Take a deep breath. And another one. It is Shabbat. Time to rest.
When do we feel safe? When do we feel insecure?
We talked about this last week. Sitting under a tree enables us to feel safe. Sitting on our porches, in our houses, in our synagogues should make us feel secure. Sitting allows us to rest, to day dream, to hope. Sitting enables us to connect, to ourselves, to our family, to our community, to our G-d.
Ufros aleinu sukkat shlomech. Spread over us the shelter, that fragile sukkath of Your peace. Every week I talk about how peace is a fragile shelter. Shabbat, too is a container, a place to sit, to hold our anxiety and our worry. A place to put it down. Shabbat is a palace in time, as Abraham Joshua Heschel used to say.
But what if something shatters that fragile peace? What if our homes are not not filled with Shalom Bayit, peace of the house. Or oifour greeting of Shabbat Shalom is anything but peaceful?
How do we tame our own anxiety?
Last week, the peace that we create on Shabbat was shattered. First you should know that from the moments the events of last Shabbat were becoming known, our safety and security team, our police department, our FBI, ADL and JUF contacts were all in touch with us. We have heard from many in the wider community. Individuals, churches, all levels of governmental, black, white, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, the Elgin Police Department. I can’t say enough about our police department. They have been doing extra patrols—at CKI, at Bluff City Cemetery and even at our house.
But how do we handle our own anxiety? By being loud and proud. By showing up. Even on Zoom. By doing all the things we can do to protect ourselves—some of which by plan we don’t even discuss in order to keep us more secure. By interrupting anti-semitism with programs like Sunday’s presentation on the State of Hate by the ADL. That was set up in early December because of some other local events. Clearly the need for it is now. I hope you have registered.
And by leaning into our tradition. Our tradition talks about this very topic in this week’s parsha. Come back tomorrow. Those Israelites standing at the foot of the mountain were afraid. And yet they said, “We shall do and we shall hear.” They promised to do things even before they knew what they would be.
This is Mental Health Shabbat. Sponsored by JCFS and the Chicago Board of Rabbis. That was also set up long before the events of last weekend. There is a real need to talk about mental health. To make sure that it is not stigmatized. To give you resources that might be helpful. To let you know that I, as your rabbi, stand with you. There Is no question that COVID has exacerbated mental health issues. Whether you are struggling with grief, anxiety, loneliness, substance abuse, feelings of inadequacy or guilt, frustration, suicidal ideation, there are resources to help you. Tonight, we have with us Dr. Biana Kotyar Castro who spoke as part of our Kol Nidre service. Her talk was published recently by the Chicago Board of Rabbis as a resource to all. She is here tonight as a member and as a resource person. At the end of this d’var Torah I have put more resources available.
Tomorrow we will read the 10 Commandments. The 10 Sayings. One of those is the commandment to rest. Keep the Sabbath day.
Shabbat is itself one of those resources. A time to cease. Even G-d needed to be v’yinafash. So I invite you to set down your worry, just for now. To cease. To take a deep breath. Look around you, Look at those eyes.
Our Breath is our very soul. G-d breathed it into us. We sing this in the morning service. Elohai neshama shnatat bi tihorahi. “My God, the soul that you have placed within me is pure.” Knowing that G-d created our souls purely and breathed them into us calms me down. It reduces my anxiety.
There is a technique called 4 square breathing or box breathing that we are going to try right here. Close your eyes. Gently. Breathe in for four counts. Breathe out for four counts. Breathe in two three four, breath out. Two three four.
Another technique that I find useful is to ground yourself. Feel the floor under your chair. That’s grounding. Now open your eyes, look for something that is beautiful in the room. Now take another deep breath. Smell the aroma of the room. Maybe Shabbat dinner is cooking, or i can smell my gingerbread cookies and the hyacinth. Taste the sweet wine. Soon we will hear the beautiful sounds of Stew’s music as he tinkles the keyboard. Relying on the five senses keeps us grounded and present in the moment.
Taking a moment to be fully in the present is one way of handling our rising anxiety. Our Mi Shebeirach prayer is another way. It asks for a full, complete healing of mind, body or spirit. Or even better, mind body AND spirit. Early this week, Ken Jacoby sent me this version. I offer it to you now.
“Heal Us Now” – A Musical Prayer
Mental Health Resources Available in the Fox River Valley and Beyond:
Jewish Children and Family Services:
https://www.jcfs.org/
Many of their programs have pivoted online including individualized telehealth and support groups including grief. Peg, Al and Karen were recently trained as Care Ambassadors.
Family Services of Greater Elgin
Vern Tepe serves on the board. Lots of good quality options, including school issues and family counseling
Ecker Center:
https://www.eckercenter.org/
Ecker Center runs many options for mental health services, and merged with the Renz Center which does much of the substance abuse therapy. Ecker runs emergency mental health services both at Sherman Hospital and St. Joes. Both for adults and adolescents.
Fox Valley Hands of Hope
This organization specializes in grief counseling. It is an amazing, caring, compassionate group. They also maintain a medical equipment lending library.
Reach out for help. Other Specific Resources exist. For example, things like Compassionate Fiends, if you have lost a child. There is an organization in Saint Charles that just deals with the aftermath of a suicide. There are many private therapists, licensed clinical social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists working in the area, and on Zoom. Sometimes it takes a while to get the right match. Keep trying. You are worth it!
Shabbat Morning:
“Let everyone ‘neath their vine and fig tree live in peace and unafraid. And into plowshares beat their swords”…we sang this last week as the end of my sermon.
Today’s parsha can be divided into three parts. First, we have the story of Yitro, Jethro, Moses’s father-in-law, the Midianite priest who teaches Moses a very important lesson. He teaches Moses that Moses cannot do this work alone. None of us can. He needs to delegate. It is good leadership. It is what we try to do here at CKI. Much has been written about that.
But this week, in particular, I want to point out that Yitro was not an Israelite. He was an Other. He is the one who teaches Moses how to praise G-d. Baruch Adonai. We recognize that formulation. He continues “Baruch Adonai asher hitzil etchem miyad mitzrayim, Blessed is the Lord, Who has rescued you from the hands of the Egyptians and from the hand of Pharaoh. It is so similar to the blessing that we all said as we exhaled our anxiety and our fear when Rabbi Charlie and the three other hostages were rescued last week.
In Pirke Avot we learn that one who is wise is one who learns from all people. We learn this from this week’s portion. We learn this from our lives this week.
When we gathered for Shabbat last week, the world seemed different. By 2 o’clock on Shabbat afternoon as the events were unfolding in Texas, we knew that this week would be different and a lot scary. Many of us prayed. Many of us recited Psalms. And then, just before the 10:00 news we were able to recite a blessing, “Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech Ha’olam, matir assurim, Blessed are You who frees the captives.” Thank G-d. But not G-d alone. There were many people whose actions contributed to freeing those hostages. I am grateful for the calm leadership that Rabbi Charlie displayed and for the other 3 hostages. I am grateful to the local Colleyville Police Department and to the FBI. To our own Elgin Police Department. I am grateful to the wider Jewish community. I am grateful to all who sprung into action, even on Shabbat afternoon, because saving a life, and rescuing captives is more important than Shabbat observance. I am grateful to CKI’s security team who really wrestles with these issues and then takes action so that we are safe as we can be. There will be more—not all of which, by design in visible. And I am grateful for all we learned. Even when those learnings make us uncomfortable or anxious.
I cannot tell you not to be anxious. That would be inappropriate. I share some of those feelings with you. I really struggled with what to say to you this morning and I knew you would want to hear words of comfort. Perhaps the comfort is in knowing that I believe we are no less safe today than we were a week ago. Perhaps even safer since so much attention has been raised to this very topic, nationally and locally.
Yet, as our verse teaches us, we cannot do this work alone. We need to learn from all people. We as a community have learned from our homeland security people, from the FBI, from the EPD and from JUF. We have had trainings and there will be more.
I am, like many of you alarmed by rising anti-semitism. It is here. It is everywhere. It is often described as the canary in the coal mine. It’s an old metaphor but it works. I urge you to learn some more, tomorrow with ADL who is presenting its presentation, The State of Hate. Please register.
In preparation, I am reading Jonathan Greenblatt’s book, It Could Happen Here, is the need to interrupt the Pyramid of Hate. Kid bullied on the playground? Report it. Teacher make an anti-semitic joke or comment to a student? Report it. At a dinner party—remember those? And someone says something that makes you uncomfortable—interrupt it. Watch social media algorithms Social media seems to be the largest way that people are being radiicalized..
But I want to go back to our text. The non-Jewish priest, called a cohain in the text, Yitro, teaches us that we cannot go it alone. And we here in Elgin have not. We have heard from many, many friends of CKI, and me personally, black, white, brown, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Elected officials, just people in the pews. All reaching out. What do you need? How can I help? You all too, just be being here, even on Zoom, help by showing up. It is an act of defiance. It is an act of hope. It says that the terrorists and the anti-semites won’t win. As I said to someone yesterday, I wore my kippah everywhere this week—loud and proud (not that I went many places but that is a different story). I am not afraid to wear a Jewish star—although I know some of you are. I understand the fear. I grew up in a home where we were always told not to rock the boat. Not to be too Jewish. You have to go with what is right for you. When JCFS helped us write our “Safer Synagogue” protocols, you will notice that it is not “Safe Synagogues.” No one can promise you 100% safety, nor matter where you go. I do believe, however, we are safer today than we were last week, precisely and sadly because of the nationwide attention.
Later in this week’s portion—G-d tells Moses that the Israelites are to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. We are to be a treasured possession and a light to the nations. Some believe that is the very root of the choseness concept. Some have seen the choseness concept as the roots of anti-semitism itself. (That is a long history lesson in the making that will have to wait for another time!) Is that we are better than everyone else? I don’t think so. Rather, I think in our role as priests, we are to be role models. Role models of good behavior. That’s why what follows next is the 10 Commandments, the 10 sayings. These 10 are the bare minimum of how to set up society in a way that is positive and healthy and good.
One year early at CKI one of our Bar Mitzvah students in wrestling with this idea of choseness said that maybe we did the choosing, we were the ones who chose to accept the Commandments, to accept G-d. Debbie Friedman’s song echoes that sentiment:
“We all rejoice ‘cuz the Torah’s ours
To study, teach, and quote.
Had we not made a promise to be chosen and to choose,
Remember that there wouldn’t be a people called the Jews!”
So, my question for you today, to think about, is how are we a kingdom of priests and holy nation. How do we bring forth that light? How are we role models. How do rise up on our toes as we learn from the Haftarah and say, “Kadosh, Kadosh Kadosh. Holy, Holly, Holy.”?
Last night we talked about mental health and I led you through some tools for reducing anxiety. The world lost another great teacher yesterday who has impacted the practice and study of mindfulness. https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/thich-nhat-hanh-dies/
Just before Shabbat we learned that Thich-nhat Hanh died. He was a well known Buddhist monk who brought the whole concept of mindfulness to the world. He was a peace activist and marched with King, and my own rabbi, Rabbi Everett Gendler.
Rabbi Gordon participates extensively with the Institute of Jewish Spirituality. It brings a great deal of mindfulness into modern Jewish practice. I have taken several of their courses. Their Executive Director, Rabbi Josh Feigelson, had this important lesson to say about the portion:
“Just after the Divine speaks to the Israelites at Sinai, full of pyrotechnics and dazzling spectacle, Parashat Yitro ends with what feels like a bit of an anticlimax: God instructs Moses about the technicalities of building an altar. One of those instructions is not to use hewn stones, “for by wielding your tool upon them you have profaned them” (Ex. 20:22). Commenting on the verse, Rashi, citing the Mekhilta of Rabbi Yishmael, understands the instruction symbolically: “For the altar brings peace between Israel and their parent in Heaven, thus one should not bring upon it something which will cut and destroy.” An altar of hewn stones would signify separation when, in fact, the reality is we are not separate—from the Divine or each other. Thus, the midrash concludes, if in the case of stones which cannot see nor speak, we are instructed not to use any iron tools on them and thereby bring about separation, then how much more so can we understand the blessings that accrue to “one who makes peace between spouses, between family and family, between two human beings” Our separation is an illusion; peacemaking is the work of helping us recover and maintain our awareness of communion—with one another, with ourselves, with the Holy Blessed One.”–Rabbi Josh Feigelson
In our concept of learning from everyone, I want to offer another form of mindfulness, Metta Meditation. It again helps to reduce anxiety and spread that sense of wellbeing to others.
https://www.healthline.com/health/metta-meditation#benefits
Repeat each phrase after me:
May I be happy.
May I be safe.
May I find peace.
Now look at those eyes in their Zoom rooms and repeat after me:
May you be happy
May you be safe
May you find peace
Now think about the difficult people in your lives, we all have them, or maybe even your enemies and repeat after me:
May they be happy
May they be safe
May they find peace.
Take another deep breath.
I can’t promise you a rose garden, although I first learned this form of meditation on Shabbat in a beautiful rose garden in Guatemala as an AJWS Rabbinic Fellow. I can’t guarantee you 100% safety. I can say that together we will keep learning from each others and others and that will lead to wisdom. And there is much to learn from our tradition and from this very practice of Shabbat. Thanks for showing up and being counted. This week and always.