Being Vulnerable with God

By Susan Esther Barnes

When Rabbi Noa Kushner leads services, she bows differently than most people do. She holds her prayer book in her left hand, and she holds her right hand slightly away from her body, palm up. Her husband says she does this as a way to say, “Look, God, I’m open for whatever you send my way.”

Part of me likes that idea. I want God to send stuff my way. I want to be open for whatever God sends my way. But they say, “Be careful what you wish for.” They say, “God works in mysterious ways.” Saying to God, “Sure, bring it on!” without knowing what “it” is feels pretty scary to me.

So usually when I bow I “forget” to hold my right hand out like that. Or I kind of sort of do, but I don’t really mean it. Or, you know, my prayer book is kind of heavy; don’t I need to hold it in both hands?

Last Friday night Dan Nichols was at our synagogue as Artist in Residence. I was sitting in my seat, following along with the service, when Dan suggested we close our eyes. He told us to go deep into ourselves. He asked us to think about our first Jewish memory. What did it look like? What did it feel like?

I couldn’t pick just one. I thought about presents that said “Happy Chanukah” on them. I thought about visiting Grandma in San Francisco, with her Hebrew calendar in the kitchen, and a box of matzo always on hand, and the chanukiah in the living room year ‘round.

As I was sitting there, remembering myself as a small, vulnerable child in my Grandmother’s apartment, Dan started to sing a song about Torah, and about struggle. “Did you mean this struggle for me?” the song asked.

I thought about how just staying in the world of Reform Jews would be so easy for me. Why do I go to blogs written by Orthodox people and struggle with the thoughts and statements I find there? Why do I go where my beliefs are questioned? Do I really need to seek the struggle?

For me at least, the answer is yes. We are the people Israel – which is translated as “struggles with God.” It is through the struggle, through the questioning of my beliefs and the way I live my life, through the search for knowledge and understanding, that my beliefs are transformed from just ideas into something deeply and firmly held. A belief that does not hold up to close scrutiny is not worth believing in. The fire and the water tempers the steel.

Then, while I was in the midst of being this small, vulnerable child in my Grandmother’s living room, and thinking about the struggle, and feeling more alone and exposed than I have ever felt in a room so full of people, Dan began to chant the Sh’ma. And we all joined in with him. It was the deepest, most vulnerable, most connected Sh’ma I have ever chanted.

“Hear, oh Israel, Adonai is our God, Adonai is one.” Or, perhaps, “Listen up, all you people who struggle with God. God is here with us in our struggle and vulnerability; in fact, God is at one with us in the middle of all of it.”

Later in that service, and through services on the next day, when I bowed I held out my right hand, palm up. Because I knew what it felt like to be vulnerable with God and to open myself up to what God is sending my way. And I know that whatever it is, it’s going to be okay.

It's Good to be Alive

By Susan Esther Barnes
with art by Laurie at Urchinator

Last night was the first Friday of the month, which means our synagogue held its monthy free congregatinal dinner after services. Everyone is invited.

We've been having these dinners for a few years now, and up until last night nothing even remotely threatening had ever revealed itself to me at any of them. So I had grown atypically unwary by the time I was ready to help myself to a big plate of pasta primavera. Just before I sat down, an aquaintance said to me, "The pasta is great! I think there's salmon in it."

I had noticed something reddish in the pasta, but I had assumed it was bell pepper. I leaned in a little closer, and sure enough, among the bow ties and peas and such, there were little bits of flaky pink things that looked suspiciously like salmon.

Of course, that is no big deal to the lox and bagel set. But it's something else entirely for someone like me with an allergy bad enough so the last time I tasted rice from the fork of someone who had been eating salmon, it caused my throat to swell to the point it was difficult to swallow.

It seems God must have been watching over me for me to be lucky enough to have someone inadvertently warn me about the salmon in such a timely manner.

Had I not received the warning, it's possible I would have taken one forkful and then spat it out upon recognizing the salmon taste. It wouldn't have been pretty, and I may have experienced some discomfort in my mouth and throat, but most likely I would have been fine.

But if I weren't so quick on the uptake, and I had swallowed some of it, things most likely would have gone downhill for me rather quickly. My evening could have included a dash to my car for my epinephrine injector, a ride in an ambulance, and some quality time in an ER or even the morgue.

After I got home and told my husband what had happened, he said he wished I didn't have such a severe allergy. Clearly, he wants me to stay alive a while longer. I do, too, but I can't find it in myself to wish I didn't have this allergy.

Incidents like this one remind me of how fragile life is, and make me feel grateful to be alive. This morning, when I thanked God for returning my soul to me, I said it with more emunah, or faithfulness, than I usually do.

Naturally, I started to think about what things would have been like if I hadn't received the warning and as a result I hadn't been able to make it to services this morning. I expect the clergy and my friends would have been at least startled about my crisis the night before.

Still, the bar mitzvah ceremony would have gone on. There still would have been a man standing in the aisle with a small boy in his arms while the bar mitzvah boy carried the Torah scroll through the congregation. The man still would have taken the little boy's hand and used it to gently stroke the Torah once, twice, three times.

But if I had not been there to see it, I would not have had the opportunity to tell that man how his gesture of passing love of the Torah down through the generations had made my eyes well up with tears. And he would have lost the opportunity to thank me for saying so, and to have his eyes well up with tears as we agreed what a sweet and holy moment it was.

So, yes, it is good to be alive, and it is good sometimes to be reminded of just how good it is.

You Don't Need Postage for That

By Susan Esther Barnes

I’ve been told, by a very reliable source, that when my husband came to bed on Monday night and started to undress, I woke up (or not) and informed him, “You don’t need postage for that.”

My excessively brilliant husband took this in, then replied, “Thank you,” upon which I said, “You’re welcome,” and promptly fell back asleep, while he valiantly stifled his laughter.

I began having nocturnal conversations when my sister and I shared a room as kids. She would come back late from a party with her high school friends, we’d have a brief exchange about who was at the party and what happened, and in the morning I’d have no recollection of our little chat.

I know these conversations happen, however, because sometimes I’ll remember something about them once the incredulous other party reminds me about it. Sometimes I don’t remember the conversation at all, no matter how much detail the other person uses in describing it to me.

Every once in a while, I’ll remember a tidbit on my own the next day, and I’ll ask my husband, “Did this conversation actually happen last night, or did I dream it?”

When I stop to think about it, it amazes me the level of trust we display when we’re willing to fall asleep with other people in the room. We voluntarily lose consciousness, leaving ourselves utterly vulnerable to anything the other person may choose to do to us or our belongings while we sleep.

This vulnerability rises to a new level for me, since I know anything could come out of my mouth in the middle of the night, completely unfiltered by any mechanisms I may employ while I’m awake to protect myself or others from harmful disclosures. And the next day I may not remember it at all.

What a rare and special thing it is to find someone with whom we feel comfortable enough to rise to this level of vulnerability, on a regular basis, and usually without even giving it a second thought. It’s a thing almost all of us share with another, at least at some point in our lives. I don’t think we appreciate it nearly as much as it deserves.

And you don’t need postage for that.

Studying Lashon Hara

By Susan Esther Barnes

Last night we observed Shavuot, the holiday during which the Jewish people celebrate the giving and receiving of the Torah. I have read a number of posts online lately about how this holiday is generally not observed by Jews in America, so I was pleased to see a good number of people at the synagogue last night. The tradition is to study all night, but I’m afraid I didn’t even come close to making it that far.

At any rate, there were several different study sessions throughout the evening (punctuated by breaks for ice cream and cheesecake since traditionally we eat dairy products on this holiday), and I was lucky enough to attend a conversation with Rabbi Chai Levy on lashon hara.

Literally, lashon hara means “evil tongue,” and is generally described as gossip, libel, slander, lying, etc. This sort of thing is a big deal for Jews. It is said that God created the world and the things in it by using speech, as in, “God said let there be light and there was light,” and that the world and the things in it can be destroyed using speech as well. So what we do or don’t say can have serious consequences.

Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan wrote a book, published in 1873, on the subject, called “Chafetz Chayim,” or “Seeker/Desirer of Life,” which Rabbi Levy used as a reference for the discussion. The rules regarding lashon hara in this book are detailed, and cover many different situations.

The group last night was quite engaged in the discussion, which covered subjects such as how to respond if someone asks for a job reference about someone else but you don’t feel you can honestly give a positive recommendation, what action to take if you see someone doing something wrong (and how to go about doing it in a constructive way), and what to do if a friend is considering marrying a man and you have heard bad things about him (such as that he is violent) but you don’t know whether the things you heard are true.

Some of it may seem like common sense, but some of it involves trying to strike a delicate balance between protecting the interests and/or safety of an employer or a friend vs. not wanting to say unkind or possibly untrue things about someone else.

Part of what I enjoyed about the discussion was the desire of the people in the room to engage earnestly in the conversation. There is so much lashon hara in the public arena today, with political attack ads, celebrity gossip, and the like. Without discussions like this one, it might be easy to forget that the majority of people truly care about the feelings of the people around them, and want to do the right thing.

We are lucky to be the recipients of a book and a heritage we can refer to when questions about permissible speech arise.