I try to walk everyday, for the dog’s mental well being and my own. Sometimes I’m on the phone, often I’m listening to music, and along the way, I pause to praise the chorus of birds, or the water rushing in the nearby creek.

A few nights ago, I was catching up with a dear friend and gasped at the sight before me. A bunny was tangled by its neck in the netting of a small soccer goal. As the bunny struggled to find redemption, the remnants of Easter still beckoned on my neighbor’s lawn with brightly colored plastic eggs. It strained against the netting, pushing to break free as I approached. And then, in a sudden moment of surprise, the bunny simply turned instead of straining forward. It hopped away as I let out a sigh of relief, and then said aloud to my friend: “Sometimes we need to turn in order to find the path forward.”

How many times have we felt caught in a web, either from a power greater than us or one we design ourselves, that threatens our very existence? It’s an urgent question, one that becomes more real by the day.

I was deeply moved by a piece written by Rabbi Claudia Kreiman of TBZ in Brookline, where I met Michael for the first time now over 20 years ago. Rabbi Kreiman is originally from Chile, holds Israeli and American citizenship, and grew up during the Pinochet dictatorship. She lost her mother, tragically, in the AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires in 1994. Citing her teacher and our colleague, Rabbi Matalon, who grew up under the dictatorship in Argentina, she warns with his words: “The intimidation tactics, the suppression of free speech, and the undermining of democracy will ultimately come back to haunt us…tyrants count on our fear to divide and isolate us.” Rabbi Kreiman ends her Passover message with these words: Jewish safety will never come from turning away. It will come from turning toward others and from standing together.

Our fight to exist is ongoing, and, as we learn from what history teaches us time and again, we can still turn along the way in order to make our way forward. This is how we return to the many truths that define us as people of faith, as moral beings. In spring, our faith traditions mirror nature’s seasonal burst of color, as we focus our minds, bodies and souls on the sacred work of physical and spiritual redemption. It’s a humbling reminder that our redemption, personally and collectively, doesn’t only happen through dogged wars or through stubborn straining on a single perceived path of strength.

Do we feel tangled in a web of fear from rising antisemitism? Do we feel tempted to just shut it all out and focus on the beauty of our backyard garden? Do we feel overly confounded or confident? Yes, and yes, and yes, and as we acknowledge the complexity of it all, how we push forward has consequences…it may tangle us further. To stand strong for our own existence and the rights of others, isn’t mutually exclusive or a sign of weakness. I pray that we continue to seek ways to create unity amidst division, courage amidst fear, healing amidst grief, and by the grace of God, perhaps we humans won’t make for our own undoing. May we turn toward — toward what is just and true—one step closer to our collective freedom.

Dear Dad,

We have almost reached a year since you died, a year since our hearts broke into fragments, as the keriah ribbons tore in our fumbling hands. We have tried to tenderly mend pieces that will never fit back together, because we will always long for your physical presence each day we walk this earth.

There are so many moments I wish you could have witnessed in this past year. Some were just everyday wonders as the kids grow more independent and resilient, the books they voraciously read, the new baseball skills, the friendships forged in school. I wish you could see the way Michael can uniquely break through my sorrow to make me laugh, or the way Andrew and his family so graciously hosted their first Thanksgiving on Brewster Road, just 10 minutes from your childhood home. I wish you could see how mom, your best friend, honors your memory with each breath as she affirms that there is yet life to live.

And Dad, there are also moments for which I can’t bear to think what it would be for you to witness. It’s impossible to describe what I felt, what we all felt, when we learned 16906 Scenic Place burned to the ground in the Palisades Fire, just one month ago. When Mom and I stood there a few days later, we wailed in a way that resounded back through time, something primordial and wild and deep to the core of the world. This has dealt our family and community such a painful gut punch. My childhood home, our sanctuary of peace for almost fifty years, destroyed in a community-wide war zone raged by a natural disaster has upended our lives. When people ask, with such love and concern, it is hard to find words…because there are no words. In time, I hope we will be able to respond more clearly, but for now, prayers lifted up to the Healer of the Broken Hearted bring the greatest comfort.

Through it all, you still guide us. You still encourage us to be courageous. We channel your spirit which resides in our hearts. And we are trying, the best we can, to be there for each other and to heal. Some days are easier than others, but with the turning of seasons and time, we will keep making our way.

Last night, at Shabbat services, I said the following as I introduced the Mourner’s Kaddish: The experience of loss can be like ink on our heart, writing a new story. And legacy, or memory, can be the ongoing letter we write to our loved ones.

This is my letter to you, Dad, and I pray that your soul has found peace as we pray for peace here on earth and in the realms of space and time beyond our own.

I love you.

Kim

I still remember my eyes would grow wide each time we read a children’s book about Icarus — and I can vaguely recall the illustrations from close to 40 years ago now. Icarus made magnificent wax wings and, despite Daedalus’ clear instructions, flew closer and closer to the sun until finally plunging to his death.

It’s a haunting ancient tale and I recently thought of it in the context of last week’s Torah portion when Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, offer strange fire and are killed in the wake of their actions. It occurred to me that these cautionary tales have in common a recognition that we humans can fancy ourselves God-like and become too irreverent of our place in the world, too extreme in our technological prowess and in our offerings.

Icarus, Nadav and Avihu, are all vigorous in their holy mission—a universal human quality within the annals of history, and in the unfolding present. The world can be a frightening place, aflame with any number of dangers, or a seductive place, with temptations at every turn. It can be difficult to find a discerning path, one balanced between our faithful calling to pursue truths and draw close to the Divine, with our humble place amidst all creation. Perhaps Icarus, Nadav and Avihu were reacting to those who remained too humble, who were comfortable with a herd mentality, who didn’t venture to challenge and innovate. Indeed, that extreme can cause its own forest fire too.

Amidst all these ancient tales and current day realities where extremes hurt everyone, I find it so grounding to count the Omer, a practice of mindful awareness that begins the second day of Passover and extends to the holiday of Shavuot—fifty days in all. Last week we meditated on the quality of Chesed, compassion, and this week, Gevurah, strength. How do we facilitate and nurture both of these aspects in ourselves and in the world? When we react with either quality in any given time, are we standing present with a balanced truth? This may be one of the most challenging of lessons and it seems more imperative than ever to nurture a curious, balanced awareness within our community and in the greater world of which we are a part. So let us still make wings to fly, but to construct them with an eye to the dance between Chesed and Gevurah, as Elif Shafak writes (in my new favorite book, The Island of Missing Trees):

Because in real life, unlike in history books, stories come to us not in their entirety but in bits and pieces, broken segments and partial echoes, a full sentence here, a fragment there, a clue hidden in between. In life, unlike in books, we have to weave our stories out of threads as fine as the gossamer vines that run through a butterfly’s wings.

I had reconstruction surgery (implants) last Wednesday. It was early morning after the second Seder and I was familiar with the prep routine, but this time my mind, body and soul had been through an additional trauma beyond breast cancer treatment. My dad died just a month and a half ago from what was expected to be a simple surgical procedure.

For days, I had been fixated on the cold that had developed a week before and worried that the mucus accumulating in my lungs would be reason to postpone. As I longed to get the whole thing over with, fear was also steadily creeping in with each passing day. I had situational anxiety and wanted to name it for the surgeon, the nurses, my therapist, family and friends. Something opened up in my breath and in the pathways of my vision when I named what I felt and saw in myself.

Naming systemic realities can be an affirming spiritual practice and a necessary way to make our way together through grief, trauma, healing and all dimensions of personal and collective life. It can also be a tremendous challenge when we consider the tangled webs of narratives through time and place, the frenzy of information that can flow through our social media channels, and the judgment we face from all sides. We must continue to find courageous and new ways to name what binds us, to name what hurts us, to name what hope we carry deep in our hearts for a more just and peaceful world. And as we name, to listen and learn, to breathe, to remain curious amidst our fierceness, and please God, to wonder how we might all become more whole through our interconnectedness. Because that we undeniably are…

I started reading the Island of Missing Trees by Elieff Shafak and can’t put it down. In the first few pages I came across this passage and it spoke to me amidst the layers of grief and love I feel each day:

There are many things that a border—even one as clear cut and well guarded as this—cannot prevent from crossing. The Etesian wind, for instance, the softly named but surprisingly strong meltemi or meltem. The butterflies, grasshoppers and lizards. The snails too, painfully slow though they are. Occasionally, a birthday ballon that escapes a child’s grip drifts in the sky, strays into the other side…blue herons, black-headed buntings, honey buzzards, yellow wagtails, willow warblers, masked shrikes and, my favorite, golden orioles. All the way from the northern hemisphere, migrating mostly during the night, darkness gathering at the tips of their winds and etching red circles around their eyes, they stop here midway in their long journey, before continuing to Africa. The island for them is a resting place, a lacuna in the tale, an in-between-ness.

We stood on the sidewalk adjacent to our house as the light became a calm blue. The birds had been silent for well over thirty minutes as the kids flew between the house and the front yard, lifting the eclipse glasses to their eyes and praising the wonder unfolding before us in the heavens.

We were ready. We weren’t ready. We were a hot mess of grief and delight.

Just as the totality of the eclipse began, my mom’s camera tipped over as her travel tripod buckled under the weight of our layers emotions. After she took the shot above, the lens broke.

It reminds me of one of my favorite Hasidic stories. The great rabbi, the Baal Shem Tov,
asked his student, Rabbi Wolf, to prepare words of reflection before the blowing of the shofar. Rabbi Wolf carefully learned his reflections, and then wrote them on a slip of paper, which he kept in his breast pocket. But, without realizing it, Rabbi Wolf’s paper fell out of his pocket.

When it was time to blow the shofar, Rabbi Wolf looked for his slip of paper in vain. Then he tried to remember the words, but somehow he had forgotten everything. Tears rose to his eyes, and weeping, he announced the order of sounds. Tekiah, shevarim, teruah, tekiah gedolah! After the service, the Baal Shem Tov approached Rabbi Wolf, who looked at his teacher apologetically. The tears were still glistening in Rabbi Wolf’s eyes. There are may ways to open the gates of prayer, the Baal Shem Tov reassured his student, but genuine tears, and grief from the heart, are the most powerful.

What I realized on that day, and have so many times over the past month+ is that I am continuously looking through a shattered lens of grief. No art or practice will change this moment’s truth. No amount of busy-ness will create a short cut through the pain. But that doesn’t mean my heart is totally eclipsed as the shards lay at our feet, for love transcends time and space in so many mysterious ways. To show up with purpose and grace can be one of the hardest task before us–particularly with the growing darkness in our world today. And yet, when an expansive love/greater presence is felt amidst it all, the striving to have our frame perfectly in place to capture a moment in time fades away to reveal our full selves.

The lens shattered…and instead of cursing the ground, we looked up. We took off our flimsy glasses for a spell and soaked in the moment, unfiltered, breathless, letting go, suspended in time. Broken and whole.

Eulogy for Dad March 7, 2024/28 Adar I 5784

On behalf of my family, I want to begin by thanking the compassionate clergy team, committed staff and loving members of this Temple Emanu-El community—thank you for supporting us, near and far. You have carried my family through a most challenging year and now continue to guide us and feed us and pray with us amidst our shattered hearts.

My dad went in for a routine surgical procedure on Monday February 26^th and experienced rare complications from which he never recovered. The tragedy surrounding my father’s death evokes for me other moments in his life when he bore great heartbreak: Dad had a challenging upbringing and lost his siblings over the subsequent years. Through it all, my father found ways to not only feel and endure the pain, but to grow and build and gather and guide, all emerging from his truth that life is precious and fleeting. My dad had any number of reasons to be embittered, and yet he very purposefully chose to cultivate a steady, strong, gracious, wisdom that flourished within him and with everyone who sought his counsel.

My dad was this way innately, but there is no question that finding the love of his life at fifteen years old, and the embrace of her family, helped lay an essential foundation. Mom, what a beautiful love story you wrote together, beginning as teenagers in White Plains, NY, as college students commuting to see each other between Pittsburgh and Baltimore, as newlyweds and graduate students in Boston, as new parents in Los Angeles, as nature lovers in Port Ludlow. You had your fair share of adventures, passion, bickering (the loving kind of course) and laughter. I love how dad would think of something funny and crack himself up before getting the words out and you would just delight in seeing him giggle so much that tears would gather in the corner of his eyes. Together, you were Janeric—J.A.N.E.R.I.C, as your license plate read all of those years, but you were hardly generic—you were two strong personalities, different from each other, and yet just the right blend of seriousness and fun, exact and spontaneous, intense and meditative. We, your family, your friends, your entire community, will be here for you, mom, as we make our way forward.

With the good fortune of our maternal grandparents within a few hours drive, Andrew and I grew up in a home built by the steady JANERIC team. Except for a few years, my dad worked out of our home office, oftentimes taking morning calls in his bathrobe before video calls or working virtually was common practice. Andrew and I were so fortunate to have regular family dinners with parents who inspired us to be our authentic selves. Around that dinner table we talked about everything—from playground friendship triangles to issues of social concern, to case studies of complex organizational challenges for us to untangle. Dad would cheer the loudest at Andrew’s football games and delighted in every new Jewish melody I would introduce, always singing off key. Despite his musical limitations, Dad had the perfect pitch of quiet strength and encouragement, prioritizing family time for his children and his grandchildren. Over the years, it was a joy to see dad embrace being Grandaddy. He adored everything about you dear ones—Ellie, Jojo, Ava and Jacob. Planting lavender in the Port Ludlow wedding garden, pushing you on the swing at the playground, reading to you at bedtime, feeling your sweet hugs and even the moments when you were a bit sassy and challenging, yes—Grandaddy loved you immensely and we will carry his love with us each day.

My dad was one of the hardest working people I know, growing Quest Consulting and Training into a successful enterprise with a wonderful team of colleagues. We experienced him as the ultimate organizer, taking his methodical time to bring a greater sense of order. He would take these skills everywhere, even trying to organize the flow of traffic through an LAX parking garage. He was a strategic thinker and great listener, who helped us plan every journey through our personal and professional lives. He did this for all of us—his immediate family, my cousins, dear friends, and every committee, and initiative in which he participated.

In particular, Dad devoted himself to serving the Leo Baeck Temple community. I want to offer my deepest thanks from the family to Leo Baeck for the loving care through times of tragedy and celebration, and for the honor dedicated to my dad in his lifetime. Rabbi Ken Chasen, you created the most sacred moment of spirit and love as we faced the immediate shock and devastation of our loss. As you trusted in each other, dad was so enriched by your friendship and soulful connection.

I am holding in my mind’s eye one of my favorite pictures of me and dad. I was about two at the time and we were walking along Kellog Beach in La Jolla, California. My little hand is in his as his feet sink into the wet sand with ease, our backs turned to the camera. His hair is dark and full, mine a shocking towhead blond, and no doubt my little legs were working overtime to keep up. I am sure I felt then, just as I do now, the warmth of my dad’s heart, his sturdy gait, and the calm he felt surrounded by nature. We will walk the path of your legacy, dad, with endless love, counting each day shared with you among the greatest blessings of our lifetime.

*adapted sermon for Parashat Yitro, Temple Emanu-El on Feb.2, 2024 24 Sh’vat 5784

This past Sunday, I joined Youth Learning and Engagement staff in teaching first graders and their families about the holiday of Tu B’shvat, the New Year of the Trees, which we marked a little over a week ago. We sang, and blessed, and tasted different foods. It was quite the Sunday morning cacophony.

In one movement exercise that day, the first graders impressed me with their yoga skills. They balanced on one leg in Tree Pose, some lifting their hands above their heads, some with little hands together in a prayerful posture. After we tried to balance, I asked them to sit down and reach out a hand to their fellow classmate, palm to palm. I told them, reaching out to each other gives us life’s balance and helps us feel stronger. Feeling warmth and care brings us courage and hope. Yes, we each must also learn to stand on our own two feet, or our own foot when in Tree pose–but remember to keep those currents of connection active and growing. They are what carry us through.

The Tree pose lesson reminded me of a moment I’ve held dear since last Spring.  I know many of you experienced The Light Years art festival, in collaboration with AURORA, a Dallas public arts organization, which unfolded with wonder and depth on our Temple campus in celebration of our 150^th year.  During one remarkable moment from that beautiful evening, I stood with a friend, holding hands, before the “You Are Magic” installation. The inflatable sculpture activated by sensors rose into the words “you are magic” when the warmth from hands circulated from one person to the next. It highlighted for us the ways, hand to hand, face to face, heart to heart, Zoom room to Zoom room, we can cultivate the strands of connection that make us a Temple community. It’s the kind of magic we call holiness, and it’s the kind of magic that can spark faith in the minds of weary travelers.

In all these ways and more, you have carried me and my family through a challenging time. In early March, it will be a year since I was diagnosed with breast cancer. At this point, I am in medical remission and I’m hopeful that this concludes treatment and surgeries for the rest of my life. Time will tell. I’m relieved to be feeling increased energy and generally, more like myself. And yet, I’ve changed. I am more attuned to a longing for redemption and healing than I once was and savor each day with a greater awareness of our mortality. I am also more deeply grateful for the sacred practices, and the soul-opening moments, the small gestures and caring outreach that remind us we are not alone.  

So, tonight I want to pause and thank you. Thank you for so generously creating currents of connection through meal trains and sweet notes, flowers bursting with color, encouraging emails, thoughtful calls and adding my name before the Mi Sheberach. Thank you for offering tangible items like perfectly puffed pillows and cooling creams and detailed lists of what to know and who to talk to. Thank you for play lists with music that calms and music that empowers. Thank you for reaching out to Michael for coffee dates and for bringing the kids books and taking them for ice cream. Thank you for just being you — for modeling courage, for inspiring me to be my best self.

As I was reading through this week’s Torah portion, it occurred to me that this is a timely one to offer thanks for the ways we can carry each other through. Parashat Yitro reminds us that sacred encounters fuel our spirit, change our perspective, and motivate us strengthen our community.

Parashat Yitro begins with an introduction to Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, a Midianite priest who acknowledges the Israelite God, a God who brings about the miraculous liberation of slaves. Jethro is a confidant and a supportive family member, as well as a participant in the ritual life of the Israelite people. And Jethro is a keen observer.

At one point, Jethro observes Moses’ daily work. We read: Moses sat as a magistrate among the people, while the people stood about Moses from morning until evening. But when Moses’ father-in-law saw how much he had to do for the people, he said, “What is this thing that you are doing for the people? Why do you act alone, while all the people stand about you from morning until evening?”

Moses replies, and I am paraphrasing: The people are seeking out my advice when they have troubles or conflicts. And people, being people, have a lot of tzurus, so could you make me another cup of coffee, please? Yitro shakes his head—Moses, this is just too much for one person.

And now quoting the verses of Torah again, listen to what Yitro says: You shall also seek out, from among all the people, capable individuals who fear God—trustworthy ones who spurn ill-gotten gain. Set these over them as chiefs of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens, and let them judge the people at all times. Have them bring every major dispute to you but let them decide every minor dispute themselves. Make it easier for yourself by letting them share the burden with you.

I hear in Yitro’s words a clarion call to remember that having power and agency should reside with humility. We are mortal, limited, and imperfect. And, simultaneously, we are partners with God in changing the world. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that our ancient sages placed this powerful lesson before the majestic moment of Mt.Sinai, for how could the leadership and the whole Israelite people receive Torah before learning how to share in the burden and the blessing of day to day life? Without mindfully created connections, how does Torah become a real, living presence in our world?

Working with you, and supporting y’all, is one of my greatest blessings. Together we are seeking to listen and learn and grow, to act and practice. From greeting people for Shabbat to supportive circles through grief and loss, from tending garden beds to packaging Hanukkah gifts for our Israeli brothers and sisters, from civic engagement efforts in our state and in DC to becoming a more inclusive spiritual home, and so much more. There are countless ways we are aligned in carrying forth our mission and still new opportunities we have yet to discover. What an honor and privilege it is for me, to be continuing in the sacred work of building our community with you.

We can hear in Yitro’s wisdom the ever present, urgent call – that we are the balance and steadiness for each other. When this is so, the Tree of Life becomes ever more vibrant in our lives and in the world. May we go forth as a community with renewed strength and hope for tomorrow.

It’s been a little while. Hello friends, and Happy Tu B’shvat (15th day of the month of Sh’vat), the New Year of the Trees, when the signs of spring begin to emerge in Israel. In the cold and rain, could there be hints of regrowth and healing?

In the wake of October 7th, I struggle to find the words these days, plus, with the conclusion of radiation in December, I’ve been steadily more active in childrearing and work — so it’s a new landscape to find moments to transfer my thoughts and writing to this space. But it’s good to be back and I intend to keep on writing here.

My colleague Rabbi Debra J. Robbins shared a powerful meditation with me this morning, care of IJS. You can find the link here and the title is “Noticing the Divine in our Bodies: https://jewish-meditation-for-everyone.simplecast.com/

I love the Hasidic story told in the podcast, one I’ve heard before but this time from the perspective of a little girl. It goes like this: During daily prayers in the synagogue, a little girl wanders into the woods. She loves to sit in the forest amidst the trees. Finally, her father asks: “Where were you? Where are you going?”
“I go to the woods to pray. I go so I can feel close to the Divine.” says the girl.
“But you know God is the same everywhere, the same in the forest and the synagogue” says the father.
“I know,” says the girl, “but I’m not.”

We are not the same. We change, through space and time. As I pray in the woods of my meditative mind sitting in Stern Chapel, or walk the slick streets and pause to behold the bare branches of the Japanese maple, I am not the same as last Tu B’shvat or the one before that, etc. Particularly now in this season of middle age, I feel such steady changes in my body and in the Earth. I am more attuned to the longing for redemption and healing than I once was.

And so it is. My work is to accept the now and set my sights on helping myself and others weed out thoughts and actions that bring us further away from our most authentic selves. It is time to keep seeding ancient wisdom made new with each day.

But I wonder, isn’t movement at the very core of God’s name, Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey? Could it be that the father of the girl proposed only one understanding of God, that God moves with us and isn’t the same everywhere? The pages of Exodus seem to suggest this is so. The Israelites were under constant tyranny of work. Days blended into horrifying uniformity. There didn’t exist a sense of past, present, future until Moses and the people, and eventually even Pharoah, could acknowledge the existence of Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey, the God whose very name (root: “to be”) speaks to movement in time.

I’ll close with a poem I re-wrote from a few years ago, which I think stands evergreen in meaning as we navigate the triumphs and trials of our world, longing for collective redemption.

“Ha-meirah”: The Illumined One

You turn, pained by the scorching fire storms

The cracked plains and palms

The bloated bellies and streams.

Beloved moon, balancing on the hills at dawn,

I am drawn to your changing ways.

It is You who calls to our swollen apathy and distraction.

Awake! Awake!

And we stir

Like the night creatures

Scurrying over California fields.

Tide pools of the soul swirl and churn,

Our spiritual joints are watered again.

Could it be, Ha-Meirah,

When lanterns cross borders to ease a mother’s despair

When the bald eagle returns to Catalina Island

When a universe of breath expands in me,

that I begin to see Your hidden face,

with the rising sun of redemption?

*sermon offered at Temple Emanu-El on November 10th, 2023/27 Cheshvan 5784

Where are you, God? Where am I, God?

I imagine our matriarch Sarah asked this often while on her desert trek.

She called out to the vast landscape

when she departed from the only home she ever knew,

when she couldn’t conceive of a child,

and on that fateful day when Abraham brought Isaac to the mountain top

and bound him to be sacrificed.

Perhaps the heartbreak and trauma of the Akedah, the binding of Isaac,

was the final straw in her trust in the Divine.

In this week’s Torah portion, Chayei Sarah, Sarah dies, and I wonder,

was her death a physical or a spiritual one? Or both?

And what about Isaac? Did his faith die on the altar at Mt.Moriah?

In our portion we read: And Isaac went out walking (lasoach) in the field toward evening and, looking up, he saw camels approaching.

What is Isaac doing in the field? It’s a bit vague.

The translation is often—“Isaac went out walking”

but the rabbis of the Talmud suggest it could be Isaac was meditating—

that he was having a sichah, a conversation with God.

In other words, Isaac was practicing hitbodedut,

a type of prayer and spiritual practice

where one privately pours out their heart to God.

Isaac’s conversation, as he stands alone in the field,

is a direct result of his near-death sacrifice in last week’s Torah portion.

He pours forth his heart in the wake of the Akedah, a story with many layers,

but one thing is for certain—

Isaac is changed as his sense of security is so deeply shattered.

And I imagine he looks out in the swaying grasses of the desert field,

wondering if he would ever find the part of himself

sacrificed on that mountain top.

Perhaps Isaac prays:

How is it I’ve seen such horror? What world is this, God? Where are you?

Where am I?

And as Isaac lifts his tired eyes, he sees a camel in the distant horizon,

carrying his future wife, Rebecca.

There is something profoundly moving about imagining Isaac,

who epitomizes our people’s experience of acute trauma,

finding a way to address God in such a moment.

And, at the same time,

it is understandable that our matriarch Sarah

may have thought that God turned away from humanity, and from our people.

What is there to say when it feels like God is a silent observer?

How do we feel right now as we face the challenges of the world surrounding us?

Where are you, God? Where am I, God?

But perhaps God doesn’t have the power to stop suffering

and we can draw strength from the Divine presence more than ever in such times.

The age-old, centering practice of hitbodedut is one way to navigate

the precarious dance between doubt and faith.

It is one way we have journeyed through grief.  

Hitbodedut was made more popular by the great Hassidic master,

Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav,

who lived in many places, among them Uman, Ukraine

where he died from tuberculosis in 1810 at the age of 38 years old.

Rabbi Nachman is known for the words:

Kol haOlam kulo gesher tzar moad v’ha ikkar, lo lefached klal.

The world is a narrow bridge and the essence, the foundation of life, is to not fear.

He wrote those words because he knew fear

as his family struggled through illness, loss, and a shifting political landscape.

A brilliant mind, he also knew the joy of living an evolving Judaism

with communities throughout Eastern Europe and beyond.

And with each step on life’s bridge,

I can imagine Rabbi Nachman practiced hitbodedut,

offering guidance, some of which he wrote down,

like the following descriptive prayer:

Grant me the ability to be alone; may it be my custom to go outdoors each day among the trees and grass – among all growing things and there may I be alone, and enter into prayer, to talk with the One to whom I belong…

On the 85^th anniversary of Kristallnacht, which we marked yesterday,

the writings from Etty Hillesum, a Dutch Jewish author,

captures her own conversations with God

amidst a world of shattered glass and hopes.

I recently learned of Etty Hillesum’s confessional letters and diaries

during the German occupation from Rabbi Miriam Margles.

Tragically, in 1943, Etty Hillesum was deported and murdered in Auschwitz.

Before her death, Etty wrote:

Dear God, these are anxious times.

Tonight for the first time I lay in the dark with burning eyes as scene after scene of human suffering passed before me. I shall promise You one thing, God, just one very small thing: I shall never burden my today with cares about my tomorrow, although that takes some practice. Each day is sufficient unto itself.

I shall try to help You, God, to stop my strength ebbing away, though I cannot vouch for it in advance. But one thing is becoming increasingly clear to me: that You cannot help us, that we must help You to help ourselves. And that is all we can manage these days and also all that really matters: that we safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves. And perhaps in others as well. Alas, there doesn’t seem to be much You Yourself can do about our circumstances, about our lives. Neither do I hold You responsible…

…I am beginning to feel a little more peaceful, God, thanks to this conversation with You. I shall have many more conversations with You. You are sure to go through lean times with me now and then, when my faith weakens a little, but believe me, I shall always labor for You and remain faithful to You and I shall never drive You from my presence.

Etty’s final words are so hauntingly true and starkly timeless:

You cannot help us, but we must help You and defend Your dwelling place inside us to the last…

And so, in keeping with the tradition of Isaac’s spontaneous prayer in a desert field

and given voice by Etty Hillesum through her soulful longing to keep God’s spark alive in her very being, we ask:

Where are you, God? Where am I, God?

I’ve asked this question endless times—

by a creek in the beautiful hills of Simi Valley as the afternoon light began to set in,

at the base of a Western Cedar,

on a quiet evening walk through my North Dallas neighborhood,

in the silent moments of the Amidah, right here in Stern Chapel,

when I close the prayer book and just let the words flow.

In all these places and times, I am practicing hitbodedut.

Whether you’re sitting on the couch in the living room,

or among the trees here at Temple,

pausing to speak to a power greater than yourselves can be deeply moving.

It can feel a bit awkward when we begin,

as there are usually a series of distractions or inhibitions before our minds can begin to focus,

our bodies relax, and the words come forward.

But once that happens, frayed nerve ending start to feel soothed.

Hitbodedut can feel steadying amidst all the tumult within and surrounding you.

It can feel comforting as you may feel your faith being tested.

And while the prayers are uniquely yours, or ours,

there is a feeling of sacred presence and connection,

linking us to the generations before us.

Where are we?

With hearts open,

We say, Hineini,

Here. Present before You.

As we try with our might and tears to help You

And to safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves and in others.