Miracle Update

009: Signs

The Torah portions from Exodus that we are reading now are filled with signs from God—the sorts of signs that seem to give rise to the very definition of the word “miracle.” As slaves in Egypt, the children of Israel cried out to God in their misery, and God heard them. All the miracles that followed came from that singular, collective outpouring of the human soul.

It may not seem possible for the Sea of Reeds to part for most of us today, but that doesn’t mean that miracles aren’t taking place right now, everywhere, this very minute, and that their signs aren’t all around us. (See a story about signs from Reb Nachman of Breslov that I just stumbled onto on this wonderful Mystic Link blog from Australia.)

While working on my book, Hours of Devotion: Fanny Neuda’s Book of Prayers for Jewish Women, miracles seemed to unfold one after another, beginning with the return of my son, Adam, who had been estranged from me for more than eleven-and-a-half years. As I tell in my preface, finding Fanny Neuda’s book, with it’s prayer “For a Mother Whose Child Is Abroad” was only part of the story. I was also preparing for my father’s 90th birthday when I went to Rosh Hashana services, where Rabbi Emily Feigenson gave a sermon on signs from God. “The sign that it’s time to reach out to someone who has hurt you,” she said, “is a broken heart.” I heard myself sob out loud and knew at that moment that I needed to try to contact him again. I would send him an invitation to his grandfather’s birthday party, something I had deeply wanted to do. Although I had tried and failed to reach out to him in the past, the time was finally right, and this was the sign. Two weeks after I sent him the invitation, he called me on the phone, and the first words I said was, “Adam, I have to tell you. This is the answer to a prayer.”

This formative miracle led to my bringing Fanny Neuda’s prayers back into the world again. Soon after I began editing her beautiful outpourings of the heart, I became aware that I was probably one of the only members of my Song of Songs study group who didn’t observe Shabbat. I felt a nagging desire to do so but wasn’t sure if I really could. As a committed workaholic with a full-time job and a book project to boot, how could I ever give up one whole day to “just rest”? How would I ever get all my work done, run errands, go shopping, and do all the other things that normally filled my Saturdays? And if I did decide to do it, how would I even begin? When I asked my teacher Ronnie Serr this question, he replied simply: “Start by looking forward to Shabbat. The rest will follow.”

So I went out and bought Sabbath candles, challah, and wine, and made sure I had a clean white tablecloth and something to nice to cook for dinner. Although I did it all alone at first, just the acts of shutting down my computer, turning off the stereo, arranging the table, and lighting the candles at the brink of evening brought a sense of peace and relaxation—as if I were taking the sky’s last light and drawing it inward. I would often take my glass of wine and a piece of challah outside, sit in the garden, and watch the last whisper of daylight evaporate from the sky while saying my own personal prayers of thanksgiving.

Yet the Sabbath day still confounded me. What do you do when you’re not working or shopping or going to the movies or a million other things that seemed so un-Shabbatlike? My dog, Buffy, was eager to provide the answer: “Take me for a walk,” she announced with her steady stare and tailwagging smile. Spending time in the beauty of nature seemed like a perfect solution, so off we went to Will Rogers Park in Pacific Palisades.

I was still thinking about the dilemma of what else to do with my “day of rest” as Buffy and I headed up the trail to Inspiration Point. At the end of the first switchback, I saw a corrugated, silver trash can in the distance. Stenciled across the side of the can were five, thick black letters: W-R-S-H-P.  Why does that trash can spell “Worship”? I wondered. And then it hit me: of course! That’s what I’m supposed to do on Shabbat—I’m supposed to worship! It took me a minute to realize that the letters were actually the acronym for Will Rogers State Historic Park. But no matter. I had my “sign,” both literally and figuratively. Since then, Shabbat is the day I look foreword to more than any other: a day of celebratory meals with friends and family, and rising on Shabbat morning with hours of study, song, friendship—and, yes, worship(!)—in a welcoming religious community to look forward to.

If I were ever asked if I had personally experienced the miracle of leaving the narrows of Egypt—a place of constriction and fear—I would be humbled by my own answer: It all started with a sign, I’d say, a sob from the depths of my soul.

005: Little Ripples

Sometimes synchronicities occur like little ripples riding to shore. For example, the morning after I posted my last entry (004: "There Once Was a World"), in which I mention congregation Emanu-El B'ne Jeshurun in Milwaukee, I was about to sit down to meditate, when the phone rang. It was a telemarketer. I went back to my chair. About 10 seconds later, the phone rang again. I almost didn't answer it but decided on impulse to pick it up. To my great surprise, it was the wife of Rabbi Herbert A. Friedman, my beloved childhood rabbi, who conducted my bat mitzvah at Temple Emanu-El nearly 50 years ago (find his remarkable autobiography here). Rabbi Friedman is 89 years old now, and was not able to make the call himself, but his wife wanted to thank me for the prayer book I sent him, so she just decided to pick up the phone, which I almost didn't answer . . .

Then this morning another ripple: After Shabbat services I was walking back to the parking lot when a young man I hadn't spoken to in a long time (I'll call him Rick) was walking behind me and called out my name. He asked me how I was doing. I told him that I was thinking about this morning's Torah portion—the part when Moses balks at God's assignment to speak to the people, but God tells him to just do it and God will tell him what to say.

I told Rick that I was thinking about this because I've been doing a lot of public speaking about my book lately, and I never know exactly what I'm going to say until I say it, and even when I carefully plan a talk, I often say something entirely different. Rick said he gives talks that way, too, and then asked me what my book was about. I told him about my being estranged from my son, Adam, for more than 11 years and then finding a 19th-century prayer book, called Hours of Devotion, that contained a prayer for a mother who was missing her son. I told him that within about six weeks of finding that book, Adam was back in my life—in part, because that prayer had given me the courage to reach out to him again.

"I was estranged from my mother for more than 11 years, too—12 years, actually," Rick said.

"Really?" I replied. Ever since the book came out four months ago, many people have confided their personal stories of estrangement, but virtually all of them have been parents, or relatives of parents. This is the first time I'd encountered a young person who went through what my son did—and under very similar circumstances.

He said he would read my book. I gave him my card. Maybe we'll talk. We'll let God tell us what to say.

002: Full Circle

This morning I had the honor of giving a Shabbat drash [see note] for Metivta: A Center for Contemplative Judaism. Metivta has wonderful Shabbat services with chanting and meditation every month or so, led by a group of skilled and learned lay leaders and held in members' homes in Los Angeles. I was especially glad to be asked to speak today because the Torah portion for the week, the last chapter in Genesis, was also the last chapter of the Joseph story—a story of suffering and forgiveness. This narrative is close to my heart for many reasons, not least of which is that it tells of estrangement and reconciliation, which is part of my own story.

As I tell in the preface to my book, Hours of Devotion: Fanny Neuda's Book of Prayers for Jewish Women, my son, Adam, was estranged from me for more than 11 years as the result of a very bitter divorce. I was working as a freelance editor at the time and one of my clients, Judith Orloff, M.D., was an intuitive healer. So I decided to ask her about my son. She said that she saw him with my family in the future and told me I could pray, that it works. But I was not in the habit of praying and I simply couldn't find the right words.

Around that time, I was browsing in a used bookstore around the corner from my house. I wandered into the Judaica section and happened to see a slim volume on the shelf with no writing on the spine. I plucked it off the shelf, and read the title, "Hours of Devotion: A Book of Prayers and Meditations for the Use of the Daughters of Israel for Public Service and at Home, for All Conditions of a Woman's Life," translated from the German in 1866. As I scanned the table of contents, I saw prayers for morning, evening, every day of the week, and then a section just for women. Among prayers for brides and mothers was a prayer "For a Mother Whose Child Is Abroad." I took the book home, started saying that prayer, among others, and within a period of about six weeks, my son was back in my life. The first thing I said to him was, "Adam, I have to tell you, this is an answer to a prayer."

Since that time, Adam and his wife, Rachelle, have given me two beautiful granddaughters. So this morning, when I read the words that Jacob said at the end of his life to his son Joseph, I could relate to them completely:

“I dared not accept the thought that I would see your face again, and here God has shown me even your offspring.” (Genesis 48:11)

The Joseph story is significant to me for another reason as well: It's where I "came in," so to speak on Ronnie Serr's teaching, the night I became his student. It was a cold November night in 2001, and I was suffering another loss: the loss of my marriage of 12 years. I had just started to attend Thursday night meditations at Metivta just so I wouldn't spend the whole night crying. Ronnie had come in as a substitute for the rabbi that particular night and was telling the story of Joseph, the parsha for the week then as well. What he taught that night has never left me. It's a teaching from the Bal Shem Tov: the 5 steps from suffering to gratitude:

1) Suffering—something that comes to us all
2) Acceptance of suffering—recognizing that everything comes from God
3) Prayer—asking God for salvation
4) Receiving the answer to your prayer
5) Thanksgiving

At the end of the class, I went up to Ronnie to tell him how much his teaching had meant to me because I was going through so much suffering. He just looked me straight in the eye and said, "The world is for you." I didn't have the least idea what he meant at the time, but I knew I had found my teacher.

That night, through my tears, I prayed, really prayed, for the first time. And I began to heal.
And this morning, I talked about Joseph and recited those five steps to others—coming full circle.

Happy winter solstice! May the longest night of the year and the darkest darkness bring you the brightest light.

----------------------

NOTE: According to the Velveteen Rabbi's excellent definition, "To drash something means to explicate it, usually through story; it relates to the word 'midrash,' which is an exegetical story, a tale that explains a piece of Torah in some new or interesting way." To learn more about the tradition of Midrash, just click the word!