February 23, 2009 at 10:10 pm (Jewish)
Tags: intention, kavanah, mitzvot, speed praying, wrestling with G-d
You have got to be kidding me? Speed praying? Praying in less than 18 minutes? It is sometimes referred to as “Rocket Minyanim or Matzah Minyanim (davening has to be finished within 18 minutes).
What does this do for you? Is it an expert level of kavanah? How can you possibly do the morning prayers with intention in 18 minutes? Are you really praying or just showing “good face” in the community so nobody thinks poorly of you not showing up to services?
Why does this bother me? I have a very hard time when I am told that I am not Jewish enough because I do not follow the “rules” in some orthodox fashion. Somehow this makes my judgemental side rise up and ask how this qualifies as “Jewish enough?” I did my time this morning. I’m good thanks.
Levels of Jewish participation:
- Inspired and moved by G-d to perform the mitzvot, pray in community and immerse one’s self with full intention
- Wrestling with G-d and the mitzvot, pray in the community and immerse one’s self with full intention
- Inspired and moved by G-d to perform mitzvot
- Wrestle with G-d and the mitzvot
- Jew with full intention
- Pray in the community
- Do as you please
Doing, praying just to fullfill the obligation is not the intention of G-d’s words. Yes it is better then just doing as you please but it is missing the mark.
How about spending 18 minutes meditating on G-d, people and the mitzvot you are going to do today? Let it move you to change the world. Let it make you connect with all G-d’s people. Do this all together and forget the speed praying.
Phew! I am off my soap box now. What do you think? Help me out here.
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November 8, 2008 at 8:37 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: halacha, intention, kosher, schnitzel
What is the intention of the biblical quote: “You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk” (Exodus 23:19, 34:26, and Deuteronomy 14:21)? For most Jews who keep kosher that means a separation of milk and meat. Meat in this case includes poultry.
In Israel and in many communities around the world, a dinner favorite is Chicken Schnitzel. Chicken schnitzel is made by taking chicken eggs and creating a batter to cover the chicken, then the chicken is fried or griddled as desired.
I often wonder how eating chicken parmesian is not kosher (since chickens do not produce milk) but chicken schnitzel is kosher (where you fry the chicks around the mother chicken. Doesn’t the intent of this law mean the chicken schnitzel is not kosher?
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September 24, 2008 at 8:54 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: intention, Jew, kavanah
To Jew: Jew as a verb.
What are the dimensions of Jew? How is Jew a verb?
- frequency
- intensity
- duration
- intention
Frequency: I am a Jew on Friday night or Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur or all day every day.
Intensity: I am a Jew with fervor when I approach it or I am a quiet Jew and no one knows.
Duration: I just started or I have been this way since I was born.
Intention: I am a Jew with pure Kavanah or I try when I can.
Are these the dimension to the verb Jew? Do you agree? Watch this clip and see what Rabbi Schacter Shalomi has to say. Affirmations, Dream World, Jew is a Verb not Noun by Rabbi Shacter Shaolmi
I jew everyday, with moderate intensity, for 14 years and I try to use full intension.
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August 13, 2008 at 10:33 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: faith, intention, mitzvot, submit, tikkun olam
Have you submitted?
Do you have faith?
Submit:
” To yield or surrender (oneself) to the will or authority of another.” -Houghton Mifflin
Faith:
“complete trust, confidence, or reliance” -yourdictionary.com
To submit oneself seems to be a very difficult thing after growing up in the American culture. How can I submit? Doesn’t that go against the idea of self reliance? How do I approach this?
To have faith is very American. It is so easy to throw ones trust or confidence into something. This seems to be overbearing at times. The rationalist in me wishes there were a few more thinking than those with just faith.
What is it like to live in the United States with complete surrender to the will of G-d? Have you met the person who not only dives into tikkun olam but also performs all the mitzvot with complete surrender and intention? Is this possible for someone who identifies with the Reform movement or the Orthodox movement?
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June 29, 2008 at 9:34 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: change, intention, Reform, Synagogue
What is the purpose of a synagogue? What is the purpose of a temple community? What does it mean to be reform? Does the old format work in today’s world? Should their be committees to determine general programming in the community? I wonder about this?
It seems to me that it is time to change the way the temple community is formed. It should not be looked at as a big cohesive community anymore. The community should look to differentiate itself out side and in. The community should be composed of smaller groups that all aspire to build community and highlight its unique characters. Rabbi Zalman Schechter Shalomi describes the worlds religions as organs in a body. Each organ is unique and important to the survival of the whole. However, each organ has its defined purpose and differences that are unique and effective. I like this idea and would like to apply it to the synagogue.
Why have one service for each occasion? Why have the one “appropriate” Shabbat service? Why not encourage the community to renew and aspire for meaning and to do Judaism with intention. Why not have teens create Friday night service where they go somewhere, to someone’s house or out in the woods and lead an alternative minyan. Why not have a Shabbat service that focuses on a different experience, a meal, music, wine, comfortable pillows, big chairs, candle lights, royal fabrics, hanging out , talking, singing, Song of Song jams (like poetry jams) — make it like a wedding — make it a place that people want to hang out.
For the high holidays have a family service and then have an experimental service that performs things in a much more traditional, ethnic or mystical way. Move people out of their comfort zone. Do something that challenges and expands the spiritual.
Have meditation classes. Wrap the tefilin. Wrap the prayer shawls. Put on the tzit tzit. Push practice and explore.
The community can be all inclusive allowing everyone to find their own thing but it does not need to be the same thing. It should be different. It should be exciting. It should have the regular things. It should have a distinctive feel, one where everyone is welcome where they are but allowed to move in any direction they like.
We should have a goal that every member attend something during the year outside of HIgh Holidays at least once. Something for everyone done by everyone. We should have the range of people who identify as Jewish and participate communally to those who want to practice and learn more and dive deeper. Let’s reform this Reform and bring the most to every individual where ever they are.
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June 22, 2008 at 9:46 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: conformity, different, experience, frum, intention
“Whoso be a man be a non-conformist.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Now I feel like going in the woods and building myself a cabin to live alone. … Living by your ideals sure can be a lonely experience. I have been having a crisis of community for a couple of months now.
In my professional life I am a software designer. Many times I am the only one on my team or in my company that does what I do. Lately it feels that I do not belong in the company nor in the design community. My ideas seem to always need time. They need repetition and explaining. Sometimes I just want group think.
In my life, I am Jewish. I like to live this life with intention and try Jewish traditions even though they are foreign to me and sometimes my family and community. I am Jewish in a community that has many Jews but you would never know unless you read their names. They are assimilated Jews. Some are very active in the Jewish community. Many are not. I feel like I am different in the general community and within the Jewish community. I get the feeling that I am not with the community I am within. Sometimes I just want group think.
Something I find very difficult are the frum/ Orthodox who tell me that I am not Jewish. I am not sure what to do with this emotionally or intellectually. The judgments are infuriating and only make me feel further outside. Sometimes I wish for a little humility.
Am I man yet? I think I need a new definition.
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June 8, 2008 at 9:36 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: commitment, Conservative, intention, Orthodox, Reform
Orthodoxy of Jewish Commitment – not Orthodoxy of traditionalism and routine
I wanted to deconstruct orthodoxy in Judaism. I would like to refer to those who would like to be traditionalists as “frum.” The original definition of Orthodox was created in Germany as a response to modernism and the loss of the separate autonomous Jewish communities. Hertzl did not want to change like reform, nor did he like the position of conservative. Hertzl wanted to maintain many of the traditional practices of Judaism as well as live in the “modern” world. With that he created the movement called “Orthodox.”
“Orthodox” has been confused with religious. This confusion leads to Reform and Conservative Jews to say they are not religious because they are not “Orthodox.” What about the Orthodox gives them the power to hold the position of most religious? Is this because they have an elitist position or that they have become idolotrists of their ritual and tradition? What makes a Reform or Conservative Jew who practices and wrestles with Judaism any less religious or orthodox in his commitment?
I think that every Jew should practice what they can, where they are and with focused intention. Be where you are and enjoy the aspects of Judaism that help you to be a better person, to be more mindful, to be more learned, and to be more in tuned with the other. Make a commitment to yourself. Be Jewish.
As this commitment grows in all Jews, we will all recognize the spirituality in ourselves. We all will be able to identify as religious and the frum will be joined by an Orthodoxy of Commitment by all Jews.
Inspired by an article by S. Daniel Breslauer “Toward a Theory of Covenant for Contemporary Jews“
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