Answers to the Question of Life, the Universe & Everything

What's the answer to THE question about life, the universe and everything?  42, of course.  What's the exact question?  Ahh, that's another story entirely. 

If this makes no sense to you, you are clearly not a Douglas Adams fan and should get yourself to a library asap for a copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy... especially since Adams' thoughts on God and religion are hilarious.

Enough of that.  It's time to get down to the business of answering your questions.  My thanks to all who e-mailed, texted and commented.

Two questions came up repeatedly:  Do I really not believe in God, and do the people in the minyan (who pray in Hebrew at light speed) know what they're saying?

1.  Re: that God fellow.  Nope, don't believe in him.  Sorry to disappoint you.  I kept this a secret for many years, believing that the Jewish world would consider me a pariah if they ever found out.  And then, one glorious day, I began to read Mordecai Kaplan. 

I felt as though someone had pulled a chair out from under me.  I couldn't believe that someone understood me, agreed with me, and had said so in print.  (I also wondered why the hell it had taken me so long to discover this.) 

I went zooming into Rabbi Neil Gillman's office, my professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary, bursting with the news of my epiphany.  He calmly went on flipping through the papers on his desk and told me that at least one student per semester tells him the same thing.  Kind of took the wind out of my sails, but on the other hand, at least I knew that Kaplan and I weren't alone.

The problem with Kaplan is that he wasn't a very good writer.  And I haven't figured out how to put it in words either.  Thankfully, Rabbi Harold Kushner did it for me.  He wrote:  "To believe that God is real means believing that the qualities we associate with God are real, that they truly exist in the world."

That I can agree with.  When Kaplan writes "God is whatever gives meaning to this world," that God is a God I can believe in.


2.  Do the speed davveners know what they're saying?  Apparently, many of them do.  At least, they say they do.  My uncle Geo told me I should open a prayer book at random and make them translate a passage, and the Shema is off limits.

I didn't do that, but I did ask around.  A couple of the older guys grew up as yeshiva students and learned prayerbook and biblical Hebrew as kids (but both said that they don't do well in Israel where everyone is speaking modern Hebrew).  Others told me that they studied the prayers on their own, and might not be able to translate for me but could give me a general idea of what each prayer is about.  No one copped to pure ignorance.

Here's my question back to the questioners -- does it matter?  Is the exact meaning of the words important?   The people praying have a pretty good idea of what the prayers mean, and what their function is.  They know they're not saying "goo-goo ga-ga" and they're not swearing (unlike some people with tattoos in Chinese, who only think they know what it says).

 If the pray-ers achieve some kind of prayerful state, whether that means they're meditating, or communing with a higher power or just clearing their mind, is it OK to not understand the exact meaning of the words?  Does it matter if a person meditates on the sound of "om" or the sound of "shema?"  What about monks who chant the same Latin phrase over and over?  What about singing "la la la" instead of real words?

I am certain that there are lots of rational arguments for understanding the words you're saying when you pray.  But I also think that there may be good arguments for not worrying about being able to translate Hebrew prayer into English -- and sometimes, not wanting to.

This reminds me of the story my cousin Debbie told me about losing her cat and how the Zohar helped her find it.  But I'll save it for another time.

For now, it's after 6pm on a Friday evening, and that means it's time for me to turn off my computer until tomorrow evening, and enjoy the Sabbath.

Shabbat shalom!

Blessings, Breakfast & Booze

I forgot how much I love going to morning minyan. It's light years away from "regular" synagogue (i.e. Friday night and Saturday morning services) which I also love, but it's got a certain something going for it that makes it special, albeit a little strange.

First of all, it's entirely casual. I mean REALLY casual. Which you might find in church (my Catholic friends tell me that they usually wear jeans to church) but in my world, women only started wearing slacks in the last couple of years, and they're always dress pants.

This being Florida, casual often means shorts, which can be unfortunate at times. You know that feeling when you're driving along and see a shirtless jogger, and wish you hadn't looked? Because really, that guy should keep his shirt on when he's in public? Well, it's the same with some of the old guys at minyan. I'm not at all interested in seeing their knees, or, in fact, anything above the ankle, which preferably should be tastefully clad in socks. Thick ones.

Forget a formal clergy-led service. The regulars are in charge. Even if the clergy is there, the volunteers run the show. These guys are masters at davenning (Yiddish for praying with feeling). No English; everything's in Hebrew. They take turns leading, and most of them speed-daven. Plus, since they tend to be old school and from a more Orthodox background, they use old fashioned pronunciation -- and some have accents to begin with -- so it's hard to keep up. I know my way around a service pretty well and unless I drift away and reread a particular psalm a couple of times, I can keep up. But I do think someone ought to be calling out page numbers.

At about the mid-point, someone starts walking around with a tzedakah box. (A tzedakah box is used to collect charitable donations; most Jewish homes have them, and it's traditional to put coins in it on Friday afternoon before the Sabbath arrives. But I digress.)

The picture here is of an old fashioned one that's similar to ours,
except ours has one handle and a hinged top. There are about a zillion
different tzedakah box designs.

Everybody digs down and pulls out a dollar bill or a few coins. Today I saw a five dollar bill. We used to have a guy who put in a $10 bill in every day; Joel was a nice guy with a lovely smile who died of cancer. I still miss his smile, and I know the community misses his generosity.

Collecting money at the service is a big deal, because Jews aren't supposed to carry money on the Sabbath, so unlike our Christian neighbors, we can't pass a collection plate at weekly services. The minyan group collects a tidy sum over the course of the year and then gives it away. I've never been in on the deliberations, but I do know that one year the JCC asked for some scholarship money for kids to go to summer camp, and they made a nice donation.

After the service everyone wraps up their tefillin and tallit and goes home. Except on Wednesdays, when they have breakfast together. Usually it's light fare, but sometimes a member sponsors a more elaborate breakfast. Today, it was a terrific spread -- lots of thick slices of lox, herring, fresh bagels, coffee cake, orange juice, coffee and more.

And of course, the booze. I've heard it called the schnapps table, but today the choices were whiskeys -- Chivas, Seagrams, Canadian Club, Scoresby, and a couple more. I don't know where the custom for having a shot after services comes from, but it's practiced with zest. Not a bad way to start the day, as long as it's only once a week.

Me? I had to go to work. No nine a.m. shots of whiskey for me!

P.S. Here is the promised photo of me wearing tefillin. (thank you, Ellie)

Tefillin Barbie

If I'm going to be a rabbi (one of these years) it's about time I started acting the part... and not just on weekends. So today I went to morning minyan. A minyan is the quorum of 10 people required to say certain prayers, the idea being that if you force people to gather in order to recite important prayers, then you're more likely to ensure that the Jewish community remains just that, a community, instead of a scattering of people all over the world. (Which to a great extent happened anyway, but that's for another day. Today we're talking about tefillin.)

Every morning, 10 or more people say the morning prayers together. Now, in an Orthodox synagogue, only the men count. In pretty much all of the rest of Judaism, women count too (hooray for Jewish feminism!) And women can choose to fulfill the commandment of wearing tefillin when praying on weekday mornings (i.e. any day except Shabbat).

If you've never seen it, a person who's wearing tefillin looks decidedly odd. For one thing, they've got a small box attached to their forehead by leather straps. And there's another one strapped to their forearm.

Why do such a thing? Because in Deuteronomy (chapter 6, verses 5-10) it says:

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. Impress them upon your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead; inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." (translation by the Jewish Publication Society).

Being the literalists that we Jews are (sometimes) we figured out a way to fulfill the letter of the law. Hopefully the intent as well.

Want to see what it looks like? Here are couple of links, one to my very favorite, Tefillin Barbie, thanks to the Jewish Women's Archives. The second one is to a VERY Orthodox website; not my cup of tea, but it's got pretty good illustrations and directions on how to wear them.

http://jwa.org/teach/golearn/jan08/tefillin_barbie.jpg
http://www.hasofer.com/html/tefillinposition.html


Next time I make it to morning minyan -- I'm shooting for at least twice a week -- I'll get someone to take a picture.