Bringing Forward, now March 2011

I see it's been nearly a year since I've come here and logged on.

First, one newly created website by me, and then I'll catch up:

As you may be interested, please check out: http://www.jewbu.org/

Now...how did that come to be?

Going back a bit farther...

Last summer, the reunion (described below) of both high school friends and family was swell. What can I say, 300 cousins coming together, not only every 5 years, but this past one being the 100th reunion. It was terrific. We drove to Chicago for it, bringing my mother in tow.

Then, end of summer, during our week's vacation to Seven Springs...I took the time to create the basic text for the above website. I learned then just the basics enough to post it using Wordpress, using Bluehost for webhosting, to get the core ideas down. Whereas blogspot has been easy as pie to set up and install, my concept was to have a more regular site, where the substantive messaging can stay on the front, rather than being pushed down by the next post (which happens in this blogging environment). I've still yet to learn more about Wordpress...just bought a book on it....but I can still do simple things.

My intention was to lay out the core ideas on the site from which the course I'd created on Judaism and Buddhism was developed. After learning more of Word press, I'll hopefully revise what I already posted there, and add to it.

Meanwhile, I have the odd pleasure of seeing a number of creepy e-mails come by, acknowledging to me that they've read it, and by the way, coming from a porn site author...very weird. I have to presume so far that either virtually no one has read it (well...that's not true, I know at least 2 people have who talked to me about it), or that if they have, they have NOT written one of the many e-mails I've received in response.

Otherwise, inasmuch as my morphing from being a member of Temple Shalom to now being a member of Shirat Hanefesh has been in the genesis of this blog, I'll pick up on that piece now.

I maintain my ongoing activities in several committees in SHN, including Avodah, Education, and Tzedek/Tikkun Olam/Social Action.

My now younger son has recently turned 12, and consequently, many of my contemporary thoughts are going to planning for his having a successful experience becoming a bar mitzvah.

As background for that, however, I have been moved to be contemplative of our involvement in Jewish practice altogether, as a family. Our decision to participate as a member of a synagogue had begun, in some measure, consistent with the driver to provide a religious upbringing for our children. Depending on the "nits" involved in a coming Bar Mitzvah Handbook, being only generated now in our new Jewish community, there may be additional strings in play that will maintain naturally this additional connection to this congregational community. But, as I have been thinking this, stupidly or not, as is my nature, I had sought to, and did, write a very public note to both of our clergy, and Karen, our president, letting them know exactly what I was thinking....telling them that I was in fact concerned that the concerns I have still about how our children are learning, or failing to learn, the purpose of our liturgy, may impact on whether or not we will have a vision for being able to continue as members, post bnai mitzvah.

I do think our particular community is as about as progressive as they come, this way.

Barriers to understanding the function of the liturgy are deep, I don't know that I have the key particularly.

This past Saturday, after having read, as I usually do, the Washington Jewish Week, I saw that at Adas Israel, they would have a service tuned more towards being a learning service. Seeing that we would be at synagogue anyway Saturday night for Purim, and Adam would not be at our Saturday school, I thought I would take the morning to check out what they do there at Adas Israel, and how they do it. I was very encouraged. Their newish Rabbi Steinlauf did lead a very engaging service, and while covering all the mechanics ( I was kindly invited to take the 3rd of 7 aliyas, and was also tickled to have been so well prepared by our own community), Rabbi Stenlauf did, in fact, seek to present to his community an approach to the liturgy that I found, essentially, wholly consistent with the positive ways I have learned about it. That is, he proactively encouraged his congregants to visualize the various sections of the service, and find how they could engage in the developing pattern of how the service evolves forward, naming most parts for what they were. Although this WAS a learners service, this was very encouraging to me.

At their kiddush afterwards, I spoke briefly with one of their board members, Michele. She talked about how this new Rabbi was bringing a different, new, energy to their community, including an interest in meditation, such that he has launched a meditation group, which became a women's group, but now he was seeking to begin a men's group.

How much this approach the rabbi personally believes and wishes to engage his community in, is consistent with how their community overall experiences the service...is an open question. But, it is clear he is assuming an advocacy position, and wishes them to experience in just this way he is recommending.

Why do I care what he does? Since our Zukerman family have decided to raise our children as Jews.....it is, at least, helpful to have a positive vision for the view they will be exposed to as they come into maturity. My own explorations are still, yes, quite meager.

And....I have come to think at least two things:

a) that it can be helpful to thing bigger, more towards background, on the context in which prayer happens, to involve then asking questions about contemporarizing our ideas of G-d, perhaps to study the new book I see out by Arthur Green, and working further back, to provide a background that adds a further sensibility to the why of "traditional prayer," and also

b) doing something different, relaxing (a), but figuring out strings that can reach to (a). In other words....maybe there can be some further, practical, utility, between the co-existence in space between a place like the Shambhala Center, and a place like Adas Israel.

As we read in our meditation working group, the book recently: Torah & Dharma....it was suggested as one of the foundational points of buddhism....was that it came into being because of the dysfunctionality of conceptualizing g-d at the outset. Seeing that inhibiting the ego was a goal, one conceptualization of the origins of the creation of buddhism, is that it just decided not to go there....as a utilitarian measure.

So, as has always been the case....but now, post Bar Mitzvah, will have new cause to come into focus again....the decision to give particular effort to actualize our Jewish experience will come under new pressure.

But...Adam's Bar Mitzvah won't be until January 2012.

Meanwhile, while I've misplaced my buddhist practice materials....

I have determined to, and have acquired tefillin.

I've used them about 4 times.

And, provisionally, I've gotten agreement that our community will have a workshop on laying tefillin....perhaps only....on the day following Adam's BarMitzvah, 1/21/11. Hopefully, Adam would even go to that. Hopefully, we will have family in town to present a conflict to that.

I've tried to have our community adopt language, in a developing B'Nai Mitzvah Handbook, that would encourage families to recognize the limnal nature of the year prior to the B'Nai Mitzvah.

Our young community continues to struggle. Our new education director has committed to a job in Israel for next fall, so we will have to hire for that position, to continue our programming successfully in the fall. Though I've not been invited to participate on that search committee, I can hope that is for the good (i.e., I can see the decision as functional enough, and hope I needn't take it personally too much).

Our clergy are quite special, I think. And, in some measure, our community, too. From the point of view of learning, being in a smaller community certainly has its benefits. Certainly, its downsides, too. Hopefully, it will be a net benefit.

Closing nits, my job has been stable, with offices having moved from Rockville to Bethesda. Commuting is close to a wash, and if my left leg holds up, I hope I can walk to work soon.

If you're reading still, best,

Ira Z.