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Dear Rivy, My daughter is getting married and we are having a Jewish wedding. Her father and stepfather are not Jewish. I would like her to dance with her dads to �Butterfly Kisses� by Bob Carlisle, but some lyrics might not be appropriate at a Jewish wedding. For example, one paragraph says �Butterfly Kisses after bedtime prayer.� My daughter�s future mother-in-law objects to this � she tells me that Jews don�t say bedtime prayers. I am not sure this is true because I feel that God doesn�t really care when you speak with Him. I am trying so hard to be respectful. This song means a lot, because when my daughter was young her dads always gave her butterfly kisses on her cheek. Can you help? I honor your attempt to keep the peace. Weddings tend to bring out not necessarily the best in otherwise level-headed, well-meaning folks. Must be part of the magic of the day. I see three issues here that need attention: first the issue of Jewish bedtime prayers; second, the matter of challenging in-laws; and finally, it may be helpful to link your question with larger notions apropos this time of the year � that slow but sure advance of the High Holidays. Jews do say prayers at bedtime. Actually, when in doubt it would be safe to assume that given just about any situation, there is a fitting Jewish prayer. Recall that instructive scene in the indispensable classic of Jewish films, Fiddler on the Roof? The rabbi is approached with a sheilah, a question of Jewish law: �Is there a blessing for the Czar?� Though it is not among the most critical questions posed to a rabbi, it surely has become the most well-known. In this slightly self-deprecating, albeit comical scene, a truth is hidden: Jews have lots of blessings for lots of occasions, including bedtime. In fact, our tradition teaches that one should recite the most basic and perhaps most well-known of all prayers, the Sh�ma at bedtime. The core obligation of the Sh�ma, as it states in the words of the prayer itself, is that one should recite it when one lies down and when one rises. Hence, the time for the recitation of the Sh�ma is in the morning and in the evening. Though the saying of the Sh�ma is incorporated into synagogue liturgy, there is a practice to recite the prayer again in private as one lies down to go to sleep. This saying of the Sh�ma is combined with penitential paragraphs that reflect the precarious circumstances of lying down to sleep. Hamlet knew of these wobbly moments and himself declares: �To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: aye, there�s the rub; for in that sleep of death what dreams may come?� The Jewish prayer evokes this primal fear. To paraphrase; Please, God and God of my ancestors, lay me to sleep in peace and awaken me in peace. May I sleep quietly, undisturbed by bad dreams or apprehensions. May I be whole before You; may You light up my eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death, for You bring light to the eyes of the living. Jews do have bedtime prayers, though they are not of the kneel-before-the-bed-sort, we do have them. Onto the in-laws. When Adam sees Eve for the first time, the Torah tells us that he remarks, �Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.� That Eve was fashioned from Adam may cause pause to feminists � it does indeed lay the groundwork for an essential element crucial to marriage. We ask a lot of a young couple. They stand under the chuppah, the marriage canopy, and there we join them in marriage. How peculiar, these two hitherto unrelated persons are now expected to behave as family! How can this happen? The groom�s family has its customs and idiosyncrasies and the bride�s family has its own charming eccentricities, yet we say to them, �You two are now family.� The Torah wisely prefigures this astounding phenomenon and sets up an object lesson for eternity. Adam and Eve were one: �bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.� Husband and wife are now truly related in the most intimate way possible. That�s a miracle and perhaps a painful leap for in-laws. The sooner parents-in-law get this, the happier will their children be. A husband and wife�s first devotion must be to each other. Mom and Dad, move over. The first place for in-laws to display this approach is in the wedding plans. Though it is never easy, taking into consideration your child�s in-laws and their opinions is critical, though easier said then done. Indeed, it may very well have been called Paradise, because of the very absence of in-laws. Humor aside, only we can make our lives paradise-like and that must be through our own actions. Wedding peace leads to marriage peace and that is certainly the ultimate goal for all. In this day and age of so many battles worldwide, you and I may not be able to make peace in the world, but we can surely own the responsibility for peace in our homes, family and community. It might even be the first step to that larger peace out there waiting to happen. Finally, I can�t help linking your question to this time of the year. The days are shortening, the summer is over and we Jews are thinking about t�shuvah, repentance. The Mishna teaches us that though with Yom Kippur we can achieve forgiveness, that forgiveness is restricted to the God/human realm. For forgiveness to be realized between human beings it must be attended to before the lofty Day of Atonement. Before one approaches God with feelings of regret and remorse, an individual is expected to repair the brokenness between one�s fellow persons. That usually involves some messiness. Our Torah helps us navigate the world � being at odds with others is joyless. Let us rise to the occasion. This is the season for repair: in-laws, family and friends are a good place to start.

Posted September 15, 2006

Bitten by the snake

Rivy Poupko Kletenik • JTNews Columnist

I am so deeply disturbed about the events of this summer. It seems like all we Jews have been experiencing is misery. I do not know how to get out of this overwhelming sense of sadness and depression. Is the situation in Israel never going to get better? Are we always going to be victimized as Jews? Please help me to find some relief and hope. Recent events have certainly been painful and have arrived in quick succession. I do not know anyone who is not feeling the despair that you describe. The prophet Amos expresses it this way: �As a man who runs from a lion, to be attacked by a bear and gets into his house, leans with his hand on the wall, and is bitten by a snake.� We humans, so enamored with the illusive feelings of security, are foiled yet again. I recall with no small degree of angst my sensation of the world caving in when an early call from Israel woke us up. I frantically leaped to put the television on that morning of September 11, 2001. Our family had just returned from a year in Israel, a year known as the first of the Second Intifada. It was months punctuated with horrific acts of terror, each more dreadful than the previous: bus rides became acts of bravery; eating in an outdoor caf� in downtown Jerusalem was heroic. Each week brought new brutal inhumane forms of terror. As summer ended, I confess I was looking forward to the security of the United States, to entering a mall without purse checks and to sending children off to school without primal fears of them not returning. I learned a painful traumatic lesson that morning as I watched, but could not believe, the second jet hit the twin towers. It was as if the carpet had been ripped violently from beneath my feet. What, terror here in America? This rude awakening returned uninvited with a wicked vengeance this month. As a community, we were already in anguish about the situation in Israel and then, as Amos describes, thinking we are safe at home we are bitten by the snake. How do we deal with the pain? Where can we find comfort and healing? I can only struggle together with everyone else in a search for answers. A seemingly light book from our scriptures comes to mind. One that is generally seen as sweet and perhaps pastoral, but as Aviva Zorenberg points out, the Book of Ruth is as laden with tragedy as is the Book of Job. But Ruth also reverberates with comfort and lessons on healing. It is a story that stands as a strong rejoinder to calamity and its ancient tale casts honor upon Pam Waechter, of blessed memory. As Rabbi Jim Mirel read from the verses in his eulogy for Pam, I was deeply moved. He quoted an oft-cited affirmation that Ruth lovingly pronounces to her mother-in-law, Naomi: �Entreat me not to leave thee, and to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God; where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried.� The poignancy of the selection was almost too much to bear. Pam Waechter was a woman who had chosen to be Jewish and whose choice of God and people had indeed led to her place of death. Until then I had held myself together. But the very realness of her faith being her fate was too raw. Joining the destiny of the Jewish people has historically been about belief but also about courage � our destiny is a destiny of promise that bears no insignificant risk. In the first five verses of Ruth, Naomi is transformed in a shocking Job-like fashion from wealthy matriarchal prominence to dire widowhood, a grief-stricken mother who has buried two sons. Naomi is abandoned by one daughter-in-law and joined by the other, Ruth. As they move through the story we can learn three powerful lessons from their responses to grief: they mourn, they perform grand acts of kindness and they build with hope for the future. Together they traverse the path traveled 10 years earlier and cross into the land of Israel from the fields of Moab. Upon her return, Naomi declares to her former neighbors, �Call me not Naomi, call me Marah, for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me back home empty.� There is no shame in heartache and no indignity in sorrow. Let us not be shy in our sadness, let us mourn with voice. Certainly we are in a time of grief and confusion. We were full we are now empty. But Ruth is more than mourning. The Midrash wonders why it is in the canon, but it stands proudly in scripture for one reason alone: to teach us the power of acts of loving kindness. It is a book occupied almost pathologically with chesed, kindness. Ruth�s self-sacrificing cleaving to Naomi begins the tale of love and of kindness, and continues as she goes gleaning among the paupers to feed Naomi. The antidote to tragedy is redemptive acts of love. Each of us must now take on some act of repair. In that that gigantic mysterious metaphysical world there has been a dreadful miserable breach. The kindest of persons was hunted and brutalized, the innocent were maimed, and the good were violated. Take something on � volunteer to do some gleaning of your own. Go where you have never gone before and in those acts you will find relief. Finally, the future: Ruth and Naomi learn how to heal. Together they conspire to force the future. A few female ablutions and the plan is underway. Boaz recognizes Ruth�s exquisite character and the love between Boaz and Ruth becomes the love that births the future leadership of Israel. There is no wallowing here. Mourning and loving kindness give way to the embrace of life. Though this summer is a summer of our discontent, let us hope for better days. Let us banish the lion, the bear and the snake with ultimate acts of loving kindness and may they serve as the foundation upon which we will construct a future of peace and security. Rivy Poupko Kletenik is an internationally renowned educator and Judaic Principal at the Seattle Hebrew Academy. If you have a question that�s been tickling your brain, send Rivy an email at kletenik6@aol.com.

Posted August 18, 2006

Fate or free will?

Rivy Poupko Kletenik • JTNews Columnist

Dear Rivy, I am reading the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. I am enjoying it very much. The storyline is laced with fascinating religious-themed exchanges between characters. Though the discussions are of a Christian nature they have gotten me thinking about Judaism. One conversation that comes up in the book is around the interplay between the issues of predetermination and free will. Does Judaism believe that people enter this world with a set role assigned to them, with a preordained fate? If so, how does this relate to the Jewish idea of free will? Though my answer won�t make for light summer reading, I think you raise valid questions that weigh on people�s minds. So set the beach book aside and get ready for Jewish Thought 101. First let us consider the question: does Judaism believe that people come into this world with a predetermined fate? A verse from the Book of Job will launch the investigation. Job is our quintessential tormented, suffering Biblical character. He opens his first speech after the catastrophic tragic misfortune that has rendered him a bereaved father, mourning for 10 lost children and a prosperous man stripped of all his worldly possessions. He cries out cathartically with this ominous gloomy declaration: �Let the day I was born perish, likewise, (Lailah), the night that declared: A male has been conceived. � The Talmudic sage Rabbi Chaninah bar Pappa interprets the verse homiletically. He tells us that a heavenly scene is hinted at here. There is an angel appointed to oversee conception, named Lailah (night), who takes the drops from which an embryo will be conceived, sets it before the Holy Blessed One and says, �Master of the Universe! This drop, what is its destiny? Will the person that develops from it be mighty or weak, wealthy or poor?� A seemingly capricious-like scene snuck from above. What are we to think? An angel, a drop, a child yet to be born. This sobering arbitrary assigning of attributes must snap us to our senses. Does the Almighty thus determine the fate of each human being before their entry into the world? Are matters of wealth and weaknesses pre-assigned in such a seemingly random fashion? Are those now living in squalid sub-human poverty doing so because of this Divine declaration? That certainly sounds frighteningly like predetermination. In this Divine scene, each human being is assigned a set fate: mighty or weak, rich or poor. Is this what we believe? Predetermination seemed more the stuff of Christian Calvinists. Is this Jewish? What is the nature of this predetermined fate? Does it not thwart our notions of free will? Truth be told, who of us does not enter this world with much prearranged? Most would concede that prior to birth, much is already in place: our economic status, our social strata � let alone parents and siblings. And then there is the matter of genes. The more we learn about genetics the more understand that they hold the secret to our personality, preferences and predilections. Despite this, the angelic scene of pre-assignments on high remains astounding. Though we may get past our initial astonishment, the lack of choice and the overwhelming degree of predetermination is haunting and humbling. We humans enjoy an illusion of powerful ultimate control � indeed, we revel in our dominion. To realize the reality, that we are but creatures of fate, victims of happenstance, is deeply disturbing. Is this the sum total of the human condition, fate determined even before a swim in embryonic fluid? But wait: respite and reprieve are in sight. A critical aspect of each human�s existence is categorically not predetermined. Here is the rest of the Talmudic teaching: �The angel does not mention whether the child is destined to be wicked or righteous.� This accords with Rabbi Chaninah�s principle, �everything is in the hands of heaven except for the awe of heaven.� The Talmud reassures us that the moral path of each individual is left to self-determination, awe of heaven is outside the bounds of even heaven. Free will freely reigns. Consider these selections from Abraham Joshua Heschel�s work, The Prophets: �Man lives in bondage to his natural environment, to society, and to his own �character;� he is enslaved to his needs, interests, and selfish desires. Yet to be free means to transcend nature, society, �character,� needs, interests, desire.� How then is freedom conceivable? Freedom is an act of self-engagement of the spirit, a spiritual event. We are free to choose between good and evil � we are not free in having to choose. We are, in fact, compelled to choose. Thus, all freedom is a situation of God�s waiting for man to choose. Heschel begins with an echo of our Talmudic passage. Though much in the nature of life is predestined, the truly magnificent aspects of our humanity are the opportunities of transcendence, moments of lofty choices of the spiritual realm. Here a person�s true free choice is expressed. Our grand human predominance is expressed in going beyond our set situation in making choices that demonstrate our human spirit. Many of our choices are so mundane. What do I eat? What do I wear? Of what do I speak? But herein lies the potential for greatness, where our choices become grandiose expressions of human free choice. Do I select the easy comfortable path or do I elect to stretch beyond? Am I satisfied to walk on the path of the popular or am I ready to accept the path of destiny? Choosing to stand up for the oppressed, to observe kashrut, Sabbath, to converse gossip-free, and to judge others favorably is to move upward and beyond. To accept one�s preordained proclivities, to translate them into freedom and thus to respond to God�s patient waiting, these are Jewish notions of free will, angels on high notwithstanding. Rivy Poupko Kletenik is an internationally renowned educator and Head of School at the Seattle Hebrew Academy. If you have a question that�s been tickling your brain, send Rivy an email at kletenik6@aol.com.

Posted July 21, 2006

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