Being Born Again in Jewish Culture
Radical amazement for sunsets, backpacking through Israel, and the writings of A.J. Heschel and Jack Kerouac initiated a spiritual journey for Rabbi Brad Greenstein that would fuse his love of music, Torah, nature, and poesy. Rabbi Brad is currently the Senior Manager of Jewish Learning for Moishe House. He graduated from the University of California Davis with a B.A. in literature. He earned a master's degree in rabbinic studies and received his rabbinic ordination from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish Academy. He tin be reached at RabbiBrad@moishehouse.org.
Forty of us gathered at the waters edge. The lake before us was glistening in the Wisconsin morning sunlight. Information technology was Moishe Business firm's National Resident Briefing simply weeks agone, where hundreds of young customs builders gathered to learn from one some other. These participants elected a Shabbat interactive experience that included prayer and a walk to the lake, instead of attention the multitude of other offerings including things like a traditional tri-chitzah minyan or deep swoop into Harry Potter and sacred text.
We stared beyond the morning fog lifting from the blue lake. I had planned to accept participants imagine Miriam's well and crossing the red sea; we would, perhaps, sing the niggun (vocal) Ozi v'Zimrat Yah. But instead, one person asked if the lake could be a mikvah(ritual bath). It was one of those moments that any Jewish educator knows all as well well, where y'all have to pull an audible and throw your lesson plan to the wind, because the question is just too timely. Eventually we did sing and visualize traditional h2o narratives, but first nosotros paused to talk.
I explained the mikvah'southward traditional uses, the modernistic uses, and opportunities. I acknowledged the limits of my own experience, and invited people to detect a fourth dimension to try it throughout the weekend. But as I spoke nearly virtually how people utilize the ritual bathroom before Yom Kippur to feel a sense of renewal for the new year ahead, coming very soon, something interesting happened. I said "You dip into the water as one person and emerge anew and are born…." I stopped myself from finishing that judgement. I bit my tongue and couldn't end. Was I actually about to tell people how to be "born again?"
That blazon of language is pretty much off limits, reserved for so called fanatics. Just the truth is, and we are specially reminded of this as we enter the holiday season, we are all constantly built-in and reborn again. Of course, we are not "literally" born once again; and yet, ninety percentage or so of our cells today are not the aforementioned ones that made u.s. up years agone.
What a shame information technology is that "built-in again" belongs simply to the religious right, not left, or center. The natural globe we run into around united states of america is e'er existence born again. Grass withers, flowers fade, and new sprouts hurriedly shoot to the sky again. We think we are so afar from the wild, only we too are e'er occupied with regeneration, admitting spiritual. New jobs, new attitudes, erstwhile ways, one-time houses, new partners, new children, new loves, and dying loved ones: When we are fully present in the moment we experience alive. When we fear the futurity we're missing opportunities to alive. "…He non busy existence built-in is decorated dying" hauntingly wrote the Jewish poet Robert Zimmerman, better known as Bob Dylan (who went through his own dissimilar sort of "born again" stage). Many of us become through life bouncing betwixt things that both enliven and decay our souls, constantly evaluating and renewing who we actually want to get.
Our professional lives also demonstrate constant rebirth. We trade roles, change titles, apply for and review new grants and funding. Frequently initiatives appear only refreshed in name or packaging, though nosotros all know the difference between programs that accept taken the hard piece of work to reinvent themselves and ones that are simply rebranded. Projects and positions demand to be born again.
Most importantly, we ourselves demand to be renewed and refreshed. The world today tin seem, at times, terrifying and impossible to navigate. No thing ane's specific function, as Jewish professionals we are truly in the trenches working for the wholeness of our constituents' souls and their connection to i some other. And that ways nosotros have to first exist whole ourselves, nurturing and rejuvenating the aliveness and spark within. Practically, this means figuring out how to see the horizon of burnout far before its correct in front of us. It means embracing the sacredness of boundaries to fuel the focus of our piece of work. It ways letting go of that which no longer serves u.s.a. so that we may grow again. And yep, it means sleep, nutrition, fourth dimension with loved ones and in nature.
The wheel of our ain Jewish calendar year reflects this renewal, and right now is the time for rebirth, it is before long the birthday of the globe ("Hayom harat haolam" nosotros read on Rosh Hashanah). Nosotros celebrate God's creativity in bringing forth the cosmos and we link the globe's creation to our new year's day's re-creation. It's been suggested that our new year non be marked with the creation of the world but with the liberation of the Jews from slavery in Egypt and the crossing of the Carmine Ocean. Even Rashi, the most celebrated Torah commentator, inquires as to why the Torah and new year's day begin with the book of Genesis and not the book of Exodus. Intuitively, we should begin the Torah with our tale of freedom, and the New Year in the month when Passover takes place. But ours is a tradition non lived in isolation. By marking the New Yr with the creation of the world nosotros celebrate not only our ancestry, merely anybody'southward beginnings. We affirm that our constant renewal and rebirth are predicated on beingness linked to the renewal of the world and people that surroundings us.
The rekindling of our own drives and passions becomes a model for all the concentric circles of care that surround us, get-go with the loved ones most continued to us, moving to our colleagues and constituents, and ultimately extending to our everyday acquaintances and the greater globe at large. It's no easy chore to refresh ourselves, it takes more than a unproblematic proclamation or dip into the water, but what's at stake is zippo less that the dynamism of our own lives. So dare I say it, this year, how volition yous exist built-in again?
Source: https://jewishfederations.org/education-and-engagement/ideas-in-jewish-education-and-engagement/born-again
0 Response to "Being Born Again in Jewish Culture"
Post a Comment