Dear TBZ Community:
I am still beaming with joy from our annual Community Retreat on Cape Cod last weekend. Close to one hundred and forty people, ranging from 2 months to 80+ years old, joined us for a Shabbat filled with singing, laughter, learning, biking, and playing. A weekend of community. A weekend of building intentional relationships.
I wait for this weekend all year long and I enjoy every moment. There are a few favorite moments each year, and this year was no different. Besides the services, the singing, and the different activities for all ages, it is the evenings “in the lodge” that I look forward to the most. In the evenings, people gather in the lodge’s communal space. Some of us play games (all kinds, but favorites include Bananagrams and Hedbanz), while some of us sing, play instruments, and create harmonies. What I love is the intentional intergenerational connections. Kids and adults playing and singing. People from different parts of our community, who would not meet otherwise, come together and get to know each other. Another highlight of the retreat is the “variety show” (aka: you do not need talent to participate in the show), with many people, of all ages, participating. It is funny and moving. Seeing people young and old, feeling comfortable standing in front of a group of people that they may or may not know well, with such confidence and excitement, reinforces the importance of belonging to a multigenerational community. I know that as a parent, seeing my children interact with people of all ages, not just their peers, is something I cherish and I am grateful that it exists at TBZ.
On Friday night, during the opening circle of our Community Retreat, I shared something I have recently shared in other spaces: my hesitation to feel joy and fun during times of so much pain and despair. In times when the heart is so broken, I am not sure if it is possible or even ok to pretend all is fine and just have fun. How could I enjoy myself on the Cape with old and new friends, while there is so much suffering in the world? I then challenged myself and others to see in the joyful moments we experience as a commitment: to dare to hope, to dare to believe, to dare to love, to dare to live meaningfully. On Sunday, just before we all gathered for our closing circle, I took a moment for myself and felt a sense of joy – and perhaps even hope and healing – that I have not felt in a very long time. Not because of any news coming from outside, nor because of any change in the world that could give me that hope, but because that weekend soothed me and held me with its beauty, allowing my pain and my wounds to feel the healing love of community.
Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen, a pediatrician who gained fame as an author and teacher of alternative medicine in the form of integrative medicine, speaks about the difference between curing and healing. TBZ member Dr. Katherine Gergen Barnett, who introduced me to this concept and to Dr. Remen’s teaching, helped me understand that perhaps this perspective can be useful during this time of so much pain. And to understand this as the purpose of being in community at this time.
Healing is different from curing or fixing. When I feel hopeless about fixing the world around us (close and far) andd about those who are in charge (and who are not advancing anything nor fixing anything, but rather destroying more and more), I can shift my attention to healing instead. Healing, Dr. Remen teaches, is about wholeness: it’s about giving a person the ability to live a deep and meaningful life regardless of the circumstance they might be in, the condition of their body, or their diagnosis. Healing comes from deep within oneself, not from the thinking mind or the physical body, but from the heart. Healing can be encouraged by enabling people to maximize their potential, serve their life’s purpose, and live out their values.
I am not giving up on the possibility that things could be better and that some “fixing” or “curing” can be achieved, but I am realizing that in moments when despair and hopelessness, fear and uncertainty, become so central to our experience, perhaps the work is one of focusing on the healing of our souls, so we can live meaningful lives regardless of the circumstances we are in.
In this week’s Torah portion, Behar, we read the laws of the sabbatical year (shnat shmita). In Leviticus 25:20, the Torah recognizes doubt and lack of faith:
וְכִי תֹאמְרוּ מַה־נֹּאכַל בַּשָּׁנָה הַשְּׁבִיעִת הֵן לֹא נִזְרָע וְלֹא נֶאֱסֹף אֶת־תְּבוּאָתֵנוּ
And should you ask, “What are we to eat in the seventh year, if we may neither sow nor gather in our crops?
As people are commanded not to sow or prune their fields in the seventh year, Torah assumes, understandably so, that people would be nervous and unsure:
What would we eat?
How do we know we will be ok?
I read this verse as the questions that we might ask when facing uncertainty and unknown times.
The answer in the text is one of trust in what already exists:
וְצִוִּיתִי אֶת־בִּרְכָתִי לָכֶם בַּשָּׁנָה הַשִּׁשִּׁית וְעָשָׂת אֶת־הַתְּבוּאָה לִשְׁלֹשׁ הַשָּׁנִים
I will ordain My blessing for you in the sixth year, so that it shall yield a crop sufficient for three years.
The focus on “sufficient” is a call to recognize what exists in front of you before you walk to the unknown and know it is sufficient. Recognize the resources both within yourself and around you that can carry you and hold you when in doubt.
Perhaps this can be a way to understand healing: We have the capacity to heal when we tap into the resources we have within ourselves and around us.
I feel a tremendous sense of gratitude to be walking this journey in community at TBZ. This past weekend was a reminder of that. This past weekend reminded me that healing is at hand – and that belonging to an intentional and joyful community is where I find the resources to help me walk through these unknown journeys.
I pray that we may have the audacity to build, to believe, to love, to forgive, to create, and to imagine a better world for all human beings, holding each other, even if we can’t fix it, but helping each other heal.
May this Shabbat bring blessings and consolation to all of you and your loved ones. May we find strength, courage, and patience, and open our hearts with generosity. May all those who are ill find healing.
And may the hostages soon be returned to their families and friends; may the Israeli and Palestinian peace workers in the land continue their sacred work and not be deterred or turn away from the vision of peace and dignity for all.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rav Claudia