Waiting for the Ground to Stop Moving

Remember the 1950s? Things were so quiet, so calm, so easy. So safe. The icons of the day were Donna Reed and Robert Young and cute little Beaver Cleaver.

Everyone was white and straight. And women knew their place.

Then in 1954 the Supreme Court decided that segregation wasn't legal. And in 1955 Rosa Parks said no. And things were never to be the same.

Change followed change with what must have been, to those who had been comfortable in Eisenhower's America, frightening speed. The women's movement. Civil rights. Black Power. Roe v. Wade. Stonewall riots. Viet Nam. Assassination following assassination. Changing societal attitudes toward premarital and extramarital sex and a variety of drugs. Oh, and then there was the resignation of a president.

For most of us, especially those born in the 1960s, who remember nothing of the decades before, the changes in our society were just what there was. But for older generations, it was almost too difficult to deal with.


In the decades that have passed since the tumultuous sixties, things seem to have quieted down. Images of interracial couples, that once sent people screaming from the room, are now commonplace. It's no longer necessarily a career breaker to announce that one is gay. The world we see in shots of audiences is very different from the world we saw in the iconic Life Magazine picture of an audience in 3-D glasses in a theater: in that picture, every single person was white. Every one. [see right margin] African Americans were either missing completely or in the balcony and safely out of sight. Today, a similar shot would show a marvelous rainbow of faces, a fairer representation of what America really is: white, black, brown, and yellow; single and coupled; able-bodied and disabled. And most of us who remember the Good Old Days cheer at the difference in how we present ourselves to the world.

Most of us. But for some, all those changes were just sources of discomfort that were swept under the rug. If we don't think about them, they'll go away. If our immediate world remains predictable, we're OK.

And then America had the temerity to elect an African American as president. Those who fought the onslaught of cultural change could no longer pretend that things were really still OK.

The upheaval of the 25 years between 1954 and 1979, like the Viet Nam War that fell within it, is still being felt. Aftershocks of those temblors continue to resonate in our culture. And like any violent movement of the earth, we are left off-balance. And being off-balance makes us insecure, makes us want to find a place, whether physical or in memory, where we were safe.

So we want to go back to the way it was.

I can't figure out a better explanation for the behavior of legislators both in Washington and in state capitals around the country, legislators who were swept into office by people who wanted a solid piece of ground to stand on. Ground that did not include the safety of abortions in clean clinics. Ground that did not include contraception and the accessibility of women's health screening to all women, even the most poor. Women in particular seem to have become the target of the insecurity of the earthquake generation, because after all if women would only remember their place, things would be so much more bearable. The days of returning home to a wife in pearls and a waiting martini (or Coke) seem so appealing (never mind the cost to the women who did what their husbands wanted to the exclusion of their own needs).

I even wonder whether the illegal immigration problem would be so severe if the flood was coming from the north. Because the uptick in suspicion of people of color, the continuing racial profiling despite laws passed against it, are telling me that it's not just women who are being targeted. We are aware (or we should be) of the disproportion of black inmates in our prisons, not because more blacks commit crime, but because most blacks have to rely on overburdened public prosecutors who advise them to accept a plea bargain rather than go to court. The number of incarcerated blacks who are being released after decades of imprisonment thanks to improved forensic science only proves the point. All blacks, after all, look alike, so if one is accused and has not adequate representation, one ends up behind bars. And no one cares.

If Barack Obama's father had been a Swedish student here on a study visa, fathered a child, then went back to Stockholm, would Donald Trump and Orly Taitz still be stamping their feet and demanding a "real" birth certificate? But a man of Mr. Obama's skin color must be proved to be ineligible to hold his office. (We all know that his skin color alone should disqualify him from sitting in the Oval Office, but apparently the Founding Fathers lacked the foresight to insert that stipulation.)

Every time a member of the earthquake generation watches the 6 o'clock news, he or she is reminded that things aren't the way they should be. And he or she, out of a profound sense of insecurity, demands that everything that has changed in the past 50 years return to the way it was.

Look around. Nothing is the way it was after an earthquake. Just ask the people in Haiti. Or Japan. Or northern Italy. Or Northridge, California. The earth moves, landscapes we loved disappear, and new ones replace them, and in a decade or two we have come to be settled in our new landscape. Unless we are so mired in the past that we can only mourn what was and curse the fates that caused what we had to crumble.

It's time to wake up. The America that has emerged from the upheaval of the 50s and 60s and 70s is a richer, healthier, more vibrant America. It welcomes the contribution of effort of all its citizens. And to demand that we return to Father Knows Best is to do precisely what democracy is NOT about: comforting the minority to the exclusion of the majority.
I am indebted to Robert D. Putnam for the image of repeated upheavals in our society, described in his new book, American Grace.

Washing Away the Week

We are told that there are so many ways to reduce or eliminate stress. Exercise. Meditate. Yoga. All of them are effective, but I found a new one last week that takes all of a minute (yes, a minute, if you are among the ADD population). It combines an insight found in an online publication with the wisdom of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. I considered doing it, figured out how to make it real, and oh my - it really worked.

The article, which appeared in the online edition of Spirituality and Health, reflected on the healing aspects of water. While immersion into a ritual bath has long been part of Jewish religious practice, not every Jew takes advantage of the practice, and frankly, it takes the time to find a local mikveh, get there, wait your turn...you get the idea. And I'm unaware (although I'm counting on my followers to correct me if I'm wrong) of any water practice among other faith traditions. The author of the article suggested that we take the opportunity to use the healing powers of water at times that would seem to be fairly mundane: when we take our morning shower, she suggests, allow the water to roll off us and speak or think words of purification for the day to come. Or if we shower at night, let it be a time to wash away the stress and spiritual impurities of the day. Remarkable, I thought. Really wonderful.

Then, a couple of days later, I took my turn in a rotation of rabbis who have been teaching Rabbi Heschel's book The Sabbath at my local synagogue. One of the points Rabbi Heschel makes in the chapter we were studying is the need to prepare spiritually for Shabbat. Even in traditional households, where women are focused on the home and children, the end of Friday preparations can be hectic - make sure the food is cooked, the children are bathed and dressed, the table is set, the candles are ready to be lit...But so much the more so in our contemporary society when both parents are often hurrying home from work, and certainly in the winter months when the sun sets early, we race home, checking all our prep items, and rush to our candles to light them (and the men often rushing to make the early Friday night service).

Spiritual life takes preparation. It takes as much work as preparing for an interview or an exam. Rushing toward the spiritual takes energy away from the ability to experience the connection we seek. We are too tired to appreciate what we have.

As the group discussed the need to stop and prepare, I shared with them to idea of using water. Perhaps, I suggested, we could make the point of washing our hands just before candle lighting or reciting kiddush (sanctification of Shabbat made over a cup of wine) or heading off to synagogue. And then I resolved to see if I could craft such a ritual in real life.

The next week was a killer. One stressful day after another. Difficult issues to confront. Decisions to be made. Disappointments to deal with. On Friday, I made sure my kitchen was prepared, and I set up my candles. Then I remembered the ritual I wanted to invent. I found the special cup I use to wash my hands before hamotzi (the benediction over bread), went to the sink and did the following:
1. Filled the cup.
2. Poured water over my hands but didn't recite a benediction since I wasn't ready to eat yet.
3. Shook out my hands.

It was here that the magic happened. I shook my hands only three or four times, but each time was a single strong, decisive shake. And with each shake, I let go of something.
"letting go of the stress"
"letting go of the worry"
"letting go of the anger"

and then I held up my hands as a doctor would when a nurse is going to glove her before surgery and I said
"getting ready to receive the holy" And the holding up of my hands and the words I spoke made me aware of the presence of God as I normally am not aware except for the moments after lighting my candles or putting on my tallit.
 
Then I went to dry my hands. And the most remarkable thing happened. I realized I'd shaken loose all the stress I'd brought with me to Friday night. I was the calmest I'd been in days. When my cousin came home I wished her a Shabbat shalom and smiled and she asked what was going on that made me so happy, and I told her about the ritual.

The calm I felt on Friday night has carried me through the week. I've ceased worrying about things I can't do anything about. I've slept better. The effect of a few shakes of my hands has been profound.

Tomorrow night I'll do it again. And prepare myself once again for a Shabbat of peace.

The Other F Word

George Santayana observed famously that those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it. It is that observation that makes reading history and remaining up to date on current events so important. Sometimes, keeping up to date on current events can be depressing at least, frightened at worst, but the alternative is to invite catastrophe.

It boils down to connecting the dots. Looking not at individual news stories but at the larger picture, and assessing what that larger picture portends for the future of our country.

Item: More anti-abortion legislation has been passed in the months since the 2010 election than in the decades since Roe v. Wade. Legislatures, both state and federal, faced with mounting deficits and unemployment numbers, have chosen instead to put their combined energies into restricting the right, established by the U.S. Supreme Court, of a woman to chose what happens to her body.

Sub-item: the laws, typically (with some hair-curling exceptions) do not decree abortion to be illegal (can a state make illegal something the federal courts have determined to be legal? That remains for some brave woman to bring suit if these laws are passed – and the prospects for passage are unfortunately very good), only make it damned hard for a woman to find an abortion provider. South Dakota, as an example, has one abortion provider for the entire state, and if you look at your map, it’s not a small state. If you find yourself in the position of needing an abortion, you have to come up with both transportation and lodging fees to get to the provider. Right now, there’s a 24 hour waiting period between checking in with the provider and actually having the procedure. But wait: there’s more. If the legislature has its way, the waiting period will be increased to 72 hours – increasing the number of nights a woman must pay for lodging. And yet more: the provider has only limited office hours, so 72 hours usually translates to a full week between the first visit and the procedure. With many women unable to take a full week to travel across the state and/or be able to come up with the additional fees for travel and lodging, these draconian rules put safe, legal abortion out of the reach of many women. Oh, and did I forget to mention the “counseling” the women have to endure? As if having an abortion is a decision come to on a whim. The arrogance of these legislatures, imposing themselves between a woman and her doctor (and her clergy if she chooses to include him/her) is breath-taking. And yet some states are working to criminalize abortion to the point of incarcerating providers (and some have even considered jailing women who have sought abortions). The clock seems to be turning back to 1900. While people are using up their unemployment benefits and losing their homes, legislatures are targeting women with unwanted pregnancies.

Item: A number of state legislatures have stripped unions of their bargaining power. Some of my Republican friends have observed that while unions once had a place, now they’ve outlived their usefulness. Really? Is salary and health care the only reason to bring management to the bargaining table? What about safety issues? What about length of hours and breaks and lunch? What about the quality of the work environment? If you think that unions are no longer necessary, get rid of them and see how fast municipalities are ready to spring for new safety equipment for fire fighters and police officers without the threat of a work stoppage. No one with budget responsibilities ever spent a cent unless pushed to do so, and if striking gets the money spent to ensure the safety of the work force, then that’s what it takes. And how to mobilize without a union? (Although the rebels across North Africa and the Middle East seem to have succeeded with Twitter and Facebook, but come on. This is America. Do we really need to resort to technology to bring management to the bargaining table for simple requests? Wait – I guess we do now, in too many states across the Midwest.)

Item: Michigan has gone one step further and empowered the state to dissolve the local, legally elected government of any municipality it chooses and to put a state-appointed – what, czar? uberfuerher? director? – over the affairs of the municipality. What kind of country has states dissolving local government? Apparently, ours.

Item: San Francisco, long a favorite city of mine, now has on an upcoming ballot an initiative to criminalize circumcision. And the most troubling part of the text is that there is no exemption for religious observance. We Jews of course circumcise our boys on the eighth day of life, and Muslims circumcise their boys before puberty. These are religious obligations. Even in the darkest days of Prohibition, accommodations were made for wine used for ritual purposes. This initiative goes way beyond the boundaries of liberal how-can-you-mutilate-your-babies mentality. The most frightening part? Check out this link. If you think, as I did a week ago, that this is just foolishness from people who want to leave circumcision to their boys when they turn 18, read about Foreskin Man (I kid you not) and look carefully at the graphics. The art work in this “publication” mirrors some of the worst of Nazi propaganda in the dark days before the implementation of the Final Solution. www.foreskinman.com

So how do we connect the dots?

Look around. What’s going on in our country? We are still in the throes of the worst financial crisis in 80 years. Unemployment as of yesterday went over 9% nationwide, far higher in many states (including here in California). People are frightened, and when people are frightened, they look for scapegoats and easy answers.

What’s “the other F word”? Fascism.

Fascism, as in the hatred of the Other, the mistrust of the Other, and the circling of the wagons while attempting to build a society that’s ordered and predictable. Women know their place. Everyone looks like us (read: white and Christian). Law-breakers are dealt with mercilessly. People who follow laws informed by non-Christian faith traditions are suspect and must be controlled. Unions are the expression of the people and therefore must be silenced. Only a strong central government can be trusted to take care of its people (even, as in the case of personalities like Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin, they don’t even have their history straight). Rights get to be restricted. And if you say something wrong long enough, people will begin to believe it. Like “death panels.” And “our black president was born in Kenya.”

Change is frightening. Having a national leader that doesn’t look like “us” is frightening. Instability is very frightening. And the way to deal with change and instability is to impose more and more tightening laws that invade people’s personal lives, imposing the ethics of one faith tradition onto those who do not share that faith tradition.

We hear so much about the right to bear arms. What about the part that says that the government shall make no law regarding the establishment of a religion? Or do we just pick and choose which part of the Constitution we hold sacred and which part is disposable?

Do we rewrite history to make it fit our contemporary notions of safety and order? Or do we study history as it is, in order truly to preserve the safety and order of the society we have built over more than two centuries?

We need to connect the dots. We need to stay awake. We need to speak out, to support the good people of Wisconsin who continue to sit in at the state capital, to support Planned Parenthood, 97% of whose budget goes to providing contraception advice and free mammograms and Pap smears to women who can’t afford to get them elsewhere. We need to keep in mind that no – NO – federal funding goes to providing abortions through Planned Parenthood, so those who wish to cut their funding (and some states have already succeeded) are not reducing the number of abortions in their state; rather, they are limiting women’s access to preventive health care.

Attacks on unions. Attacks on women’s health. Attacks on religious freedom.

Are we going to remember history? Or, God forbid, will we allow it to be repeated?

Jewish Parenting Through the Lens of the Liturgy - 3

Traditionally, morning prayers open with a list of 14 benedictions, originally said as people began their day - there was a prayer for unwrapping oneself from one's covers, for putting on one's shoes, for tying the belt around one's coat. Eventually, the list found its way into the prayerbook and was recited together, whether at home or in the synagogue, after all those preparations had already been completed. As I have read these benedictions, I have been regularly impressed with lessons they can teach us as parents, and in this blog I will be reflecting on each of the benedictions, one a day, for the next few weeks (holidays permitting).

*******

The Third Benediction – Religious Identity

ברוך אתה ה' אלהינו מלך העולם שעשני ישראל

Praised are You, Adonai, our God and Sovereign of the Universe, who made me a Jew.

There is much to be written about this brakha. I have met with so many people who were in the process of conversion, either about to begin their study or about to be immersed in the mikveh, and over and over again I hear the same thing: I’ve always been a Jew. This is just making it official.

This conviction suggests a truth to be found in our brakha: that religious identity is part of our make-up as much as height, eye color, and sexual orientation. Of course, we might then question those who profess no religious belief, or those who are conflicted about the existence of God and how they might worship that God. Are they denying their essential spiritual identity?

I can’t address those important questions. What I do know is that the Jewish tradition speaks of the pintele yid, the Jewish spark that is found in the Jewish soul. No matter how assimilated the family, how unidentified the family, somehow that tiny spark finds a gentle breeze to blow on it and fan it into a flame. How it is that some have that spark and others do not is a quandary of a mystic nature, and I am far too unqualified to address it here.

What our brakha tells us, however, is not that we acknowledge our Jewishness but that we are grateful for our Jewishness. We remain Jewish not to deny Hitler a posthumous victory but because being Jewish is a wonderful, exciting thing, for most of us a delightful accident of birth, and our obligation is not to run from it but to find reasons to say this brakha with joy each morning.

But what does all this have to do with parenting?

When our children are born, we watch with delight as they blossom, from tiny infant to toddler who learns “No” very early and enjoys pushing the envelope, to adolescent who raises pushing the envelope to an art form. Along the way we watch talents and interests emerge. Who will this precious gift of God be? What will he or she be? How will our child contribute to the community? What sort of partner will we hope he or she finds – what characteristics do we want to see encouraged, which ones balanced with someone complementary?

We worry about the friends they choose, the schools they attend, the extracurricular activities they participate in. Have they accumulated enough activities to impress the admissions committees of the colleges they’ve chosen?

We set curfews for them, give them rules, let them know what’s expected of them as members of our family.

And yet for so many parents, encouraging religious education is merely a means to an end: the bar or bat mitzvah celebration. And even among those parents who opt for a celebration of their child’s coming of age within Jewish tradition, the spectrum varies from day school to supplementary school to a tutor and a private service, with the party being the most important element of the day.

We want our children to be functioning members of society, but too many of us feed our children’s intellect while starving their souls.

I must tell you that when people learn I’m a rabbi, whether they’re Jewish or not, they feel comfortable sharing incidents or whole themes from their childhood dealing with their religious upbringing – or lack of it. I remember one young man who shared a dinner with me and members of my first congregation many years ago. He reflected that both his parents had been raised as Protestants, but different denominations. Each of them had had parents of differing denominations as well, so that by the time he arrived on the scene, there were maybe six different ways of worshipping Jesus in his family. His parents’ strategy was not to offer him any of them. It was clearly too complicated for them, too much of a mine field to traverse, so they gave him a terrific secular education but never addressed his soul. He said to me, “I want to think about God, but I don’t know how think about thinking about God.” I suspect (although I can’t be sure) that if he’d told his parents that, they would have been puzzled at the least.

I also remember an interfaith couple that, like many, decided to give their daughter both Catholicism and Judaism. She was converted by my predecessor and then the next day she was baptized. Her education consisted of Hebrew school on Sunday and catechism on Saturday. I finally told her father that she needs to be given an address for her soul. I would rather, I told him, see her go to church regularly with her mother and know she’s being given a consistent religious education than be taught two very different paths and be expected (a) to sort them out by herself and then (b) choose, essentially between Mom and Dad.

I was asked once as part of an interview for the post of senior rabbi at a Midwestern congregation, “Rabbi, how do you teach God to children?” I told them frankly that we don’t teach God to children. Children are born far closer to God than we will ever be. Their souls are new and freshly given by the Holy One. We should be asking them what they know about God.

What happens from birth to adulthood is the channeling of that belief by how the adults in their lives talk about God (or not). Furthermore, belief in God is only part of the conversation; the rest of it has to do with how we worship the God in whom we believe, how that belief translates into behavior and the search for community. Simple faith is a lonely thing unless you have others with whom to worship, and with whom to sort out what God’s will means to you. For us Jews, that means family and community with whom to study Torah and build communal institutions so that we can follow the path our tradition has defined for us. Having a child, then, means not only committing to a lifelong (yes, it really is lifelong) endeavor of educating and training and civilizing (I’m thinking of those toddlers and adolescents again) and constantly reassuring with unconditional love. It means before they’re born sorting out what God means to you, what your faith community means to you, and finding a place in that community where you are comfortable and can feel joy. Then, when your children are born, they can watch you participate in your community’s events and celebrations because they’re meaningful to you. Children know very early what’s important to their family, and they perceive very quickly that religious life is irrelevant if it’s only “for the children.” I was thinking the other day of my first Hanukkah as a married woman. We’d moved out of state for my husband’s education, and I spoke to my parents, excited about having lit our new hanukkiyah for the first time. “Oh, we didn't light ours,” my mother said, to my astonishment. “You’re not here so it’s not so important.” Of course, in hindsight, I realize that that first year their only child was out of the house was a big adjustment for them, but at the time I couldn’t believe that all those years, my parents had celebrated Hanukkah only for me.

I’m slow, I guess. Other kids pick up on things much more quickly. One of my fifth grade students once observed that sitting in a sukkah for a week was a negative mitzvah because “nobody does it.” In his home, at least, there was no sukkah. The synagogue’s sukkah wasn’t “real” because after all it was the synagogue’s sukkah. I tried to explain that thousands of Jewish families around the world (including mine) used their sukkot every year, but he wasn’t convinced.

How can we say our brakha every morning with joy, affirming our awe at being part of this remarkable people? We can study Judaism just as we studied whatever texts we needed to study to pursue our profession, recognizing the truth of the brakha “thank You for the obligation of making Torah study our occupation.” We can live Jewishly by bringing Jewish practice into our homes and our lives. We can study with others to learn what makes Judaism remarkable to them. And in this way we become role models for our children.

When we do recite that brakha, let’s use it to remind us to do all we can to encourage our children to come to value being Jewish as much as we have learned to be.

We Have More Problems Than We Even Knew We Had

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about the birther phenomenon. Many commentators, including Rachel Maddow, have labeled it for what it is: racism. Somehow we have to delegitimate this president without actually saying out loud "A black man can't do that." So we cast aspersions on the details of his birth. Shameful enough.

But I think there's another phobia going on. Let's think back to the 43 presidents who came before Mr. Obama. Yes, all men. All white. Yes. But there's something else about them. What were their names? Washington, Lincoln, Grant, Johnson, Madison, Jefferson (I know, they're way out of order), Jackson, Taft, Wilson, Truman, Bush (x2), Clinton. Do we see any commonality here?

Every one of these names can be traced back to the British Isles. Only three presidents (by my reckoning) had names that were non-Anglo: two Roosevelts and Eisenhower. And two of them were war heroes (TR in the Spanish-American War, Ike in World War II) and the third had extensive experience in state politics, had a connection to an earlier Roosevelt, and was endowed with great charisma of his own. By the time FDR ran for the White House, "Roosevelt" had become less a Dutch name than a good American name.

And you can count those presidents with non-Anglo names without going to a second hand.

As I was ruminating on the birther phenomenon the other day, I wondered whether the same grief would befall a president whose father had been here in the States on a student visa from, say, Spain or France. The candidate would look like all previous candidates (read: white) but the name would be foreign and the story would have been the same. Would the birthers in this country have been more accepting?

At first I sputtered "Of course!" But then I began wondering. The story goes that when Pierre Mendes-France ran for the office of president of France in the 1950s, this Jewish candidate faced the ire of his conservative opposition, who announced that their candidate was "a *real* Frenchman," this despite the fact that Mendes-France's family had been in France for five centuries. Apparently, according to some, you couldn't be in France long enough to be "real" if you were Jewish.

So then I started thinking about a President Ramirez. Or a President Chen. Or (God help us) a President Al-Fasi. The closest we came was Vice President-almost Joe Lieberman. And if Al Gore had won the election in 2000 and Lieberman had decided to run on his on in 2008, he'd have had a good uphill climb that had nothing to do with politics.

We have more problems in this country than simple racism. We are a country of xenophobes. We are distrustful of anyone whose name places him or her outside the British world. And so it seems that our president has two strikes against him. In his own words, he's a "skinny black guy with a funny name." And that funny name causes a certain population in this country as much difficulty as the color of his skin.

When you think about it, this mistrust of people with funny names is ironic in a country that prides itself on being a melting pot. We are Latino and German, Polish and Russian, Jewish and Irish and Chinese and Vietnamese and Indian and Pakistani. Many of us came here with names unpronounceable and unspellable by the immigration authorities at Ellis Island. Some of us had our names changed, others just tweaked the spelling so our neighbors could greet us each morning. There is no such thing as a native American (except for those known as native Americans) in the same way there are native Frenchmen (or Frenchwomen), native Brits, native Russians. We are not ethnically homogeneous.

And yet we are suspicious of people whose names are clearly different. (And of course that "Hussein" in the middle of his name didn't earn him points with many Americans.) There would have been those who would have whined about the president's birthplace if his name had been Washington or Jackson or Powell or any other name rooted in the British Isles. But how much easier it is to get attention when the names spoken during the oath of office on January 20, 2009, were so foreign sounding.

We have a long way to go in this country. Enough people displayed common sense in 2008 to get beyond the name and the color of skin to make a decision based on Dr. King's "content of his character." But the fact that the birther issue will not go away tells us that these people with too much time on their hands have touched more than one exposed nerve. It's bigger than color. It's that Mr. Obama is different - Different - in so many ways that he can't possibly be really American. And in that opinion they demonstrate how little appreciation they have for this country, for what makes it great. It is precisely America's diversity that is its strength, and what makes our president remarkable (political choices aside) is how well he represents that diversity.

And as long as people can complain that Mr. Obama is illegitimate, and polls can reveal that a disturbing percentage of the voting public agrees, we will have more problems than racism to overcome.

Jewish Parenting Through the Liturgy - 1

Traditionally, morning prayers open with a list of 14 benedictions, originally said as people began their day - there was a prayer for unwrapping oneself from one's covers, for putting on one's shoes, for tying the belt around one's coat. Eventually, the list found its way into the prayerbook and was recited together, whether at home or in the synagogue, after all those preparations had already been completed. As I have read these benedictions, I have been regularly impressed with lessons they can teach us as parents, and in this blog I will be reflecting on each of the benedictions, one a day, for the next few weeks (holidays permitting).

*******

The First Benediction - Making Distinctions

ברוך אתה ה' אלהינו מלך העולם אשר נתן לשכוי בינה להבחין בין יום ובין לילה

Praised are You, Adonai, our God and Sovereign of the Universe, who gave the rooster the ability to distinguish between day and night.

What an odd benediction! Why on earth would we be worrying about roosters? The language, of course, is symbolic - back before alarm clocks and the plethora of technology that wakes us up in the morning, there was the local rooster, crowing often before dawn, to get our day going. We depended on that guy, to be sure we were awake in time to say the morning Sh'ma, so that all our obligations could be fulfilled at the proper time. We were, therefore, thanking God for putting mechanisms in place in the natural world to help us fulfill our obligations to God.

So what does that have to do with parenting? I like to think of the benediction as making a statement about the ability to tell the difference between black and white. If, after all, a mere rooster can tell when the sun is up far enough to announce the new day, why can't we make distinctions?

I'm thinking in particular of the choices parents make when disciplining their children. When we are in the midst of a behavioral crisis, the last thing we are able to do is step out of our confrontation with our son or daughter and consider just what we are doing. To my way of thinking, knowing the distinction between day and night, in parenting terms, is knowing what to "go to the mat for." How can we tell the difference? How can we know when to smile and let it go, and when to put our foot down? How do we deal with tantrums? When do we just let it go, and when do we apply the time-out? There are no easy answers, but the asking of the questions is what's important. A rooster may know the difference between day and night, but after all isn't the presence or absence of light fairly obvious? Making distinctions in how we respond to our children's behavior is far more difficult.

I don't have any wisdom to impart. What I do have is the experience of raising three rambunctious sons and watching (at this point) two of them raise their own children. I also have the experience of watching my friends' children and grandchildren, and of having to bite my tongue on a regular basis, sometimes, watching certain behavior, thinking, "Why are you allowing that behavior?" and other times, watching other behavior, thinking, "Is this really so terrible?" There are parents who are afraid to say no, afraid to set limits, afraid their children will hate them. And then there are parents who feel the need to control every one of their children's choices. Neither of these kinds of parents has figured out the need for distinctions. Neither of these kinds of parents has fully embraced the idea that parenting is very hard work, and that the work isn't only about laundry and finding the right schools and keeping the kids in clothes and shoes. The real hard work comes with understanding what's expected of us as disciplinarians. We know we need to be consistent in our approach, but consistent how? Always saying no? Always saying yes? And is "consistent" the same as "always"?

There is, of course, another difference between parenting and listening to that rooster. God put in place in the natural world a mechanism to get us going in the morning so that our obligations may be fulfilled. I'm not aware of any mechanism in the natural world for knowing instinctively when to allow and when to say no. Making the decisions about how to raise our children to be happy, healthy, well-adjusted adults is the toughest job we will ever take upon ourselves. But maybe if we begin our day with the morning benedictions and we recite that first benediction with mindfulness, with kavanah, we can focus our thoughts each day on the need to make distinctions in the way we confront each foot stomp, each NO!, each tantrum, each attack of one sibling on another, and most important, each challenge to our authority. And maybe just the awareness that we have choices at each step of the way, and that the choice we make in the morning may not work in the afternoon, can be the first step in raising our children right.

Jewish Parenting Through the Lens of the Liturgy - 2

Traditionally, morning prayers open with a list of 14 benedictions, originally said as people began their day - there was a prayer for unwrapping oneself from one's covers, for putting on one's shoes, for tying the belt around one's coat. Eventually, the list found its way into the prayerbook and was recited together, whether at home or in the synagogue, after all those preparations had already been completed. As I have read these benedictions, I have been regularly impressed with lessons they can teach us as parents, and in this blog I will be reflecting on each of the benedictions, one a day, for the next few weeks (holidays permitting).

*******

The Second Benediction - The Yin and the Yang

ברוך אתה ה' אלהינו מלך העולם שעשני בצלמו

Praised are You, Adonai, our God and Sovereign of the Universe, who made me in Your image.

I have for a long time understood this benediction from a parenting point of view as turning our focus on each of our children as they are, not as we would wish them to be. Whether we have one or ten, some kids are just as we would have wished, others aren't. Some want to follow in our footsteps, others have no interest in our life's work. Some remind us of beloved relatives, others of relatives we would rather forget. We project so much onto our children, from the moment of birth (whom does the infant remind us of?), that sometimes we forget that we are dealing not with a reflection of someone else's character or dreams or goals but with an unfolding gift from God, created in the divine image, with dreams and goals of their own. If we are made in God's image, so too are our children - and our job is not to create them into our image but to encourage the God-given talents they possess so that they may blossom into their own rendition of the divine image.

That's been my understanding for many years. Today I have another understanding to add.

A careful reading of the Hebrew in Torah will remind us that there are two basic names for God, found in our sacred text and in our liturgy: Adonai and Elohim (rendered eloheynu - our God - in prayer). The rabbis of our tradition puzzled over these two names, deciding that like any name, these terms have come to teach us something about the God they describe. The entire first chapter of Torah refers to God as Elohim. It isn't until after the beginning of chapter two, when the first week of creation is finished and we turn to the more detailed story of the creation of Adam and Eve, that the name Adonai appears. Why this distinction, the rabbis ask. And of course they have an explanation.

God has two overriding qualities: the quality of justice and the quality of mercy. In the first chapter of Torah, the world is created in a rather removed way: God say "Let there be..." and there was. Creation happens with words, not by interaction with the creation. Everything is orderly. Each day has a purpose. And God is Elohim. So this then is the expression of God as Judge, and meter-out of order and logic.

Comes chapter two, and God - Adonai this time - gathers earth from the four corners of the world and shapes a person. Shapes a person. Hands-on. Breathes the breath of life into the person's nostrils. Breathes into the person's nostrils. This is an involved God, and a God that is dealing in an on-going way with people, those creatures with the free will chip. And so the name of God is Adonai, an expression of the quality of mercy, since without mercy, those people would not long survive. Remember that the first limit God imposes is that Adam and Eve not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And the first thing they do is eat the fruit. The threatened punishment? Death. But of course we know that the punishment is mitigated, and the forebears of humankind suffer only expulsion (and we can use "only" in relation only to death - there is nothing pleasant about expulsion). In order for God to maintain a relationship with God's creation, God must be a God of mercy as well as a God of justice.

The rabbis relate a midrash asking why both qualities were needed at creation, and they reply: In order for the world to remain in existence, there must be mercy, but a world with only mercy and no justice is a world of chaos.

And this midrash brings us to the second understanding of the benediction thanking God for having created us in the divine image. What does it mean for us as parents to be Godlike? To maintain both qualities, of justice and of mercy. This observation dovetails nicely with yesterday's post, but I need to expand the notion a bit.

What does it mean to be a parent of justice? It's not just about sharing and figuring out who gets the last piece of cake. It's about rules and the maintenance of rules. It's about expectations: clean your room, brush your teeth, say please and thank you. In those families where it is a custom, saying the Sh'ma before going to sleep. Teaching children obligations and limits and then expecting those obligations and rules to be remembered and observed. Developing a Torah of your own family and holding it sacred. For every parent that believes that children should be free to do as they choose, go to sleep when they like, have Twinkies for breakfast, there are legions of parents who will attest to the fact that children need structure. They need to know what's expected of them, because then they know that someone loves them enough to help them grow up to be responsible adults.

So then, what does it mean to be a parent of mercy? It means listening to your child. It means that when a child says "no," there are two roads in front of them: they can be listened to and perhaps be accommodated, or we can insist on the behavior we required and at best continue to beat down a child's natural independence, or at worst, watch a melt-down. I remember a little girl once who didn't want to wear a dress her mother had bought her. The interchange escalated with blinding speed - "wear it!" "no!" Finally, someone asked the child why she didn't want to wear it. (After all, was this only a fashion statement?) Turns out there was something in the design of the dress that was scratching the child. A quick repair by her mom made the dress acceptable.

Do we listen to our children? Do we ask why they are upset, or is it just too expedient to expect them to follow our directive? Some rules must be followed - bedtime, tooth-brushing, simple manners - but other directives may be perceived as being arbitrary (and as a mother I can say honestly that some directives really are arbitrary), and our quality of mercy must rise so that we can hear our children's complaints and questions. We may end up still insisting on compliance, but at least the child has been heard, and that is an important building block of the child's self-esteem. As I observed yesterday, taking the time to really hear your child takes time and patience, neither of which are usually in great supply when parenting, but they are critical to the task at hand.

Two ways, then, that we as parents can demonstrate to God our gratitude for having been created in the divine image: we can celebrate each child for their reflection of the divine, however that reflection appears, and we can be Godlike ourselves in our relationship with our children, reflecting both justice and mercy as elements of our love for them.