Shabbat Shalom, Jan. 12th Parshat Sh'mot

Friday, January 12th in Uncategorized | No comments

Last week, we went from Yaakov receiving the prophesy of the date of the redemption and then the brothers creating the initial cause for exile that requires redemption. In just a week, we jump 210 years to the depths of exile and slavery and degradation and the begining of the redemption and freedom. In just a week!

You know how it is when you're sick? When you're really down and out? It seems like forever. Even if it's a 24 hour virus and you know that shortly you will be ok, it's like being in hell; in exile from life and the energy that courses through us and gives us life, including to active association and participation with others. We're alone in our misery. Stuck on the outside. And it is indeed, hellish.

As soon as we're ok, we're better, we don't hang out with being sick, being out of it. We are so itching to move forward, being within life, now that we have been 'redeemed' from the place we were stuck in. Redemption in essence is that whatever was before- dissolves, evaporates. Almost as if it never was. The newness of everything is the spirit which gives life it vibrancy. So redemption is connected with renewal of our life force and now everything's better then before.

We say in the Passover Hagaddah, "In every generation we are obligated and required to see ourselves as if we were redeemed from the slavery and exile of Egypt." So you would think that the Torah, that HaShem would invest many pages and words to report and describe what that was like. But there are only a relatively few descriptive sentences that do that. Why? If we are honest with ourselves, if we allow ourselves to be truly aware and cognizant of the dissatisfaction of what is missing in our lives, what pains us, our deepest aspirations that seem so out of reach, we find ourselves close to despair and that seems to dangerous to risk.

HaShem through the Torah wants us to know two critical things: First, if we don't allow ourselves to be aware, cognizant and feel the effects of our own personal exile, we can never get to true redemption. It is the engine that drives us. And second and most importantly, it is possible to jump right into redemption. Yes, there are processes we need go through, but we don't have to belabor them. We just have to know that to get to redemption, we just have to be willing and know we are able to jump. It is a choice. To leave behind what was and receive the better unknown that awaits us.

Shabbat Shalom, Parshat Bo and Maybe Something Controversial, Finally.

Friday, January 26th, 2007 in Uncategorized

When Hamas won the Palestinian election, I studied the op-ed, opinion and editorial pages of Haaretz, the left-wing, intellectual newspaper. Among those of my world, here in Tekoa and Yerushalayim, few, if any read Haaretz. I do and not because it reflects my tastes and opinions and affirms my belief. I need to to be as connected to modern Israel as well as to the Holy Land, and extend beyond the comfrortable and familiar American/Shlomo/Yishuv religious world.

Who are the Israelis, who are my brothers and sisters who live in Kfar Sava and Ofakim, in Haifa and the kibbutzim, in the Galil and in the Negev? What do they think, feel and believe? What information is coming to them and how is it expressed? What are their assumptions and presumptions and what is the societal conditioning that shaped their views and conceptual framework? I also want to know and understand those whose entire outlook and frame of reference is apparently, so opposite mine.

Haaretz gives me much of this. I've learned things about Israel that are critical pieces to my own puzzle of 'figuring it out' without which, I would be almost impoverished. Reading it over the years has not neccessarily changed or altered my beliefs, but it has surely educated and challenged my thinking.

One of the op-ed articles was written by HaRav Menachem Frohman, the Rav of Tekoa, my village in the high Judean desert, due south of Yerushalayim and within view of the Dead Sea. It is one of the communities Olmert plans to give to our cousins. Everyone was writing about whether to deal with Hamas. Do you talk one who wont recognize you? Do you respect the choice of the electorate? And many more such questions. We all know of the choice the Israeli government made, as well as most of the rest of the world.

Rav Frohman is an anomaly. He is the Rav and resident of a 'right-wing settlement' and he begs us to talk to them. And indeed, he has! He has sat with Sheikh Yassin and participated in Sulha's - traditional Arab reconcilliation ceremonies and gatherings. He doesn't fit in anyone's 'box'. For him it's not about politics. This is a religious struggle and can only be solved by believers. Hamas agrees with him and respects him, while they don't trust or respect the politicians with their scheming under the influence of nations operating under their own agendas and interests. Further for him it's not about national boundaries, security arrangements, competing claims and sovreignty. For Rav Frohman, it's about the sons of Abraham who serve the One G-d to get beyond all this and live together within G-d's Revelation.

That's the best way I can capsulize it in a few words. Of course, his vision is infinitely expanded, more reasoned and explicated. I tried to find it through Haaretz's search engine and Google, but failed. Doind a Google search using his name, you can find other articles and interviews with him. It's worth the effort.

There was an decent size uproar about his piece. That Shabbat was Parsta Bo ; Bo El Paroh - Go To Pharoh. We walked together a bit and I said that it had occurred to me that the message was clear: If HaShem says to go and talk to Paroh, why can't we talk to Hamas? It's just a question of what our message is, how we represent it and how we with live and stand with it. He responded that the synchronicity of the issue and the portion of the week and it's message, never occurred to him. It tickled him and I suspect affirmed his instincts and vision.

Reb Shlomo told a Jewish Renewal group in February, 1994, eigth months before he left the world, that if the AMshinover Rebbe would deal with our cousins, everything would be different. The high Rebbe's, of which the Amshinover is the last, spoke from the Etz HaChaim - the Tree of Life. He said that the Etz HaDa'as - the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, has no dominion over the Etz HaChaim.

What would I say to 'them'? I have no idea. I can't imagine how I could come to a mutual understanding with them that does not compromise my knowing that the Land of Israel was given in its entirety to the Jewish People for eternity. And we are all better off it not being up to me. But I do trust people like Rav Frohman and certainly the Amshinover. And they are far from being alike outside of the both serving HaShem Echad in truth, the most refined and profound humility, the highest Love of Israel, the Jewish People, indeed the world.

I bless us all to somehow and someway, learn to speak with those with whom it is most difficult and maybe, most critical and bring a little peace to the world. Shabbat Shalom

The last Revolution: For What Else Is There Left To Do?

Monday, December 18th, 2006 in Uncategorized

To begin, this a piece I have begun working. It's very parochial, but who knows who's out there reading this anyway! It's unfinished.

The Last Revolution: For What Else Is There Left To Do?
The prison of ghetto Torah and the redemption of the Day After Tomorrow.

We Jewish People have seen it all and we've done it all. We've been slaves and we've been free people. We've been sovereign in our Land and we've been exiles among the nations. We've been free people through of our association with the Creator, the Torah and the unbroken chain of 4000 year of history from Abraham, while living in exile, poverty and oppression. And we've been slaves, having adopted and mastered the forms and functions of foreign societies, by seeking and attaining wealth and compromised power.

We are a fulfilled prophecy, having returned to our Land, Jews governing Jews, but yet still sad, still fearful, still unsafe, still in conflict from within and without. And we are unfulfilled prophesy living in exile amongst the nations, copying their ways and holding back - holding back from being the paradigm Light Unto The Nations. We are today indeed the embodiment of all the contradictions of our history – both our glories and our tragedies.

Hakol Kol Yaakov, HaYadaim Yedey Esav

We have the voice of Jacob/Israel, proclaiming that All is One and Liberty to All, but invest our efforts and energies in mastering and utilizing the hands of Esau with the concomitant distortions, confusions and necessary distractions. Many amongst us feel like slaves despite the political freedom in our Land while others feel free while still in exile distant from our Land. We are wealthier, more powerful and influential then anytime before in our history but yet divided amongst ourselves, lacking a common vocabulary that would overcome our impotence in uniting with common vision and destiny enabling us to make the transcendent, manifest.

We have conferences and symposiums, conventions and convocations, seminars and workshops all designed to explain ourselves to each other, still yet trying to define who we are, where we've come from, how we arrived at this place and time, what are our ills and strengths, what must we fix and how, and all of this leading to what? We produce research papers, articles and books. We film, record and document everything. We are supremely sophisticated in utilizing technology and invest an immense amount of resources and energy in gathering and disseminating all this. And yet inside Israel the majority of the people are startingly and tragically ignorant of the most basic aspects of our history, our traditions and native wisdom and ways. And outside the Land the vast majority remain bored and uninterested in even asking, why be a Jew.

After all this time and effort, how can this be? What is missing? What is left to do? And what are we waiting for?

"First-Principles"

On May5th, The Forward, left-leaning weekly Jewish newspaper in New York, published a scholarly opinion piece by Pulitzer-Prize winner, David Mamet. Entitled "On the Inevitable Decay Of Governments," Mamet traces the journey from the original uniting of individuals in common cause to the eventual distortion of 'first-principles' that time and the impetus towards self-preservation, produces. And he makes clear that the process to insure such preservation embodies the nutrients of its own destruction. He was writing from the perspective of one examining the United States and concluding that the rot has set in, suggesting an end to the American experiment that can be foreseen.

Meditating on the distortion that is both the political system of government and worse, its manifestation, he could have been speaking of Israel. But there is a critical difference between 'us' and 'them.' White people landed on the shores of the 'New World' 514 years ago. Abraham arrived in the Land 4,000 years ago. America as a nation was born 230 years ago; the Jewish People 3,400 years ago. America's 'First-Principles" are the Declaration of Independence proclaiming the freedom to pursue happiness and the Constitution, a body of amendable laws of man designed to govern a society where each individual is free to pursue his vision of happiness.

The Jewish People's 'First-Principles' are also two. The first is Abraham's announcement that the only reality is that there is One Creator of All and that that reality requires us to be humble, generous, courageous and just and kind to all. The second is the Torah, a Revelation from a Source beyond the mind of man, of what to do, how to do it and how to be the one's to do it, all in service of and in the Name of the One and Only God.

And so one could say that our 'First-Principles' are the first of all principles and that that being first invests them with an endurance whose stamina and resilience command a certain surrender.

It is the contention here that a critical mass of the Jewish People need to reconnect, relearn and reaffirm our "First-Principles' to know and understand all that defines us, all that confuses us, all that unites us and all that confuses us. With the wisdom gained from such effort and the works that follow, we shall arrive at the moment of universal purpose: "V'Ne'emar: v'Haya HaShem, l'Melech Ahl Kol Ha'aretz: BaYom HaHu, YeHiye HaShem Echad, u'Shmo Echd" And thus He said: The Name will be King over all the Earth. And on that Great Day, He will be One and His Name will be One. Bringing us all the way back to Abraham. And therein lies the crux of our problems, ills, confusion and strife.

Talking About God

We Jewish People were given the job of being living witnesses that there is One Creator of All, that all answers lie in what is hidden within the number One and that there is a Great Day Coming to which all the nations of the planet are invited; that salvation of the individual is only complete when all are saved and that we have been endowed and invested with the capacity to make it so.

We Jewish People, who have been given this task of bringing the knowledge of One God, hate speaking of God. All our divisions and conflicts can be identified by and traced through the decay of our relationship to our 'First-Principles." Beyond the secular/religious divide, within the religious world, the view of God is different for a Jew living in the Land versus one still amongst the Nations. Here, one is evermore conscious of God active in history than one who's imperatives emerge from and defined by engagement with Washington, Wall Street, Hollywood and Harvard.

Those whose loyalties are expressed through uncompromising commitment to Torah Law, own a 'God-view' so different from the halachically liberal movements that, aside from some common vocabulary, an objective observer might be inclined to think they were unrelated religions. The Conservative Jew would argue that which distinguishes his view from the voluntary Reform view that allows for the question of whether there even is a God. No less, the Chassid with his Rebbe would testify that his path is truly God-conscious and directed, versus the Yeshiva-world Jew and his Rav do not even contend with God Himself, just His Laws.

What's In A Name? Stepping Back A Step

Who's 'we?' Upon reading these words, most will identify themselves as part of the 'us' to whom this is directed; as if it was written to him or herself. But who is 'us?' In this age of post-modern, moral relativism, there are almost as many different visions, assumptions and understandings of 'who is a Jew' and what it means to be a Jew.

This fact alone is in and of itself the best argument that everyone is wrong. And everyone is right. Because everyone can't be right and everyone can't be wrong! The position of the Charedi Posek HaDor (ultra-Orthodox acknowledged ruler of the generation) in this question is simply incompatible with that of a Reform rabbi who does not require a belief in G-d as he himself does not fully believe, who rejects the idea that Moshe Kibayl Torah m'Sinay – Moses received the Torah directly from G-d on Mt. Sinai, and rejects the presumption that the Orthodox world is even the authentic link the unbroken chain of Torah and Halachic development and therefore have any binding authority. Furthermore, there are dramatic differences in basic definitions of the who, what where why and how of 'the Jewish People.' Which we shall later explore in greater depth.

There is a teaching given over by Reb Shlomo Carlebach, zt"l in the name of the Baal Shem Tov, that "when Eliyahu HaNavi – Elijah the Prophet comes to announce the immanence of the arrival of the one who will be anointed King of Israel, he will come to all this with machlokes, al those with conflict and say, 'You are right and you are right.' But when Mashiach come, he will say, 'You are wrong and you are wrong.' And we all know it says in the Talmud, "Aylu v'aylu divrei Elokim chayim" – These understandings, positions and rulings and thes understandings, psitons and rulings, are the words of the Living G-d.

So what does a spiritually, intellectually and psychologically honest individual do when faced with the dilemma that everyone is right and everyone is wrong, while at the same time, everyone can't be right and everyone can't be wrong? If there was ever an essential conundrum, unsolvable Gordian Knot, despairing and defeating contradiction, what does one do, to where does one turn and where does the hope lay?

We have to do two things. First, we each individually have to take whatever it is we believe, think and feel and so-to-speak, put them in our back pockets and with humbleness of spirit, open hearts and open minds (they function like parachutes; only when they're open), a need to end strife and a hunger for truth – whatever the truth may be – as long as it is the truth, and return to the place before there was a 'we' and 'us' and 'me' and 'I.'

There is connective tissue that binds Jews together, consciously or not, willingly or not if. One needs no more proof than that we find ourselves caring enough about all this to passionately argue and fight over it and be enormously offended when another Jew disputes our identity, as opposed to simply opting out. As if we can't. As if there is some force beyond us, outside of us, yet inside of us, that compels us.

It is true that this is not the first generation in Jewish history to struggle over these issues. In recent times the Zionist enterprise has been a manifestation of this struggle. And we can go back 2500 years to the time of Ezra and Nechemya and see how 'who is a Jew' was the critical issue of the day and how it was dealt with. But there is a phenomena lurking in the shadows that reveal's mah nishtana ha'zman hazeh – what is critically unique about these times about this time! This phenomena of uncounted and unknown tens of thousands of young American Jews who simply don't give a damn. It's just not an issue. Being Jewish is so irrelevant to them that they don't know or care that there is a 'we' who are arguing over who 'they' are. This is another humbling reality that compels us not to be so attached to what we need things to be.

So we go finally arrive at addressing the question of approaching the dilemma in a way that gives hope to resolution. To be continued with the help of Heaven

My Chanukah Birthday Musings

Monday, December 18th, 2006 in Uncategorized

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Boker Tov, Moish! And Happy Birthday and Freilich'n Chanukah and Shavua Tov! And, and, and…

So now 'I'm 54' and something is different. I've picked up snatches of it over the last months. It's all still quite vague but the feeling persists that I'm getting closer, if not close. And since what I see, what I can see, is founded so much upon pieces of information gained over the last 17 years, it's really quite impossible to simply lay out in a concise, comprehensive and in any way, linear fashion. But who cares? I'll give it a-go anyway.

The vision of my life evolving in four essential stages has been emerging in greater relief of recent. They can be identified as follows:

Stage 1 – Dec.1952-May 1974, 21 and ½ Years.

This stage can be considered living fully within the dominant, protective space of home and family. Whatever independent experiences I had, and they were considerable, everything was defined and shaped by my parents' home and that their home was my home.

Stage 2 – June 1974-May 1989, 15 Years.

This period I see as the incubation time for a very round peg trying to find itself in a very square hole. One one level this is also true of the first stage of my life. Stage 2 however, was fully a confrontation with the world outside of the protective home and trying to find my own definitions.

The imperatives were imposed from the outside, in towards me. It was defined by the lens of a sophisticated, enlightened Modern Orthodox Judaism, itself shaped by the reality of life in the larger world of New York City during those tumultuous years. Not knowing any alternative or that an alternative was even possible, it was a time of trying to find myself within society's permissible reality.

Stage 3 – June 1989-Dec. 1994, 5 and ½ Years.

For me, this is still the dividing line to what I have seen as the halves of my life. The first half is defined as life within and defined by the 'straight' world and the second half, the 'hippie', counter-culture world and life on the fringes and margin's. This was a time of throwing off assumptions, presumptions, perspectives and approaches towards life, reality and the world, imposed from without.

It was time to formulate a world view that was authentic to everything life had presented to me. It was very much an effort to understand the meaning behind all that HaShem had thrown at me in a very complicated 36 years, so as to develop a life that was the manifestation of all that had I learned and experienced; to live it with an integrity that was prepared to pay any price not to compromise. Indeed if the first half seemed so much to me as a life of only compromise, then the second half was the rectification of that and the bringing of balance.

Stage 5 – Dec 1994-Dec.2006, 12 Years.

On a certain level, this stage really began in October of '94 when two life altering events took place. The first was meeting Rav Natan Greenberg, the first person to truly give me a chance to try and do work that reflected both my dreams as well as my talents. He gave me a chance to fail, so that I might succeed. I feel confident I accomplished both. (Yes, I believe failure can be an accomplishment, also.)

The second event was the passing of Reb Shlomo, zt"l. On this alone, I could write a book. For the present, I will say this: These two events created the pathway to the rest of my life. Whatever changes are still yet to come, this is the dividing line, the critical paradigm shift. It once again brought me into a reality that is defined fully by the collective Jewish imperatives of Torah, People and Land.

This was the time to struggle to reconcile all the stages heretofore. It was the time for me to learn how to assimilate all the different teachings and lessons into a unity that was as honest as it was filled with contradiction. It was a time once again, for the round peg to try finding his place in the square hole.

Despite the power and influence of the two October events, I find myself seeing December as the dividing line. It was on my solar birthday, the 14th that I left for an Aliyah to Israel I didn't know I was making at that time. Since so much of life is defined by one's home, Israel is my home and I could not conceive of life being any other way.

The significance of the seeming contradiction between the magnitude of the October events and December the dividing line will be discussed a little later. It is significant in understanding some of the hidden ways life evolves.

So now we come to it, Stage Now

Stage Now – December 2006 –

Again, it's my birthday today; the birthday that I identify with. It is the 26th day of Kislev. Parenthetically, 26 is the numerical equivalent of the Name of G-d. And it is also, the second day of Chanukah. About Chanukah and its significance in relationship to my birthday, I have explored much and have much to say. But not here and not now.

This week I am going to Uman in the Ukraine, to pray by the grave of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov. It is a powerfully magnetic place of pilgrimage that draws increasing thousands every year, even those that do not define themselves as Chassidim, let alone Breslover's.

I have never felt nor received a calling to go. Most of the people who define my personal world in Israel and many in the States have been. I received the call in October. At the same time, it came to a friend that he needs to sponsor a trip for me to Uman. The only question is how long it will take to discern the influence this journey will have on my life. That it will be critically significant is clear.

Once again, events that have occurred in October have been of a magnitude that marks it a sea change in my personal reality. And yet I feel that it is only now that I have embarked on the next stage. (The report of the rest of all the events are in a seven page piece I began just before Rosh HaShanah and completed a week ago. If you wish a copy, send me an e-mail)

The vague 'differentness' referred to at the beginning of this exercise begins to come into focus. There is a Torah from the Maharal of Prague, given over by Reb Shlomo as follows: Reb Shlomo says, "Everyone knows that there are 49 gates to go through, if you go through all the gates HaShem has prepared for you. So what happens when you pass through the 49th gate? There's the 50th gate. What's the 50th gate? You're just beginning."

Among the snatches of stuff picked up over the 17 plus second half years is the notion that everything is a preparation. There is clear vision that we are in the End/New Days; that the accelerating approach to the Ultimate Paradigm Shift necessarily comes with an exponential increase in the psychic/spiritual g-forces.

There is a prophesy: "Even Ma'asu HaBonim, Haytah L'Rosh Pina – The stone that the builders discarded, will become the Headstone." Just as our experience is the endless effort of the world to discard the Jewish People, that we will one day be the shining, honored leaders of the Coming World, so too, the round pegs in the Jewish square hole will be revealed to be the guiding lights showing the way to live in this New World. And everything leading up to that day is the preparation, the training grounds to know and become.

How do we know who are the ones? There is another prophesy: "Hinei Yamim Ba'im, Ne'um HaShem – Days are coming says the One. V'Hishlachti Ra'av Ba'Aretz – And I will send a famine to the Land. Lo Ra'av La'lechem, V'Lo Tzaamah La'Mayim – But the hunger will not be from bread and the thirst will not be for water. Kee Eem Lishmoah D'var HaShem – But just to hear the Word of the One."

The leaders and teachers of the Coming World are those that are already plugged into it and are learning about it by striving to live as if it was already here. They do it because they have already been 'stricken' with the prophetic famine. For this is a Torah that begins where all that most know from the Holy Books, ends. And within the Chosen People, there must be Ones Chosen to take the Nation and the World the last steps to the Great Day and Beyond.

So Here It Is:

On this day, the beginning of my 55th year of this life, I take the first step to make the outrageous statement, that I am one of those Chosen. And that this year is the beginning of my coming out party. Note of caution and disclaimer: I am light years from being a finished product. I am light years from being a model of the all the truths I know or anywhere near close to being a perfect or whole and balanced manifester of those truths. But it's time for me to once again test high failure so as to create high successes. I am confident I will accomplish both.

Blessings:

The Talmud teaches that on the day the anniversary of our birth, we have the power to bestow blessing. Reb Shlomo defines Bracha – blessing, as "always more." There is an empty space in the fabric of the world that becomes filled when a new life enters. That life is the 'more.' And that more is called Bracha.

Just as Rosh HaShanah is the day that each year the energy, vibrations and potential for 'newness' comes into the world, that on Chanukah, it is 'light' or joy on Purim or freedom on Pesach, so to the energy, vibrations and potential of the spiritual force, the Neshama we refer to as Moshe Pesach, residing in the body we identify as a Geller, enters into the world.

To 'give a bracha' (among many other things), is to pray, hope and attempt to reach to the Source of All and channel positive and potent benefit to a recipient in the physical world. That recipient, that vessel, can be a person, a venture, even a piece of bread.

If the blessing over a piece of bread is to release the sustaining and beneficial intent of the Creator, so to is the purpose of blessing a person infused with the prayer, hope and intent that the loftiest intent of the Creator be manifest by and released through that person. For the other to receive it, it must go through you and then you have, also.

So what 'Bracha K'Lali can I offer to you? What blessing can I bestow that will encompass all who receive it through this sharing? And that I will also then have?

I bless you and pray and hope you bless me back,
that those of us who are already striving to live in the world
as if it has already been Redeemed,
begin now to increasingly experience a reality
more of the Redeemed World than this World of Exile.

I bless us all that HaShem confirms to us
The dreams of our souls,
The Divine Source of our heartsongs,
Our visions of what is possible,
And of what must be,
The truths that we know and

Therefore justify the price we have paid in
Pain, suffering, and confusion,
Struggle, rejection and alienation,

I bless us all to reconnect without compromise,
To the blessing that is the world of all our soul brothers and sisters,
To the blessing of joy that could only be experienced in concert with them,

In secret knowledge that the blessing lies in the fact that these associations could not be calculated nor manufactured except from On Most High,

And therefore that this joy has indeed been received
from the Highest of Places,
And therefore is the Most High Joy!

That these associations are the blessings of experiencing and living the Unification of the Heavenly Jerusalem and the earthly Jerusalem,

That this Unification can only be built with blocks made of Joy,
And that the glue connecting the blocks is made of a gentle, grateful love.

And so I bless us to be joyously grateful and gratefully joyous and that this carry us lovingly through whatever still lies until, until…….

From my heart to yours,
Let the Light Shine Through

Peace, Moish

What Do I Do?

Tuesday, December 19th, 2006 in Uncategorized

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This was originally composed the Thursday before Rosh HaShanah as my 'message' for the New Year. Events and preparations prevented me from sending out. My intention was then to follow-up after the chagim and see how everything measured up. Once again, events of a compelling nature imposed themselves and it made little sense to try and yet come to any conclusions.

It is now December 3rd and the time as come to at least continue.

What Do I Do?

Part One: Preparing for the New Year

It's Thursday morning. I haven't davened yet. I Can't. Who's davening? Who's me? What defines me? Is it what I think? Or what I feel? Or what I do? Last Friday on the way home to Tekoa from Yerushalayim, having passed Efrat, a big rock was thrown at me by one of our cousin's and I received it on the side of my head. I have not yet been able to really deal with it yet. But I know the trauma is lurking behind every breath I take and moment I live and will soon require attention.

But if I was blessed with not having my outer face shattered, my inner face has most definitely been. And so, here I am.

It's the best kind of hard time of the year, Elul. The end of the year and Rosh HaShana is coming. And whether I want to or not, I am forced to confront. I am forced to examine my year and myself and figure out where I'm at, where I'm going, where I'm being led. It's inevitable. From without, the divine magnetic power of that which is flowing down from Above, especially here in the Land, is too potent and commanding to ignore or resist. From within, with the constant dramatic changes and shifts in 'reality' that is all pervasive, it's so hard to find stability and continuity, that I am impelled to question what's up with me and where is my place in these times and events.

I naturally assume that this agonizing process, for me, inevitable and wrenching, is one that everyone goes through. When I study and hear all the Torah regarding the last days of the year as well as the Acharit Hayamim b'Gadol (the Real End Days; the Big Ones) the descriptions of Heaven's challenges to us, the Birrur (process of clarification of the soul within the body), it all makes some kind of contextual sense. And then I don't think that I am so crazy; we're all in the same boat.

Then I realize, not everyone goes through what I go through. Most people have a certain stability and continuity with their families and work. Whatever the process of the teshuva Elul engenders in them, it is contextualized within the flow of the constant that is their lives. And for me, it is the opposite: My life is contextualized within the teshuva I struggle to manifest.
And so, I come to it: What do I do? (Note: I wrote this piece the Thursday before Rosh HaShanah. The title was meant not as a question as to what to do; a way out of a tough situation, having to make a choice. It was in response to the question I disconcertingly still receive: "Moish, what do you do?" No one got it that the piece attempts to establish my criteria for defining what I do. It has long been a pet a peeve of mine: You ask someone what they do and they respond, "I am a……I am a lawyer, I am a doctor, etc." Wait! I didn't ask you what you are. I asked what you do. Not who you be.

By way of illustration, a story. Reb Zalman Schachter's youngest son was becoming bar mitzvah in Yerushalayim and I was asked to be the gabbai for the Shabbat davening: I needed to sit with Reb Zalman to go over the whole thing, how he wanted it to flow, the names for the aliyot, etc. When I arrived I said, "Before we start, I need to ask your mechila (absolution)." With a curious, startled expression, he asked why.

I told him the story of an experience I had at a Rainbow Gathering in '92, that it was so shattering that as soon as I got out of the forest, I called Shlomo in New York. He was in Israel. I called Yerushalayim and was told that he was in Johannesburg I called and missed him by five minutes, but was told that he would be in New York Shabbos, so I could see him there.

I shlep to New York from Philly and when I arrive, there's Shlomo right outside. I cross the street and he says to me, "Moishele! You're calling me all over the world! What's going on?" I briefly fill him in and he asks, "Where are you these days?" I told him I was in Philly. He asked me, "So why don't you talk to Zalman?" And I answered, "Because if I ask Zalman, I'll get Zalman! If I ask you, I'll get Torah."

I told Reb Zalman, "I have been disturbed by that response ever since; the lack of Derech Eretz, the implied condescension. Especially since I was not shomer torah u'mitzvot at that time!" He laughed a big, full-hearted laugh, gave me a big Reb Zalman bear hug filled with love, and said: "First, I am mochel you. Second, you were right! If you asked Shlomo, you would get Torah. If you asked me, you would get me.

"You see," he continued, "I am like the antenna on the head of the cockroach. Did you ever notice that it walks along the base of a wall and before it turns the corner, stops and sends its antenna to see if it is safe? I am the antenna for the Jewish People."

I have thought about that experience with Reb Zalman often. It is so metaphorical for Elul: Carrying a hidden guilt, being thrust to confront it later, being forced to humble oneself, Viduy – confession, the request for forgiveness and absolution, being given it through an awesome flow of love and joy and acceptance, the receiving of it and the sense of having been cleansed and being fresh and a new beginning.

This, by the way, is Reb Shlomo's definition of who is a rebbe: "Who's a rebbe? Someone who washes your soul clean!" Reb Zalman IS A REBBE! Thank you for everything, heleige, zisse Rebbe!

So, so, so…..so what does all this have to do with What Do I Do?

When I was a kid and people would ask me what my father did, I responded, "He's a shul doctor." My father is the retired Dean of Communal Services and Professional Rabbinics at Yeshiva University. In the fifties and early sixties, the formal title didn't yet exist. Indeed, there was no school with a curriculum to learn how to be 'shul doctor.' My father created it virtually yesh may'ayin – something out of nothing. Other kids' fathers were doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc. Mine was a 'shul doctor.'

Have you ever noticed that when you ask someone' 'what do you do?' they answer, 'I am a…..a doctor, a lawyer, etc.' But you didn't ask them what they were, you asked them what they did. We have been so subtly conditioned to define ourselves by what we do to provide material sustenance that we have lost the knowledge, wisdom and understanding to know who we are. Rosh HaShana is an awesome time to retrieve the truth of who we are and to properly contextualize what it is we do to fill time and provide for food, shelter and clothing.

When you combine the power of a society to impose its sensibility on an individual before that person becomes a person, with the divinely endowed sense of aloneness, loneliness, vulnerability and need to trust, you produce a conditioned, mostly unconscious, non-self-aware, victim. Most people are unquestioning, unchallenging, non-examining, almost robot-like. And society has succeeded in imposing a distorted definition of self; a kind-of unconstitutional prior restraint imposed upon G-d and us, pre-empting the non-distorted authentic definition given over by the One Who Created us. And so, by every one of society's definitions of success, society is an abject failure.

For myself, I struggle for a personal liberation that leads to increasing and evermore refined authenticity in the service of the Creator and all the Creation. By doing so, like Reb Zalman, I anticipate the struggles of others and therefore am available to help them make it. Among the things I seek to do is help redress this situation by being a living example of the possibility of cleansing oneself of the conditioning and returning to an original, more authentic paradigm of self.

So what do I do? How do I define my work? Rabbi? Educator? Healer? Counselor? Advisor? In past times I would respond to the question with, "I try and figure it out." They would then ask, "Figure what out?" And I would say, "Whatever." If I was paid, I could have called myself a professional contemplator. At other times I would respond, "I comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." (liberated from H.L. Mencken)

But finally, I like to think of myself as a Liberator. It's a good title. Doesn't pay much, but the rewards when they come are priceless.

Reb Shlomo says, "HaShem wants us to serve him as free people. Not as slaves. That's why He took us out of Egypt. So what's the definition of a true spiritual master? Someone who's a free person. What's the acid test of who's a free person? How much freedom they're giving over to everyone they meet."

Finally, Rosh HaShana restores to us the liberation that our lives are not truly in the hands of George or Ehud or Ahmadenijad or the boss, or circumstance or income or looks or any outside factors. That there is One with whom we can be intimate and alone, who restores our sense of true selves, restores the trust, faith and belief that we can do good things in this hard world for the world and ourselves and that new beginnings are whenever we choose to step up to them.

The more of us who liberate ourselves and consequently help others to do the same, accelerates the process of ending the worst evil in the world: the idea that there is no better day coming, at least not in our lifetime. This is the lie evil employs to dry up our insides and take us out of the Redemption game.

I bless you and me and all of us and pray you bless me back that we wipe out this evil voice from our hearts and minds, that we remind ourselves that hearts and minds are like parachutes: they only function when they're open, that we embody the joy that emerges from the knowledge that The Great Day IS coming and that in turn allows us to perform the highest function possible: to help people free themselves from the lack of hope, faith and trust, giving them the courage and strength to persevere without cynicism and endow them with the knowledge that they bring beauty and light into the world.

This is the divine service HaShem is performing on Rosh HaShana. This is the God that we are meeting on Rosh HaShana. May we emerge this kind of Tzelem Elokim, this kind of 'looking like' God. And as Reb Shlomo says, "I don't just want to be inscribed in the Book of Life. I want to be on the same page with everyone I love." Shlomo loved everyone.

Part Two: The New Year and Its Shocks

Rosh HaShanah: I participated in the minyan, 'V'Ani Tefilati,' created by Rav Raz Hartman. The collective focus and atmosphere was everything I could have hoped for. I am amazed and ennobled by the nature and quality of this particular chevre. It is an awesome privileged to be a part of this community. I was shaliach tzibbur for Musaf the first day and Shacharit the second day. It was a good, if tzimtzumed effort, feeling somewhat awed and humbled. Shacharit I was more expansive.

The day after Rosh HaShanah I began a six week struggle with health. I was hit with a raging four-day cold that kept me depleted and in bed. Shabbat Shuva was recovery time.

For Yom Kippur, I once again led Shacharit. I utilized a recently discovered unknown Shlomo tune and it took the roof off the house. But when I was done, I was truly done. I was totally, completely wiped out, so much so that I had difficulty finding the strength to stand. Baruch HaShem, the place the services were held was a children's community center and they had a lot of thick mats. For most of the rest of the day, I was on my back and only with great effort was I able to stand at the important times.

Once again the cold returned and I while was at low energy, I able to make Sukkot preparations. For the first day, I traveled to Rechovot to be with my recently 'aliyahed' friends, Bob and Amy Katz and their kids. Halfway through the davening Shabbat/Sukkot morning, I was feeling ill and left early. By the afternoon, I had a fever, aches, chills and pains and exhaustion. This kept up till Wednesday, when I was finally able to go home, still weak and in discomfort. Shabbat/Simchat Torah, I was once again in Nachlaot and once again became too ill to eat or go out.

I had variations of the cold, viral symptoms and some new strange with my kishkes. I started a battery of tests and when all is said and done, four doctors couldn't figure it out, and for almost three weeks, went without eating or sleeping. I never knew such weakness over so long a period. It took another 3 weeks until I was feeling myself. I still have some kidney problems, the doctors still don't and I am grateful for herbs, the Creator of the herbs and those who teach and advise me about them. They got me through the fear the doctors gave me.

Part Three: How Much More?

I have identified the effort at teshuva and what its components and dynamics are for me. They are enough in and of themselves to fully occupy a person's life. I have identified being 'stoned' by an Arab and being ill. Here's a laundry list of other things that have been the reality of my life for four and a half months:

After I left the Eden-like magic of the Rocky Mountain forest and Rainbow Gathering, I was faced with news of my mother's surgery, while itself medically successful, has had its price to pay in the accelerated aging of my mother. And shortly thereafter, until her weakened condition, she fell and broke both her writs. Imagine not having use of your arms and hands for six weeks.

After five months of focused work, the recruitment effort at the Rainbow Gathering was a smashing success. I found eighteen gems – true stars - all potential serious leaders within the Jewish People. I knew that with war, the 'recruits' would not want to come. None had been to Israel. All had considered the notion only because I was there to turn them onto the notion. An autonomous program, run by me, was set up. Everything was in place and for the first time I would have a serious salary and work I could depend upon and give hope for my life.

And then war broke out in Israel; a bad and stupid war (as if there good and smart ones!). I knew that the group would not want to come and that I would have to work hard to pull them in. It meant constant contact and bucking up. I was also out of money and I would have to go to New York and raise it if I was going to be able finance the next months of work. August is the lousiest time to try and fundraise in New York and with the powerful magnet of the war, I really had no choice but to go home and pray that HaShem had a plan.

He did. The program and my parnassa collapsed, I got stoned and I got sick. Couldn't accomplish much under those circumstances. Add to this that when I returned to Israel, I found out my religious-hating ex-landlord was suing me for some $4000.00 and needed some $1500.00 for a lawyer. Plus, I found that my Tefillin were not kosher.

There at least six more really bad things that come to mind that occurred over this time. It all adds up to being so knocked down, that I wonder how I'm still standing. Rav Raz says that I'm incredibly strong, because no matter how often I am knocked down, somehow I always come back. I don't about that. I can see clearly how much less of me there seems to be. It's like pieces of me die with each blow; some larger pieces, some smaller. However….

Part Four: Wrestling With G-d

Be sure, I have spent a meaningful part of this period wrestling with G-d: What possible use could I be to You, knocked down like this. There are people's lives in crisis, people who are seeking my help and have no where else to turn. Strong healthy and funded, there is no limit to what I can accomplish for the good of HaShem's Holy Name. And how do You expect me to live without parnassa? How am I to pay my way: transportation, medical costs, etc.? To say nothing my self-esteem. None of this heals and fixes either mine or anyone else's image of me as a shlepper and a mizkain, chas v'shalom.

On top of all this is one enduring pain, one element which gnaws away at heart, spirit and soul: The lack of my helpmate, my soul mate, my wife. The balancing factor that Torah teaches is critical to a man's life is his eizer k'negdo. I don't have mine and all this I have to fight through alone. Why deprive me, HaShem?

But not really.

Part Five: Hope

In all of this gloom and doom, there is a light that gives hope. To start with, here I am, able to write about it, communicate and reach out.

There is always need, always work to be done and service to perform and within the limits of my circumstances, I still was able to touch some lives and help. Sometimes you have to be forced out of the action to prepare you for the next round which never announces its arrival and for which you can never anticipate and therefore consciously prepare and which always comes. The work finds you.

And I can testify that HaShem does indeed not abandon you, if you have the eyes to see. I have friends. I have chevre. I have a bountiful group of people who hold me up in all kinds of ways. From Yerushalayim to California, there are those who with profound love, respect and affection, go above and beyond the call to try and fill the empty spaces as best as they can. Financially, they help me survive, spiritually they affirm my light, physically, they seek to share time and space. If the rich and wealthy gave the way my poor friends do, there would be no hunger or poverty in the world, nor loneliness or abandonment. They are the (hopefully) temporary stand-in's for my not yet identified, beautiful, rich, loving, supportive wife and children. It's a big task and tall order. They perform majestically and magically. One can ask for no more from friends.

Part Six: Next

While ill, the most I could do was read. I read a lot. One of the books I read was Rav Gedalia Fleer's account of breaking open the gates to visit the grave of Rebbe Nachman in Uman, Ukraine. It's a long story.

For years, people have either urged me to go to Uman or nudnicked me about why I didn't go or both. Simple as it is, I never heard the call. But in the course of reading this book, it came to me strong that I need to go. At the same time, a real friend and brother decided that I needed to go and that he would finance it. I only found out a couple of weeks later. But both my 'call' and his came the same time. Only Heaven can coordinate like that.

Rav Shalom Brodt asked me to begin teaching at Yeshivat Simchat Shlomo. The session is tomorrow night. The first was a smash. It's a beginning. Financially, it is only a band-aid, as he called it. But it is a powerful vote of confidence in me that came just in time; the kind of vote that only comes from someone who both knows you well and even more, loves and cares.

Rav Natan Greenberg, Rosh HaYeshiva of Yeshivat Bat Ayin gives a weekly 'shmoose' that is mandatory to attend. This is strong stuff for a yeshiva that strives to have no forced anything. Over ten years, he has invited a handful of people to give guest shmooses. He invited me. I have reason trust that it went over well.

I am writing again. For me, this is the biggest sign that the times have changed; that the next season and passage of my life has been embarked upon.

I'm still broke and in debt; don't know where my next shekel is coming from, don't know how I'm going to take care of filling my fridge, paying my lawyer, do my laundry, etc. etc. etc.

To paraphrase Reb Shlomo, I don't know anything, but one thing I know one thing for sure: HaShem is sticking with me despite my failings and I just need to hang out long enough and one day, the fullness of redemption will come to me.

As will it for all.

Stay tuned.

I have neglected MySpace, but I am taking a moment to pay some attention. I have a blog rebmoish.org. But I thought in anticipation to seeing alot of people who may come across MySpace/rebmoish this summer, I thought I would post some posts from my blog. Hope you get to see and read them and send me your thoughts.

The name of my blog is Not Just Another Rabbi. It is written in Jerusalem, Israel, where I live and is directed to an obviously particularly Jewish world. I still believe it's good for anyone. Let me know if you agree.

Meanwhile to those reading this, blessings for all things beautiful and sweet, filled with joy, love, light and peace.

Moish

With profound anticipation, we are happy to announce that 2007 marks the 10th year of Reb Moshe Geller's outreach effort at the annual National Rainbow Gathering. This year the gathering will take place in Texas or Arkansas. Each year the Gathering is held in a different national forest. Consequently, each year brings new participants from the local surrounding states. This is the first time the Gathering will be held in the south since the outreach endeavor began. The opportunity is ripe for the staff to bring one of the most effective Jewish experiences to thousands of unaffiliated Jews in an unparalleled setting.

Rainbow Zion is a full time learning program, opening up the universe of Jewish History, Philosophy, Texts, Kabbalah and more in a non-coercive, open environment. Rainbow Zion is Jewish prayer center, a Jewish music venue and a joyous Shabbat experience. Rainbow Zion is 24-hour counseling center, giving close personal attention to anyone in need. Rainbow Zion is a safety zone for women, mothers and children and kids at risk. Rainbow Zion is a 24-hour healing tea, coffee and first aid center.

We urge you make the most generous contribution you can. Please make your tax deductable check out to American Friends of Yeshivat Bat Ayin, earmarking it for "Rainbow Zion" and mail it to: American Friends of Yeshivat Bat Ayin , 5704 Post Road Bronx, NY 10471, attn: Jerome Silverman
rebmoish@gmail.com, tel: 972-54-659-2547