Shabbaton
This weekend was my congregation's annual Shabbat retreat. I had a
really good time, and I found myself focusing inward more than I have
in the past. Neither of the unpleasant people who sometimes come came,
which probably helped. Unfortunately, a couple of our regulars couldn't
make it at the last minute due to illnesses. We had 24 people in the end,
which is a good size for discussions.
I'm not going to do a detailed chronicle here, but I'll mention a few things that particularly struck me.
Breathing
One of the things my rabbi always does Friday night (late) is to lead a quasi-meditation session. I don't know what "real" meditation is like and I suspect this isn't that, but we focus on breathing and, interspersed, we sing some niggunim (wordless tunes) and he reads some Chassidic stories. It's very neat. But I've always had trouble with the breathing part; he has us breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth slowly, trying to get down from the normal 12-18 breaths per minute to more like 3. I think the best I can do is 5, but that's progress.
This time I realized that what makes this hard for me is the nose/mouth thing; I'm used to using one of those at a time, not both in alternation. I also grew up learning to breathe mainly through my mouth, because my nose was always stuffed up with allergies. If I try to breathe only through my nose, I feel like I don't get enough air even though I'm sure I do. (The allergies are much better now, and drugs help when they're not.)
Slower breathing is also supposed to lower the heart rate, but it doesn't work. Well, not much. My normal resting pulse is 80; after several minutes of slower, deliberate breathing I measured it at 72. I've never remembered to measure it first thing in the morning.
Introspection
Shabbat morning when it came time for the question he said he was going to ask something he wouldn't ask back home (when there's always someone fairly new around who might be uncomfortable with it): name something you like about yourself. Oof. I was most of the way around the circle, so I had some time to think, but I kept rejecting answers that sounded too arrogant. Many people talked about outward-focused things, like kindness or good family relationships or the like. I was more inward-focused; the first answer I rejected was "I'm smart". A couple people gave "light" answers (one liked her curly hair), and one said his sense of humor. It was interesting to see what people said. I felt bad for the first person who had to answer, but it turned out she had the perfect answer without thinking about it. She's just gotten through a life-threatening illness and come out safely, and she said "I'm tough". Yeah, that she is!
Later, when we were studying Pirke Avot, the rabbi asked: why do we behave ethically? Why do we have integrity? Is it because of heavenly reward/punishment, or because it's expedient (e.g. you don't have to remember which lies you've told), or for other reasons? This led to a really engaging conversation that continued in smaller groups at lunch. That's the kind of conversation I'd like to be able to have at the Shabbat table more than once a year (with the right people)! I need to start inviting minyan folks to lunch again, especially now that the days are so long.
I'll give my own answer to that question here: for most of my life I did not believe in God, let alone a God who rewards and punishes, and yet I like to believe that I have always been basically an ethical person. My parents taught me well. Is it just expedience? No -- expedience is certainly a factor, I think for all of us, but that's not it. I have a strong sense of right and wrong, and bad behavior always harms someone (usually several someones) even if you think you got away with it. Specifically, it harms me. I do not want to be the kind of person who can lie casually and well. I do not want to be the kind of person who checks to see who's looking before deciding how to behave. And I don't want to head down the slippery slope; if it's ok to lie, for example, then what else will seem ok? Petty theft? Lying is just stealing the truth (or perceptions of the truth), after all, so what's the difference between that and raiding the cash box? We all lie sometimes, and sometimes it's the right thing to do ("yes grandma, I love the sweater"), but it's something to be very careful about.
This also got me thinking about perceptions that people have of me. Just a couple days ago someone told me (in a professional context) that I'm not only very competent but very ethical. (This was not in a context where ethics were particularly on the table.) Yeah, I like to think of myself that way, but do I really give the impression of being sufficiently above the norm that people comment on it? Because I don't think I am, particularly -- I think most of the people I know well enough to be able to judge are comparable. I wonder what might be fueling the impressions people have of me.
Liturgy discussion
We had a conversation about the make-up of our (morning) liturgy, and specifically the balance of Hebrew and English. My rabbi wanted to know -- recognizing that there's a selection bias -- whether the amount of Hebrew we do is off-putting to people, particularly newcomers. I was pleasantly surprised by the consensus: no we don't do too much Hebrew, and the people who said they'd struggled with it said that it was a worthwhile struggle and they're glad they did it. I pointed out that one part of our practice here speaks particularly to me: when we begin the t'filah, the central prayer, we do the first three blessings in Hebrew straight through, without any interruptions for English translations. This allows me to focus on why I'm standing there saying those words; when we also read English translations that jolted me out of it no matter how hard I tried to tune them out. So if we do feel pressure to add more English, I said, don't do it there.
One suggestion that I'd never thought of came out of this discussion: maybe we could add some English songs. I'm not sure what or where, but it might help the people who want more English.
Religious journeys
I rode home with someone I don't know well, so we got to spend some time correcting that. She joined our minyan last summer (so this was her first shabbaton with us); it turns out that she's here because of her kids. It's not that the kids go to services, but they're in Hebrew school and they go to camp and one has a bat mitzvah coming up in a year, and through all of this she found herself wanting to be more active. I enjoyed hearing about her background, especially in light of a conversation the group had had earlier about children of mixed marriages and how the community should respond to them. (Just to be clear, she is not a product of a mixed marriage and neither are her kids. But that discussion led her into talking about how communities welcome people.)
She asked about my background, because I'd said something recently about being a convert and she wanted to know about that. So I told her the story and she seemed particularly surprised that I'd learned so much in just seven years. She seems particularly impressed with my Hebrew, even after I pointed out that I don't comprehend all that well and can't speak; I just know the liturgy pretty well. But this did allow me to give the "if I can do it so can you" pep talk; she's one of the people who has struggled with learning the Hebrew but welcomed the challenge.
This is someone I'd like to get to know better. I must invite her over sometime.
A story
I have heard the following story before, and my rabbi told it again at the shabbaton:
A poor man in the shtetl has a dream one night that he should go to a certain bridge in Prague and dig under it to find a treaure. The man shrugs it off. The next night he has the same dream, but it feels more urgent. He'd love to have enough money to feed his family, he thinks, and mentions the dream to his wife, but following a dream is silly so he shrugs it off again. The next night the dream is even more intense, metaphorically picking him up by his shirt, shaking him, and telling him to go to Prague and dig under the bridge. The next morning, over objections from his family, he says he's going to do this and sets out.
After several days he arrives in Prague and finds the bridge from his dreams. He feels embarrassed, and there's a watchman there, so he just stands around for a while. Eventually, overcoming the awkward feeling, he begins to dig in the dirt with his hands, at which point the watchman asks what he's doing. He answers evasively and the watchman summons the police, who escort the man to jail for loitering.
The police ask him why he was digging and eventually he says "this is really silly, but I had this dream that if I came to this bridge and dug, I would find enough money to feed my family". The guard laughs at him, saying: "Ha! Just last night I had a dream that if I went to the home of some stupid Jew 50 miles west of here and dug under his stove, I'd find a treasure! You don't see me doing that, do you? Dreams are just dreams. Go on, get out of here." And he sends the man on his way. The man, of course, goes back home, digs under his stove, and finds a treasure.
Sometimes you have to travel away from your home to find something that was there all along. This Shabbat was kind of like that for me.
I'm not going to do a detailed chronicle here, but I'll mention a few things that particularly struck me.
Breathing
One of the things my rabbi always does Friday night (late) is to lead a quasi-meditation session. I don't know what "real" meditation is like and I suspect this isn't that, but we focus on breathing and, interspersed, we sing some niggunim (wordless tunes) and he reads some Chassidic stories. It's very neat. But I've always had trouble with the breathing part; he has us breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth slowly, trying to get down from the normal 12-18 breaths per minute to more like 3. I think the best I can do is 5, but that's progress.
This time I realized that what makes this hard for me is the nose/mouth thing; I'm used to using one of those at a time, not both in alternation. I also grew up learning to breathe mainly through my mouth, because my nose was always stuffed up with allergies. If I try to breathe only through my nose, I feel like I don't get enough air even though I'm sure I do. (The allergies are much better now, and drugs help when they're not.)
Slower breathing is also supposed to lower the heart rate, but it doesn't work. Well, not much. My normal resting pulse is 80; after several minutes of slower, deliberate breathing I measured it at 72. I've never remembered to measure it first thing in the morning.
Introspection
Shabbat morning when it came time for the question he said he was going to ask something he wouldn't ask back home (when there's always someone fairly new around who might be uncomfortable with it): name something you like about yourself. Oof. I was most of the way around the circle, so I had some time to think, but I kept rejecting answers that sounded too arrogant. Many people talked about outward-focused things, like kindness or good family relationships or the like. I was more inward-focused; the first answer I rejected was "I'm smart". A couple people gave "light" answers (one liked her curly hair), and one said his sense of humor. It was interesting to see what people said. I felt bad for the first person who had to answer, but it turned out she had the perfect answer without thinking about it. She's just gotten through a life-threatening illness and come out safely, and she said "I'm tough". Yeah, that she is!
Later, when we were studying Pirke Avot, the rabbi asked: why do we behave ethically? Why do we have integrity? Is it because of heavenly reward/punishment, or because it's expedient (e.g. you don't have to remember which lies you've told), or for other reasons? This led to a really engaging conversation that continued in smaller groups at lunch. That's the kind of conversation I'd like to be able to have at the Shabbat table more than once a year (with the right people)! I need to start inviting minyan folks to lunch again, especially now that the days are so long.
I'll give my own answer to that question here: for most of my life I did not believe in God, let alone a God who rewards and punishes, and yet I like to believe that I have always been basically an ethical person. My parents taught me well. Is it just expedience? No -- expedience is certainly a factor, I think for all of us, but that's not it. I have a strong sense of right and wrong, and bad behavior always harms someone (usually several someones) even if you think you got away with it. Specifically, it harms me. I do not want to be the kind of person who can lie casually and well. I do not want to be the kind of person who checks to see who's looking before deciding how to behave. And I don't want to head down the slippery slope; if it's ok to lie, for example, then what else will seem ok? Petty theft? Lying is just stealing the truth (or perceptions of the truth), after all, so what's the difference between that and raiding the cash box? We all lie sometimes, and sometimes it's the right thing to do ("yes grandma, I love the sweater"), but it's something to be very careful about.
This also got me thinking about perceptions that people have of me. Just a couple days ago someone told me (in a professional context) that I'm not only very competent but very ethical. (This was not in a context where ethics were particularly on the table.) Yeah, I like to think of myself that way, but do I really give the impression of being sufficiently above the norm that people comment on it? Because I don't think I am, particularly -- I think most of the people I know well enough to be able to judge are comparable. I wonder what might be fueling the impressions people have of me.
Liturgy discussion
We had a conversation about the make-up of our (morning) liturgy, and specifically the balance of Hebrew and English. My rabbi wanted to know -- recognizing that there's a selection bias -- whether the amount of Hebrew we do is off-putting to people, particularly newcomers. I was pleasantly surprised by the consensus: no we don't do too much Hebrew, and the people who said they'd struggled with it said that it was a worthwhile struggle and they're glad they did it. I pointed out that one part of our practice here speaks particularly to me: when we begin the t'filah, the central prayer, we do the first three blessings in Hebrew straight through, without any interruptions for English translations. This allows me to focus on why I'm standing there saying those words; when we also read English translations that jolted me out of it no matter how hard I tried to tune them out. So if we do feel pressure to add more English, I said, don't do it there.
One suggestion that I'd never thought of came out of this discussion: maybe we could add some English songs. I'm not sure what or where, but it might help the people who want more English.
Religious journeys
I rode home with someone I don't know well, so we got to spend some time correcting that. She joined our minyan last summer (so this was her first shabbaton with us); it turns out that she's here because of her kids. It's not that the kids go to services, but they're in Hebrew school and they go to camp and one has a bat mitzvah coming up in a year, and through all of this she found herself wanting to be more active. I enjoyed hearing about her background, especially in light of a conversation the group had had earlier about children of mixed marriages and how the community should respond to them. (Just to be clear, she is not a product of a mixed marriage and neither are her kids. But that discussion led her into talking about how communities welcome people.)
She asked about my background, because I'd said something recently about being a convert and she wanted to know about that. So I told her the story and she seemed particularly surprised that I'd learned so much in just seven years. She seems particularly impressed with my Hebrew, even after I pointed out that I don't comprehend all that well and can't speak; I just know the liturgy pretty well. But this did allow me to give the "if I can do it so can you" pep talk; she's one of the people who has struggled with learning the Hebrew but welcomed the challenge.
This is someone I'd like to get to know better. I must invite her over sometime.
A story
I have heard the following story before, and my rabbi told it again at the shabbaton:
A poor man in the shtetl has a dream one night that he should go to a certain bridge in Prague and dig under it to find a treaure. The man shrugs it off. The next night he has the same dream, but it feels more urgent. He'd love to have enough money to feed his family, he thinks, and mentions the dream to his wife, but following a dream is silly so he shrugs it off again. The next night the dream is even more intense, metaphorically picking him up by his shirt, shaking him, and telling him to go to Prague and dig under the bridge. The next morning, over objections from his family, he says he's going to do this and sets out.
After several days he arrives in Prague and finds the bridge from his dreams. He feels embarrassed, and there's a watchman there, so he just stands around for a while. Eventually, overcoming the awkward feeling, he begins to dig in the dirt with his hands, at which point the watchman asks what he's doing. He answers evasively and the watchman summons the police, who escort the man to jail for loitering.
The police ask him why he was digging and eventually he says "this is really silly, but I had this dream that if I came to this bridge and dug, I would find enough money to feed my family". The guard laughs at him, saying: "Ha! Just last night I had a dream that if I went to the home of some stupid Jew 50 miles west of here and dug under his stove, I'd find a treasure! You don't see me doing that, do you? Dreams are just dreams. Go on, get out of here." And he sends the man on his way. The man, of course, goes back home, digs under his stove, and finds a treasure.
Sometimes you have to travel away from your home to find something that was there all along. This Shabbat was kind of like that for me.