February 2, 2013

Yitro, Exodus 18:1–20:23

Everybody’s Working for the Weekend

By Marci N. Bellows

Jethro, priest of Midian, Moses' father-in-law, heard all that God had done for Moses and for Israel, God's people, how the Eternal had brought Israel out from Egypt. - Exodus 18:1
One Monday night, I sat in a circle with my ninth and tenth grade students. We were in the middle of a unit on wellness and k'dushat haguf, "the holiness of our bodies." I asked them to give me an example of a way Judaism encourages us to take care of ourselves. They sat thoughtfully, unsure of how to answer my question. I then asked, "How do you know that it is important to rest and recharge ourselves, at least once a week?" They cried out, "Shabbat!" We discussed how lucky we are to be members of a tradition that not only values self-care, but also commands us to take a break once a week.

We started to think creatively about what activities most recharge us. I told them they couldn't answer, "sleep." My students mentioned reading, listening to music, going for a walk, taking a hot shower, bowling, drinking a cup of tea, or even watching television. After making promises to add a sense of holiness to these mundane activities by deliberately doing them on Shabbat, we concluded our class session with a fifteen-minute guided meditation. My students left feeling more relaxed, calmer, and renewed.

Parashat Yitro contains the familiar words of the Ten Commandments, including the fourth commandment about Shabbat: "Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Eternal your God: you shall not do any work-you, your son or daughter, your male or female slave, or your cattle, or the stranger who is within your settlements" (Exodus 20:8-10).

As is common with today's middle school and high school students, my confirmation students are already overprogrammed and stressed out by school, commitments, and extracurricular activities. Nonetheless, as our discussion progressed, they realized that they have so many of the tools for self-care already at their disposal: they just haven't learned how to say "no" to overextending themselves or how to say "yes" to taking care of their minds, bodies, and souls.

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January 26, 2013

B’shalach, Exodus 13:17–17:16
Shabbat Shirah

Sing, Sing a Song!

 
Marci N. Bellows

So, you know how there are tons of melodies for Adon Olam? You may never have thought about it before, but there are many out there. Yes, each congregation may default to one or another, but the words to Adon Olam can be fit into many modern tunes. As rabbinical students in Jerusalem, we used to do a sing-down game where two teams would compete to see how many melodies to Adon Olam we could come up with. (Yes, this is what we did for fun). My favorite has always been “Rock Around the Clock.” Go ahead, take a moment and give it a try.

I love Jewish and liturgical music. I don’t mean any disrespect to my fellow rabbis out there, but the music has always served as a much more spiritual component of the service for me than the spoken word. The right melody—a favorite Janowski, Lewandowski, Richards, Isaacson, Friedman, or Klepper—especially one that evokes a particular memory or moment, feels like it opens the heavens and communicates with the Divine in a deep, meaningful manner. It’s hard for me to stand still during some of my favorites – I just have to tap my foot or clap my hands or even do the special hand motions that I had learned at camp or in youth group. This is, naturally, a bit challenging when I’m in the role of “serious rabbi on the bimah,” but that’s just the nature of the job, I suppose.

One of my most treasured memories of my years at URJ’s Olin-Sang Ruby Union Institute (OSRUI) camp was the weekly “Shabbat shirah.” After Shabbat dinner and services, we’d all head over to Port Hall, still dressed in our Shabbat finery. Once there, all of the camp’s song-leaders would gather in the center of the room, and campers of all ages would arrange themselves in concentric circles around the room’s perimeter. The song-leaders would start with peppy, upbeat songs that encouraged us to boogie a bit and sing along in harmonies and call-and-answer routines. Then, eventually, they would transition to slower songs, and the lights would magically begin to dim. (I never did find out whose job it was to do that.) Shechinah most certainly dwelled there with us, floating on the precious melodies that emanated from our lips. There was an ineffable magic to the songs, and we could all feel its power to transform. In those moments, I knew that I had to always have access to Jewish music in my life.

As I learned more and more about Jewish text over the years, I loved that this week’s Torah portion, B’shalach, contained Shirat HaYam, the "Song of the Sea" (Exodus 15:1?21). This song, written in a special format in every single Torah (reminiscent of waves of water), was sung by Moses as our ancestors took their first steps of freedom on the other side of the Sea of Reeds. In fact, the song is so central to the portion that the entire Shabbat has a special name: Shabbat Shirah, just like our wonderful weekly experiences at OSRUI!

It fascinates me that this song is treasured so greatly by our tradition – we are even taught to stand when it is read during worship. The centrality of music in Judaism, and further proof of its import, is reinforced when Miriam leads the women in her own song, timbrel in hand (Exodus 15:20?21). These prophets could have merely given a big speech, orating grandly to the newly freed Israelites. But, no – instead, they sing songs, creating poetic verses infused with joy, exaltation, and praise. This validates our own desire to express emotions during ritual moments through music.

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January 19, 2013

Bo, Exodus 10:1–13:16

All I Need Is a Miracle

Marci N. Bellows

It was the winter of 1999 in Israel, and my sister had come to visit me while I lived there. We planned a trip to Masada and everyone told us that we should leave near sunrise in order to hike up at the coolest part of the day. Did we listen? No. Instead, we arrived there around noon, and we two Bellows sisters began our climb with the sun directly overhead. It was a particularly hot, humid day in the desert, and the heat only added to the time it took us to ascend.

It probably took us over two hours to make it to the top. We stopped often, and kept trying to stay hydrated. As we approached the top, we noticed there were storm clouds in the distance. We were afraid that it would begin to rain before we made it to the top, which would only make our hike increasingly uncomfortable.

We tried to hurry, but it was hard. Eventually, the dark cloud was right above us. Amazingly, it didn’t begin to rain until the exact second that we put our feet down on the top of Masada. We looked at each other at that moment and had the same thought, “Thanks, God, for waiting until we completed our journey!”

It was an incredibly holy moment, and it provided both of us with a renewed sense of clarity about the Presence of God in our lives, and about the possibility of miracles both large and small.

In Parashat Bo, we read about the final four plagues that occurred during our Egyptian enslavement. Our people had been slaves for so very long, and they were finally about to experience one of the greatest miracles of our tradition. As the midrash teaches us, “Thus it is said that the rescue from Egypt is equal to all the miracles and deeds that God performed for Israel” (M’chilta, Amalek 3).

As the Jewish people, we have always been compelled to tell and retell this story.

It captures the imaginations of authors, illustrators, filmmakers, and academics alike. Of course, our tradition dedicates an entire holiday to it. In fact, the Haggadah may be the Jewish text that has been illustrated most over time.

I believe that one of the reasons we continue to be so captivated by the story is because it teaches us about the possibility of the impossible. God does care about our suffering, God can help us, and miracles do happen.

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January 12, 2013

 Va-eira, Exodus 6:2–9:35 

 

Say My Name, Say My Name

Marci N. Bellows

During my first summer at URJ’s Olin-Sang Ruby Union Institute (OSRUI) summer camp, I was a mere eleven years old. As the oldest of four children, I had a very clear role and identity in my family, and my social circles in school were also fixed. Somehow, even at that young age, I was aware that my three precious weeks at OSRUI were going to afford me something special—a chance to rethink who I was and how I presented myself.

After we brought all of our bags to our cabin (we stayed in a tiny one that was affectionately called the “doghouse,” as it wasn’t much bigger than one), we sat in a circle on the grass outside. I vividly remember our counselors asking us to share our full names, where we were from, and what we wanted to be called while we were there. “What I want to be called?” I thought to myself. With a name like Marci, nicknames are not readily nor obviously available. Thus, I had never really been called anything but, “Marci.” Suddenly, with a simple question, I realized that I had a chance to reinvent myself by asking to be called something else.

I decided on “Maci.” With this monumental decision, my pulse raced with excitement. Who was this Maci person going to be? Though I didn’t yet know, I realized that my new camp friends would get to see a side of me that had not been free to express herself before. They might even get to know me better than anyone had before. Consequently, or coincidentally, I had a life-changing summer, which led, in many ways, to my becoming a rabbi.

How many of us change our names or nicknames as we get older, or as we change contexts? Someone called “Ricky” in one setting might prefer “Richard” in another. A girl called “Patty” as a child might choose to be “Patricia” as she gets older. And, just as “Baby,” in the movie, Dirty Dancing, thinks nothing of her name throughout most of her adolescence, she reveals her more mature, given name, Frances, to her first love, Johnny. The names we are given, the names we earn, and the names we give ourselves, represent so much more than just sounds, phonemes, or vocalizations. In many ways, they are us.

Could it be that God made a similar identity shift when a new chapter of God’s story began?

In Exodus 6:23 we read, “God spoke to Moses and said to him, ‘I am the Eternal. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make Myself known to them by my name YHVH.” Every time I study these verses, they make my heart flutter a bit. I imagine that God has been searching for a partner here among us for a very long time. Characters like Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah and Rachel were probably satisfactory partners, but maybe not ideal. Developmentally, the Israelite religion was in its infancy, and both sides of the covenant had to learn more about each other. Just as a new parent often feels unsure of his or her authority, maybe God didn’t always feel confident in God’s choices.

But then, Moses entered the story. Moses would come to have a relationship and connection with God like none other. According to Parashat Va-eira, Moses was learning a name of God that had not yet been revealed to earlier generations of the People of Israel. This name of God, YHVH, seemed to be a more intimate way in which to call upon the Divine. Moses would now have a more “direct line” through which to access God. And, likewise, this represented a more intimate relationship between God and the people themselves.

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