Chanukah Chase in the Subway

I got literally chased in the subway station this evening.  By two young, ultra-Orthodox Jewish men from the Chabad sect, the same one all of my current coworkers and our biggest clients belong to.

I was minding my own business, listening to some Rob Zombie remixes in my headphones, walking fast across the mezzanine to the 4th Avenue line, when I saw them on top of the steps, with a large cardboard box on a luggage cart.  They looked lost and indicated they wanted my attention, so I lifted on earpiece away from my head, thinking they were going to ask directions.

“Are you Jewish?  Do you have a menorah at home?” one asked.  “I don’t want one, thank you,” I replied and with the earpiece off heard a train arriving on the platform below.  Halfway on my quick dash down the clear steps I saw it was the N train, the one I wanted, so I sped up even more.

Since I always ride this one at the very front of the train, standing right behind the driver’s cab, I practically ran along the platform to get to the front of the first car, waited for people to exit and got on, comfortably leaning against the bulkhead, facing backward.

Then I looked out the open door next to me to see those two guys looking straight at me, following the same path I took on the platform.

They got to the end of the platform, right outside the open train door a few inches away from me and one asked, “are you Jewish?”

I said, “I choose not to participate!” and the conductor played the announcement “Stand Clear of the Closing Doors Please!” 

One reached into the box and the other said “we have a gift for you.”  

But they weren’t quick enough, the train doors closed, me inside, them outside.  I grinned to them through the window and the train rolled out of the station.  I settled back to listen to my music in peace.

Yom Kippur Symbolism and Synagogue Services

This is interesting…  I work in an office with coworkers who are almost all orthodox Jews, and one of them sent me this email for Yom Kippur, with quite a lot about the holiday I never knew.  While I have no wish to partake, I appreciate the symbolism and think about the meaning, at least in the context of "self".

For myself I haven't participated in Yom Kippur in well over a decade, and indeed, during my stay in India I often didn't even know when it was as I simply wasn't paying attention to Jewish holidays.

If I'd known some of this information about the symbolism and purpose of Yom Kippur when I was much younger, before I reached the point that I stopped believing in any gods, I wonder if it would've changed me at all.  Not now of course, now that I've had such a long time to not participate in Jewish life that I found out I'm not missing anything.

But I can still think about it.  There are equivalent ideas, looking inward, analyzing how I'm spending my life, how I'm affecting others, positively or negatively, without the religious component of believing in god or people having a soul.

My memories of going to the synagogue for services are that they're all pretty much the same.  Since I never learned Hebrew vocabulary and not a whole lot of the aleph-bet, and Hebrew school didn't really cover symbolism or what Jewish life was all about, services were boring.

Services were just sitting in the synagogue, fidgeting in an uncomfortable suit my mother made me wear, listening to the rabbi or cantor (I'm not sure I know the difference, really) drone on and on, or sing some prayers or something, while I followed along for a paragraph or two, turn the page when the rabbi either says to turn the page or when a number of people around me turn the page, stand when the rabbi says "all rise" then sit when the rabbi says to be seated and try not to stand when the rabbi only wants a small group to stand…

And do that for hours and hours, anxiously waiting for it to end.

Sure, Yom Kippur had fasting, and the Kol Nidre song, Rosh Hashanah had apples and honey, Simchat Torah had a parade of torah scrolls, and so forth, but services were almost all the same otherwise.  And we never really went to ones that weren't major holidays.

Between sessions or when it was was finished was the fun part, I could run around with either my Hebrew school friends or my cousins who were at many of the services.

Otherwise, services were just something to get through.

And after having gotten through my Bar Mitzvah at 13 and then later moved out from under my parents' roof, I'm glad I'm independent and can choose not to spend my time in synagogue services.

Below is the text of what he emailed me, which he got from Chabad, which came from www.meaningfullife.com.  It is probably copyright and all that, so I want to make it clear that below is not my writing...  (and it's not my formatting, either, I originally received it with black text on a dark blue background).

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TO BE LIKE ANGELS

Tonight we will begin a 25-hour fast of Yom Kippur.  We don't do this in order to afflict ourselves, which is the purpose of the fast of Tisha B'Av when we mourn the destruction of the Temple—indeed Yom Kippur is not a day of mourning but a day of joy. We fast on Yom Kippur because on this day we want to transcend our physical limitations and be like angels, and food and other physical concerns distract us from our spiritual selves.

Some people may complain that the hunger distracts them from concentrating on the prayers and rituals of the day.  But this is precisely the Yom Kippur challenge—not to be overly focused on the physical.

Use the opportunity of not eating and not drinking to allow yourself to experience the food and drink that comes from deep within. Fasting will then become a very freeing experience.

Yom Kippur is one day in the year when you can access the deepest part of your soul. But this is only possible if you create the space for it. Your soul—every soul—has a still, soft voice that emits a unique hum. This sound can only be heard if you lower the noise in your life that usually drowns out your inner voice.

On Yom Kippur, when the "source" is nearest to the "spark" of your soul, you want to remove as many material distractions as you can, so that your soul can sing freely and your "spark" can dance.  

When you experience Yom Kippur this way—which does take effort, and that's why you need to prepare for it—then it will be for you not a day when you feel hungry, but a day when you feel angelic.

The same holds true for the other prohibitions of Yom Kippur—against bathing, anointing, marital relations, wearing leather, etc.—all of which are meant to detach us as much as possible from the physical realm so that we can be free to experienced the spiritual one.

Instead of indulging in physical pleasures, we spend the day in the cocoon of a synagogue where we are cut off from the outside world. We spend the day in prayer—our whole intention being to transcend the physical world, our material home, and to travel inward toward our purest spiritual selves—toward our true home in G-d.

BREAKING THE TIES THAT BIND

Before darkness falls, marking the official beginning of the 10^th day of Tishrei which is Yom Kippur, in every synagogue in the world a haunting melody is sang—Kol Nidrei.

Kol Nidrei means "All Vows" and its classic text, repeated three times, each time louder, is a renunciation of all oaths and vows.

It seems strange to begin the holiest day of the yea—the day which we spend asking G-d to forgive us for all transgressions—by breaking former promises.

But Kol Nidrei is not that. Kol Nidrei is the process through which we enter the holiest day of the year.

A neder is not just the vow/promise that you vocalize to another person, it is a word that denotes all commitments, attachments, and ties that bind you.

By renouncing "all vows" you are declaring your commitment to break the bonds that keep you from traveling on the journey within, that keep you from opening yourself to the Yom Kippur experience.

Obviously, this does not mean forsaking healthy commitments and responsibilities—it means forsaking those attachments that limit you, that entangle and entrap you. 

That is the essential focus of Kol Nidrei. It is a perfect prayer to begin Yom Kippur with because unless you free yourself from such traps you cannot travel inward; with a ball and chain attached to you, you are not going to be able to get anywhere.

Kol Nidrei is repeated three times to relate to vows in speech, vows in deed, and vows in thought:

All vows and things we have made forbidden on ourselves... we regret having made them, may they all be permitted, forgiven, eradicated, and nullified, and may they not be valid or exist any longer.  Our vows shall no longer be vows, and our prohibitions shall no longer be prohibited, and our oaths are no longer oaths.
 

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Wednesday, September 26
Tishrei 10, Yom Kippur

THE DAY OF ONENESS

The preparation work in advance of Yom Kippur is a journey inward which culminates in the fifth and final prayer of the Yom Kippur service—Neilah (the "Locking of the Gates").  

Every day we have three prayers—Maariv (the evening prayer), Shacharit (the morning prayer), Mincha (the afternoon prayer). On Shabbat and every other Jewish holiday we have a fourth—Musaf (the additional prayer). But only on Yom Kippur is there a fifth—Neilah.

This is because Neilah corresponds to the fifth and highest dimension of the soul—the Holy of Holies of the soul—which we access only on this one day at this one time. 

The five dimensions of the soul (from lowest to highest) are:

5.	Yechidah	"Oneness"	Essence
4.	Chayah	"Life"	Transcendental life
3.	Neshamah	"Soul"	Intellectual life
2.	Ruach	"Breath"	Emotional life
1.	Nefesh	"Spirit"	Biological life

All days of the year we're able to access the three dimensions of our soul; on Shabbat we access the fourth,chayah, but only on Yom Kippur can we access the fifth,yechidah—oneness with G-d.

This is because during Neilah, before the gates are locked, everything is open and we are able to reach even yechidahwhich is the most intimate, vulnerable, tender, gentle part of the soul of the human being, unshielded by the defenses of the other levels. We reach it at the precise moment whenNeilah is said, and when at its conclusion we declare:Shema Israel... "Hear O Israel, G-d is our G-d, G-d is One."

The Shaloh, the great medieval 16^th century sage writes that "there is no higher experience for the Jew—as when he acknowledges the oneness of G-d and his readiness to give his entire life to G-d." This is the moment when the spark and the flame come closest all year round.  This is the most powerful moment of the year. This is the moment that you are the closest that you can come to the essence of everything, to G-d.

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xcerpt from 60 Days: A Spiritual Guide to the High Holidays, by Simon Jacobson. ©Copyright The Meaningful Life Center, 2012. All rights reserved.www.meaningfullife.com.

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A Requirement or A Choice?

One of the things I've been thinking about lately is whether religious restrictions and activities are a requirement or a choice.

For instance, I work in an office where everyone but me keeps strictly kosher.  I respect that, and I make sure all the snacks I bring to work are certified kosher, and I don't start conversations with others about what non-kosher foods I eat outside the office, though I'm honest if anyone else brings up the topic.  And I don't tell anyone else that they should change their ways (let's face it, being an observant Jew is not a bad thing, it's not like being a heroin junky or something that harms others) and I generally don't disapprove of other people living their lives the way they want.

But a few times I've had discussions about meals and some of my religious coworkers sigh and say they wish they could eat what I eat, "but I can't eat that."

On fast days that are still work days, some (not all, of course) of my coworkers lament that they can't eat or drink all day, as much as they would really like to, and they don't sound happy about fasting.  On those days, out of respect for my coworkers I choose to not eat or drink, so as not to make the fasting harder on them.  It's a sacrifice I choose to make, and I don't grumble about it during the day, and generally I don't even mention that I'm doing it unless someone else brings the topic up first, I accept it's my choice.

Yesterday I did not fast on Yom Kippur, a choice I made to not participate.  In an online conversation someone else said they wished they could eat, and that while I cut my finger on a food related item during the day, they said that they'd happily make that trade themselves, a cut finger for not fasting.

So, why not?

I think I'm missing something.  People are following religious restrictions, but in some cases don't sound happy about them.  They don't sound like they accept that being religious and following the religious activities and restrictions is a choice they've made.

The word "can't" implies that one doesn't really have a choice, that someone else is forcing it on you, possibly against your will.

What I'd rather here instead of "I can't" is "I won't" or "I choose not".

Yom Kippur - Not For Me

This evening begins the Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur.  It's the most solemn, and holiest day of the year for Jews, involving fasting, with the goal of atonement and repentance for the past year's sins.

However, I don't think I'm going to participate.

It's something I've thought about, and based on the fact that I simply don't believe in G-d, it doesn't make sense.

Some holidays are about people, like Passover is about when the Jews were slaves and left Egypt, Chanukah is about the temple and people.  Those I can honor and feel good about it.

But Yom Kippur is between an individual and G-d.  So, in my case, with my beliefs (or lack thereof), half the equation would simply be missing, making it an empty participation.

Last year I fasted for part of Yom Kippur and in the end decided it was pointless and not fulfilling in any way, so I quit in the afternoon and enjoyed a nice meal.  This year I don't think I'll bother at all.

Friday Afternoon at Brooklyn Bridge Park

Yesterday after I worked the usual half day at work (my company works half days on Friday for people to prepare for Shabbat (or Shabbos, depending on your family's regional origins...)).   I got home, but didn't really want to just hang around the apartment, I wanted to go outside.

I didn't have much of a goal in mind, so just went out to the subway and got on...  Not long after I got on, though, the glass of orange juice and orange seltzer I drank sort of caught up with me, so I got off at Jay Street - MetroTech in Brooklyn to find a convenient public restroom...

In my wanders I ended up at the Brooklyn Bridge Park, down by the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges (where there was a decent public restroom...).  I saw the middle section of the park, between the bridges, open for the first time since I got to New York City, and the new carousel was operating.

Unfortunately I'd only carried my 100-300mm lens for the SLR, so I had to use the iPhone for the sky photos...  But I had some fun with the SLR, too, photographing people around the park.  A few couples gave me their cameras for me to photograph them with the bridge and the Manhattan skyline behind them, and I always smilingly oblige...

Anyway, I wrote captions for all of them, but importing the photos from my web albums here doesn't bring those in automatically.  You can see them all in my Picasa web album...

First Walk Home from Work, Wednesday

This is what I wrote to Leena after I walked home from work Wednesday afternoon...

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Whew, am I tired now...

I closed up the office early, around 4:50pm, since the official closing time was 5:23pm, an hour before sunset and the start of a Jewish holiday.  I was the last one in for the final hour and a half, and only three of us were in at all during the day.

When I left the office I walked up to Eastern Parkway, about five blocks, where I usually turn right and walk a block to get on the subway at the Utica Avenue station.  But then partway to the subway I thought, "ah, it's a pleasant evening, not too hot, not cold, I'll walk up Eastern Parkway and get on the subway somewhere else."

I walked west on Eastern Parkway, quite some distance to where I thought it was intersecting with 9th Avenue, where I've walked around before.  I was mistaken, but didn't realize it at the time.  I thought I was near Grand Army Plaza, but I wasn't.

So, I made left turn on a street there, thinking I was somewhere else.  Granted, it was still the right direction, I was just farther from home that I thought.  I ended on the east side of Prospect Park, which is a gigantic park in Brooklyn.  The neighborhood on the eastern side of the park wasn't very nice but I figured it was still daylight so I should be safe enough.  At one intersection I crossed the street and into the park, figuring I'd simply cross through the park, and I know the neighborhood on the other side is a wealthy, nice one.

But inside the park the roads all curve, nothing goes straight, and since I was wearing sandals I was paying more attention to walking carefully on some of the dirt roads than the direction I was going (I'd swear, in the dirt it looked almost exactly like someone was wearing shoes made for a horse!), so I ended up exiting the park still on the east side, instead of crossing through it, though I didn't realize that till I got out of the park and found a nearby street sign.

It was then that I realized I didn't have a good idea of where I was.  It was mostly cloudy, so the it wasn't entirely clear where the sun was in the sky, but I found what seemed a bit brighter and figured that was pretty much west, and the street I was on outside the park was aiming a bit left of that, which is southwest and the direction I wanted to go.

I walked that way for quite some distance, till I came to the end of the park and a circle as an intersection, which I pretty much remembered from a map is the southernmost part of the park, and the right direction for me.  However, I wasn't sure which direction to go from the intersection, as there was a nearby freeway and big streets that I didn't recognize and I didn't recognize any of the street names there, so I was lost...

I picked a direction based on the sun and where I knew my destination, still a long distance off, was and walked that way until I saw some streets with names that really puzzled me.  I passed E. 8th Street, and then E. 7th Street, but in the opposite direction from which I expected the numbers to change, since I live on 54th Street, I wanted to see the numbers go up, not down!

From there I thought the E. on the signs might mean I was on the wrong side of a major street, so I walked over an overpass above the major street thinking the other side there'd be W. on the signs, but there wasn't, and then I saw E. 6th Street and got confused even further...

Ah, but the iPhone 4 has a compass!  I pulled it out and matched up the direction and new I was facing the right direction, even though the street numbers were going the opposite of what I wanted.  Definitely puzzling...

Ah, but the iPhone has a map program!  I pulled it out again and used the map, which uses GPS to know exactly where the phone is, accurate to a few meters.  It zoomed in on my exact location and I realized that the East numbered streets aren't part of the same numbering system as the directionless numbered streets, like 54th Street, and I was actually going the right way, I just wasn't yet into the area I knew...

As I walked, the iPhone figured out what direction I was walking and rotated the map so I could see where I was going on it and I planned out a route to take.  I was closer to home than I realized when I came out of the park, it's just that I didn't know the streets in that area.

Eventually I got pretty close to my neighborhood, a few streets up the hill from where I've been before, but I hit the numbered streets at 32nd Street, so at least I knew the direction was right and where to go.  By then I was sweating and rivers of it were running down my back under my shirt, which was nearly as drenched as if I wore it in the shower.

Around 45th Street I stopped in a small restaurant for a couple of slices of pizza.  Not as good as the one I keep going back to near my apartment, but I was really hungry and a little thirsty, plus my clothes were getting more and more uncomfortable from the sweating, and I knew I wouldn't want to stop and eat much further because of that.  And besides, I didn't know it wasn't going to be as good until after I got it...  Anyway, it wasn't bad pizza, just not the best.

After eating there I still had another 20 blocks or so to go in a zig zag pattern and it was well past sunset, so getting dark out.  I passed through other neighborhoods I hadn't seen before.  In one I saw lots of Jewish families heading out to holiday services, but dressed different than the Hasidic Jews in Crown Heights, with many of the men wearing big furry hats instead of black fedoras, which I've looked up and figure out where the Bobov branch of Hasidic Jews.

Then on 8th Avenue for a few blocks every single business had Chinese lettering on the windows and signs, and quite a few had not a single letter of English at all.  On 7th Avenue it was similar, but a bit more English in the mix, and on 6th Avenue, where I've walked before when going to Sunset Park, it was a mix of Chinese and Spanish, including some signs that had both and restaurants advertising Chinese and Mexican food (at the same restaurant...).

Finally 5th Avenue, which I know well enough and then down on 54th Street where I live...  And last, my apartment and a hot shower.

How I Lost My Faith in God

At one time I know I believed in God, but I don't any more. Sometimes I wonder what happened.

I guess the first part of it is when I was 9 and we moved away from New Jersey. In New Jersey we used to go to Etz Ahaim synagogue on a regular basis. I went to Hebrew school there every week and we attended all the high holy day services there.

But then when we moved to Waldport, with the nearest synagogue being well over 100 miles away, in Portland, we no longer went to services at all. My parents got me several tutors over time to help prepare me for my bar mitzvah, which we also had at Etz Ahaim in the summer when I turned 13, for which we flew across the country and stayed with my grandparents.

Looking back on the tutoring, though, it was focused solely on my being able to read my Torah portion. During that time I didn't learn any more about Judaism, being a Jew or even Hebrew vocabulary, only what I need to read my part, without understanding it. And to keep from taking it appropriately seriously, my father used to time me with a stopwatch when I was reading it, always pushing for faster and faster times as the goal, rather than the usual, normal sing-song rhythm.

Sometime around then, too, my parents started making me earn my TV time by reading "approved" books. For that I had to read 45 minutes for every half hour of TV I wanted to watch, in advance. Most of the books my mother picked were about the Holocaust.

And there, I think was another major reason I lost my faith. How can a youth read all those books about death and murder, with little or no guidance, and still think there really is a God?

As I became a teenager, while not consciously thinking about not believing, I was also reading a lot of swords & sorcery literature and some horror. For quite some time I felt H.P. Lovecraft had the perfect description of what I thought in the story Herbert West -- Reanimator, in which he states 'that all life is a chemical and physical process, and that the so-called "soul" is a myth.'

There's times when I think about what I believe and I really hope I'm wrong, that there is a God, heaven and all that stuff, as the idea of absolutely nothing after death is kind of full. But there's quite a difference between hope and actually believing, and I simply don't believe.

And seemingly at odds with that, I do enjoy some of the rituals of Judaism, and symbolism. That's in some ways part of my identity, as I grew up with my family celebrating the Jewish holidays and going to services, at least before we moved to Oregon. In that regard, one of my favorite stories is about Hillel the Elder, who was challenged to teach the Torah while standing on one foot, and he did, saying "The whole of the Torah is to treat others as you would be treated, the rest is just commentary" (there are quite a few variations on the story, whether it was him or his student who stood on one foot, and slight changes to his actual quote, although they all have the basic idea.)

With further thought I've come to decide that I believe in God as a symbol, but not as an entity.