First tomato!

Today, we picked our first tomato of the season -- a Wapsipinicon peach. It's one of the heirloom varieties we are trying this year. It was a little bit fuzzy on the outside and had a mild, low acid flavor. Here's a close up:

From First tomato (peach!), 2010

A typical summer storm blew in a bit before Minna decided to "take the plunge" and pick it (and thus the wet spots on her shirt above) -- it was a bit of a gamble as the ripe color isn't too much different from the unripe color, and we weren't sure we knew how to tell it was ready.

You open Your hand and satisfy the needs of every living creature by Your will!

As the Psalmist says . . From First tomato (peach!), 2010

Bone, grit -- and being your brother's keeper

I don't often write about movies I haven't actually seen, but when I heard a sound clip on NPR's Fresh Air from Winter's Bone -- a story of a teenage girl seeking her fugitive father so her family's house will not be taken in lieu of his bail -- I was taken back in time. While this voice was, on the one hand, very contemporary, it also took me back to 1880, and the voice of Charles Portis' own fictional girl teenager improbably pursuing a fugitive across dangerous territory in his 1968 novel True Grit (later made into a film that won John Wayne an Oscar). Both voices seemed somehow out of time, almost biblical in their plainness and spirit.

It had been decades since I read True Grit, so I searched the Web in search of excerpts. Reading the below from the opening pages of the novel (excerpted at the bottom of this NPR article here), I was surprised to find myself choked with tears. The narrator -- the teenager Mattie Ross -- is describing, in the plainest of words, how her father was killed by his drunken tenant while the two men were away on a business trip together. The tenant, Tom Chaney, felt he had been cheated at cards and had grabbed his rifle to go in search of the men he had gambled with. Mattie's father, without a weapon, went in pursuit of him in an effort to stop him. He did not get far before Tom Chaney turned on him without a word:

Tom Chaney raised his rifle and shot him in the forehead, killing him instantly. There was no more provocation than that and I tell it as it was told to me by the high sheriff of Sebastian County. Some people might say, well, what business was it of Frank Ross to meddle? My answer is this: he was trying to do that short devil a good turn. Chaney was a tenant and Papa felt responsibility. He was his brother’s keeper. Does that answer your question?

I cannot tell you for sure why those words touched me so, but it brought to my awareness that I have been working very hard to be my fellow's keeper in recent weeks, as well as how dangerous such a path can be. But what really made me cry may not have been the fear; it may have been the realization of my determination -- no matter the risk -- to follow that very basic, implicit command that stands nearly at the very beginning of the Torah -- the command to not be like Cain. The command to indeed be the keeper of one's fellow. Even when it is very hard.

This week will see the Fast of Tammuz, a day commemorating the disaster that was the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem at the hands of the Romans, an event that would be followed some three weeks later by the destruction of the Temple itself, a disaster that might have destroyed the Jews as a people, but did not. We were sustained by our faith, by the knowledge that our Torah is a Torah of righteousness and justice -- a Torah that demands we care for our fellow. And for the widow, the orphan and the stranger.

May it be the will of the Holy Blessed One that you, too, will be sustained by the Torah of truth and justice, and find true grit when you need it.

Less is more -- pruning: in life, in gardening and in spiritual care

Up until about an hour ago, this poor guy was a very bushy, healthy-looking plant of basil. But, under the influence of this gardening video, I decided to prune it back almost to nothing -- all in the hope that I could slow down its growth, and thus extend its life.

I've been looking for ways to slow things down in my own life as well. I remember a couple of months ago, sitting on a couch with a fellow doctoral student at NYU and working on a project together. It was the first chance I ever had to really interact with this colleague, and I was surprised to find how

The stalks from the three plants I pruned From Pruning (late June)

much we had in common about how we thought about our lives and our work. For both of us, it is important to do more than one thing at a time. And, as challenging as it might be to try and do something like hold down two full-time pursuits at one time, that it was a kind of challenge that we both very much needed -- the contrast of having "feet in two different worlds" helped us to be more grounded. It helped us to not get caught up by our tendency to become obsessed with one thing, like that "one thing" is everything. It helped us keep our perspective both focused and balanced.

So, I hope not to give up this multi-tasking aspect of my life. But, over the last 12 months or so, it's been more like I had three full-time pursuits than just two and it's been quite a strain at times. Mostly, I feel incredibly proud of myself reflecting back on the last 12 months. I became a certified chaplain education (by being approved as an Associate Supervisor in the Association of Clinical Pastoral Education) -- something that I achieved in about as short a time (less than three years) as is theoretically possible. I started a new path as a researcher of education (as a doctoral student in the Education and Jewish studies program at NYU). I found the time to go to some key conferences and meetings, including the Jerusalem Spiritual Care Conference (that included a historic delegation of American CPE supervisors, seeking to give Israelis guidance on how to set up their own professional spiritual care certification and training) and the National Association of Jewish Chaplains conference in Boston (where I gave a workshop on personal Midrash). I also recently attended both the Network for Research in Jewish Education conference where I presented some of my work to other education professionals, and the Oraita spiritual retreat where I studied ancient Jewish sources relating to spiritual (and self-) care with other rabbis. And I continued to work as a CPE (clinical pastoral education) supervisor amid all this, as well as finding time and energy to keep growing my relationship with Minna and to be her partner while she embarked on her own multi-task of starting work as the spiritual leader of a congregation, while finishing her five-year path towards rabbinic ordination.

But I've, nonetheless, been glad to have the change-of-pace that is my summer work -- where I am focused on mostly one task (running a full-time unit of CPE, with my six students, all either seminarians or people who recently finished their seminary education).

Here are the leaves that I picked from the stalks. From Pruning (late June)

It's a reminder that what I really love most is being a teacher -- the kind of teacher who has the privilege of having intense relationships with his or her students and the privilege of having the opportunity to perhaps have a profound impact on their respective journeys as people, as professional workers in ministry and as spiritual caregivers and leaders. Although I also very much want to be involved in research about education, all of my passion and insight for that research has its roots in my personal experience working with students.

So, for this summer I'm pruning myself back for a bit, trying to slow down some and focus in one area (as well as on things that are just fun and restorative, like gardening). My hope is that this pruning will yield not only immediate benefit (a more-rested, less-stressed Alan), but also will yield a richer harvest when I reenter the researcher/student part of my life when I return to NYU in the fall!

_____________

Getting back to my _real_ garden for a bit (ie, the one with plants and vegetables), I have some things I want to share beyond the pruning (by the way, if you're interested in learning how -- or if -- to prune tomatoes of their so-called "suckers", there's good info and a video here).

First, I was really excited to see our first flower on our eggplant, today, which means that there is some real hope of having our own crop of these most special of vegetables!

From Pruning (late June)

The excitement is because we've sometimes come close to losing hope for this plant. As you can see from the pics below, something is eating its leaves.

From Pruning (late June)

Here are a couple more pics showing the current state of progress:

Looking up at two of our upside-down ones -- a cuke in foreground and a tomato behind From Pruning (late June)

My hope is this one will grow enough that I can "train it" to the lattice of the fence (actually a door) here. From Pruning (late June)

Peppers starting to yield! From Pruning (late June)

And the cucumbers are starting to have their first flowers! From Pruning (late June)

And they are climbing up the strings I gave them to the top of the fence! From Pruning (late June)

First fruit

The peppers were the tortoise to the tomatoes' hare (translation: I had expected our tomatoes to yield the first fruits of the summer, but we ended up harvesting a pepper (yellow banana variety) as our very first fruit this very evening). We ate it raw as we stood outside -- it was delicious!

Thank You, Holy Blessed One, for sustaining us and upholding us and enabling us to once again reach this wonderful place!

All tied up

Well, I'm not much of a knot tier (and I've never grown cucumbers before), but I'm hoping that these guys will reach out their little tendrils (it's creepy; they really do grab ahold of things) and climb up the twine to the top of the fence here where I hope they will happily live on the trellises.

Meanwhile, the rest of the garden is starting to look like a jungle. It's been some 20 years since I've had the opportunity to grow plants in the ground (last year's efforts were all in containers). I think we might have our first tomatoes in two weeks or so!

Smiling your way through the binding of Isaac

We've had many great teachings here at Oraita so far, but I especially appreciated Rabbi Professor Max Ticktin's fresh approach today to studying one of what can be the most troubling Holy text of all -- the sacrifice, or binding of Isaac. He brought us a number of modern texts -- including one by Woody Allen -- that struggle with this text in an effort to find meaning, meaning relevant to our own lives, today. One, written by his wife, makes a creative use of a psychological perspective to redeem God's role in "testing" Abraham, and sees a lesson for us all in the story for how we might relate to our children in healthy ways.

I hope to share much more with you soon!

What is Midrash, what is Holy imagination (the view from Oraita)?

Midrash -- from the Hebrew language root for seeking or demanding -- is sometimes described as a Jewish method of Bible interpretation. But this is much too narrow a view. Midrash is about imagination. In its classic form, it is the imaginings -- imaginings often in the form of story -- of our Sages about the things they found in their Holy scriptures. They added story onto story, in the process creating new meaning that made the biblical text their own, relevant to their lives and concerns.

We, too, as I have argued elsewhere, can make our own Midrash -- by composing our own new stories that we can layer along with the holy texts of our tradition. Some, however, would say that even my definition of Midrash is too narrow, and that Midrash need not even relate to the biblical text.

This week, I am at Oraita -- a gathering where rabbis and Jewish scholars come to learn together. This meeting is focusing on Midrash. Natan Margalit -- Oraita's director -- made his own effort today in opening the meeting to say what Midrash, or the conversation about it, is about: "Truth is a conversation of discipline and passion over time," he said, borrowing from Parker Palmer. He continued, "This conversation we share -- that's where truth is." He made reference to the metaphor of water, the idea that the Torah is like water and that our conversation about Torah is like drops of water: "Torah wears down that resistance to truth."

I'm looking forward to learning with the scholars who are here, including JTS' Burt Visotzky, who says he will be teaching four classic Midrashim that touch on a Jewish approach to a topic so important to the practice of pastoral care (to being a spiritual caregiver to people who are suffering) -- theodicy (why God would allow bad things to happen to good people, etc).

I hope to bring this learning back to my community -- and my chaplain students -- to enrich our learning together this summer.

It's exciting!

Ordained!

Rabbi Minna Bromberg at Hebrew College in Boston, June 6, 2010.

Here are some more pics.

Neither them, nor their reward -- suffering, and how to talk about it

One of the things I am grateful for from my recent trip to Israel for a spiritual care conference, was the opportunity to hear Rabbi Dr. Einat Ramon teach a text that I had learned many times over the years, but had almost forgotten about somehow. I'm no mind reader, but I think I know something of why Ramon chose this text to introduce herself and her group of Israeli colleagues to an American delegation of chaplains who had come to advise the Israelis on how to professionalize pastoral care: because the text speaks to a particularly Jewish way of understanding suffering -- and to tell the Americans (mostly Christian) that, for all the Israelis desire their help, a Christan approach suffering is not what was desired.

I think Ramon was wise to introduce herself with this text but I also think the beliefs and spirituality expressed in it are too universal to be claimed only by Jews -- which is why I started my teaching to my (all Christian) chaplain students this summer by learning it with them at the beginning of this week.

The text from Talmud Brakhot (full text and translation) tells of us three times when an ailing rabbi is visited by one of his colleagues. Each visit has key elements in common. All three ill rabbis are asked by their visitor about how they feel about their sufferings -- are your sufferings welcome, even beloved, to you? "Neither they, nor their reward," is the answer. Then the three stories diverge from each other for a bit -- some words and such pass between the two participants. But then, finally, as all three stories approach their end, the visitor says the same thing -- "give me your hand." The ill one reaches out his hand, and he is lifted up.

There is something so empowering about the right our tradition gives us to say "neither they, nor their reward" in the face of our suffering -- to be given permission by the example of the most faithful of our Sages that it is possible to detest our suffering while still loving God and remaining true to God and our tradition. To be free from feeling we are commanded to welcome all our suffering as somehow being God's work.

I was reminded of something else when I taught this text to my students this week -- that the problem with the insensitive questions that so many untrained chaplains ask is not the content of the questions. It's how and when they are asked.

We were studying the part of the story where one of the Sages asks some seemingly insensitive questions of his ill friend that seem to be imposing his beliefs on him: "Why are you crying?" he asks the ill one:

• Is it because you didn't study enough Torah in your life? Because you shouldn't be worrying about that -- we have a saying that says the only thing that really matters is if you directed your heart to God.
• Is it because you didn't make enough money in your life? Because you shouldn't be worrying about that -- not everybody gets to be rich.
• Is it because of the lack of children? Because you shouldn't be worrying about that either, children can die after all.

Learning this text again with my new students helped me see is that these are not just examples of bad questions or statements -- they're also universal examples of the major things that come to a person's mind as they realize their life may be coming to an end. They ask themselves what kind of person have I been and what kind of life did I lead? A good one or a bad one? A full one or an empty one? The three questions above correspond with three major categories where people ask these life review questions:

• Spirituality -- did I do right by God or my faith tradition? (This text, in accordance with the Jewish tradition, uses Torah study to represent spiritual good.)
• Material matters (I would include not just material wealth here, but career accomplishments)
  
• Family matters (children)
  

So, if the ancient rabbi's questions were problematic, it was not the content that was their problem. The content they represent correspond with universal things that many suffering people would like to talk about. The problem comes in how these topics were broached. Did the suffering person volunteer that he or she wanted to talk about them or did the caregiver impose them? How is it that a caregiver can appropriately invite a person to talk about the things that are most dear to him or her -- that concern him or her most at a time of deep crisis in his or her life?

I hope the rest of the summer with my students will be devoted to answering that final question. And that we all, including myself, will grow to have a clearer idea of what the answer might be.

I'm excited about it!

____________

I write these words in Boston as a moment not of of suffering, but of joy approaches -- the ordaining of my life partner Minna on Sunday as a rabbi (at Hebrew College here)! The image to the right, from our recent trip to Israel, is one of Minna doing one of the things she is very best at -- singing . . . . and through her singing, helping people find joy and meaning in their lives and in their relationship with the Holy.

Minna, I hope it is the will of the Holy Blessed One that you will have many years of raising your voice and putting your hands together in service of God, Torah and the people Israel. And that many -- all the seekers among us! -- will know some small piece of the incalculable joy and meaning you have brought to my life. Long may you run!

________________

Shabbat Shalom!

Upside down!

Even though the full recommended week hadn't passed since I first put seedlings in my home-fashioned upside down planters (more about how I planted them here), I turned one of them this morning.

As of this evening (as I bbq-ed my dinner), it hadn't fallen out yet!

Here's a couple of other views of it:

From Planting upside down

Living large

Like many Americans, I have spent much of my life being larger than is considered to be healthy, and thus searching for a way that works to take (and keep!) off a few pounds. Exercise, of course is part of any successful effort. But "the gym" and other forms of working out for working out's sake are just not for me -- it bores me out of my mind, and doing such things in groups (they call that classes, I guess), which works for so many, is also not for me. So, my search for a good exercise life has always been a search for exercise I can get as part of transporting my body, etc., from place to place, or some other kid of activity that's main purpose is not the exercise itself. So, bicycle commuting, cargo biking (eg, grocery shopping by bike), walking to work, volunteering to help a friend move some boxes, hiking in a pretty place -- those have been the ways I've sought exercise.

The last few weeks, now that we've moved into a small house with a little bit of a backyard, I've been able to reconnect with another by-the-way means of getting exercise -- gardening. Now, gardening doesn't have to involve much sweat, but I double-dug the two plots to the right with a fairly small shovel, and that was a lot of work! Of course, the exercise benefit is hardly an ongoing thing, but I'm really hoping (especially, if we avoid a reoccurred of the late blight fungus that meant we only got a small -- but yummy! -- yield from the tomatoes we planted in containers last year on our small porch in our small apartment) for another benefit: lots of healthful eating in the summer. Lots and lots of fresh tomatoes and cucumbers especially -- that's what I hope for. That would be really living large!

I am grateful to be able to have a chance to grow things, again. Years of living in apartments in in cities have meant I went quite a few years without a place to grow anything. The main benefit of gardening, of course, isn't really either the exercise or the produce. It's what it can do for your soul. The feel of God's earth in your hands. The joy of watching something grow. This year, we even grew most of our tomato plants from seed ourselves -- some of them seeds we saved ourselves from the Mr. Stripey tomatoes we enjoyed so much last year. (That's some of the seedlings, below, sitting on top of our compost bin).

_____________________

One way of trying to stem off the effects of another possible blight is just to plant a lot of tomatoes of different varieties (last year the blight didn't kill off our plants, but just reduced their yield -- we lost a lot of tomatoes to disgusting looking fungus on them!). Today, I went even farther than before in my search for tomato variety. I had heard about planting tomatoes upside down before, but it was only after reading this recent New York Times article that I started to think seriously about trying it. I followed the instructions on this web page for making upside down planters out of five-gallon paint buckets (about $4 each with the lids at Home Depot). That's me to the left carrying the new containers to their temporary homes -- they live upside-up for about a week to build a root system. Once that's done, we'll flip them over and hang them from somewhere sunny

(You can find more pics of how I handled this task here.)

One thing that made me especially excited about today's plantings is that we found some Purple Cherokee's at the local farmer's market (from this vendor). We had bought one from the same folks last year and really enjoyed the few of its fruits that were not taken by the blight, but we hadn't been able to find any until now -- the first day of the year the farmer's market was open!

We also found some horseradish plants at the farmer's market, which we had been having trouble finding. It's late in the season for planting horseradish, but I'm still hoping to have some of my own homegrown "bitter herbs" at my next seder!

It was a fun day of planting!

Mixing work and play in the (post?)modern world

As I prepare to begin another intense summer of teaching pastoral care in a hospital and Minna prepares to make the transition (ordination at Hebrew College on June 6!) from rabbinical student to full-time rabbi, we decided to take a few days to ourselves during which we got to one of Minna's favorite places near her childhood home -- the Morton Wildlife Refuge near Sag Harbor, NY. But work came with us. That's Minna above answering a synagogue-related email on her iPhone (while maybe-not-so-wild turkeys sneak up behind her!).

The challenge of making time for play while still being available, as professionals, to the people and tasks that require us is one that almost everyone seems to face, today. But it's an especially challenging issue for people who are clergy or in related forms of ministry. People -- especially those facing the crisis that is illness, injury or loss -- expect us to be able to be present for them. As Minna's teacher Art Green said in a recent talk in Rome to Catholic sisters, "this ability to be present can only come out of your own spiritual life. To live a life of giving to others, you need to be nourished by God’s presence in your own life. To hold people, in their pain as well as in their joy, you as a rabbi (or a priest, or a sister) have to manifest your own strength, which is really not your own at all, but God’s, in which you are rooted by your own faith."

That's why coming to a place like Morton is so important when we are able to get away. For Minna, Morton is not just a place to relax. It is a place to rediscover what she already knew but that she might have forgotten among all the work and stresses -- who she really is, what she really cares about. For Morton -- for her -- is a place of spiritual centering. A place that makes meaning for her. A place that has been with her as she has made the many twists and turns that have been the journey of her life and her spirit. . . . The value of this _kind_ of self-care is a big part of what I will be trying to share with my chaplain students this summer -- not just time off, but time that nurtures the soul.

The ocean at Morton:

From Morton and such (publics)

Of course Morton, while a place I am happy to be at, doesn't quite have that meaning for me, having one first discovered it (courtesy of Minna) a couple of years ago. I was reminded of that first visit this time -- when Minna fed chickadees who landed on her hand -- as she invited this one to come land on her hand:

From Morton and such (publics)

It was a good time on a too-short trip. But at least I got to ride a bicycle there (Minna snapped this pic of me in the Morton parking lot on her Dad's bike):

From Morton and such (publics)

The Rabbinical Assembly annual convention was also going on in New York during these days and I got a chance to reconnect with some old rabbinical school colleagues, etc., who were in town for the convention. It was really great to see them and my old dean, Rabbi Brad Artson. This connecting with other rabbis -- people who face similar challenges and joys -- is another important kind of self-care.

For all those who have a long (or even a short!) weekend coming up as Memorial Day approaches, may you find true restoring rest -- rest that makes it possible to do the meaningful work you have out in the world!

_____________

PS Here's another pic of Minna at Morton. I really like this one!

From Morton and such (publics)

Religious, but not coercive -- a new kind of faith for Israel

They came ready to listen, but with lots of questions: Israelis involved in trying to establish a real profession of chaplains and spiritual caregivers here met Wednesday evening with a delegation of American chaplaincy leaders -- like Teresa Snorton, above, the executive director of the Association for Clincial Pastoral Education -- to pepper them with questions about how to go about setting up professional standards. But the Israelis heard about more than just professional standards. They were also impressed with the open and diverse vision of spirituality the Americans brought. "It's very religious, but not trying to convert," said one Israeli participant. "That's something that's very rare in Israel."

The concerns and questions the Israelis had were not so different than those Americans tend to have about chaplaincy, but I was impressed by a difference in emphasis. One participant asked if "someone who does not believe in God can qualify to do [chaplaincy] training." And while there are many Americans who do not believe in God, this seems to a much more burning question for Israelis than Americans. I shared my answer -- yes, certainly, but the chaplain student would still be able to talk to others about questions of holiness, about what makes ultimate meaning for them.

A big concern was about the length of the training. The Israelis did not seem too happy to hear about it taking years to become certified as a chaplain or a chaplain supervisor. Rev. Snorton assured them that some other efforts to apply CPE outside the United States have found reasonable ways to handle this challenge.

The Israelis also had questions about whether there was a place in this kind of training for people into "New Age" kinds of spiritual expression.

Admissions criteria also seemed to be a very big concern for the Israelis. My guess is that this reflects a difference in the Israeli scene than what chaplaincy training has come to be in the States. In the States, the high standards bar doesn't come at the beginning -- it comes at "the end," when a student seeks professional certification. I don't think things will end up that way for the Israeli system.

From Israel Spiritual Care Conference, 2010

But, of course, I don't know how the Israeli standards will end up -- that is, as John DeVelder, here representing the United States' CPSP, said when he spoke yesterday, for the Israelis themselves to figure out, to figure out there own way of making an "indigenous" application of Clinical Pastoral Education that is particular to the Israeli scene. Helping Israelis to find their own way -- rather than telling them what to do -- is a main motivation for putting together the American delegation, an effort organized by the National Association of Jewish Chaplains and its executive director, Cecille Asekoff

My hope is to be, like Snorton, a part of helping with that effort -- standing beside Israelis as they find their way forward to making this important work a part of their healthcare system.

The hope – an Israel that’s more free and open (and that’s true to itself)

I started the day, today, at the annual Israel spiritual care conference – only the sixth one – and ended it listening to a group of school kids sing HaTikvah at the dedication of a new building for the Machon Schechter seminary here.

It wasn’t until I heard the words of Israel’s national anthem – HaTikvah means “the Hope” in English – that it came to me what it is that links these two seemingly disparate events: They’re both part of an effort – mostly slow and quiet in this loud and hyperactive little country – to gradually bring the best of the West, the West’s cultivation of a diverse and open society, to Israel in a way that stays true to Israel’s soul.

John DeVelder said it well at the conference: he talked about bringing the best of the well-developed American field of chaplaincy training to Israel in a way that is “indigenous”— so it’s not “American only.” DeVelder, the leader of chaplaincy and spiritual care training at the Robert Wood Johnson hospital in New Jersey, was there representing the CPSP, a smaller alternative group to the larger Association of Clinical Pastoral Education (of which I am a member and certified Associate Supervisor). Teresa Snorton was also there representing the larger group as its executive director. They were there as part of a trip from the States organized by the National Association of Jewish Chaplains and its executive director, Cecille Asekoff. “I want to thank Cecille for having the dream of doing CPE in Israel,” said DeVelder.

Cecille Asekoff From Israel Spiritual Care Conference, 2010

The dream, or hope, is to have a developed profession of chaplains and other spiritual caregivers here. It might be hard for Americans to conceive of what an infant field chaplaincy really is here. I talked to one young rabbi, today, who is pioneering a spiritual care program in a cancer unit of a large hospital here. He told me that Israelis have very little sense that a rabbi can provide any other care than facilitating rituals (like marriage, etc.). The American tradition of talking to a religiously trained person is just not part of the Israeli landscape.

My sense is that’s largely the result of the larger split between the religious and the secular societies here, a split that is much more “black and white” than in the States. Secular people see very little possible role for a rabbi in their lives. But that doesn’t mean Israelis aren’t spiritual and it doesn’t mean that they don’t need spiritual help when they’re hurting, whether it’s from illness or some other source of grief. The effort to bring serious training of spiritual caregivers – that is, Clinical Pastoral Education – here in a serious way is essential if those spiritual needs are going to be met. It’s part of an effort to break down the boundaries that sharply separate secular and religious and instead make a place for an active faith life for all Israelis.

Breaking down those barriers and making a place for an active faith life for all – even those who call themselves secular – is very much what the Schechter Institute is all about. When I was a student there about 10 years ago during my rabbinic training, the new building was just a dream – a vacant lot near the old building. When I was here a bit over a year ago, it had just barely moved up to a hole in the ground. And now a real building is clearly taking shape. The institute has many programs, but one especially close to my heart has been the efforts to train indigenous Israelis – both men and women in this country where nearly every rabbi is a man – to be rabbis who are serious about Judaism and Jewish texts, but who are also open to the reality of what modern life is for most people.

It’s such a privilege to be here right now and to have the honor of seeing leaders like Snorton giving something back – giving Israelis advice on how to create a broad vision of spiritual care training here. She ended her talk by sharing a definition of what spiritual care should be: “spiritual care is the art of meeting people at their point of need, to assist them in making meaningful connections between their current crisis, their faith and their life as a whole.”

I love this country so much and would so much like to be a part of bringing CPE to these shores. May it indeed be the will of the Holy Blessed One!

_______

Here are some more pics from the conference:

Miriam Berkowitz, author of Taking the Plunge, teaches about Mikveh as healing waters:

From Israel Spiritual Care Conference, 2010

Teresa Snorton, executive director of the ACPE, shares her counsel on setting up professional standards (it's so great that you came so far to help chaplaincy in Israel, Teresa!):

From Israel Spiritual Care Conference, 2010

Naomi Kalish -- ACPE supervisor, president-elect of the NAJC (and my classmate at NYU) -- gave a great teaching, using a text from Avot D'Rabbi Natan like it was a verbatim.

From Israel Spiritual Care Conference, 2010

And, finally, here's a picture of the new building at Schechter:

From Schechter dedication, 2010

Getting back to the Land -- care for the caregivers

That's the Mediterranean sea behind those two bleary-eyed (but happy!) faces above. Minna and I were just an hour off the plane at Ben-Gurion in Tel-Aviv. I'm here for the 6th annual Israel spiritual care conference (it's so great to see professional chaplaincy start to get established here in Israel!). Minna came along as part of a long-term ambition for our lives together -- to make coming to Israel a regular part of what we do and not something that only happens every decade or so. I was so excited over the last week or so, thinking about coming here and often found myself daydreaming about walking along the streets of Jerusalem again and hearing the language of the Hebrew Bible spoken out of the mouths of children as their first language. Coming here is a way of my caring for my own spirit.

I'm looking forward to the conference, too, tomorrow and Wednesday. There's a delegation of Clinical Pastoral Education supervisors from the States here for the conference, so this could really be a watershed event for chaplaincy training in Israel, an educational pursuit that is only in its infancy here.

It's exciting!

_______

Here's a view, by the way, of the ocean from where we drank some coffee after we dipped our toes in the sea.

From Israel Spring 2010

[x-posted t0 smamitayim]