Compassionate Discipline, Ten Days Omer 5785

Apr 23

seascape at sunrise with rocks in foreground

Today is ten days, which is one week and three days of the Omer in the year 5785. תפארת שבגבורה , Tiferet ShebeGevurah, Beautiful Limits; רחמים שבגבורה, Rachamim ShebeGevurah, Compassionate Discipline. Truly understanding the Discipline needed to serve Compassion and Beauty. When we recognize our impact on other people and choose the path that allows us to be of service wholeheartedly. We help others see The Way with compassion. We walk The Way, allowing Compassion to lead us towards Grace, rather than Ego leading us towards Hubris.

Living with Purpose: Beauty, Compassion, Truth

The synthesis of Chesed and Gevurah has many names. Tiferet, Beauty; Rachamim, Compassion; Emet, Truth. From the Kabbalist perspective, these concepts are united. When we fully balance the Flow of Love with the Discipline of Boundaries, we arrive at Beauty, Compassion, and Truth.

A purposeful life combines Beauty and Truth, living wholeheartedly into Compassion. It is so easy to step away from these core values. Going numb from the onslaught of News. Being calmed by the lull of social media. Focusing on to-do’s and calendars rather than Depth and Meaning.

Spiritual Community is not primarily about Belief. G!d is not the central organizing factor of Jewish spaces. People are.

Whenever someone tells me their kids don’t believe in G!d and that’s why they don’t belong to a synagogue, a crack forms in my heart. When they tell me their child’s spouse is religious, so the family practices another religion without connection to Judaism, another crack forms.

We Jews live in the dark shadow of the Shoah, the Catastrophe that eliminated one-third of living Jews during World War II. Our teachers lacked conviction. Our synagogues hired Israelis to teach us Judaism no one practiced. Our parents attended synagogue because it was a social space and the majority of Americans socialized around religious spaces. Now, the majority of Americans do not affiliate with religious communities, so the majority of American Jews don’t either.

Additionally, the cost of Doing Jewish keeps increasing. It can be difficult for middle class Jews to afford Jewish affiliation, nevermind working class Jews (and there are many).

How do we have compassionate discipline to maintain communal institutions while making space for all Jews?

Just like labor unions, we need to prove our intrinsic value. We need to meet people where they are. We need to hold space widely, while simultaneously ensuring our collective safety.

Watch This Space

I’ll be leaving my pulpit on June 30th. I could have chosen to continue.

What I finally realized was that I lacked compassion for myself and my family. I had to stop beating myself up for finding it difficult to get out of bed. I had to realize my kids just keep getting older and if I have limited energy, I should spend it with my family rather than being a minimum viable rabbi.

That doesn’t mean I’m giving up my rabbinate. Or my connection to the Central Conference of American Rabbis (the Reform rabbinical association). Rather, we’ll move back to Southern California this summer and I will dedicate myself to reading my overflowing library. I aspire to living digitally as the Jewish Marginalian. I don’t read Maria Popova’s website often anymore, though I was a regular reader when it was titled Brain Pickings.

My rabbinical thesis was on the concurrent development of ethics and mysticism in early modern Jewish writing. Underlying that is my belief that rabbinic Judaism rests on three pillars: Halakha, The Way; Musar, Ethics; and Kabbalah, Mysticism. While I believe wholeheartedly in the Reform approach to Halakha, I think our understanding of ethics and mysticism, or ethical mysticism, represents the aspects of Judaism I hope to share with the world. I plan to continue writing on this blog and perhaps supplementing it with a podcast or video series. At my own pace, while allowing my family to represent a larger focus of my time.

I also hope to get insurance to cover a mechanical wheelchair to allow me the ability to get around more. The simplest things exhaust me these days and I’m determined to have the discipline to hold time for what really matters.