Saturday, 27 February 2021

 An NLP tool - The Swish 


I use the swish with clients who come for sessions at Deep Dive Therapy.

I also use it with clients for hypnotherapy in London 

Swish[1]

I would just now like you to think of a situation which you allow to get you stressed and would like to be different, or perhaps something you do that you would prefer to stop doing. Or perhaps times when you might eat in a way that you don’t like. Maybe you find that you eat often late at night or perhaps -- binge a little.

Okay and when you are ready -- just close your eyes and see an image of that behavior that you would like to change. --Really do your best to actually BE in that image and see what you would normally see and hear all that you would normally hear. Really notice everything that you would normally see at that time as it is in real life. Okay so when you have that image – just now put that aside.

--Next I would like you to create an image of how things will be when you have that behavior or event exactly as you really would like it to be - your ideal for that situation

– when you are in control and acting in the way you would really truly like to.

--Really be in that image – and notice in detail what is happening – really see this new image and enjoy watching it. Make it a bright picture – make the colours motivating and the sounds just right – just ensure that it's really the goal that you would love to achieve with that behavior.

--Okay, so now I would like you to take this new exciting and motivating image and make it smaller and smaller and into a ball of light -- which you will push to the distance or down into the corner.

Now with that ball of light in the corner – make the main picture now--- that first picture of that original behavior which you would like to change. Have that first picture as your main picture -- with the ball of the new behavior just sitting there in the corner..Good

-- Now the next part must be done very quickly and as you do it – please say the word woosh or swish -- as well -- as you do it..

 I would like you to -- very quickly explode that ball of light, that new bright motivating picture, so that it – engulfs and overcomes the old picture. Do this really quickly and say woosh

-Explode the ball so that it overcomes and overwhelms the old picture, so that the old one gets overpowered and loses its life and power and disappears – Do this really really quickly. Really see that old picture lose its color -- as you now overwhelm it -- with the new picture. Do this really quickly.

And now just enjoy looking and feeling this new picture of -- how things are and when you have done that – You can open your eyes



[1] Source: Goldfarb and Gniwesch, 2009


Wednesday, 7 May 2014

Synagogues – The Forgotten Spaces of the Jewish Community?




Where, today, does vibrant Jewish life happen? 

=Somewhere in NYC like Romemu/ Lab/Shul? (Please note that this blog does not endorse any particular place of worship - other places of worship are available)

=Limmud? (Oh, sorry folks, nothing else like it, in the world, is in fact available)

=Hartman/Pardes/Drisha/ Hovevei Torah/ Hadar etc or some yeshiva you once went to

=Maybe you’ll reply, it’s simply living in Israel, be that the daily experience of Israeli life, celebrating Yom Haazmaut etc, dancing on Simchat Torah in Jerusalem or maybe some summer (or all year round) fun in Tel Aviv?

=Around a Shabbat table?

=In Bnei Brak or Jerusalem?

=In shul (synagogue)?


‘Sorry Jason, did you say, “In shul”?’ Are you insane? Have you actually been to my local shul lately? I share your surprise that your local shul might be considered a place of vibrant Judaism, but hear me out.

Let me start with an analogy for what I wish to say in the next few paragraphs. Let me tell you about a problem I once had, that just didn’t seem to go away. Maybe you’ve suffered from this affliction as well? You worried about it. Maybe told your friends about it. Maybe you even felt a bit panicky about it. But one day, almost as if by magic, you noticed that you hadn’t actually thought about that problem, that was once so big, for a while. The problem was still there but you had moved on. By now you’d given up thinking about addressing that dull achy feeling. You told yourself, in a not entirely convincing tone, that it would eventually be okay and in fact inactivity would be just fine.

I think our synagogues are sometimes a bit like that for Anglo Jewry. We all know there’s a problem somewhere. We’ve been to them, we've seen some close down for lack of members and that’s even in areas with sizable Jewish populations. We may have read about reports relating to demographics, changes in denominational affiliations, birth rates, or changes in religious attitudes. That voice in our head says that something needs to change. Yet like a ship which views itself impervious to the whims or storms of contemporary society, most shuls remain the same, business as usual. 

I think that maybe we no longer know what to really do about this building, this institution which we nostalgically call ‘shul’. We assume we need them. In fact we actually have several denominational organisations which more or less survive only because of the shuls which support them. In other words, as a community we are so invested in the existence of these institutions, that we no longer openly question their relevance, despite that inner voice which sometimes does so. 

Here’s a crazy thought to ponder - What if we started everything from scratch? How would we arrange our communities? What would you more automatically consider as good ways to facilitate your individual needs for spirituality and our communal need to have an arena for communal life? Would you build a large sanctuary, classrooms and offices? Would you create a management culture consisting of a board of management, rabbis, admin staff, some teachers, and maybe a friendly youth worker? Is that what 21st century Judaism requires or just ‘what we do’?


I think that somewhere, as a community, we have forgotten to ask why Synagogues today still matter.

My orthodox friends go to shul. Of course they do and often three times a day. Orthodox Jews attend shul out a sense of obligation from an external command. Prayer said with the community, with a minyan, a quorum of ten, is superior to prayer said alone and God accepts it more willingly. Also, whether orthodox or progressive, shuls are a focus of communal life, particularly for those blessed with young children. It’s where your friends go and it’s where your children’s friends go to both play and pray. 

I personally feel no external obligation upon me to pray either regularly or with a set liturgy and I also do not have a family. Why, you ask, should synagogues matter to me? But they do. Why they matter is the subject for another discussion, on another occasion. Let it be enough, for now, for you to hear of my frustrations. I can’t find a shul which truly speaks to my unique spiritual needs and I also don’t think I’m alone. In the words of a well known personal development guru, “The more personal your problem feels, the more universally felt it really is”. So, if you are anything like me, then just like me, you too want your shul experience to ‘talk’ to you personally.


Why go to Shul?

For my parents’ generation, to which I will also include anyone who is above the age of about 60, things were slightly different. For the post-war, baby-boomer generation, you went to shul because, well, that’s what you did. On a Shabbat morning you went to shul and of course you went to the Kiddush (post service reception). You also sent your children to cheder, perhaps joined the synagogue ladies’ guild or shul cricket club and went to the odd quiz supper in support of Israel or Soviet Jewry. Perhaps the baby-boomer generation went to shul out of guilt or to fulfill the expectations of their parents, or perhaps a simple piety pointed to Shabbat shul attendance as the main way to serve God. Jewish involvement in the post war years had only one real public yard stick by which it was measured. That public yardstick was attendance of synagogue on Shabbat morning. It mattered not whether you ate non-‘heckshered’ (lacking a Kosher label) food, sat learning talmud day and night, or put Tephillin on daily.  Only those who were there at Shul Shabbat morning were worthy of being referred to by the community as regular shul goers and therefore observant Jews. 

However today, I, at least, view and measure Jewish identity very differently. Today, I, like many of my contemporaries, see little reason to go to shul. It’s not stimulating and not much fun and even at times quite unwelcoming. We, today, also see less value in ‘being seen’ by others, as observant. I view myself as very Jewish, and that’s without stepping across a synagogue threshold even on a semi-regular basis. For Jews today, our view of what it means to be Jewish, to have a strong Jewish identity, has expanded. 

Unlike my parents’ generation, how I decide to spend my time is often decided in terms of the value I get from what I do. Religious activities are no different in this regard. Those too are weighed up and evaluated just like any other activity that demands my time and effort. I live in a marketplace and I am a consumer. If the gym doesn’t give me value for money, if the machines or classes don’t work for me, then I leave and go elsewhere. I cancel my membership. So too when it comes to engaging in religion and spirituality - If shul is long, doesn’t address my needs, if I’m ignored at the kiddush and the community feels unfriendly, I have no compelling reason or sense of obligation to stay there. Why should I remain in a place that doesn’t address my needs or treats me as I would like to be treated? I should stay because my parents expect it? Out of guilt that if I stop attending the synagogue, it will eventually have to close its doors?

If shul is not enjoyable, not relevant and doesn’t answer my spiritual or social needs, why should I go? I have better ways to spend my time. This is how I think and this is, without doubt, how many Jews today think as well. Yet have you ever asked a shul board member or your local rabbi why unaffiliated or unobservant Jews on the periphery don’t show up? Most will look nervously at their shoes, unsure how to respond. If the Shul board is comprised of members of the baby-boomer generation, then their conception of how people relate to synagogues will be a generation out of date. The old guard who run shuls don’t fully get that I and perhaps you, contemporary Jews, need to be approached differently. If they did, shuls would be populated by more and more of the under 40s. Young unaffiliated Jews view the world very differently and therefore want their synagogues to be different too.

I want change. I want young Jews becoming members of synagogues and not because shul membership is the only way to ensure you get buried or get married (it’s not, by the way). I want shuls to engage in a truly meaningful way with today’s Jews. To be quite honest, just like the shul board, I also do not claim to have all the answers as to why today’s uncommitted Jews don’t want to attend the old shul model. The difference is that I want synagogues to be different from how they are now.

I think that as a community, we have almost resigned ourselves to shuls not addressing the needs of unaffiliated or non-inner circle shul goers in a real meaningful way. Shuls are run by the regulars for the regulars. Those running shuls are often too invested in the old model of doing things to consider real change to even be an option. It is assumed that the one size on offer, should indeed fit all. This assumption is maintained despite the fact that for many shuls, most members only come on the high holy days. The assumption is often that the people who don’t come are those in need of changing, whilst the shul model on offer, that should remain constant.

Has Anglo Jewry given up on shul as a valuable asset to invest our best and brightest? Well, as with many areas of life, an answer can be found by ‘following the money’. Who is funding what in our community?

The Jewish press can be a good snapshot of what we value and give our communal attention. Though not scientific, I would suggest that a clue may be found should you open the Jewish press on the week immediately following the London marathon. Just stop and ask a marathon runner (after they have finished the race obviously) and you will see what the Jewish community really wants to support. We want to raise money for worthy causes like World Jewish Relief, Norwood and Kisharon. Would you ever consider for a moment running the London marathon to support your local synagogue? Yeah, right! 

We don’t think of supporting shuls because shuls aren’t sexy or cool. They also often don’t do stuff we truly value, and they waste funds on expensive building projects and anyways, don’t we pay enough in our shul bills, already? I would like to suggest that we don’t think about them or want to give to them because, deep down we truly no longer ‘get them’ or see why they are still relevant to us personally, as individuals. 

We take shuls for granted. We see them (and often the rabbi, by extension) as something necessary, but we can’t quite put our finger on why they are in fact necessary. If we don’t really see why we need shuls, then that might therefore explain exactly the reason why no one invests in them to even attempt to make them sexy or cool.

When JW3, a building project costing 13 million pounds (total costs said to be a whopping 50 million pounds), opened, there were whispers and murmurs about the great extravagance of the cost – a great expense, especially in a time of austerity. But of course, it wasn’t your money or my money being spent was it? In fact I’ll admit that I was quite excited. It gave me a fuzzy feeling of Jewish pride that such expense was being spent on Jewish culture, my culture. The flyers and branding looked sophisticated and the taglines well written. So I, at least, put those negative thoughts aside. I assumed that those in charge, by dint of being in charge, knew something I didn’t. I assumed that, through prophecy or some hidden knowledge or virtue, which vast wealth gives you, the donors knew that in twenty years our Jewish community would look back on the expense as an investment, dividends paid back in positive change. Yet, stop a minute. What if that same money and let’s call it 50 million, had been spent on a fancyspancy shul made of glass in the Finchley Road? Money spent on a space dedicated to religion and spirituality rather than Israeli theatre and Krav Maga classes. The reaction, I’m sure, would have been raised above mere whispers. I’m sure that there would have been open arguments in the Jewish press over such investment in a shul. The question is, why?

I’ll be honest with you. If my shul looked like JW3, I’d show up. This is not me, dear reader, being superficial. It’s about dignifying what synagogues do and recognizing the importance of their role in Jewish life. Unfortunately, in our capitalist, consumer society, money spent, often points to the values, we, as a society, hold. So, you want to invest in meaningful, vibrant, Jewish life? Spend your money where you believe Jewish life will truly be created. 

I believe that real vibrant Jewish life starts with synagogues. A shul built today, to answer the needs of my generation, needs to be more than mediocre. A shul for the 21st century needs to be state of the art. I don’t mean here what it looks like either. A building whose architecture reflects the value we give it, would be wonderful, of course. But really I mean that it needs to be state of the art in terms of what goes on inside. Form is nothing without meaningful content. The Judaism on offer needs to speak to 21st century Jews, speaking to our needs, desires and concerns. Would 50 million cover that? Well, the High Holy Days services I go to and love (Grassroots Jews) takes place pop-up style in a garden and is overflowing with contemporary, personal and eternal meaning and all on a low low budget. 

Invest in anything that speaks to 21st century Jews in a real way and you might be surprised that the expense is less than you had thought. We all love sleek, intelligent design concepts, but today’s Jews want state of the art substance and depth which speaks personally to their concerns, anxieties and desires, more than fancy form that tries too hard to impress. 

I do not believe that Jewish community is created by anything other than – Jewish Community. It sounds circular, but it’s true. Of course Jewish identity is complex and multidimensional but I would suggest that only by creating meaningful Jewish community will we manage to create sustainable, meaningful and real Jewish community. 

Only places like synagogues, or other spaces or places which are conducive to creating community, will ever really create community in a true sense. Everything else is fun and nice, but transient and unsustainable. You may have a 'peak' meaningful experience, but a community was never created unless a community actually came together to create it. There’s me sounding circular again! 

I believe that meaningful Jewish community is created around spiritual actions or ritual activities, done in some way together with others, with the commitment and intention of creating a community. Only community with its sense of purpose, mutual responsibility and belonging, will ultimately create a meaningful and deep, long-lasting Jewish life. Community is not created by events you pay for at a box office or by programming it into existence. 

I hear you already shouting, “What about Limmud? Isn’t Limmud a community but made up of programming?” I agree, Limmud is about programming and for that short time also a community. I would suggest it is a community due to three factors. Firstly at Limmud, we each share the experience with each other,secondly there is a responsibly on both our parts to commit to maintaining that ‘space’ for each other, and thirdly there is a ritualistic aspect to Limmid, if only in that it happens regularly once a year. Limmud is far more than just programming. A sustainable community is also a lot more besides these basic ingredients. I love Limmud and Limmud deserves its own article, as I consider it such a wonderful example of a temporary, though perhaps somewhat utopian, Jewish community.  

Community, real community is about you and me doing things we like together. Community is responsibility for others - your responsibility for me and mine for you, our shared commitment to that creation of community. Real community is about love and about relationships. Real Jewish community is also about another concept that no one these days wants to talk openly about either. Jewish community, of course has to, at some point, in a real adult fashion, discuss God, whatever that mysterious idea might mean.


We already have sacred spaces, hubs purpose built for spirituality, centres for community, and they’re all over the place. We call them synagogues. 

Let’s learn again how to relate to this place of community. Let’s begin to describe together what sacred space and community means for us, modern Jews living in the 21st century. Join me on this journey.










Wednesday, 30 April 2014

DIY Judaism and Why we Actually do Need a Few Rabbis*


Some shuls (synagogues) have one and some have a whole faculty. Other shuls deliberately choose to have none. Rabbinic seminaries are churning out a steady stream of rabbis each year, but do we actually need any of them? 
 
I was ordained as an orthodox rabbi, in Israel in 2003. It was the best of times and the worst of times, but I loved it. Though I’ve moved away from that younger me, it helped make me into who I am today. My beliefs and outlook are now far removed from the passionate modern orthodoxy of my yeshiva days but I’ll probably never truly loose much of what my intensive yeshiva education gave me. At yeshiva (In those days, I never really viewed myself as a trainee rabbi, but more as an aspiring talmudic scholar and teacher. I therefore always refer to my rabbinic seminary as a ‘yeshiva’) I had personal ups and downs and the trauma of living in the West bank during the second intifada. The fear of violence was almost constantly humming in the background. I was near suicide bombs on two occasions and as a yeshiva, we felt the collective trauma of our teacher, Rabbi Brovender, being kidnapped and beaten (close to death) by Palestinian Policemen.

Putting aside those aspects, I loved my years living in a Torah learning intellectual bubble. When you measure a bad day as one in which you didn’t fully get ‘pshat’(the correct explanation) in gemara (talmud) class, you know that in a cozy ivory tower you surely dwell.


The Director of Studies of a well known rabbinical school recently told me that, at his school, their programme’s aim was the ‘creation of a rabbi’. According to the Torah, God, in His efficiency, took just a week to create our majestically diverse and beautiful world. A fully formed rabbi, with pastoral and homiletic skills, I guess takes a little longer. Joking aside, why do we need rabbis? Is it not more empowering to educate Jews to look after their own spiritual lives, unmediated by clergy?

In Hasidic communities, the rebbe or Zaddiq and increasingly in modern yeshivot, the rabbi or ‘Rosh Yeshivah’ (academy head) is viewed as a way to connect to heaven. Rabbi Yitzhak Hutner, a twentieth century Haredi (Ultraorthodox, Lithuanian, non-Hasidic) yeshiva head exemplified this paternalistic idea of rabbi as spiritual mediator and heaven’s representative or spokesman on earth. Hutner’s students would not just ask his opinion about small things like for whom to vote in elections, they would sometimes decide who to marry based on his nod. His charisma and authority was so powerful that students would tell him their personal news before thinking to pick up the phone to call their biological parents. This authority on topics or knowledge of the world beyond Halacha (Jewish Law) or talmudic scholarship is often referred to as Daat Torah (normally said with the Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation - Daas Torah - meaning the authentic Torah view/outlook). 

Scholars such as Lawrence Kaplan have written about Daat Torah’s historical origins and modern impact. To have ‘Daat Torah’, in short, is to be a man (women would be excluded automatically) with tremendous in-depth intimacy with Torah, meaning the Talmud and all of Jewish law, which is viewed as the mind of God. This in depth knowledge transforms the individual, giving him an ability to know exactly what God wants elsewhere in life, beyond the law. Like the Hasidic Rebbe who connects you to heaven, the Rosh Yeshivah (Head of Talmudic College) now is also your only true authority on history, politics and even love and relationships. Anyone else cannot really know the truth fully, since they don’t have Daat Torah. Other opinions are disqualified. Indeed Rabbi Hutner, in his writings discusses, often in poetic beauty, rabbinic authority. Hutner leaves the uncritical reader, who has no sense of the history of ideas, to conclude that Daat Torah is indeed a fundamental principle inseparable from all of Jewish thought, despite its relatively recent borrowing from the Hasidic world. A deeper discussion of both Daat Torah and Rabbi Hutner I shall leave for another time.

As a Modern Orthodox Jew, I never fully bought into this Daat Torah idea and I was taught by rabbis who didn’t really either. (I do though have to thank them for many things, including introducing me to the thought of Hutner, over whose words I have labored many hours). However, I invite you to look around Anglo Jewry. How many UK rabbis consciously or subconsciously believe that his/her congregation should do as they say simply because, as a rabbi, they somehow magically know better? Rabbis often feel that status or title alone should create authority, irrelevant of intelligence, people skills or if they actually have anything interesting to say. Not only is this patronizing, it infantilises congregants. It turns spirituality from something real and personal into something mediated through the clergy, the establishment, through official religion.


What about, what Rabbi Eli Kaunfer refers to as “empowered Judaism”? Or DIY Judaism, meaning, doing it yourself?

Let’s be honest, you don’t need a rabbi to have a Bar Mitzvah, officiate at a funeral, have prayers at a shiva house (house of mourning ), to get married, lead services, read the Torah or even teach Torah. Indeed, as Jay Michaelson points out, Jews who don’t regularly attend a synagogue may often only meet their congregational rabbi at funerals. Why would we ask the rabbi to officiate at a funeral of someone he hardly knew? Would it not be more personal and meaningful and even respectful to the deceased to have a loved one officiate at the funeral instead?

DIY Judaism means that you take ownership of your Judaism, taking ownership of your rituals and observance. You can decide how to do your marriage. You can actually decide which passages are meaningful for you to be said at your shiva house. You can decide the format and content of your child’s Bar/Bat Mitzvah. In a progressive Jewish community, the role of the individual can be so much more than we currently expect it to be. In an orthodox community, there is more scope for personal choice than many realise. Orthodox Jews, your relationship with God need not always be mediated through clergy. Progressive Jews, your relationship with God is yours to create, every minute of the day.

Of course it’s not that simple. As Michaelson himself points out, writing your own Ketubah (marriage contract) or sheva brachot (wedding blessings) takes time, skill and education. Why bother doing it yourself, why reinvent the wheel, just use what we already have, I hear you ask? But being real and making things personal and genuine expressions of who you are and what you love and care about, will always take time. But it will be worth it. Being a consumer of other people’s products may save you time and sometimes that’s good. But answering God’s call to partner Him in creation is our Jewish duty.  Relying on others can feel disempowering, boring and uninspiring.


If you can DIY and create your own Judaism, what is the role of the communal rabbi?

We have created a professional Jew, and s/he is called a congregational rabbi. S/he has a contract, a pension, and (hopefully) a job description. All these things are actually good. Professionalism is important and leads to accountability and boundaries around expectations. Yet rabbi as ‘employee’ also has its problems. It can be disempowering for the rabbi, who, like a politician just before an upcoming election, has to pander and please her/his line manager, the synagogue board or denominational leadership before s/he can please God. It can be disempowering for congregants who rely on the rabbi to run their community. The synagogue gets turned into more of a clergy run community centre for rabbi led events rather than an empowered community run by its members.

Congregational rabbis often setup things so they are serving the average, or often lowest common denominator congregant’s needs. It’s normally the more committed who wish to take an active role in their own Judaism – to DIY it. But why can’t we educate everyone to take hold of their own practice and Judaism, rather than expecting the synagogue or rabbi to take care of it for them? Of course, not everyone has the time or inclination to do it themselves. But shouldn’t we offer it to everyone as a real possibility?

For most of our congregations, our overworked rabbis are our salaried employees. We expect them to provide us with life cycle events. Is this not a little like how many Catholics view the parish priest? Meaning that many Jews see their lifecycle needs as the responsibility of the rabbi, not their own. The rabbi happily (or unhappily) officiates at everyone’s weddings and Bar Mitzvahs in the hope that the sacred space created, may inspire those involved to investigate spirituality more closely.

Back to DIY. Many Jews are educated, but even educated Jews need a ‘consultant’ about how to ‘do’ Jewish practice. Rabbis can be our spiritual consultants. Rabbis can help you create your own rituals or help you decide how Jewish tradition works or is applicable as regards whatever it is you have going on at present. 

Rabbis can and should empower you through education to make your own choices, rather than dictating what they consider to be the ‘right thing’ to do. How uplifted your local rabbi would feel if you called up to ask about guidance on creating a ritual or writing a blessing following a happy occasion or important event. That’s taking your Judaism and making it personal and meaningful. The rabbi in this sense can help you DIY, do it yourself.

Rabbis are also, what I would like to call “conveners of sacred space”. There are of course, some places where we more naturally feel God, spirituality, presence, being, oneness or however you wish to refer to that feeling of being somewhere spiritual. For you it might be the desert, on top of a mountain, in silent meditation or in prayer, with family, in a synagogue or in the maternity ward surrounded by newly created life. Some places we actively create as sacred space. Some, like the biblical burning bush, we chance upon whilst we walk along the way doing other things.

Rabbis should teach Torah and inspire activism as regards relevant political or societal issues, from poverty to discrimination, from crime to disease. That is all important but, personally I believe that the main role of a rabbi today is to facilitate the creation of sacred space. I hope that rabbis or clergy reading this know what I mean when I say that.

I feel that I have done this many times. It is saying a prayer before a business meeting, it is visiting the sick and being present enough to show real empathy, it is sharing words of Torah that inspire. Yes, anyone can do this but only really rabbis focus on it as their lifelong calling. I have worked in hospice chaplaincy. It was in that context that I really noticed and thought about this role of a “convener of sacred space”. Imagine the scene – crying or anxious relatives by the bedside of a patient. As chaplain, I needed to ‘hold the space’ for all present. ‘Holding space’ or creating space, gives an invitation for all who wish to do so, to express what they felt and needed at that time. Death and illness, times of fear and anxiety, just like times of love and joy, are exactly when our spiritual selves come out and ask to be recognised and expressed. It’s when we turn inwardly to ourselves or outwardly towards the universe, looking for support. We need a space in which to do that. For some that may be through prayer or study, for others through talking and sharing and for others through silence. Silence is often the most sacred of all.

Sacred space doesn’t normally appear without preparation, it needs to be created. It takes skill and insight, humility and maturity. I would compare this understanding of the rabbi’s role to the therapeutic space a good therapist creates with a client. The space of trust between therapist and client is, in a real sense, a sacred one. You can’t really point to that space, but you certainly quickly notice when it’s gone. The client no longer feels safe to share his/her inner world. Good rabbis create that space too, and perhaps that’s why many clued-in people get that being a rabbi is more than just delivering a witty sermon.


What is sacred space? 

Sacred space is the creation of possibilities, a blank supportive canvas that allows the congregation to feel that they are legitimate, deserving, whole and good, never to be belittled or patronised. Sacred space is an opening, an invitation for you to freely express and explore your spiritual self, supported, and loved, without guilt, shame or fear. This, to me is about spiritual empowerment. A rabbi when acting as a “convener of sacred space”, as a true spiritual leader, will never dictate what you should or should not do. S/he will always look to you, a unique individual, for guidance on what spirituality means at that moment for you. 

You don’t need a rabbi to become Bar Mitzvah and I would suggest that you don’t need a rabbi to tell you what does or does not constitute rest on Shabbat. You can research or sort those things out for yourself and no one need come between you and God. Yes, I get that this DIY approach is not for all and of course your decisions and choices are always to be the guide.

We need to train and inspire rabbis to be our spiritual leaders, to be facilitators of spirituality for our communities. Whether a rabbinic programme can actually create a rabbi, fully formed and ready for action, we can discuss at greater length. For now let’s just say that my yardstick of whether a rabbi is worthy of the title is whether s/he has the skills to facilitate the spiritual experiences of themselves and others. 

Is your rabbi a “convener of sacred space”, able to create and hold spiritual space? Does your congregation feel empowered and supported to really be themselves in their relationship with God and Judaism?







 

* My thoughts flow, reflect and build upon an article, published in The Forward, by Jay Michaelson (see: http://www.jaymichaelson.net/20110908/). I would direct you to that article and the readers’ comments as well.



Friday, 25 April 2014

Parshat Kedoshim – The Mystical/Psychological Intention Behind our Ethical Behaviour



It always feels both somehow superfluous and clichéd to quote, “ אָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ אֲנִי יוָֹה You shall love your neighbour as yourself. I am the Lord.” (Vayikra 19.18) as a Jewish source text for moral behaviour. 

Over the next few paragraphs I hope to show that, once we have thought more about this principle’s scope and traditional interpretations, it’s limitations become so apparent and that a more universal text should and can be found to complement it.

From this verse, a number of questions immediately jump out at us. I apologise that not all can I devote time to explain right now. Here are a few questions to start you off. What is meant by ‘love’? Who is ‘your neighbour’? If love is just towards your neighbour, is that not narrowing the scope of this ethical love directive? Since love is an emotion, how can you ‘just’ command someone to love someone else?

When faced with a curious Torah phrase, I would normally immediately look to Rashi (Shlomo Yitzhaki, 10th century France) for guidance. I would however like to skip Rashi for now and listen instead to the words of Ramban (Nachmanides, 11th century, Spain). 

Ramban expresses shock at this verse. He asks, how can we understand that the Torah commands us to love others? How can you command me to love you, just like that, as if it’s no big thing? Surely emotions don’t just show up because we are asked to express or feel them. 

Ramban points out that the Torah here is therefore not strictly asking us to love others. You cannot command emotions. Furthermore the Torah elsewhere puts boundaries around our duty to look after the welfare of others. You should not negate your own needs in the face of others’ needs - the preservation of your life comes before preserving the life of others. Your priority is always you over me and so you benefiting me is not to be at the expense of your own welfare. Rather, explains Ramban, the text is here instructing us to act in ways that show love to others. Treat others in ways, which would, for you, lead you to feel that you had received love, if treated in that way. 

I always enjoy the commonsense humanity and rationalism of Ramban. Ramban here affirms that each of us has legitimate individual needs, which are not overridden by my obligations to show love to you. Love here is understood as a verb. Meaning that love is the doing of acts of kindness or whatever feels like love. But this giving of love is not at the expense of my own needs. 

Okay, so I initially skipped Rashi, since, to be honest, when I first read his comments, I really didn’t understand what he was trying to say about this phrase. But, now I think I have it. (go me!)

Rashi, the master of explaining troubling aspects of the Torah text, simply states in response to this ethical directive, “Said Rabbi Akiva, This is a great principle of the Torah”. “Okay, so what - What’s new about that? Didn’t I know that already Rashi?”, was my first thought. However, Rashi does not comment on every word or phrase of the text and so I always must ask why Rashi felt the need to add these words at all. If his comment doesn’t add something, or explain something, he would have kept shtum. So I took a second look. I would like to suggest what, I think, may have been on Rashi’s mind. I think that Rashi felt the need to tell us that this verse was a “great principle of the Torah”, since he must have felt that another conclusion was legitimately possible. 

I would like to suggest that Rashi is giving us here his vote on a fascinating debate between Rabbi Akiva and Shimon Ben Azzai, a debate found in a Midrash:
“’You shall love your neighbour as yourself'. Rabbi Akiva says: This is a great principle of the Torah. Ben Azzai says; 'This is the book of the generations of Adam' (Genesis 5:1) is a greater principle. (Sifra, Kedoshim 4:12)

Rashi tells us that he sides with Rabbi Akiva rather than Ben Azzi in this debate. In another midrash (Bereshit Rabba 24:7) Ben Azzai explains why he cannot agree with Rabbi Akiva. Ben Azzai objects to “love your neighbour” since it makes ethics a subjective game. What is ‘good’ is subject to what you, the giver or doer, likes and dislikes. There is little or no reference to the preferences of, me, the receiver. Says Ben Azzai, if showing love is doing what I consider to be loving acts, what if, for example, I enjoy a masochistic delight in being mocked - Should I then mock you too? That makes no sense, says Ben Azzai. 

For me personally, I also find difficult the rabbinic interpretation of this verse. The rabbis saw this verse as restricting our acts of love to just those who are considered to be our “neighbours”. That only to those who are religiously observant should you show love. I find this particularism or discrimination troubling. 
 
I have always loved Hillel the Elder’s well known response to a slightly cheeky request, by a would be convert, to perform a conversion whilst “standing on one leg”. Hillel could have gotten stroppy, but rather than replying in an angry or annoyed fashion, Hillel, with respect and clear thought replies, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah, the rest is the explanation, so go now and learn." (Talmud Shabbat, 31a). 

Interestingly, Hillel did not quote, “Love your neighbour” to the would be convert. Interesting also is that the Torah phrased our verse as it did and did not opt for Hillel’s phraseology. We surely must ask why Hillel did not quote, “Love your neighbour” and why the Torah preferred the positive love phraseology to Hillel’s anti hate instruction. I will leave it to you to consider some explanations. 

Let’s return to Ben Azzai. Ben Azzai was concerned that if ethics are about love and your subjective experience, then we could all end up in trouble. Perhaps like Hillel the Elder or like the twentieth century French philosopher, Immanuel Levinas, Ben Azzai felt that ethics, our call to show love and concern for others, should be more about recognition of the other, and not be me centred. For Levinas, as soon as we meet another person, a moral responsibility to that other is created. 

Ben Azzai disagreed with Rabbi Akiva. Ben Azzai held that “love your neighbour”, though a great principle, is not the greatest principle out there. There is a greater principle, a principle which doesn’t negate “love your neighbour”, but integrates and then eclipses it. Perhaps, it’s not a push to suggest that Ben Azzai is also suggesting that ethics can mature and evolve. We can move beyond Rabbi Akiva’s principle to a higher and more universal ethic - Just a thought.

What does Ben Azzai say? Ben Azzai says that we all ultimately come from Adam, the first human being. We are all included in “the generations of Adam”, all equal and all equally deserving of being treated ethically. The mystics saw a literal understanding of this idea which perhaps a biologist or geneticist would understand also. The mystics explained that we are each actually physically descended from Adam. My body is from Adam’s body, as is yours. As such, each of us share the same humanity, the same make up. We are the same and so our unique individuality, to some degree is in reality an illusion. If it were possible, every human could trace his or her DNA back to the Garden of Eden. Each of us is “one of the generations of Adam”.

Love is a feeling, it’s subjective. Yet I’m not sure that ben Azzai is now saying that ethics are suddenly objective. I think he is, at the very least, making a comment on the legitimacy of each of us to be recipients of love. We are all equally deserving. 

This argument between Rabbi Akiva and Ben Azzai is perhaps about the source or grounding principle upon which ethical behaviour may originate. The Hasidic master, the Sefat Emet (19th century), gives us a mystical reading, which I would like to suggest also proscribes a meditative practice or psychological intention to have as you do acts of love for others. 

Ramban, mentioned earlier, found it a difficulty that the Torah would ask us to express emotions, to, on demand, generate love for others. So Ramban, following Rabbi Akiva, saw you and me, the doers of loving acts, as the models or measures for what love acts are to be. Whatever is love for you, is what you do for others, the Ramban explained. 

The Sefat Emet sees love differently. Love, says the Sefat Emet is really an act of self nullification in the presence of the beloved. To love is to be overwhelmed. To act in love, a person must act with the intention of being at one with another. To perform acts in love, you must open your heart and have the intention to let go of yourself a bit (or a lot) and let other(s) in. Love is not just a verb, it’s not just doing this or that act, it’s all about your intention

I think we all get this idea. Have you ever given a gift of love? Maybe it was a bunch of flowers or a piece of jewellery? Love is an act and giving can be love. For it to qualify as 'love', the Ramban would be happy with ‘simple’ gift giving.  Flowers delivered? Then all is good, job done - time to get on with other things. 

However the Sefat Emet tells us that love is not just the giving or doing of things for others alone. Love is not love without the accompanying intention or feeling, only then, is it really a gift of love in a true sense. To love is to open up, to be vulnerable and make emotional space for another being. That space can be so expansive that you might feel a little lost. You feel, in the words of the Sefat Emet, nullified, overwhelmed. Anyone who has been in love will tell you about that feeling of losing control and feeling absorbed or even lost in that feeling, lost in that other person. 

Says the Sefat Emet, we should open our hearts and give up part of ourselves to the other when we do acts of love, acts of giving. The Sefat Emet also takes on Ben Azzai’s more universal stance, seeing Ben Azzai to be integrating and expanding what Rabbi Akiva says, not simply flatly rejecting his explanation out of hand. 

The Sefat Emet tells us that religiously motivated behaviour should be accompanied by this intention to open up your heart to the whole of humanity. I might be giving charity to the poor, but my heart's intention should be to connect to a universal feeling for all of humanity. To give fully, is to feel our shared humanity. Each human being is also the whole of humanity. Each person is amongst the “generations of Adam”.

I find this universal love and legitimacy of others to be an inspiring idea. I think the Sefat Emet is perhaps also saying something very important to us about our need to be honest around our intentions. He is telling us that true love, true giving, can never be particularistic or discriminatory. If I only love a select group, for example my “neighbours” or just my friends or just the members of my tribe, how can I truly say that I really love even them? Love is an emotion which cannot be boundaried by intellectual or sociological categories. Feelings don’t understand those types of boundaries. If I don’t love you because of your basic existence or humanity, which we both share, I must surely love you because of something else. If I say that I act with love to religious Jews only and not to irreligious Jews, then perhaps what I feel for those religious Jews isn’t itself really love at all anyway. 

If I cannot find in my heart love for all humanity simply because they are each, like me, the descendants of Adam, do I really feel love for myself, love for my own basic humanity? By seeing and appreciating my own humanity, I see also the humanity of others. If I don't fully recognise that I'm legitimate and deserving, how will I truly see that uniqueness in you also? 

When you personally really see clearly what is hateful or beloved to you, you as a simple human being, after having been stripped of all the illusionary stuff we make out or tell ourselves is important, then ‘getting’ how we should treat others will be a no brainer - Hillel makes sense.

Yes, Rabbi Akiva’s love is a great principle but Ben Azzai tells us that he knows of a greater one.