דבר אחר - Another Thought on the Parashah.

For those of you who do not read Amichai Lau-Lavi's blog, it is one that you should add to your list of weekly Torah thoughts. Amichai is thoughtful, provocative, knowledgeable and creative. This week, he writes about the same wedding I was at. You can read his thoughts on witnessing at:

http://storahtelling.blogspot.com/2009/09/reverb-forty-seven-nitzavim-vayelech.html

Standing

I am doing a lot of standing these day: at bus stops, on buses, in the office, at home. I am not sure if I am really more aware of things and more focused when I am standing up as opposed to sitting down but I certainly feel that I am. Here is just a short list of places I found myself standing this week:

I stood at a bimah to lead Shabbat Mincha in Deerfield where we spent Shabbat celebrating the bar mitzvah of a current Ramah in Wisconsin camper, the son of a former camper of mine, now a personal friend, and her husband, also an incredible guy, with whom I used to play basketball in the Stone Gym at Union Theological Seminary in New York.

The next day, I stood on a bimah in Brooklyn New York to co-officiate at the wedding of Naomi Less and her husband, Glenn Grossman. I found myself standing in modern day New York experiencing a back to the future moment, dropping back into the '70s for at least a few hours.

Standing on the bus, I enjoyed a beautiful view of Lake Michigan in the afternoon as we rode Lake Shore Drive back to our new home in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago. I was engrossed in a book when another passenger exclaimed, "Wow! Look at how blue the lake is today." Until that moment, I was totally oblivious and would have missed the lake entirely were it not for this other stranger.

Walking on Michigan Avenue on Tuesday afternoon, I found myself in a throng of people willing to stand for hours and hours in order to join in the celebration of the opening of Oprah's 24th season (When I was in High School, our marching band drove all the way down to perform at what I believe was her first show - then again, my memory could be as accurate as all those who were "there" when Willie Mays made that amazing catch in center field.)

On Wednesday evening, I was standing in the hallway at the Chicagoland Jewish High School for Parent's Night trying to figure out how it could be possible that Elan is a freshmen in high school when he was just a little baby curling up like a bug on my shoulder.

Today, I remember standing in a hotel lobby with other Ramah Directors, employees of New York Life and countless others, in Westchester County, New York, watching the Twin Towers burning and collapsing, taking with them thousands of innocent lives, at the hands of terrorist-piloted planes.

Where will I be standing tomorrow?

Standing is an essential theme of this week's combined parshiot, Nitzavim-Vayelekh, literally "Standing" and "He Went" or more figuratively "Standing and Going." The Torah tells us that WE are "...standing today, all of you before the Lord YOUR God..." Actually, the Torah says "You" are doing the standing, but it is clearly talking to each of us individually and to the collective You that is the Jewish People. This understanding is reinforced by the statement later in the parashah that the statements are directed at the entirety of our people, those who were standing at that place at the moment in time and those who were not there, the future. Standing requires a greater attentiveness, an alertness. It can force us to be in the moment in a way that I find sitting doesn't always do.

Have you been attentive to where you are standing with? With whom you have been standing? Are you noticing what is going on around you? Are you aware and in the moment? Maybe. Maybe not.

We are standing on the brink of the New Year. Rosh HaShanah is around the corner. Tomorrow night, many of us will go to synagogue to join in the tradition of reciting Selihot - penitential prayers - for the period immediately preceeding Rosh HaShanah. And much of that time will be spent standing up. What will you be thinking about? Will you try to be more aware of yourself? More aware of and sensitive to others?

I know that as I continue to adjust to new surroundings, new people, new places, new roles and some new goals, I will spend much of my time during the Yamim Noraim trying to figure out where I stand with myself, with my family, with others and with God. I pray to be more aware of it all and more intentional in my standing with all of them. I wish the same for all of you.

Shabbat Shalom.

This is an incredible video of Sam Cordell's Bar Mitzvah at Camp Yofi. The Cordell's are a wonderful and special family. As of now, children who reach the age of 13 age out of Camp Yofi. It is my next dream, mission, to create the post-Yofi graduate program. Anyone interested in helping make this dream come true - financially, with work, or with time - should please let me know. Even as a child with autism reaches 13, the need for community, for respite, for support, for Jewish connection, does not disappear either for the family or for the child. Help us do more! Thanks.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ihfgrb2xJJo

Camp Yofi Shabbat

In so many ways, this was a celebration like any other synagogue celebration. There was the passing of the Torah, aliyot, blessings, the presenting of certificates and gift prayer books. Parents and friends smiled as they watched their children take the Torah and make it their own. There were “Mazal Tovs” and “Yasher Koah’s” and abundant joy. And yet, nothing could be less ordinary or more special than this group of bar and bat mitzvah boys and girls and their families. This is Thursday morning at Camp Yofi: Family Camp for Jewish Families with Children with Autism and for many of these families, this ceremony marks something that some thought was impossible: public celebration of the life of a child with autism in the Jewish community.

Several years ago, at the first Camp Yofi, one family told us about being asked by their rabbi not to return to the synagogue anymore. Why? Their child liked to be too close to the Torah! Can you imagine that?! Isn’t it the dream of every Jewish educator and leader that a child will want to be close to the Torah, physically and spiritually? And yet, this child’s desire was too much for the rabbi. The family left the synagogue. I don’t know if they ever found another regular shul but for at least that one summer, they had Camp Yofi, where their child could be close to the Torah and nobody would push him away. All that they congregants would do was was smile and cry.

On Thursday, multiple b’nai mitzvah were celebrated and each child took the Torah, held it for a minute and then passed it onto the next child. They didn’t hold a stuffed Torah or a toy Torah and nobody gasped at the idea that a child with a special need would be given a Torah. Some of the children not only held the Torah...they hugged the Torah – tight, loving, protective hugs – and they knew what they were doing and they cared. Two of the Yofi camper’s had the most incredible smiles on their faces – angelic – as though God’s Divine Presence was hugging and loving them back.

As it was Rosh Chodesh, the celebration of the new month of Elul, there were four aliyot for the Torah reading. Four Yofi campers had aliyot. They held the tzitzit, they held the atzei Hayyim, they said the berachot and they listened intently while one of the parents read the Torah. One of the campers led the first two lines of Shma in Hebrew and another campers sang the translation of Shma in English with the traditional melody. Finally, one camper came up to the front, standing tall, and opened the ark to reveal Torah to the community. At the end of the service, one of the Yofi campers with the biggest smiles holding the Torah came up as the ark was closing and asked if he could kiss the Torah one last time! As he leaned into the ark to adorn our Torah with love, tears welled up again in the eyes of everyone.

Over the years, numerous Camp Yofi families have told stories of congregational meetings where they were told that if their child with autism could not do everything that a typical child could do, if they could not “perform” at that level, then they could not have a bar or bat mitzvah at that synagogue. The typical explanation given was that if an exception was made for this child, then families whose children had soccer practice and ballet practice and “God-only-knows-what-else practice” which made it impossible for them to devote the time necessary to learning about their heritage would request a special exception citing the child with autism as the basis for their request. It seems to me that if a family ever did make such a comparison and request, the problem facing the rabbi and the congregation was not about the exception but was about the soccer family or something far deeper. Either way, citing someone else’s soccer practice as a reason to deny a child with autism the opportunity to have a modified ceremony, as though the two are in any way equal, is as abhorrent as it is absurd.

When families with children with autism are denied the opportunity to have a bar or bat mitzvah modified to meet the needs and abilities of that child, when they are given an all or nothing option that is not realistic for a ceremony that marks a halakhic transition that happens whether or not there is a ceremony, sends a clear message – whether or not that message is intended and explicit or completely unintended: Your child’s life is some how less valuable than the lives of other children in the community. Moreover, your family does not deserve to publicly celebrate or be recognized by the congregational community because your child is of lesser ability and lesser value. When we are commanded to imitate God, is this what God meant? Clearly not and yet this message is sent over and over again to Jewish families with children with autism.

Children are being born onto the autism spectrum faster than ever and in higher percentages than any other disorder or disease. The number of Jewish children with autism will only grow, and rapidly, in the years to come. If we, the Jewish community, cannot figure out how to make a place for these incredible, angelic, Divine souls in our classrooms – religious school and day school, in our youth groups, in our camps, and in our synagogues, we will not only exclude the child but we will lose the entire family as part of the Jewish people. At a time when we all fret about the dropping Jewish numbers, when organizations and philanthropists alike are casting about trying to figure out how to interest those who are completely uninterested in Jewish involvement and investing millions of dollars in the effort, we are also actively causing the departure of families who are desperate for community and would give fare more than they would receive if we would just open the doors and modify our own expectations of children instead of slamming the doors in their faces.

At the close of our Camp Yofi Bnai Mitzvah celebration, all of the bnai mitzvah stood under a hastily made huppah. Protected by the Shekhina, we sang together a song by Josh Nelson, “ L’Dor Va’Dor.

We are gifts and we are blessings
We are history in songs
We are hope and we are healing
We are learning to be strong
We are words we are stories we are pictures of the past
We are carriers of wisdom, not the first and not the last

L’Dor vador Nagid Gadlecha,
L’Dor vador we protect this chain
From generation to generation
L’Dor vador
These lips will praise Your name

Looking back on the journey that we carry in our heart
From the shadow of the mountain to the waters that would part
We are blessed we are holy, we are children of Your way
And the words that bring us meaning we will have the strength to say

L’Dor vador Nagid Gadlecha,
L’Dor vador we protect this chain
From generation to generation
L’Dor vador
These lips will praise Your name

All of our children are gifts and blessings. They all deserve and need to be included in and by the Jewish community. This month of Elul is the time for us to wake up and to take a communal reckoning of what kind of People and community that we want to be:

Will we choose to recognize the blessings that each of our children, typical and with autism or other special needs, are in our lives and in the lives of our People?

Will we choose to open our doors and our hearts to these incredible families, to welcome their wisdom and to provide the support they deserve and they need?

Will we recognize that one size does not fit all or will we insist on some level of “performance” standard that excludes children with incredible but different gifts?

Will the Houses that we build in God’s name truly be for the entire Jewish People or will they be only for those who meet our definition of typical?

If the answer to the above questions is no, God Help us.

And if the answer is yes, then let this year be one where we reach out to Jewish families with children with autism, welcome them, and include them, moving us all one step closer to the onset of the Messianic Era!

Shabbat Hazon 2009

Before I could appreciate the back porch of the library at Ramah in Wisconsin, I had to spend time on another mirpeset – another porch. In the middle of the busiest area of camp, the triangle formed by the Chadar Ochel, the Mercaz or programming center, and the Bet Am, sat an old house with a porch that faced the bet am. I don’t know if the house was part of the fishing village and “resort” that predated the camp, but that is what we were told and it certainly looked old enough to have been from the early 1920’s. Before the house was moved to make room for the Amanut – the arts & crafts building to the staff housing area, before it became known as Bet Garr, where my teachers, mentors and friends, Ronnie and Minda, Yossi, Tova, Michal and Yaela Garr lived, the house was known as Bet Porten. It was the summer home of Dr. and Rabbi Bezalel “Buzzy,” his wife Debby, and their children: Shuey, Avi, Gabi and Nomi.

I was constantly homesick my first summer at Ramah in 1977. My first madrich, Scott Miller and my Rosh Aidah, Cheryl Magen helped me make it through that first summer in more ways than I could list here. So did Hazzan Leon Lissek (I was the kid who took Nusach as a chug) and Miriam Alon who ran the beit tefirah, the sewing room, where I made my first tallit. And then there was the Porten family. More specifically, Debby, who was the senior, and I think only yoetzet (advisor) at the time, would sit with me on her mirpeset and while I cried, a lot those first three weeks. I got to know her son, Gabi, and daughter, Nomi, who were still too young to be campers. Debby often reminded me of how we would sit and play shesh besh (backgammon) on that porch with the kids for hours. From that summer forward, until the mid-1980’s, Debby played a formative role in my life. She helped me get through that summer and many other challenges that I faced as a camper. And she always did it with a smile and an invitation to the mirpeset for another game of shesh besh.

Like many people that play a major role in our lives, time and distance diminish the frequency of contact but not the impact. So much of how I worked as a madrich I learned from Debby when I was a camper. In later years, I would have the opportunity to study a little Talmud with Gabi, to work with him, and to be a madrich in Nomi’s aidah for two summers. In one of my last visits with Debby in Israel, Debby was giving advice to a mutual friend that was prescient for me. She told our friend, who was contemplating leaving a position that every time in her own life that she left one job another exciting opportunity came along. I wish that I would have touched base more frequently with Debby. I heard about how she was doing through the Kolodner Klein family and through the Garr family. The last time I saw Debby, she was coming to see The Man of LaMancha in Jerusalem, where Becca had a starring role.

Debby Porten died this week after a serious battle with cancer. Ramah alumni shared stories of the impact that Debby had on them as campers or staff members. It was incredible to read some of the reactions that people had. So many people learned how to be Mentsches because of Debby, or learned what Jewish family life could be like just by hanging out and playing backgammon on the mirpeset. Debby’s legacy is in her own incredible children and in the staff members, the campers, and all of their children.

This week, we will commemorate the Fast of Tisha B’A, the Ninth Day of Av, which calls us to mourn the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. For twenty-five hours, we refrain from eating, drinking, wearing leather-soled shoes, anointing (wearing makeup or perfume), and sexual relations. While many explanations are given for the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple, the most famous is that the Temple was destroyed as a result of sinat hinam – baseless hatred (see Talmud Bavli Gittin 55-56 for the complete story). Much time will be spent in programs in Jewish summer camps and in shuls talking about how we can treat the Other in a kinder way, how we can avoid the kind of baseless hatred that brought down the Holy of Holies.

On Tisha b’Av this year, however, I will spend a lot of time thinking about a woman who taught me how to make it through a summer, how to depersonalize things, what hachnassat orchim was about, and how to play shesh besh with her kids on the mirpeset. I will think of all the Porten children, now adults with many children of their own. I will think of Buzzy, my first recollection of him being his wailing voice crying out the Kinah (mournful prayer) “_ Oy me’Haya Lanu” at the end of the reading of Lamentations. We mourn on Tisha B’Av, and I will mourn too. But I will also remember an incredible teacher and person who helped me through the early days of my thirty-plus year relationship with Ramah. Who will you be thinking of? To whom do you owe an apology for hateful behavior or the speaking of lashon harah? And what teacher might you want to call, someone who really touched your life in profound ways, that you have not spoken with in far too long?

Free advice (it is worth exactly what you pay for it): Make the call this week for you never know when the opportunity might be lost.

May the Memory of Debby Porten be for a Blessing.

Shabbat Shalom and a Meaningful Tisha B’Av Observance to all.

Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic interviews Ambassador Michael Oren

The following short video of Jeffrey Goldberg interviewing Israel's Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, is absolutely incredible. Goldberg asks excellent, deep and challenging questions and Ambassador Oren does not shy away from giving answers of equal, if not greater depth. This is a six minutes well spent for anyone who loves Israel and considers themselves a Zionist, however they define the term.

Matot – Ma’sei 2009 - Travels

I was on the road so much the past few weeks that I even found myself enjoying the hour long NPR documentary about Willie Nelson, he of “On The Road Again” fame (despite my personal and intense dislike of both kinds of music – Country and Western). I could list my journey like a trip-tik from AAA:

And then I went from Indian Ridge, Marietta to Grovehurst, Marietta;
And from Marietta to Chattanooga; and I rested in Chattanooga for one hour;
And from Chattanooga to Nashville;
And from Nashville I travelled to Louisville, and it rained strongly;
And from Louisville to Indianapolis;
And from Indianapolis to the Skyway, which was slow;
And from the Skyway I traveled to Highland Park, where I rested one night;

And from Highland Park I traveled to Lakeview, Chicago and purchased a home there;
And from Lakeview I traveled to Conover, the home of Camp Ramah in Wisconsin, and I was in Conover for six days; and on the day after the Sabbath…

I returned to Lakeview and met Rebecca and Amalya, and we met the movers and unpacked;

And then it was Shabbat and we rested…

If the above sounds both familiar and a bit thin on details, it is because it is very similar to the opening verses of the second of our two parshiot this week: Matot and Ma’sei, which are also long on place names and short on details as to what occurred in those places. The details are so limited that when mentioning the Sinai Desert, there is not even a mention of Mt. Sinai let alone the retelling or even noting of God’s revelation to B’nai Yisrael at Mt. Sinai. The filling in of the details is often left to the midrash.

If I stopped at the list I made above, you might have thought that nothing of interest happened on my drive. You would not have known that it rained for three solid hours between Nashville and Louisville so hard that you could not see more than ten feet in front of you; or that I stopped in Chattanooga to see my sister, Vicki, my brother-in-law, Jason, or my very cute nephew, Jordan; nor would you have known that it took me 17 hours to get from Marietta to Highland Park, Il instead of the 11 hours Mapquest told me it would take.

Often, I find that it is that which appears to be most mundane along these trips that turns out to be the most powerful and the most moving. It can be a sunset over the highway, or heron gliding past your car to land on a roadside lake. Or it can be a chance encounter with a person. I had many such encounters during the past month but want to share only one with you this Shabbat.

I went to the Amanut Building – the Arts Building – at Ramah in Wisconsin to see what was going on there. It was a beautiful day and from the porch that connects the art building to the woodshop, you could see the gorgeous lake, the island seemingly a finger’s length away. A young woman was teaching campers how to make their own tote bags, to personalize them, and to use them to tell a story. I was intrigued. After the activity ended, I asked Yali about her project. She showed me her portfolio and there was a photo of a Kate Spade Bag, black with embossed paisleys and other shapes. I asked Yali about the bag. What followed was far beyond my imagination.

Yali is young, energetic, vibrant, and so happy. Her smile is infectious and people tell me that you will never see Yali look any differently. The art staff and the aidah staff cherish her equally. The campers who work with Yali clearly love her. She is, I am told, a person with an exceptional work ethic and an incredible heart. And you would never know it but Yali is also a cancer survivor. She is 18 now and about to start college, an achievement that many take for granted, but my guess is that Yali never doubted that she would reach.

While Yali was fighting her battle with cancer, she had the opportunity to have a wish fulfilled through the Make-a-Wish Foundation. She wanted to design a bag with Kate Spade, and she did it! She wanted 50% of the purchase price of each bag, costing $325, to go to the Foundation, which it did. Yali explained the meaning of the various symbols on the bag and it was clear that this was an exceptional young artist with a brilliantly creative mind who saw that she was given a gift and wanted to make the world a better place. Details about the bag were presented on the Kate Spade Website:



"Yali’s “Carry On” purse and design make the statement that cancer survivors “carry on” courageously and elegantly with life in the face of their medical baggage. The design details illustrate Yali’s salute to cancer survivors. She chose to have the interior of the bag replicate a bandana, which many cancer patients use to disguise their hair loss during chemotherapy. The bag was, without a doubt, created with hope, strength and joy."



The Yali Carry On Kate Spade Bag is sold out, the last few of them being given to charity to raise funds for their work via auction events. But wait, that’s not all! Yali has now created a second Yali Carry On TM. It costs $25 and all of the proceeds go to the department of Family Services at Children’s Memorial Hospital. According to Yali, the design of this beach tote is:




“Creative… and … functional, but has deeper meaning as well. As Yali states “The brilliant colors represent the vibrancy of life; the bird symbolizes the freedom and beauty of expression. The wings of the bird, created by hand prints, remind us of our unique abilities to overcome challenges.”

If you are interested in purchasing a bag, please let me know and I will be in touch with Yali to find out how you can acquire one.

Yali may be 18 years old chronologicall y but her wisdom, courage and Simhat Hayyim, joy and appreciation of life, are far beyond her years and should be an inspiration to us all. She is the emobidment of the principle taught by Rebbe Nahman of Breslov, “It is a great mitzvah to be joyous all the time!” And she is a true Mitzvah Hero, to use a term I learned from my teacher, Danny Seigel.

To learn more about Yali’s story, follow this link: http://www.wish.org/stories/hitech/professional/yali_spade

“And from Lakeview I traveled to Conover, the home of Camp Ramah in Wisconsin, and I was in Conover for six days;”

And in Conover, I met Yali and once again a seemingly ordinary encounter turned out to be extraordinary.

Who are the extraordinary people you met this week? Think about that around your Shabbat table.

Shabbat Shalom