Lucky Us

It is a mitzvah to dance at a wedding. Judaism values sharing life’s joys together. So I traveled back to Ohio with great expectation to celebrate a simcha. I was not disappointed.

After a beautiful ceremony the wedding party was on. We dined. We drank. We danced. We were brought to attention when we saw that the father of the bride was standing at the front of open dance floor. Pride and joy filled his tuxedo. His shoulders back and his head up, he demanded out attention.  He is the father of three daughters. A quiet, unassuming and humble man, he grabbed the microphone with confidence and ease and began to give the wedding speech he was born to give.

Baseball had been special for him. Growing up in the South he had been a Braves fan. He told an endearing story of the time his daughter went to a Braves game with him. The fans dismissed the little girl at his side until she amazed them with her detailed account of the inning. After that they gave her their stat card and invited her to do it.

And so it went. We were privileged to leaf through pages of the family scrap book. When you immerse yourself in the power of another family’s memories, you begin to turn your own family album pages in your mind. My mind continued to turn those pages.

A wedding is full of family album photo opportunities. The photographer is busy capturing these memories. There are those, however, that cannot be in the pictures.

His father had died young. I knew one of the memories he carried forward was following baseball with his dad. I imagine them playing catch. He shared his gratitude for the years they had together and ended by saying…lucky us.

He spoke of his wife’s mother. She had died, far too young, of cancer. He shared his gratitude for the years they had together. Lucky us.

My lips began to form the words - like a collective amen - lucky us.

He mentioned a brother who was too ill to travel. Those of us who knew the backstory knew the sadness of this moment. Again, he shared his gratitude for the years they had together. These words were harder to say...but finally, lucky us.

The attendees have sent cards and gifts to celebrate the marriage. The bride and the groom are dressed in high fashion. At our tables we are well fed. What can be added? The father of the bride gives the ultimate wedding gift, a grateful heart.

"Lucky us" is not merely a description of the world we live in. It is an aspiration. "Lucky us" is a fundamental Jewish value. We start each day with morning prayers of gratitude for the gift of breath, for our bodies and for this world. We do this ritual to remind us to lift up our heads and look at our blessings, not just our disappointments; our opportunities, not just our challenges.

The father was probably too busy to notice that the week’s parsha was the story of the biblical scouts. They were charged to survey the land and to report if it was a land that would provide a blessed future for the people. They came back and focused on all the obstacles- not the blessings. Because of their lack of hope, faith and gratitude that whole generation had to wander for 40 years. They would not be able to come into the promised land.

The father of the bride knows that there are things to fear. Life can be precarious. Read the news! He gives the new couple a great gift - a grateful and hopeful spirit. He gives them a sense of a blessed future.

The wedding guests traveled to celebrate a simcha and we left with a wonderful lesson:

lucky us.

Scattering the Forces of Resistance (Parashat Be'ha'alotekha)

Parashat Be'ha'alotekha discusses how the Torah traveled in front of the people. We read the following in Numbers 10: 35-36:

When the Ark was to set out, Moses would say:
Advance, O Lord
May your enemies be scattered, and may your foes flee before You.
And when it halted, he would say
Return, o Lord,
You who are Israel’s myriad of thousands!

The text has a military theme. As the people march forward, God is protecting them. God scatters their enemies and clears the path for the people. Enemies flee.

The next passage abruptly shifts from the vision of a people on the march to their desired future to the complaints of the people looking to the emotions of their present and the prejudices of their past. The Torah (Numbers 11:4-5) says that the people complained before the Lord:

The riff-raff in their midst felt a gluttonous craving and then the Israelites wept and said, 'If only we had meat to eat. We remember the fish we used to eat free in Egypt.' 

Judaism does not require that we give up the joys of this world. We are permitted to eat well, just not to be gluttonous. We are permitted to have sensual desire but within the structure of sacred relationships.  We are meant to be fully engaged with this world but to remember that we are part of a design of ultimate purpose- the building of sacred community.

God is willing to walk with us but we need to join the procession. Every time the Torah is read we have the opportunity to get up and greet the Torah after the first text above is read from the bimah. Each week we have the opportunity to connect with God and to ask for God’s support in reducing the forces of resistance between our current lives and the lives we aspire to.

We know all too well that our higher aspirations are always be challenged by ours fears and doubts. Like the Israelites, we sometimes swing from sacredness to selfishness within the same Shabbat morning service. Such is our unsteady path.

When the Torah procession comes around the sanctuary, we have a chance to stand up and connect with the Torah. Its ways are ways of pleasantness and all its paths are peace. With this sure connection we surely gain strength - our steps the following week will be steadier. Surefooted, we will gain new capacity to scatter the obstacles before us.

The Curtain is Coming up on Passover. Where’s Moses?

March 24, 2013

Once we leave the book of Genesis we are involved with a story that stars Moses. Moses meets God face to face. He communicates God’s will. He is the ultimate Jewish role model. He is magnetic! Our eyes are on him.

As I prepare to lead our Seder tomorrow, I am a little nervous that all eyes will be on me. I thumb through the Hagaddah, with pen in hand, looking for places to engage different people. Can we sprinkle some humor into the night (we have some finger puppets for the plaques and jumping frogs)?  Where can I invite commentary? So, like most Seder leaders doing their stage direction notes, I am reminded that Moses is not mentioned in the Hagaddah script.  The curtain is coming up on our Passover Seder drama and Moses has exited stage right.

Where is Moses?

We begin the final part of the magid ( story) by saying, "...In every generation a person is obligated to see himself as having himself come out of Egyptian bondage."  The stage direction states that we all  belong on this stage. Chancellor Arnie Eisen argues that Conservative Judaism moves vertically to connect us with our ancestors and horizontally to connect us to Jews around the world. The Haggadah talks about our ancestors, but leaves Moses out. I think it is because we are meant to see that we are all  the inheritors of this tradition. We have parts in this drama - not just the larger than life actor, Moses.

Passover describes a redemption that is in the past. It ends with Elijah and the promise of a messianic future. What is sandwiched in between is “us”. Do we have the creativity to see ourselves as people who have the capacity to act as redeemers? Redeemers put the vision of the Jewish people into action. They seek to act out the change they seek.

In order to step up you need to believe in the future. Passover starts with karpas. Karpas are greens (like parsley) a symbol of spring, renewal and hope. Our hopes may be like fragile seedlings, but we can greenhouse them and protect their promise. The Seder is a greenhouse of Jewish souls. It also is tasked to nurture our sense of communal responsibility and justice. We dip the parsley into salt water. We need to understand that our leadership work will be challenging- there will be some disappointment and heartbreak (tears).  Leaders, like Moses, understand the world is difficult, but they remain hopeful and forward looking. We call this courage.

Jewish communal observers have pointed to the trend for many younger American Jews to believe that they are the sole arbiters of their values and priorities. They want to be their own director. Observers call this a focus on the “sovereign self”. One middle aged synagogue membership chair complained that “they”( next generation) were not stepping up. Recently a young rabbi made the case to me that his generation was not inclined to support the traditional synagogue. His friends can go and find resources and people (like them) on their own terms. If synagogue leaders want his generation “they” should get donors to subsidize most of the costs of synagogue life.

Passover has been described by some as the holiday that focuses on our collective redemption. Conservative Judaism is horizontal. It connects our Seder to Seders across the United States, to Israel and the world. It welcomes Jews  and non Jews of all ages, backgrounds and levels of knowledge. I believe it is about what “we” can do together…. not what some “they” can do for us.

The traditional Seder was big. We were commanded to eat a whole paschal lamb so we needed a big cast. Our Seder stage is large and generous to hold our regulars and welcome new guests each year. As a Seder leader, I am curious about how the cast’s personal stories will meld with the larger Passover story - a story of what  “we “ can all do together.

I think Moses would applaud  that story!

Tunnel Vision

Growing up in Springfield, Ohio, was peaceful, bucolic, steady and dependable. Respectable, boring and vanilla. Our occasional family visits to New York were like going to the land of Oz. From my Ozzie and Harriet little town I would find myself cast into a sea of every nationality, shape, size and accent. It was our big New York trip, so my parents worked to amaze us from FAO Schwartz to Broadway. New York had towering buildings that created urban canyons. The cabs whisked you  through these canyons like a white water raft. You held on, white-knuckled, until you arrived.

Fifty years later NYC still amazes me. That newness sort of defined how I went through the city. I have to commute from the Upper West Side down the 1 train, change at 96^th Street for an express to Times Square, then cross to the East on the 7 train. I emerge from Grand Central 25 minutes later. On these commutes I could not help but stare at the people on the subway. I am from a Midwest world and am quite the extrovert. The son of a salesman and a long-time salesman myself, I am gregarious. Looking up and about, however, can lead to eye contact – and eye contact can lead to chatting. Sometimes, even I  was speechless in the presence of strange events. There was the gospel quoting rapper; there was the young man who wore a British bowler hat, a punk rock t-shirt, a brown denim kilt with rubber snorkeling slip-ons. What can be said? I put my head down when a groups of young thugs started singing obscene songs as they hovered, menacingly, above what looked like two retired NY school teachers. I was afraid to say anything. When I saw someone seemingly normal with the makings of any kind of smile I might return that smile. OK, not everyone chose to look up.

I shared my experience with some longtime New Yorkers. Some just shook their heads. Even the kinder ones suggested that I not look for too much conversation from my fellow commuters. Finally one said, “Bob, as you look around, what do you see people doing?” The next day I watched carefully. Almost everyone had their ears clogged up with headphones and their eyes covered with a newspaper, book or iPhone. Others looked straight forward without seeing. It was if they had some kind of temporary cataracts that shielded their sight. I was trained in marketing. I am willing to look at things objectively. This was not a welcoming car.

Recently I sat on a bench at 50^th  Street while waiting for the uptown 1 train. A  young father had his 5ish son on his lap.  The boy, with his black curly bangs and a freckled face, looked like a young Beaver Cleaver. He had an infectious laugh. If his father put his hand on his head, made a face or covered him with his striped scarf...the boy convulsed. I just could not help but be charmed. It brought back memories of being the father of three young  boys.

We all got on the local 1 train to head uptown . Now seated in front of me, the comedy show  continued. This kid couldn’t stop laughing for the next 10 minutes . As people got on 59, 66, 72,79 , 86 and 96 they got drawn in. The entertainers seemed to be invigorated by the stream of new audiences. One by one, stop by stop,  they gained their attention and melted their  hearts. Some remained blind – as if they were in some kind of trance. Perhaps they had eaten a poison apple or had their finger pierced by a knitting needle with an evil spell. Even this most joyful sighting could not pierce the spell.

Shabbat Eyes

That night at Kabbalat Shabbat at Romeimu, Rabbi David Ingber asked us all to look around at our fellow members. Turn around a look.  Let your eyes meet theirs. He specifically asked us to overcome the “New York thing” where we don’t allow ourselves to look. He wanted us to shake that off – to pull back the veil. I thought, well, it’s finally time to give up my tunnel vision. As I walked out I greeted several people. This time their eyes met mine. Good Shabbas.

I have thought of that train ride and of the rabbi’s request. It seems to me that many of us have many veils that keep our eyes from connecting with each other. Some hide behind a veil of shame. They are embarrassed about what they have achieved, the decisions they made or did not make. Others are consumed by themselves. They don’t think to look up. Some are budget conscious. They limit the amount people they can know or care about others. They  have imposed an austerity budget of the spirit. Their batteries have run down- they can only engage for a short time. They can’t find  their chargers.

Our kehillot need to be places where you can be seen and see others. They need to be places that increase the amount of energy you have not drain your batteries.  The first century sage Shammai argued that we should “greet each person with a shining countenance.” We need to look up and show that we are happy to meet our neighbor. The next morning at Kiddush lunch  I was pouring  a cup of seltzer water when two kids came out from under the table and bumped into my leg. When the  water spilled on me I quickly realized that this spill would not leave a mark. I also remembered that real life is messy and you sometimes get a jolt. Shabbat challenges you to keep your eyes wide open for the sight of wonder- a laughing boy winning over a grumpy subway car or a pair of Shabbat munchkins finding so much joy hiding under a kiddush table. 

The Wonder of a Winter's Day

It is February in New York. Some are mumbling about the cold. Others warn of stronger winds coming- winds that drive the cold though your winter coat; winds that will sting their ears despite their best efforts to adjust knit hats and tighten scarves. Crowds walk by me on Broadway silently, bearing the assault. They see spring clothes (New Skinny Jeans in pastels colors)  in the windows of the Gap and dream of warmer days. One man’s misery can be another’s opportunity. I am not panicked. I am calm and hopeful! I read a poem by Robert Frost, Winter Eden, about the wonder of a winter’s day:

A winter Eden is an alder swamp

Where conies now come out to sun and romp

As near a paradise as it can be

And not melt snow or start a dormant tree

I am not willing to wait until spring for snow to melt and cold to fade. I decide to walk from my Upper West Side apartment to work on the East Side. I will cross the park. It is 27 but the sun is shining. It warms my face but it leaves the park a white winter wonderland. The sun makes the snow look like it is sprinkled with diamonds. There is no slush- scourge of New York winters.

Judaism celebrates the miracle of waking in our morning prayers.We thank God for our soul and  for returning us from our sleep (Elohai neshama) . We read prayers that remind us about thewonder of our bodies where so many things have to work to keep us going (Birchot Hashahar). We remember that we are temporary and that God is eternal. Lesson: We need to be grateful for every day (modeh ani) . We are not just to rise. We are to open our eyes to wonder.

So I am out and about. I take the train to 72th and then head through Central Park. I walk by the mosaic that honors John Lennon called Imagine. I walk down the hill, my eyes look up and down ,being careful not to slip on the odd sheet of ice. I raise my head and see the park open up below. I walk to a grand boulevard lined with park benches and statues of writers like Sir Walter Scott, Roberts Burns and near the exit to 59th Street, William Shakespeare.

I have been watching a PBS series called Uncovering Shakespeare. It explores 6 plays through the eyes of an actor that played a lead (Ethan Hawke played Macbeth) or a director who shaped a production. These narrators open my eyes and uncover an old love affair I have had with the writer. One thing has led to another. My winter romp with Shakespeare has snowballed, I have been reading Steven Greenbelt’s Will in the World about Shakespeare’s life. I went to see Much Ado about Nothing at the Duke Theatre. I have been finding myself reaching for old books of plays on my bookshelf. The pages aredog-eared, the columns have notes and there is the odd page marks. The page marks are faded but they bring back some sharp memoires of student life. I spent 1970 at Epsom College in Surrey England studying Shakespeare for A level exams. I was the only American in my class (nickname- The Big Yank). This flurry of Shakespeare activity has helped be uncover the wonder that I discovered when I first immersed myself in this strange language. Standing in front of the statue of my hero it all comes together. Shakespeare is not easy. You need to learn some things about his world. You need to train your ear to hear the poetry. You need to acquire a taste. Not easy, but worth the price.

The gifts of a winter walk are not always easy. You have to start earlier. You need to dress with care. You need to keep an eye open for moments of wonder while watching for a patch of ice.Sometimes you are stopped in your tracks by a statue like Shakespeare. At others times the gifts of a winter’s day are more subtle. The way the blue sky frames the building on the East side, a dog on a jail break, running across the lawn pulling their leash or some birds resting peacefully beak to beak like young lovers on a park bench. The poet, Robert Frost has trained himself  to see the wonder:

A feathers hammer gives a double knock

The Eden day is gone by two o’clock.

An hour of winter’s day may seem too short

To make it worth life’s while to wake and sport.

How do you make the winter seem shorter. Savor the joys of winter. Seize those sunny winter hours. Get up early. Say a prayer to get yourself moving. Prepare yourself for wonder. It’s worth it.

Seeing Like Barnes

On a recent trip to Philadelphia I had the chance to visit the new Barnes Foundation Museum.  As a visitor to the Barnes I would be invited to see art in a new way.

Between 1912 and 1951, Albert C. Barnes assembled one of the world’s most important holdings of post-impressionist and early modern art, acquiring works by avant-garde European and American artists. Barnes continually experimented with the display of his collection, arranging and rearranging the works in ensembles, symmetrical wall compositions organized according to the formal principles of light, line, color, and space, rather than by chronology, nationality, style, or genre. The ensembles changed as Barnes made acquisitions, trades and new visual connections between the holdings, which diversified with the addition of African sculpture, antiquities, Asian art, Native American ceramics, jewelry, and textiles, manuscripts, old master paintings, and European and American decorative and industrial arts. Integrating art and craft, and objects from across cultures and time periods. (barnesfoundation.org)

When you go to the Barnes Museum, you notice many things that are different. There are no titles for the paintings. There are no curator’s notes. The only verbal description is the name of the artist. Barnes wanted the student to see the art for themselves. He wanted them to experience the excitement he had experienced. He wanted to encourage students to develop an artistic eye-to gain the capacity to work with the key elements of a painting.

Looking for Themes

At the Barnes, a gallery wall may have two pictures with great perspective and depth juxtaposed with two paintings that are very flat. Barnes also moves beyond the boundaries of the canvas and uses a world of antique metal hardware to accent designs that exist in the ensemble.  Foreshadowing the “found art” movement of last 50 years, he collects all manner of metal knobs, hoods, and latches and places them above the painting like exclamation points. He collects antique chests and places plates, cups and candelabras on them. He book ends these walls with antique chairs of all shapes. He may highlight a narrow elongated figure by Modigliani with a pair of tall clippers. In contrast, he highlights the soft ample full-bodied bottoms of Renoir nudes with an oversized chair and a double U shaped piece of hardware.

Barnes challenges students to look for emerging themes. Why was the antique chest chosen for this wall? On further inspection, one may see that the green of the chest is present in all the paintings. The three emblems also suggest the way the figures are organized in the painting. The sketch below illustrates Barnes’s design to create a museum wall using his “ensemble technique”.  Barnes was relatively neutral about which painting a student might like best. He was deeply invested, however, in the students learning to gain capacity in the managing the tools of art (line, color, light, space etc.) that would lead to art appreciation.

Barnes came from humble beginnings in New York. He became a scientist, moved to Germany and invented the leading antibiotic of his time. He made a fortune and became a great art collector. To some of the established art community, he seemed an unwelcome intruder. In 1923, a public showing of Barnes' collection proved that it was too avant-garde for most people's taste at the time. The critics ridiculed the show, prompting Barnes' long-lasting and well-publicized antagonism toward those he considered part of the art establishment. Barnes was stung by the criticism. When you innovate, you take the risk that people will not respond. Many do not want to stir the pot, reimagine the elements or look for new themes.

The Art of Synagogue Strategy

When synagogue leaders begin to think strategically they can feel as welcome as a post-impressionist show at the Philadelphia Art Institute in 1923. Luther Snow (The Power of Asset Mapping: How Your Congregation Can Act on Its Gifts, Alban 2004) argues that congregational leaders can find innovative solutions by listing synagogue strengths and assets on cards and placing them on a wall. Leaders then move these elements around until they cluster into a theme.

They might take the social connections of their men’s group and connect it to the synagogue’s social justice agenda by creating a bike race to raise money for their cause. They might connect their commitment to more bar mitzvah tutoring support with potential several potential tutors from the men’s club. They might take note the baseball diamonds near the synagogue and organize and parents/kids softball game and picnic. Asset mapping helps leaders see all of the potential building blocks of synagogue success and to rearrange them into new programmatic clusters.

USCJ's new Sulam for Strategic Planners program is designed to help leaders think strategically. Just as Barnes helped art students to become literate in the use of color, light and shape, so too, we hope synagogue planners will become literate about the use of need assessments, vision, emerging themes, strategies and goals. In the end, we are not trying to create a specific strategic outcome.  Like Barnes, we are not providing curator’s notes that describe a specific holiday program or fundraiser. Like Barnes, we are very intentional about the exercises we want planners to go through to build their strategic capacity.

Parker Palmer once said of the master teacher, that they helped their students learn to make the connection by showing them how they as teachers made their connections.

“Good teachers possess the capacity for connectedness. They are able to weave a complex web of connections among themselves, their subjects, and their students so that the students can learn to weave a world for themselves.” (Parker Palmer, The Courage to Teach, p. 11)

With Sulam for Strategic Planners, we hope to juxtapose articles, case studies, planning tips and exercises in such a way that it encourages planners to think holistically- to make their  connections. Just as Barnes provides ensembles for artists, we will provide frameworks for planners. Our mission is to help them learn to put a frame around their synagogue situation and to imagine their next chapter as an emerging  work of art.

 

Leadership Lessons from "Lincoln"

In the movie “Lincoln” we see that Abraham Lincoln is committed to the vision of securing the elimination of slavery. Having fought and lost so much, he feels the decision to assert this value needs to be institutionalized in the Constitution via the 13^th Amendment. He is afraid that Congress, under different leadership, might back slide.

Steady Values: Equality is Self Evident

Lincoln is driven by core values. In a quiet moment in the staff room of the White House he addresses two young officers. While Lincoln had very little formal education he was an avid reader- a lifelong learner. In the film he recalls a lesson he learned while reading Euclid for the soldiers.

Euclid's first common notion is this:  'Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other.'   That's a rule of mathematical reasoning.  It's true because it works.  Has done and always will do.  In his book, Euclid says this is self-evident.  You see, there it is.  Even in that 2,000 year old book of mechanical law, it is a self-evident truth that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other."

Flexible in Strategy

The future ot he United States  is anything but self evident. While steady in purpose ( values focused)  he is flexible in strategy. He is willing to use all of his strengths and assets to achieve his vision. He needs to come up with votes from conservative Republicans and a smaller number of Democrats who have been voted out of office in the election of 1864 but who can still vote in the lame duck session.  He uses worldly tactics on behalf of larger heavenly cause- the protection of equality under law.

We don’t recommend that you bribe your board. Visionary presidents, however, can learn from Lincoln’s tenacity. Lincoln can really take it. His integrity is questioned. His wife complains about all the times where he has not been emotionally available.  He is accused of sacrificing innocent lives. He is charged with being a radical and for being too passive. As Peter Drucker has argued, leadership is often a “foul weather sport”. From the horrors of the battlefield to the ugliness of the Congress, Lincoln has to lead in challenging times.

Harry Truman once said, “I learned that a great leader is a man who has the ability to get other people to do what they don't want to do and like it”. Most Americans did not want to abolish slavery. Certainly few wanted to give slaves the right to vote. In going for the 13^th Amendment, Lincoln’s vision, while self evident to him, was out ahead of other leaders. He had to find creative ways to help people catch up with him.

Humble and Courageous- Bowed head and bended knee

“Lincoln” opens with a scene of Lincoln sitting in a war camp talking to two black soldiers. One is challenging Lincoln on his commitment to slave rights. The soldier is anything but deferential. Lincoln sits humbly, head bowed. He does not react. In another scene talking with his Secretary of State Seward, he bends down on one knee to stoke the fire. Lincoln is extraordinary, but he bends a knee to be like common folk. He needs to understand what they care about and how they see things. He has lofty plans but he needs to get those plans through some rough muddy political terrain. He needs to work through other people.

Synagogue presidents need to motivate their executive committees just as Lincoln motivated his cabinet. While not everybody may love you, they have to agree to work together to get to the end goal. It takes humility to balance your advocating and your empathizing. Lincoln does both. He calls on the awesome powers of his office and he leans down to listen and to take criticism.

Jewish tradition values leaders like Moses who are humble and wear their humility on their sleeve. Lincoln knows what it is like to be poor, disregarded and disrespected. Lincoln grew up dirt poor. In David Donald’s biography called Lincoln, he shares how Abraham Lincoln’s father abused him and called him the laziest boy in the county. Lincoln was known to be prone to reading and day dreaming as a boy. Donald also discusses in detail how, how in the early period of his presidency, General McClelland would snub him at meetings and ignore his orders. He did not treat Lincoln as legitimate president.

From boyhood to adulthood, he carries the weight of many defeats on his shoulders. While he was an unlikely person to wage this epic battle for the soul of the United States, like Esther, he realized that perhaps it was his calling to be just such a pivotal person. The times required a person of great humility who also had the fierce vision to see that the value of equality was in fact proven and self evident. It was a value worth fighting for.