The path to success -- Psalm 1

יום שישי א' בטבת תשס''ז

אַשְׁרֵי הָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר לֹא הָלַךְ בַּעֲצַת רְשָׁעִים וּבְדֶרֶךְ חַטָּאִים לֹא עָמָד וּבְמוֹשַׁב לֵצִים לֹא יָשָׁב:	1) Happy is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the evil; And in the path of the sinners he does not stand; And in the seat of the mockers he does not sit.
כִּי אִם בְּתוֹרַת יְהֹוָה חֶפְצוֹ וּבְתוֹרָתוֹ יֶהְגֶּה יוֹמָם וָלָיְלָה:	2) Rather, in the Torah of HaShem is his desire; And in His Torah he occupies his thoughts day and night.
וְהָיָה כְּעֵץ שָׁתוּל עַל פַּלְגֵי מָיִם אֲשֶׁר פִּרְיוֹ יִתֵּן בְּעִתּוֹ וְעָלֵהוּ לֹא יִבּוֹל וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר יַעֲשֶׂה יַצְלִיחַ:	3) And he will be like a tree planted along streams of water, whose fruit he will give in its time, and whose leaf will not whither; And all that he does will succeed.
לֹא כֵן הָרְשָׁעִים כִּי אִם כַּמֹּץ אְַשֶׁר תִּדְּפֶנּוּ רוּחַ	4) Not so with the evil; Rather, they are like chaff that scatters the wind.
עַל כֵּן לֹא יָקֻמוּ רְשָׁעִים בַּמִּשְׁפָּט וְחַטָּאִים בַּעֲדַת צַדִּיקִים	5) Therefore, the evil will not stand in judgment; Nor the sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
כִּי יוֹדֵעַ יְהֹוָה דֶּרֶךְ צַדִּיקִים וְדֶרֶךְ רְשָׁעִים תֹּאבֵד	6) For HaShem knows the way of the righteous; And the way of the evil will be destroyed.

This very first composition in the Book of Psalms acts as kind of an introduction to the philosophy of what is surely the greatest book of prayer ever composed. Happy will be the person who embraces the Torah, it says. That person will thrive like a well-watered tree, while the evil person who does not follow the Torah's path will amount to nothing.

You might object that the world does not look like this at all, that the evil do in fact prosper and that sometimes the righteous suffer. To a Jewish person, there are few more disturbing things in this regard than the Holocaust. The evil people, for a time, did indeed thrive, and the most righteous -- even the greatest Torah scholars and the most innocent babies -- were murdered beyond counting.

And, yet, for all the evil the murderous Nazis did, no "tree" of theirs stands, today. In the end, they amounted to nothing. They left behind no country at all, not to mention the glorious thousand-year "Third Reich" they dreamed of. Except for a few disturbed individuals on the fringes of society, no one carries on their traditions. They have been scattered to the wind.

Not so, for the righteous. Their "tree" still stands wherever you see a synagogue. Or, at this time of year, wherever you see a Hanukah light. And there is now a nation -- the state of Israel -- for all their people. We Jews, for all our struggles, still give fruit in our time. Our leaf has not withered.

That is not at all to say that the suffering and murder of the righteousness and the innocent is in any way made palatable by the fact that their people as a whole have survived. It is not to say that their pain is something we should cease to care about. This some 149 more psalms that follow this first one occupy themselves time and time again and again with crying out against suffering and pain. They pus their faith deeply in God, but never hesitate to recognize and deplore injustice.

This -- our legacy from this beautiful book -- is the way of the Jews: to abhor injustice and to cry out against it.

But the flip side of that abhoring of injustice is our deep belief _in_ justice. Few peoples of the world are so consumed by it. In our hearts we know it is worthy of pursuing. And that, eventually, the way of the evil will be destroyed. Those are the articles of faith expressed in this first of the Psalms.

#*#

Asher Yatzar

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה' אֱלֹ_ֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר יָצַר אֶת הָאָדָם בְּחָכְמָה וּבָרָא בוֹ נְקָבִים נְקָבִים חֲלוּלִים חֲלוּלִים. גָּלוּי וְיָדוּעַ לִפְנֵי כִסֵּא כְבוֹדֶךָ שֶׁאִם יִפָּתֵחַ אֶחָד מֵהֶם אוֹ יִסָּתֵם אֶחָד מֵהֶם אִי אֶפְשַׁר לְהִתְקַיֵּם וְלַעֲמוֹד לְפָנֶיךָ אֲפִילוּ שָׁעָה אֶחָת: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה' רוֹפֵא כָל בָּשָׂר וּמַפְלִיא לַעֲשׂוֹת

Blessed are You, HaShem our God, King of the Universe, who formed humankind in wisdom by creating within each person many orifices and cavities. It is obvious and known before Your Throne of Glory that if one of them was ruptured or one of them was stopped up, it would be impossible to survive and to stand before you even one moment. Blessed are you, HaShem, the Healer of all Flesh and the Doer of Wonderous Things.

In the Talmud (Brachot 60b), Rashi asks what does this Doer of Wonderous Things refer to. He answers that the body is like a wine bag (or think of a balloon with water in it) -- it is hollow inside. Without liquid inside it, it could not stand or hold its shape. Even one hole within the wine bag would cause it to collapse. The body, however, is full of many holes, our mouths, our noses, our ears, etc., and yet it keeps its shape all the days of our life -- this is the wonderous thing that God does for us, and a sign of the great wisdom that God put into the design of our bodies.

The miracle of our bodies is obvious to me every day I work on the hospital. One of the most powerful things I have witnessed is when a person comes into our Emergency Room with a hole within his or her body -- perhaps from a gunshot wound -- and his or her literal lifeblood is pouring out onto the floor.

When I witness this, I feel deep in my heart that I am seeing a rupture in God's creation. God gave us the miracle that is bodies that are capable of holding our lifegiving fluids inside and that only take in and give out what is proper at the proper time. To shoot another person -- to cut an improper hole in them -- is a terrible sin not just against that person, but also against God as well. It creates a rupture in the miracle of all Creation.

This prayer, called Asher Yatzar, is a powerful reminder to us that Holiness is not something that is just found in beautiful Houses of Worship or a beautiful object or person -- it is found everywhere, even in the seeming simplest and most mundane of things. The traditional time for saying this prayer -- after relieving oneself in the bathroom -- could not be more mundane. Judaism -- as always -- goes even this far . There is no place God is not found and that God is not concerned about.

Rosh Chodesh!!!

יום חמישי ל'' בכלו תשס''ז

Well, it is now the second Rosh Hodesh that this blog has seen . . . which is just a way of reminding me of what a short time I have been doing this. . . During the first month, I think, I was more successful at keeping up with a regular (daily or more) posting practice (I only posted 13 times this month, an average of just greater than once every two days). . . . But I've really been pleased with some of the postings I've made (and with the progress I've been making in thinking through what kind of role this blog should really play in my life, work and spiritual development.

Some of the best postings were about some of the more technical aspects of modern chaplaincy and for how Judaism relates to it. As such those postings express some of the growth I've been making towards making the next step in my journey once my residency at Reading Hospital is over at the end of August. Those postings have included ones on

• The Discipline of Pastoral Care (and a handout I made for it)
• The magic of Parallel Process
• The difference between Jewish and Christian Pastoral Care

Some of my postings -- even if they themselves didn't have a lot to read in them -- marked some pretty important milestones and activities in my life and work over the last month:

• My presentation of a paper at the Problem Passages conference of the Center for Christian Jewish Understanding
• The successful training of volunteers so we could launch the hospital's new No One Dies Alone program (we had out first activation on Monday!!)
• This was a particularly important project as
• a) It is something I became involved in entirely on my own initiative, and
• b) It fits in with my developing vision of (both) myself as a chaplain (and the future of the world of chaplaincy as a whole) -- as a chaplain as educator and coordinator of spiritual care (performed largely by volunteers and seminary students, as opposed to a provider of direct pastoral care to patients).
• This, by the way, relates strongly to an heated debate on the Plainviews on-line chaplaincy newsletter about the relationship between volunteer and professional chaplaincy. (The economics of modern medicine and chaplaincy have brought along a lot of the use of volunteers instead of paid chaplains.)
  

I would also say my last post -- "Thankful Awakening " -- represented an important step: it was the first time I had posted on a text from the Siddur (the Jewish prayerbook). . . . It is my hope to do much more of that in the days and weeks ahead, as it supports a series of chaplaincy projects I am working on.

On the down side, I really lost focus on my regular posting practice on Jewish texts, especially on the weekly parsha. So that's what I need to work on in the coming month -- to post more regularly on Jewish texts. I will judge my progress at the end of this month on the basis of whether I am able to successfully restart the kind of regular practice I had in the first week of this blog.

The coming Jewish month is טבת/Tevet, by the way, and the month that is ending now is כסלו/Kislev.

Thankful awakening

יום שני כ''ז בכסלו תשס''ז

מוֹדֶה אֲנִי לְפָנֶיךָ מֶלֶךְ חַי וְקַיָּם. שֶׁהֶחֱזַרְתָּ בִּי נִשְׁמָתִי בְּחֶמְלָה. רַבָּה אֱמוּנָתֶךָ:

Thankful am I before You; the King who lives everlasting.

For You returned to me my breath in compassion; great is your faithfulness.

This short and beautiful prayer – known as modeh ani, after its first two Hebrew words – is one of those few that have found a prominent place in all the major streams of Judaism. Debbie Friedman , the folk singer who specializes in Jewish songs and who is especially popular in the Reform Movement, even chose it the basis for one of her compositions.

Traditionally, the prayer is said upon waking, before even leaving one’s bed. It expresses a profound thankfulness for another day of life and focuses a person’s attention on what the source of that renewal of life is – God, in God’s great, life-giving compassion.

For the very ill person – the person who knows that the number of days that they will again awake may be few indeed – modeh ani can have a special meaning. Reciting it every morning may not increase the number of those days, but it may help make each one of them richer by bringing the person closer to an awareness of the great Glory of God and of the great Creation that God has given us.

May you know many more days. And may they be enriched by the Light that Comes from the Heavens.

#*#

The difference between Jewish and Christian Pastoral Care

This is something that I’m often asked about. Many Jews might even say that there is no such thing as Jewish Pastoral Care (ie, that it is a completely Christian concept).

The complete answer to the question is very complex, but I think (for myself, at least!) that I now have a bit more of a 25-words-or-less kind of answer that I can offer.

I recently reread some parts of what I think is the best book on Jewish Pastoral Care, Ozarowski’s To Walk in God’s Ways. . . . I’ve never been satisfied with his definition of Jewish Pastoral care. But, on reflection, I think I have developed a comfort with something close to his definition.

It’s hard (and I know I’ve been going on for more than 25 words now, but please be patient!!) to define Jewish Pastoral Care without (as Ozarowski does) first saying something about how Christianity defines Pastoral Care. The standard Christian approach sees four functions of the pastoral caregiver:

• Healing

• Sustaining

• Guiding

• Reconciling

Jewish Pastoral Care isn’t much different, but as in many things between the two faiths, there is a real difference in emphasis (grace is a good example here; while we most certainly have a concept of grace in Judaism, it is not nearly as central to our faith as grace is in Christianity, nor does it mean exactly the same thing that Christians tend to assume it means).

So, what then are the real differences between Jewish and Christian Pastoral Care?

• Jewish Pastoral Care is more community- (and less clergy-) centered

• Jewish Pastoral Care is more presence- (and less healing-) centered.

Community – Whereas Christian Pastoral Care emanates out of the Christian Bible’s accounts of Jesus as healer, Judaism’s Pastoral Care emanates out of the (very detailed) practices of Bikur Holim (visiting the sick) and Avilut (mourning) enumerated in the Talmud and in the halakhic literature.

Jesus’ example teaches Christians that ministering to the sick and suffering is best done by a leader who has special skills in healing and who has a special connection to God. But the Jewish tradition has no such special place for a leader; all of the commands of Judaism fall just as much on a street sweeper as on a rabbi. So, too, with visiting the sick and comforting mourners – these are obligations that fall on the entire community.

That does not mean that a visit from a person’s rabbi might not have some special meaning to a sick person. But the heart of the obligation falls on the community.

Of course, in becoming more modern and more American, many of us Jews have lost some of the best that it is that comes out of our tradition. The emphasis on the community taking care of people – as opposed to clergy doing it – is one of those great things that some of us have lost.

I think the lesson that our tradition teaches us is that we (who are professional pastoral caregivers) should focus on activating the best that is in our tradition. That is, we should seek to focus our energies on activating community resources to care for people, as opposed to trying to provide all care directly. In practical terms, that could mean focusing our energies on recruiting – and training – volunteers to care for the sick and suffering.

Presence – The most central text for Jewish Pastoral Care is God visiting Avraham at the Oaks of Mamre (Genesis 18:1). The tradition understands this as God visiting a sick Avraham to comfort him in his illness. God does not here – as Jesus does in so many Christian stories – bring any special kind of healing; rather, God’s mere presence is what provides comfort. In fact, the tradition understands God’s presence here as specifically a silent presence; that is, there are deep roots in the Jewish tradition for understanding mere physical presence – without any actions or speach – as being of a comfort to a sick person.

So, bottom line, I guess I have not provided a 25-words definition of Jewish Pastoral care. And, my actual Pastoral Care theology is much more complex and detailed than what I have presented here. But, it is useful to me to be able to understand the difference between the Christian and Jewish approaches as being framed by these two areas – 1) community vs. clergy centering, and 2) presence/comfort vs. healing centering.

The magic of parallel process (and the clinical rhombus)

יום ראשון כ"ו בכסלו תשס"ז

For those of us who have gotten involved in teaching people to perform pastoral care, one of the most amazing things we first learn about is parallel process. In its simplest form, this is when a student chaplain is describing a patient visit and you realize all of a sudden that the student is acting just like the patient acted with the student!! Sometimes, the student will (completely unaware, mind you) be speaking in almost exactly the same way – in the same language -- as the patient spoke with the student.

This parallel process is extremely helpful in supervising students. First, it gives the supervisor great insight into what are the important personal and pastoral issues that the student is now working through for his or herself (you just have to look at what the student is saying about the patient’s issues to learn about the student’s issues). Second, it gives you great insight into what is happening with the patient (just observe the way the student is acting to learn about the patient).

When I first heard about parallel process, I didn’t believe it – why would it happen, I asked myself? But then, once I started looking for it, I saw it all over the place. So, I started to believe that parallel process existed, but I still had no understanding at all about why it existed. That is, it became just a sort of wonderful magic to me.

On Thursday, I went to a presentation that helped me start to better understand parallel process. The presentation was on an article about the clinical rhombus (The clinical rhombus revisited: learning through resistance and change). The clinical rhombus (see diagram below) was articulated by Ekstein and Wallerstein in their (see their 1972 book, The Teaching and Learning of Psychotherapy).

The rhombus helps illustrate the dynamics of various three-party relationships in the supervisory process, especially the dynamic between the supervisor, the student/chaplain and the patient. What it graphically illustrates is that the student sits in the middle of this interaction, and that it is the student who is the party in common that allows parallel process to happen.

In his book, The Supervision of Pastoral Care, David Steere, gives an excellent explanation of how parallel process can happen:

[S]upervisees unconsciously identify with their patients and involuntarily behave in such a manner as to elicit in the supervisor the same emotions the supervisees experienced while working with their patients. (Steere, 46-7)

I bolded the word ‘identify’ above to illustrate the theoretical understanding behind how this works. Identification – along with the related, projection -- is a psychological concept that emerges out of a Freud’s work. It is identification and projection the make parallel process work.

Steere says that the parallel process may even be a way the student unconsciously seeks help from the supervisor with things that he or she cannot consciously articulate:

[Parallel process is the student’s] unconscious attempts to show the kind of behavior the patient is exhibiting with which the [student/chaplain] needs the most assistance. What cannot be conveyed
verbally the [student] acts out with the supervisor, assuming the client’s tone, manner, and behavior while reporting the case. (Steere, 47)

Put another way, the student is so overwhelmed by the difficulties he or she had in trying to care for the patient, that the student can’t put these issues into words (especially the parts that had to do with non-verbal behavior). So, the student (again, unconsciously, mind you) sets up a kind of role play with the supervisor: the student takes the patient’s role, while the supervisor is forced to take the chaplain’s role (which the student found so difficult and overwhelming in the actual interaction with the patient).

It was also helpful to me to realize, in rereading Steere, that Ekstein and Wallerstein had borrowed some of their terminology from social work. This was especially helpful to me in building my understanding of how and why learning to accept pastoral care is one of the most important elements of learning how to give pastoral care:

Since supervision in social casework teaches a helping process, it must become a helping process itself, so workers can experience what they are learning to use with their clients. . . . An intimate relationship exists between one’s ability to be helped and one’s capacity to become a helper. As students overcome their own difficulties in receiving help through supervision, they are able to give help to their clients. What social workers described as problems in helping and being helped, Ekstein and Wallerstein discussed as learning problems and problems about learning. (Steere 49; some emphasis mine)

If you look at the diagram above, you will see Ekstein and Wallerstein’s terms learning problems and problems about learning. I’ve always (and still!) find these terms clumsy and non-intuitive (which makes it hard to remember what they mean!). I’ve put the original social work terms in parenthesis; I think they’re much more intuitive and that there’s nothing about them (other than tradition!) that makes them inappropriate for use in pastoral care.

The clinical rhombus helps illustrate how the problems in being helped come up in the relationship between the supervisor and the student, whereas the problems in helping come up between the patient and the student. The parallel process is when the student acts out those problems in helping with the supervisor. In effect, this turns the problems in helping also into a problem in being helped. And, thus, if the supervisor can aid the student in addressing the problems in being helped then the problem in helping is addressed, too!! This is the magic of why learning to accept pastoral care helps one learn to give pastoral care.

Why people don't trust chaplains

יום שלישי כ"א בכסלו תשס"ז

I was deeply disturbed by this New York Times article -- Religion for a Captive Audience, Paid For by Taxes -- that described how government money is being used to fund programs that give special treatment to prisoners who are willing to subject themselves to being evangelized. And, forget for the moment, about the troubling fairness, separation-of-church-and-state, and human rights issues involved here -- this sort of thing is also a disaster for the profession of chaplaincy. This is why people mistrust us in the halls of the hospital -- they're afraid that we're doing the things described in this article. That is, that we're using our trusted place as a member of the medical care team to force our beliefs on other people.

These sort of programs really stain the good names of all of us spiritual caregivers who are deeply committed to caring for people of all faiths and beliefs.

Don't go too far

א,טו [טז] רבן גמליאל אומר, עשה לך רב, והסתלק מן הספק; ואל תרבה לעשר אומדות.

Rabban Gamiliel says, make for yourself a Rav and withdraw from doubt. And do not add onto your tithes through estimation.

Judaism does not ask us to obey its rules through extremes. One should pay what one owes, but no more. There is no benefit in bankrupting oneself. We should give (to our religious institutions and to the needy), but not give so much as to harm ourselves.

#*#

The Discipline for Pastoral Care Giving

יום שני כ" בכסלו תשס" ז

The immediately below post was my handout for a presentation I gave, today, about The Discipline for Pastoral Care Giving (apologies for the poor formatting in the transfer to the blog). The "Discipline", as its creators like to refer to it, is a very sophisticated system for assessing patients (that is, doing a spiritual assessment) and then using that assessment for creating plans for how the chaplain will best care for the patient. The system is based on defining "outcomes" that can then be measured. Since they can be measured, the chaplain can better explain to others (and to patients) about what it is exactly that a patient does and how that work might benefit patients.

I got interested in learning about the Discipline because of an article I read about the Navy's adopting of the Discipline for its chaplains (the article was in a publication from the Association of Professional Chaplains ). One one hand, the article said that Navy wanted to start "thinking with a business mind about developing standards of practice."

I get very concerned whenever I hear people talking about chaplaincy (or any form of spiritual work) as a "business". In essence, I think this marginalizes what we're all about -- because a key part of almost all spiritual work is, in particular, to espouse and advocate for values that are non-material. That is, we (chaplains and clergy) by definition stand for the idea that there are Ultimate values far beyond the mundane and material concerns of everyday life (and business!). If we abandon that stance, I think we lose the very essence of who we are and why we are working in a setting like a hospital at all. We need to remind people -- and ourselves!!! -- that Holiness is a key part of what we do.

On the other hand, I am very attracted to many elements of the Discipline. It promises better coordination and communication with the rest of the medical care team (doctors, nurses, etc). As its creators like to say, it "demystifies" what it is that chaplains do. It allows the creations of documents authored by chaplains that other members of the team can easily understand.

In our discussion, today, we focused for a bit on the use of spiritual language that does not explicitly reference God. This is part of a trend in spiritual care -- to use what are, in effect, code words for God -- phrases like "spiritual values" and "ultimate hopes".

We use these _secularized_ phrases for at least two reasons:

• To be more inclusive -- that is, not to offend people who do not believe in God, or who use different religious language than we might have in our own tradition.
• To have our writings sound more like something anybody on the care team could write (that is, to make us more like the rest of the medical care team).

One person reflected that this all leaves us (that is, chaplains as a whole), two ways to go in the future:

• Secularization, or
• Marginalization (that is, other members of the care team -- doctors, nurses, social workers, psychotherapists -- do most of the spiritual care work, and a chaplain only gets called in for explicitly religious activity, like prayer).

I, of course, hope that marginalization is not where we are heading. I believe passionately that it is (trained!) chaplains who are by far best equipped to provide spiritual care, especially around death and crisis. This is for many reasons, but one of the biggest that comes to mind for me is that we base what we do upon the "wisdom of an ancient tradition." . . . . Or at least that is what I do. I believe that my authority -- to have the nerve, so to speak, to think I can care for people spiritually -- rests upon my having steeped myself in my ancient tradition. . . . In effect, that steeping in the tradition has been an encounter with God for me. It's shaped me profoundly. It informs the compassion and empathy I can feel for people. Without it, all my training in counseling and spiritual care techniques is for nought. It counts for nothing unless I bring with me my deeply held belief that every human reflects a piece of the divine. . . . That the Holy is found in the encounter between people.

In response to this, my supervisor imagined the cycle of "The Discipline" as a little circle floating on the ocean of wisdom we take from our ancient traditions -- that is, "The Discipline" is just the "surface" part of what we as chaplains can communicate with people outside our profession about what we do and what we are all about.

I look forward to imagining ways that frameworks like the Discipline can be applied in chaplaincy settings to improve what we do and make it more understandable to patients and staff. . . It's exciting work!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Discipline (my handout)

The “Discipline of Pastoral Care” Cycle

Needs, Hopes, Resources – emphasizes that the patient is not just a need (or problem); the patient also has hopes and resources. Examples: Feelings, vocation, family, purpose, faith, community, world view, religious history, journey, ultimate values, dreams. Profile Concept of Holy Meaning (illness?) Hope Community Contributing outcomes Shared (with the patient) Sensory-based –(eg maintained more eye contact, as opposed to patient was less withdrawn/sad) Communicable – one sentence rule of thumb How to know you’re done for now

Plan Clear Communicable Responsibilities distinguished – who does what? the chaplain? the patient? another team member? Mutual (consent?) Integrated (with the medical care team) Interventions – can range from questions to confrontation to prayer to silent hand holding to reading scripture to personal sharing and and everything in between. (p. 24) Resources Presence Relational Intentional Non-judgmental Faithful Applying the discipline does not explicitly change [these behaviors], but it does raise our consciousness and intentionality. . . it blunts tendencies to “do what we always do” and keeps us focused. (p. 25)

Measurement Sensory-based (as it was with outcomes) Indicies Communicable Reflected Spiritual care providers are so accustomed to picking up on what’s going on right now and imagining what’s next [that we overlook] the distance we have come. . . This “overlooking leads to a lot of unnecessary anxiety [and] extra work. (p. 25) If the chaplain is not organized enough [and] does not have the courage . . . to look back on goals set [then targeted interventions can’t be made]. (p. 27) [W]e need to realize that even as we go about assessing, we are effectively giving pastoral care. (p. 27)

Problem texts

One of the things I did recently was go to an interfaith conference on Problem Texts put on by the Center for Christian-Jewish Understanding at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT. I presented on the Death of the Sons of Aharon (Lev. 10) and posited what I called a Tradition-Narrative approach to dealing with problem texts. I also talked about how the text -- for all its problems -- is one that I find inspiring in my work as a chaplain (the image of Aaron's silence after witnessing the deaths of his sons is such a powerful one for me).

I will be boiling the presentation down to a paper I will be submitting to the center. I hope to expand this post in the coming days to give you a "taste" of the presentation and the paper.

Going forward

יום ראשון י"ט בכסלו תשס"ז

Well, I have been absent from this blog much longer than I had planned (I had planned on just giving myself a 'break' for the week of Thanksgiving). I'm sad about that because the blog -- when I was posting daily -- had quickly become a powerful part of my spiritual life and had helped me get more in touch with a regular practice of Jewish learning.

But, I don't want to focus on what was lost -- I would rather focus on the lessons. I think the number one lesson is about the importance of discipline. You (or, at least _I_) need to stick with a discipline to keep something going. . . . I had such a discipline going. I thought I could just drop it for a while and then pick it right up again. That turned out not to be true. So I have to be much more wary of breaks in discipline going forward.

On the other hand, I did "take a break" for a good reason. I wanted to rethink how I'm using this blog. In particular, I need to tie what I do here (in particular the text entries) to projects I am working on elsewhere. In particular the building of a "prayer toolbox" that supports my work as a chaplain.

So, here is the revised plan going forward (for my text postings):

• There will be seven text postings a week. They will be broken down as follows:
• Two lishma postings (for now, continuing my work going through pirkei avot one mishnah at a time)
• Three "prayer toolbox" postings
• One psalm posting
• One parshat hashavua (the weekly torah reading) posting
• This first week "back" I will give myself something of a break -- requiring only five postings

So, what do I mean by prayer toolbox? Well, they are prayers (or other excerpts from Jewish Holy texts) that I want to have "in my pocket", so to speak. That is, prayers that I feel I know and that I understand how I will use them (that is, what situations they might be appropriate to). . . . I am considering having a sub-category here of "Jewish pastoral care texts". That is, texts that I wouldn't necessarily use with a patient, but that I might use to _teach_ pastoral care (or that might underpin my theology of pastoral care).

A good example of such a "pastoral care" text would be the one that Joseph Ozarowski borrows from for the title of this excellent book, To Walk in God's Ways: Jewish Pastoral Perspectives on Illness and Bereavement. "To walk in God's ways" is a reference to the central text for imitatio dei in Judaism -- Sotah 14a, which explicitly says that Bikur Holim (visiting the sick) is one important way that we can "walk in the ways of God". Another would be Sanhedrin 98a, which contains the famous story of the Messiah depicted as a poor, ill person binding and unbinding his bandages one-by-one so that he will be prepared when he is called (this story is even quoted in one of the foundational works of Christian pastoral theology, Henri Nouwen's The Wounded Healer).

So, I think I will reread some of Ozarowski's book and use his citations as inspiration for choosing what Jewish pastoral care texts to feature on this blog.

In terms of the prayer toolbox, I think I want to start with the weekday Amidah, and will go through it bracha by bracha (there are 19 total). But there are other important texts that come to mind:

• David’s prayer of thanksgiving at the end of the first book of Chronicles (29:1-13).

• The Mi She Beirach
• Chapter 3 of Kohellet (the basis for the song Turn, Turn, Turn)
• Psalm 23
• Psalm 6
• Nekevim, Nekevim
• Psalm 121
• Modeh Ani
• Psalm 30
• Hashkiveinu
• The Vidui (confession)
  
• There are also some phrases I would like to pay attention to
• Sukkat Shlomecha

So, here is how I think I'm going to approach this prayer toolbox material. I'm going to work simaltaneously on three tracks:

• Start at the beginning of the siddur and stop (and write about) each text that I find relevant
• But also start at the beginning of the weekday amidah and go through each one of those brachot
• Reread some of Ozarowski's book and allow that to inspire to me to focus on some sources.

I think that will keep me very busy!!! :)

Off the wagon

יום שלישי ז' בכסלו תשס"ז

Last week, I said I was going to take a week to reevaluate the daily Torah elements of this blog and come up with a new plan that better supported my personal goals for learning and growth. . . . I haven't really done that, yet. :)

So, I think I need to give myself permission to take a little more time before getting back "on the wagon." So, I think this will be a second week of relatively light posting. I will be back from an interfaith conference on "Problem Passages" a week from Wednesday. I hope to have a new plan in place by then!

#*#

No one dies alone

יום שני ו' בכסלו תשס"ז

It's a tremendous program started at a hospital in Oregon to provide volunteers to sit with dying patients who have no family. And now we're bringing it to our hospital! Tomorrow night I will be one of the teachers in our very first training session for volunteers in our own No One Dies Alone program.

I am so happy to be a part of making this happen. It's such an important program . . . . and my participation really fits in with my vision of how chaplains need to operate in today's hospitals. The fact of the matter is that very few facilities have the financial resources to afford to fund a large department of trained chaplains to work with every patient.

The effective professional chaplain, therefore, needs to function largely as a catalyst to help others to provide spiritual care to patients. That means that the roles for the chaplain need to be: chaplain as educator and chaplain as leader and coordinator. In my work with No One Dies Alone, I am functioning in those kinds of roles and thus acting as a catalyst to provide compassionate and spiritual care for patients who don't have their own resources.

Here is a short excerpt from what the Oregon hospital's web site has to say about No One Dies Alone:

No one is born alone, and in the best of circumstances, no one dies alone. Yet from time to time terminally ill patients come to Sacred Heart Medical Center who have neither family nor close friends to be with them as they near the end of life.

No One Dies Alone is a volunteer program at Sacred Heart that provides the reassuring presence of a volunteer companion to dying patients who would otherwise be alone. With the support of the nursing staff, companions are thus able to help provide patients with that most valuable of human gifts: a dignified death.

A business?

יום ראשון ה' בכסלו תשס"ז

The lastest issue of "Healing Spirit", a chaplaincy advocacy kind of publication from the Association of Professional Chaplains, includes an article on a program that the US Navy went through to upgrade its chaplaincy services. The article says that a Navy steering council decided

two things -- to establish the best practice for chaplain/patient interaction, charting, and working with providers; and to start thinking with a business mind about the development of standards of practice. [Emph. mine]

Now, I'm a big believer in having really solid policies and procedures (if nothing else, it helps us appear professional in the eyes of the rest of the medical care team and we need that if we're going to be trusted by the team to be full partners in patient care). But, I seriously wonder if we're ultimately undermining ourselves by talking about functioning like a "business".

Isn't one of the things that we're supposed to be (as chaplains) is a living, walking, breathing alternative to viewing _everything_ about patient care as being about a business (and numbers and charts and graphs and everything that goes along with that)? Isn't part of our job to be someone who insists that patients are human beings and not just diagonses and revenue sources. Aren't we supposed to be a walking embodiment of the fact that there are values that we (that is, every human being) holds _higher_ than just numbers and business? Isn't that what we mean when we talk about ourselves as being advocates of "holisitic" care?

Anyway, the plan that the Navy decided to use is the Discipline for Pastoral Care Giving, which is something I've heard of before that was developed by Larry VanderCreek and others. It's some kind of comprehensive spiritual assessment and communication too. I think it's something that the time may have come for me to learn more about.

#*#

A new month

יום רביעי א' בכסלו תשס''ז

Today is the first day of Kislev, only the second Jewish month that his (now nearly one-Jewish-month old) blog has seen. . . . I'm really happy about how its first month has gone. . . . Many plans for the future.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Goodbye, Mr. Altman

יום שלישי ל' בחשון תשס''ז

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Robert Altman, the caustic and irreverent satirist behind
"M-A-S-H," "Nashville" and "The Player" who made a career out of bucking
Hollywood management and story conventions, died at a Los Angeles Hospital, his
Sandcastle 5 Productions Company said Tuesday. He was 81.

I only really learned to appreciate Altman over the last year or so . . . . At one point, I held my own retrospective, watching nearly every movie of his available on Netflix. . . And I just the other day watched his final film, Prairie Home Companion. . . . What a great way to go out. A wonderful flick and so much classically in his style. . . The constantly (but slowly and gently) moving camera. . . The overlapping dialogue. . . that can feel so amazingly natural and rich and real. . . . I especially loved the scenes with Meryl Streep, Lilly Tomlin and Lindsey Lohan playing an aging couple of singing sisters and one of their (teenage angst ridden) daughters. What beautiful women. What great actresses. Such (deceptively seeming) simple material. . . With the sounds of the radio show shifting in and out between being in the background and in the foreground -- the classic Altman technique of an “overlapping” soundtrack.

I’ll miss him. Nashville. Short Cuts. . . . I think those long flicks with the great multitude of characters and story lines were the richest. But MASH and The Player were awesome, too. . . . . Not my favorite director – Woody Allen, Clint Eastwood, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese are probably my top ones – but a true great . . .. And an American original. . . Thanks, Mr. Altman.

Rethinking this thing

יום שני כ''ט בחשון תשס''ז

Wow . . . It amazes me to think it’s less than a month since I started this blog – it’s so quickly become a major part of my life and spiritual practice. . . . The one-month (Jewish months, that is) anniversary of the blog falls on Thanksgiving (the Second of Kislev).. . . So, it’s a good time to look back a bit and think about what works . . and what I might change.

I think I need to back off a bit and give myself a break this week (with Thanksgiving and all) and give myself permission to miss days with posting on Pirkei Avot and the Hebrew date. . . . But I need to come back strong (but different) the week after.

I’m not exactly sure what shape that will take, but here’s what I’m thinking: I’ll keep posting a regular Torah feature every day, but instead of it being a Mishnah from Pirkei Avot every day, I will probably cut back to two or three days a week of posting from Avot. . . . The other days I will use to start some _new_ Torah features . . . Probably focusing on prayers and/or psalms. . . I’m excited!!!!

The strong, silent type (Avot 1:15)

יום ראשון כ''ח בחשון תשס''ז

שמאי אומר: עשה תורתך קבע; אמור מעט ועשה הרבה והוי מקבל את כל אדם בסבר פנים יפות.

Shammai says, make your Torah study a fixed thing. Say little and do much. And
receive every person with a friendly face.

Jews sometimes describe themselves as more talkative than the people among whom we live and understand this talkativeness as part of our culture.

There may be some truth to this being a cultural value, but, as Shammai’s words instruct us, our tradition also instructs us to be careful in our speech – “say little and do much.”

Albeck says that “say little” actually means something more specific – that we should promise little.

It is important for us to think about what the impact of our words are on others. Are we saying things that they may understand as promises?

Will our deeds meet those understood promises, or will we leave people feeling disappointed?

#*#

Finding a balance (Avot 1:14)

הוא היה אומר, אם אין אני לי, מי לי? וכשאני לעצמי, מה אני? ואם לא עכשיו, אימתי?

He [Hillel] says, if I’m not for me, who is for me? And when I am for myself,
what am I? And if not now, when?

We have come to one of the most famous of all Hillel’s sayings. It would be hard to add to the many words of wisdom that have been written about these sayings. The the first two speak to me as a pair – calling for us to find a balance in our lives between pursuing self-interest and thinking of the interests of others. Judaism always seeks a middle way; neither extreme is considered praiseworthy. This spirit is extended to our laws of tzedukah, which forbid one from giving too much of one’s money to the poor.

The meaning of death, the meaning of comfort (Parshat Haiyei Sarah)

יום שישי כ''ו בחשון תשס''ז
This week’s parsha brings us to the first time in the Torah that we find a report of mourning – as well as the first report of somebody being comforted in their mourning.

The parsha opens with the death of Sarah – Avraham’s beloved wife and the mother of Yitzhak (Isaac). The Torah says Avraham came to mourn for Sarah and to cry for her (Gen 23:2). The word for mourning here is לספוד/lispod, which comes from the same root as the Hebrew word for eulogy (הספד/hesped).

That is, Avraham came to eulogize his wife and to cry for her. From this. we learn that these are the proper ways in mourning. We should speak of the dead person and lament their loss. And we should cry for them.

Of course, every one has their own individual way of mourning; certainly, no one should feel required to cry. But, the problem is that, in today's society, so many people seem to think that comforting a mourner means helping them to stop crying. I see this so often in my work in the hospital; well-meaning people trying to help a crying mourner to stop crying. The Torah tells us this is a mistake. It is entirely proper to cry and to speak of the dead person. As a chaplain who works with families in the wake of death, I understand my job as very much helping the family member -- if, and only if, they are ready -- to speak of their loved one. In chaplain-speak this is called "eliciting story." It provides true healing for people.

The following lines in the Torah also have a great lesson for us regarding how to deal with death. The Hezkoni sets the stage for it in his comment on the verse I already cited. Why did Avraham cry for Sarah, asks the Hezkoni? He answers:

לפי שלא היה לו מקון מוכן לקבורה

Since he did not have a place prepared to bury her.

Burial of the dead is extremely important in the Jewish tradition. It is no accident that the account of the very first purchase of Land in the Torah -- a detailed account in the lines that follow -- involves obtaining a place to bury a beloved family member. A full 17 verses -- the remainder of the chapter -- are devoted to a loving recording of this Holy act, the acquiring of a burial place for Sarah.

In this day and age, an increasing number of people -- especially those who are not associated with any house of worship -- are skipping burial in favor of cremation, and are even skipping the establishment of any permanent place of burial for their loved ones. Ashes are just being scattered to the wind.

This is not the Jewish way. This is not the way to show love and honor to a loved one.

There are many wonderful ways of memorializing a loved one, including the purchase of a proper burial site and the giving of tzedukah in the deceased's name.

Yitzhak chooses another beautiful -- and more subtle way -- of honoring his mother. The Torah reports that upon marrying his wife Rivka (Rebecca), Yitzkah was comforted; this is the first time in the Torah that a mourner receives comfort:

ויינחם יצחק אחרי אמו

And Yitzhak was comforted after his mother. (Gen. 24:67).

The Hezkoni asks, what does "after his mother" mean? And he answers:

אחרי שהיתה דומה לאמו במעשים

After that she was similar to his mother in deeds.

So, often I have seen people in a situation similar to the one Yitzhak found himself in -- to find the joy of one's marriage, or of the birth of one's first child, happening around the same time of the loss of one's parent. My own beloved father passed away only shortly before my sister gave birth to her first child.

There is no replacing a parent. Certainly, one should not marry someone exactly like one's mother. But it is a beautiful thing to be able to find someone who matches a beloved parent in the kind of good deeds that he or she performs. This upholding, and continuing, of the deeds of a loved one is a true memorial -- a living memorial -- to them.

May the memories of your loved ones who have passed be a blessing to you. And may you see their good deeds performed all around you.

__________________________________

One element of the Jewish calendar is the weekly Torah reading, or parsha. This coming Shabbat's reading is Haiyei Sarah, Gen 23:1-25:18. The parsha brings us towards the end of the first two generations of the Jewish people and sets the stage for the beginning of the story of Yaakov -- the man who would give the people Israel their name -- in next week's parsha. Our parsha begins with the death of Sarah, the first of the first generation to die, and ends with the death of Ishmael, the first of the second generation to die. It also includes the first purchase of land in the Torah (Avraham's buying a burial site for his wife Sarah), as well as the story of the quest of Avraham's servant to find a wife for his master's son Yitzhak.

The centrality of Torah (Avot 1:13)

הוא היה אומר, נגד שמא אבד שמא, דילא מוסיף יסוף, ודילא יליף קטלא חייב, ודישתמש בתגא חלף.

He [Hillel] says, the one who aggrandizes his name, loses his name. The one who does not add [to his Torah] brings its end. The one who does not learn earns death. And the one who does not make use of the Crown [of Torah] shall whither away.

These words may very well strike you as quite harsh next to those (also of Hillel) in yesterday's Mishnah. But what they most certainly share is a sense of the centrality of Torah. This is the legacy passed on to us by this great Sage, one first true greats of the rabbinic era.
Notably, this is the second in a row of three sets of sayings by Hillel; all the previous Sages in Avot have been assigned only one set. Also of note is that this Mishnah is in Aramaic, not Hebrew; Hillel is understood to have originally been from Babylonia.

Peace amid the chaos -- the legacy of Hillel (Avot 1:12)

הלל ושמאי קיבלו מהם. הלל אומר, הוי כתלמידיו של אהרון--אוהב שלום ורודף שלום, אוהב את הברייות ומקרבן לתורה.

Hillel and Shammai received it [the Torah] from them. Hillel says, may you be like the students of Aharon: love peace and pursue peace; love all living creatures and bring them close to Torah.

In my commentary to our last Mishnah, I proposed that the central defining concept in Judaism is Galut, or Exile. On some days, I would give you another answer if you asked me what that central defining concept in Judaism is. I might say it's the subject raised by today's Mishnah -- Shalom (שלום), usually translated as peace, but also having meanings of wholeness.

Not suprisingly, two of the very most central prayers in Judaism -- the Amidah and the Kaddish -- conclude with calls for peace; I also conclude every spontaneous (freeform) prayer I offer in my hospital work with a call for peace (for the ill person, for his or her family and for all people).

It is almost a breath of fresh air to be reading the words of Hillel after the darker words of the last two Mishnahs, with their expressed fears of government oppression and of being exiled.

Hillel, too, may have lived in dark times -- likely around the same time as the great upheavels for the Jewish people in which the Christians' Jesus lived. But it is not darkness this great rabbinic sage passed on to us -- it is statements about peace and love and Torah. It is he who helped create a Judaism that could withstand Exile, a Judaism of peace and love.

May your day be one of peace and love and Torah.

The other side of exile (Avot 1:11)

אבטליון אומר, חכמים, היזהרו בדבריכם--שמא תחובו חובת גלות, ותגלו למקום המים הרעים, וישתו התלמידים הבאים אחריכם וימותו, ונמצא שם שמיים מתחלל.

Avtalion says, Sages, be careful in your words: For you may you earn for yourself the punishment of Exile and be banished to a place of Evil Waters. And the students that come after will drink from them and die. And in this way the Name of the Heavens will be defiled.

As in our last Mishna, today we see signs of a dark cloud falling over the Jewish people; this is the first mention of Exile -- גלות/galut, in Hebrew (and sometimes pronounced "golus") -- that we have seen in Pirkei Avot.

Since the destruction of the first Temple in 586 BCE, Exile -- Galut -- has been a part of the fabric of the life of the Jewish people. Historians tells us that even after the Second Temple was built, large Jewish communities remained scattered throughout the ancient world. And -- to the dismay of the most committed Zionists -- even now that the State of Israel has stood for over 50 years, large Jewish communities remain outside of Israel and show no sign of a mass return to the native land of the Jewish people.

At first glance, Galut looks like a curse. Who would want to be expelled from their home and have to wander the Earth and live among strangers?

Yet, it may be an acceptance of Galut that is the central genius of the Jewish religious tradition – a genius that has allowed the Jewish people to survive through the millennium while countless other peoples, and empires, have arisen and fallen. This relationship with Exile may also be the central genius that has allowed Judaism to inspire the birth of the two other great monotheistic faiths.

This is all because Galut is not just a physical condition that is specific to the (painful) historical experience of the Jewish people. It is also a spiritual condition that is universal to all human beings.

Every one of us is in Exile from something, even if it is simply from the comfortable and secure feeling of drinking from our mothers' breasts as infants. We will never return to that pure, innocent and unknowing state, and we live every day with that knowledge. Like Adam and Eve having eaten of the Tree in Gan Eden, we – unlike all other living things -- live with knowledge that one day we will die. We know shame. We have the capacity to know the difference between good and evil. We live with the burden of the responsibility that means. We are in Galut from the bliss of innocence.

In a more explicitly spiritual sense, we all live in the pain of being in Exile from God. It is from the perfection and glory of God from which we all sprung. We were created in God's image. But we do not live in the Heavens. We are not angels. We live in this world with all of its imperfections. When the spiritual side of our characters is awakened -- as it can be by the death of a loved one or by a moment of profound epiphany -- we become aware of this Exile. We thirst for a return to God, for a connection with the Ultimate, the Eternal and the Truly Perfect. This is something truly universal among all people.

The genius of Judaism has been that it teaches us a way of living in Exile. I think the central image in Judaism may be that of Moshe (Moses) standing on the border of the Promised Land. Moshe -- and the Midrash reports this at great length -- pleads with God. Pleads again and again. Begs. But his plea is denied. He will never know an end to his Galut. He will never enter the Promised Land.

This, by the way, is the image in which the Torah -- the first five books of the bible that are in the scrolls we read from each Shabbat -- concludes. It did not have to be this way. There could have been six books of Torah. The Torah could have included the next book -- the triumphant Book of Joshua, where Israel enters and conquers the Land. But, that is not where the Torah ends; it ends with Moshe standing on the edge of the Promised Land.

However, Moshe -- even in all his pleading and begging -- never shows any sign of true despair. He never shows any sign of losing his love for God. He never shows any sign of regret. Ultimately, he accepts the judgment that is put upon him -- the judgment that his life will be one lived in Galut.

This is the judgment -- even for those of us fortunate enough to be able to live our lives in the Land of Israel -- that is upon all of us: the judgment of a life in Exile. Judaism teaches us how to do live a life in this state of Galut. It teaches us how to make every moment and every place Holy. It teaches us the proper way to live and to relate to one another. It teaches us how to go on even in the face of pain and isolation. It teaches us that we should never lose hope -- that we should live every day in the expectation that tomorrow will be the day that the Messiah will come and God's Kingdom will be restored to us on earth and that, in the words of the Aleinu prayer that concludes every prayer service, everyone will know that God is One.

But, Judaism also teaches us how to live in every day that the Messiah does not come. We do not live these days in despair. We live in the comfort of each other and of God. The Torah accompanies us on our journey. And, in the words of the first psalm:

אשרי האיש אשר. . . בתורת ה' חפזו ובתורתו הגה יומם ולילה

Happy is the man . . . whose delight is in HaShem's Torah, and who utters His Torah day and night.

May your day indeed be one filled with the Joy of Torah. May you accept your Exile and yet yearn for its end in every moment.

Telling the story (Avot 1:10)

שמעיה ואבטליון קיבלו מהם. שמעיה אומר, אהוב את המלאכה, ושנוא את הרבנות; ואל תתוודע לרשות.

Shemayah and Avtalion received it (the Torah) from them. Shemayah says, love work, hate domination and don't reveal yourself to the authorities.

You can almost feel a black cloud falling upon the Jews in today's Mishnah. The previous Mishnas so far in Avot had mostly dealt with general advice about how to live a life of wisdom and about how to properly judge others in a court of law. Today, we see a concern about protecting yourself from the government.

Jews down through the ages have been at the mercy of the people among whom they have lived. We in American live in what is in many ways a Golden Age for the Jews; we fear the government no more than any other inhabitent of these lands.

But, we are still called to be a "light unto the nations". We must not forget the oppression of the past and we must not stop telling others the story of it. It is only in this way -- through the telling of story and the consciousness-raising that engenders -- that new oppressions, of Jews and of others, can be prevented.

Falling down on the job

[יום רביעי כ''ד בחשון תשס''ז]

יום חמישי כ''ה בחשון

I really fell behind on my regular blog entries -- especially the Hebrew date and Pirkei Avot -- over the last couple of days. . . . That's not such a bad thing (and I'll catch up, today), but I was really hoping I would get to the point where I could feel confident about adding a couple of new features -- especially what I call "prayer toolbox" features. . . . But we'll see.

Anyway, my goals for this blog today are to catch up on pirkei avot and to write a devar on the Torah reading.

It's pouring right now where I am; hope it's dry where you are!

Core texts (having a favorite artist)

One of the best assignments of my final year in Rabbinical School was to come up with a presentation on my "core spiritual texts". That is, the texts that you return to time and time again in your life for meaning, when you're in pain or trouble or in a crisis of doubt.

What was liberating in the assignment was that we were _not_ required to use traditional Jewish texts. We weren't even required to use books.

While I started out my presentation with Heschel, the heart of it was me showing some clips from the final scenes of three movies that have great power for me. Other students played music or read poems that had meaning for them.

I realized today that I have been missing a "core text" in my life, musically, for the last couple of years. . . or, more specifically, I have been missing having a favorite musical artist . . . whose work I return to again and again. . . for comfort . . . for inspiration . . . for joy . . . to help me get centered.

Music has always been an important part of my life and identity, and phases of my life can be marked by who was my favorite artist at the time. But I really haven't had a favorite artist these past couple of years. . . . So, recently (unconsciously, that is), I have been spending some time reviewing some of my favorite artists of old -- especially the jazz-rock greats Steely Dan and Traffic. . . . I don't know what's coming next, but I miss being in love with an artist's work (as I was with the music of Juliana Hatfield for so long; I still like her stuff, but it just doesn't play that central place in my life anymore).

By the way, the full text of the written parts of my Rabbinical School presentation can be found here (apologies for the messed up formatting, but all the important text is readable). It includes the text of the final scenes from the three movies I mentioned . . . . (Which were Crimes and Misdemeanors, Terminator 2 and Fargo . . . . I think I also showed the opening credits for Working Girl.)

Borat

יום שלישי כ''ג בחשון תשס''ז

Yep. I went and saw the controversial mockumentary comedy film , tonight. . . . I didn't like it as much as I had expected (the _practical joke_ kind of humor that is the film is based in is a genre I often find more cruel than funny) . . . . But Sacha Baron Cohen clearly is a great comic talent. . . . And this flick has the most amazing lampooning of anti-Semiticism I have ever seen. I know some people have been offended by it, but the Jew in me felt empowered -- Cohen just brutally exposes how absurd anti-Semetic ideas and images really are.

One thing I noticed -- that I do not recall seeing mentioned in the reviews that I had read -- is that Borat speaks in Hebrew (and Yiddish?) words and phrases for a substantial part of the film. I had been under the impression that the foreign phrases he uses were gibberish, but apparently many of them are Polish in addition to the Hebrew ones. . . . It's part of the brilliance of the thing that Cohen is pretending to be an anti-Semite, while at the same time speaking Jewish language.

Grey Day

יום שני כ''ב בחשוו תשס''ז

I was on-call last night here at the hospital and only got around three hours sleep. . . Not much energy left for blogging. :) . . . But, it's ok. I've been on a bit of a 'tear' lately in this blog. . . So I'm taking something of a break, today.

The value of truth (Avot 1:9)

שמעון בן שטח אומר, הוי מרבה לחקור את העדים; והוי זהיר בדבריך, שמא מתוכן ילמדו לשקר.

Shimon ben Shetah says, may you diligently examine the witnesses. And may you be cautious in your words lest from them they learn to lie.

As with yesterday's Mishnah, the advice of this Mishnah seems to be addressed to court judges in particular.

It is an unusual Mishnah in that Shimon ben Shetah only offers two sayings; all of our previous Mishnahs have had three.

The Mishnah is very concerned with the issue of lying. For the Rabbis, truthful testimony was the basis for their entire legal system.

Unfortunately, in our modern culture lying is so often treated like a fun part of a game. In particular, reality TV game shows -- starting with Survivor and moving way beyond it -- seem to put a premium on people's ability to lie and to deceived others. They glorify it. It is a terrible message to be sending to our young people.

May your day take you into contact with only people who endeavor to tell the truth.

Keeping an open mind and heart (Avot 1:8)

יהודה בן טבאי ושמעון בן שטח קיבלו מהם. יהודה בן טבאי אומר, אל תעש עצמך כעורכי הדיינים. וכשיהיו בעלי הדין עומדין לפניך, יהיו בעיניך כרשעים; וכשנפטרים מלפניך, יהיו בעיניך כזכאים, שקיבלו עליהן את הדין.

Yehuda ben Tabai and Shimon ben Shetah received it [the Torah] from them. Yehuda ben Tabai says, do not make yourself like the lawyers. And when the litigants stand before you, let them be like the guilty in your eyes. And when they leave [the court] -- having accepted the judgment upon themselves -- let the litigants be like the innocent in your eyes.

Today's Mishnah makes more clear something that has been true of nearly every Mishnah we have seen so far -- their intended audience (the ones to which all the advice is directed) -- is/are judges of courts. That is, it is directed to other Rabbis (who, as I have already pointed out, were judges in addition to being teachers).

But the basic lessons -- and wisdom -- of these Mishnahs apply whatever our profession may be. Yehudah ben Tabai is instructing us about how we should deal with a people bringing disputes before us. This is a situation we all commonly face. We could even understand the recent elections this way -- two sides (or candidates) came before us asking us to judge between them and choose one of their positions as the right one.

Thus, Yehuda ben Tabai instructs us that we should not act as lawyers. That is, we should not act as advocates for either side when we are judging between the two. In an election then, we are instructed to keep our minds open. To listen to both sides. To not enter in the campaign with our mind made up to advocate for either side.

Yehuda ben Tabai also instructs us to view the litigants as both being guilty. The commentators understand this as meaning that you should carefully examine -- and evaluate -- their positions as if they were guilty. So, in an election, you should carefully examine the positions of the candidates.

Finally, Yehuda ben Tabai instructs us that we should view the litigants as innocent when they leave the court. The commentators understand this as meaning we should view the litigants -- whether the winner or the loser -- as righteous and proper individuals when the leave the court. So, in an election, we are instructed to not view the losing party as "bums" or anything like that. We should treat them with the respect that any person is due.

Whether your side won or lost in the recent elections, I hope you will find respect from the other side. And that you should be able to give the same to them.