September 2009, Vulnerability and the High Holidays

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September 2009/

Tishrei 5770

A publication of

A JOURNAL OF JEWISH RESPONSIBILITY

the High Holidays:
Vulnerability &
Embodied Practice

Shira Koch Epstein Answering Prayers. . . . . . . 1

Leonard Gordon Facing Our Vulnerability. . . 2

Philip Schultz Grace Schulman Gail Mazur Agi Mishol A Collaborative Poem A Heart Has Been Broken . . 4

Hanna Tiferet Siegel Threads .............. 5

Josh Rolnick Hanging by a Cell Phone . . 6

Benjamin D. Sommer Torah, Ritual, Body, Jew . . 8

Shaul Magid Yom ha-Kippurim and Tisha b’Av: The Commonality of Opposites. . . . . . . . . . . 9

Toba Spitzer Coming Closer . . . . . . . . . 10

Penina V. Adelman ToFastor Not ......... 12

Liz Lerman Dancing on the Holiest Day ........... 13

Aryeh Cohen Starting up with God . . . . 16

Niles Goldstein NiSh’ma ............. 17

Morris J. Allen
Sh’maEthics . . . . . . . . . . 20

The month of Elul is designed in the Jewish calendar to help prepare us for the transition from the old year to the new one. It’s a period of in-betweenness, a liminal time that invites openness; indeed that urges us to open ourselves to

vulnerability. This issue of Sh’ma explores just that vulnerability — a theme that seems

especially pertinent now, faced as so many of us are with a financial vulnerability unlike

any we’ve faced in this country since the 1930s. A line of Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav

serves as inspiration to four noted poets who collaborate on a poem — see page four.

This issue also features a series of articles examining when rituals help — or, for that

matter, fail to help — us in confronting vulnerability, specifically how fasting, such a

prominent feature of the this festival season, sharpens or dulls the senses.

This month we introduce a new column — launched by Aryeh Cohen — devoted to

addressing idols and the contemporary meaning of idolatry. “What,” asks Cohen, “are the

idols that you had to/still have to/should have smash(ed) to get to Canaan?”

Finally, we also now change, as we do every September, the theme of our regular

column devoted to practical ethics. We spent the last year looking at homelessness. This

year, we turn to kashrut — namely, the ethical implications of the food that we set before

us on our tables: how we get it, how we prepare it, how we consume it, how we render it

holy or profane. Morrris Allen launches the ten-month conversation on our back page.

Shana tova u’metukah — may it be a sweet and healthy, a full and fulfilling year. —SB

Answering Prayers

SHIRA KOCH EPSTEIN

To subscribe:

877-568-SHMA www.shma.com

“Avinu Malkeinu, please grant me a job with benefits; a pension fund that actually earns rather than loses this year; and health insurance that covers our medications this year…”

How ironic that on this year when so many of us find ourselves in need, the first day of Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat, a day on which we traditionally forgo petitionary prayers like Avinu Malkeinu. I imagine that for many of my congregants, this is a relief. For the many who do not believe in an interventionist God, is there a place in our worship for prayers of petition?

First, it is important to clarify that although our traditional tefillot include prayers of petition, according to the Mishnah (Brachot 9: 3) prayers that ask God to intervene in matters that are already determined are uttered in vain. It is folly to ask God to change the gender of a fetus or to undo a disaster that has already occurred; instead we are to use prayer as a way to access the strength and power of the Divine to help us contend with our troubles. As Abraham Joshua Heschel writes, “Man in prayer does not seek to impose his will upon God; he seeks to impose God’s will and mercy upon himself.” (“On Prayer,” Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity, p. 259)

The essence of petition in our tradition is not to ask for gifts but to access attributes of the Divine in dealing with issues that we face in life. The bakashot, or prayers of request, of the weekday Amidah, follow a formula. For example, the prayer for wisdom praises God for being wise, and then embraces the God of wisdom. The underlying concept of all petition is the understanding that we recognize Divine attributes, and the request is that we, as beings made in the Divine image, can access these attributes in our own lives.