Tikkun leil Shavuot: let me share with you.
I was so focused on being unprepared and nervous for my bit that I didn't think about the other people presenting and what I would be learning or hearing tonight. (Then again, I had no idea if I would be hearing any of the other people, or if we were each doing concurrent sessions and therefore only hearing ourselves.)
What follows is my summation of both what I heard and what I taught. If that's not for you, no problem; have a good night! I'm writing this at 1 AM b/c maybe the coffee was too strong, or maybe I'm buzzing on having just finished presenting my thing thrice.
___________
The way it worked: first the rabbi did some teaching on the nature of the revelation of the Torah at Mt. Sinai: how do we consider this revelation? Was it being passively given the Torah, and we carry it for a while and then pass it on? Were we given it and it is still being given? Is the word of God given in writing and we are continuing to discover more and more meaning that was packed in originally? Or are we innovating and creating new meaning from the original text, and God smiles on us as we grow from it? Discuss amongst yourselves. (Citations for each viewpoint given from various texts.) Then, cheesecake break (and coffee - I might still be buzzing from that).
In the next hour, we had 4 teachers, each in their own space, each given 15 minutes. The congregants could choose which session to attend for that period, and then we'd move to a different room when the rabbi let us know 15 minutes were up. First, I heard my friend Elena talk about her nursing, and the Torah's thoughts on healing and doing no harm. She sees it as her responsibility as a nurse to help others in their moments of greatest need without judgement, and I hadn't considered it that way. She primarily is passionate about mothers in labor and their families, though now she's been teaching and administrating in her hospital. She spoke about pikuach nefesh, saving a life, and how primary a responsibility that is in Judaism. It is complicated when we get into the issue of assisted dying/right to die, as well as abortion, but there are ways that Judaism considers both in the context of easing a person's pain, not increasing it, and in the "no judgement" part of how she approaches her professional responsibilities. She also spoke about the roles of a nurse, and the doctor/nurse relationship and how it's changed/evolved over time.
Next I heard our current president Ryan talk about "Does God "like" Facebook?" In particular he spoke about consent and informed consent as it relates to privacy. Privacy and the lack thereof has been in the news of late in re: Facebook, so do we have any Jewish guidelines here? Ryan pointed out that when Balaam blessed the Children of Israel instead of cursing them, saying "How blessed are your tents, o Jacpb, your dwelling places, o Israel," he wasn't complimenting the actual tents we schlepped out of Egypt: those were probably pretty plain, boring tents. The arrangement of the tents, though, the camp as it was laid out, was probably worthy of praise. How? The doors of the tents were arranged, it is thought, so that no door faced another, no tent looked directly into another, so even though everyone could probably hear everything (have you ever been at a campsite and awoken to a child crying somewhere close by?), there was privacy - visually, at least, and more importantly, in the consideration of one for one's neighbor or oneself. Also, in looking at how God talks to Moshe in public versus in private (within the Holy of Holies, the inner sanctum amidst the wandering tribe), we see that Moshe asks and is given permission to share things with the Children of Israel - there is informed consent. Facebook, in its terms of service, initially told everyone "Anything you post is ours forever," which has now been amended, but it was there, and if you clicked "okay" then that's consent. Was it informed? Does everyone read all the Terms of Service for all the apps we use, the browsers, online banking, email providers? If it's a free service, what you think you're paying with? On the other hand, some congregant commented, what's so bad about having that information getting sent all over to marketers or whatever? To which my mind went "1984!!" and someone else actually commented with that. Big Brother knows too much! I commented "I've known since I first got EZPass that my government knows where I am at all times, as does my bank, and certain types of privacy are simply not there anymore no matter what we do."
Marilyn spoke about Jews in the State of Israel vs. the diaspora: are we all in this together, this fight for the State of Israel? As Jews, we all need to stick up for Israel, especially amidst current headlines, which could be biased depending on your source. Are Israel's actions and the negative press making it harder for diasporic Jews to defend the State? How do we (us in the room) feel about the US moving the embassy to Jerusalem? Some felt glad - Jerusalem is the capital and Israel is the only nation not allowed to have its capital acknowledged worldwide. Embassies should be in the capital to allow the work of politics to be done. I don't think it was the right move - the US does acknowledge Jerusalem as the capital, but had the embassy outside of it to appear as an appropriate broker/mediator of the peace process, which is pretty shot to hell right now. Trump did this, we proposed, to solidify his religious base in the US. Some Israelis are happy with this move, some not - and is that also a problem, that the world can point to those Israelis protesting the move as well as those rejoicing? I say, it's a complicated mess, and if various people are going to condemn all Jews for every death of any protesting Palestinian, or are going to target Jewish people/organizations/synagogues for actions taken by the State of Israel, then those people probably wouldn't be swayed by us fervently explaining things to them.
The last session I attended was led by Jeff, who spoke about Judaism's view on how to treat animals. Animals are given high value in Judaism: we aren't supposed to cause them pain, we are supposed to ease their burdens even if they're not ours (if we see them wandering, or without their owners, or are owned by non-Jews), we are permitted to break shabbat to help an animal in pain, even the laws of kashrut, of eating animals, tells us to treat them humanely and kill them quickly and as painlessly as possible. We don't assume they have souls or feel pain, that's never mentioned, but the way we treat animals should reflect the way we treat people: those who would cause needless pain to an animal could easily be seen to cause pain to those defenseless people they encounter. Jeff did a great job finding his information online, and had lots of Biblical quotes and allusions. I told him as his time was up that I was impressed with his talk and his amount of Torah was probably the inverse of what I would be saying: I was bringing a lot of personal story with a bit of Torah scaffolding. }:->
Then, before the next cheesecake break, we had the end of shabbait/lighting of the candles for the chag, which is a tricky situation. How does one go from shabbat to chag? There's an acronym for the order of events... here, a quote: "We therefore recite the berachot in an order known as Ya-KNe-Ha-Z, Yayin (wine), Kidush, Ner, Havdalah, Zeman." Thus it was: basic blessing over wine (1 line), then the kiddush which is longer especially for holidays, then blessing the candles (which are lit from a pre-existing flame, no striking of match), then separating the holiness of shabbat from the holiness of another holiday as well as the rest of the week, then praise for getting us to this special time. Off to cheesecake break, and then the second set of speakers. I didn't get to hear Ronit talk about how literature references the presence or absence of God, or Tadd talk about environmentalism and climate change and how he connected it to Torah. I gave my own talk 3 times, approximately 15 minutes each, and I can't say if it felt long or short, but I did feel like I spoke too fast and only loosely tied it in to Torah and more to my own sense of awe, spirituality, and connectedness to the larger picture. Marilyn was in my first group and said "tikkun olam" to which I said "yes, very much so, note to self: use that in my next talks," which I did. (Tikkun olam: repairing the world, current contexts heavy into environmentalism, social action, social justice.)
It's late, my alarm is set for ~7 hours from now, and I'm not going to forget what I said so I'll write it down tomorrow or Monday. I was very surprised when the rabbi came by to say we're done for the night, no final word, we're just done, so I put my stuff together, said some final words to a few people, stepped outside chatting, and then looked at my clock and saw it was 12:15! I thought we were ending at 11:15! Whoops. Still, I have no regrets. One is supposed to stay up all night studying and learning Torah on Shavuot (I still hearken back to going with Tahl to learn from some of her congregants in Riverdale and going over the book of Ruth with a fine-toothed comb, not leaving until around 2, 2:30 AM). Staying at shul until midnight seems fair, and writing it up seems appropriate.
This entry was originally posted at https://avivasedai.dreamwidth.org/706177.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
What follows is my summation of both what I heard and what I taught. If that's not for you, no problem; have a good night! I'm writing this at 1 AM b/c maybe the coffee was too strong, or maybe I'm buzzing on having just finished presenting my thing thrice.
___________
The way it worked: first the rabbi did some teaching on the nature of the revelation of the Torah at Mt. Sinai: how do we consider this revelation? Was it being passively given the Torah, and we carry it for a while and then pass it on? Were we given it and it is still being given? Is the word of God given in writing and we are continuing to discover more and more meaning that was packed in originally? Or are we innovating and creating new meaning from the original text, and God smiles on us as we grow from it? Discuss amongst yourselves. (Citations for each viewpoint given from various texts.) Then, cheesecake break (and coffee - I might still be buzzing from that).
In the next hour, we had 4 teachers, each in their own space, each given 15 minutes. The congregants could choose which session to attend for that period, and then we'd move to a different room when the rabbi let us know 15 minutes were up. First, I heard my friend Elena talk about her nursing, and the Torah's thoughts on healing and doing no harm. She sees it as her responsibility as a nurse to help others in their moments of greatest need without judgement, and I hadn't considered it that way. She primarily is passionate about mothers in labor and their families, though now she's been teaching and administrating in her hospital. She spoke about pikuach nefesh, saving a life, and how primary a responsibility that is in Judaism. It is complicated when we get into the issue of assisted dying/right to die, as well as abortion, but there are ways that Judaism considers both in the context of easing a person's pain, not increasing it, and in the "no judgement" part of how she approaches her professional responsibilities. She also spoke about the roles of a nurse, and the doctor/nurse relationship and how it's changed/evolved over time.
Next I heard our current president Ryan talk about "Does God "like" Facebook?" In particular he spoke about consent and informed consent as it relates to privacy. Privacy and the lack thereof has been in the news of late in re: Facebook, so do we have any Jewish guidelines here? Ryan pointed out that when Balaam blessed the Children of Israel instead of cursing them, saying "How blessed are your tents, o Jacpb, your dwelling places, o Israel," he wasn't complimenting the actual tents we schlepped out of Egypt: those were probably pretty plain, boring tents. The arrangement of the tents, though, the camp as it was laid out, was probably worthy of praise. How? The doors of the tents were arranged, it is thought, so that no door faced another, no tent looked directly into another, so even though everyone could probably hear everything (have you ever been at a campsite and awoken to a child crying somewhere close by?), there was privacy - visually, at least, and more importantly, in the consideration of one for one's neighbor or oneself. Also, in looking at how God talks to Moshe in public versus in private (within the Holy of Holies, the inner sanctum amidst the wandering tribe), we see that Moshe asks and is given permission to share things with the Children of Israel - there is informed consent. Facebook, in its terms of service, initially told everyone "Anything you post is ours forever," which has now been amended, but it was there, and if you clicked "okay" then that's consent. Was it informed? Does everyone read all the Terms of Service for all the apps we use, the browsers, online banking, email providers? If it's a free service, what you think you're paying with? On the other hand, some congregant commented, what's so bad about having that information getting sent all over to marketers or whatever? To which my mind went "1984!!" and someone else actually commented with that. Big Brother knows too much! I commented "I've known since I first got EZPass that my government knows where I am at all times, as does my bank, and certain types of privacy are simply not there anymore no matter what we do."
Marilyn spoke about Jews in the State of Israel vs. the diaspora: are we all in this together, this fight for the State of Israel? As Jews, we all need to stick up for Israel, especially amidst current headlines, which could be biased depending on your source. Are Israel's actions and the negative press making it harder for diasporic Jews to defend the State? How do we (us in the room) feel about the US moving the embassy to Jerusalem? Some felt glad - Jerusalem is the capital and Israel is the only nation not allowed to have its capital acknowledged worldwide. Embassies should be in the capital to allow the work of politics to be done. I don't think it was the right move - the US does acknowledge Jerusalem as the capital, but had the embassy outside of it to appear as an appropriate broker/mediator of the peace process, which is pretty shot to hell right now. Trump did this, we proposed, to solidify his religious base in the US. Some Israelis are happy with this move, some not - and is that also a problem, that the world can point to those Israelis protesting the move as well as those rejoicing? I say, it's a complicated mess, and if various people are going to condemn all Jews for every death of any protesting Palestinian, or are going to target Jewish people/organizations/synagogues for actions taken by the State of Israel, then those people probably wouldn't be swayed by us fervently explaining things to them.
The last session I attended was led by Jeff, who spoke about Judaism's view on how to treat animals. Animals are given high value in Judaism: we aren't supposed to cause them pain, we are supposed to ease their burdens even if they're not ours (if we see them wandering, or without their owners, or are owned by non-Jews), we are permitted to break shabbat to help an animal in pain, even the laws of kashrut, of eating animals, tells us to treat them humanely and kill them quickly and as painlessly as possible. We don't assume they have souls or feel pain, that's never mentioned, but the way we treat animals should reflect the way we treat people: those who would cause needless pain to an animal could easily be seen to cause pain to those defenseless people they encounter. Jeff did a great job finding his information online, and had lots of Biblical quotes and allusions. I told him as his time was up that I was impressed with his talk and his amount of Torah was probably the inverse of what I would be saying: I was bringing a lot of personal story with a bit of Torah scaffolding. }:->
Then, before the next cheesecake break, we had the end of shabbait/lighting of the candles for the chag, which is a tricky situation. How does one go from shabbat to chag? There's an acronym for the order of events... here, a quote: "We therefore recite the berachot in an order known as Ya-KNe-Ha-Z, Yayin (wine), Kidush, Ner, Havdalah, Zeman." Thus it was: basic blessing over wine (1 line), then the kiddush which is longer especially for holidays, then blessing the candles (which are lit from a pre-existing flame, no striking of match), then separating the holiness of shabbat from the holiness of another holiday as well as the rest of the week, then praise for getting us to this special time. Off to cheesecake break, and then the second set of speakers. I didn't get to hear Ronit talk about how literature references the presence or absence of God, or Tadd talk about environmentalism and climate change and how he connected it to Torah. I gave my own talk 3 times, approximately 15 minutes each, and I can't say if it felt long or short, but I did feel like I spoke too fast and only loosely tied it in to Torah and more to my own sense of awe, spirituality, and connectedness to the larger picture. Marilyn was in my first group and said "tikkun olam" to which I said "yes, very much so, note to self: use that in my next talks," which I did. (Tikkun olam: repairing the world, current contexts heavy into environmentalism, social action, social justice.)
It's late, my alarm is set for ~7 hours from now, and I'm not going to forget what I said so I'll write it down tomorrow or Monday. I was very surprised when the rabbi came by to say we're done for the night, no final word, we're just done, so I put my stuff together, said some final words to a few people, stepped outside chatting, and then looked at my clock and saw it was 12:15! I thought we were ending at 11:15! Whoops. Still, I have no regrets. One is supposed to stay up all night studying and learning Torah on Shavuot (I still hearken back to going with Tahl to learn from some of her congregants in Riverdale and going over the book of Ruth with a fine-toothed comb, not leaving until around 2, 2:30 AM). Staying at shul until midnight seems fair, and writing it up seems appropriate.
This entry was originally posted at https://avivasedai.dreamwidth.org/706177.html. Please comment there using OpenID.