Creating Communities For the Whole Of Israel: A Dvar Torah for Yom Kippur
Creating Sacred Communities For The Whole of Israel: A Yom Kippur Drash
October 4, 2022 by
Pesach 5782 On The Seder As A Living Experience
April 13, 2022 by
On seder night, we embark on a holy commemorative journey through the Haggadah as we move spiritually and temporally from degradation to praise. We do not merely recount by rote our journey out of Mitzrayim, out of the narrowness to a wide expanse, but we engage in holy reenactment of the experience.
In Mishnah Pesachim 10:5, it is taught that in every generation, every single one of us is obligated to see ourselves as though we, too, went out of Egypt. We aren’t only recounting the origin story of our ancestors, passed down generation after generation. We are part of the holy collectivity. We are active participants, not passive observers.
The Telling that we ritually experience on Pesach is not only about remembering our people’s foundational story. Indeed, this story is so central that we are asked to recall it every day of our lives. Jewish liturgy makes mention of it in the morning and the evening. Each holiday is referred to as a Zecher—a remembrance—of the exodus. Those who wrap tefillin bind these sacred words to their bodies. It is so central that we access it using as many sensory vehicles as are available to us.
Truly, Pesach is such a momentous event in spiritual terms that it is our duty to be actively shaping this experience for ourselves in every generation.
We move from the narrow place to one of wide expanse, a place devoid of G-d consciousness to one suffused with it. We move from a sense of degradation to praise, of owning our own narrative, no longer allowing others to define or shape it for us. We think about what represents mitzrayim in our own lives. What are those things that we cannot seem to free ourselves from? What would it mean for us to find a sense of liberation and possibility after years, perhaps, of feeling weighted down by story, by fear, by expectation that is far greater than we are as individuals yet impacts us so intimately?
In every generation, we are each obligated to perceive ourselves as if we, too, left Egypt. The promises G-d makes to our ancestors, which we recount on seder night apply to us as much as they did to those who came before. Our physical and social locations as a people have undergone tremendously radical shifts over the generations and continue to do so in our own day.
Pesach has carried our people through trials and tribulations, through times of great joy and ecstasy. Our calendar, with its emphasis on the spiral of time, encourages us to return, again and again, to the essential theological truth. We, too, were there, a part of the story. We participated in the awesomeness that was the exodus and as such, we are enjoined to bring its power into our lives. We do so in an embodied way so that it does not become a rote, stultified experience. Ideally, we bring this power with us into how we show up in the world around us.
We know that this leave taking is multifaceted, as relevant to us on the personal level as it is on the collective. So how do we actualize this beautiful idea from the Mishnah on a personal level? Maybe we choose one thing this Pesach we yearn to break free from. Maybe we set modest goals for ourselves. My anxiety might not vanish overnight, perhaps, or perhaps this one gnarly habit I have will remain with me. Yet, I can set an intention to embody the liberative possibility of choosing to live or act or show up in a unique way.
I can spiritually imagine and embody a future rich with the possibility of reemergence and rebirth by recalling that I, too, left Egypt, and so did we all. Our sederim are not meant to be rote, tired exercises in reciting lines that may not have meaning for us. They are, instead, about embodying the theological radicalism of our tradition. We move from degradation to praise, from narrowness to expanse in every generation, in large ways and in small ways. May it be so.
Finding My Possibility Model
April 13, 2022 by
A version of the below piece originally appeared as part of Hot Off The Shtender, a series of reflection pieces from SVARA.
It is hard, nay impossible, to adequately capture the feelings that came over me when I learned about the passing of a dear friend: the fierce and unapologetic activist for disability justice and lover of Torah, Sheryl Grossman. May her memory be a blessing. I dedicate my learning today to her.
I found out about Sheryl’s passing in the way so many of us do these days. It was a typical Tuesday morning (or so I thought). I was taking a moment to scroll Facebook and there it was. I slumped over my desk upon receiving the news, the traditional words we say upon hearing of a death far from my consciousness. What came out first was a cry of disbelief. I knew she struggled with a multitude of cancers for the better part of seventeen years. I knew she often experienced scares and interfaced with the medical system in ways I frankly cannot even begin to fully comprehend. And yet, I was left speechless. “Blessed is the true judge.” What more can one say? And how impossibly hard is it to say that? True judge? How can I, how can anyone, wrap their minds around that when a person leaves the world so young?
Sheryl is the second friend I have lost in the past few months. Both were people I knew through disability community. Both were folks I had taught and learned with. Both friends challenged me to think about disability and Torah more broadly. From Sheryl in particular, I learned the importance of finding ourselves in Torah. This isn’t done by stretching narratives to fit us but rather by reclaiming our disabled ancestors who are right there in the text. As mentioned at her funeral, one of Sheryl’s greatest mentors was Moshe Rabbeinu—Moses our teacher who, it seems clear from the pshat (or simple read of the text) had a disability of some sort.
It was Sheryl who challenged me to read Exodus 4:10-16 in a radical way. I met Sheryl while I was in rabbinical school, which was a time of great existential angst for me. Much of that was internal. Some was external, though the internal parts were by far the hardest to navigate. I was feeling confused and alienated from Torah, and yet I knew in my neshama that I wanted and needed to be in relationship with Torah. Sheryl, whether she knew it at the time, was a model of possibility for me.
In the fourth chapter of the Book of Exodus, we encounter a famous dialogue between G-d and Moshe. G-d has chosen Moshe to lead the children of Israel out of mitzrayim. Moshe demurs, saying that as a man of few words, who will listen to him? Without missing a beat, G-d replies rhetorically, asking who makes a person as they are—blind or sighted, deaf or hearing, speaking or nonspeaking? “Is it not I, G-d, your G-d?”
For years, I argued vigorously that this passage assumed disability to be a punishment, G-d-forbid, and that this passage was the foundation of the moral model of disability: a model of disability that assumes disability exists due to sin, G-d-forbid. G-d makes us as we are, so all the ableism and oppression we encounter is just something we’re going to have to deal with. I find myself taken aback by the self-loathing in that read now. How often do we read texts in weaponizing ways, not only because that’s the tradition we’ve received, G-d-forbid, but even worse— because we believe it. How often do we understand Torah through a distorted prism that tells us more about ourselves and the brokenness in our souls than it does about the written or oral text?
Exodus 4:10-16 is now my favorite text in Torah, and it’s something I strive to recite daily alongside the blessings I make over Torah study. That transformation came about due in large measure to Sheryl’s unapologetic challenge to me: “Have you completely forgotten the second half of the passage?” G-d responds to Moshe that, of course, G-d understands Moshe is not an orator and provides him with a reasonable accommodation. Aaron, his brother, will be his attendant. It is from here that the Torah affirms the crucial need for attendant care and accommodations.
I could hear and absorb that from Sheryl in ways I might not have been able to from anyone else. Sheryl, who cared as much about disability rights as she did about keeping Shabbat in an Orthodox manner. Sheryl, who would accept nothing less than showing up as her full, authentic self, including her religious self. Being disabled and religious were not mutually exclusive things, she reminded me again, again, and again. I often felt between two worlds—wanting to connect with observant disabled folks but not identifying as Orthodox. Sheryl helped bridge that gap for me. But even more than that, she showed me how I, too, could find myself in Torah.
As Rabbi Benay Lappe has noted, we all have our donkey stories—those stories that jump out at us because they give words to our experiences. G-d giving Moshe a reasonable accommodation (though of course the Torah doesn’t know or use that term) helped me realize that perhaps, G-d reminds Moshe that he, too, is created in G-d’s image, specifically because Moshe might have forgotten otherwise. Many of us forget our inherent worth because of the social positions we find ourselves in. We forget because of old, tired, harmful narratives. We forget because of our family systems. We forget for so many reasons. With Sheryl’s help, I have come to believe that G-d reminds us that we are created in G-d’s image again in this passage because it is so easy to forget—so easy to think of ourselves as subhuman.
I often wonder about Moshe’s upbringing in Pharaoh’s palace. I imagine, though of course can never know with any degree of certainty, that Moshe might have been taunted or humiliated because of how he spoke. Perhaps he, too, wondered whether he’d ever fit in with his own people. Perhaps, as Brené Brown writes about in her latest work Atlas of the Heart, Moshe feels like he’ll have to fit in by fitting a mold that doesn’t fit him. How many of us feel that way? How often did I wonder if I’d ever fit in with Jewish community, though my heart and soul longed to? How often did I wonder if I was on the wrong life path? How often did I ask myself, “who will listen to me, a blind female rabbi with many marginalized identities?” What I was asking, ultimately, was “am I good enough? Who am I?” The voice that told me I’d never measure up to an abled, sighted ideal that I could never achieve was making its presence known in destructive ways.
Sheryl’s funeral ended with a recitation of her favorite poem (which also happens to be my favorite poem), You Get Proud by Practicing, written by the incredible disabled poet Laura Hershey, may her memory be a blessing. Listening to the live stream of the service, I alternately cried and tried (through my tears) to recite the poem along with the reader. This powerful poem is an antidote to all of the self-loathing and internalized oppression that many of us struggle with every day. Feeling at home with oneself unapologetically is a spiritual practice in and of itself—one we must engage with every day. I know I have much work to do myself. I urge us all, whether we identify with disability or not, to integrate this poem’s powerful message into our lives and souls, just as Sheryl did. One of Sheryl’s most oft-repeated lines was “my mouth is my biggest organ and I’m not afraid to use it”! Amein v’amein, friend. Rest in power.
Shabbat HaChodesh 5782
April 1, 2022 by
I wish to dedicate this dvar Torah to the memory of Sheryl Grossman. Her love of Torah and her steadfast, unapologetic commitment to justice for people with disabilities will remain with me always. She taught me that one could both be a lover of Torah and a fighter for justice for those most marginalized. Her legacy will continue. One of her oft-repeated sayings will never leave me. “My mouth is my biggest organ and I’m not afraid to use it.” May Sheryl’s memory always be for a blessing, amein v’amein.
This Shabbat has the dual distinction of being both Rosh Chodesh and the first of the month of Nisan, as well as Shabbat HaChodesh, the Shabbat on which the 12th chapter of the Book of Exodus is read. This chapter establishes Nisan as the first of the months of the year and describes the preparations the children of Israel made to leave Mitzrayim. Mitzrayim is understood in Jewish tradition as both a literal and metaphorical place. The Exodus narrative is so central to Jewish collective memory that we recall it every single day, multiple times a day. We recall our ancestors’ journey out of the Land of Egypt as a transformative moment in our becoming as a people. Simultaneous to this, Mitzrayim, which is derived from the Hebrew word meaning narrowness or narrow place is understood to be a spiritual location. When we journey out of the narrow place and are answered or met with a wide expanse, as we sing joyfully in Psalm 118, we experience liberation in multiple realms.
The command given to the children of Israel to establish the calendar, and particularly the month of Nisan as the beginning of the liturgical year may be surprising to those who think of the Jewish year as beginning with Rosh Hashanah. Judaism in fact has four new years. Rosh Hashanah, the 1st, and 2nd of Tishrei marks the calendrical new year. Nisan marks the new year for kings and for festivals. Liturgically, Pesach is the first holiday of the new year. I often like to think of the preparations for Pesach as spiritually paralleling the month of Elul and the cleansing that leads us to the Yamim Noraim.
Pesach is often thought of as a stressful period, focused on seder planning, food shopping and removal of chametz or leaven from our homes and other spaces. These tangible stressors can make it hard to set one’s heart and mind towards Pesach and its themes of justice, freedom, and liberation. It’s a deep irony that the preparation often leaves no energy for the deep celebration that this time calls us to do.
Many of us may also be grappling with difficult interpersonal dynamics this time of year. These are heightened in this liminal period. The pandemic is ongoing. Some of us joyfully anticipate our first in person sederim since 2019. Others of us may be feeling increasingly isolated and left behind, feeling like the world has moved on without us because we cannot yet be in person with others without tremendous risk to ourselves and our loved ones. We may feel like we don’t matter, are unimportant, are acceptable losses.
As we read this pivotal Torah portion, we may notice that the Pesach sacrifice was offered by every family. One can imagine the anticipation and anxiety. The bags are packed and metaphorically piled at the door, ready to go on a moment’s notice. And indeed, we left with such great haste that we didn’t have time for our dough to rise, hence why we eat matzah. Every household made an offering. Not just those with large families and circles of friends. Every single person was an integral part of this collective experience. The Torah even states that if a single household is too small for a sacrifice on its own, they should join together with neighboring households.
The rabbis, who crafted the Haggadah with great precision stipulated that recounting the story of the Exodus from Mitzrayim was so central that everyone is meant to take part, whether they are by themselves, or with just a few others, or in a larger group. The ways we observe communally can bring with them much joy, strength and blessing. They can also leave many feeling isolated, outside of the experience. Let us remember that praiseworthy is the one who recounts the story of the Exodus out of Mitzrayim in all the ways that we do so. May this Pesach be a liberating one for all.
On The Lessons We Can Learn from Queens Esther and Vashti: Purim 5782
March 9, 2022 by
Purim is a holiday filled with paradox. It is simultaneously the happiest festival on the Jewish calendar and a day on which we reckon with all of the ways in which we experience brokenness in our world and in our communities. We are feeling that keenly this year in particular as we bear witness to the horror of an unprovoked war in Ukraine and, for a good number (but certainly not all) of us, our lives are beginning to return, slowly, to a new kind of normal with the easing of COVID restrictions. An interesting signpost given Purim 5780 marked the beginning of what we could not have known then would be nearly two years in which the fabric of our daily lives was altered beyond recognition.
There are four mitzvot or obligations associated with the observance of Purim. Reading the Megillah or Book of Esther is prominent, and on Purim day itself, many Jews engage in a festive feast, give tzedakah and exchange gifts of food and drink—mishloach manot—with friends and family.
The Book of Esther is traditionally read twice—once during the evening of Purim and again on Purim day. The book, found in the Jewish Tanakh or Bible, features two queens—Vashti and Esther, with Esther ultimately becoming the protagonist and heroine. Yet, the stories of both Esther and Vashti can lend much wisdom and inspiration to us as we observe Purim this year during Women’s History Month.
As the Megillah opens, we learn about King Achashverosh’s interest in lavish banquets, complete with plenty of fine wine and court entertainment. These banquets went on for 187 days. In the book’s opening chapter, he calls upon Vashti, his queen, to appear before the men at his banquet unclothed to show off her beauty. She refuses to come at his command, angering him greatly and causing him to fear that all of the women of his empire will follow suit and refuse to do their own husbands’ bidding. In other words, a fine moment for justice-seeking and communal organizing. Vashti’s radical actions speak truth to power. As is so often true when truth is spoken to power, consequences are swift. Vashti loses her royal position, never being permitted to enter Achashverosh’s presence again and an edict is sent out to all of the kingdom informing the men that they are the single authority in their homes. Oy.
In recent generations, Vashti has been seen as a feminist icon in many ways. A paragon of women’s empowerment in a highly misogynistic society, a woman who stood firm in her principles, standing up for her dignity and by so doing, the dignity of all women.
Esther, too, is a complex character. Often contrasted with Vashti, Esther is the heroine and protagonist of the Megillah. Esther is a Jewish woman who, as is made clear by the text itself, is proud of her identity but not particularly religious. She lives in Persia—today’s Iran—which was at the time the Megillah is set a thriving diaspora Jewish community. Adopted by her uncle Mordechai, she becomes queen after a complex selection process which centered a prospective queen’s beauty and charm. As a feminist, it is easy for me to dismiss this outright decrying the misogyny and the ways in which beauty is a potent tool of power. Yet, so often, it is the most easily available tool. Esther uses it in key moments and ultimately saves the Jewish people from a genocidal plot.
As the story progresses, Haman, angry that Mordechai refuses to bow down to him, hatches a genocidal plot against the Jews of Shushan and the empire at large. Hearing of this, knowing Achashverosh does not know she is Jewish, Esther takes a grave risk in appearing before the king unsummoned. Perhaps she has reached this position of power for such a moment as this.
Appearing before Achashverosh, she invites him and Haman to a banquet in their honor. Having found herself in Achashverosh’s good graces, she is able to make any request she so desires. Yet, she does not immediately reveal herself or Haman’s genocidal plot. Instead, she invites him to what he assumes will be a standard festive banquet, with plenty of drink to go around. Once he is socially comfortable, Esther reveals herself and announces Haman’s genocidal plot, causing Achashverosh to become immediately furious and Haman to beg for his life to no avail.
Esther’s actions are at once heroic and complex. She approaches a man with absolute power and authority, risking her life and that of her people. She does so by appealing to his basest instincts because she knows that that is how power is wielded. She does so confidently and unapologetically.
Esther and Vashti represent two important paradigms of impactful leadership. Though the social change the empire feared ultimately did not come to pass because they eliminated Vashti’s role, the fact the text makes note of the men’s fears is instructive for all of us. Courageous, intentional, and driven individuals can change the world in profound ways. Simultaneously, working from within a hierarchical, misogynistic court, Esther is able to affect change she likely could not have done from outside.
As we elevate the lived experiences, wisdom, and stories of women across time, space, and historical era this month, may we learn from the differing leadership paradigms that Esther and Vashti present. May we look within at our own society and communities, centering underrepresented perspectives, hearing voices we don’t often hear and widening our narratives to encompass the lived experiences and wisdom we all bring.
Rabbi Lauren Tuchman Interviewed in Lilith Magazine
February 9, 2022 by
Torah From A Mussar Perspective Vayeshev 5782
November 25, 2021 by
The below commentary first appeared as part of Torah From A Mussar Perspective through the Mussar Institute.
Parshat Vayeshev contains within it the multi-faceted story of Judah and Tamar. Judah, Jacob and Leah’s fourth son, has journeyed away from his brothers and has married a woman named Shua with whom he has three sons. In time, Tamar marries Judah’s eldest son, Er. Er’s actions are displeasing to God, and he dies shortly thereafter—the Torah does not explore this further, and we are left with many unanswered questions. Though we have not been introduced to this practice in the Torah before now, the Torah makes it clear that to continue Er’s lineage, Tamar must marry his brother, Onan. The Torah does not explore Tamar’s interiority, but instead takes this union for granted. Onan soon dies, and Judah tells Tamar that she should return to her father’s house and live as a widow there.
For many of us, this destabilizing time has felt devoid of agency and choice. We are living on autopilot, unable to redirect our habitual cognitive patterns, tossed and turned about by life. Add to this the reality that the world is filled with systemic and structural inequities, and at times, cultivating a sense of choice and agency can feel nearly impossible.
In his book, Changing the World from the Inside Out, Rabbi David Jaffe discusses Rav Eliyahu Dessler’s bechirah or choice point, an important practice in our Mussar work. Choice points appear in all spheres of human life, from interpersonal interactions to wider social involvement. In his classic discussion of the bechirah point, Rav Dessler notes that free will is a cornerstone of traditional Jewish belief. The Divine does not predestine the course of our lives. Yet, our free will manifests most immediately at our bechirah or choice point. We are constantly confronted with choice points. It’s nearly midnight, I know I need to get to sleep. But can’t I just listen to one more podcast episode? I’ll be better tomorrow and get the requisite sleep I need.
Of course, we know that the moment when we listened to the voice that told us that one more episode would be simply fine, we fell into the well-worn pattern we’ve created. We know how the story ends. A bechirah point presented itself and we made a choice, though we told ourselves it was no choice at all.
Rav Dessler reminds us to take account of those moments and reroute, as it were. Yet, we also understand that choice is not infinite. Inequities persist, unfortunately, and many of us are limited by systems and structures we did not create. Despite this, Rabbi Jaffe reminds us that the practice of recognizing the bechirah point and doing a cheshbon hanefesh, soul accounting, is a way for us to notice the manifold opportunities presented to us to be subjects in our own lives. This is so even when internal and external conditions tell us otherwise.
Returning to Tamar, who has lived for many years in her father’s home as a widow, on the promise that she will marry Judah’s third son upon his reaching maturity, she realizes that he has in fact grown and she remains unmarried. At this point, Tamar faces a bechirah point. The patriarchal reality she finds herself in is unforgiving. Even so, Tamar chooses to act, deceiving her father-in-law by disguising herself as a prostitute and requiring him to leave collateral. When word gets out that she is pregnant, Judah orders her to be brought out and burned. Just as the horrific punishment is about to be meted out, Tamar sends a message to Judah, informing him that the children she carries belong to the man whose collateral she is presenting. Judah, realizing immediately that the items are his, proclaims that Tamar is far more righteous than he.
Tamar is presented with an impossible reality. Married and widowed twice, she is cast out, in a liminal time and space, waiting for the third of Judah’s sons to marry her. Unwilling to accept the status quo, even in such an unforgiving environment, Tamar takes her fate into her own hands in the only way her social station allows. The choice point presents itself. Will Tamar continue to wait for a life she must know subconsciously will not materialize? Or will she direct the course of her life as best as she can?
We are none of us entirely free agents, of course. There are so many factors that impact the course of our lives, the choices available to us, how well resourced we are. Those of us who are trauma survivors understand that residual trauma can have a lasting impact. In my own life, I have found that recounting the bechirah points presented to me each day fills me with a sense of empowerment. I am not merely an object but am in fact able to make numerous decisions every day, even and especially when the external landscape is limited. As we continue to journey forward, may we cultivate an ability to recognize and utilize the bechirah points we are faced with every day to be co-creators with The Divine in the world we yearn to bring into being.
Thoughts For Yom Kippur 5782
September 15, 2021 by
Yom Kippur is often translated into English as the Jewish day of atonement, though I feel that this is a mistranslation. Yom Kippur’s awesomeness, in the literal sense of the word, is that the Jewish tradition provides us with a 25-hour period, Shabbat Shabbaton (the sabbath of sabbaths) to focus wholly on realigning with who we want to be in the new year. Part of that work is doing a soul accounting of the ways in which we missed the mark in this past year, including making amends with those we may have hurt. Doing teshuvah, returning/realigning (I don’t use the translation “repent” for teshuvah because of its punitive connotations) is a practice that is particularly encouraged this time of year, though it is a spiritual practice that we can engage in any time. There is a lot of emphasis in the Yom Kippur liturgy on confession–we recite the vidui or confessional prayer ten times. In addition to this there are beautiful piyyutim or liturgical poems throughout each of the five services of the day. If one arrives at synagogue without a lot of grounding in the liturgy of Yom Kippur, it often can feel like our holiest day is spent recounting again, again and again all of the wrongs we’ve done, in hopes that a new and better year will be granted us. This perception of the day saddens me tremendously, as it does not allow us to experience what the rabbis insisted was, in fact, one of the happiest days of the year in its fullness.
In his tremendous book, This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared, Rabbi Alan Lew, of blessed memory invites us to reframe the High Holyday season is a season involving the very transformation of our souls. We are intimately aware as the year begins that we don’t know what the year will bring. Yom HaDin, Rosh Hashanah, is our opportunity to recommit ourselves to being in relationship with the Divine, that which is bigger than us. The imagery of the coronation of a king may work for you or it may not, and that’s just fine. The Jewish tradition offers us a wide array of names for the Divine. The call of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah is intended to wake us up as we usher in a season of deep holiness and personal introspection, culminating with the opportunity to wholly immerse ourselves in community, sacredness and contemplation on Yom Kippur.
Rabbi Lew’s book helped me begin to reimagine my relationship to the machzor, the prayer book used on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I love liturgy and find myself wanting to know more about those rabbis, sages and seekers who composed our prayers, weaving together texts from the Tanakh (Bible), Talmud, Midrash and other sources, alongside the longings of their own hearts and their personal theologies. Some of that theology may resonate. Some of it may not. And that’s ok.
We are living at a time in which we are finally becoming better attuned to the myriad of life experiences that we all carry within, along with those of those we are in community with. Too many of us associate Yom Kippur with a feeling of punishment–I confess over and over again because I am somehow fundamentally flawed. Jewish tradition says precisely the opposite about human beings. Against all odds, and sometimes despite ourselves, we have hope that human beings are in fact capable of change. This capability does not mean that to forgive is to forget or reconcile. We can forgive to free ourselves of the resentment we hold, but that does not imply–nor should it–that forgiveness grants the other person an automatic invitation back into our lives. The two are distinct.
And it is precisely because we believe that human beings can change, if they/we choose to, that taking responsibility for our actions is of such paramount importance. Covenant is another important Jewish concept, the notion that relationship, to be genuine and lasting, must be mutual, based on obligation to each other. When we break trust with one another, we are given the opportunity to return and begin again. Yom Kippur is about doing that work with the Divine and ourselves. The days prior and indeed the entire year, really, is about doing that work with our fellow human beings–and all beings.
Yom Kippur is one of our happiest days because we know that we are granted a fresh start right from the very get-go. We proclaim as much just after we say Kol Nidre, the part of the service that Rabbi Lew refers to as our soul’s name being called. Why go through the next 25 hours then?
This time is set aside for us to do the work we need to do to realign with the Divine, that which is greater, and even more so, to come back into alignment with ourselves. The Machzor is a roadmap for helping us get there. Though the liturgy is profound and beautiful, it is not the be all end all of Yom Kippur. Give yourself permission to take whatever and however much time you need over this next day to do the soul work you need to do, the self-care you need. We come together in community in a year such as this one, with all of our sorrows, wounds and traumas, praying for a better world. May we all have a meaningful, transformative Yom Kippur.
The Heart Knows the Bitterness Of Its Soul: Experience As An Integral Expression of Holiness
August 13, 2021 by
With the marking of Rosh Chodesh Elul this week, the Jewish tradition invites us into the holiest months of the year. It’s a time for personal introspection and stock-taking, a time to ask ourselves about the people we want to be in the new year. This Elul is particularly significant as with Rosh Hashanah, we usher in the Shmita or Sabbatical year, a time to think about personal and collective cessation and release.
We also direct our hearts towards teshuvah, or returning, realigning with our best and highest selves and with the Divine. Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar is all about this realignment.
This may seem strange, but Yom Kippur is, after Pesach or Passover my favorite Jewish holiday. The liturgical poetry of the day is soul-stirring. The collective responsibility that we affirm and reaffirm for the ways in which we’ve missed the mark. The joy that comes knowing that we are able to begin again, just as we do every year and every day.
The Jewish tradition provides us with several physical observances intended to spiritually situate ourselves for the awesomeness of Yom Kippur. One of those, and perhaps the best known, is fasting.
In SVARA’s Mishnah Collective this season, we are learning Mishnah Yoma chapter 8, the chapter that focuses most directly on teshuvah/return. The fifth Mishnah of the chapter explicitly stipulates conditions under which a person may not fast for their own wellbeing. “עֻבָּרָה שֶׁהֵרִיחָה, מַאֲכִילִין אוֹתָהּ עַד שֶׁתָּשִׁיב נַפְשָׁהּ. חוֹלֶה מַאֲכִילִין אוֹתוֹ עַל פִּי בְקִיאִין. וְאִם אֵין שָׁם בְּקִיאִין, מַאֲכִילִין אוֹתוֹ עַל פִּי עַצְמוֹ, עַד שֶׁיֹּאמַר דָּי: If her fetus smelled food, she is fed until her soul is restored. [The fetus smells the food, and she desires it, and if she does not eat, both are endangered. A sick person is fed on the opinion of experts [i.e., doctors who are expert in their profession]. And if there are no experts, he is fed on his own say, until he says: “Enough!”.
Our Mishnah presents several case studies for determining when and by whose authority a person may not fast or may break their fast early. We learn that one who is pregnant, who smells food and craves the food is fed until satiated. Satiety is achieved, then, both for the one who is pregnant and the growing fetus.
The second case we receive here is that of one who is ill. If experts IE medical doctors or the like are present and they stipulate, on their professional authority that the person must eat, the person eats. On the one hand, I completely get it. If experts are present and say that a person is so sick that their life is in danger, pikuach nefesh—saving a life supersedes all other mitzvot. On the other hand, I bristle, noticing the way in which my own prejudicial encounters with the healthcare system color my reaction. I wonder if paternalism, that all-too-common assumption that many have that they know better than we possibly can is at play. I notice that reaction arising and hold it lightly, as we do. The importance the rabbis place on qualified experts here is incredibly important to lift up, especially in the time in which we are living. Ours is a tradition that honors science and medicine, full stop.
Our Mishnah is not yet finished. If a doctor is not present, the one who is ill eats on their own authority, until they say enough. Juxtaposed to the earlier case, this piece of Mishnah illustrates for us the importance of bodily autonomy. We know our experiences best. The rabbis will state this even more clearly later in the Gemara, citing a verse from Mishlei/Proverbs, the heart knows the bitterness of its own soul. At the end of the day, we know whether or not we need to eat. In its context, this is a radical claim. Yom Kippur is the most sacred day; the fasting is an integral component of that. Yet, we are reminded that fasting is not the totality of the day, not even close. In too many communities today, those who cannot fast for whatever reason feel profoundly alienated, disconnected from everyone else around them. This feeling can easily become even stronger, and folks can feel like they are, G-d-forbid, failing in some way because their bodies cannot do what other bodies do.
Those of us who experience any number of oppressions—ableism, fatphobia, transphobia—meant to reenforce the narrow conception of which bodies are acceptable and which are absolutely not know the way in which that feeling gnaws at our souls. This is even more acute, in my own experience and that of too many people I counsel in religious spaces. May this Elul be a time for us to not only do our individual soul-work, but also to take to heart the ways in which our tradition makes room, explicitly, for a multiplicity of experiences as we reaffirm that the individual knows the bitterness of their own soul better than anyone else can.