomited and would eat only sparingly.

Then I had an idea. We had leftover homemade challah after Shabbat ended last week. I took out a piece, broke it into smaller bits, and started reciting brachot (blessings). I sang the Hamotzi. She moved her sore joints and sat near me. She ate challah. I did it again. She ate a little more challah. I kept going. In my happy blessing voice, I sang the Shehecheyanu (“Who has given us life”) blessing, feeling grateful for having reached this moment. Challah eaten. I thanked the Almighty for making me in the divine image. Challah eaten. I sang the blessing about giving tired people the strength to go on, from the morning blessings. She ate more challah.

My husband had small luck with this approach. In the end, she ate more for me. Was it my singing? My happy fake-out training technique, after 15 years of dog training to sit for blessings? We don’t know why it worked. After a day or two, we ran out of challah and switched to dog biscuits. Now, she is eating a weird mixture of special canned dog food diet, chicken and kibble again. Things are better, for now.

I want to tell one of our relatives, Ann, in New York City, about this success – about our old Jewish dog, her many blessings and the challah – but I can’t call her. She died May 3rd from a blood disorder. Once she was admitted to the hospital in New York, she was alone. Although she didn’t die from COVID-19, she died alone because of it. Ann, may her memory be a blessing, loved dogs and Jewish tradition. She would have laughed to hear about how Sally regained her appetite because of those blessings and challah.

It feels right now like we’re wandering in the wilderness. There’s so much uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Every day, things change. Many news sources refer to this virus as “the novel coronavirus.” Yes, it’s new, unlike all the other coronaviruses. Yet, in some ways, this situation, where we’re faced by terrible illness or challenge, arises repeatedly throughout the Torah, rabbinic texts and our history. It may be new to us, but it’s the same old story. How do we face these challenges? How can we behave in Jewish ways when the challenges seem so huge? We study what worked in the past – our history and traditions can help.

How do we make Shabbat (or make anything special) in a time when all the days seem hard and the same? In the Talmud, Tractate Shabbat 69, “Rav Huna said: ‘If someone was walking on the road or in the desert and he does not know when Shabbat is, he counts six days and then keeps Shabbat for one day.’ Hiya the son of Rav said: ‘He keeps one day and counts six.’ What is this dispute really about? One bases his opinion on the creation of the world, and one bases his opinion on Adam.”

The rabbis discuss whether we celebrate Shabbat after the six days of creation so, when we don’t know which day is Shabbat, we count six days and then observe one. But Rav Hiya starts with Adam, the first person, and recognizes that one starts with our creation story. Without humans, there would be no way to make Shabbat, so we celebrate first, and then we count six until the next Shabbat.

Rav Hiya’s approach reminds us that we humans are central to this Jewish observance narrative. Our family had to remember that, even if burials and shivah aren’t done normally now, Zoom memorial services and shivahs are for us, the living, to help us navigate through this uncertainty.

Sally the dog is still with us for now, thank goodness. She reminds me, every day, to keep counting (and reciting!) my blessings. Whether you count six days and then celebrate, or celebrate and then count six days, we have these very human routines to help in navigating the unknown – the road, the desert, or a global pandemic.

So, please, grab some challah, say a brachah and train your Jewish dog. Somehow, I can still hear Ann (z”l) laughing as I tell this story. Ahad Ha’am said, “More than the Jewish people have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jews.” Our dog Sally has reminded us, too, that, once we say those blessings, a delicious treat always follows. It’s up to us to keep making the blessings and finding those Shabbat treats.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.