Gratitude: The Most Important New Year's Resolution

Over the course of the last few weeks, I've begun writing down my prayers before I go to bed. I start out with a few things that i am thankful for, and then I ask God for help in whatever in coming up in my life. This has helped me to realize the true importance of gratitude. One doesn't realize how much one has to be thankful for until we try to write it down.

I'm not the biggest fan of traditional New Years' resolutions. Too often we start out strong with no real plan as to how to accomplish our goal, and by February 1st, all of the resolutions fall by the wayside because we get busy or lazy and that's fine. This being said, I think that there is one New Years Resolution that we all need to make this year. We need to be more grateful. Too often we look at the world with cynical disgust (I know I'm tremendously guilty of this) and forget the amazing things that we have. I'd like to issue some "thank yous" and my hope is that, in the new year, some of you all will do so as well. We forget what's important when we get wrapped up in the rabbit holes of our own minds or into a strict goal oriented mindset. Too often we remember the "what" and for the "why." Gratitude helps bring us back to the "why."

Over the course of the last week, I have gotten the opportunity to work with the amazing clergy at my childhood synagogue. And I want to start by thanking them. Thanking them for caring even though I no longer live fifteen minutes away. Thanking them for taking me under their wing. I have so much to learn, and I am blessed to have such incredible teachers (A new blog post about Beth Emet is coming soon).

Thank you to my friends who put up with my neuroses, and help me to make judgement calls, write a paper on Greek mythology, and plan Friday night services all in the same conversation.

Thank you to everyone who has read this blog. I cannot thank you enough.

It Will Be Okay: Keeping the Faith

In my high school philosophy class, I was once called a religious fanatic. I can't recall quite why; I had some pretty unpopular opinions in that class. For example, I have faith, and that seems to make people in the philosophical world a little bit annoyed, but no matter. This is why you can call me a religious fanatic all you want and I won't mind:

I never really understood prayer until I was in about sixth grade. I discovered the power of prayer in a place that is still incredibly special to me today. At my camp, we have a prayer space that is surrounded by trees, and if one closes their eyes, all of the people and the problems drift away. Prayer isn't easy. It requires the putting into words thoughts that we don't speak out loud. It's not an easy way of solving problems; it isn't a cop-out answer, it's a comfort. Prayer helps me to ground my mind when things are out of my control. Prayer helps me to make decisions. Prayer is the reason that I believe in God. Prayer is how I express my faith. It doesn't work for everybody, but it does work for me.

I'm pretty skeptical of miracles, as anyone who has read my D'var Torah on Lech L'cha could tell you, but I think that faith is a pretty powerful thing. People and nature and hundreds of other agents make things happen, but nonetheless, it's important for us to have faith in one another and in the world itself. Every person is created in God's image and should be treated as such. I've been asked why have faith in something that I cannot be sure of i.e. we can't see God (I disagree with this, but that's a whole other blog post). To that, I call forward the term of Soren Kierkegaard: "leap of faith." Kirkegaard believed that faith couldn't really be faith if it was knowledge, and I agree with this. We take a "leap of faith" every time that we trust someone with a small part of ourselves or share love with someone else. As soon as we reach outside of ourselves, we are putting our faith in other people, which is where it belongs. 

No matter how cynical I may seem about politics or the state of the world, I will balance that cynicism out with a heaping dose of faith. Faith in God's work; faith that things someday will get better; faith that America will use the democratic system to elect a good president. And most of all, I have faith in the wonderful people who surround me; my mentors, my friends, my family.

Don't Let Dreams Stay Dreams: Parshat Miketz

While I was reading through this weeks’ parshah: Miketz, I couldn’t help but think about, and by think about I mean get endlessly stuck in my head, Debbie Friedman’s song, And the Youth Shall See Visions. The line from that song goes and the old shall dream dreams, and the youth shall see visions. This got me thinking about what the difference between dreams and visions really is. Anyone can dream. Young children do it all the time. But I’m not as convinced that every person can see visions. I think only those who want to see visions will see them, and otherwise, their notions of the future will be stuck in their dreams. 

In this parshah, Joseph is freed when he interprets one of Pharaoh’s dreams, and therefore, his ability to interpret dreams is what saves him both from slavery and from his brothers. It is very probable that someone else could have interpreted Pharaoh’s dream, it wasn’t that hard to figure out, but the way that Joseph interpreted it required immediate action which may be why it was included in the Torah.

We all have dreams of where we want the world to be in five, ten, fifteen years or what we hope will happen in our lifetimes, but I think what we need to do is have visions. I have a vision for the future where our discourse is not as racially and sexually biased as it is today. I have a vision for a future where kids with disabilities can go to Sunday school just like everyone else.  Visions can be big or small. They can affect just your family or the whole world, but the important thing is to take immediate action because while change may be slow, if dreams stay dreams, nothing can happen at all.

The Pull Close, Push Away Approach: An Endless Frustration

You're probably reading the title to this blog post and thinking: Emily, what the heck are you talking about? Well, I'm about to tell you about something that has happened to me quite a few times in my lifetime of trying to figure out who to trust in this world. This phenomenon, which I will be calling PCPA for short is composed of two parts.

1. The sharer(me) reaches out to someone who they trust (or think that they can trust, but that part comes later). This is generally an adult in their life; someone who is theoretically and sometimes professionally obligated to be there for them. That adult continues to check in on them and treat them warmly, responding to their texts and emails, reassuring the sharer that the responder will be there for them, etc. This can also happen in person with physical warmth and kind words.

2. The responder "disappears." This can mean that they are more distant while the sharer is talking to them in person, or more often, in my life, it means that the responder stops well, responding. Texts go unanswered; calls go unreturned.

I can't say for sure why this happens but I do know two things: First, the sharer will often feel, at least in my case, that they were wrong to trust you which can cause them disappointment and anxiety that gets redirected to the sharer. Second, PCPA seems to happen when the information that the sharer has told the responder is something"heavy" or "complicated." I speculate that the responder pulls away because of fear, but since I don't really talk to anyone who has demonstrated this phenomenon for me anymore, I'm not sure. I would love to hear your thoughts.

I also want to just take a second and thank all of you who have been there for me through thick and thin. You know who you are, and I love you.

The Problem with How We Comfort: A Lesson in Empathetic Listening

There are a few ways that we tend to try and respond to someone when they share their feelings or painful experiences with us. Most of them end up invalidating the sharer.

1. Relaying your own experiences to try and make the sharer feel less alone.

Why this doesn't work: Firstly, this person came to you asking for help, so you should feel honored. This means that the conversation should revolve around them, not you. By sharing your experiences, you are shifting the conversation to be about your experiences, and therefor, the sharer may feel like you are invalidating their feelings. The second reason this doesn't work is because "you don't get it". I have sat here at my computer staring at a blank screen for hours over the past few weeks trying to find a more polite or elegant way of saying it, but that's what it comes down to. I have this issue the most when I try to share with others because my life is unusually complicated, and the responder sharing one experience that they share with me doesn't mean that they understand how that experience interacted with all of the other stuff in my life. As someone who has tried to share with many different people over the years, I recognize that this is a natural reaction and one with good intentions. That being said, I don't think that we should lose the opportunity to improve our comforting skills.

2. The "think positive" approach.

Why this doesn't work: I have had quite a few people in my life tell me to look at the cards I have dealt to me and "see them in a different light" and therefore, turn the negative things into positive things. First of all, when one is in the midst of the hand with the terrible cards, it's pretty hard to see the cards in any other order then they are in your hand. I know this from experience. You may realize that you've learned something from the experience a few years later, but it is nearly impossible to learn from experiences like that in the present. The second reason why this doesn't work is because it often feels like you are minimizing the terribleness (just imagine this is a curse word) of my hand by telling me that I can turn it around with my mindset. 

3. Pity or the "I'm Sorry" approach

Why this doesn't work: Oh goodness, how I despise this approach. I have seen it hundreds of times. I know that when you say you're sorry to me, you don't mean to make me feel worse, but the way I see it is that you don't know what else to do, so that's what you say. I know that we,  as humans, are naturally programmed to do this. We say and do what we know. And I know that you don't understand, but pity isn't the best way to try and convince me that you do. 

Alright, everyone still with me? Great. You're probably thinking, Emily, you just told me all of the ways that I try to comfort people are invalidating of the sharer's feelings; what do I do? Empathetic listening is a term that I learned on Dear Hank and John (it's a podcast, you can google it). Basically, you want to be a comforting mirror. You want to reflect the emotions that the person you are talking to are sharing with you. For example, "you seem really upset about this" is actually not an invalidating answer because it allows you to acknowledge the sharer's emotions without needing to understand an experience that you have never had. Strangely, this is also what you should do if your child is throwing a tantrum. The second part of empathetic listening is asking clarifying questions and  trying not to interrupt the person. Asking questions about the details of whatever the sharer is feeling will make them feel heard. Alternatively, you can just give them a hug. This is often my strategy because sometimes you can tell that someone is upset about something, but they don't want to talk about it.  So that's it. As always, leave a comment if you have questions or comments.

Od Yavo: The Song that Has Bookmarked My Life

"Od yavo shalom aleinu, v'al kulam. Salaam"

Still, indeed, peace will come, it will come upon us.

The first memories I have associated with this song make sense: song sessions at camp, closing services every shabbat evening. This song is used for a prayer for peace often. But this song started to mean something to me approximately six years ago when I found out that a former camp counselor (who I adored) was staffing my eighth grade Israel trip. I remember the sounds of the guitar at the end of that pre-trip meeting, and they indicated that even though, at the time, my life was slipping away, it was all going to be okay.

The second memory I have of this song is at camp between my Freshman and Sophomore years of high school. I have a vivid memory of us dancing around the dining hall, the illuminating smile of my caring counselor reminding me that I was going to be fine. Throughout my time in high school, at every event that we sang this song, I was reminded that I was going to be okay.

This past summer, I sang this song with my campers, and this fall, every week at Hillel Shabbat dinner after we finish the prayer after meals, we break into song, without fail. The most significant memory is Fall Fest after I had just spoken to many people who I didn't know, and when I spent most of the song cleaning up bottles of wine and grape juice.

This past weekend, I got the opportunity to go to HUC-JIR for their college leadership weekend. We closed our Friday night service with this song, and I was reminded, that even with the pain and suffering of the world weighing on our minds, we were going to be okay. And as I smiled while blinking away tears, I remembered the true power of Od Yavo.

L'dor Vador: My favorite Jewish Concept

L'dor Vador-generation to generation- has always been one of my favorite concepts in Judaism, and I have always really respected my mentors and I have so many of those that I can thank for wanting to be a Rabbi now, but I'll write a blog post on my trip to HUC this weekend when my eyes aren't begging for sleep. Regardless, L'dor Vador.

Seven years ago I was a camper in Tiferet, the arts unit at my camp, and there was one counselor who I really looked up to. Two years after the fact, I heard that she was going to HUC-JIR (Hebrew Union College, Jewish Institute of Religion) to become a rabbi, and I was inspired, thinking, oh, I can do that. \

This past summer at camp, I worked in the aforementioned unit, Tiferet. I was there for six weeks, but for the sake of the story, let's just focus on the first two. Those first two weeks, I was a counselor for a little girl with a long last name who turned out to be the daughter of the Director of Admissions and Recruitment at HUC-JIR. We spent A LOT of time together.

This weekend, when I visited HUC-JIR, I got to see both my former counselor and my camper from this past summer. I was struck with the incredible nature of our tradition that it can create this kind of connection where the student becomes the teacher, the camper becomes the counselor, the mentee becomes the mentor. I am so lucky to live in this interconnected web of Reform Judaism. It has taught me that I truly can impact others just as those before impacted them. And I can only hope that someday, that camper grows up to impact more campers and the cycle will continue. A never ending cycle of love and learning (and camp).

Before this weekend, I never truly knew the meaning of L'dor Vador. Now I do.