Blogging as working with perfectionism

I was joking with a colleague the other day about our shared problems with perfectionism. He said, "how can you be a perfectionist, you have a blog?"

He made me realize that one of the (many) reasons I have been keeping a blog is because it is a way of challenging my perfectionist streak. I put all kinds of things up on this blog that feel incomplete (and/or not fully proofread) to me. Things that my perfectionism might have prevented me from ever getting out if my only outlet were regular publications.

Long live blogging!

Where I've been

Yom Bet, The Seventh of Nissan

I just can't believe how long it's been since I've posted on this blog (Jan. 29th!!!!!!!!). This blog meant so much to me in the weeks and months when I first started it that it became hard for me to even imagine living without it. It just gave me so much outlet to express my work and my passion. I felt like I was finding my voice and a new and powerful way to make Torah live in my life. I felt like I had found a place to share how I was developing and growing as a rabbi, as a chaplain and as a person amid these precious and intense months of being a Clinical Pastoral Education resident, a pursuit that provides opportunities for spiritual and personal growth -- for confronting the ultimate questions that arise daily from being constantly so intimately in contact with the life and death that continually confront anyone willing to walk the halls of a modern hospital with their heart and their soul open -- that few other pursuits do.

But, as much as I realize what I've been missing by having put this blog aside, I also know that I used the energy I had devoted to it towards something else quite important -- to the task of working with our cancer patients here at our hospital as part of our palliative care team. That work has been so amazing and has given me so much to reflect on and (eventually) write about. Working with cancer patients means being around a lot of death, and that has certainly been draining. But, being witness to the dignity of people -- and their families -- amid their struggles with this terrible disease restores ones faith in God and in the human spirit in a way nothing else can. When a man who had expressed so much anger at God to me when he could still speak easily, chose -- through his pain and exhaustion -- to say "God, bless you; God, bless you" for his final words to me, my spirit soars in an unbelievable way. When I see a man wracked by pain refuse any pain medication because he wants to live for his sons, I am humbled. I am awed. I am awed by the stories I have seen every day since I began this work.

And, while I am truly sad to have put aside the Torah encounter I had started in this blog, I realize that now is a particularly exciting time to begin it again. In just about a week we enter that most universal of Jewish Holidays -- Passover, the great celebration of the freeing of slaves who endured unimaginable oppression and made a new beginning -- and journey! -- as a newly free people. What time could be better for restarting a journey!

And it was just this past Shabbat that we had another new beginning -- the beginning of our reading of the book of VaYikrah (of Leviticus) as part of the cycle of weekly Torah readings.

The very first word of this book is VaYikrah, which means, and He called.

And He called to Moshe, and spoke HaShem to him from the Tent of Meeting . . . (Lev. 1:1)

God calls to us in many ways, just as God called to Moses on that important day. In the chapters that follow in the Book of VaYikrah, a compelling and passionate story is told about the Israelites effort to hear that call, to find the proper way to serve God. Anyone who thinks this book is just a cold collection of laws about sacrifices has failed to peer deep into its words. In there, one will find an amazing obsession with Holiness, and a determination to become as Holy as possible. The path to that, as I hope to show you in the coming weeks of the readings from this book, is not just about figuring out how best to serve God. It is also about knowing how best to serve one's fellow human. There is no true service of God that does not involve both serving God directly and serving God's creatures and God's creation. This is one of the central messages of Judaism, the faith that refuses to look only to Heavens -- as other monotheistic religious expressions do sometimes -- and insists on always looking at the Earth as well.

Please come with me!!

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.

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!

#*#

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!!!!

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!

The parapet

A good friend told me that my posting on dangers of Tylenol didn't seem to fit in with what this blog is all about.

That, of course, raises the important question of just what this blog is about. When I started it , I said that I expected the exact shape of it to arise as a work in progress as it went on. Clearly, Torah (along with chaplaincy and chaplaincy education) has become a central concern of the blog as it has developed over (just the) last few weeks. That reminds me of what one of my teachers in rabbinical school , Rabbi Ed Feinstein, taught us: everything that comes out of your mouth [or into a blog!!] as a rabbi is rabbinic speech. And you thus need to judge everything you say to others by the standards of rabbinic speech.

What then is rabbinic speech? Well, one of Rabbi Feinstein's requirements is that it "has a text." Specifically, a Holy text from the Jewish tradition.

Now, I have to admit that hardly everything that comes out of my mouth has a holy text in it!! . . . But Rabbi's Feintein's point has much validity. I probably need to consider everything I post on this blog to be rabbinic speech. And that, therefore, everything should have a text -- or some other kind of Torah -- associated with it.

So, I think my friend was very right. The Tylenol posting didn't fit on this blog. Not that the subject didn't fit -- in the spirit of אף עד כאן , I would say that a concern about something that causes people hurt and pain (a concern raised by my Tylenol post, for example) certainly is Torah and belongs on this blog. But there needs to be something that marks it more specifically as Torah.

So, the most obvious text that fits with my concern about Tylenol is definitely the parapet (Deut. 22:8):

כִּי תִבְנֶה בַּיִת חָדָשׁ, וְעָשִׂיתָ מַעֲקֶה לְגַגֶּךָ; וְלֹא-תָשִׂים דָּמִים בְּבֵיתֶךָ, כִּי-יִפֹּל הַנֹּפֵל מִמֶּנּוּ.

When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof. So that you will not bring down blood upon your house when someone fell from it.

A parapet is a low wall that would keep someone from falling from the roof.

I need to take a little aside here to say something about the nature of Judaism . . . and why I love it so much. And how it is truly fundamentally different than (our sibling faith) Christianity. . . . . because this very text is just the kind of text that Christianty turned its back on (when it made it's New Testament, or new covenant/ברית with God) . . . and it's just the kind of text that makes me love my faith tradition so much. . . It's just the kind of text that is in the spirit of the words of Rabbi Akiva's students -- even this far? Even this far, our master? Does Torah -- and its daily and sometimes mundane laws and commandments -- extend even this far?

The answer, both I and Akiva say, is "yes". Yes, even this far . Torah goes everywhere. Even into how you build your roof. We Jews have kept the law. We are proud to remain a faith of law and not one that is belief and love-centered like Christianity is. Like (our other sibling faith) Islam, we value law and obedience as well. Proudly.

The parapet verse comes from one of the weekly Torah readings -- parshat Ki Teitzei (Deut. 21:10-25:19). While Christians seem to hold that the 10 Commandments is the main lawgiving in the bible, we Jews stick with the much more detailed lawgivings of this parsha and the one other great lawgiving in the Torah -- and the one that comes _after_ the 10 Commandments -- parshat Mishpatim (Ex. 21:1-24:18).

These two parshas contain laws on some of the most mundane things, especially about business dealings. Chapter 22 -- in which our verse is found -- starts out with the seemingly mundane commands to return to your fellow things that they have lost and even to go out of your way to go after their livestock should you see them wandering away.

American law -- with its obsession with individual rights -- almost never requires one to go out of one's way to prevent another's economic loss; if you see someone's barn burning down, you have zero obligation under American law to even call the fire department.

We Americans, however, do seem to be slowly, yet surely, starting to see the wisdom of an obligation to go out of one's way to prevent another's physical injury as Jewish law has since the time of our verse about the parapet. Our ancestors knew that we had to be required to do things to prevent physical injury -- the spilling of blood -- of others. Thus, the requirement to build the parapet.

We in America, however, don't seem to have fully understood this ancient wisdom. We are still -- again with our obsession with individual rights -- reluctant to legally require anything of anybody. We prefer to use the threat of lawsuits to encourage people to take steps to prevent physical injury on their property. It's an ugly and expensive system that fails to distribute justice equally. Some injured people receive nothing to compensate them, while others receive windfall amounts. Some property owners are influenced by this to create adequate safety conditions on their property. Others do nothing. Nobody wins.

One of those property owners who do not seem to see the wisdom of the ancients are the manufacturers of Tylenol. They have a drug that needs a parapet. It's not that Tylenol should be taken off the market -- anymore than people should be banned from building roofs. It's that it's too easy with Tylenol for someone to slip off and accidentally injure -- or kill -- themselves. The articles I cited show that between 20 and 25% of all liver failure cases in America are from accidental overdoses of Tylenol. Accidental.

This is a drug that hardly anyone is aware is dangerous at all. People think it's as safe as aspirin. It's not. It's incredibly easy to accidentally overdose. The manufacturers of Tylenol need to finally admit that and -- in partnership with government -- come up with a way of preventing these deaths.

The Torah says they have to.

Teaching the judging (Avot 1:6)

I want to comment a bit more on yesterday’s Mishnah. Like almost all of the Mishnahs in Avot, yesterday’s Mishnah has three sayings within it:

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1. <>Make for yourself a Rav.
   
2. <>And acquire for yourself a colleague.
   
3. <>And judge everyone towards the positive.

We generally understand this Mishnah as being about Torah study. It is interesting then, that the last part of it is about something that we do not usually associate with teaching or learning – it talks about judging.

There’s nothing accidental about this. In the world of the ancient Rabbis, their greatest leaders were great for being great teachers and for being great judges. People, including their students, came before them looking for answers to their questions. To find out what the law instructed them to do. Even for settling disputes between parties.

The Rabbis believed that – in making themselves teachers and judges – they were following in the footsteps of God. That is, when they thought of God, they also thought of a teacher and they also thought of a judge.

For the Rabbis, then, God was the ultimate Rav – the ultimate teacher. The Torah was the gerat Instruction that this ultimate teacher had given them. In associating themselves – and the the Jewish people – with God, the Rabbis had made for themselves the Rav that the Mishnah instructs us to find.

The way of studying the great Instruction that their teacher had give them is found in the second part of the Mishnah – to study with a haver, with a colleague.

For me, this blog – and anybody reading it – functions as a kind of haver, a partner to help me in my encounter with our Holy Torah. The blog makes for me a place to offer my Torah in partnership with others. It's been a great help to me.

May you find a haver in your life, and may that haver strengthen your link to the Holy Instruction that God has given us.

I missed it

[יום שני ט''ו בחשון תשס''ז]

יום שלישי ט''ז בחשון תשס''ז

Well, today was the first time I forgot to enter the Hebrew date in this blog since I committed to doing so every day (and, thus, you find above the Hebrew dates for the last _two_ days).. . . . . In my defense, I was on-call last night (was woken up from my nighttime slumber twice by the pager).

But the real _headline_ is that (mostly) I’ve been following my plan(s) to have regular Torah/Hebrew elements of the blog. . . . And, _more_ significantly, the plan seems to be achieving its goal – to increase the role of Torah learning in my life and to increase my awareness of the flow of the Jewish time.

Torah study, of course, is supposed to be an important part of every Jew’s life. We place an especially high value on what we call Torah Lishma (תורה לשמה), or Torah study for its own sake (literally, in its own name). . . . I think I need a little _help_, though, to make Torah Lishma more effective in my life. Specifically, I am the kind of person who needs to be teaching in order to be learning.

That’s the beauty of the blog for me (and what makes it perhaps even a spiritual practice): just the fact that someone might be reading what I write here turns everything that I write into a potential teaching. . . . . Being a teacher/blogger of Torah makes me a better learner of Torah.

I don’t yet know what the shape of this blog will be down the line. Perhaps it will become something that people will want to read. . .. Perhaps it will become more personal. Or, perhaps it will focus more on professional issues. . . . But for now I think this blog is really meant mostly for one person -- myself. It is blogging by me, for me. . . And I guess what I’m trying to say is that that is working out just fine for now. I’m really happy with it.

Anyway, it was when I was riding my bicycle, this afternoon that I realized that I had forgotten to write the Hebrew date in my blog. . . . I guess I could have turned around and made it back home before sundown . .. . But I really needed the ride. It was the first time I’d been out in about a week and a half. Went about 25 kilometers roundtrip down my usual route. Good weather. Temps around 10C. Fall is still near its height around here. Stopped at the supermarket on the way back and bought some groceries that I hauled home in the single pannier I had with me. . . . I was proud of myself for getting out on the road; I was pretty tired from being on call the night before and it took a lot of self-cajoling to talk myself into it. (1:49/13.3/24.38/45)

Not so fast (Avot 1:1)

I am endeavoring to add some regular Torah features to this blog . . . I'm trying to push myself, but I don't want to push myself too hard (that is, add so many regular features that, from exhaustion, I suddenly stop doing any of them). . . So this is one of those features: I am going to go through Pirkei Avot (often translated as "The Ethics of the Fathers") one-mishnah-a-day and just say something very brief about what I find meaningful or notable in that day's mishnah. . . . I've always avoided studying Avot for some reason . . . . I guess, in part, because in a kind of "rabbinic macho" I wanted to go straight to more _serious_ texts. . . . the kind of texts that the more _serious_ scholars spend their time on. . . . And Avot is a typical "beginner's" text in Judaism, in part because it's one of the most accessible and understandable on first read.

But, I think I've really been missing something with my "macho". Avot is full of wonderful wisdom and, as my teacher Rabbi Pinchas Giller says, it's a wonderful thing for a rabbi to have little bits of wisdom from Avot in his or her pocket to be able to bring out as the moment demands . . . to help people find inspiration and meaning.

So, here's my first entry: I'm starting at the very beginning, Avot 1:1:

א,א משה קיבל תורה מסיניי, ומסרה ליהושוע, ויהושוע לזקנים, וזקנים לנביאים, ונביאים מסרוה לאנשי כנסת הגדולה. והן אמרו שלושה דברים: היו מתונים בדין, והעמידו תלמידים הרבה, ועשו סייג לתורה

Moses accepted the Torah from Sinai and passed it down to Joshua. Joshua passed it to the Elders. The Elders to the Prophets. The Prophets to the men of the Great Kenneset.
They said three things: be deliberate in judgment, raise up many students and make a fence around the Torah.

What does it mean to be deliberate in judgment? Albeck comments that it means to not complete judging anything until you have thoroughly investigated the issues involved.

We live in a age where we are saturated by 15 second television commercials and other quick images urging us to make decisions -- that is judgments -- about everything around us. About who we want to be. About what kind of people we would like to be connected with. About what makes our lives meaningful or worthwhile.

This extends even to our political choices. The political ads blare, asking us to make decisions that impact the future of our nation and our communities based on mere impressions that come from quick images and short soundbites.

When you go to the poles (and I hope you do!!) next Tuesday, take a breath before you pull the lever (or hit the touchscreen, as the case may be). Have you been deliberate in your judgment? Have you made an effort to investigate the issues.? Or are you lettting others -- and their images -- decide for you?

Have a great rest of the week!

אף עד כאן (even this far?)

. . . it's a reference to the story of the death of Rabbi Akiva, and to the final words he uttered as he was being murdered at the hands of those who tried to destroy the Jews and their love of Torah. It's a story that has deep meaning for me and that deeply shapes how I understand Judaism and my own faith and work (and, in particular, why I think this blog is part of my Torah, too).

The story of his death is but one of many stories about Akiva. He was part of that great generation of Rabbis who figured out a way to preserve Judaism without the great Temple that was heart and center of Jewish life before the Romans destroyed it in 70 CE. He supported the last great revolt (around 130 CE) against the Romans. The Talmud tells us (Brachot 61b) that at one point the Romans decreed that the Jews could no longer busy themselves with the Torah. Akiva was not afraid. He boldly defied this decree and brought together public gatherings of people to study Torah.

One day the Romans arrested him for this and brought him out for execution. It was the time of day for reciting the Shema. Despite the fact that he was being tortured terribly, Akiva recited the prayer. His students were stunned:

רבינו, עד כאן
Master, even this far!?!?!?!

Akiva's response to his students amazes me. In this terrible moment, he not only finds the strength to follow his religious practice, but he is able to show love for his students by teaching them one last lesson of Torah. Some words of the Shema have always troubled him, he says -- what does it mean to say בכל נפשך, with all your soul you should love God?

Akiva says it means, even if God would take my soul I should love and obey God. Even in the moment of death. Even in the most extreme condition that a human can find oneself in, that place is still the place for Torah. Its place is everywhere. That is the great lesson Akiva teaches. And that is the inspiration I find in it -- that the place of Torah is everywhere. It is in everything we do. It is not something that we do when we walk into a House of Worship or when we are in the presence of a clergy person. It goes everywhere.

There is a famous story about Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. He was known as a man very careful about observing Jewish law and ritual, certainly the kind of man who would be in synagogue on Shabbat and who would _not_ be walking long distances on Shabbat. And, yet, there he was one morning marching in a civil rights march with Martin Luther King. Someone asked him how he could not be in synagogue. He answered, "I'm praying with my feet."

Heschel was not saying that going to synagogue and following Jewish law were not important; just that they are not enough. There are other things the Torah calls us to do. He was saying that on this particular day the Torah called him to be somewhere else. This, too -- fighting injustice by supporting civil rights -- was a place of Torah. Even this far. Torah is not just in synagogue. It's out here in the world as well. In what we do in the world. In the way we relate to our neighbor.

Heschel was a deeply spiritual man and one of the greatest Jewish theologians of the 20th century. The story of his civil rights march also teaches us that, to be spiritual, an act does not have to be all dressed up in some kind of explicitly spiritual clothing. On that day, just moving his feet was spiritual -- was prayer. He didn't need to speak any words, or talk about God. Moving his feet was spiritual because of what motivated him to do it. It came out of his faith, out of his love and understanding of Torah and what Torah commands of us. It came out of the deepest reaches of his heart. Out of the parts of his heart that reached out beyond himself and his personal wants and concerns to the world and humanity as a whole.

I think of this often in my work as a hospital chaplain. So much of what I do is "just talking" talking to people, or sometimes just standing silently with them around their dying loved one. I never question whether this, too, is spiritual, whether this, too, is Torah. I think of Rabbi Akiva. I know that the Torah extends even this far. All this is spiritual.

Akiva's story also teaches us a lot about the importance of knowing who we really are, and of standing by that. Before his arrest, Akiva was asked by someone who saw him teaching Torah in defiance of the Roman order if he was not afraid of the authorities?

Akiva answered with a mashal, with a parable:

To what is this matter (with the Romans) similar? A fox was once walking along
a river. He saw fishes moving in groups from place to place. He asked, "why are
you fleeing?"

"From the nets that men cast upon us."

The fox replied, "would you like to come up on the dry land and we will dwell together here as
our ancestors once did?"

"The fish said, "Aren't you the one that they call the cleverest of animals? You are not clever, but foolish!! If we are afraid in the place in which we live, how much more so in the place in which we would die"

That is, the Torah is to the Jew like water is to fish. It is life itself. It is the air we breath. Things from the world around us may hold us in fear as we study Torah. But how much more so we would be in fear if we were to abandon it.

Again, I see the wisdom of this so often in my work in the hospital. For the people who have a Torah -- who have some kind of faith or other source of spiritual support -- there is much less despair from an illness. There may still be fear and despair -- few can face cancer and other serious illnesses without suffering some fear and despair -- but it will be much less. They will be much stronger.

We never know when the day may come suddenly -- as it did with Rabbi Akiva -- that we may die. Will we know who we are when that day comes? Will we know what we care about most? Will we be crippled by fear, or comforted by the belief that things of importance and permanance will live on when our time is over?

I hope that this blog will help me to take my faith even that far, that it will help me to learn more about who I am, about what means the most to me and how I can best serve God. I hope this blog will help me to share some of that Torah with others. I hope my Torah will extend even this far.

יום שלישי ב' בחשון תשס''ז

I'm going to try and enter every Hebrew date in this blog every day to raise my consciousness of the Hebrew calendar. . . . In general, I want to try and use the blog to help me raise my consciousness about different aspects of my spiritual life. . . To, in effect, turn the blog into a spiritual practice. . . . a tool -- along with תפילה and תלמוד תורה and גמילות חסידים, etc. -- to build my spiritual life. . . . and my rabbinic growth. . . . and growth as a chaplain. . . . . . I think that one of the reasons I've been thinking of starting a blog has _nothing_ directly to do with people reading it. . . . Rather/אלא, it's about finding a form of _self-discipline_ that works for me. . . . . There's something about using a form where there's even the mere _possiblity_ that someone might read it, that helps me approach the task with a greater degree of discipline. . . . So, I'm hoping to take some things where I've been seeking greater to develop greater discipline and move them into the blog. . . . make them regular features of the blog. . . . and thus make them regular features of my life (spiritual and otherwise).

Parsaht נוח this Shabbat. . . one of the true greats!!!! . . . Shabbat's getting earlier, it comes in at only 5:50. . . . It always amazes me to think of how many foundational stories are packed into some of these parshiot. . . . Just the fact that the story of the Flood/מבול and the story of the Tower of Bavel (מגדל בבל) are in the same parsha . . . amazing..

Just do it!

For some time now, I've been thinking of starting a blog . . . . and have thought long and hard about they "why's" and "how's" of how to do it. . . . A lot of good and productive contemplation there, but, no real decisions. . . . And, so, I'm just going to start and let it develop as I go. . . . . . And, so, here it is -- my first posting. :)