I've been mulling over a dilemma lately, looking to the universe, to God, to the flow of all of us for insight. And, sure enough, answers began to flood towards me. I heard someone say, "I realized I want more closeness with people." He described being in a room, looking around and saying, "This one is too busy. This one is too important. This one is too" I heard someone else say, "I've been avoiding big gatherings lately. I'm afraid that I am going to hear people talking about things that upset me, and it will ruin my whole day." I heard another person say, "I was so horrified by the Passover story this year that I just couldn't go to a seder." I heard someone else say, "I think [you and I] are less timid with each other now than we were a year ago." I heard someone say, "I've been thinking about what you said last week about and I just didn't understand it. So I'm calling to ask you what you meant." I hears someone else say, "Thank you so much for hanging in with us through."
And then a few nights ago I had a dream. In the dream I was leading a service. The room was odd, with curvy walls. People were seated along the curves of the walls, so that they couldn't see each other very well, and the middle of the room was empty. I was standing in front and feeling quite anxious. I was very aware that, because of the odd seating arrangement, "the center is missing here." I had a brilliant idea in the middle of the service and ran back to the library to get High Holy Day machzors. I thought we needed to say "Al Cheyt" (the penitential prayer during Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur when we beat our chests and say "For the sin of") But I couldn't find quite enough machzors to go around.
The dilemma I had been chewing on, for some months now, actually, as you who read the Megillah will know, had to do with all of our dissenting opinions and strong feelings of late, the way it has seemed that all our nerves are right up on the surface of our skin. So I've been wondering, "Should I be outspoken or not about what I think about political issues? Should I encourage others to speak up? Is more dialogue a good idea, or would it be better to just be quiet for the sake of getting along?" And so on. You know this line of questioning of mine.
Then I had that dream which told me that "the center is missing here." And I suddenly began with new eyes and ears to see and hear all the good, sweet people around me struggling to connect with each other, with me -- feeling fragile, feeling timid, getting tired, getting offended, getting bored, pulling back, trying again. And I realized that this is the center, all of us trying to reach each other, trying to love and care for each other. I don't actually feel like our center is missing, but I feel like a layer of skin was peeled away for me, and I can suddenly see more clearly how hard it is to keep that center strong and intact.
I was driving today to Hendy Woods for our Lag B'omer picnic, on this incomparably gorgeous Sunday morning, driving across the Greenwood Road in full spring flower--and I realized I was worrying about all kinds of things. Will anyone come? Will the people who do come be happy with the other people who also show up? Who is staying home because they don't want to be with someone else in the community? Who is staying away because they have been upset by something that happened at the shul? Who is upset with me and not saying anything? Who is staying away because they are afraid they won't have anything to talk about with the people they see? What are we going to talk about anyhow? Are we going to have fun? All this craziness on a beautiful day on my way to a picnic.
And thinking about all this I realize that I wasn't bringing quite the right dilemma to the universe. The central question isn't really whether or not we speak our minds, or whether or not we agree or disagree with each other about any matters of politics or anything else. The question is: how do we find the courage and the energy to connect with each other, even if one of us makes the other mad, even if we think the other one is wrong about something, even if we are of different ages or backgrounds or economic circumstances or ways of being religious or whatever else in the world can possibly separate us? How do we manage to keep connected after we've all been in community together for long enough to hurt each other's feelings a few times, to show our limits, to make our preferences and our dislikes plenty clear? How do we get close and keep close? How do we manage to persist in sharing what is true for us and hearing what is true for the other? How do we avoid just giving up and walking away, saying "The Jewish community doesn't really matter to me that much anyhow?" We matter tremendously to each other. How can we bond more deeply?
I see that it is up to each one of us to build and treasure relationships with each other individual person. It's not a policy, not a program, not something that can be decided by a Board or instituted by a rabbi. It's any one of us struggling to connect, to overcome shyness or alienation or aggravation, apologizing if apology is called for (that's where those machzors came from in my dream, I'm pretty sure -- any of us may have teshuvah, repair and repentance, to do with someone else at any time) showing up,talking in a real way, trying to listen to what is said in response, opening up instead of closing down. I was musing about all of this with one of my beloveds here, reflecting on how to make the community safe enough that people can open their hearts as they wish. And my friend said, "Maybe safety is just realizing that you can't always be safe [and opening up anyway.]" I've found myself thinking lately about the mitzvah of "ahavat yisrael," of loving other Jewish people.
I hope you know that I do not consider it to be a greater priority or mandate to love other Jews than to love any and all other people or the creatures of our natural world. But I do consider it to be a mitzvah to cultivate closeness in the Jewish community, to get to know other Jewish people and to bond with them, to know each other's stories, to become involved in each other's lives. I feel that this is a mitzvah in the same way that cultivating closeness in your family (when this is possible) is a mitzvah -- not out of disregard for other people at all, but out of a feeling that we all need and deserve a circle in which we are at home, where we are essential and irreplaceable. Most of us are blessed with interlocking circles of community and belonging, and I would say the same of each of them -- it is a mitzvah to cultivate closeness to your neighbors, to the people who do the same sort of work you do, to people who share your interests. Being part of close circles of community can give us strength and wisdom which helps us to love in other places and other ways. It's not an either/or proposition at all.
Let's make this the Summer of Love! I'll try with renewed energy, and I hope you will as well. Let's strengthen our center, build the relationships one-on-one with each other that in turn build our community. And when all that is strong and vibrant, then we can work out our world policy! - Rabbi Margaret Holub
© 2003 Rabbi Margaret Holub
(home) (calendar) (info) (articles) (sponsors) (links) (bios) (reviews) (travel) (recipes) (projects) (photos) (art)
Updated 09/09/2004 (rge)