Haftorah Beam - vZot haBracha

This parsha is read, not on Shabbat, but on Simchat Torah -- the "Great Rewind".  We finish reading the five books of Moses, and immediately cycle back to the beginning of Genesis.

The Torah reading ends with the death of Moses, as the people are about to enter the Promised Land. The Haftorah completes this theme with the beginning of the book of Joshua, as the people enter Israel and prepare to conquer and inhabit it.  On the brink of a new endeavor, full of risk and promise, these words resonate for us:

ט  הֲלוֹא צִוִּיתִיךָ חֲזַק וֶאֱמָץ, אַל-תַּעֲרֹץ וְאַל-תֵּחָת:  כִּי עִמְּךָ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, בְּכֹל אֲשֶׁר תֵּלֵךְ.

9 Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of good courage; be not affrighted, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.'

31 for 21 - discrimination

Looks like this year, my participation in 31 for 21 will mostly be limited to linking to other bloggers....  Here is a piece by my friend Jisun, examining the real-life consequences -- in some cases, life-and-death consequences -- of "othering" people with disabilities.  In any situation where we try to justify treating people with disabilities differently, would we use the same logic to justify racial or gender discrimination?

Haftorah Beam - Ki Tavo

The Torah portion is all about being aware of the blessings which surround us.  The Haftorah reading, likewise, is about vision:

¹ Arise, shine, for your light has dawned;
The Presence of the Lord has shone upon you!
² Behold! Darkness shall cover the earth,
And thick clouds the peoples;
But upon you the Lord will shine,
And His Presence be seen over you.
³ And nations shall walk by your light,
Kings, by your shining radiance.

⁴ Raise your eyes and look about:
They have all gathered and come to you.
Your sons shall be brought from afar,
Your daughters like babes on shoulders.
⁵ As you behold, you will glow;
Your heart will throb and thrill —
For the wealth of the sea shall pass on to you,
The riches of nations shall flow to you.

In just the first 5 verses, I have highlighted 14 words related to vision or light. I am intrigued mostly by the beginning of the 5th verse:

ה  אָז תִּרְאִי וְנָהַרְתְּ, וּפָחַד וְרָחַב לְבָבֵךְ:  כִּי-יֵהָפֵךְ עָלַיִךְ הֲמוֹן יָם, חֵיל גּוֹיִם יָבֹאוּ לָךְ.

5 Then thou shalt see and be radiant, and thy heart shall throb and be enlarged; because the abundance of the sea shall be turned unto thee, the wealth of the nations shall come unto thee.

 It is through opening our eyes and truly seeing G*d's world that we ourselves can shine.  The Hebrew word,  נָהַרְתְּ, is etymologically related to the word נהר, "river", suggesting that the radiance is flowing like a mighty river.  The radiance is dynamic, active, and a bit wild, not a static glow.

Furthermore, the heart is enlarged not merely by "throbbing" but through "פָחַד" - fear.  It is through facing -seeing - and overcoming fear ("Darkness shall cover the earth, And thick clouds the peoples"), that our fortunes are turned ("כִּי-יֵהָפֵךְ").

Haftorah Beam - Shlakh L'kha

Both the Torah and Haftorah readings for this week deal with "spies" -- reconnaissance missions into the land of Israel.  In the Torah, Moses sends out the 12 spies in order to learn more about the land promised to the Hebrews by G*d.  The result is internal discord between the 2 optimists and the 10 pessimists, resulting in 40 additional years of wandering in the wilderness.

In the Haftorah, only 2 spies are sent, in preparation for the military campaign on Jericho.  This time, there is no dithering.  They know their purpose, and not only do they successfully complete their mission, but they make an ally in the person of Rahab the prostitute.

²³ Then the two men came down again from the hills and crossed over. They came to Joshua son of Nun and reported to him all that had happened to them. ²⁴ They said to Joshua, "The Lord has delivered the whole land into our power; in fact, all the inhabitants of the land are quaking before us."

Where the division among Moses's spies left the Hebrews "quaking" in fear of the Canaanites, the steadfastness of purpose exhibited by Joshua's spies struck fear in those very same Canaanites.

Perspective!

Purim

The Festival of Purim is traditionally observed with 4 commandments:

1. Mishteh - the festive revelry, with costumes, sweets, and drinking (for the adults)
2. Mishloach Manot - exchange of treats among friends
3. Matanot la-Evyonim - charitable giving to the poor
4. Megilla - reading of the Purim scroll (Book of Esther)

Our family enjoyed a delightful Purim Party at our shul, where all 4 were in evidence (except for the alcohol.... that was last night!)

One particular excerpt from the Megilla really spoke to me.  In the 4th chapter, when Mordechai pleads with Esther to speak up to the king on behalf of the Jewish people, she is afraid.  Speaking to the King without being summoned is a capital offense!  This risk is very real.  She does not want to do it. And Mordechai persists:

13 and Mordechai said to relay to Esther, "Do not think that you will escape [the fate of] all the Jews by being in the king's palace. 14 For if you will remain silent at this time, relief and salvation will come to the Jews from another source, and you and the house of your father will be lost. And who knows if it is not for just such a time that you reached this royal position."  (emphasis mine)

At each juncture in our lives, we can see our choices as risks or as opportunities.  The risks refer to all the ways that things can go wrong.  The opportunities are not simply the flip-side of that, the things that could go right, but the ways in which our life up until that point has prepared us for this.  Wherever we are is our "royal position" for taking on the "king".

The Jewish website aish.com featured this video on exactly this theme. Enjoy!

Haftorah Beam - VaYakhel

Last year, this parsha was part of a double-parsha reading, but this year it was read on its own.  The Torah reading concerns the building of the Tabernacle, and the haftorah reading echoes this with instructions for building the Temple in Jerusalem.

This is one of the haftarot where Sephardim and Ashkenazim read slightly different selections: I Kings 7:13-26 vs I Kings 7:40-50.  The Ashkenazi reading concludes the building, while the Sephardi reading describes the dimensions of the major elements.  The reading begins:

13 King Solomon sent for Hiram and brought him down from Tyre. 14 He was the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali, and his father had been a Tyrian, a coppersmith. He was endowed with skill, ability, and talent for executing all work in bronze. He came to King Solomon and executed all his work.

The great artist of this mammoth endeavor, brought especially for this project, was an orphan and a foreigner.  Nonetheless, he was singled out for his extraordinary metalworking skill.  Interestingly, his father had been a coppersmith, yet Hiram found his talents in bronze, showing that he had not merely mastered what he had been taught, but was able to extend his skills in new areas.

After the dimensions of the columns and their capitals are given, the columns themselves are named:

21 He set up the columns at the portico of the great hall; he set up one column on the right and named it Jachin, and he set up the other column on the left and named it Boaz. 22 Upon the top of the columns there was a lily design. Thus the work of the columns was completed.

That is strange!  Why would columns require names?   And what is their significance?

This is the entrance to the great hall of the Temple.  This is the place where people come for connection with the divine and with each other.  Where they come for help and for repentance.  They look up at the entrance, at the columns to the right and left. The names of the columns direct the worshippers in orienting their Kavannah (intention) with respect to their petitions: Yachin (יָכִין) "He will prepare" reminds them to make proper preparations, and Boaz (בֹּעַז) "With courage" inspires them to go forth courageously.  It is the balance between these two -- the portal between preparation and courage -- that leads to the Holy Sanctuary.

Haftorah Beam - Terumah

I seem to have missed blogging about this Torah portion last year.....  It deals with the collection of funds and materials for the Tabernacle, as well as instructions for its construction.

The Haftorah portion for this week is skipped because it is the beginning of the month of Adar, so we read the Rosh Hodesh Haftorah instead, which I've already blogged about.  So technically I can flake out on this one....  but I'll make an effort anyway.

This commentary emphasizes the need to focus on the internal devotion more than the external trappings of religious observance.  I was drawn to this verse (1 Kings 6:7):

וְהַבַּיִת, בְּהִבָּנֹתוֹ--אֶבֶן-שְׁלֵמָה מַסָּע, נִבְנָה; וּמַקָּבוֹת וְהַגַּרְזֶן כָּל-כְּלִי בַרְזֶל, לֹא-נִשְׁמַע בַּבַּיִת בְּהִבָּנֹתוֹ.

7 For the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready at the quarry; and there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building.--

The stones were prepared at the quarry, so that no sounds of violence and destruction would be heard at the actual construction site.  This seems to me a metaphor for the preparation we make for doing sacred work. The axes and hammers are necessary.  Conflict and strife, pain and struggle, are often necessary in order to build the sanctuary of our souls, and to construct a perfected world (Tikkun Olam). However, we should take care to work our way through it "in the quarry", so that it does not detract from the sacred work itself.

With respect to this blog, it seems to connect to the preparation that we must do to welcome an orphaned and/or disabled child into our home.  There is often doubt and ambivalence, fear and resentment, when anticipating the needs of such a child. We owe it to the child and to ourselves to work through all these issues ahead of time -- in the quarry -- so that the child is welcomed into an edifice built of whole stones  "אֶבֶן-שְׁלֵמָה".

Haftorah Beam - BeShalach

I had a mental block on this for 2 weeks, and now I know why.

This Haftorah shares the theme of song with the Torah portion: In the Torah, Miriam leads the Children of Israel in song after crossing the Sea of Reeds, safely away from their Egyptian oppressors.  In the Haftorah, Deborah sings in celebration of victory over the Canaanites.  The songs are both full of militaristic glee which can be dissonant to modern sensibilities, and yet convey a very powerful, human emotion.

Yesterday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  This article showed up in my FaceBook feed. Please read it.  I will summarize the article in order to get to the conclusion, but the article deserves to be read in its entirety.

But this is what the great Dr. Martin Luther King accomplished. Not that he marched, nor that he gave speeches.
He ended the terror of living as a black person, especially in the south.
<...>
This constant low level dread of atavistic violence is what kept the system running. It made life miserable, stressful and terrifying for black people. 
<...>
This is the climate of fear that Dr. King ended.
<...>
The question is, how did Dr. King do this—and of course, he didn't do it alone....So what did they do?
They told us: Whatever you are most afraid of doing vis-a-vis white people, go do it. Go ahead down to city hall and try to register to vote, even if they say no, even if they take your name down.
<...>
If we do it all together, we'll be okay.
They made black people experience the worst of the worst, collectively, that white people could dish out, and discover that it wasn't that bad. They taught black people how to take a beating—from the southern cops, from police dogs, from fire department hoses. They actually coached young people how to crouch, cover their heads with their arms and take the beating. They taught people how to go to jail, which terrified most decent people.
And you know what? The worst of the worst, wasn't that bad.
Once people had been beaten, had dogs sicced on them, had fire hoses sprayed on them, and been thrown in jail, you know what happened?
These magnificent young black people began singing freedom songs in jail.
That, my friends, is what ended the terrorism of the south. Confronting your worst fears, living through it, and breaking out in a deep throated freedom song.

And that is what this Parsha is about.

Confronting your worst fears, living through it, and breaking out in a deep throated freedom song.

What was I doing on MLK Day?

My wonderful husband started an informal organization of Barbershop singers, Healing Harmony Quartets, to sing in hospitals.  Yesterday we visited Lyla Spitz, who is recovering from open heart surgery at Children's Hospital Boston.  She was tired and in pain after coming of the strong painkillers, and did not want to get up from her chair.  But when the music started she was unstoppable!  She danced and smiled and followed the singers as they made their way around the floor, singing for other patients and staff.  Such is the power of music to liberate people from both external oppression and internal suffering.

And today, this.

Now I understand why I wasn't motivated to write something generic 2 weeks ago.  This is what this parsha is about.

The Music of Freedom.

Counter-intuitive

How often in life to we need to take what feels like a step back in order to move forward?  A few months ago I wrote about my experience as a teen learning to rock-climb, when I realized that in order to climb up the cliff I had to lean back - hard - and no, I will not fall.

I had a similar experience in my twenties, when I tried my hand in hang-gliding.



In order to launch and become airborne, we were instructed to run full speed down the hill - with 50 lbs. of equipment securely strapped to our backs. At the very moment that your vestibular system tells you that you are about to fall down head first - at that moment the glider's lift catches you. In fact, listening to your body would have you lean back to block your descent - precisely causing you to fall down.

A few years later, when I gave birth to my third child, I experienced this effect again.  Pushing the baby out would seem to require a supreme exertion: "Push, push!" we stereotypically tell a birthing mom. This, however, is misleading.  Attempting to do so literally results in clenching the entire abdomen - including the cervix, which needs to relax in order to allow the baby to exit. Much better is the midwifery advice to "breathe your baby out".  Relaxing the lower muscles allow the higher muscles to work more efficiently, with less effort.

Now I have 5 children.  I am frequently met with incredulity. "How can you do that?"  My stock answer is that it is actually easier with 5 than with 2. Parents of small families tend to be a lot more anxious about control issues.  As the family grows, we acquire some amount of wisdom and some amount of just letting go.  Letting go of control, like relaxing muscles that don't need to "push", allows the parents (like the uterus) to work more efficiently and with less effort.

When do our instincts give us good guidance, and when do we need to do the counter-intuitive thing and get our over-thinking out of the way of doing things right?

Monsters

There is a stereotype in some of the popular literature of the adopted "monster child".  The child who becomes violent and destructive and destroys the family which has taken him/her in.  The child who seemed so innocent and lovable, but turned out to be a psychopath.

-But what if, what if, what if you adopt a kid and he turns out to be a big, RAD, monster kid?  What if he screams and tantrums and poops on the floor and hits me and the other kids and destroys our life?  What are we going to do? What are we going to do?

This stereotype is based on the experience of parents with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD). Adopted children have invariably gone through some kind of trauma -- or they would still be with their birth parents!  They need great stability in order to heal from this trauma.  In the process, they do much more testing of their parents than bio-kids -- who certainly do their share of parent-testing!  The more abuse, neglect, disrupted placements and other trauma these children have gone through, the harder it is for them to trust and attach.  This does not make them monsters.  It makes them hurt kids.  Parents need to be cognizant of their needs in order to address them.  Younger children in the home (if any) need to be protected.  Parents need to be psychologically prepared for the extreme testing and not take it personally.  This is all very hard.  But they are still just hurt children.  Just as if they were suffering from a physical injury and we would patiently help them regain function, so do RAD children suffer from emotional injury which requires lots and lots of patience and hard work to regain the emotional competency that most people take for granted.

-Monster kids are not real, so you shouldn't be afraid of them. But even if he does turn out to be a big, RAD monster kid, maybe he wouldn't destroy our life.  Maybe we would protect him and the other kids from his scary and scared feelings, and give him the kind of stability that he needs so badly, so that he would have the space to learn to give and receive love.
-Are you sure?
-Yes, I'm sure.

(adapted from Pookie and Tushka Find a Little Piano)

31 4 21 Hey Jude

Hey Jude, don't make it bad

Take a sad song and make it better

Remember to let her into your heart

Then you can start to make it better

Hey Jude, don't be afraid

You were made to go out and get her

The minute you let her under your skin

Then you begin to make it better

And anytime you feel the pain, hey Jude, refrain
Don't carry the world upon your shoulders
For well you know that it's a fool who plays it cool
By making his world a little colder

Fear

When I was 14, I went to summer camp where we did week-long outdoor adventures.  I signed up for one week camping, one week canoeing, and one week rock-climbing.

On the last day of the rock-climbing trip, I was about 30 feet up the cliff, with another 10 or so feet to go. The only way to get to the next ledge was to walk up a crack.

Walk up a crack?

The counselor who was belaying me coached me: "You put your fingers in the crack, lean back, and walk up the rock on the other side."

You do WHAT????

I put my fingers in the crack, and tentatively leaned back.  No way.  No how.  No way in heck are my fingers going to hold up my weight.  He's nuts.

"Put your feet on the rock in front of you!"

Um, no.  I am not a spider, or an insect, or a squirrel.  I do not walk up vertical surfaces.  Just to prove to him that he is totally insane to suggest such a thing, I put my foot on the rock and "tried".  I fell, and he broke my fall with the rope.  I landed back on the ledge.  "This is high enough, please just rappel me down!"

"No, you can do this.  Put your feet up higher."

For an hour we were at an impasse. He coached me and encouraged me, and I stood there, paralyzed.  I can't do this I can't do this I can't do this I can't.......  He would not let me back out.  We would be there all day.  I was tired.  I was embarrassed.  I was hungry.  I was sweaty.  My sweaty fingers felt less and less able to do what he was telling me to do, over and over, patiently and insistently.

I put my fingers in the crack, put my feet up about waist high, and pushed back with my legs against my wedged hands. Hand-over-hand, foot-over-foot, up the vertical cliff:

(No, this is not me...)

He was right.  I could do it.  I just needed someone to belay me, coach me, and not let me give in to my fears.

I wanna go to Holland!

Many in the Down syndrome community have come across Emily Kingsley's "Welcome to Holland":

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Well, the funny thing is, if you read enough stories about Holland.... it sounds pretty cool! 

And you know what, I've been to Italy.... several times already!  And it's gorgeous -- I absolutely love it! But I know the canals of Venice, the slopes of the alps, the beaches of Sicily, the Sistine Chapel, the Coliseum, and the best place for pizza in Palermo. But, but, why can't I visit Holland, too?

Now, some things about Holland would be familiar.  Canals, for example. Similar, but different. And there will be coffee shops and ice cream, though it wouldn't be the same as that gelato on the square in Firenze.  But there are no tulips or traditional windmills in Italy.  No Delft Blue China craftsmen.  Can the Rembrandts and Van Goghs compare to Michelangelo?  Do they have to?  Both are beautiful.

What is it like to go to Holland when that was what you intended to do?  When there is nothing to mourn in the first place?

31 for 21: Water and Fire

I suddenly realized that these two metaphors represent one of the main questions in the adoption journey: What is the vision for the adoption?

Some people are "Fire" adopters.  They learn about a country, or an individual institution, or an individual child in dire need, and are driven to rescue the neediest of them.  As the Christians say, "the least of these".  These children may have severe special needs, extreme malnutrition and neglect, and/or be older.  They may take this on because they have medical training that has prepared them for the extra care required.  They may have other children with similar special needs.  Or they may be filled with a sense of commitment and faith that bolsters them to do whatever it takes.  I certainly find these stories inspiring, and wonder if my family and my community could handle one of these.  I wonder how many people would follow that example, rather than write it off as "you're crazy" or even just "wow, I could never do that".

Then there are the "Water" adopters.  They, too, learn about the neglect suffered by children with special needs in developing countries, and are moved to take action.  But they reason, "Let's rescue a child who is still young enough and healthy enough that his/her needs will be more manageable.  Let's rescue a child before they become needy enough to require a "Fire" adopter to be saved."   The babies and toddlers I posted about recently fall into that category, as do most of the children in the 3-5 year old category and many of the 6- to 9-year-olds.  These stories are also inspiring, but in a much more low-key way.  Mostly, they are stories about adorable children being loved by their families and blossoming instead of falling further and further behind in an orphanage.  I can definitely see people in my community being open to this possibility if they saw an example of it.  These stories have a much more normal feel to them.

Which brings us to the final metaphor.

You are walking with your friends and family along the road.  On one side of the road is a lake, filled with drowning children.  On the other side, is a burning schoolhouse.  What do you do? Do you stand there paralyzed because you can't save everyone?  If not, do you run into the fire, swim into the lake, or run down the road ahead as fast as you can so you don't have to hear the cries...?


=========
Religion Connection, for those who want it:

1. We just passed Yom Kippur, when we not only repent of our sins, but we contemplate our own mortality.  We ask,

"who will live and who will die; 
who will die at his predestined time and who before his time; 
who by water and who by fire...."

 2. Proverbs 24:11-12:

If you refrain from rescuing those taken to death and those on the verge of being slain will you say, "Behold, we did not know this"? Is it not so that He Who counts hearts understands, and He Who guards your soul knows, and He will requite a man according to his deed?

Fear - a story

Back in June, we were working our way through many of the fears of the unknown in international special needs adoption.  Sure, there are so many amazing stories of miracles unfolding when children come into families after years of neglect in orphanages and institutions.  But what if something goes wrong?  Many people I spoke with about this told me about people who had adopted internationally only to discover that their children had problems which had not been disclosed.

A few weeks ago I read this post, and frankly, it scared me!  Will this family disrupt the adoption?  Will this prove too much for them to handle?  Please read it.  It really goes to the heart of the fears around adoption.


Did you read it?  Are you afraid yet?

A few days ago, the family finally posted an update.  Please read it.


I don't want to excerpt either one of these posts, I think they need to stand in their entirety.  They show the raw fear, the real difficulties, the extra work, the struggles with attachment, without any sugarcoating.  And yet, the miracle is still there: the healing, the joy, and the love.