{"id":5313,"date":"2017-08-30T17:29:28","date_gmt":"2017-08-30T16:29:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/?p=5313"},"modified":"2017-08-31T11:24:24","modified_gmt":"2017-08-31T10:24:24","slug":"rabbi-holy-isle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/rabbi-holy-isle\/","title":{"rendered":"A Rabbi on Holy Isle"},"content":{"rendered":"

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RABBI ADAM KLIGFELD |\u00a0PUBLISHED AUG 21, 2017<\/span>\u00a0|\u00a0OPINION<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n

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\"\"I\u2019m a rabbi. I have experienced hundreds of Shabbat celebrations with Jewish communities of all sorts, in synagogue,\u00a0\u00a0at camp, as part of youth groups, leading youth groups, with my family. \u00a0So how did it come to be that the most unexpectedly joyful, meaningful and deeply spiritual one I ever experienced was with a Christian-born-and-raised Canadian at a Tibetan Buddhist retreat center on a Scottish island<\/span><\/h2>\n

It is an amazing story.\u00a0 And though I am a person of words, I am finding it hard to locate the right ones to describe how this transpired.<\/span><\/h2>\n

I write this article\/journal entry sitting at the simple desk in my spartan room at the Centre for World Peace, on the Holy Isle, a mystical jut of an island just off the east coast of Arran, which itself is an island off of Scotland\u2019s southwest coast.\u00a0 This island has been considered holy for centuries. In the 6th century it was the home of a certain St. Molaise, who spent most of his time living in a small cave (which I visited) tucked into the mountainside. The entire island is about 2 miles long and a few hundred yards wide, with a camel-like set of high humps in the center with an apex of about 1200 feet\u2014beautiful views from there. In 1992, the island was purchased by a Tibetan Buddhist organization called the Rokpa Trust. The Holy Isle Project is now directed by a Tibetan Buddhist Lama, named Yeshe Losal Rinpoche, who is committed to ensuring that the island itself, and its programs and retreats, provides a sustainable environment, where individuals of the Buddhist faith, of other faiths, and of no faith, can develop and experience inner peace.\u00a0 It sounds lofty.\u00a0 It is. \u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

I arrived here by plane, then train, transferred to ferry, and finally on to a dinghy. \u00a0 The travel was interrupted for a day as a result of stormy weather that made the crossing from the bay of Lamlash, on Arran, over to the Holy Isle simply impossible.\u00a0 As I write this, there is no way of knowing whether weather conditions will permit me to make it back to Arran in order to take dinghy to ferry to train to plane to return to the US.\u00a0 I am here for a weeklong meditation retreat, combining with elements of Qi Gong (pronounced chi-gung) practice, which is an ancient Chinese\/Buddhist approach to movement and life-centering in one\u2019s body, as well as some sessions of shiatsu.\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

I chose this retreat and this island somewhat by happenstance. Having dabbled recently in meditation\u2014exclusively in Jewish settings with Jewish teachers and Jewish fellow meditators\u2014and having brought some of that elemental practice to my spiritual work as a rabbi, and even to members of my professional team as we try to add some mindfulness to work that can become mind-numbing, I knew I wanted to immerse in it more deeply. I happened to have this particular week free on my personal, professional and familial calendar.\u00a0 Add Google to the mix and, voila, I found this meditation retreat that happened to take place over the exact right dates, and in a location whose remote-ness and promise of always-changing Scottish weather drew me in like a magnet. So much of meditation, I am learning, is an acknowledgement and embrace of the ephemeral. Life. Our thoughts and moods.\u00a0 And, yes, the weather.\u00a0 Recognize that thought or feeling that is in your mind right this second. Nod to it. Accept it. Look at it. It will be gone before you know it, replaced by \u00a0a renewed spiritual landscape,\u00a0a new emotional sky.<\/span><\/h2>\n

I hesitated before registering.\u00a0 In a lengthy email exchange with Sue Weston, the leader of this particular retreat, I inquired what it would be like for an observant Jew and rabbi to come to such a retreat. Could I yield to the spiritual and cultural norms and expectations of this location and find the space to carry out my own personal observances? She assured me that my faith, and my personal prayers, would be welcome. And also that Shabbat would be no concern.\u00a0 There would be no writing or travel at the retreat, or any other activity inherently at odds with my traditional Shabbat observance.\u00a0 I would easily be able to take part in the retreat\u2019s sessions, say my Shabbat prayers, and have plenty of time to read, rest and recuperate.\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

So I signed up, quite reassured, and arrived with an open heart and a sense of burgeoning awe for what I was about to experience.\u00a0 Nothing prepared me for the island\u2019s beauty. Its rawness. And the liminal feeling of crossing the bay of Lamlash to an island that, in its entirety, is dedicated to serenity, openness, love and spiritual grounding.\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

The first few days of the retreat passed momentously in their own right.\u00a0 The Qi Gong was, and continues to be, revelatory for me. As someone who has struggled with a gimpy lower back for years, some of the exercises and movements were reminiscent of what this osteopath or that massage therapist or this chiropractor had offered me before during previous flare-ups.\u00a0 But I soon realized I was learning a spiritual choreography. An ancient, grounded body-wisdom that re-integrates the natural awareness of the body we have when we are pre-sentient babies with the actual muddled and stressed and overly cerebral body with which most of us go through our adult lives.\u00a0 I loved it all instantly.\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

And the initial days of meditation brought me to an inner voice and body-based tranquility that cleared mental cobwebs, awakened aches for ways of living my life that had been hovering for years but hadn\u2019t burst to the surface, and inspired my thinking regarding how I could bring some of this work and wisdom back to my community, and my family, and link it to the Jewish faith and tradition that so suffuses our lives. \u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

The connections between this far-eastern spiritual body-practice and the inherited layers of Jewish living are far more intimate and shared than one might initially think when considering, for instance, how far apart the life and culture of a Tibetan monk are from those of an observant Jew.\u00a0 Some overlaps and nexuses:\u00a0 The first Qi Gong move we began to master is called Wild Goose. It is an elaborate and incredibly hard-to-master set of moves, breaths and intentions.\u00a0 And some of it is done in sweeping arm motions around the body.\u00a0 Instantly, the move felt familiar, as I realized that how I put my\u00a0tallit<\/em>\u00a0on in the morning, wrapping the woolen cloth around my upper body in a sweeping motion before pausing for a moment of reflection and centeredness and letting it rest on my shoulders, was evocative of this Qi Gong move.\u00a0 Much of Qi Gong is focused on which \u201cleg\u201d you are in, using the hips, sacrum and pelvis to ground yourself and toggle from right to left and back.\u00a0 We took hours to master the simplest shift from one leg to the next, and I realized I was ahead of the class because my own shuckling during\u00a0davvening<\/i>, which I learned through osmosis rather than from any one teacher. It closely resembles this shifting, through the midsection of the body, using subtle changes in weight and posture to create a dynamic within prayer. \u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

And then, the bowing.\u00a0 We Jews have forgotten how to bow. Admit it.\u00a0 You know that I am right, even if you are fighting back when reading these words.\u00a0 I watch a Muslim bow, prostrate to the ground, and I am envious.\u00a0 I go the distance during the\u00a0Aleynu\u00a0<\/i>prayer during the High Holidays, and some in the congregation behind me do the same. But it is a bit ersatz. \u00a0 We are fully aware that come the end of Yom Kippur we\u00a0<\/span>will return to the nearly knee-less and almost certainly waist-less half-gesticulation that constitutes a bow in most Jewish communities.\u00a0 But in Qi Gong you must bow.\u00a0 Not to a deity. But to open up your body, activate and release your core, and find ways to pour energetic Qi to as many parts of your body as possible.\u00a0 These are bows and dips which are simultaneously painful (particularly for someone as non-limber as I) and cathartic. By day three, I could go deeper and breathe into it.\u00a0 And among a cadre of fellow non-retreaters, not a single one of them Jewish, doing ancient Chinese body-meditation under the auspices of a Tibetan Buddhist holy order, I remembered my Shulhan Arukh, my close reading and study of the traditional code of Jewish law from the 16th century.\u00a0 I remember how much detail went in to Rabbi Yosef Caro\u2019s explanation of how to bow during prayer in such a way such that the soft material between each vertebra is exposed to the air, curving your back all the way over.\u00a0 Was he writing with a sense of body-awareness like the spiritualists from the far east?\u00a0 Or was this merely his translation of talmudic texts that were focused more on obeisance, modesty and utter insignificance relative to the presence of God? I\u2019d like to think a bit of both. By the end of the second day I made a true and binding religious vow to myself never to bow again in prayer without being fully open to the experience. \u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

As hours passed, I became both more open to the practices and forms I was learning for the first time, and blessings and rituals I had done thousands of time but to which I was now returning\u00a0<\/span>as if<\/span>\u00a0for the first time.\u00a0 For instance, for decades I have had the personal religious practice of saying the \u201casher yatzar<\/i>\u201d blessing after relieving myself. It began when I was in yeshiva, with a burst of both\u00a0frumkeit<\/i>\u00a0and awareness\/gratitude. But for as long as I can remember the prayer has turned into a mumble.\u00a0 Said quickly and mindlessly on the way to the next meeting or appointment.\u00a0 With no connection to the very body whose functioning I was supposed to be blessing.\u00a0 This week, that blessing has become a symphony to me.\u00a0 Because the meditative and Qi Gong practice is so grounded in the body, I have been reawakened to this blessing\u2019s force.\u00a0 And as I curve my mouth around the words,\u00a0n\u2019kavim n\u2019kavim,\u00a0<\/i><\/span>h<\/i><\/span>alulim\u00a0<\/i><\/span>h<\/i><\/span>alulim,\u00a0<\/i>naming and thanking God for our openings which stay open and our closings which stay closed, I find myself profoundly connected to my intestines, my bowel, and the very miracle of my body\u2019s healthy functioning. \u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

As another example, my blessings before and after meals have been revivified.\u00a0 They, too, I have been saying dutifully for decades. Dutifully, but not always soulfully. It is, admittedly, hard to sustain any spiritual or religious or relational practice at a consistently high level.\u00a0 But at least for this week, my food-gratitude blessings are alive again.\u00a0 Some of our meals are taken in noble silence, within which I feel the crunch of each bite, taste the kaleidoscope of each organic green and grain I am consuming, and am a witness to the activity, often so mundane in our culture (even among those who regularly say blessings) and yet so elemental to our being alive and thus worthy of our continued awe: eating.\u00a0 The meals on Holy Isle are unhurried.\u00a0 What is important is the food, and the company, whether being shared in conversation or in silent presence.\u00a0 And because I truly am grateful for the delicious all-vegetarian (and nearly all-vegan), all-natural meals I have been served, with the ingredients nearly all home-grown and home-cultivated on this island, I am experiencing\u00a0birkat hamazon\u00a0<\/i>(which I have been singing to myself in my head, rather than just rushing through nearly inchoate)\u00a0<\/i>as a digestif, both a slow eruption of gratitude and one which in some psycho-spiritual-embodied way is actually aiding my digestion and thus the very miraculous process I am blessing.\u00a0 After one meal I urged myself to conjure the faces of my immediate family as I blessed them in the\u00a0hara<\/i><\/span>h<\/i><\/span>aman\u00a0<\/i>section.\u00a0 When my children\u2019s faces emerged in my mind\u2019s eye, a tear fell upon my cheek. When was the last time an oft-said blessing moved me so much? When did it last move you?\u00a0 What would your reaction be if someone began to cry when saying\u00a0birkat hamazon\u00a0<\/i>at a communal Shabbat dinner at your synagogue?<\/span><\/h2>\n

But all of what I just described is a mere prelude to the true and unexpected jolt I experienced on Holy Isle.\u00a0 Let me explain what happened on Shabbat.\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

I had planned to mark the beginning (and end) of Shabbat as inconspicuously as possible. I did not want to invade, or proselytize. I was a guest.\u00a0 My hosts were Tibetan Buddhists.\u00a0 My peers came for Sue Weston\u2019s Qi Gong and meditation, not Rabbi Kligfeld\u2019s\u00a0Lecha Dodi<\/i>.\u00a0 They are very fire-conscious here, and so I asked if there might be a safe place where I could kindle two lights.\u00a0 Oh, and might they have some juice for a special blessing?\u00a0 The on-site director of the retreat center, a humble and gracious Buddhist nun, bowed towards me with her hands clasped at her chest when I made this request.\u00a0 She thanked\u00a0<\/span>me<\/span>\u00a0for the opportunity to serve my spiritual needs.\u00a0 She provided me two tea-lights, each within a little glass bowl, held in place by dry rice grains.\u00a0 And she procured some sweet cinnamon-pear juice that had been prepared for a previous meal.\u00a0 She bowed towards me again, and not only gave me permission to use them in the main meeting place\u2014Peace Hall\u2014but also asked if I wouldn\u2019t mind doing my ritual in front of the whole retreat, as well as any part-time and long-term volunteers who make up the working staff of this island.\u00a0 Sue, the leader of this retreat, thought the idea was fabulous.\u00a0 I was humbled.\u00a0 And felt a tiny wince of shame, wondering how many Jewish institutions, and retreat centers and synagogues\u2014including my own\u2014would be so tolerant, and even so proactively gracious and inviting, were visiting Buddhists to request the space and accoutrements to perform their religious practice. \u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

And this is how it came to be that at about 8:45 on Friday night on Holy Isle, this rabbi who came to meditate as a lay-person became the local teacher and dramaturg of the Friday night\u00a0seder shabbat<\/i>\u00a0to a group of about 50 spiritual seekers in Peace Hall.\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

I was not expecting this.\u00a0 And I said as much as I began to talk, having no idea what I would say. I started with a\u00a0niggun:\u00a0<\/i>the one referred to as Neshama\u2019s Niggun, as it is one of the most beloved of all those written by Neshama Carlebach. (Seeing as how our entire week was focused on the breath and the spirit, I thought it appropriate to offer a tune written by a Neshama.)\u00a0 And then I had an outer-body experience, watching myself describe the rationale behind all of our well-known, but also well-worn, Friday night rituals.\u00a0 Waving the hands towards us as the Shabbat candles are kindled, one for\u00a0zachor,\u00a0<\/i>to remember Shabbat, and one for\u00a0shamor<\/i>, to observe it; welcoming, inviting and receiving blessing from the Shabbat angels who escort us from services on Friday night and who are the subject\/object of Shalom Aleichem; the sweetness of the\u00a0kiddush<\/i>\u00a0juice or wine, including why I was saying a different blessing tonight than I would be had the substance been a grape-based juice or wine rather than the delicious cinnamon-pear juice they provided me; the\u00a0eshet\u00a0<\/i><\/span>h<\/i><\/span>ayil\u00a0<\/i>poem with which I address and praise my wife every week, and then the proffering of a blessing upon the heads of my children, taking the original place of the priests in the desert.\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

As I went through this litany, there was absolute silence in the group surrounding me. Not just silence.\u00a0 Reverence.\u00a0 I could feel it, palpably.\u00a0 And then I ended with another\u00a0niggun<\/i>, explaining how wordless tune has become so central to modern Jewish practice, and how essentially ecumenical such tunes are.\u00a0 For, after all, what tradition owns a particularly musical note, or even a string of them? The ones we generally sing sound Jewish to us.\u00a0 But they aren\u2019t on a categorical level.\u00a0 They just have ascribed Jewish flavor to us. The one with which I ended is the most recent one I learned from Netanel Goldberg, an extraordinary Israeli composer\/spiritualist.<\/span><\/h2>\n

Without my asking or inviting them, this group, none of whom expected any part of this week to be an exposure to Jewish music or ritual, started singing.\u00a0 Maybe because their hearts and chests and whole bodies had been so opened by meditation and Qi gong, or maybe because non-Jews are a little less reticent to sing when a rabbi starts singing in front of them than many Jews are when being introduced to\u2014gasp!\u2014a new tune (you know who you are\u2026), whatever the reason, they didn\u2019t just sing.\u00a0 They became an instantaneous choir.\u00a0 The acoustics in Peace Hall are fabulous. The\u00a0niggun\u00a0<\/i>rose and fell, swelled and waned, and ended on a a thoroughly unrehearsed and yet somehow fully harmonic, chord-like coda.\u00a0 I use\u00a0niggun<\/i>\u00a0all the time in my work. In the last few years, I believe we have introduced no fewer than 50 new tunes into our musical repertoire at Temple Beth Am. I love singing with my community.\u00a0 And with my colleagues.\u00a0 And yet I do not remember a more heart-filling and awakened musical or spiritual moment in my life. \u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

The moment ended.\u00a0 People started filing out of Peace Hall, as they had been told (by the nun) that I had my own personal Sabbath prayers to add on to this ritual and they didn\u2019t want to disturb.\u00a0 Some could not help themselves, and came to me to tell me what this experience was like. I promise no embellishment as I convey what some of them said to me.\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

One said she will remember this moment for the rest of her life.\u00a0 One told me that the last tune, in particular, had helped heal a deeply-held wound in her soul.\u00a0 Then one of them pointed to a large rock on the table that held the Shabbat candles and\u00a0kiddush\u00a0<\/i>cup and asked the significance of the stone in the Jewish ritual practice.\u00a0 We all had a cathartic laugh when I told them that the rock just happened to be on the table and I had decided not to move it.\u00a0 A peer in the retreat suggested I go back to my community saying that I had uncovered an ancient Scottish Jewish rite, that had every Friday night dinner begin with a large, craggy rock smack in the middle of the table.<\/span><\/h2>\n

Eventually the room emptied, and I was left to\u00a0davven\u00a0<\/i>Kabbalat Shabbat and Ma\u2019ariv in the waning light, and digest what had just transpired.\u00a0 This particular set of prayers, which I generally loathe to say by myself, were elevated, uplifted and infused with spirit.\u00a0 I sang them all out loud, to myself, in Peace Hall.\u00a0 I sang so full and so loud that at times I wasn\u2019t even sure if my voice were the one making the sound.\u00a0 And I had my childhood and adolescence, and college years, and the members of both congregations I have served in my rabbinate thus far, and the voices and tunes of countless artists and composers as my\u00a0minyan<\/i>\u00a0as I went through the liturgy.\u00a0 There, in Peace Hall, on Holy Isle, on an island with Tibetan Buddhists, and a whole sea of non-Jews, I had Nava Tehila from Jerusalem with me.\u00a0 And Micah Shapiro, a recent graduate of Boston Hebrew College whose tunes for Kabbalat Shabbat have become part of the Beth Am experience.\u00a0 He was there, as was my partner and cantor, Rabbi Hillary Chorny, as I sang her exquisite composition to Psalm 93.\u00a0 Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach was with me as well, of course. As were the anonymous (at least to me) composers of the traditional Ashkenazi Friday night\u00a0nusa<\/i><\/span>h<\/i><\/span>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/i>I had feared I would be alone on this isle for Shabbat.\u00a0 I have never felt so un-alone in my Jewish practice.<\/span><\/h2>\n

If that were the end of the story,\u00a0dayenu<\/i>. It certainly would have been enough.\u00a0 But it was not.\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

My mini-Shabbat service, I had learned, had quickly become the topic of conversation and curiosity and awe among this sacred community.\u00a0 Throughout the rest of the evening and into the next day, I kept hearing how the experience had moved people. I heard it from people who said it to my face, one of whom said she would only come back for Sue Weston\u2019s retreat if Jewish chanting were a formal part of it.\u00a0 And I heard it from people who were just talking to one another in a different room but within my earshot, explaining that they never understood how spiritual Jewish practice could be. \u201cDo you believe that such love and tenderness is expressed between spouses as Sabbath begins?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWhen he blessed his children, in abstentia, I thought of my own children and tears welled up. I wish we had this in our religion.\u201d\u00a0 And I also heard it from another small but important subgroup of people who happened to be with me on this island for Shabbat. \u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

Let me go back a bit. When I had started to sing\u00a0Shalom Aleichem\u00a0<\/i>in Peace Hall, I swore I heard some light singing of the tune, and the words, in the background. But how could that be?\u00a0 When I said the \u201cboreh pri ha\u2019etz<\/i>\u201d over the pear juice, I almost certainly heard an unbidden \u201camen,\u201d sung in tune.\u00a0 And by the time I got to the second half of the longer\u00a0kiddush\u00a0<\/i>paragraph, I heard two distinct and clear voices joining in with \u201cki vanu va<\/i><\/span>h<\/i><\/span>arta, v\u2019otanu kidashta mikol ha\u2019amim\u2026<\/i>\u201d\u00a0 Among the volunteers on the island and those here for just a getaway but not part of our retreat, were two Jews.\u00a0 They had not previously identified themselves to me, despite my very obvious Jew-y\u00a0kippah<\/i>\u00a0that I had been wearing all week.\u00a0 But they were there.\u00a0 Seeking. Searching.\u00a0 Still, clearly, tune-connected to the religion and people of their origin, but on this island precisely because the Judaism they had fled had never filled their spirits adequately enough to keep them in the game, as it were. I found it a bittersweet irony that they \u201ccame out\u201d as Jews, to me and to the rest of the group, by uttering the words of the\u00a0kiddush<\/i>\u00a0that are some of the hardest words to say with a full and non-guilty heart when experiencing beautiful shared spirituality with non-Jews: \u201cFor God chose us, and sanctified us, among all the peoples\u2026\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

Over the course of Shabbat, I spoke at length to these two Jews, both from Britain.\u00a0 One thanked me for exposing the beauty and sweetness of Judaism in an era, and continent, of what she called rampant anti-Semitism, thus perhaps creating some subtle ambassadors as those on this retreat would go back to their homes and might speak about the nice Jew that they met and the nice rituals he led.\u00a0 The other spoke about the pain of never feeling alive or soul-connected in her Jewish life and education.\u00a0 She grew up in a pretty Jewish part of London.\u00a0 She knew the words and the prayers. And she said hearing the\u00a0kiddush<\/i>\u00a0was a surge of comforting nostalgia for her. But just that.\u00a0 Maybe a hint of what spiritual power there\u00a0<\/span>could<\/span>\u00a0be in Judaism, but which she had never imbibed.\u00a0 It was hard for her to believe that Judaism and Jewish practice, and particularly traditional Jewish observance could be non-fanatical, embodied, nourishing, intellectually honest, both particular in form and yet universal in aspiration.\u00a0 Had she experienced all of that, she told me, she might never have felt the need to escape to Holy Isle. I told her that I did experience those very parts of Judaism, and try to teach, model and embody them, and I\u00a0<\/span>still<\/span>\u00a0came to Holy Isle to learn even more ways to animate the Judaism that I love so dearly, but which I know suffers through moribund stretches that call for re-awakening.<\/span><\/h2>\n

As the chatter about the Friday night experience in Peace Hall rose throughout Shabbat morning, there was a swell of curiosity and interest in more Jewish singing. What a nutty phenomenon: You had people who came to a Buddhist meditation and Qi Gong retreat for spiritual healing and centering clamoring for a Jewish rabbi to offer them more\u00a0niggun<\/i>\u00a0sessions.\u00a0 And it wasn\u2019t taking away from the spiritual thrust of the retreat, or the place. It was purely additive.<\/span><\/h2>\n

By mid afternoon, the host Buddhist nun and Sue Weston both came to me, knowing that I would need to end my Sabbath with another short ritual later that night, and asked again whether the entire island could be invited to join.\u00a0 I told them I would be honored, and asked what they thought if we met about 45 minutes before the time for Havdalah for an extended, fully ecumenical, wordless and contentless\u00a0niggun\u00a0<\/i>circle.\u00a0 Formal programming on the island ends at 8:30.\u00a0 Havdalah was set for 9:45.\u00a0 Meeting together in Peace Hall at 9 would not interfere with any of the retreat\u2019s or the island\u2019s volunteers\u2019 normal activities. They were delighted with the idea.\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

Aspects of this whole dynamic led to some moments that were both sweetly comical (sometimes to me, sometimes to others as well) and also painful (only to me).\u00a0 Some examples.\u00a0 I was struck by the incongruity of my finding a way to make tea on Shabbat afternoon at a Buddhist retreat center using a\u00a0kli shlishi<\/i>\u00a0(\u201cthird vessel\u201d), which is how many observant Jews make tea on Shabbat in such a way that does not, according to\u00a0halakha\/<\/i>Jewish law, violate the obligation of cooking raw food.\u00a0 I will always linger on the \u201cwho would have imagined it?\u201d moment when a Buddhist nun asked whether leaning two birthday candles together would be sufficient for Havdalah.\u00a0 Those were sweet.\u00a0 And some painful and internally awkward moments as well.\u00a0 For instance, how do I tell this loving and embracing Buddhist nun what my texts really tell me to say when she innocuously and generously asks whether she can take the extinguished tea-lights thad had served as Shabbat candles and add them to the devotional space in their Buddhist prayer room? By strange coincidence, my regular and rhythmic study of Talmud has me studying, right now, the tractate Avodah Zarah, dealing with the prohibitions of idolatry and of dealings with idolaters.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>On that very day<\/span>, I was studying the section that discussed how far away from idolaters\u2019 holidays one must refrain from doing business with them, lest they use something they purchased from you in their practice or even bless you in gratitude in the name of their God(s). I do understand why the Talmud wrote those laws and restrictions. And I am not even convinced that the rabbis, if they really knew enough of Buddhist thought, would have considered practicing Buddhists to be idolaters. But that is sophistry.\u00a0 At the core, I felt that my own tradition, in the midst of it being as welcomed and blessed as could be possible in another religious tradition\u2019s holy place, was shouting out some of its xenophobia and blatant judgment of others\u2019 religious forms.\u00a0 When the nun did indeed ask me that question, I told her I would be honored. I do feel it was the right decision, even if there may be texts that question whether extinguished Shabbat candles ought to end up part of a Buddhist rite. \u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

And my very Shabbat prayers, which as I have said before were so awakened and alive for me, also caught me in some harsh ways.\u00a0 Here I was, relishing in the rest\u00a0of Shabbat, and utterly grateful for the womb of tranquility being offered to me by a community of non-Jews, hearing my mouth say these words from the Shabbat morning\u00a0amidah<\/i>:\u00a0v\u2019lo n\u2019atto adonai eloheynu l\u2019goyei ha\u2019aratzot<\/i>.\u00a0 \u201cGod, you did not give Shabbat to the nations of the world. Nor did our King bequeath it to idol-worshippers.\u00a0 The uncircumcised will not dwell in its restful embrace.\u201d\u00a0 I believe that on some level. I believe that our Shabbat has unique qualities and characters to it. But it felt insulting, and inaccurate, to utter those words amidst a community of very holy people experiencing a very holy and restful Shabbat though they never uttered a single Hebrew prayer nor had taken upon them the yoke of the Jewish commandments. I felt guilty uttering those words just feet away from people without whose open and embracing hearts this Jew would never have experienced Shabbat\u2019s rest this weekend. \u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

I said the Shabbat afternoon prayers right after a particularly meaningful meditation. My heart and soul were alive and open, and I thought of the wisdom of the Mishnah in tractate Brakhot, where it says that the early pious ones would meditate for a full hour\u00a0<\/span>before<\/span>\u00a0they would recite their prayers. (Nowadays in shuls if weekday prayer is not fully complete within an hour, someone\u2019s job could be on the line).\u00a0 I recited the Shabbat\u00a0min<\/i><\/span>h<\/i><\/span>a\u00a0<\/i>service more awake to the meaning of the words than I have in a long time. That was mostly a blessing.\u00a0 But it came with a wince as well, as when I uttered the self-referential words \u201cmi k\u2019amkha yisrael<\/i>? Who is like your people Israel?\u201d they sounded jingoistic to my ears.\u00a0 What makes us so special?\u00a0 And the following words in the liturgy took on a different contour than what I imagine is their original intent. \u201cGoy e<\/i><\/span>h<\/i><\/span>ad ba\u2019aretz<\/i>.\u00a0 One nation upon the earth.\u201d\u00a0 The plain meaning is that we, Israel, are\u00a0<\/span>the<\/span>\u00a0singular nation on this planet.\u00a0 This time, the words echoed for me as a prayer that, even with our disparate forms, languages, liturgies, rites and belief systems, the human community is\u2014could be\u2014one nation upon the earth. And religious communities could and should be leading the charge to that messianic possibility, rather than reinforcing only those boundaries that keep us separate.<\/span><\/h2>\n

If my afternoon of prayers and interactions included some internal hiccups, the end of Shabbat was all glory. All sweetness.\u00a0 Some version of this experience, of course, is repeated and indulged in by Jewish communities\u2014particularly at camp and at youth group retreats\u2014all over the world. Who doesn\u2019t like Havdalah?\u00a0 But something made this Havdalah different than all other.\u00a0 First, we sat in a circle in Peace Hall and we sang. I reinforced the two\u00a0niggunim<\/i>\u00a0I had sung the previous night.\u00a0 Then I introduced them to Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach\u2019s \u201cRova Niggun,\u201d one of his simplest yet least-known tunes.\u00a0 They picked it up in a second and the room exploded with musical meaning. After that, I taught them Zusha\u2019s \u201cEast Shtetl Niggun.\u201d\u00a0 Google it. It is out there, and wacky, and wonderful.\u00a0 I think it was this group\u2019s favorite.\u00a0 I threw in a few more before teaching them the\u00a0niggun\u00a0<\/i>I learned for Havdalah when I was at Yeshivat Hamivtar in 1994, and have been using and teaching ever since. (If my rebbes in yeshiva knew I was teaching their tune to non-Jews at a Buddhist retreat center on Holy Isle\u2026!?).\u00a0 They mastered the tune quickly. We sang it fast and energetic, and then slow and elegiac.\u00a0 I explained how the rituals, and music, of Havdalah are caught in liminality, grateful for the Shabbat we just experienced and yet sad to release our extra soul, not to meet it again until the following Shabbat. I was singing, and explaining, not to proselytize. \u00a0 Or to convert.\u00a0 Or to make people more religious. Or to grow my community. But just to share my love and my spirit, and the sweetness of our notes.\u00a0 Maybe the very absence of pressure or missionary posturing contributed to people\u2019s openness to the notes, and the feeling, of the entire service.\u00a0 I can\u2019t explain the exact pathways, But this Havdalah was triumphant. And transcendent.\u00a0 When we ended I did the simplest thing that Jewish camp counselors and youth leaders learn: grab hands and make a circle. For some reason, this tipped this group over the top. They simple sunk in to the embodied nature of a simple grasp of the hands.\u00a0 Someone started a squeeze and sent it around the room. It wasn\u2019t me, but I felt it come my way and I sent it to the next person.\u00a0 When we were done, we were breathless and breath-full at the same time. \u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

And as a result of this unexpected weekend, there is now a group of 45-50 people, mostly British, but some Canadian, German, Polish, Brazilian, of all ages. Of all sizes.\u00a0 Some seekers. Some in pain. Some committed meditators.\u00a0 Some who had never met a Jew. All of whom who now know of Shlomo Carlebach, and why we look at our fingernails during Havdalah.\u00a0 A group of people who are incredibly touched that a Jewish husband turns and praises his wife when Shabbat begins, and who are humming Zusha\u2019s East Shtetl Niggun to themselves as they go about their work on the Holy Isle.\u00a0 We have a collection of folks, mostly of originally Christian heritage but now on a search for deeper peace and meaning, who, before being serendipitously cloistered on this island with a rabbi from LA had never experienced a specifically Jewish moment, who now understood something that professional Jews like myself spend their time, and careers, trying to get Jews of all ages to understand and embrace: and that is that there is tremendous organic and embodied power to Jewish forms, rituals, music and ways.\u00a0 One told me she felt it to be a true privilege to hear the sounds and be witness to the rituals of the Jewish Sabbath.\u00a0 They understand this organic Jewish spirit so well that they want more of it.<\/span><\/h2>\n

Not of Judaism, per se.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>They don\u2019t want bar mitzvahs and\u00a0lulavs<\/em>.\u00a0 Rather, they want the spiritual force that gushes forth from so many of our traditions, but which have been diluted by over-intellectualization, disconnect from the body, poor education, lack of commitment and raw ennui.\u00a0 How do we get our shuls, and those within them and those who would never set foot in them, to rediscover this path?\u00a0 If we cannot take them all to Holy Isle, how do we bring some of what Holy Isle stands for, and enables, to our established communities?\u00a0 How do we re-open Jews to the treasure of their inheritance?\u00a0 How do we take seriously our role as caretakers of the tradition and refuse to permit the rabbinate and cantorate to be mostly page-calling, stage-directing and expertise-exhibiting when services are on? How do we meet the needs of those who do fill the pews and who are not necessarily interested in having their familiar Judaism be broken down so it can be re-embodied and re-spiritualized\u2026while also meeting the needs and wishes of the Jews who will never find home and retreat in Judaism unless that very surgery takes place?\u00a0 How do we serve what we sense\u00a0<\/span>the universe<\/span>\u00a0needs from our Judaism and Jewish practice? Which is introducing soulfulness and an open heart, and gratitude, and connection to our bodies and, in the safest of ways, even to others\u2019 bodies as we continue to cherish, observe and also reawaken the unique forms that make up Jewish practice and observance.<\/span><\/h2>\n

The retreat is not yet over.\u00a0 As of writing this, there will be at least two more\u00a0niggun\u00a0<\/i>sessions.\u00a0 One was requested by a few who asked, almost with temerity, whether I would be comfortable if they recorded some of these tunes so that they could bring them back to their lives and families and communities. Would I be OK?\u00a0 Can you imagine it?\u00a0 Church groups in Wales singing the East Shtetl\u00a0niggun<\/i>?\u00a0 A choir director in southern England using Calrebach\u2019s Rova\u00a0niggun\u00a0<\/i>as a warm-up for their practice? It is too wonderful to consider.\u00a0 So that recording session will take place, with a room full of singing voices and iPhones set to capture the tunes.\u00a0 And Sue has formally asked me to use\u00a0niggun<\/i>\u00a0to end the retreat itself. As someone who puts an enormous amount of time into how I begin and end sessions that I lead, I am honored and touched to think that what I brought to this experience was sufficiently powerful that Sue, a master presenter and teacher, who I am sure planned exactly how she intended to close the experience, has considered that there would be no better way to end this week together than with my leading some singing.\u00a0 I plan, at that closing session, to introduce words for the first time into our group singing. Not liturgical ones. That would violate the covenant we are all sharing.\u00a0 But I do think that concluding with\u00a0Od yavo shalom aleynu, v\u2019al kulam<\/i>\u00a0would be most appropriate.\u00a0 Indeed, let peace come upon not only us, but upon everyone.<\/span><\/h2>\n

I will, weather permitting, leave this island in a few days.\u00a0 I will take away more that can be named.\u00a0 Certainly, a re-attachment to the words of our prayers that become re-ignited in my consciousness.\u00a0 Including those words said so early on a morning weekday or Shabbat service that sanctuaries are usually still empty by then, and which are usually raced through by those who are there:\u00a0barukh she\u2019amar v\u2019haya olam<\/i>: Blessed be the One who spoke, and there was a world.\u00a0 Our words, like God\u2019s in Genesis, can create worlds.\u00a0 And sew worlds and people together.\u00a0 Beyond words, I will leave Holy Isle with a renewed commitment to embodied religious life.\u00a0 In Sue Weston\u2019s words, to outrageous vitality and perkiness, and to being unashamed at having those stances be reflected in my Jewishness, in my rabbinate, in my soul.\u00a0 Will we Jews permit ourselves to be ecstatic? Can we fully live in our bodies as we live our Judaism?\u00a0 Can we accept our hands and feet and heart and chest and pelvis and ears and toes as instruments of our divine work?\u00a0 I aim to try.\u00a0 I aim to try to say \u201cyes\u201d to the nun\u2019s extraordinary offer that I come back and lead a chanting retreat on this Holy Isle, and I hope that perhaps some from my community may join me if it comes to fruition.\u00a0 I aim to accept the wonder that as this group of non-Jews became open to the spiritual power of Judaism and Jewish music, they re-opened me to my own embodied inheritance. \u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

I recited the Aleynu prayer many times this week.\u00a0 I bowed deeply at the appropriate words.\u00a0 But towards the end, in the paragraph almost always said silently in Jewish communities, a few words got caught in my throat.\u00a0\u00a0Yakiru v\u2019yed\u2019u kol yoshvei tevel.\u00a0\u00a0<\/i>All the inhabitants of the earth will recognize and know.\u00a0\u00a0Ki l\u2019kha tikhra kol berekh<\/i>.\u00a0 That to You will bow every knee.\u00a0\u00a0Tishava kol lashon<\/i>.\u00a0 That to you will swear every tongue.\u00a0\u00a0L\u2019fanekha adonai eloheinu yikhr\u2019eu v\u2019yipolu<\/i>.\u00a0 That before You, our God, all will prostrate, and all will bend.\u00a0 All that bending before the Divine light.\u00a0 And all that knowing the divine goodness. And all that committing to making that awareness be a spark for acceptance and beauty in the world. And all that permitting our entire bodies and beings be part of our religious practice.\u00a0 All of that? It is happening, here, on Holy Isle.\u00a0 This prayer has Jews being so very concerned that all the peoples of the world will learn this pose, this awareness, this craft. It is worth aspiring to. But when it comes to bowing. And awareness of God\u2019s presence.\u00a0 And fully embodying religious life\u2026can we work on ourselves first?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Adam Kligfeld is senior rabbi at Temple Beth Am in Los Angeles<\/em>.<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n

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RABBI ADAM KLIGFELD |\u00a0PUBLISHED AUG 21, 2017\u00a0|\u00a0OPINION I\u2019m a rabbi. I have experienced hundreds of Shabbat celebrations with Jewish communities of all sorts, in synagogue,\u00a0\u00a0at camp, as part of youth groups, leading youth groups, with my family. \u00a0So how did it come to be that the most unexpectedly joyful, meaningful and deeply spiritual one I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":153,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[162,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-personal-stories"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nA Rabbi on Holy Isle - Many Roads<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/rabbi-holy-isle\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Albert\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"34 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/rabbi-holy-isle\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/rabbi-holy-isle\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Albert\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/#\/schema\/person\/d65113da84d62fbc945e6ee35f823e2a\"},\"headline\":\"A Rabbi on Holy Isle\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-08-30T16:29:28+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-08-31T10:24:24+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/rabbi-holy-isle\/\"},\"wordCount\":6735,\"commentCount\":2,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/rabbi-holy-isle\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/files\/2017\/08\/Adam-300x225.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Articles\",\"Personal Stories\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/rabbi-holy-isle\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/rabbi-holy-isle\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/rabbi-holy-isle\/\",\"name\":\"A Rabbi on Holy Isle - 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