WORD

Posted on October 11 2012 by iasr
A Word a Week from the World’s Best Seller

 


Amichai Lau-Lavie’s New Bible Blog

 

The annual Torah re-run series begins 10/12/12. Follow the journey with Amichai’s newest one-year-long blog.

Subscribe to get 52 weekly posts and/or audio podcasts from the road, with 52 Biblical words  - each one a password to the riddles of our lives.

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THIS WEEK'S WORD

Late Night Crave 2 Early Grave? How to feed or not a hungry Soul. Word 33

Posted on May 23 2013 by amichai
WORD: A Word a Week from the World’s Best Seller. Follow the Annual Torah Re-Run Series with Amichai Lau-Lavie’s Newest Year-Long Blog. To subscribe via email click here. To listen to the audio version click here.

 

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meat
בשר
It’s 1am and I’m driving back to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv after a 4 hour Tantric Meditation Workshop for men in which I was both teacher and participant and I’m really hungry. For meat.
There’s not that much open at this hour on a weekday and although I have some fruits at home, and some decent cheese, I know that the late night shwarma joints are still open for a bit on Agrippas St. and the thought of one of those right now, with their salad bar of exotic types of pickles keeps me going through the drive. I didn’t have dinner. But what of my mostly vegetrian vows, and what of the recent urproar about what’s really going on in slaughter houses all through Israel?
I make a note of these objections, hesitate, but a louder voice, of which I’m neither proud nor totally ashamed, insists of hunger, not just for food but also for the consolation that it sometimes brings. Comfort food, some call it. Or frustaration food, a compensation, clearly noted, for the fact that here I was in a room with 15 amazing men, all breathing together and talking about erotic selves, and even though it’s the noble and right thing to do – here I am driving home alone, again. And hungry. Hm.
The link between the flesh and  meat, all the colors of desire, and of craving, and the human need for more. How often it gets us into trouble in sex and in food and from crave to grave. Dealing with this tension is exactly what the Tantric training is about.
So yes, the wrapped up meat sandwich, with parsley, pickled radishes, garlic spread, fresh finely cut salad and just the right amount of spice is warm and deeply satisfying as I sit there at Sami’s, surrounded by taxi drivers and an religious couple on a date. I am in bed by 2am, both satified and mortified, a restless sleep ensues. I think I dream of deserts, vast and empty, with only wisps of smoke in faraway horizons forever eluding my grasp.
In the morning I open the book to look deeper at this week’s text and there is the meat, and there is the craving, and there are the graves of lust. Numbers Chapter 11,  this week’s Torah text, B’halotecha, is a weird mix of protests for meat and prophetic visions. The people are tired of Manna, claiming that ‘our soul is dry’ and Moses yells and people begin to claim prophecies and visions, and from up above the qualis are sent, as they migrate each year, and the people hunt and binge and die in droves, the meat still in their teeth. The graves of lust are mass graves of desire, a warning forever etched in our collective soul.
What’s there to learn of this horrendous story? The simple lesson of ‘less is more’, of less craving, of more presence, of being satisfied with what you got. But who are we kidding? the desire for more flesh, sex, intimacy, meat, plenty, power is what drives us to distraction from those days in the desert to right here and now.
There are times for real needs to be met. Oliver’s ‘please sir, I want some more’ comes from an honest place of hunger. My yearning for that wrapped up flesh earlier this week comes from a hunger deeper yet, and more or maybe less complicated. I judge it and perhaps I ought to be more stern and disciplined – but I give it room, compassion and a sigh, and a hug.
Perhaps the story in this chapter of the wanderings of our ancestores is about greed that is based on nostalgia, on desires not for what is here and now, but for anything but. This is a hard lesson to learn, to remember, to put into use. Comfort food, after all, is about what we know from home, from Egypt, from childhood, even though it may be what our adult selves know to be ethically questionable and nutrioun wise – wrong. Part of growing up is about taking a stand on difficult choices, away from the past wrongs, towards a better next. Giving up on meat is def. one of those battles that we human must, i think, take on.
I try.
There is a fine line between excessive desire and ascetic withdrawl. Not every crave leads to an early grave. But many do.
We each must find that fine line and stick to it as often as possible.
Warning heeded, thank you Torah. But everything in moderation, including moderation. Every once in a while, like that other night, going to sleep with meat between your teeth (even though I flossed and brushed) is just what makes one really happy, and that, forgive me cows, and sorry Moses, is as good as it sometimes get. And yet it’s good to aspire higher.
Shabbat Shalom

 

Amichai Lau-Lavie is the Founder and Executive Director of Storahtelling, Inc. creating sustainable solutions for life-long Jewish Learning since 1999. storahtelling.org

Lonely is the New Leper. And what can we do about it? Word #32

Posted on May 17 2013 by amichai
WORD: A Word a Week from the World’s Best Seller. Follow the Annual Torah Re-Run Series with Amichai Lau-Lavie’s Newest Year-Long Blog. To subscribe via email click here. To listen to the audio version click here.

LEPER

מצרע

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It turns out  loneliness can really kill you.
Judith Shulevitz, in yet another laser sharp article that came out last week in the New Republic, writes about scientific  data  supporting what many of us know, painfully, first hand: the lonelier you are, the more likely it is that you will be prone to physical sickness, sometimes with lethal results.  
But there’s something each and every one of us can do about it. 

‘Who are the lonely?’ she asks. ‘They’re the outsiders: not just the elderly, but also the poor, the bullied, the different. Surveys confirm that people who feel discriminated against are more likely to feel lonely than those who don’t, even when they don’t fall into the categories above. ’

I read this article closely, twice, fascinated, personally touched. Thinking about my own lonely days, and those of so many I love. Everyone takes turns. For some its more acute than others. 

This may be surprising to some of you, but I get a fair share of the lonely blues, which isn’t quite the same as being alone. I’m certainly not topping the charts and feel no need to be too worried, blessed with friends and family and a busy inner life…but am now more keenly aware of the subtle, almost invisible ways in which I have internalized being an outsider, rejected by some, silenced by others, made lonelier yet, more often than I’d like. So what can I  do about it?

Start off by owning it. 

 I know I’m hardly the only one among my peers and friends who is feeling this. For so many different reasons. So many different phases of life. 

Single friends, for instance, beyond a certain age, both men and women, straight or gay, deal with this, a lot. Divorced, widowed, broken up and not quite found that special someone. 

You can feel it on Facebook, at certain hours, certain days.  

Sometimes you’d think people would know better, esp. the ones who may have been made to feel this way in the past. The other day I was invited to a holiday lunch where 10 of us gathered. I knew just the host, the other 8 were couples,  who knew each other well, making little room or hearty welcome for the single newcomer their midst. They were super nice, the food was great, but I left there feeling empty. And frustrated and a little sad. Mostly about the lack of sensitivity. 

Last Saturday night about 30 of us, mostly Jewish gay men of former or present religious practice, met at my house in Jerusalem with my dear friend and teacher, Rabbi Steve Greenberg, the first openly gay Orthodox rabbi, to celebrate the publication of his important book on this topic - now in Hebrew.

One of the main topics that came up in conversation was loneliness. Even those of us who are out to our friends and families, welcomed at the Sabbath table, are more often than not reluctant to bring home a new boyfriend or partner, rarely invited to share our private lives, needs, emotions.  It doesn’t always feel safe, or welcomed. 
This awkward silencing, I know it well, breeds terrible loneliness.

The lack of touch, writes Shulevitz, the lack of being truly seen, will simply chip away at our well being. “The key part of feeling lonely is feeling rejected, and that, it turns out, is the most damaging part.”

We’ve inherited socio-religious norms in which the other is often a problem and sometimes, for usually practical reasons, suspected or silenced or shunned. 

In this week’s Torah text, for instance, Naso, the leaders of each tribe are named and counted, each Levite clan accounted for by name and rank. But there’s also nameless: list of  laws for the woman who is suspected of adultery, the religiously-driven ascetic, the criminal – and the leper. This latter, a health hazard, is driven from camp. Lonely lepers, cast out to die. 
Numbers 5:2 

The Torah has a medical reason for preventing lepers from infecting others, just as this is done today, but the symbolism and its problematic paradigm persist. 

A lot of us, and way too often, are made to feel like lepers: different, other, threat, rejected, lonelier at the end of the day. Instead of being loved. 

What can we do about it?  Be much more sensitive, much more aware. Loneliness is often times invisible, but we can learn to tell the signs.  Reach out. 

This week is international  Homophobia Awareness Day
Just one more opportunity to go out of our way in recognising where a friend or neighbor will love a hug, for no real reason. Just one more opportunity for each of us to take accounting of our own internal drama, private lepers, hug ourselves, as silly as it seems, not be afraid to reach out to others, who may also, when you are least expected, be as lonely as you or they or me.  It’s a roller coaster- we take turns… and it does get better. 
Just like what John Lennon said, it’s easy when you try… Me, I feel better already. 

Shabbat Shalom







 

Amichai Lau-Lavie is the Founder and Executive Director of Storahtelling, Inc. creating sustainable solutions for life-long Jewish Learning since 1999. storahtelling.org

דלת אל אש: מה תוקן בתיקון ליל שבועות השנה

Posted on May 15 2013 by amichai

.כל הלילה בערו המילים וסלסלו הצלילים כעשן מדורה שסביבה ישבנו עד עלות השחר

צילום:עמיחי לאו לביא

בינה – הישיבה החילונית ברמת אפעל.  הוזמנתי ללמד וללמוד פה הלילה, וקמעא קמעא הפך

קהל של כמה מאות זרים למשהו קרוב יותר לקהילה מודעת, נוכחת, נושמת יחד בפעימה פשוטה של הקשבה עמוקה.

רוב הלילה הוקדש ללימוד על האש. אש כסמל האל, דימוי החויה הדתית, רתמים בוערים בפיו של משה הקטן שהפכו ללהבות מתוכן התעופפו אותיות שהן מה שנתגלה מתוך האש בלילה הוא שהוא הלילה הזה שהיה.

.אנחנו הטכנאים, אמרו המנגנים ובראשם נתנאל גולדברג נעים-זמירות, ובאנו לתקן את שבועות

מה התקלקל? לכל אחד ואחת צורך בתיקון פרטי אחר. אני דרשתי ולימדתי בענין הצורך לתיקון הבדידות האנושית הבסיסית, שבעבורה ניתנה תורה בסיני ובעבורה נוצרו כל הדתות כולן, ונקהלו קהילות.  התיקון נועד להתחברות מחדש של הנפש האנושית אל הציר האנכי  המקשר שמים וארץ, והתחברות מחודשת אל הציר האפקי המזין את הנשמה המצאה לאהבת בין אדם לחבירו. תיקון לילה שלם, מאפילה לאורה,של פחות בדידות  ויותר יחד. מדורה מחממת. אש ברכה

וכל הלילה, בנגיעת אמן, הוביל אותנו דב אלבוים, מורה ודרשן מופלא אל תוך האש ואל תוך האידרא  הגדולה ובמעלה ההר הבוער כולו לתיקון הפחד  הקמאי מהאש השורפת לעידון המפגש עם הפלאי

לפנות בוקר,  בערך ב4, המום דימויים  וטרוט עינים,  צלילים של נבל, ופסוקי זוהר, הייתי צריך לחלץ עצמות ונעמדתי מחוץ לאולם הלימוד

וראיתי

“מולי דלת שכתוב עליה “אש

וכסא

מול הדלת

ממתין

לשער שיפתח, לשחר שיפתיע, לאסימון שיפול, לתובנה שתפער משהו חדש בקרבי

והקשבתי לדב והבטתי בדלת

ומילות השיר של יהודה עמיחי עלו כמתוך האש

בדיוק

ללילה של תיקון לב ועידון אש ותפילת שחרית פשוטה לשלום ושלוה ואש מאוזנת ולא שצף קצף להבה

ואת השיר הזה לקחתי איתי אל הים, בזריחה של בוקר, תיקון קטן של הלילה החשוב שבו באש ובמים באנו בסוד פשוט של נוכחות באש של  מה שיש:

אנשים באולם המואר עד כאב

דיברו על הדת

בחיי האדם בן זמננו

ועל מקומו של האלוהים

אנשים דיברו בקולות נרגשים

כמו בנמלי תעופה.

עזבתי אותם: פתחתי דלת ברזל שכתוב עליה

“חירום”

ונכנסתי לתוך שלווה גדולה: שאלות ותשובות

(יהודה עמיחי)

.בתודה רבה לרבה מירה אחות באש ומים

 שבועות תשע”ג .תוקן ולא נשלם

Flags: The Shrouds of History: Word #31

Posted on May 9 2013 by amichai
WORD: A Word a Week from the World’s Best Seller. Follow the Annual Torah Re-Run Series with Amichai Lau-Lavie’s Newest Year-Long Blog. To subscribe via email click here. To listen to the audio version click here.

 

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 FLAG
דגל
This week, flags are flapping in the wind, and It’s got me thinking.
Union Square Farmers Market in Downtown Manhattan was in full sunny spring bustle this week, buckets full of pink lilies, red geraniums, and, from the corner of my eye, a surprisingly familiar splash of color: Blue and white flags flying atop a large tent. A big sign announced  ”The Israeli Hi Tech Expo” – or something like that.  I walked by and a pretty young woman in a tight black suit sniffed my curiosity and called out in thick Israeli accent ‘Shalom! Do you want to come into inside?’
Not really, I smiled,  in Hebrew, I’m in a rush, and she smiled with surprise and in one swift move  inserted a small Israeli flag into my jacket breast pocket, waved goodbye and moved on. It took me an entire block to register the fact that I was now a walking embassy –  people staring at my chest with a wide range of expressions. I didn’t like this attention – rarely comfortable with public signs of affiliations, national, religious or more. Maybe I’m a product of centuries of Diaspora Jews blending in for safety. It could have something to do with growing up gay, closeted, trying to pass. Either way, flags are really not my thing. I took it out of my breast pocket and tucked in my backpack, but was unable to tuck away the question – why was I so uncomfortable walking around with a flag??
Two memories surfaced, about flags and ambivalence, and one more image that connected to the weekly Torah text, BaMidbar, where 12 flags wave wildly in the Sinai breeze.
1. 1983.  Salute to Israel Parade, as the son of the Israeli Consul General I get to open the parade, marching down Fifth Avenue with a gigantic heavy Israeli flag. In front of me are three NYPD officers, trotting on horses. Years  later I will pause to reflect upon the rich symbolism: Marching down fifth avenue, proud with flag, people cheering, stepping in horse shit all the way.
2. Fast forward 30 years. 2013. Gay Pride Parade in Manhattan and I’m here with my 3 children and one of their two moms: a proud LGBT family with strollers and sun screen. No flags. There’s plenty of rainbows already. Half way through the parade our son, then 3, finds a small Israel flag on the road, fallen from one of the Jewish floats, grabs it with delight and waves it high in the air. Really? I ask him? How about I get you a rainbow flag? You got the wrong parade, buddy… But stubborn little Zionist that he is, it’s blue n white all the way down the avenue, and he’s thankfully oblivious to the occasional boo (!) and quizzical looks.
It’s amazing that a simple piece of fabric can mean so much. The symbolic is attached to the practical. Flags are about identity, in simple but not so simple ways.
And maybe that’s why Moses puts such emphasis upon this tribal feature, instructing the 12 tribes to pitch their tents in strict formation, each tribe under its own unique family flag.
“The Israelites will put up their tents with each family under the flag that symbolizes its household.” (Num. 2:2)
There are fantastic traditions in Midrash about these flags – their colors and symbols, wolves and snakes and towers echoing a lesser known mysterious past.
I guess flags are useful to identification – eat here, be safe there, welcome home – belong with me. But somehow it still makes me feel awkward and uncomfortable and I’d much prefer to raise no flags at all.
Maybe just a white flag, up above, as if to say – I  surrender; I belong to all and none, and patriotic pride or national identity aside – I pitch my tent with all you people, and ask to love and you to love me – just the simple way I am.
Flags, wrote Yehuda Amichai, are the shrouds of history. I take the flag I got from that young lady, hand it to my youngest child for play and pleasure, and head out to the airport, on my way to yet another home.
Shabbat Shalom

 

Amichai Lau-Lavie is the Founder and Executive Director of Storahtelling, Inc. creating sustainable solutions for life-long Jewish Learning since 1999. storahtelling.org

Your Land is Not Your Land: Word #30

Posted on May 2 2013 by amichai
WORD: A Word a Week from the World’s Best Seller. Follow the Annual Torah Re-Run Series with Amichai Lau-Lavie’s Newest Year-Long Blog. To subscribe via email click here. To listen to the audio version click here.

 

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Earth

ארץ

 

I rent. I’ve been a renter of real estate for my entire adult life.

 

No ideology – partially for practical finances, partially because I am often between Israel and the US – a foot in each world upon this earth. Where is home? both here and there. I am aware, and constantly reminded, that this is not the wisest fiscal choice, and nowadays, with some savings, can actually start to envision and plan for a modest purchase and investment in a home, but on the whole, right now,  I am a renter, and there is a great deal of freedom that comes with that.

 

 

In some way this is the ancient legacy of my people. The word Ivri – Hebrew – comes from the verb ‘ever’- crossing over, transient – the nomadic lifestyle, no attachment, pick up and go when it’s time to do so.  This has to do with how we live within, and not just with where we live and why.

 

The tension between nomad and settler, home owner and temporary dweller, citizen and migrant,  is as old as the human race for prosperity, property and progress.

 

It’s been a Jewish tension for as long as we remember, extended over exiles and diasporas, temporary homes turned into new homelands – from Babylon to Brooklyn. 

And this is the tension that is making the promised land into the land of sour, bitter, painful quarrels, every single day.  Is the price of the promise too high?

 

Just this week, a Jewish settler, father of five,  was stabbed to death by a Palestinian man at a junction in the West Bank. In response, raging settlers torched fields and homes, smashed cars and attacked several Palestinians, at least one of whom, a Palestinian street cleaner, father of 4, is in critical condition.

 

There are many layers for this rage but the ownership of land is at the heart of the matter.

 

Also this week, without much media attention, Israel’s supreme court granted the Israeli Government’s request to postpone the evacuation of the tiny settlement of Amona, scheduled for this week.

Amona, located in the heart of the West Bank, is an outpost founded illegally in 1995 on primarily privately owned Palestinian land. The name comes from the Book of Joshua, where Kfar Ha’Ammonai is mentioned – the village of the Ammonites – a reminder of the local indigenous Canaanites that were wiped out by the invading Israelites, as instructed by Moses.

 

In February 2006 the Supreme Court ordered the dismantlement of the nine permanent homes built in Amona. Thousands of protesters gathered and clashed with Israeli army and police when the time came for the demolition and eviction. The violent clashes, with more than 300 wounded, surpassed all previous clashes between the security forces of the State of Israel and civilians, including the 2005 unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip.

 

The government recognized the illegal use of Palestinian land in the majority of the Amona area, though some of the settlers are contesting this. Under the Supreme Court’s ruling the evacuation of the entire settlement was scheduled for April 2013. The most recent postponement comes so that the new government can have time to reorganize. The judges were severe in their ruling that this delay is ‘beyond the measure of the law’ and set the date for July 15 2013 – I don’t know if they knew that it is Tisha B’av – the fast that commemorate the destruction of the Jewish temples and the exile of the nation.

 

Not smart timing.

 

Who knows what will transpire in the political corridors before this actually happens – or not. But the Amona story is just one of many. And with no solution in sight, it seems to me, and to many others that the only way out of this lockdown is a new approach to the ownership, use, and attitude towards land.

 

 

Imagine a world in which nobody owns land. We all rent. None of us are land owners, all of us are temporary dwellers, modest guests of planet earth.

 

Roll your eyes and flip the channel – but this is not a new idea – it is in fact a Bibilal idea.  Even if it was not ever fully implmented. I mean, lets face it: Real estate is a big business for Jews and the real story behind it is very old and pretty complex – and you can find glimpses of it in this week’s Torah text – B’har B’chukotai, which describes the vision for a healthy society, living on earth, rooted in justice. The secret is in the details of the cycles of seven – every seven days we pause, every seven years is a fallow year, a chance to let the land rest and the people too; every seven cycles of seven is the jubilee – all homes go back to the original owner, debts are free, we start again.

It’s a radical notion. God, as recorded by Moses, could not be clearer:

 

And the land shall not be sold in perpetuity; for the land is Mine; and you are visitors and temporary dwellers upon it, along with me.  

Lev. 25:23

Imagine that – in a close reading of this verse it seems that even God is no owner- the very notion of the Divine is not rooted in the ownership of land: the security and peace of mind comes not from deeds for the home – it comes from the trust that nothing is permanent, and yet a roof is sheltering us at night, protecting us from the rain, from foe, from fear and cold and hatred.

Imagine a world in which we are all renters, with the mindset that takes away the wars that ravage our sacred earth, in so many ways, every single day.  It changes the way we say ‘mine’. It let us say ‘ours’. Can that change the reality on the ground in the Middle East? All over the planet? In your own home?

Can this radical mindset change the crisis that is threatening to turn the dream of a Jewish homeland into a nightmare for all involved? Can it alter the way greed it destroying earth? 

What will it take to change our attitude about ownership and use of land? towards the most appropriate relationship with property?

I’m writing this on a plane, far from land, on my way from Israel to NYC, about to launch a congregation that at least for now is homeless by design – a pop-up, renting, transient sanctuary that celebrates the fact that we are always on the go, Hebrews through and through. 

Beyond brick and mortar there is, perhaps, another vision waiting to happen, a way for the sacred to aspire, for us to ascend to the highest potential of our being, while deeply rooting us in the gravity of here and now.

 

In the diverse ecosystem we live in – there’s room for all: homeowners and renters, feudal lords and homeless people, settlers and wanderers. If only we were able to heed the word of Leviticus and find ways to let go, detach, be kinder to each other, to the earth that is home.  It is one earth – belonging to all. The word Earth is even  the same word in Hebrew and English, and in Arabic too. 

 

For the people of Palestine fighting for their homes,  for those reading the Torah as the road map for establishing a holy land, committed to their truth and faith; for all of us fighting to occupy a new reality of justice on earth, roomates and neighbors, future partners in being stewards of life on earth: May we culitivate the landscaope of love, Leviticus style, and learn how to live together better. 

 

shabbat shalom.

–

Amichai Lau-Lavie
Interim Executive Director

www.storahtelling.org
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Amichai Lau-Lavie is the Founder and Executive Director of Storahtelling, Inc. creating sustainable solutions for life-long Jewish Learning since 1999. storahtelling.org

Amichai Lau-Lavie is the founding director of Storahtelling Inc. An Israeli-born Jewish educator, writer, and performer, he was hailed by Time Out New York as "Super Star of David"...[full bio]

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