Ritual

And when the Ark set out…

/ Leiah Moser / Leave a comment

Here’s a little something I never noticed about the Torah service until I was studying it with my colleague Shelley Goldman the other day. At the beginning of the Torah service, when the Torah scroll is being removed from the Ark, we read a biblical passage from Bamidbar (Numbers), Chapter 10, which depicts the Israelites pulling up stakes and setting out on another leg of their journey through the wilderness:

ויהי בנסע הארן ויאמר משה

(Translation: And so it was that when the Ark set out on its journey Moses would say…)

At the end of the Torah service, when the Torah is being put back into the ark, we read a passage from the same perek (chapter):

ובנחה יאמר

(Translation: And when it [i.e. the Ark] came to rest, he [i.e. Moses] would say…)

In other words, the reading of the Torah is bracketed by descriptions of the Ark setting out from one camp site and setting up camp at the next. So in a very real way, when we are reading the Torah, we are supposed to feel as if we are following alongside the Israelites as they travel through the midbar (wilderness), walking along with them and experiencing their journey as our own. One of the interpretations of the biblical commandment of counting the Omer (the “week of weeks” between Passover and Shavuot) is that we are tracing the path of the Israelites from redemption (Passover) to the revelation at Sinai (Shavuot). If in every generation we are to consider ourselves as if we, personally, experienced redemption from Egypt and as if we, personally, were present at the foot of Sinai when God gave Israel the Torah, then the weekly cycle of Torah readings can be seen as the concrete way in which we relive these transformative events over and over again, finding new meaning with each cyclical revolution.

Meditation on the Face of Your Neighbor

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Find your neighbor. Not the person you came in with–someone else.

Turn and look at your neighbor’s face. Not into their eyes, not yet. Don’t smile, or nod, or perform any of the gestures we normally use to reassure each other and get past the nervousness of face-to-face contact. Just live with the nervousness. Pay attention to it. Look at your neighbor. Examine their features. They are doing the same with you right now, but that isn’t important. Just look.

To begin with, study your neighbor’s forehead–its contours, the curvature of the cranium sweeping upward to form a snug resting place for the brain. It’s a shape that’s so universally human and yet so unique to this individual person. Study its lines of care and laughter. This is where God placed a mark on Cain, to settle his fear that in his wanderings he would be recognized and executed for a murderer. Actually, we are all born with that mark–a sign written in blazing letters spelling out the primal commandment: “Do not murder.” Cain’s tragedy was that he wasn’t able to recognize that mark until it was too late. Let your eyes wander over the face of your neighbor. Search for that mark, the word of God, written to you on your neighbor’s face.

Take your time, but once you’ve had time to really take in the face of your neighbor, close your eyes for a moment and just hold the image of that face in your mind. See it floating there before you in all its silent expressiveness and vulnerability. Take a moment to contemplate the riddle of the human face, so perfectly contained in this one here before you–that the face is both a window and a mask. It expresses and at the same time conceals. Your neighbor’s face speaks eloquently of all they have ever seen and done, all the joy and the anguish, all the fear and the pleasure. And yet, at the same time, it conceals their essential being, marking the boundary between you and an inward experience, infinitely vast, to which you have no access, sealed off from you by the boundary of the face which says, “This far and no further.”

Open your eyes now and for the first time, or as if for the first time, look into the eyes of your neighbor. Take a moment now, both of you, to look into each other’s eyes. Let your face respond naturally. Take note of this experience. What passes between you, from one person to the other, through the eyes? The eyes have been described as a window into the soul. For some this window seems transparent. For some it seems nearly opaque. Right now, try to pay attention to what you see through the windows of your neighbor’s eyes. No matter how clearly you see, it is always across a distance, as though a great depth separated you, though you are standing just a few feet apart. This fundamental distance is not wrong or unnatural. It is simply the boundary marker that marks the separation between the I and the you, the self and the other. One of the most profound laws in the Torah is not to move the boundary markers placed by our ancestors. This is the beginning of ethics.

Reach across that boundary now with your hand. Take the hand of your neighbor in your own. Still you remain here on this side, your neighbor on the other. Through this gesture of clasping hands you are able to make contact here in the shared space between you. Reach out now with your other hand and take the hand of another, and that person to the hand of another, and so on until we are all connected. Here we all are, together.

עשיית רב (A Mentoring Ritual)

/ Leiah Moser / 1 Comment

Introduction:

יהושע בן פרחיה אומר עשה לך רב וקנה לך חבר והוי דן את כל האדם לכף זכות.

–Joshua ben Prachya said: “Make a teacher for yourself, get yourself a companion, and judge every human being on the side of merit.” (Mishna Avot, 1:6)

כל המלמד בן חברו תורה מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו ילדו.

–One who teaches another’s child Torah is regarded by the tradition as one who gave birth to the child. (bSanhedrin 198b)

It has been taught: R. Akiba said: Once I went in after R. Joshua to a privy, and I learnt from him three things. I learnt that one does not sit east and west but north and south; I learnt that one evacuates not standing but sitting; and I learnt that it is proper to wipe with the left hand and not with the right. Said Ben Azzai to him: Did you dare to take such liberties with your master? He replied: It was a matter of Torah, and I required to learn. It has been taught: Ben ‘Azzai said: Once I went in after R. Akiba to a privy, and I learnt from him three things. I learnt that one does not evacuate east and west but north and south. I also learnt that one evacuates sitting and not standing. I also learnt it is proper to wipe with the left hand and not with the right. Said R. Judah to him: Did you dare to take such liberties with your master? — He replied: It was a matter of Torah, and I required to learn. R. Kahana once went in and hid under Rab’s bed. He heard him chatting [with his wife] and joking and doing what he required. He said to him: One would think that Abba’s mouth had never sipped the dish before! He said to him: Kahana, are you here? Go out, because it is rude. He replied: It is a matter of Torah, and I require to learn. (bBer 62a)

The ritual of עשיית רב acknowledges that it is not solely in the study of Judaism’s sacred literature that a person might be in need of a Rav. Especially when we are undergoing radical changes in our lives we often find ourselves with questions about matters both simple and profound that we would ordinarily be too embarrassed or self-conscious to ask. Most people implicitly understand this fact about adolescents, and there are many people who naturally find themselves stepping forward to occupy the place of mentor in a young person’s life, but it is easy to forget that adults too go through such formative periods of change, and are sometimes in need of someone to whom they can say, “It is a matter of Torah, and I require to learn.”

This is a ritual for individuals going through an intensely emotional transitional experience in their lives, one that will profoundly transform their sense of identity and the way they relate to others. Its inspiration comes from careful consideration of my own experiences going through gender transition. It seems that a lot of our life cycle rituals are too focused on marking a transition as a point in time and not focused enough on ensuring that the individual undergoing transition has access to the kind of support structure they need to grow into the new roles they are undertaking in life. This ritual therefore serves as a way for a person going through such a process to designate a mentor or mentors to help guide them through their transition, watch out for them, and help them learn some of what they need to know to comfortably grow into their new identity.

Preparation:

Before the ritual the person for whom the ritual is being performed (henceforward “the subject’ or “talmid”) should work with their rabbi  or spiritual advisor to find a suitable mentor or mentors willing to help them through their time of transition. Mentors should a.) have life experience appropriate to advising their talmid on matters relevant to their transition, b.) be generally mature and emotionally stable c.) have a personal connection with the talmid and a willingness to be available as a support and a mentor.

Setting:

The first part of the ritual should take place someplace relatively private. A rabbi’s study or a synagogue meeting room is ideal. The rabbi should welcome the talmid and the mentor and invite them to sit down. Everyone should take some time to talk about the nature of the changes in the talmid’s life, what she is excited about and what she is anxious about, and what she hopes to learn from the mentor. When everyone is comfortable, the rabbi opens as follows:

Rabbi: In Pirkei Avot, it is written: עשה לך רב וקנה לך חבר והוי דן את כל האדם לכף זכות. “Make a teacher for yourself, get yourself a companion, and judge every human being on the side of merit.” (Talmid), as you enter into a new period in your life, with new challenges to be met and roles to be filled, you have chosen to heed the advice of Joshua ben Prachya by seeking out (Mentor) as a mentor, to learn from her Torah and benefit from her experience. In the traditions of our people, the relationship between teacher and student is very deep and significant. In the Talmud is recorded a saying that one who teaches another’s child Torah is regarded by the tradition as one who gave birth to the child. (Mentor), by entering into this relationship you are agreeing to help (Talmid) know what she needs to know in order to fulfil her new role in life, to bring her into the community of her peers, to support her as she steps forward to meet the challenges of her developing identity and to respect the boundaries between you. Do you understand? [Space for affirmation] (Talmid), by entering into this relationship you are agreeing to receive instruction from (Mentor), to show kavod for her Torah, to benefit from her experience and to respect the boundaries between you. Do you understand? [Space for affirmation]

If either of you feel the need to define any further aspects of this relationship in order to ensure the mutual trust and security required for learning, now is the time to discuss them.

[Space for discussion]

As for myself, I stand in witness of this relationship of teacher and student, and promise to support you both in your new roles to the best of my ability. I now invite you each to affirm your new relationship to one another in language drawn from our tradition:

Mentor:

כי לקח טוב נתתי לכם, תורתי אל-תעזבו

“For I give you good instruction–do not forsake my teaching.” (Prov. 4:2)

Talmid:

תורה היא וללמוד אני צריך / צריכה

“This is Torah, and I must learn.” (bBer 62a)

The second (optional) part of the ritual would involve the talmid receiving an aliyah in order to publicly affirm the new role she is stepping into, ideally with the mentor present to introduce the talmid to the congregation. This part of the ritual should of course be omitted in the event that the transition in question is of a personal nature or would cause undue embarrassment.

Finally, some thought ought to be given to marking an end to the mentor/talmid relationship. At some point in every transition the most intense period has passed and the individual has more or less adjusted to their new place in life and their community. The talmid and mentor should seriously consider marking this occasion with a siyyum of some kind, for example by jointly sponsoring a kiddush to honor the distance the talmid has come in their personal development.