Wise words from the Rev. Dr. David Ferner:

CONNECTED TO WHAT? 

So many of us feel disconnected these days…from each other, from G-d, 

from creation, and even from ourselves. Many factors have contributed to 

this reality and it would take many essays to speak to it. Certainly, the 

pandemic exacerbated our sense of detachment, but seeds of this 

perception have probably always been true of human experience. In more 

recent times we have seen the breakdown of the familiar as families, 

friends, and acquaintances have spread out across the world, no longer 

living in tight, small neighborhoods with inescapable connection. Our lives 

as humans have become more nuclear, especially over the last couple 

centuries and that makes us lonely and longing for deeper connection. 

We aren’t going to change these physical realities. It is more important that 

we reorient our thinking – our perceptions – our longings. In a new book, 

Why? The Purpose of the Universe, Philip Goff, an agnostic by admission, 

speaks of a purposefulness in the creation of the universe. While he tries 

not to use the language of religion, he writes of a life force in everything in 

the universe, from the smallest inanimate object to the most complex and 

conscious – humans. If we carry his thinking to a conclusion, it says that 

we are connected to everything that is. Our longing is a natural outcome of 

wanting to be one with all that is including, for those of faith, with the One 

who is responsible for the universe’s soul force. It means we are 

connected, with each other, with all that we see, hear, and touch, and with 

the Holy One. We don’t need to go seeking connection because we are, by 

nature, connection because of this soul force. The task for us all is to 

cultivate this reality and deepen what already is. 

Rev. Dr. David Ferner 

Yesterday was 9/11. For many of us we know exactly where we were. We have searing memories. I spent part of yesterday calling the people I spent part of that day with, whether in person or on the phone, once I made it to Connecticut and the cell phone towers worked for me again.  

Those are people I have life long connections to. My study partner who I wrote about yesterday. Many of the AJR community because I was at AJR in Riverdale when the nightmare began. My cousin who had just given birth the week before and I was stopping by to do a baby naming. The naming didn’t happen that day. We waited until Thanksgiving. A principal from Massachusetts, one of my huppah holders, who had two kids whose father was on Flight 11. A UCC minister, whose congregant was the pilot from Flight 11. And of course, my husband, who again I couldn’t reach until I got to Connecticut. They had been dear friends before. Even more so after this tragedy.. 

Partly because we were living in Boston, and I was going to school in New York my memories are very sharp. That might be a post for another time. Although I feel the need to write those out before I do forget. 

Today, in the Elgin 9/11 Memorial I had a chance to reflect. What we witnessed that day was evil. And while it happened on American soil shocking many, it was not limited to the United States.  115 countries lost people on 9/11. 26 days after the attacks, the United States launched the Global War on Terrorism.  

But a war on terrorism already existed and had for a number of years. Today’s connection goes all the way back to the Ottoman Empire, the British Mandate, the life in the Middle East prior to 1948, 1947 and the vote to partition Palestine. 1948 and Israeli Independence Day, 1967, Munich 1972 (remember that terrorism at the Olympic games?), 1973, two intifadas, bus bombings, pizza bombings, Hebrew University, the withdrawal of Israel from the Gaza Strip in 2006, the embargo of the Gaza Strip, Iranian sanctions…and more. 

And yes, October 7th. Sadly, During the debate on Tuesday, we heard a brief discussion on the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. It is all still sadly connected. We cannot talk effectively about making peace and seeking justice without understanding the history that stretches way, way back.  

Ufros Aleinu Sukkat Shlomecha, Spread over us the Shelter of your peace. Oseh Shalom Bimromav…May the God who makes peace in the high heavens make peace here on earth. Because we don’t see to be able to Because maybe only You can.  

Studying together brings a connection, a closeness that is unparalleled in my experience. From our earliest days, when hopefully a parent reads bed time stories snuggled under the covers, we are deeply connected to our parents and we begin to know we are loved. When we go to school, we make new friends as we puzzle out words, and meanings of those words, and math concepts. When we play on the playground, we may build friends for life while we are building sculptures in the sand box.  

As we go through the years, elementary, middle school, high school and college, we often make friends. Connections. We work on projects together. We all wind up on the same team, or chorus, or band, or theatre. We build micro-communities. 

One of my favorite books is Lifelong Kindergarten whose subtitle is Cultivating Creativity through Projects, Passion, Peers and Play. I would add that in addition to cultivating creativity, allowing the space for the 4 Ps creates community and fosters the kind of connection we have been talking about. 

I am still in touch with people from elementary school (Breton Downs), high school (East Grand Rapids High School) college, (Tufts University) and my seminary,(Academy for Jewish Religion). Thanks go in part to Facebook. 

What I want to talk about is AJR, and Jewish study in particular. There is a concept of chevruta, study with a partner. The root of chevruta is friend. My chevruta partner and I puzzled over Talmud, over codes, over life. Childrearing, balancing work, school and family. We buried parents together and worked through health issues together. The meaning of life. Beyond the answer 42. We talk most days still, There is a deep, deep connection. We can make each other laugh. We have cried with each other. Meditated together. Led services and study sessions together.  

We survived 9/11 and its aftermath together, which seems especially appropriate to say on this day of all days.  

Together is the key word. We are a thousand miles away and are still the best of friends.  

All because we laughed (and sometimes wept) through a codes class. We actually sometimes begin a call with “I can make you laugh,” which then is often true.  

My hope is that when you study with someone you find that deep sense of connection and togetherness. 

This is a warning! If you befriend me, there is a high statistical chance that you will move out of town in the near future. Ever since my childhood everyone I have been close to has moved away. 

Connecting with people becomes more difficult as you get older. You are not a blank slate to be written on with shared experience. You have to explain your past to anyone you might hope to form a friendship with. 

As difficult as it was to lose connection with individuals along the way, I also experienced the loss of an entire community when I had to give up riding horses after 40 years. You lose proximity to people you saw on a daily basis, not to mention the ups and downs of riding and showing. 

I drifted away from the equestrian world slowly. For a while I visited at horse shows and barns of old friends, but I soon began to feel like an outsider, losing connection. 

But then something wonderful happened, albeit out of a tragedy! After the Tree of Life Synagogue massacre Jews were called on to Show Up For Shabbat and I did! 

I was a little nervous about walking into a room where I didn’t know anyone, but the sounds and sights of the service were so familiar and comforting to me that I soon began to feel connected! 

And the people!! All so welcoming! I truly felt connected! And more so once I started participating in the various study groups, Hebrew class, Torah Study, Java and Jews. So many connections to be made that I am sure will not be broken. 

But more than connecting with people, important as that is, I’ve connected with Judaism in a way I never thought I could. I’ve learned so much and developed a deep connection with Torah and the rituals of connecting to Torah.  

Myrna Rosenbaum 

We last talked about the beloved community and connections between people. Those connections are one important way we build community. This weekend was an important weekend in the life of our congregation.  

We started the weekend with First Friday Family Shabbat, geared to young families. As part of this we named a new baby boy and welcomed him and his family into the Jewish people. That is a strong connection! And the parents of our young students are connected and formed their own little kahal, group. They enjoy seeing each other and schmoozing, catching up month after month.  

On Saturday we had our regular Shabbat morning services during the course of which one of our older students was called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah. He had worked really hard and has been in our Torah School since kindergarten. He did an outstanding job. His parents, his grandparents, aunts and uncles are so proud of him. His teachers, his ed director, and of course, I, as well are also so proud of him. Creating Jewish memories for our students and allowing them to shine, to rise to the occasion is part of what being a community and forging those deep connections is about. 

Next weekend we have an aufruf, where we shower a couple with blessings and sweet candy before their wedding ceremony. It is another moment of deep connection that we hope the couple and the families never forget. It helps bind the couple to each other and to our community, hopeful building lasting connections. 

Sadly, however, everything is not joyous. A member of our community has died. Coming together to help the family mourn and creating a meaningful funeral and shiva is a big part of what a caring community does. We may not want to. We may be sad. But making sure that the ritual is appropriate for each family and the deviled eggs perfect adds to their sense of being supported, cared for and loved. Rabbi Sharon Brous in her book, The Amen Effect talks about just showing up. That’s what we need to do, across all the life cycle events, birth, coming of age, marriage and death. Show up.  

Maureen Manning, the Executive Director of the Community Crisis Center spoke to our Torah School parents on the first day of school this weekend. Her message: Look around you. These other parents will be your friends. They will be there for bar mitzvahs, for high school graduations, college graduations, baby showers, wedding showers and for those inevitable times when life gets hard, because it will. It always does at some point for all of us. They will help you bury your parents, or your spouse or G-d forbid your children. But they are the ones you will be connected to. Your life long friends. Just show up.  

Danise Habun talked about the groups she is connected to. She is also teaching me about “the beloved community,” an important concept of Dr. Martin Luther King’s non-violent organizing principles. That’s what we are trying to build in the world, when we talk about tikkun olam, repairing the world. We are working towards the beloved community. https://thekingcenter.org/about-tkc/the-king-philosophy/ We are reading the book as a group, “Healing Resistance, A Radically Different Response to Harm.” 

At a recent gathering of people brainstorming what the beloved community would look like we were asked what we love, and specifically about Elgin. I am proud to be part of this group of leaders from a wide range of Elgin and know many of the people in the room and feel connected to them.  

 When it was my turn to speak, I commented on my bracelet which says “Ani L’dodi v’dodi li, I am my beloved and my beloved is mine.” A verse from Song of Songs it is used in many Jewish weddings. It is an acronym for the Jewish month Elul that we are in, And it is seen as reassuring. That G-d is our beloved and we are G-ds. We are connected to something bigger than us and that brings comfort. It is reminder of the I-Thou relationship that Buber talks about. We will talk more about that as the month progresses.  

 The principles of Kingian Non-Violence and building the beloved community can happen anywhere. My question would be what does the beloved community look like to you. How are you connected to your community?  

Today’s thought comes from Danise Habun, a dear friend and community activist. She understands the power of connections and community in building the beloved community. Here are her words: 

Connections are spiderwebs between people, places, ideas, activities, stages of life, love and loss. Connections are the bonds between us, sometimes strong, other times brittle and easily broken. Connections are the bonds that exist between humanity, our planet, our communities, our relationships with family and with our pets. 

I am fortunate to be connected to so many others in so many ways. Recently I rediscovered connections while working on a photo project with my niece in celebration of my sister’s 70th birthday. By looking through so many pictures, I had the luxury of being able to pause and reflect on different familial connections at different stages of my life. I was able to recall the warmth of my sister, and I snuggled on the laps of our mother and grandmother. The memory brought tears. I also examined pictures from my college years with my sister and future brother-in-law and I was able to pause and laugh at all of the things that we did in those years that remain hidden from others. But we know because of our connection. 

I am connected now to a community of cancer comrades who continue with chemotherapy and treatment. With this community, I am able to share my feelings and outrage at the indignity of this disease and our medical system. This is a connection that I wish I didn’t have. 

If I am connected to you, there is less likelihood that I will deliberately cause harm to you. If I am connected to a community, I will do my utmost to defend that community. If I am connected through love, I will do everything in my power to keep you safe, protected and cared for to the best of my ability. If I am connected through a cause, I will advocate and speak out until someone listens and does something. 

     Danise Habun 

Last night my congregation participated in a program on Zoom called “Death over Dinner.” The premise is that sometimes death is a difficult topic, one that is to be avoided at all costs. I first participated in the this program at the Chicago Board of Rabbis in February of 2020. Yes, you read that right, February of 2020 before we knew what was coming. I sat there and said, “This will be my Selichot program.” And it was. On Zoom. What we were given that day was a series of cards. A Jewish teaching on one side and some questions of the back.  

Last night we started with this, written by Rabbi Sharon Brous, author of the Amen Effect which will be our November book group book and a One Book, One Read congregational book. She introduces Dinner over Death with this:

“Yom Kippur is the annual Jewish deep dive into our mortality, the one moment when we step out the death denying culture we live in and peer, with open yes and heart into the deep. Every year we talk about how the rituals of tis day create for us a deathscape—we don’t eat or drink, we wear white, we immerse in the memories of loved ones who have died. We repeat the words who will live and who will die, wrestling with the realization that the stark and bitter and awful reality is that some of us will be here next year and some will not. Yom Kippur is rooted in the assumption that we have more clarity around what matters most when we’re on the edge of life. So we go there, together, in order to ask ourselves the ourselves the questions of the palliative care doctors: what matters most o you, now? And what will you do about it.?” 

We didn’t get much beyond the first question on the back. “If you discovered you had 30 days left how would you spend them?” 

For some this was difficult. For some they will spend time with family and friends. (Connections!) For some they will have a big party to tell their friends just how much they mean to them. (More connections!) I think I liked this one best.  

One card said Create Space and added that the Torah is filled with genealogies, connecting people from generation to generation. With each name comes a new story. We talked about how we were named, who we were named for and the significance they have in our lives. It was fascinating. And it deepened our connections to each other hearing the stories. The connections between the generations were obvious too.  

We talked about music, and Psalm 23 which is heard at many Jewish funerals. In English, in Hebrew or both, chanted or not. What role do you want music to play in your own funeral. No one listed a Hebrew song. But there were many English ones…and again we deepened our relationships one to another. One thing that surprised me was two people said that want me to do their funerals. Why? Because I know them. They didn’t want someone to just standing up there reading poems, not knowing them. This is connection and community too. I am humbled.  

We ended our evening with Kaddish, for those who came before and for the hostages recently murdered. As hard as the conversations can be. As tragic as the recent executions were, it was a good and important and connected evening. I am grateful to the CKI community.  

Today is Rosh Hodesh Elul, the first of the New Month of Elul. It has been said that Elul is an acronym for “Ani L’dodi v’dodi li. I am my Beloved and my Beloved is Miine.” I wear that as a silver bracelet on my wrist. It was a gift of my husband many years ago, so it connects me to him. It connects me to my Bat Mitzvah which was observed many years ago since the phrase from Song of Songs was part of my portion. It connects me to Moses who began his journey up Mount Sinai for a second time on Rosh Hodesh Elul. He returned 40 days later on Yom Kippur.

For the next 40 days we will be looking at connections. Some of you have written powerful things which we will share, here on this blog.

Why connections? It arose out of a conversation with the Torah School Parents, Last year we spent the year studying community, using as our verse, “Do not separate yourself from the community.” It turns out that what we want from community is connection, Friendship. Deep relationship. We want to not feel isolated or alone.

Participating in this project at a time when people still feel isolated and alone, will help.

Participating in this project before Rosh Hashanah will provide insight and deepen our own preparation and connections, one to another.

That’s what I had written, But I need to add.

This weekend was painful. Physically and emotionally painful. Six of the Israeli hostages were found murdered, yes murdered, in a tunnel in Gaza. Many rabbis wrote the words we have all written so many times. There are no words. I tried to come up with some. Others may have had even more poignant ones, not that it was a competition.

What I have learned working on this topic this summer is that connections are about just showing up. Show up for your friends. Check in on them.

Participating in this project at this time of great angst in the world, agony in the Jewish community will help. Make a connection.