For many years now -- more than I can remember to count -- on those occasions when I immerse in a mikveh (usually before Rosh Hashana and at the women's retreat, other times now and then as well) I have always whispered the same kavvanah, the same intention into the ear of our beloved mikveh lady. "Loving service." It's all I want, really, what I hunger for most in my life, a life in which my days are filled with acts that connect me to others in a web of affection and care. I want that with my nearest and dearest, and I want that web to be expansive too, beyond my own intimates. I want to increase the good in the world, to be part of the motion that brings us all closer to thriving. And I realize that, perversely, I have slowly been starving myself of exactly what I long for the most. It's puzzling and upsetting, but, as with any perversity or pathology, recognizing it is a first step towards change and healing.
A moment of reckoning came recently. On the zechut, the merit, I'm pretty sure, of my having co-organized the Tu B'shevat seder at Headwaters Forest back in 1997, I was invited by the inspiring and inspired Rabbi Arthur Waskow (of the Shalom Center, the Freedom Seders and much more) to a meeting in Philadelphia to try to dream up some sort of Jewish effort towards global justice. From the first moment that I read the e-mail inviting me, I felt a driving motivation to go. All of us were asked to send along a brief bio of our justice-making credentials. I sat down at the computer to write my little paragraph, and my hands rested expectantly above the keyboard. What do I have to say for myself? What have I set my hand and heart to in the direction of loving service since that rainy day in 1997? Private and personal acts, yes, and I don't mean to devalue these at all. The small acts of service we all do keep us alive in every way -- physically, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually. I hope I've kept up my end most of the time, even as I've been held up by all of you a million ways. But Arthur wasn't asking about the casseroles I've made lately or the birthday cards I've sent.
Like many of us, I've been part of great efforts in the past, efforts I'm proud of, that I still love to think about. But presently? I think of myself as an activist because I have so many opinions when I read the paper, but what have I actually done lately in the direction of expanding that web of loving service beyond the people I can look in the eye day-to-day? The best I could say for myself is that several important times of late I have said yes to someone else's invitation, and I have marched or held a candle or been trained in a peacemaking skill or written a letter. There is a bit more, yes, but really not the rich life of peace and justice-making that I pray for so earnestly.
And why not? As I begin to think about the answers, I see the psychic hametz, the gunk, the crumbs that over time have grown and gotten sticky and crusted over the decency and energy of my fundamental intentions until my mind and heart are stuck and corroded and just about ground to a halt.
Some of that hametz: I am overwhelmed. The news is so bad, the numbers so vast, the root causes so deep and tangled that no possible project has any hope in it. Why spend the thousands of hours necessary to achieve this small goal when it won't even begin to touch that oh-so-much-worse problem?
I am intimidated by threats, both personal and against those who really do step out. I was appalled to see my name on an internet list of "Self-Hating anti-Israel Threats," but exponentially more horrified when I saw the vicious slander there against Rabbi Michael Lerner, who has stood up so courageously on many national and world issues. Closer to home, I am afraid to add to contention on our polarized community. I am afraid to alienate people I care for. I'm afraid to put things I care about at risk.
I am jaded. It's hard to get my interest. The myriad of actual, specific projects and efforts that keep our community and our world spinning don't sound sexy enough to cut through my torpor.
I'm cynical. I can think back to all the struggles of the past that didn't come to victory. And somehow those fights look easier than what's looming ahead. Why even try?
I fear that I will have to make a choice between my inner life and outward commitments. This is about time, of course, but also about focus. These days I crave quiet, introspection. My memory of former activist days is that there was never a moment of stillness. (No matter that I couldn't balance my checkbook them either. It's possible that I could manage my calendar better nowadays too.)
Etc. Blah blah blah. The point being, I let all this crud build up, and now I'm just about stuck.
But I believe, deeply and truly, in yetziat mitzrayim, in exodus from the narrow, choked-off places represented by the country of slavery. "Mitzrayim," Egypt, is one of the bible's most brilliant proper names. It means "narrowness." I believe that we can be liberated from those tight, narrow spots, or at least that I can. I believe in crying out to the goodness of the universe -- to God, if you like -- from my place of enslavement for what I most truly need. If that is loving service, then please, I am asking…
So now I am back from that meeting in Philadelphia. I spent a day in the company of nineteen remarkable Jewish leaders, none of them appearing to be troubled in any way by torpor, boredom or intimidation. They were powerful, positive, reflective, wise. (And, I have to add, perhaps in contrast to meetings in decades past, they listened generously. No one hogged the floor. No one attacked anyone else. Disagreements were voiced pleasantly. People thanked each other… My goodness!) We are only at the beginning of figuring out how to act together, but the bond already feels strong. We will do something good.
I got home late at night and downloaded my e-mail before I dropped off to sleep. Waiting in there for me was my Monday Morning Meditation, a little treat sent out weekly by my friend the (Bennington) Vermonter rebbe, Howard Cohen. This week's, from Albert Schweitzer: "In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit." So I fell to sleep that night thinking about my nineteen new colleagues. And even more so, thinking about chatting last week with Joan Katzeff, just back from a bit of the incredible work she and Paul are doing creating livelihoods for indigenous Nicaraguan and now Rwandan coffee growers and bringing those worlds together; thinking about Mina Cohen and Austin Grinberg and Ayla Schlosser and all that they just did to bring the "Every Fifteen Minutes" program to fight against drunk driving taking students' lives; and Nat Corey-Moran teaching at the rancheria school in Annapolis. These beloveds sprang right to my mind because I've seen them or had a conversation about each of them in the past couple of days. There are more, so many more, right here among us. "We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit." Indeed!
I flew back from Philadelphia in the late afternoon, and as we headed west the sun began to sink. Somewhere over the Rockies, as it became dusk, I looked out the window and saw, almost at the same level as the airplane, the molad, the new-born baby moon of the month of Nisan, Venus bright above her. When that baby moon becomes full, the Red Sea will split and the enslaved will run to freedom. There could hardly be a more inspiring astronomical reminder than that sliver of moon off the wing of the plane at 30,000 feet in the air. I arrived home that night full of hope and ready to begin tackling the hametz of my life -- under the stove in the kitchen and in my own mind and heart. I can hardly wait to hear and tell the story of a God Who hears the cries of the poor and enslaved and Who rearranges history and even nature to bring about their and our liberation. I look forward to being freed from my own personal narrowness. I look forward to the enlargement of my circle of loving concern.
Freedom, as I understand it, isn't release from caring about others -- it is freedom to care and love and connect as much as it is to be loved and cared-for. If I have allowed myself to become mired and stuck in pessimism and intimidation, then I am no more free than my ancestors were in Mitzrayim. If we are not free to love others and serve them, then we are slaves. This Pesach I look forward to a great release of energy and optimism -- in myself and, God willing, in all of us -- to increase good in the world, to be part of the movement which brings us all closer to thriving. Happy, happy Pesach, my dear community!
© 2004 Rabbi Margaret Holub
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Updated 09/09/2004 (rge)