More than Shelter

By Susan Esther Barnes

During the cold winter months, our synagogue is participating in a temporary rotating shelter for homeless men. The organization running the shelter provides the men with transportation to and from the synagogue and staff members to supervise them overnight. They also arrange for an organization to prepare and provide the men with dinner.

Our responsibilities are to provide a space in which the men can sleep, a restroom, tables and chairs where they can eat dinner, and a few people to coordinate with the shelter workers, to help serve the food, and to clean up after dinner.

If we were to do nothing more than fulfill our responsibilities as a volunteer organization under this program, it would be a great mitzvah, and I don’t imagine anyone would complain. We could treat these men as charity cases, but Jews don’t believe in charity. We believe in tzedakah, which many mistake as charity, but it means “righteousness,” and therefore it is not just about giving; it is about giving righteously.

So we have made a conscious decision not to treat these men as recipients of charity, but to treat them as guests. Our tradition tells us it is not enough to merely feed and house guests. It tells us we should make guests feel welcome, and we should provide them with entertainment.

When the men arrive each Wednesday night, they do not cross an empty threshold. Like members and visitors arriving for services on Friday night, they are met at the front door by volunteers who look them in the eye and welcome them as guests.

When they enter the social hall, they not only find a hot dinner prepared for them, they also find an array of fresh-baked snacks and desserts awaiting them, delivered earlier in the day by congregants they will never see or be able to thank.

During dinner, volunteers sit among them, eating the same food, and making conversation, as they would with dinner guests in their home. After dinner, congregants continue to chat with the men, or they play chess or other games with them. Those who wish to can view a movie on a large screen TV while they munch on hot popcorn.

Why do we do these things? Maybe it has to do with the tradition of welcoming the stranger. Maybe it’s because it makes us feel good. Maybe our traditions of remembering what it was like to be slaves in Egypt and what it was like to be thrown out of our homes and our countries help to remind us it is only through the grace of God that we have a roof over our head tonight.

And what does it matter? Does a look in the eye, a little conversation, a game of chess make any real difference? Rachel, one of the volunteers who comes every week with her two young sons, wrote, “Last year we were told that some of the men stay clean on Wednesday nights because they love coming [here].” And it strikes me that if even one man can cast off his addiction for even one day because of what we do, then it means, perhaps, we have given him some hope. And yes, it makes all the difference in the world.

In the Still and the Flurry

By Susan Esther Barnes

It is 7:45 in the morning. I’m alone in the synagogue. There are no clergy here yet, and the only staff member at work this early is directing traffic outside. It’s cloudy out there. The only illumination in the sanctuary is what little natural light filters through the stained glass overhead, plus the flickering from the ner tamid (eternal light) over the ark. The room is silent.

As I step into the sanctuary, I know I have stepped into a special place. Immediately I experience a strong feeling of power and of serenity. I walk to the front of the room and sit down. I love to be in this room when it is full of people; I love to be in this room when I am alone. Normally I would sit here and soak it in, but this is not my place to be at this time.

I stand back up, and walk to the entrance of the synagogue. I stand just outside the door, in the place where I have stood so many times before. The street across the parking lot from me is a frenzy of activity. Cars are driving back and forth, in and out of the parking lot across the street, where parents are dropping off their kids at the public elementary school. A much smaller number of cars are turning into the parking lot directly in front of me, dropping off their kids at the religious school.

As the cars drive to and fro, in and out of the parking lots, like flurries of snow tossed by the wind, it is almost eerily silent. From time to time, I hear children or their parents, or a car door closing, or a wheeled backpack being pulled across the pavement. But mostly I just hear the gentle whoosh of the tires of the many cars on the street as they dance their ballet to a music I cannot quite make out.

And it occurs to me, as I stand here on the threshold between the still sanctuary at my back and the busy street before me, that I should be contemplating the experience of standing on the threshold between two very distinct worlds. Yet it is clear these are not two different worlds at all. The power and the serenity that greets me in the sanctuary is the same power and serenity that permeates the dance of the cars and the parents and the kids. It is all one. And I am grateful to be given this chance to see it.

Ethics and Kashrut

By Susan Esther Barnes

Last week, a kosher poultry processing plant in New York was shut down due to health violations, including a lack of soap and sanitizers in the employee restrooms and processed chicken being stored in a tank without running water. This case brings to mind the much larger kosher meat processing plant, Agriprocessors, which was the center of a huge bruhaha a little over a year ago when it was accused of being in violation of labor laws as well as the mistreatment of animals.

At the time of the Agriprocessors scandal, the question arose, “How can meat be considered kosher if the animals and the workers are mistreated?” After all, one of the purposes of kashrut (the set of Jewish dietary laws) was to make sure the animals to be eaten would be slaughtered in a humane way, causing as little pain to the animal as possible. In other words, the animals were to be treated with compassion, and thus ethics and kashrut appear to be bound tightly together.

However, in the December 2009 issue of the journal Sh’ma, Daniel Alter writes, “Talk of the ethics of kashrut hurts Jewish ethics. It renders a tradition that possesses immense wisdom irrelevant at best and nonsensical at worst.” He later goes on to say, “Ethics is ethics; kashrut is kashrut,” as if they were two completely unrelated things.

This idea that one can separate ethics from the dietary laws – or anything else for that matter – is a foreign one to me. I would argue that ethics do, and should, permeate every part of our lives, from what we eat, to what we wear, to how we behave when we drive to work in the morning. How can we say food is “kosher,” meaning “fit” to eat, if the animals and/or the workers were treated unethically? Can something truly be considered to be ritually pure if it was prepared by someone who wasn’t paid a living (or even lawful) wage? What would be the point of ensuring an animal is killed quickly and painlessly if it were allowed to suffer needlessly in the days beforehand?

When we say laws are unrelated to ethics, or when we claim the letter of the law is more important than its ethical considerations, then we are worshipping at the altar of the idol of the law. And I think we all know bad things happen when we start worshipping idols.

Back Off, Mama Bear

On Christmas Eve my husband received a Christmas card from his brother. Before this card arrived, John hadn’t had any direct contact with his brother for something like 20 years. This is because, in his teens, the brother began to spiral down into a world of drugs and alcohol, as well as the things that go along with people who are desperate to get money for more drugs and alcohol. John and his parents tried to save his brother, but you can’t save someone who isn’t motivated to save himself.

We knew John’s brother had been in touch with his parents over the last few years, we understand he has been clean and sober during that time, and we know he has asked about seeing John, so I suppose this card wasn’t a complete shock. However, once it arrived, I began to do what I do best when I feel surprised and threatened: I over-react.

Fortunately, the following night was Shabbat, and about a quarter of the way through services I felt my anger and anxiety disappear. I realized I don’t have to be the Mama Bear right now. My husband is not my cub. He is a grown man, and what he needs right now isn’t my protection; he needs my support.

So it looks like next month John’s parents will drive down from Oregon, and we’re all going to meet John’s brother and his fiancée for dinner. And then we’ll see what happens from there.

Judaism Creating Connections

By Susan Esther Barnes

On Friday night during services Rabbi Lezak told two stories about how living in Israel means living in an inter-connected community. The first one, here, talks about how the plight of Gilad Shalit, the Israel soldier who has been in captivity for three years, feels personal to all Israelis, since all of them have family members who were or are in the military.

The second story, here, is an amazing true story about the woman who is the mother of the first soldier killed in Cast Lead, who goes to a concert and by chance (or perhaps an act of God) meets a couple who named their baby after her fallen son.

To some extent these stories are possible because Israel is such a tiny country, where everyone (with some exceptions) sends their children to military or other national service. These stories, combined with something else that happened at services Friday night, got me thinking about how the practice of Judaism itself helps to create these connections.

One of the situations Judaism is particularly sensitive about is the death of a loved one. There are many customs and rituals that surround this event, and many of them create and rely on community connections. When a mourner returns home from the graveyard, he or she is not allowed to eat his or her own food. Rather, the community is expected to, and in fact bears the responsibility of, bringing food to the mourner. This not only relieves the mourner of having to think about mundane acts like grocery shopping and cooking when just walking across the room may feel like a monumental act, but it also makes sure the mourner is not alone during this critical time.

In addition, the mourner is to say the Mourner's Kaddish on a regular basis throughout the first eleven months after their loved on has died. And this prayer may only be said when there are at least ten Jews present. Again, this serves to ensure the mourner is surrounded by members of his or her community during the first year of mourning.

After the first year has passed, we say the Mourner's Kaddish for the anniversary of the loved one's death, called the Yarzheit. When worshippers come to services on Friday night they are handed a program that contains various bits of information, and on the back is a list of those in the congregation who have died recently as well as the names of those who are having their Yarzeheit.

On Friday night, I was sitting beside a couple, when another couple sat behind us. The woman next to me was looking at the Yarzheit list, and she turned to the couple behind us. She pointed at the list and said, "I see this person on the list with the same last name as you. Is this your father?"

"No," they replied, "That is our son."

"How old was he?" asked the woman.

"22."

"Oh, I didn't know."

And thus another connection was created, because when you know a couple has lost a son, an incredible tragedy in itself, and further learn the son died so young, it cannot help but create an understanding, a bond, from the acknowledgement that these people have walked through the fire and have the bravery to carry on.

And it strikes me this is one of the ways Judaism seeks to connect us. Yarzheit not only serves to comfort the mourner, but its public nature gives us the opportunity to ask the questions that bind us together, like "Who was she?" "What is your favorite memory about him?" and to make the statements that bind us together, like, "I remember him" and "I miss her too."

How Are You?

The question, "How are you?" is a common greeting among people I know. The expected answer is, "I'm fine, how are you?" I find I sometimes surprise people when, instead of giving the expected answer, I say, "I'm doing great!" This is generally the most authentic short answer I can give, since my life really is much better than I ever would have expected. It's not that everything is perfect, but all the most important pieces are in place: The world's best husband, a great community, friends, mostly healthy family, full employment, etc.

A friend of mine told me recently how much she dislikes the "How are you?" greeting, since most people seem to ask it in passing and then rush on without even pausing to hear the answer. If you're not going to stick around for an answer, why ask?

A woman who lost her husband about six months previously spoke to my Bikkur Cholim (visiting the sick) group about what to say and what not to say to a person in mourning. She said the one question she wishes people would stop asking her is, "How are you?" She says she doesn't feel comfortable answering, "Fine" when that's not how she feels, yet she knows most people who ask the question aren't really interested in hearing her real answer to it.

Another person in the group related a story about a family she recently visited who were sitting shiva (the first seven days of mourning after a loved one has died). She said part way through the evening the husband taped a hand-written sign to the door saying, "Please don't ask me how I'm doing." I can't even imagine how difficult it would be to try to respond to that question when one is in mourning, particularly in the first days and weeks, when the mourner is still struggling to understand the enormous change that has occurred.

Aside from greeting mourners and friends with something more along the lines of, "It's good to see you," or some such statement rather than a question, I don't know what I plan to do with this whole "How are you?" question. It is still part of the oil that keeps the social machine running. Substituting something like, "Greetings and salutations" is a bit awkward. I guess it's something I'll just have to work on.

Articulation and Flinging

By Susan Esther Barnes

In her book A Spiritual Life: A Jewish Feminist Journey, Merle Feld writes, “What is a prayer? A prayer is the articulatiion of something very particular at the core of one's being, flung out into the universe. Perhaps it finds a mark, perhaps not. The essential thing is the articulation and the flinging.”

I agree about the importance of articulation and flinging. Although one may or may not call what I write prayers, what I do when I write is exactly what is described above. I do it because I feel compelled to do it, not because I expect to get anything back. However, I do also spend time pondering what happens to my words after the flinging.

After I write something, which for me is the culmination of the articulation part, I then need to decide what method or methods I will use to fling it. There are a couple of people to whom I email a good number of the things I write. The main reason they remain on my tiny email list is they often respond with words of encouragement and/or enthusiasm. This gives me the idea they don’t consider my emails to be a complete waste of their time.

Sometimes I send something to someone because what I wrote was inspired by them or mentions them in some way. These are generally one-time-only flings and I don’t add these folks to my email list unless they specifically request it.

There are a number of people to whom I have sent my writing but from whom I have received no response at all. This leaves me with a bit of an awkward feeling. I don’t know what it means, and I suppose in each case it probably means something different. It is unlikely I will send any of these people more of my writing, however, unless I happen to write something else that mentions them.

On the other hand, on at least one occasion, something I wrote was forwarded by others to a number of different email lists – a sort of turbo-flinging which was quite interesting to watch.

Another method of flinging involves my efforts to publish things I have written. Without much effort on my part, I have managed to have things published in my synagogue’s newsletter, a local newspaper, and a literary journal. To a certain extent, these venues provide some validation to the value of my flinging, since if the editors didn’t think my writing would be interesting to their readers, they wouldn’t be willing to participate in my flinging by publishing it. Unfortunately, with this type of flinging most people who read what I publish have no easy way of telling me what they think about it.

My newest venue for flinging is this blog. The idea of a blog appealed to me because it has the potential for a wide audience and also provides a method for easy feedback. After three months of blogging, the statistics tell me I have a small but steady stream of people viewing the blog, and they’re staying long enough on an average visit to read one or more of my posts. However, even after I started to allow anonymous comments, almost none of my blog visitors posts a comment. I suppose that’s normal, but it does leave me wondering what my visitors like or dislike about the blog, whether they’re passing on to others anything I’ve written, or what other effect, if any, my articulation and flinging has had on them.

Like prayers in general, it’s a matter of faith, this articulation and flinging without knowing what, if anything, happens after the fling.