spirituality

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.

Safe spaces, diverse voices

Bradley West and Shayna Plaut (photos from conference organizers)

As part of Winnipeg Pride Week in May, local organizers put on the first-ever Queer and Faithful Conference.

A grassroots event created to give voice to LGBTQ2+ people of colour and their experiences with faith and spirituality, the conference featured two panel discussions with opportunity for informal roundtable discussions. The keynote speaker at the May 25-26 conference at Robert A. Steen Community Centre was writer, facilitator and performer Jenna Tenn Yuk. She spoke about exploring identity and the intersections of race, queerness and faith through personal storytelling, spoken word poetry and facilitation; encouraging interfaith conversations around intersectionality, privilege, social location and other aspects; creating safer spaces for LGBTQ2+ people of colour in faith-based environments; and ensuring safe spaces to ask questions and explore the issues as a community.

Bradley West, who has been involved with Winnipeg’s queer community for more than 20 years, and Shayna Plaut, a former Vancouverite who now lives in Winnipeg, were part of the conference’s Jewish panel.

“I think the conference came about because there were people who had been talking about the importance of keeping their faith, while also celebrating their gender and sexual diversity, and there were some people who were finding that to be a little difficult,” West told the Independent.

Explaining that it was an uncomfortable topic for many people in the broader queer community, he said, “In fact, one of the members said, on Saturday, that, ‘because faith rejected us so soundly, we have rejected faith.’ We need to create a safe space where we can come together and have these conversations – where people from the various faith communities and also from the queer community can come together in a mutual space.”

While such conversations have been going on for some time, typically led by faith leaders and queer community organizers, the aim of the recent conference was to offer a more personal approach.

“The organizers wanted to have voices of the people who are more marginalized in our community, because of their skin tone, or religion, or spirituality, or faith,” said West. “They wanted to make sure it wasn’t just centred around white voices; white, Christian voices….. Oftentimes, when we are having conversations about faith in this Canadian landscape, we default to the dominant voice which, in our historical context, is Christian.

“So, they definitely had a lot of Christians who were there and who were involved, but, in terms of the planning and the panel speakers, and in terms of how they wanted people to think, was thinking of how we might be able to create an open dialogue with each other … to be able to, first, honour our own faith journey, but then also to understand the faith journey of others, especially when that faith journey is very different from our own.”

According to conference organizers, 70 to 80 people attended over the two-day period, with attendees coming from Winnipeg, as well as from surrounding areas, such as Morden, Selkirk, Steinbach and Portage La Prairie.

“From what I experienced, everyone … was approaching it with a spirit of reflection,” said West. “They were definitely gently challenged by the speakers to reflect on their own personal participation in terms of do you really believe your faith is the only faith or the true faith … and does that subtly reinforce this idea that those who are different are ‘less than’?”

The speakers, he continued, “were gently challenging people to think about how we interact – not only with the different denominations in our faith, but everyone of Abrahamic faiths, with different strings of denominations, and also those outside of some of the faiths … different groups practising different versions of the larger faith. Sometimes, we have a tendency to think that our journey and our view is the view that is shared by everyone in our faith … and so, there were those gentle reminders to reflect on that. Overall, as a participant, I would say there was a sense of a call to self-reflection, and there wasn’t any resistance in terms of the intent to self-reflect, for sure.”

For West, one thing that struck a chord was that, even though he was in a room full of strangers at the beginning of the event, everyone got to know one another very quickly. “I think it was very much about, yes, we have differences, but we also have commonalities and, as we move forward, we need to look at both … have a bifocal lens in honouring our differences – not minimizing or whitewashing, or asking us to abandon our differences in order to get along … just focusing on our similarities. We’re going to honour that and work together, and look at how we’ll create spaces and places within our own lives. And then maybe, by extension, our own communities will allow more of these dialogues.

“The gathering had the flavour of us coming together and having these conversations, and continuing to do so outside of this space,” he said. “That core that comes from great changers, like [Mahatma] Gandhi, talking about that idea of, if you want to change something, first, change yourself, because, wherever you go, there you are. If you change yourself, you’ll automatically change the spaces you go into, because you are no longer the same person.”

Plaut’s faith has changed over the years. Born into a Chassidic home in the United States, her family decided to follow Conservative Judaism when she was 5.

“The joke I like to say is, I’m queer, I’m Jewish, I’m a mom, I have seven tattoos, 13 earrings, and I keep a modicum of kosher,” said Plaut. “I teach at the University of Winnipeg and work in the field of human rights and journalism.”

When asked to help organize the conference, Plaut jumped at the chance. She took on the role of food coordinator and ensured all the food was vegetarian, so that everyone could eat, regardless of their religious or dietary restrictions. She also took it upon herself to make sure that not only the Abrahamic faiths were represented, but also Hindu or Sikh, by reaching out to some of her students.

“Folks would use their own experiences and explore some of the strengths that they found within their faith and also some of tensions,” said Plaut about the conference. She said that some people feel like they have to choose, in terms of their identities – religious, cultural and sexual – and that the conference encouraged an exploration of various faiths’ strengths and limitations in terms of guiding people, and what it means to find acceptance within a faith.

The conference attracted a range of attendees.

“Many of the folks who came, not all, but a good proportion, may not have identified as being queer themselves,” said Plaut. “Many of them were grandparents, actually, or parents who wanted to know how to better support their children or grandchildren. They wanted to learn.”

While organizers worked hard to share with and connect people, they left it up to the participants whether to exchange their contact information with one another. Some attendees expressed interest in continuing the conversation beyond the conference and organizers are working on determining the next steps. Many of the participants joined the nearly 50,000 marchers at the Winnipeg Pride Parade, which took place June 1.

“It was amazing, our biggest Pride ever in terms of participants in the parade,” said Plaut. “There were over 112 organizations that registered either floats or walking groups.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Learning to lead prayer

Rabbi Uri Kroizer from the Ashkenazi track with his students. (photo by Itai Nadav)

Some 50 prayer leaders recently completed the first session of the inaugural Ashira program. The program’s goal is to train prayer leaders (schlichei tzibur) from across Israel to direct creative prayers in one of the following three tracks: Ashkenazi, Sephardi and contemporary liturgy.

This unique program, which is held at the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary in Jerusalem, is a joint initiative of Rabbi Avi Novis Deutsch, dean of the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary, and Yair Kochav, one of the founders of the Tahrir cultural platform. Both are graduates of the New York Federation’s social leadership Cohesion Lab.

At one of the meetings at the Schechter campus in Jerusalem, Novis Deutsch explained, “Musical prayer is at the crux of the soul – it is clear that enabling people to study prayer touches their souls. We can discern true happiness in the classes. As the director of many programs at the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary, I can sincerely say that when you teach Torah you sometimes see happiness, but when you teach prayer you constantly see happiness on the students’ faces.”

The Ashira program is comprised of 15 weekly five-hour meetings, where students study both theoretical and practical aspects of prayers and it is sponsored by donors from Vancouver and various parts of Israel.

From December 2018 to just after Passover 2019, when you walked down the hallways of the building, you would hear different styles of music from the classrooms.

“The students represent a broad variety of Israeli communities – some are studying in rabbinical programs, some are prayer leaders, and all have a love for Jewish liturgical music,” said Novis Deutsch. “The Ashira program furthers social cohesion; it is a collaborative project with the leaders of prayer renewal in Israel. Many of those who participate in the program never thought that they could be prayer leaders. Ashira allows them to imagine this possibility – it reduces their anxiety about leading prayers and gives them a voice.

The program’s premise is that, to find your voice as a prayer leader, you must acquire an in-depth knowledge of the tools, styles and procedures in this field.

“Before we embarked on the program, we assembled 12 leaders in the field of Israeli music and started a process, which gave birth to Ashira,” explained Yair Kochav. Of the three tracks, he said the Ashkenazi and Sephardi work with the existing liturgy, teaching it to the new prayer leaders, while the “contemporary liturgy track fuses the first two tracks with modern Israeli reality.”

photo - Sephardi track director Hacham David Menachem (holding the oud) — Sephardi track director Hacham David Menachem (holding the oud). *(photo by Itai Nadav)*

According to Kochav, each track is divided into three sections: theoretical, musical and practical.

“This gives students a multifaceted experience of the essence of prayer and what motivates people to pray,” said Kochav. “Each identity and motivation must receive its own space. There is a certain apprehension that the traditional liturgy will disappear due to the growth of a popular modern Israeli liturgy. Therefore, students in all three tracks meet to discuss the similarities and differences of each liturgy.”

Rabbi Rani Yager, from the Shalom Hartman Institute, who heads the contemporary liturgy track together with Yair Harel, said, “The most important lesson that I learned in this program is that prayer is a need felt by people in all communities: it is not connected to one’s religious or ethnic background, nor to one’s gender. People are willing to discuss this need, to learn and to share their feelings. Singing together requires courage, and the enormous need for prayer engendered this courage.”

Rabbi Uri Kroizer and Dr. Naomi Cohn Zentner direct the Ashkenazi track and Hacham David Menachem and Drori Yehoshua direct the Sephardi track.

Students study the musical scales of each liturgical style; each student plays an instrument and/or sings during the classes. During the breaks, students meet in the hallway and eat dinner together (organized by different students each week) and discuss current events.

“Those of us in the Ashkenazic track, who come from different backgrounds, meet weekly and make space for the voices that we bring from our homes,” said Shira Levine, who received her master’s from the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies and is now a rabbinical student of the Hartman/Oranim program. “I have learned much from Rabbi Kroizer, who is an expert in Ashkenazic liturgy and a real mensch. I hope to study Sephardic liturgy in the next session.”

Osnat Ben Shoshan Pruz, a participant in the Sephardi track, said, “The program opened a door to a significant and immense world in which I have participated for many years. Ashira provided me with an opportunity to study, in depth, areas that I had not previously had a chance to examine. I have acquired numerous tools and knowledge in liturgy, Talmud and Jewish philosophy.”

“The program changed the manner in which I sing prayers, which goes beyond the pages of the siddur,” said David Arias, a Schechter Rabbinical Seminary student who participates in the contemporary liturgy track.

The next program starts in the fall. For more information, visit schechter.edu/schechter-rabbinical-seminary/about-the-rabbinical-seminary.

Revisit the Jewish fabric arts

When I was very young, I learned to embroider. My mother was a fabulous seamstress, but sewing was not my thing. Later, around middle school, an aunt taught me how to knit. I picked up crocheting but never really liked it or excelled at it. However, I took knitting to all levels, including a dress for myself, and, later, I returned to various kinds of needlepoint, coming to love them.

On my and my husband’s bedroom wall, there are framed embroidery pieces, each with its history, which I collected in the 1970s. I would have liked to have in my collection some work from Jewish women, who had done embroidery before immigrating to Israel from various countries, but they had stopped doing such work, and all the pieces I have were made by Arab women, who continued the craft.

It was with this background that I thoroughly enjoyed perusing the new-to-me pages of Jewish Threads: A Hands-on Guide to Stitching Spiritual Intention into Jewish Fabric Crafts by Diana Drew with Robert Grayson (Jewish Lights Publishing, 2011). The author explains her journey from sewing to fabric crafts, from editing for the division of Random House that published books on handicrafts to being awakened spiritually while editing for spiritual book publisher SkyLight Paths.

In Jewish Threads, there are 30 projects and 30 interesting stories (written by the author’s husband) about each artist and their project. The contributors come from the United States – Alabama, California, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington – and Israel.

The book has four parts: at home, in the synagogue, celebrating holidays and through the Jewish lifecycle. For the home, there are wall hangings, a needlepoint and a purse. For the synagogue, there is a runner, a Shulchan Aruch cover, placekeepers and Torah mantles. The holiday section includes challah covers, a quilt, a vest, puppets, a matzah cover, an afikomen holder and a seder plate. And, lastly, the Jewish lifecycle section includes quilts, a challah cover, a tallit and tallit bags. Another five “inspirations” include several chuppahs, a tallit bag, a wall hanging and a bimah cloth.

The techniques include quilting, appliqué, embroidery, needlepoint, cross-stitch, crochet, knitting, felting and needle felting.

Although decidedly not for beginners, each project lists details for getting started, what you’ll need and step-by-step instructions, sketches and how to finish. The “final threads” chapter offers how-to’s for quilt-making, lettering, a stitch guide, resources and projects for sewing circles, parents and children and holidays.

Sybil Kaplan is a journalist, lecturer, book reviewer and food writer in Jerusalem. She created and leads the weekly English-language Shuk Walks in Machane Yehuda, she has compiled and edited nine kosher cookbooks, and is the author of Witness to History: Ten Years as a Woman Journalist in Israel.

Striving and building more

I wanted to share an interesting issue I stumbled into while reading online. It was in a Jewish discussion group. The short version (without violating anyone’s privacy) was that one person would be having surgery in the days before Yom Kippur. She was struggling with the concept that she couldn’t fast, as she had to be eating and drinking frequently, in small amounts, after the surgery.

It took me a while to figure this post out. This was bigger than the observance of a specific commandment. This was a person who was having a weight-loss procedure. Her issues around food were likely larger than fasting on Yom Kippur. The people in the discussion group emphasized how important the surgery was to her long-term health. (Nobody embarrassed her by asking difficult questions.) Meanwhile, another person in the group was having shoulder surgery. She worried about how she would hold a prayer book. This seemed easier to solve, as it was a physical and not a psychological issue. Suggestions flew across the web: a music stand, a lectern, a friend who could help, etc.

As a kid, growing up in the Reform movement, there was a great emphasis put on fasting on Yom Kippur. Fasting was a sign that you were really invested in the holiness of the day. Yet, this wasn’t something done on other fast days, or even in terms of other mitzvot (commandments). My family was involved in the Jewish community every day, but, on Yom Kippur, I remember seeing people at our congregation putting a big energy into fasting that I hardly saw at other times of the year.

When I was in university and when I met my husband, I was introduced to people with many other ways of observing Jewish tradition (or not). His family is everything from secular to Lubavitch, with every variation in between. He pointed out that, if you’re sick, a rabbi would tell you not to fast. He pointed out that, in his extended family, there were people who fasted but did not attend synagogue, and those who attended synagogue daily, but couldn’t fast for health reasons. He reminded me that this isn’t clear-cut, even if it initially looks that way.

When we learn about Judaism, often as kids before bar or bat mitzvah age, we’re presented with a lot of information in binaries. It’s black and white, but that is also the way most grade school children absorb any new information, not just Jewish content. As we age, we learn that, in fact, the world is often more complex. It’s often multiple variations of grey (never mind chartreuse) instead.

Health issues, child rearing, our work lives – these all affect how we observe holidays. There is no universal measuring stick that indicates how this works, either. Things change over our lives, and having kids or an illness can affect our observances. Some people fast easily, and others build sukkot (temporary hut dwellings) without a fuss. Others cannot fast without serious issues, and I’d bet there are plenty of people in the Jewish community who hesitate, for one reason or another, to erect a sukkah on their own.

The thing that hopefully does remain constant, for everyone, is the emphasis on striving to be better people in the year to come. Wherever you are, in your Jewish practice, or in the way you treat others, or in your business dealings, you can probably grow and improve. We can choose to make change in our lives.

There are, of course, people out there who are Jewish but don’t think about mitzvot, attend any synagogue or fast. However, some of these same people may pride themselves in being ethical in their business, in how they treat others, or in how they treat animals. They may not even realize that these, too, are Jewish values.

There are also so many ways in which these are particular Jewish concerns that link us to other faith communities. One of the pillars of Islam is jihad and, no, it’s not all about holy war. For faithful Muslims, this concept is about striving – striving to be a better student, family member or worker, to be more religious or spiritual, and onwards. Christians often speak about love, but also it must be put into action. It’s work to make compassionate acts towards others a priority, no matter your religion.

Whatever your community, you can offer others a supportive presence that helps them become the people they aim to be. It’s in a community, whether it’s physical or an online discussion group, that we can unwrap our concerns and get help in solving obstacles that keep us from doing what we’d hoped in life (Jewishly, or otherwise).

I love Sukkot and am looking forward to spending time in the sukkah outdoors. However, it’s also a time to welcome people in as guests – and to build that supportive space. You may not build a sukkah or wave a lulav and etrog, but you can be a builder. Begin by supporting others as they strive towards being their best selves. It starts with a smile, a welcoming invitation or a positive response. Happy 5779! May it be everything that you hope to become!

Joanne Seiff writes 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. See more about her at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.