A Sample Issue Table of Contents The Halachic Process and the Laws on Homosexuality by Lakme Batya Elior The Mysterious Shaman: A True Story by Gershon Caudill El Cerrito, California Mamzerut Stigma by Arthur Waskow Blood & Milk by Katie Singer Santa Fe, New Mexico "What Kind of a Rabbi are You?" by Rabbi Jack Gabriel Fort Collins, CO Yerushalayim haKedosha, A Poem Prayer For The Peace Of Jerusalem by Monique Pasternak Keaau, Hawaii It's Gonna Be Okay And Who D'ya Think Y'are? Teachings Of The 18th Century Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov translated from the original Hebrew texts by Monty Eliasov San Bernardino, CA On Hyphenated-Judaics by Rabbi Gershon Winkler Zalmanic Aphorisms from conversations with Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi Thoughts On The Basis by Nicole Barchilon Frank Arcata, California Subscribe to Pumbedissa and much, much more... The Halachic Process and the Laws on Homosexuality by Lakme Batya Elior La Jara, NM "Do not do unto others that which is unpleasing to you." (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a) Many of us have had the experience of family and friends telling us, at one point or another, that a relationship with a particular close friend, significant other, potential mate, or even career choice was "bad for you, but we love you so we will accept you anyway. Even though, if it were up to us, you would not be with that person (do that thing)." And we were unable to share, gush, ooh and ahh over the good things - because they were met with bare "tolerance" (read: barely disguised disgust). And, even more destructive, we were unable to discuss difficulties in the relationship (or job) because they were met with (spoken or unspoken) "Good, see the light! Break up! Quit!!" and not with the sympathy, the support for hard times, and the compassionate clarity that we needed. How many of us are aware of "open-minded people" who "accept" our Jewishness, only to be convinced in their own theology that we are all doomed to eternal fires of damnation? All of the above completely destroy any experience of community in each situation presented. It is small wonder that since halachah is used to excuse exactly those attitudes toward homosexuality, that there is a great deal of pain, exclusion, and disillusionment going on in our communities, shuls and temples around the world. In my heart I know that it is wrong, and against Torah, to say "We completely accept individual homosexuals in our congregation, but there is no way that we can say that their lifestyle can be considered holy. It is an abomination in the Torah and in our hearts. Yet we must accept each individual Jew." Gee, thanks, but I don't think so. First of all, there is "us versus them" assumed in the statement which Martin Buber so succinctly called an "I/It" relationship that makes the concept of acceptance an oxymoron from the very start! Who are the "we" making the decision? Committed heterosexuals. When the view point of the one being ostracized is not taken into account it is not a community decision, nor a compassionate one. "Love thy neighbor as thyself." (Leviticus 19:18) In the past, various communities, various rabbis, have had to deal with issues like this - when the urgings of heart and spirit deeply contradict clearly spelled out laws in the Torah. I am going to apply many of the concepts and processes that they used in the past to the issue of the sacredness of homosexuality for both men and women. I am going to try deal with it as exhaustively as I can and I'll stay completely within the halachic (Jewish "legal") framework. For there is no need what-so-ever to dispense with either the wholeness of those of us who are gay or with any smidge of the depth of our tradition. I highly recommend the book Not in Heaven: The Nature and Function of Halakha by Eliezer Berkovits (Ktav Publishing House, Inc., New York, 1983). Rabbi Berkovits is a respected Orthodox rabbi in Israel with a very deep Talmudic background. Many of the basic concepts and examples I will be using in this work are beautifully expounded in his book. It is very well written and accessible to both the learned (full of sources and delicate unfoldings of the halakhic process) and the unlearned (just skip over parts and go for the concepts). The book bears reading and re-reading and goes deeper than any one application - it applies to all applications. Rabbi Berkovits might be quite taken aback that I am applying these concepts to homosexuality. But I am not making these arguments for Orthodox communities (much as I might like to) but for my own. So first, as I stated above, at various times Jews have been faced with heart urgings that were deeply at odds with specific passages in the Torah. How did they deal with these? There are overarching principles which are considered, in classical halakhic process, to take precedence over any detail expounded in the Torah. I have included a non-exaustive list of them in bold scattered through out this article. When a soul-felt pain is at odds with any one passage, these overarching principles were looked to for support and then the individual passage was worked and re-worked in the interpretive process. A heart urging, combined with only one of these overarching principles was deemed enough to find a single re-interpretation that would negate the harmful-feeling effects of the passage. Enough. An example... "All her ways are pleasantness and all her paths are peace." (Proverbs 3:17) The case of the rebellious son - Deuteronomy 21:18-21. 18. If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and who, when they have chastened him, will not listen to them; 19. Then shall his father and his mother lay hold of him, and bring him out to the elders of his city, and to the gate of his place; 20. And they shall say to the elders of his city, This, our son, is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. 21. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die; so shall you put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear. The rabbis in Mishnaic times found this completely untenable. The stoning to death of a boy or an almost grown man because of arguments between him and his parents just did not sit well at all with the principle "All her (the Torah) ways are pleasantness, all her paths are peace". So they applied a process called la'akor, meaning "to uproot"(Jerusalem Talmud, Gittin 4:2 and Babylonian Talmud, Yevamot 90b). The root, eekar means "root" or "principle". Many of the rabbis made so many contingencies around the law that it was virtually unenforcible. However, Rabbi Y'huda went even further and re-interpreted the passage thus: it says in verse 20 "he will not obey our voice". "Our voice", he said, in the singular. And in order for both parents to speak in one voice, they must be identical in voice, pitch, wording, timing, physical size and appearance. Since it is a physical impossibility that two people be so identical, it can never happen. The case where the community is called upon to kill a "rebellious son" can never (not "in our time", but NEVER) happen! (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 71a). Please note that reading kolenu our voice(s) solely in the singular is a stretch in itself. The word is freely translated either way. And with verse 18 just before, about exactly this case, where it is spelled out "the voice of his father, and the voice of his mother", it is striking that the entire "uprooting, the principling" of this commandment is based on translating one use of the word out of several as singular. And yet, this application of the principle of la'akor has held for centuries in halachah (law), not just in minhag (custom). But then the rabbis were forced to ask the question - if this commandment is so clearly lacking compassion and "peace and pleasantness" and is furthermore based on a physical impossibility, why is it in the Torah in the first place??! ! The answer was: "The law was written to give us a reward for correctly interpreting it!" (Ibid.). "And you shall live by these laws." (Leviticus 18:5) "And not die by them." (Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 85b) So we come to the halakhic problem of Leviticus 18:22 "And you shall not cohabit with a male as one cohabits with a woman; it is an abomination." and Leviticus 20:13: "And if a man cohabits with a male as with a woman, both of them have done an abominable thing; they shall be put to death; their blood falls back upon them." Pretty horrific. But so is having the men of a community stone to death a teenager who is having problems with his parents! This is about male homosexuality. Lesbianism, when it is mentioned as coming under Jewish law, is at worst called "lewd" (Babylonian Talmud, Yevamot 76a). But as the 3rd century Rabbi Padas said "Since when did the Torah forbid lewdness?" (Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zorah 17a). Also, there is a ruling that a practicing lesbian can marry a Kohen (Babylonian Talmud, Yevamot 76a). So, there are specific people's opinions that there is something not quite wholesome about women making love with each other, but there is no basis for this what-so-ever in the Torah or in halachah. This, however, is small consolation concerning the real sanctity of so many of these relationships or the way that many heterosexual Jews feel justified in having negative, righteous attitudes against lesbians. More later. So, if we follow Rabbi Y'huda's example, we could interpret "cohabit with a male as with a woman" to mean only vaginal penetration. Since this is a physical impossibility with a man, the law has no application at all. Combined with the real depth of pain being caused in our communities by stigmatizing Jews, this fulfils the principle of "peace and pleasantness" and takes the whole thing out of the realm of pilpul (the purely intellectual exercise --for the sake of memorizing during study -- of pulling a law apart every which way it will go) and into the realm of the God-Will and we have discovered the compassionate and correct interpretation. According to the process of la'akor, to uproot, one re-interpretation is sufficient when it is in the service of increasing peace and pleasantness and reflects a deep pain or problem in the community. However, I have been struck with the variety of ways that the law on homosexuality can be seen as giving us other lessons besides the common hateful one. The second re-interpretation goes something like this. This whole section of Leviticus deals with specific rituals practiced by the seven nations that the Israelites were to have nothing to do with (except war): no intermarriage, no commerce, no spoil after a battle, etc. These rituals included burning children as a form of worship, apparently ritualized incest, boiling an infant goat in the milk of it's own mother, and sex specifically while a woman was menstruating. In this context, the law against "cohabiting with a male as with a woman" gets the interpretation that men were standing in for sacred priestesses to have sex with other men - not because those other men were homosexual, but because it was the ritual. Some of these laws against non-Israelite rituals have been left as prohibitions against defunct rituals, i.e. having little or no application (burning children as worship). Some have taken extra meaning beyond ritual (laws regarding kashrut). And some have been dropped altogether (law regarding the destruction of a "sorcerous city"). We must - must because halakhic process requires us to apply the law as living laws to here and now - re-examine our assumption that a prohibition against a ritual of a man having sex with another man who was standing in for a sacred priestess has blanket application to current life, values, love, sacredness, and norms. Since male homosexuality is not done in the context of a heterosexual religious ritual, again, the law does not apply. A third interpretation: Arthur Waskow has suggested a currently relevant, interpretation for the phrase "as with a woman". He suggested that in certain situations such as all male institutions, men can be attracted to each other sexually simply because it is not possible to find a female partner. Therefore, when they have sex, one or both are standing in for a woman and they are not relating to each other as they really are. This kind of sexually relating to a fantasy rather than the real person is prohibited. Therefore, when a man sleeps with another man as a man, it is a totally different case and therefore, two men having sex with each other is not only not unholy but permitted and should be seen as valid and holy. And if this applies to men, about whom something specific has been said in the Torah, how much more so does it apply to women about whom there was never any question. This interpretation has the added attraction that it then becomes an example of a broader principle - if anyone of us sleeps with one person but in our heart we are making love to someone else - we are using that person as a substitute rather than being authentic and loving, and that is wrong! (Babylonian Talmud, Nedarim 20b: "One should not drink from one goblet when their eyes are feasting on another goblet.") "Do not put a stumbling block before the blind." (Leviticus 19:14) It would follow then, that if a man sleeps with a woman because that is the only partner acceptable to his community, but he would rather be with a man, he is violating the law. Or if a woman marries merely because that is what is expected of her, but is truly more sexually comfortable with women, she is violating the law. If any of the above three interpretations have validity (what if all three do!) and we continue to apply the law on homosexuality in the old interpretation we are putting a stumbling block before the blind in several ways. First, the wife or husband of a homosexual or lesbian is being used, and for less than holy purposes because she or he is being denied the opportunity to bond with someone who truly wants them. Secondly, the gay partner is likewise being denied, by the community's values, the chance to a full and free expression of true self with an appreciative partner. Third, homosexuals that do not fall into the trap of forcing themselves into heterosexual relationships are being denied Judaism in ways that heterosexuals have been granting themselves for centuries. Fourth, many lesbians and homosexual men are leaving Judaism. And fifth, those that do not leave are practicing with land mines of pain exploding in their faces from the attitudes of "tolerant" heterosexual Jews so that Judaism remains a painful experience. "The dignity of a person supersedes any prohibition." (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 81b) Looking at all of the overarching principles of the Torah that I have listed so far (in bold type) and comparing any one of them to mainstream attitudes toward homosexuality, we are deeply in trouble as a community if we do not manage to convey these basic principles and truly implement them. From The Halachic Codes of the Schmelves (Jewish elves): On Yom Kippur, sneakers are to be worn on both feet. If one has only a single sneaker, it must be worn on the left foot only, and the right foot should then be suspended on a pulley leading to the synagogue. Where there is no pulley, one must don the one sneaker and hop to services. Prayers should be recited facing east, unless the person standing directly in front of you is praying facing west. One who has broken the fast with French sweet rolls should sleep facing France with a rock in their hand. Some say a stone. Some say a boulder. Others say a rock the size of a wicker basket. Yet others say a wicker basket the size of a rock. Welcome to Pumbedissa! Hello, readers of this sample issue of Pumbedissa. Some of you are already subscribers, and this issue is not for you, so put it down. We know who you are. This special edition is to entice those of you who never heard of us, or who heard of us but were never moved to do anything about it, or those of you who once heard of us, tried us, but found the journal so much fun and so light-hearted and blasphemous that you discontinued your subscription. You know who you are: the mourners of our people, the kind that go around looking always for excuses to feel sad and sullen, the types of people who are always saying things like: "Get serious" or, better yet: "This is not a laughing matter." So enjoy reading us while you're strung out on the Kallah or Elat Chayyim (or on life in general), or while you're sitting in your room trying to get a handle on things because you just bumped into an ex-lover, plus you spied about forty more of them in the humongous mob out there, many of the people you least expected to show up and yet they had the chutzpah to come anyway and nudnik you or make you feel guilty. So to help you come back to your self and your senses, we have prepared this very special issue of Pumbedissa in the hopes that you will love it and subscribe to it so we can get rich and famous and get on one of those talk shows and also travel a lot and buy more land and afford a hot tub - you know, the kind that you can put outside, too. Gershon the Winkler (and Lakme Batya Elior), Publishers·   What A Lot of People Are Saying About Pumbedissa (All comments are documented) "An excellent journal. You continue to do a magnificent job!" - Rabbi Wayne Dosick of Livermore, California (author of Dancing with God) "We so enjoy receiving it. Thank you for your work." - Shoshana and David Cooper of Jamestown, Colorado "Liberating, articulate, relevant, not to mention funny (oops! I mentioned it). Keep it happening! I love what Pumbedissa stands for and accomplishes." - Rabbi Jack Gabriel of Fort Collins, Colorado "Very refreshing. I appreciate the love, humor, careful textual source work. I value it as a forum to lovingly and intelligently look at what it means for Jews to learn 'outside' of Judaism." - Yael Seligman of Brooklyn, New York "I love it! I don't want to miss any issues. It continues to be great! Many blessings for providing us with articles that educate and make us think as well as those that give us humor." - Ari Shapiro of Newton, Massachusetts "I truly enjoy it. Thanks for such an interesting and insightful publication." - Rabbi Biatch of Staunton, Virginia "Don't stop sending it! I love your publication and am learning a lot." - Paula Nelson of Dobbs Ferry, New York "Pumbedissa is getting better and better." - Gideon Weisz of Boulder, Colorado "Your articles stimulate, to say the least. The inclusiveness is healing and wholing for me; as one who is getting re-acquainted with my long buried roots. The individuals I meet through the articles make it OK to be Jewish and a God-wrestler, as well as Jewish plus.... I look forward to every issue." - Merrill S. Carmel of Rochester, New York· from the wisdom of Rabbi Eliezer ben Yaakov (3rd century) Says the Holy Blessed One: "Pray in the synagogue. But if you cannot pray there, then pray in the field. And if you cannot pray there, then pray in your house. And if you cannot pray there, then pray in your bed. And if you cannot pray at all, then meditate in your heart." -Pesikta D'Rav Kahana 158a and Midrash Shochar Tov on Psalm 4, para. 7 The Mysterious Shaman: A True Story by Gershon Caudill El Cerrito, California Back about 1991 or so, I received a phone call from a friend of mine who lived in Blanding, Utah. He informed me that he was dying and that he would like to have one last chance to win me back to the Mormon fold. (For if you remember from Pumbedissa Vol.4#5, I was once a very active Mormon, served a mission, and held the priesthood "rank" of a Seventy when I informed the Latter-day Saints Church that I was going to convert to Judaism, which I did April 17, 1977.) Needless to say, since this fellow had been a friend for about thirty years, and I was taught to respect a deathbed wish, I loaded my family in the car and we drove from Boise, Idaho to Blanding, Utah. We were up very early for family prayers, a custom in many Mormon homes, and soon after breakfast my friend and I began our dialogue-debate-argument-disputation, which lasted with breaks for his medications and visits by doctors and nurses, until dinner time. Pretty soon I had had enough of all the dialogue, references to personal miracles, visions of angels, and testimonies of long dead ancestors, and I let the whole room know that I was going up to the cafe and drink myself several wonderful cups of strong coffee. And thus I got up and left. I went to the cafe, drank some coffee, and started reading the Ma'ariv (evening) prayers from my Spanish-Portuguese Prayer Book, when I heard a voice over my shoulder say, "I know that this page is written in English, but what language is that on the other page?" Oh boy, Here we go again, I thought, another damned missionary. My hackles were up now and I was prepared for a no-holds barred argument as to just exactly why it was that the Mormon concepts of many things they believed were not in accordance with the Hebrew Scriptures. So I says, "It is Hebrew." The obviously Indian fellow then asks me, "Are you a Jew?" I reply, "YES!" He then blows me away with his next words. He asks "How would you like to help me bring up the sun in the morning?" Now I've been asked to help with lots of things before, both legal and illegal, but this was the first time that I had ever been asked to help bring up the sun. "You bet!," I replied, "what do I have to do?" So he asked me if I had any ritual items that I use to pray with. My tallit (prayer shawl) and tephillin (phylacteries) were back at the house in my car, so he asked me to go get them, which I did. We drove a couple of hours down into Arizona, with me jabbering like a jay bird all the while, telling him of my experience at my Mormon friends house, and in turn, he told me of his experiences with Episcopalian missionaries, schools, and with Mormon missionaries and programs designed to make over Indians into "pseudo-White men". Pretty soon, he stopped his pickup, which he had been driving down a real bumpy road. I couldn't see anything but shadows near the road, it was so dark. You could see sagebrush and Juniper whenever a curve came up. He took a flashlight from under the seat, and asked me to follow him. I did. I had to hurry as he was moving right along. I kept tripping over things in the dark, but somehow, he and I ended up in the same place. We were standing before a hole in the earth that had a ladder sticking out the top. Even before I could ask if we were going down it, he was headed down into the darkness. Somehow I summoned up the courage to follow him. NOW, thoughts came to me that maybe this stranger was a thief and murderer who would kill me, and since no one knew where I was, including me, my body would never be found. Maybe I'd gone from bad to worse! Oy! Oy! Oy! As soon as I got to the bottom of the ladder, I noticed that, because of the light from the flashlight, I could see that we were in some sort of round room with mud or dirt walls. My "friend" was gathering smallish stones from various places around the room, which he formed into a circle. He filled the inner space with small twigs and sticks, which were also scattered around the room. He then lit the fire and taking something from a pouch that he was wearing on a thing around his neck, he sprinkled it on the fire. A pleasant aroma came from whatever it was that he took from the pouch. He then looked at me and asked if I was ready to do my praying. I asked, "What do you want me to do?" He said "You're a Jew, aren't you? Do whatever it is that you Jews do when you pray in the morning." So I took out my Siddur and set it near the fire where I could see the words (I was still far from having the prayers committed to memory as yet), I took out my tallit that had been given to me by Rabbi Solomon Maimon, a direct descendent of the Rambam (Maimonides), said the blessing, and put it on. I then took my tephillin, unwrapped them, put the one on my right arm, saying the blessings, then the other between my eyes on the forehead, finally the signing of the "dalet" (as is the Sephardi custom) in the palm of my hand, with the last of the strap. My companion had taken out an eagle's wing, and a small rattle. He also produced a small drum that he proceeded to beat while he chanted his monotonous melody. Aye, yai, yai, yai. Aye, yai yai, yai. Over and over again. SO, looking into my Siddur, I began "Mah tobu ohalechah Yaakob, mishkanotechah Yisrael" according to the melodies of the Boise Jewish community. However, before I got very far, I got caught up in the chanting of my Indian friend... "Sheh... MAH...Yis... Ra... El, ADO... nai... EL... O...h ay... nu, ... ADO... nai, ... Ech ...ADD!!!" (to the same tune as was being chanted by my shaman friend). After a while, when I realized that I was about to finish the prayers, I wondered what I would do then. Then it came, those final words, "B'yom hahu yihyeh Adonai echad u'shmo echad! (In that day shall God be one and God's Name be one)" I was finished. And as by a miracle, so was my Indian friend. AT THAT VERY MOMENT, the sun came up over a place on the far horizon and a shaft of sunlight filled the room we were in as though someone had thrown a bomb of sunlight into the room. I was suitably impressed. It was one of the three most spiritual times in my life. ( The other two were when my first wife and our children had been sealed in the Idaho Falls Temple, and then when I went to the Portland Mikvah for my Jewish conversion.) I looked around to see if my friend was also impressed and was surprised to see that he had put out the fire, scattered the ashes, and was moving the stones into their spots in the corners of the room, after which he wiped away any trace of our having been there. He would be back to do this again, come morning. It was his job. He taught me more about accepting other people and their traditions than anyone who had gone before him. Since then, I have prayed AS A JEW, in Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, and Seventh Day Adventist Churches. I have davened AS A JEW in a Moslem mosque and with the Bahai, at Metaphysical Churches and Gay-Lesbian religious services. I now am fully confident that one need not feel threatened by other people's methods of achieving connection with the Divine. As the Prophet Micah had said in his HOPE of a future time when there would no longer be a world of war, hunger, displacement, ignorance, etc. , for in that Messianic Age "All the people will walk each in the Names of its gods, and we will walk in the Name of Yod, Heh, Vav, Heh our God forever and ever". So what will be the difference? It must be only that we will all realize that despite all these names that humankind has for it's gods, We all worship The One God. There is only God. · Mamzerut Stigma by Arthur Waskow What follows is a post that I recently sent to the Torat Chaim (Tor-ch) list (somewhat progressive Conservative mindset), following up on a lengthy discussion there about the category of mamzerut, a stigma attached in halakha (Jewish law) to any child of an adulterous or incestuous sexual relationship, and also of any sexual relationship between a mamzer and a non-mamzer. The stigma is that the child may not marry any Jew who is not also a mamzer. This lasts for at least ten generations. I am sharing this with you as well, because I think those Jewish-renewal & havurah Jews who view themselves as deeply influenced by halakha need to address this particular element of it, which is often cited as one of the great dangers involved in not getting a halakhic (read Orthodox) gett - that is, divorce. I welcome discussion. I want to raise a question, put forward a view about mamzerut that stands on the edge of, and perhaps even beyond, the USUAL boundaries of the halakhic system - but I would think not beyond the resources of Conservative Judaism. First, I find the practice of stigmatizing any child for the sins of her or his parents revolting, a violation of Torah in the sense of God's will, rather than a fulfillment of Torah. I think Conservative Judaism should proclaim this practice null and void (ideally, indeed, not just void but prohibited), and cite Torah reasons for doing so. I give the reasons below. If this seems the importation of a sentimental Western morality into tough-minded Judaism, bear with me a moment: for at least 2500 years, there has been a serious Jewish warrant for dumping this construction of the text of Chumash (Five Books of Moses). So I did not invent this critique. Before going into this, however, let me look at the possible reasons for the draconic decree that the descendants (to the 10th generation at least) of a forbidden adulterous or incestuous sexual relationship, or of a relationship between a mamzer and a non-mamzer, are forbidden to have any legitimatized sexual relationship with - that is, to marry - any Jew except someone who has the same kind of parentage and bears the same stigma. There are three possible reasons for obeying this putative command: The first is, fear of the impact of their adultery/incest on their children, people will not have sex with a forbidden partner. There are three things wrong with this reason, if reason it be: (a) First, even if it were sometimes a successful deterrent, it violates all other ethical stances of Torah. For example, would we say that the children of murderers should be killed, or even prohibited from marrying, because that might deter people from becoming murderers? (b) Secondly, since adultery or incest was a capital crime, it seems unlikely that a stigma on one's children would, for many people, have been an even greater deterrent than the likelihood of their own deaths. The notion that one might adulterize secretly, fearing no human punishment, and yet fear that the offspring's features would betray guilt does not require mamzerut as a punishment. If the evidence of adultery is strong enough to proclaim the child a mamzer, it should be strong enough to execute the parents. (c) In a society with very effective birth control (even though not 100% effective) it does not seem likely that fear of the mamzerut of offspring is going to deter people from sexual relationships based on love or on lust. The second possible reason for preserving mamzerut, is that one may believe that adultery/incest transmits a HEREDITARY and INDELIBLE moral defect to any children born to this union, such that their own bringing children into the world intrinsically corrupts the morality of the racial stock of the People Israel. Note that there is no possibility of correcting this defect by any act of tshuvah (penance) whatsoever. In my view, this is abhorrent to everything else Judaism teaches, though I am aware that some strands of Judaism (some versions of Hassidism, especially Lubavitch) teach that non-Jews are hereditarily incapable (without conversion) of reaching the spiritual heights a Jew can reach because they do not come equipped with the highest level of the soul; so I can quite believe that some Jews believe that a mamzer is possessed of an indelible, hereditary, and automatically transmitted spiritual defilement. But the tradition that teaches (albeit aggadically) that God created the human race through one person so that no one would ever be able to say, "My ancestors were better people than your ancestors" cannot, in my view, also hold - nor if it did would I believe this was truthful Torah, true to the One God of the Universe - that some people are born with a hereditary moral defect based on their parent's immoral acts. The third possible reason behind this practice is, that the Torah says so. Yes, and it also says that parents must stone to death a stubborn, rebellious son. The Rabbis said this stoning never happened and it never will! They insisted on this even in the teeth of one Rabbi who said he had seen it done. Why? Because they viewed this as disgusting, abhorrent. Are we entitled to abolish this piece of halakha? I say Yes, for three reasons: First I would invoke the words of Yechezkel HaNavi (the Prophet Ezekiel) who said 2500 years ago: "Here! If one begets a child who sees all his parent's sins that he has done and does not act in this way - does not ... make taboo [defile?] his neighbor's wife ... has not twisted, yes twisted... [but has rather] carried out my rules-of-justice, has walked in my statutes - that one shall not die for the sake of his parent's iniquity; he shall live, yes live. ...The soul that sins, it shall die; the child shall not bear the iniquity of the parent, nor shall the parent bear the iniquity of the child; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him." (Ezekiel 18:14-20). I know that we do not ordinarily make halakha from the Neviim (Prophets), but in such cases as "The offering of our lips we shall bring you in place of bulls" the Rabbis have drawn on Neviim to justify the halakha that prayer takes the place of burnt-offerings. In this case, it seems to me Ezekiel was speaking as much True God as a human being can. If it be argued that he was talking only about not literally killing a child for his parent's sin, I would respond that "He shall live, yes live" - "chayo yichyeh" - refers to his own life and his ability to give life through having children. So we should conclude that whatever Torah meant about mamzerut, it must not be practiced in such a way as to stigmatize and prevent the marriage of the children of an adulterous or incestous sexual relationship, nor the children of one who might under the previous rules be called a mamzer. A second approach by which we might eliminate this revolting piece of seeming halakha is by takkanah (decree), which everyone agrees is in the hands of the authorities of a given generation whenever they choose to use it. (Joel Roth, in his totally halakhically bound book on the questions of the equality of women, concedes that the rabbis of any generation have the power to decide, given them by Torah. He abjures this power in the case of the equality of women, but he acknowledges its existence.) Finally, there is a halakhic escape-valve from the halakha itself - rarely used, as might be imagined, but it's there - called "darchei noam" (different from "mipnai darchei shalom," which is about keeping peace with non-Jews by, for example, understanding the obligation of saving a life on Shabbat to extend to non-Jews as well as to Jews). The Tanakhic (biblical) source is: d'racheha darchei noam, v'kol neti'vote'ha shalom - "Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peacefulness" (Proverbs 3: 17). Darchei noam is about not carrying out halakha that would disgust the people. The classic source in Talmud is Yebamoth (vol. 1 of Nashim, 15a, or p. 79 in Soncino edition): "Should they be asked to perform the halitzah, they would become despised by their husbands; and should you say 'let them be despised,' [it could be retorted] 'Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peacefulness.' " [Footnote in Soncino edition says, "The ways of the law must lead to no unpleasantness for the innocent."] What is this passage about? Who is it that, should they be asked to do halitzah, would become despised? This is the case: a widow who has a child from her first marriage remarries, then her child dies, making her retroactively childless from the first marriage [and therefore automatically bound in levirate marriage to her deceased husband's brother unless she performs a rite of "untying" called halitzah]. Yet, the rabbis ruled that in this case, since she remarried, she is not obligated to levirate marriage because "[The Torah's] ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peacefulness" (See Yebamoth 87b, or p. 591 in Soncino ed.). The logic is, If we REALLY DID what Torah commands, we would force her to do halitzah; we do not carry out the strict rules of Torah, for Torah is supposed to lead to pleasantness and this would breed disgust. So I would argue that, putting together Ezekiel, our own sense of rank and intolerable injustice, and "darchei noam," we - including the Conservative movement - could cut through this truly disgusting, irreversible, indelible, and hereditary stigma on totally innocent people. · Blood & Milk by Katie Singer Santa Fe, New Mexico We are three women in my great grandmother's pot: Gramma, Mom, and me. Everyone is sauce: butter, diced onion, warm milk. We are sleeping in our own breasts. Nothing will curdle. This milk is transluscent as amniotic fluid. I see Great Gramma Katie staring at us like raw meat. "Nit geshmaak," she says, "Not savory, not tender." She raises the flame, cuts each woman into chunks, tells to get done. Get done. Blood dyes the milk. My great-grandmother's knife cuts through cartlidge, scrapes the pot. "S'hut mein bubbe's tam," Gramma curses. "This tastes like nothing. This tastes like my grandmother." Her fat turns to liquid, floats on the stew. I keep my nose high to breathe. I want to get away but Mom clings close. She hangs from my neck, brings us to the bottom of the pot. "There's nothing to say to you," she tells me, "and nothing I want to hear." I think, I want my body back. Heart, feet, hips, I move toward sizzling parts. Breasts, fingers, fists. Mom steps on my bones, hoists herself to the edge of the pot. I see Great Gramma Katie's still looking in. I figure all this is love. Great Gramma Katie nods, takes her knife away. "Fartig," she says, "ready." I tell her, "I want to write down the family recipes." My mother hears me, turns away. I turn to my great grandmother again. She scoops me into her ladle, takes me to her daughter. "Shitt arein," Gramma says. "Take a handful, pour it in."· "What Kind of a Rabbi are You?" by Rabbi Jack Gabriel Fort Collins, CO I'd like to share with you all an issue I have trouble with, that comes up all the time...it's a question I get asked a lot, especially after I do a service or a bris or a wedding, and someone notices that it's a teeny bit different from what they're used to. The question is, "What kind of a Rabbi are you?" I remember talking to a woman at a wedding I did last winter. She said, "that was wonderful, but - what kind of a Rabbi are you? Are you Conservative, or Reform...or...?" So, I gave her a long answer, about supporting Jewish renewal; about Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi being my mentor; about reclaiming Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah and ritual from the Chassidic world; about my supporting the Chavurah movement, where the congregation teaches each other and takes responsibility for learning; about not believing in a Judaism run by "professional Jews", but by all Jews together...Where we learn from and teach each other... Well, she thought about about all this for a moment, and then she said, "Uh huh...so is that Conservative or Reform?" So when people ask me what kind of a Rabbi I am...I sometimes have too many answers...that don't satisfy them...I've tried all kinds of things...Sometimes I say, "I'm a Jewish Renewal Rabbi"...and if that doesn't ring a bell, I might say I'm a "Chassidic Reconstructionist"...or a "non-Orthodox Chassidic Rabbi". If I feel it's a hopeless discussion, I hit them with, "I'm a heimish-flexidoxic Rabbi" (originally coined by Lakme Elior), or "I'm someone who's non-reconformadox"...and then I leave...and they must think: "Who was that masked man?" These days, however, in the spirit of cheshbon ha-nefesh, of taking an honest spiritual accounting of my life, I'd like to frame my answer to this question in more stark terms: Who I am, to myself, is a Post-Holocaust Rebbe. I grew up in a very wounded Jewish world. My parents were Holocaust survivors. I was born in a DP camp in Italy. My teachers in yeshiva were all survivors, my whole neighborhood in the Bronx were survivors. There was a lot of joy lost by all Jews during and after the Holocaust, and even today, after the museums have been built and after "Schindler's List" and "Shoah" have taught the world of our loss, there is still a long way to go before the healing has happened. When I think in these terms, what use to me are denominational distinctions? Somehow, on my journey to becoming a Jewish leader, I made a decision, more unconsiously that consciously I think, to use whatever I thought was important - from whatever source: Jewish and sometimes non-Jewish, sources that made sense - to reach out to other Jews in the Post-Holocaust age, so that together we could make a usable and living Judaism. Because I believe that we have a right, that we have permission, to use the whole range of world information to fill in for the world of lost teachers and Torah that was shot and burned and buried just fifty years ago. So when I do a Caribbean melody to Psalm 136, it's because I feel the world owes us its melodies, and I have the right to use all of the world's music and arts and culture to nourish my people. The world owes me at least that much. So turf wars don't make sense to me. You know the ones I mean? Between Orthodox and Conservative, between Conservative and Reform, between Reform and Lubavitch, between secular Israelis and the Ultra-Orthodox. Turf wars don't help me to find God. I look for God in the world, in my life, in my quiet moments, in my occasional ecstasies. So what is the takkanah, the correction, that I am attempting with my Post Holocaust Rebbe stance? Why don't I just pick a denomination and stick to it? The answer is, I can't - it's too constricting, I've seen too much, I've done too much. I'm too complicated and the world is too complicated for me to accept denominational answers. I want to represent and present a Judaism that empowers people just as we are. We don't need to come into a synagogue and leave large pieces of ourselves, of our personal life experiences, at the door when we come in. Also, let's not leave big chunks of ourselves only in the synagogue. We can bring our evolving Yiddishkeit with us out into our lives, into our daily interactions, into how we respond to people and the world out there. It's valid, and it's awesome, to be in a diverse group of people who share their beliefs, who honor each other's differences by listening to them; people who are not afraid to embrace their paradoxes, their uncertainties, their many sides; people who wrestle with God and with ideas and with their destiny. That's being Jewish, to me! So I see us as spiritual people, using Jewish tools to reach an already existing, already internal holiness. If this sounds too New Age to some of you, I am only paraphrasing a line from Exodus 19:6 - V'atem tee'yu lee mamlechet kohanim v'goi kadosh "And you will be for me," says God, "a kingdom of priests, and a sacred People". Each one of us has priestly powers as our birthright. I really believe this. And making choices is how we exercise that right. As a Rabbi, then, I am only looking for the right keys to unlock what each of us already has. That is our bond, our nachalah. our inheritance of Sacredness, from our broad Jewish past and present. So if the Yom Kippur experience, for instance, fails to unlock what you need, what your inheritance is, don't get cranky or cynical. Maybe it's not about fasting for you, or about group experiences. But neither should you stop looking for your rightful inheritance in the tradition, in the texts, in the prayerbooks, in the songs, in the stories, in the memories and customs - wherever you need to go to get the goodies, the holy goodies. There's a lovely story from Reb Chim of Zenz, who died in 1876. It goes like this: A man is lost in the forest. He's been wandering for many days and nights and can't find the way out. Finally he sees another man and says to him, "My friend, I'm really lost. I've been searching for the path out of here for many days. I don't know where it is. Can you show me the way out?" The second man answers: "I, too, am lost. But I can tell you this, don't go the way I've gone because it doesn't lead anywhere. Rather, let's search for the way out, together." Friends, the way back to a denominational affiliation is - for me - a way that hasn't worked and won't work. For me, the path I follow is to look at the holidays, the halachah (the Jewish codified laws), the customs, the Kabbalah through the eyes of all our great teachers - from Abraham to Moses, from Hillel to the Baal Shem Tov, to Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, to Reb Yisroel Salanter; and from contemporaries like Abraham Joshua Heschel and Judith Plaskow, to Rami Shapiro and Lawrence Kushner; from brilliant musical teachers like Reb Shlomo Carlebach (of blessed memory), and like Shefa Gold, Linda Hirshhorn, Debbie Friedman; to philosophers and theologians like Marcia Falk, Aryeh Kaplan, and Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi - they all inform my Jewish choices, but I make the eclectic decisions about how I'm going to live. This feels like the only way out for me from the Post Holocaust darkness. We need to do our own Sh'virat Ha-kelim, our own shattering of forms, in order to get past old anger and woulds and frozenness and stuckness; in order to drop our rigidity of action and vision so we can help each other out of the Post Holocaust forest and into the bright sunlight of a new world and a new Judaism that is just now emerging. This has always been what we've done as a people in the aftermath of disaster. Following the most horrific tragedies, we've had to change: after the first exile into Babylon, after the second destruction of the Bet Hamidash (holy temple) and Jerusalem, after the Crusades and the Inquisitions, after the Chmelnicki Cossack massacres, after centuries of pogroms. And now, after the Holocaust, we are changing, too. We didn't ask for this evolution, but now it is upon us to change or to die. So I pray that we will change. May we get to where we want to go with a minimum of anguish and upset. May we pass on a clearer and a better path for our children, and to our children's children. And may God put smiles on our faces and wisdom in our backpacks for the journey ahead. May we be "signed, sealed an delivered" in the best Motown YomKippur-ish way, for a wonderful new period ahead, full of countless blessings and countless breakthroughs. Ahmain! · Yerushalayim haKedosha, A Poem Prayer For The Peace Of Jerusalem by Monique Pasternak Keaau, Hawaii In the moonlight your breath is cool like the pearls of God's laughter and your golden citadels, my Fortress of Learning, Kadosh Kadosh Kadosh conceal the diamonds on the ether, reflect Kadosh Yerushalayim Eer haKedosha, YeruShalom thrust away your crown of thorns and let forgetfulness come like a blessing YeruShalom of emergent peace Kadosh Kadosh Kadosh dove imprisoned under the weight of frozen traditions dove of my earth, of my hills, of my rocky desert, with your groves of trees planted as a living flash-back to the righteous back to the righteous Yerushalayim, YeruShalom, with my eyes of heart I see you leading the way, beloved. Crazed assassins and their masters try to wear you down and with their knives, axes, and poisoned murderous minds, cut you to their size, but your Torah and your Talmud, the snaking leather straps that bind Your Will and Your Life to The One Who Hears Prayers, your Women at the Wall, all glorify you in the Name and emerge - glorified. Jerusalem bird of my soul breathing/being Yerushalayim, YeruShalom, bury now your spears of salt in the chaos of ancient memories, cross the night bring us the bow holding the sky.· From the 11th century Rabbi Shlomo ben Yitzchak (Rashi): (translated by Gershon Winkler) It is much better [for the narrator of the Talmud] to inform us of the teachings of the one who ruled leniently. For such a one relies confidently on what he has learned and is not afraid to permit. But the authoritative strength of those who forbid is baseless, because anyone can forbid, even regarding such things as are permitted! (on Babylonian Talmud, Beitzah 2b). From the 16th century Rabbi Judah Loew (Maharal): (translated by Gershon Winkler) Even if by his own insight and knowledge [a rabbi] arrives at an erroneous conclusion, he is yet beloved by the Creator because he developed his decision from his own mind" (Netivot Olam, Vol. 1: Netiv HaTorahI, end of chap. 15). ·   It's Gonna Be Okay And Who D'ya Think Y'are? Teachings Of The 18th Century Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov translated from the original Hebrew texts by Monty Eliasov San Bernardino, CA "In the name of the Baal Shem Tov , may his merit protect us, it is said that with the coming of the Messiah at the end of days that there will be no killings or apocalypse, Heaven Forbid!" - From Sefer BeSHT al haTorah, Vayechi, No. 2 "The venerable one, the holy being, the Baal Shem Tov remarked to a certain tzadik (somewhat akin to a cloistered Jewish saint) whom he knew and who was delivering words of admonishment and reprimand in public: 'How can you possibly know how to reproach others when you yourself possess no personal knowledge of that sin about which you are preaching? And neither have you ever mingled with the common folk to have learned it from them!'" - Amtachat Binyamin on Kohelet, from Sefer BeSHT al haTorah, Kedoshim, No. 16. ·   More of What People Are Saying About Pumbedissa "I love the work you are doing with Pumbedissa." - Rabbi Yitzhak Husbands-Hankin of Eugene, Oregon "I learn so much from this journal. Thank you!" - Sylvia Scholnick of Williamsburg, Virginia "Wow! Great and holy work you are doing." - Rabbi Tirzah Firestone of Boulder, Colorado "I think your publication is excellent and an extremely valuable part of our network." - Stuart Linke of London, England   "Keep up the good work. I enjoy it a lot." - Rabbi Jeff Roth of Accord, New York (Director of Elat Chayyim) "Great reading!" - Rabbi Shohama Wiener of New Rochelle, New York (Dean of Academy of Jewish Religion) "It improves with each issue." - Roger and Sharon Dreyfuss-Alexander of Boulder, Colorado "I received Pumbedissa and have nearly read it through in one sitting, the old 'couldn't put it down' phenomenon. I like the variety of types of writings and the range of authors and, and, and, I don't know that I can nail it in words." - Dr. Barbara Boyk of Ann Arbor, Michigan "Here's my check to subscribe to Pumbedissa. Just saw Vol. 2, No.4 and loved it!" - Dr. Nan Fink of Berkeley, California (Author of Stranger in Our Midst ) "Enjoyable and enlightening. Once again congratulations on a superb journal. Seriously, the publication is a refreshing breath of fresh air." - Rabbi Steven Kaplan of Taylors, South Carolina "I love it! Keep up the good work." - Rabbi Rachel Denburg-Levine of Deerfield Beach, Florida "Thanks for the insightful and clearheaded discussions and, of course, the sense of humor." - Carol Anshien of New York City "Thanks for the good and holy work that you do." - Arlene Schuster of Bellevue, Washington "What a breath of fresh air!" - Rabbi David Roller of Livermore, California· Bible Banned "Challenged as 'obscene and pornographic', but retained at the Noel Wien Library in Fairbanks, Alaska. Challenged but retained in the West Shore schools in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, despite objections that it 'contains language and stories that are inappropriate for children of any age,' including tales of incest and murder. 'There are more than three hundred examples of obscenities in the book.'" (From the American Library Association's listing of banned books. Reported in the Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom, issues of March 1993, July 1993, and January 1994)· On Hyphenated-Judaics by Rabbi Gershon Winkler We've gotten some complaints lately about Pumbedissa publishing articles that border on outright heresy. Articles about Jewish ceremonials, for example, that incorporate Hindu or Native American rituals, or about Jewish concepts in general that have been "tainted" with philosophy borrowed from outside of Judaism. So I need to say a few words about that. If learning and incorporating from other spiritual paths is heresy, then Judaism has always been heretical. I'm not just referring to medieval teachers like Joseph ibn Aknin and Bahya ibn Paquda, who peppered their Jewish teachings with heavy dosages of Sufism, or Maimonides, who wrote what became classical Jewish philosophy while holding Torah in one hand and Aristotle in the other. (In fact, Maimonides' son, Abraham ibn Maimon, went so far as to introduce Sufi practices into the synagogue! ) But let's go back to Moshe, the teacher of teachers of the Jewish faith. When his father-in-law, a Midianite priest called Jethro, approaches him with teachings of how to do spiritual guidance for the Israelites, does Moshe roll up his eyeballs and grit his teeth, muttering: "Oysh! This midianite priest of idolatry is telling me how to teach Judaism!!" On the contrary, Moshe humbles himself before the non-Jewish teachings of Jethro, listens intently, absorbs every word and applies them! (Exodus 18:14-24). What heresy! How dare he shortchange us like that and incorporate into Judaism the teachings of a Midianite high priest! Gevalt! Listen, friends, not everything about Judaism is 100% Jewish. Circumcision, for example, which is a fundamental Jewish rite, is not exclusively Jewish. Many cultures did it, not just the first Jews. And today, it is even more commonplace. In fact, the first Jew Abraham learned how to do it from a Canaanite clan leader named Mamre (See Rashi's commentary on Genesis 18:1). Or, say, monotheism. I hear and read so much about how Abraham invented the belief in One God. Oy. Even the Jewish Torah bears witness to the contrary. Noah - who lived ten generations before Abraham - believed in the One God, too. And he wasn't even Jewish. Adam and Eve, too, right? Methuselah. Malkitzedek. In fact, according to the ancient rabbis, Malkitzedek - who wasn't Jewish - was Abraham's teacher! (Midrash Pirkei Rebbe Eliezer, Ch. 8). He was the teacher of the father of Judaism! Who knows what kind of non-Jewish stuff got into his disciple. And Abraham himself was into astrology! (Babylonian Talmud, Babba Bassra 16b). Judaism is not about thoroughbreeding, not racially and not culturally and not religiously. A great deal of our customs, even down to the melodies which garb our hymns and prayers, are borrowed from others. If someone who wasn't Jewish had something positive that we could learn from, grow from, become nourished from, then we had no problem with adopting it into Judaism. Even if that someone was an enemy, like Bil'am the Midianite prophet who was hired by Balak the king of Moab to curse the Israelites during their wilderness journey. In his attempt to curse them, he became so inspired by them that he was instead moved to proclaim: "How wonderful are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel" (Numbers 24:5), which - now get this - got incorporated into our most traditional prayerbooks! So the utterances of a Midianite sorcerer became the official Jewish prayer for recitation upon entering the synagogue in the morning. Worse yet, a lot of our values and customs got adapted from those of peoples who persecuted us relentlessly while we were guests in their lands. For example, Cossacks and Polish lords raped us and pillaged us and massacred us between the 17th and 20th centuries, yet we sing our Sabbath hymns to their melodies. Some of us even don the traditional garb of these marauders on the holy days, and we continue to relish the foods that these peoples ate - in fact, it's considered by most Jews as "Jewish food"! When Lakme made a vegetarian lasagna meal for Jewish students at West Virginia University a couple of Rosh Hashanahs ago, we got a call from an irate mother whose son had complained to her how Hillel at WVU had turned him off because we served lasagne on Rosh Hashanah! How un-Jewish! It should have been chicken and potato kugel! How ignorant of us! After all, does it not say in Leviticus somewhere: "And on the first day of the seventh month shalt thou eat chicken and kugel; no manner of pasta shall be consumed on that day and whosoever eateth lasagna and the like shall be cut off from amongst his people"? But this happens. You're not really "Jewish" if you eat latkehs on Hanukkah without sour cream. Some say it should be eaten with apple sauce. These well-meaning mayvens, however, don't realize that none of this is particularly Jewish in origin but is rather a throwback to dishes and customs of peoples who hated our guts and whose favorite pastimes consisted of burning down our homes and depriving us of our livelihoods. Yet, when we dare to borrow from the customs or chants or whatever of the Navajo or the Lakota Sioux or the Hindus - peoples who never laid a finger on Jews or so much as entertained a negative thought about them - oy! we let out a geschrei and a gevalt! and protest against such heresy, such disrespect to the purity of our faith, a purity that never was and never will be, God-Willing. Judaism is not about purity, racial or religious. We have borrowed from the ways of others since our inception. Because it is more about being in relationship with the world around us, and about acknowledging and appreciating that which is positive and wholesome in Life, whether it comes from the Baal Shemtov or from Swami Satchidananda. If they will tell you there is Torah among those who are not Jewish, the ancient rabbis taught, don't believe them. Torah is our distinct identity and contribution. No one else can do Torah like we can. It's ours. It's personal. However, the rabbis continued, if they tell you there is wisdom among those who are not Jewish, believe them (Midrash Eichah Rabbah 2:17). Because, on universal wisdom and truth, Judaism does not hold any monopoly. Wisdom and truths are not the exclusive domain of any one religion, and Judaism proclaims that loud and clear and has therefore always been open to learning from other paths. "Who is the wise one?" asked Ben Zoma, "The one who learns from everyone!" (Babylonian Talmud, Avot 3:1) - not just from rabbis but also from Choctaw medicine people and imans and swamis and kids and trees and peddlers in the park and fiddlers on the roof. Any roof. When the sages of yore sought a prime example of how to honor one's parents, they did not hesitate to bring the example of a non-Jew in Ashkelon (Babylonian Talmud, Kiddushin 31a) and how he honored his father. Recently, Lakme and I were invited to spend the night with a Navajo medicine man and his family. He performed several ceremonials from his tradition, laying out herbs and hot coals and peyote and feathers and the works. As I watched him work his ritual and pray in his language for the healing and welfare of all who were in the circle, I had a Leviticus attack. It suddenly struck me how much of the Judaic tradition has gotten totally lost, particularly the Judaic shamanic traditions. You know, the kohen gadol spreading out his "medicine", the meal offering, the waters of libation, the fruits of the season, and sprinkling and waving and blessing the people and the whole kaboodle. The image of the ancient "priest" of Israel faded in and out of this Navajo shaman as he did his thing, and I could feel the invokation of healing energies being shifted from the spiritual abstract to the physical "real". There is a place, I believe, in some of my work with people as a rabbi where this kind of way of doing life-cycle ceremonial can be more powerful than the way I am doing it now. Lakme was trying to pinpoint the quality of what the Roadman was doing and she came up with this: when we do ritual stuff with Jewish objects, we employ the symbolism or ritual object as a means of shifting energies. When the roadman did it, it felt more like he - not the ritual objects - was shifting energies, and the eagle bone, for instance, was more like a baton in the hand of the conductor. The baton serves as but an extension of the primary energy mover which is the conductor. The point of all this is that there is a lot to learn from other paths who are doing what we used to do but no longer do and in some situations need to do more of. Rabbis who are endeavoring to revive in their ceremonials more of the ancient Judaic shamanic ways with the inspiration of such rituals as they are performed in other traditions, should therefore not be lambasted or shrugged off as "weird" or sacrilegious. Our squeamish reactions to shamanic rabbinics bears no less quantity of non-Jewish ingredients than the non-Jewish ingredients these rabbis employ in their ceremonials. Every time we see a rabbi sprinkle corn meal or something at a wedding, or use a smudge stick, and we feel like they're not doing Jewish stuff, we ought to take a deep breath and ask ourselves whether our reaction emanates from Jewish stuff or from non-Jewish stuff. We are, after all, infuenced by our environment, cultural and otherwise. The 18th century Rabbi Jacob Emden posits that Christian values about sexuality distorted for the Jewish people Jewish values about sexuality. That we used to be a lot less inhibited about sex before we were swept under Christian rule. So when rabbis condemn non-marital sex, for example, as "forbidden in Judaism", they are mixing Christian definitions of sexual morality with their teachings about Judaism (Shey'lot Ya'avetz, Vol. 2, No. 15, toward end). If they can get away with doing that, we ought to let other rabbis get away with doing a smudging ceremony under the chupah. At least smudging involves a rite that was actually practiced in ancient Judaic ceremonial like in the burning of incense at the altar. I mean, I've witnessed many rabbis leading their Jewish worship service with a potent dosage of church decorum and protocol. And often these very rabbis are the most outspoken critics against those of us who do our service with a pinch of Sufism or Native Americanism. So go know. Certainly does Judaism have its right to boundary, to self-immunity, and there is nothing in hyphenating with aspects of other paths that threatens that boundary unless it is allowed to supplant rather than to augment. Reb Zalman speaks often of how he doesn't want to see Judaism get AIDS, or to see Christianity get AIDS, and so on - that each path needs to honor its immune system, its distinctiveness, its very individual contribution to the planetary mind. At the same time, says Zalman, neither ought religions to avoid intercourse with one another altogether. So, it's sort of like dealing with AIDS by having sex responsibly rather than haphazardly, as opposed to total abstinence. Judaism is not a religion of abstinence. We are open to learning from others, and we see different spiritual paths as different sparks of the Big Bang, varying components of the Uni-Verse, each contributing its unique gift toward the re-assemblage of Humpty Dumpty (in Kabbalistic language: sh'virat ha-keylim, or "the shattering of the vessels"). When a rabbi is asked by people outside of the Jewish path to perform a rite of passage for them, I see no problem with incorporating into that ceremonial compatible aspects of paths other than Judaism, especially rites from religions that best reflect where these particular people are at in their personal spiritual sojourns. Some of us find this sacrilegious. I feel that, on the contrary, turning these people away because they ask us to do something that is not "Jewish" is sacrilegious. A rabbi means a teacher, not an upholder of the particularly Jewish party-lines. Rabbis are "walking sticks". When people approach us along their journey and ask us to help them balance their selves during a moment of transition, of shifting from one leg to the other, we ought to either be there for them or throw off our rabbinic mantels and take a shot at something else in life. If supporting them in their walking requires us to harness resources from paths other than Judaism, then that is what we ought to do, and we ought to experience our potpourri ceremonial as "Jewish" because it isn't so much the thing we do that is Jewish as much as the consciousness we bring to it. For example, some of the ancient rabbis considered Babylonia as "The Holy Land", rather than Israel, during the period when Judaism flourished there (Babylonian Talmud, Kesuvot 111a). In other words, Matzoh ball soup is Jewish food only when Jews are eating it. If the Jicarillo Apache were eating it, it would be Apache food, eventhough it's got Hebrew lettering on the box. For me, personally, the bottom line works something like this: God is not Jewish. Judaism is but one of many paths, of many varieties of ways of doing life, of doing spirituality, of God-Shuttling. It's not the only one. And not the best one for everyone. So since God isn't Jewish, and does not discriminate between peoples and traditions, who am I to turn down someone who requests of me a ceremonial that would enhance their life situation just because that ceremonial will include also stuff from other traditions? Were I to turn them away with the explanation that I'm a rabbi and I only do Jewish stuff, then it would mean that my primary focus of worship and obeissance is not to the Universal Creator but to this thing called Judaism. To me, that would be a lot more like idolatry than doing a Hindu chant at a Bar-Mitzvah. I'd like to hear from others what it is they feel about this issue. Send in your feedback and let's dialogue. Thoughts On The Basis by Nicole Barchilon Frank Arcata, California Under the rhetoric The banter The posturing Behind the make-up and around the next corner if you sit still and look You can see the Root, The place where the Hurt Perpetuates Creates War, Poverty, Famine around it to feel less Lonely If you go deeper still Maybe if you persist you'll see The Bedrock, the Breast The Womb, the living Fleshy Beginning Where struggle doesn't lead To Death but to Conception.· Zalmanic Aphorisms from conversations with Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi Renewal is costly. Resisting it can be even more costly. Change and renewal, however must not take place at the expense of Tradition. It is Tradition which provides the traction needed for mobilizing these shifts, and without it, the wheels of change will only be spinning on ice and taking us nowhere.   I believe in Revelation. But I believe that it filters through every one of us, through our actions, our thoughts, our music, our artwork.   Revelations in the coming paradigm will not be found in solitary desert wanderings or transcendental excursions, but in the more immediate surroundings of the Planetary Mind and the kinds of happenings it burps up now and then.   This is a century of healing. We are living now in the very core of the moment preceding a great transformative blow. Nonetheless, while there is a need to hurry up with our homework, I don't believe there is any danger in missing the point. We are inclined to always worry about that which is urgent rather than that which is important. And what is important is the way in which we process these fleeting moments of this strange but challenging era, perhaps to treat each year of the 20th century as if it were an opportunity to deal with the problems of various centuries of the past.   Trying to give finite form to the Revelation of the Infinite is dangerous. You can't drive forward while looking through the rear-view mirror. The Revelation of Torah, for example, has no one single finite form. The Revelation might remain the same, but the form which mortals give it changes. Tradition, therefore, is a marker we leave behind us in previous life cycles so that when we come back we have some notion of where we left off. We need to look at tradition, therefore, not as a relic of the past but as a catalyst for the future.   Nothing in life is static except for our meager efforts at making it so. We are inclined toward the familiar. We look for stability. We contract marriage partners with vows of eternal commitment: "Until death do us part". There cannot be much breathing space in such a world, and so every now and then we experience the Big Bang all over again, in the form of divorces, ulcers,wars, heart-attacks, revolutions, and breakdowns. But one way or another the change happens, renewal happens, because the universe is organic, life is dynamic, and whenever we try to make it static something gives, something goes; there are costs.· More of What People Are Saying About Pumbedissa "Pumbedissa is a phenomenal journal. I love the honesty, humor and real dialogue. You were my main source for sermon material these past High Holidays. Keep up the great work." - Rabbi Julie Greenberg of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Director of Jewish Renewal Life Center) "Glorious! I have relished the courageous and honest spiritual expression which your journal publishes. It is an oasis in the desert." - Matt Keener of Sandy, Utah "It looks great. So much love in it." - Hannah Tiferet Siegel of Hanover, New Hampshire "I know you know how important Pumbedissa is to us, but I think I need to say it out loud: It's funny (nu?), deep, and the wellsprings of quoted sources makes it an important tool." - Rabbi David Zaslow of Ashland, Oregon "I tore Pumbedissa open on my way home from the post office. Driving and reading sometimes works, but with Pumbedissa I was forced to pull over and that saved my life! Thank you so much for being on the edge and connecting so many holy souls that would otherwise walk the path alone." - Rabbi Ayla Grafstein of Phoenix, Arizona "Pumbedissa is really good reading. Very stimulating. I think it would be a good source of support and community for me beside being a source of specific knowledge and ideology." - Rabbi David Mivasair of Vancouver, British Columbia "My self, my friends, and our relatives in prayer, we were all very happy to read Pumbedissa." - Yossef of Bombay, India "We spent a wonderful Shabbat morning reading through all the back issues of Pumbedissa - thanks so much! It's nice to know that others are on some of the same wave-lengths. Thank you for expressing our own thoughts and beliefs with such clarity and truth and humor. Thanks again for your wonderful work." - Libby and Joseph Bottero of Eugene, Oregon·   From the [18th century] Rabbi Mordechai Yosef of Ishbitz (translated by Gershon Winkler) [The Jewish people is comprised of] two tribes who are constantly in conflict with one another. The life objective of Ephraim, as inspired by the Creator, is to concentrate on the halachah regarding every matter, and not to budge from obeying its every letter... And the root of the life of Yehudah is to focus on the Creator and to be connected to the Creator in every situation. And even though Yehudah perceives how the halachah inclines on an issue, he nevertheless looks to the Creator to show him the core of the truth behind the matter at hand... [Yehudah] looks to the Creator for guidance in all matters rather than engage in the rote practice of religious observances, nor is he content to merely repeat today what he did yesterday...but that the Creator enlighten him anew each day as to what is the God Will in the moment. This sometimes compels Yehudah to act contrary to established halachah... But in the time to come, we have been promised that Ephraim and Yehudah will no longer be at odds with one another (Isaiah 11:13). This means that Ephraim will no longer have any complaints against Yehudah regarding his deviation from halachah, because the Creator will demonstrate to Ephraim the intention of Yehudah, that his intentions are for the sake of the Creator's will, and not for any selfish motive. Then will there be harmony between the two (Mei HaShiloach, Vol. 1, Vayeishev, 14b-15a).·