Echoes of the Past, Rituals of the Future
It was the morning before Yom Kippur and I hadn’t done tashlich yet, but there was another errand involving a trip to nature on my checklist; I needed to deposit some bones.
The idea of making a pilgrimage to the forest to deposit chicken bones might sound strange to some people, but I can’t put them in the compost and the idea of throwing something that was a part of a living creature into a garbage can is utterly despicable. It became a sort of ritual that I do from time to time. I only consume ethically raised animal products and I only consume meat occasionally; when I feel that my body hasn’t been getting what it needs from tofu, so it takes a few months before my stash of chicken bones starts to take up too much space in the freezer. It became a true pilgrimage for me. It’s a time to press pause and remember that the strength and nourishment that I receive originates in from the wildness of nature, a time to acknowledge that other beings need to die in order for me to live, and to remember that ultimately, I am part of that same cycle.
So anyways, I decided that maybe I could combine these two rituals; instead of using breadcrumbs in water to embody the things from the past year that I wish to leave behind, that job could be transferred to bones. After half an hour of walking, I reached a dry riverbed that only flows during part of the winter, and I went inside. As I contemplated the things that I am now ready to let go of, I imagined the energy of the absent water that will eventually come and wash away the energy that is pouring out of my consciousness.
As a kid I attended a “Conservadox” (traditional) synagogue, and back then there was a lot of controversy over what was the correct type of Judaism. I, along with many of my friends, came to embrace Orthodoxy. On the surface Orthodoxy seemed to contradict my values as a teenage millennial because it excluded women from wearing a tallit and leading services, but beneath the surface Orthodoxy was deep and authentic and it didn’t bend over backwards to keep up with the times. To me the choice was between something shallow and inauthentic and something that excluded women from leadership roles. There was no third option. I wasn’t the only one who felt that way about the Conservative and Reform movements–today these movements contain a fraction of the members that they had back when I was a young lad. To Israelis it was always either Orthodox Judaism or no Judaism at all. I once heard a young Israeli remark, “You see, in Israel we have spirituality because we all go to India, but in Palestine all they have is a fundamentalist religion.”
I switched to a Modern Orthodox high school, studied in a yeshiva in Israel for my gap year, and continued to learn in a yeshiva part time during part of my college years. Around the time when I moved to Israel following my BA, I started to have doubts about certain aspects of the religion and ultimately sympathized with an essay by a Conservative rabbi espousing that the Torah is partially divine and partially human. I encountered elements of Judaism that were much less politically correct than what was taught by outreach organizations such as NCSY during my interactions with the yeshivish community in Brooklyn and discovery of the political issues in Israel. I realized that attitudes about inferiority of women and supremacy of the Jewish people have a genuine basis in the sacred texts.
My main issue with Judaism is the obsessive focus on the Jewish people. It’s impossible to have a conversation about Judaism without someone saying, “Wait so does that apply to non-Jews too?” I don’t wish to identify myself in that type of way. I’m not “a Jew.” I’m Jewish. That’s an important part of who I am, but it is just one part. Most importantly, I am a person and I am a part of the earth. Sometimes it feels impossible to say blessings without the whole “us,” thing popping up. I don’t believe that obsessing over being part of an “us,” is conducive to spiritual growth, especially if that “us” is sanctified over “them.”
There are things going on in this country that are the antithesis of what I stand for, and they are being done in the name of Judaism. In order to succeed in mobilizing enough opposition to these things we need to have a Judaism that is truly antithetical to the Judaism that they are practicing. Mainstream orthodoxy is too pareve. Rabbis generally don’t bash gay people over the podium, but they also don’t create an atmosphere that would enable the LGBTQ community to feel safe and excited about participating. Most rabbis don’t support settler violence, but they also don’t have enough passion about it to succeed in bringing about a change.
They are internally conflicted.
“Well, homosexuality is prohibited by the Torah, so we can’t openly embrace it, but at the same time it’s important to display kindness towards all of our brethren.”
“Well, stabbing sheep and burning down houses is wrong, but settling our precious Judea and Samaria is a sacred act.”
There was one time since my departure from Orthodoxy when I encountered a Judaism that made me feel truly alive. That was when I participated in Adamah, a Jewish organic farming and intentional community apprenticeship at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center in Connecticut.
We studied texts about the deep connection between Judaism and the earth, and then we went out to the field and brought these texts to life. We engaged in a form of worship that involved sitting in a circle on the floor, and fusing sentences from the siddur with tunes that inspired us alongside original meditative practices. On Shavuot we excavated the Holy Temple’s celebration of thankfulness for our agricultural produce from beneath two thousand years of sediment, except in the new version, the first harvest of the season was offered as a sacrifice to our cherished compost pile. The type of Judaism that I encountered in Connecticut wasn’t obsessed with the Jewish people and it didn’t see the land of Israel as the only soil that is holy.
Following this experience I went to Thailand and participated in the “Deep Ecology Internship,” at Gaia Ashram, a center for sustainability and nature-based spirituality. Before meals we stood in a circle around our delicious display of abundance. We rubbed our hands together to generate energy and then placed our hands adjacent to our neighbor’s such that the flow of energy traversed throughout the circle. Then, whoever felt a calling to speak would say an original blessing commemorating the infinite love and generosity that Mother Earth has bestowed upon us through the food that she provides.
I was planning to organize my own camping retreat but it became apparent that I lacked the marketing capabilities. I wanted to introduce a Friday night ritual in which we would all pass around the cup of wine and say intentions about bringing sanctity into our day of rest. I imagined that would enable people to see that it is possible to bring holiness into our lives in way that echoes thousands of years of tradition but is also alive and vibrant today, and doesn’t go off for an hour about how the Jews are so much better than the other nations and our language is better than their languages too.
Today I don’t have traditional beliefs. I think the Hebrew god was a breakthrough at its time by placing the divine ideal above the lusts and squabbles of anthropomorphized mythology, but today I find him to be overly human. A truly perfect entity wouldn’t elevate one nation over another, and wouldn’t speak directly to that one specific nation, leaving them with the task of enlightening all of those who are still stumbling through the darkness. I believe that I have as much to learn from my fellow human as she has to learn from me. I believe that the purpose of religion is to engage in practices that infuse us with feelings of love and connectedness that extend beyond the borders of tribe and kin.
A spirituality that is rooted in tradition but also burning with passion for values inspired by the full spiritual journey of humanity into the 21st century may just be the only thing that can change the treacherous course that our ship is heading in.
