There is a great Jewish tradition to dedicate the 29 days in the month of Elul to study and prepare for the coming high holy days. The time is supposed to challenge us to use each day as an opportunity for growth and discovery. On each of the 29 days of Elul, performer Craig Taubman posts a "jewel," or story, from some of today's most celebrated visionaries.
The theme of this year’s Jewels is the art of return. Beginning the night of August 26th, readers can reflect on their own moments of return with renowned actress and neuroscientist Mayim Bialik, Iranian-American comedian Maz Jobrani, Chairman and CEO of Spark Networks and JDate Greg Liberman, social activist and Rabbi of B'nai Jeshurun in New York City Roly Matalon, filmmaker and Islamic visionary M. Hasna Maznavi, and 24 other inspiring thinkers. New this year is the Jewels of Elul app, now available in the app store, which puts these moving Jewels right into readers’ hands.
9/24 Jewel by Nomi Freeman, a teacher of spirituality and a personal growth counselor
I was very close to my father, and his sudden passing was unexpected. A brief illness, a mistaken diagnosis. The lack of closure made it more difficult.
I did what I should not have done, but I didn’t know it then. After a month, I stood by his resting place and asked to see him again. I asked for a chance to say, “I love you. Good-bye.” Something. Having heard of people who saw parents or grandparents in dreams, I hoped for a dream … my “special visit” dream. I went to sleep hopeful. One night, two, three. It was not meant to be. I let it go.
Weeks past. I attended an inspirational evening with a spiritual teacher. In a large hall, I sat about the center in a circle of chairs, across from the lecturer. Mid-way through the presentation, suddenly, without warning, my father was there. He looked just as I had known him. His beloved face was as clear as those of my friends. He was at the other end of the hall near the back wall, hovering closer to the ceiling than to the floor. I was aware that if I were to walk across the room and stretch out my hand, there would be nobody there to touch.
I felt the tears. Father was here. He had come to see me…to let me see him. His message was mind-to-mind, clear, brief, and different than expected. “Nomi,” he called me, “do as many good deeds as you can because Moshiach is coming soon.”
My father had returned to a world of truth – eternal truth. He wanted his beloved child to know that truth and to live it. So, I gather as much light as possible, for that is the only wealth we can take with us when we return. Forever.
Nomi Freeman is a teacher of spirituality and a personal growth counselor. When not lecturing or immersed in ancient mystical texts, she can be found preparing chicken soup or sneaking chocolates to her grandchildren.
9/23 Jewel by Brian Elliot, a change maker and technologist
At 12, I was a certified black sheep. Between my effeminate antics and my avowed nerdiness, I was desperate for a social miracle. Naturally, I looked to my upcoming bar mitzvah as a life raft: the bridge to fitting in. Around that time, strange things started appearing around my house. One day, a book called Putting God Back on the Guest Listmaterialized on the coffee table. When my family called our first bar mitzvah meeting, it all came together.
“Let’s talk about my theme. I’m thinking theater or traveling,” I said.
“Oh, you’ll have a theme,” my mom said, deadpan. “It’s going to be JEWISH.”
I panicked. What kind of theme was that?! I tested her boundaries. What about a video montage of my life? Nope. A DJ spinning techno music? The adults won’t like it. How about a separate kids’ party? Not in the budget. Unbelievable! I didn’t even want to go, much less host.
Instead of techno music, the band sang “YMCA” and “Do you love me?” The crowd roared. Meanwhile, I planted a chip on my shoulder and kept it there. For years I even told my parents that my bar mitzvah “kind of sucked.” In hindsight? It wasn’t even true.
Recently, I dusted off the video and watched it. There I was dancing, laughing, and having a ball. I saw things like our centerpieces through new eyes – we’d filled baskets with canned food and donated them to a food bank. How cool was that? If I could redo my bar mitzvah experience, I’d be grateful. I would thank my parents for insisting that the day be about family, tradition, tzedakah, and responsibility. I would tell them how glad I am for their values, and how much I can’t wait to pass them onto my children. I’d know that I actually had a deeply meaningful bar mitzvah – Jewish theme and all.
Brian Elliot is a change maker, technologist, and a relentless pun fanatic.www.brianelliot.net
9/22 Jewel by Tova Mirvis, the author of three novels: The Ladies Auxiliary, The Outside World and Visible City
On the second day of Rosh Hashanah, I set out for Monk’s Pond to do my own tashlich. It’s a short hike from Kripalu, the yoga retreat center in the Berkshires where I have come alone on this, the first New Year of my divorce.
At Monk’s Pond, a sign marks the water as a private supply. It’s unclear how a raisin challah from the kosher bakery in Newton would be viewed floating in the water, so instead I find a few sticks to toss in: my symbolic sins. As I watch them sink, I say the general confession prayer. Ashamnu, Bagadnu, Gazalnu: we have sinned, we have transgressed, we have stolen, we have rebelled, we have scoffed. Not only is guilt communal, but so is penance: no lonely I but a scripted eternal we.
All other years, I said these plural words in synagogue, and as alone and disconnected as I might have felt, I was always surrounded by a congregation of others. Without giving much thought to their meaning, I had recited words that cast me as part of a group.
Now it strikes me how alone I am and how unaccustomed I am to this. I realize that I have a fear of being alone. Is this, I wonder, why we pray in the communal voice, for fear of who we are on our own? This year though, no longer married, no longer part of a ready-made community, I want to stare fearlessly at that lone state. I want to remind myself of what it means to speak in the singular, to return to who I was, and to remember how to be alone.
Tova Mirvis is the author of three novels: The Ladies Auxiliary, The Outside World, and most recently, Visible City. www.tovamirvis.com
9/21 Jewel by Roger Fishman, a marketing maven, husband and father
My parents’ marriage was a classic disaster. Often it felt like bombs were shaking our house, and the only safe sanctuary from the verbal shrapnel was under my bed or holding onto my golden retriever, Reggie.
Then divorce happened, and the resulting peace treaty left broken glass everywhere. Inside and outside. In the home and in my soul. The wounds and underlying anxiety would haunt me and follow me like my shadow during an afternoon stroll. Then, my mother went to work for $2.00 an hour, and I was given a food stamp for lunch at my elementary school. My father died when I was 13, and he was just 46. I was his sunshine.
These experiences and losses made me learn to love every day…to love and to cherish the ones you spend time with, and to only spend time with the ones you love. I learned how I wanted my marriage to be. I understood my role as a husband and as a father. I wanted a life with kindness and with understanding…one with love, a heightened almost “high” acute awareness, and a gratitude for being healthy and normal, whatever that means.
Now I smile from within. Not because the road to here was easy…but because it wasn’t. The pain was also the gift. It helped me to create what my heart needed. It gave me clarity. Drive. Purpose. Now I have my family, and our family life is safe. Sound. Full of love, laughter, joy, and lots of kisses and hugs. Plus, lots of “I love you” every day because I do love my family. I love them, and because of them, life is beautiful.
My wife is my love. My son is my sunshine. Together with them, I am out from under the bed, reveling in the glory of day-to-day life.
Roger Fishman is a marketing maven, husband, and proud father. www.thezizogroup.com
9/20 Jewel by Dan Fost, the author of The Giants Baseball Experience
I’m almost shocked at how little I remember of my bar mitzvah. I don’t recall my Haftorah reading, what the rabbi said, or what music played at the reception. I learned Hebrew, but I’ve forgotten all of it. Every Hanukkah, I look up the letters on the dreidel.
My bar mitzvah was supposed to be such a momentous occasion, a defining moment, and my passage from childhood to adulthood. It was the day I became a man! Why do I remember so little of it? Probably because I did it for the wrong reasons – the party, the presents, the peer pressure – rather than having any feeling of emerging maturity or any sense of religious devotion. I did it because all Jewish 13-year-old males do it.
It seems laughable that any ritual could make me a “man” at that age when my mother still drove me to school, made my lunch, and even made my bed. (After all, she’s a Jewish mother). Only years later did I gain enough self-confidence to hold my own in a basketball game, to ask a girl on a date, and to speak in front of an audience. And yes, I also gained the confidence to relate to Judaism on my own terms, not my rabbi’s terms. I can now figure out for myself what is important to me about Judaism.
For me, it’s my cultural identity. It’s Jewish food: tsimmes, latkes, and pastrami sandwiches. It’s Henny Youngman, the Marx Brothers, and Woody Allen. It’s my tribe. I can hang on to the culture, the food, the humor, the community, and the history, without necessarily clinging to Israel, Hebrew, prayer, God, and religion.
I can grapple with these questions, and now I understand that Judaism is all about grappling with these questions. Finally, I feel like a man! Isn’t that right, mom?
Dan Fost is the author of The Giants Baseball Experience and a former staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. www.danfost.com
9/19 Jewel by Mayim Bialik, an actress, author, mother, and neuroscientist
I thought I had come of age several times over by the time I reached my 30s. After all, I had become a bat mitzvah, learning to read Torah and Haftorah and reciting prayers and speeches about my entry into adulthood as a Jew. I had gone through Confirmation at 16, taking part in a level of intellectual inquiry and analysis which surely brought my Jewishness to a more mature and sophisticated level. I had gotten married, for goodness sake! I wore a white dress and took solemn vows in front of God and my family, entering into a covenant according to the laws of Moses and Israel.
I had become a mother! I gave birth without drugs twice, and my second son was born in my home. I was ready to deliver him before my midwife even arrived. These particularly bold and life-affirming experiences felt like coming of age moments, for sure. I struggled with breastfeeding both of my sons but ultimately got the help and counseling I needed, and I was a competent and “good enough” mother to two sons. I thought I had come of age more times and in more ways than most!
Then, I got divorced. That wasn’t the coming of age moment, though. It’s what happened after the divorce: co-parenting with someone you used to live with but now is the person your sons live with 50% of the time.
Since my divorce, I have been forced to dig deeper than I ever have before to confront things in ways I never have before. I have to reach greater levels of understanding and communication and to show compassion in the most important ways, because it’s all about my sons. Putting my hurts, my fears, my resentments, and my anger aside for the best interest of my sons has been the ultimate coming of age experience, as well as the most challenging. It’s also been the most gratifying.
Mayim Bialik is an actress, author, mother, and neuroscientist. www.mayimbialik.net
9/18 Jewel by J. Rolando “Roly” Matalon, a social activist, musician, and Rabbi of B’nai Jeshurun
In 1972, around the time I turned 16, we woke up one morning to an extra-large headline: “16 TERRORISTS DIE DURING FRUSTRATED ESCAPE FROM NAVY BASE IN TRELEW.” During the morning break at school, everyone was talking about it. Right before class, the teacher pulled me aside and said, “I overheard you and your classmates. Matalon, don’t always believe what you read in the newspaper. These people were murdered.”
My country, Argentina, was under military dictatorship, and the “Trelew Massacre,” as it became known much later, was the cold-blooded murder of 16 political prisoners who had surrendered before a judge and the press after an attempted escape in Patagonia. A week later, the prisoners were removed from their cells in the middle of the night and gunned down.
I had been a good boy, rather credulous and obedient. That day I grew up. I learned to be skeptical, to doubt, and to question. In time, I learned about official stories, alternative stories, and counter narratives. By the time a much more vicious military junta took over in 1976, I was already vaccinated against unquestioning belief in what the government and the papers said, and I learned what can happen to those who challenge the official narrative.
What lies beneath the surface of the self-approved stories we tell ourselves about ourselves? What is beneath the surface of the official story of our family? The Jewish people? Our country? Israel? What are the parts of those stories that we don’t want to hear?
Only if we have the courage to embrace each of the stories of which we are a part in their fullness, will we be able to take responsibility, to turn, to change, and to continue to grow.
J. Rolando “Roly” Matalon is a social activist, musician, and Rabbi of B’nai Jeshurun in New York. www.bj.org.
9/17 Jewel by Dr. Shawn Landres, a co-founder of Jewish Jumpstart/Jumpstart Labs
“Why would you go back?” asked my Austro-Hungarian-born grandmother in 1994, when I announced I would be spending the summer in the former Czechoslovakia. She had never looked behind her after fleeing Bratislava (my mother’s birthplace) in 1940, first to Italy, then traveling across continents to Sydney, then Los Angeles, where I was born.
“We knew you would come back,” said my wife’s grandfather as Zuzana and I prepared for our 2001 “chuppah” in Košice, Slovakia, her hometown. He had always looked forward; a Jewish surgeon under state socialism, he had moved his family from Prešov to Bardejov to Košice, no one city more than 80 kilometers from another.
“Why would you want to come back?” asked the ministry official as I reclaimed my Slovak citizenship, in the name of my forebears whom the wartime Slovak state had disenfranchised, dispossessed, and deported. By right, I replied, and the only restitution that mattered to me: the acknowledgment that my multinational, multilingual family had always belonged here, and that this new Slovak Republic was the heir not to fascist chaos but to cosmopolitan “civitas.”
The guns of August, first sounded 100 years ago this summer, resonate across the generations. Empires disaggregated, nation-states pronounced and divorced. To the different roots of our children’s family tree, the changing seasons brought wealth and poverty, death and life, love and loss. There were those who migrated and those who remained. We, their descendants, have recovered, rediscovered…returned.
Of course there is no undoing the past century. But for our family—for me—I am not so sure that there is no going back. The United States, unquestionably, is my home. But today we also are at home in Slovakia. The art of return? It is dance—a round—always in motion, ever unbroken.
Dr. Shawn Landres is co-founder of Jewish Jumpstart/Jumpstart Labs and a L.A. County Commissioner. www.jumpstartlabs.org
9/16 Jewel by Phyllis A. Sommer, a Rabbi at Am Shalom in Glencoe, Illinois
I lived in a beautiful bubble. A perfect little world. Sure, there’s lots of bad stuff out there. Sure, people are dying, they’re sick, and they have terrible problems. But, I lived in a beautiful perfect bubble: healthy family, four gorgeous children.
Then, my bubble burst. Actually, it didn’t just burst. It exploded into thousands of little shards that cut me, that cut my family, that sliced us open from top to bottom, and that left hundreds of little scars all over us. When Sam was diagnosed with leukemia, he was six years old. Less than two years later, at the age of 8, he died. From the moment my first child was born, I wasn’t the same person. From the moment that my second-born child died, I was irreparably changed again.
Oh, if only I could return to that bubble. If only I could find myself back in the beauty of that perfect existence, floating and bouncing along on the breeze. Of course, I can’t. I’m forever out here, without the bubble. I never could quite imagine how I would live outside of it. Like an astronaut in a suit, like a scuba diver with a shark cage…
I wondered what would happen if my bubble wasn’t there. Would I be able to breathe the air? Would I be able to survive?
Life in the bubble was lovely, and life outside it is not the same. But, I have discovered that without it I can still breathe the air, and I can still move. I can reach out to so many others, all of us in our bubble-less worlds and all of us in it together.
Phyllis A. Sommer is a Rabbi at Am Shalom in Glencoe, Illinois and a popular blogger.www.imabima.blogspot.com
9/15 Jewel by Jhos Singer, a maggid and musician
My 55 years on this planet can be neatly divided into two periods: Before Parenthood (B.P.) and Since Parenthood (S.P.). Everything I, as a gender queer feminist, knew, believed, and thought about both God and childrearing B.P. could be summarized as:
- My God was not patriarchal, punitive, a rage-aholic, or snarky.
- I would be a kind, patient, fun-loving, and permissive parent.
- My children would be kind, patient, fun-loving, and cooperative.
Yiddish meets this naiveté thus: Man tracht und Gott lacht, people plan and God (the patriarchal, punitive, and snarky kind) laughs.
As toddlers, my two youngest were difficult and polar opposites (“like night and an orange,” it has been said). Between them someone was always crying, bleeding, hungry, angry, or in need of the bathroom. Neither slept through the night, ever. In no time, my B.P. cardinal rules were broken. I yelled, I manhandled, I counted to three, I threatened, I insulted, and I punished. Three years S.P. found me devastated, broken into a million pieces.
On Yom Kippur that year, after having reluctantly wrapped my lips around the androcentric language of Avinu Malkeinu, “our Father, our King,” it struck me that I was praying to a God capable of both erratic, scary outbursts and compassionate, loving forgiveness. Suddenly I was staring into a full-length cosmic mirror. Of course our liturgy is filled with parental imagery! Who better than the King of all Fallible Fathers to consider our supplications? S’lach lanu! Forgive us!
In that humbled, weeping moment, something turned, and I grew up. God and I shared shattered dreams of the perfect relationship. Whether between parent and child or Divine and human, relationships are seldom without their breakdowns. But, love and forgiveness heal what we damage in our pursuit of perfection. Amen.
Jhos Singer is a maggid and musician, and has served the Coastside Jewish Community as its head teacher and service leader since January 2000.www.coastsidejewishcommunity.org
9/14 Jewel by Micah Chasen, an eleventh-grader and Counselor-in-Training at Camp Alonim
Sometimes, reading from the Torah at a bar mitzvah only becomes a Jewish boy’s coming of age moment once he steps off the bimah, and the Torah keeps on speaking in unanticipated ways. Each of us read Parshat Lech L’cha, separated by thirty-two years. Each of us was surrounded by four generations of loving family, crowned by the presence of our sole surviving great-grandparent. And, each of us experienced the death of that great-grandparent – the death of that generation – before the next Shabbat arrived. At first, the imposition of such sadness upon our simchas felt unfair to us. While other kids were sorting through photographs and opening presents, we were visiting hospitals and sitting shiva. It was hard not to feel as if we had been cheated in some way.
But then shiva ended, and we returned to the bar mitzvah photos. And, each of us, in our own generation, arrived at the same epiphany: “Look … she was there.” It was the growing-up moment when life’s majestic marriage of impermanence and permanence first became real for us. Nothing can keep us on this Earth forever, but neither can anything remove our imprint from this Earth forever. We were here, and it matters. In the Torah portion we shared across a generation, Abraham was sent on a journey to a place he did not know. He was asked to trust that his life’s adventure would make him into a blessing. He would shape and change lives. It would be forever known that he was here.
So it is with us. It’s a lesson we learn and relearn with the dawning of each new year. We never outgrow it or master it. We just circle back to rediscover it as we step into the awesome responsibility of writing each next chapter in the Book of Life.
Micah Chasen is an eleventh-grader and Counselor-in-Training at Camp Alonim. His dad Ken is Senior Rabbi of Leo Baeck Temple. www.leobaecktemple.org
9/13 Jewel by M. Hasna Maznavi, a writer and filmmaker in Los Angeles
As a young girl growing up in California’s largest mosque, I always felt welcomed and included. Women were on the Board, my sister was president of the youth group, men and women of all cultures prayed together in the same space.
Once I left home and began exploring mosques outside Southern California, I realized many didn’t reflect the same sense of community I’d always taken for granted. Many mosques favored cultural practices of secluding women over Islamic practices of inclusion. I saw women separated from men by a curtain, behind a wall, or praying in another room entirely. I felt cut off from my ummah, from access to knowledge, and from the beauty of my ummah’s diversity. It was hard not to internalize this disconnect in God’s houses as a lack of worthiness of my connection to God altogether. I wanted to return to the Islam of my youth.
It was only in college, after finishing Muhammad Asad’s English translation of the Qur’an, that I felt empowered to demand inclusion. No longer could anyone convince me that these customs were ordained by Islam – my proof was in God’s Word. I soon discovered the rich history of Muslim women’s involvement in Islamic scholarship and leadership – most surprisingly, that the Prophet Muhammad more than once instructed a woman to lead a mixed-congregation prayer.
I started studying under a female sheikha and hafidtha, and the learning from a female religious authority inspired me to build America’s first Women’s Mosque. My dream is to create a safe space that encourages leadership and scholarship for all Muslim women. Together, we can help return the ummah to a day where women’s voices, perspectives, and experiences are held in as high regard as they were during the earliest days of Islam – when our beloved Prophet fought tooth and nail to uphold women’s rights in the midst of his society. To make him proud by restoring our ummah’s beautiful light would be the greatest achievement possible. InshAllah, that will be the art of our return.
M. Hasna Maznavi is a writer and filmmaker living in Los Angeles. She is the founder of the Women’s Mosque of America, opening in Fall 2014. https://www.facebook.com/groups/WomensMosque/
9/12 Jewel by Arna Poupko Fisher, teacher of Judaic Studies at the University of Cincinnati
Why is it that, when I catch my mother’s face looking back at me in a passing window reflection, I am filled with a sense of completion, oneness, and calm? While I fully promote (and paraphrase) Woody Allen’s famous “Annie Hall” quip about relationships – “life is like a shark, it has to constantly move forward or it sinks” – for me, moving forward increasingly means turning back. I define my sense of self by the extent to which I feel true to the “original” version of me.
So, at 44 years old, I bought a horse and re-connected to the amazing feeling of being gently lifted over a jump. I joined a dance class and fell back to my default of claiming the right-hand corner of the first row. I sought out music that filled my childhood home. “What’s this all about Alfie?” (Yeah, yeah, old films and soundtracks, too.) Is there something about the desire to return to that which we once knew and loved that is more than just nostalgia? Is it possible that the earlier versions of who we are and how we conceive of ourselves are somehow truer? Or, is it just the fear of aging, through which the younger self eclipses the older?
Rabbi Soloveitchik instructs us in the power of the “lonely” self who is uninhibited by the habits of the “social being (who) is superficial (and who) imitates and emulates.” He states that the “lonely man is free.” Perhaps, as long as life’s journey seems committed to the unpredictable – in both the worst and the best ways – the allure of the younger, untainted self is the search for the predictable and the dependable: the core of each of us which we readily recognize and the peace that this brings.
As the prophet Isaiah urges, “In returning to still and rest you will be saved, in quiet and in confidence shall be your strength” (Isaiah 30:15).
Arna Poupko Fisher teaches in the Judaic Studies department of the University of Cincinnati and is a member of the core faculty of the Wexner Heritage Program
9/11 Jewel by Bradley Solmsen, the North American Director of Youth Engagement for the Union for Reform Judaism
We are people who return. Each year we return to the beginning of the Torah and (re)-cycle our calendar, and each week Shabbat returns to us.
There are places each of us returns to. As a people we left the land of Israel, went on a long, challenging journey, and then returned a different people.
I am thinking about the people and places that call me to return.
When I was 16 years old I fell in love with Israel on a summer trip, and I have felt called to return. I am writing this piece now from Israel. It’s the place where I feel most alive, most connected, and most compelled to think about and to act on the responsibility that we all have to make a difference in the world. I asked my wife to marry me here, and two years ago we shared Israel with our daughters over the course of a sabbatical year. It’s where Jews, Christians, and Muslims were called … called to be connected to one another and to be in relationship with God. It is a place of deep complexity and challenge and at the same time a place of richness and strength. It is more than a place. It is also a people … a people struggling to bring more justice into the world. Israel means “the one who struggles with God.” I know that I need to keep returning to this sacred struggle. This approaching year we are commanded to give the land a rest – the land this year takes a sabbatical. Every time I return I learn new things, meet new people, and face different challenges. I am blessed to be part of a people so committed to returning and to finding new ways to bring hope and peace into the world. Our work is not yet done.
Bradley Solmsen is the North American Director of Youth Engagement for the Union for Reform Judaism. www.urj.org/youth
9/10 Jewels by Rabbi Asher Lopatin, president of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah
In college I was the “big man on campus.” Well, not all of campus… just Hillel. One guy always bothered me. He wanted the glory of leading services on Friday nights (Kabbalat Shabbat) for the big crowd at Hillel, but he never showed up when we needed people at Hillel for services on Shabbat mornings. In fact, he committed the ultimate crime: going to Young Israel instead of Hillel on Shabbat mornings. We weren’t good enough for him. I felt that it was just not fair to Hillel. My rule: unless you show up Saturday mornings, no leading Friday night. Needless to say, this guy – actually a nice guy by other standards – was not happy. His girlfriend, with whom I had been very friendly, was furious and never forgave me, even though I spent an entire Shabbat apologizing.
Flash forward, and I am Gabbai (commander-in-chief) of Shabbat services at the school where I work. Once again, something annoying and demeaning to the prayers occurs: a student asks for his father to lead services, but the father is late … very late. The son really wants his father to lead services. We are plotzing. Finally, I ask a friend to start leading services. He starts. Just then, the father arrives. Frustration! My first inclination is to say, “Mister, you came late. That is not fair or respectful to us. You should be punished.” But, I remember my disaster in college when I punished the Kabbalat Shabbat leader.
God punishes; we do not. Tefillah, prayer, is about mercy and kindness, not about putting people in their place. I needed to learn from mistakes of the past and to move beyond myself to what is right.
I asked my friend to kindly allow the student’s father to take over. I have been close to my friend and to the offending student, to this very day.
Rabbi Asher Lopatin is the president of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, an Orthodox rabbinical school that teaches an inclusive, open, and welcoming Torah. www.yctorah.org
9/9 Jewel by Duncan Sennett, an 8th grader in Portland, Oregon
This past November of 2013, I wrote my bar mitzvah d’var Torah about how the definition of traditional marriage has changed and advocated in favor of same sex marriage. It was uploaded on our synagogue’s website and, within two weeks, it had gone viral. I was invited to speak on Laurence O’Donnell’s show on MSNBC. I was interviewed by newspapers, tweeted by celebrities, and was even invited to speak at the URJ Biennial. As of today, over 280,000 people have watched a speech that was intended for just my friends and family at my bar mitzvah.
Some people wrote extremely angry and violent responses about my speech and about me personally. Many others wrote about how deeply they were touched in context of their personal stories. I got feedback on my d’var Torah from as far away as England, Spain, and Israel. It felt amazing to see my message reach so many people and from so far away!
I discovered that I enjoy advocating for a cause I feel strongly about. I spent the rest of the year working with Oregon United for Marriage and loved the feeling of camaraderie. The whole thing was an extraordinary experience for a 13-year-old to have.
And, even though it was awful reading hateful messages about me and my family, I wouldn’t change a thing. I learned a powerful lesson. One person’s voice really can make a difference, and if I had one small part in Oregon’s decision to overturn the ban on gay marriage, I’m really proud of myself.
The other thing I learned is that I should always do one more pass on my homework. As my mother now loves to say, “You never know. It might go viral.”
Duncan Sennett lives in Portland, Oregon, where he is a member of Congregation Beth Israel. He is in 8th grade, and he studies dance and guitar.
9/8 Jewel by Hannah Louise Denyer, a writer and photographer from Los Angeles
The last thing they took out of me was the Hickman line: a tube that had been tunneled under my skin through my collarbone, embedding itself within the superior vena cava in the right atrium of my heart.
After tearing the labyrinthine-like line from my chest, they announced that I had been discharged. A few hours later I was limping towards my parents’ rental car and a fragmented future.
I have tried endlessly to make sense of being defined as normal after almost dying, of being expected to ‘return’ to some kind of objective reality after months of living in a hospital.
It’s like visiting a foreign country. There lies a moment of suspension as you try to make sense of the world as it presents itself to you. You are an observer, witnessing the cogs of the machine but not contributing to its function. You sit in a cafe and order a coffee just like everybody else, but you are only a temporary fixture, whereas the others move through this world daily. To everyone else this cafe, this city, is real, fluid, and consistent, but for you, it will forever remain confused and alien.
Being sick for so long and being so close to death for such a prolonged period of time was like being asked to live and exist in a land that is not my own. You are detached and unsettled in a world that others view as normal. You are part of this world but not of it.
The art of return is to continue embodying that moment of suspension and of dissonance.
Hannah Louise Denyer is a 24-year-old writer and photographer from Los Angeles who has been based for the past few years in East London.
9/7 Jewel by Greg Liberman, Chief Executive Officer and President of Spark Networks
Blessed are You, Adonai our God, God of our fathers and mothers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, God of Sarah, God of Rebecca, God of Rachel, and God of Leah.
So goes the start of the Avot v’Imahot section of the Amidah. After nearly a decade working for Spark Networks, JDate’s parent company, people regularly describe me as a CEO in the relationships business. I agree. But, not necessarily in the way they think. Creating families and building communities are inspiring missions and make my past decade’s work very rewarding. What gets me up in the morning and excited to come to work, though, is the amazing team of people with whom I work.
When I reflect upon my career – whether at a law firm, a telecommunications company, or JDate – one thing that I have learned is that it is relationships that really matter. People make companies. More than what kind of work you do, who you do it with has more of an impact upon your happiness at work. It’s the people you work with and your relationships with them that make all the difference. So, whenever I am sitting in temple listening to a cantor start to chant the Avot v’Imahot, I notice the names of people. Like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, I think of how lucky I am to have worked with my own incredible teammates like Josh, Brett, Arielle, Greg, James, Rachel, David and many others. Most people spend more time with co-workers than anyone else other than family (some, even more with co-workers than family). So, whenever young people embarking upon the start of their careers ask me for advice, I tell them to focus on the people with whom they will be working.
Because, whether your job is to build communities or widgets, whether you are the CEO or just starting out, we are all in the relationship business.
Greg Liberman is Chief Executive Officer and President of Spark Networks, operators of the Jewish online dating service JDate. www.spark.net
9/5 Jewel by Samara Wolpe, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s National Woman of the Year
My “coming of age” moment was the day I stood in front of several thousand people, most of whom had known me since infancy, and gave a speech about why I was raising money for cancer.
As I faced the crowd of people, I felt a startling sense of déjà vu. I had stood on this stage for my bat mitzvah. I had watched as my dad made this stage into his instrument, standing and allowing himself to seep into every corner of the carpeted platform until he had absorbed the space and with it, the congregation.
People often talk about floods of memories, but for me, it was more of a gentle trickle or a flickering television. Vague feelings, fragmented memories, and faded impressions seeped through the microphone into my voice. As I spoke, I could hear the remembered years seeping into the words and saturating them with an eerie kind of link between the past and the present. I was a child, terrified by my parent’s mortality and reliving with every mild recollection the intense horror that accompanied the words “cancer” and “chemo.” But, I was also an adult, looking through a pair of backwards binoculars so that everything looked smaller and insignificant, as though it was happening in a world unrelated to me. The end of the speech finally bridged the gap. I finished and looked into my parents’ eyes. They knew both parts of me: the frightened child and the bewildered teenager trying to make sense of tumultuous years of chaos and illness.
For me, coming of age was not about dismissing childhood and embracing adulthood. It was about melding the two with grace and understanding. While I am still learning how to do that, I felt this moment was symbolic, if not of coming of age, then of a reconciliation of age.
Samara Wolpe is a high school student and Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s National Woman of the Year 2014.
9/4 Jewel by Christopher Noxon, a writer and father
A few years ago, I went on a big group camping trip a week after a friend’s bar mitzvah. Not entirely satisfied with the traditional synagogue ceremony, we invented a coming of age ritual of our own – all it took was a bunch of guys, some shared wisdom, and a gorilla suit.
On our first day in camp, I charged out of my cabin in full gorilla getup. I grabbed hold of Isaac the bar mitzvah boy and escorted him up a nearby bluff, where all of the men sat cross-legged in a circle. We proceeded to go around and share “secrets of manhood.”
The secrets ranged from the practical to the profound. One guy talked about how hardship creates character. An electrician advised Isaac to “always buy real estate.” Someone said that, “when you’re out on a date, always let a woman through the door first. You look gentlemanly, and you can check out her tuchus.” But, the thing I remember most was a friend who whispered, “Everyone wants to be invited.”
Isaac liked it and the men did too. We’ve done it three times since, most recently with a mix of boys and girls and a giant chicken costume.
Who knows? Maybe Good Life Gorilla or the Wisdom Chicken will catch on, and thousands of teens will one day know the terror of being kidnapped by their elders in animal costumes. None of the “secrets” we’ve shared have been revelatory, but there’s something profound about even the promise of learning a forbidden thing. It’s all about what that guy whispered at the first circle: “Everyone wants to be invited.” Being pulled aside by the adults, singled out, invited into a world, told you belong in an actual community – that’s a huge part of what coming of age is really about.
Christopher Noxon is a writer, daddy, and doodler. www.christophernoxon.com
9/3 Jewel by Amy Tobin, CEO of JCC in the East bay
In retrospect, my bat mitzvah was about nothing less than life and death. But it’s not when I became an adult.
Girls at my synagogue did not read from the Torah. Instead, each girl led a service using a photocopied booklet based on a theme. The available themes didn’t do much for me, so I decided to make my own book, choosing the not at all limiting theme of “Life.”
My dad and I collected source material. The Life project was fun with him. We were both editors and terrible procrastinators, and we assembled dozens of quotes. We included Tennessee Williams, Camus, Dostoyevsky, Confucius, Langston Hughes, Emily Dickinson, and a Sanskrit poem. To round things out, the rabbi added Ecclesiastes 9, a meditation on death. When the big day came, I blithely chanted it in a language I didn’t comprehend. My single-minded focus was on getting the melody right. I had no idea then that my personal booklet of Life came complete with its inevitable conclusion.
Twenty-three years later, I sat shiva for my father, feeling the full weight of the final loss of both parents. In the damp, open hours of grieving, I decided to watch my bat mitzvah video. At first it was funny – the painfully solemn delivery, my obvious sense of self-importance. There I was, a pre-teen admonishing the congregation to make the most of “all our fleeting days” because “the same fate is in store for all.”
But as I watched, I wanted nothing more than to have my parents there, both to laugh and to help me remember. Their absence was and is devastating. The end of my childhood came at last in the shadow of mortality. I profoundly understood how fleeting our days are. Then I began making conscious choices about how to live.
Amy Tobin is CEO of JCC of the East Bay and a singer-songwriter. www.amytobin.com
9/2 Jewel by Tannaz Sassooni, an Iranian techie artist
I know that I’m supposed to have angst about my bat mitzvah, but looking back on it, mainly what I see is a great party: a delicious Persian spread, flowing cocktails, and a buzzing dance floor. What I am angsty about is what was missing. Save for a few Hebrew school girlfriends, nearly everyone at the party was family or family friends, and nearly everyone was Iranian.
The interface between family and the outside world is tricky for Iranian Jews. Our fiercely loving family bond is truly beautiful. But, within the world outside of that community, I grew up with the clear message of “you’re not like them.” Whatever they do is fine for them, but their rules don’t apply to you. It’s a sentiment that can make it hard to find your place. There was never a directive to nourish myself with experiences or to figure out where I fit in and what my contribution should be.
As an adult, I’ve come to value defying that insularism. I get huge joy from connecting with people as different from me as possible. So, if I were to reboot my bat mitzvah, I’d change up the crowd. I’d invite my Tunisian neighbor and her Syrian friend who shared grim stories from their respective countries as we drove to an Arab nightclub one night. One spoke of a sense of creeping religious conservatism, and the other spoke of starving relatives trapped in a war zone for the other.
I’d invite my burly, tattooed former coworker who, as our lunchtime conversations grew personal, quietly confided that his ex “Maria” was actually Miguel. I’d invite my most formative old flame: a freewheeling, bronze-skinned surfer with just-passable English who taught me an openness that serves me to this day. It took me some time to learn it, but the lesson is simple: to truly know yourself, you have to look outward.
Tannaz Sassooni is an Iranian, geek, techie artist who aspires to write the ultimate Persian cookbook. www.tannazie.blogspot.com
9/1 Jewel by Mike Epstein, owner of Conversion Technologies International
When I was first asked to write a piece regarding the “Art of Return,” I thought it would be easy. I would just write about my transformation from a weight of 453 pounds down to 196 pounds and the resurrection of my old life from before the weight gain. Then, it dawned on me that the “Art of Return” signifies much more than my physical transformation. It is about losing myself along my life’s journey and then finding myself again. It isn’t just a physical transformation (which was pretty wild), but an overall transformation of body, mind, and soul. I thought losing 221 pounds on the national TV show “Extreme Weight Loss” would be enough of a compelling story. I thought losing a total of 257 pounds in and out of the show would solve all my problems. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It was only the beginning of my new journey to find my “new normal,” and I’m still working on it.
I never thought my faith would play a big role because I don’t consider myself very religious. However, it was through my faith that I was able to break through barriers and handle the curve balls thrown at me that at any moment could have ended my turn on the show. It was all about faith – faith in myself, faith in my family, faith in my religion and my Jewish identity. It was about believing in myself, never giving up, finding my purpose and passion in life, sharing it with others by paying it forward, and teaching others how to find their “Inner Hero.” It came from learning throughout life what it is to be a good person, and it was grounded in my parents, their parents, and generations of Epsteins that taught me how important it is to be of service to others and to constantly educate myself. That’s what the “Art of Return” means to me.
Mike Epstein owns Conversion Technologies International and participated in ABC’s “Extreme Weight Loss,” losing 221 pounds. www.pickthepounds.com
8/31 Jewel by Basya Schechter, a singer and composer
My coming of age story became the title song from my first album, Daddy’s Pockets. The lyrics are sparse and intense. People often ask me what the words mean. I usually respond, “They mean whatever they mean to you.”
When I was a child in Boro Park, Brooklyn, every Shabbos my father and I would walk hand in hand, singing in harmony to shul. In the winter I’d hook my arm into the deep cavernous pockets of his pea coat.
One Shabbos he said, “You can’t put your hand in my pockets anymore. You are too old for that.” That is the moment I came of age and became aware of the effect of “aging” as a girl: it quickly accelerates the process of leaving a “religious man’s world.” This process also severed my relationship with my father.
From that day on, for reasons I will never understand, there was little affection and almost no emotional connection with him. I pretended to be fine, but something about that experience cut off the special “daddy’s girl” bond we had been cultivating. I became suspicious of him and started to feel rejected. I could never find my way back to the connection that existed when I was able to put my hand in “daddy’s pockets.”
The person I am now would return back to that moment and argue the point fiercely, or find something funny and undermining to make him see how ridiculous it all was. I would fill his pockets with my snotty tissues. I would stubbornly fight for my right to his pocket. Today, I try to address emotional pain as it happens.
Back then I was too young to learn that lesson. Instead, I stopped going to shul altogether, choosing to stay home and cut lettuce.
Basya Schechter is a singer, composer, and Musical Director of Romemu School. www.pharaohsdaughter.com
8/30 Jewel by Basya Schechter, a singer, composer, and Musical Director of Romemu School.
My coming of age story became the title song from my first album, Daddy’s Pockets. The lyrics are sparse and intense. People often ask me what the words mean. I usually respond, “They mean whatever they mean to you.”
When I was a child in Boro Park, Brooklyn, every Shabbos my father and I would walk hand in hand, singing in harmony to shul. In the winter I’d hook my arm into the deep cavernous pockets of his pea coat.
One Shabbos he said, “You can’t put your hand in my pockets anymore. You are too old for that.” That is the moment I came of age and became aware of the effect of “aging” as a girl: it quickly accelerates the process of leaving a “religious man’s world.” This process also severed my relationship with my father.
From that day on, for reasons I will never understand, there was little affection and almost no emotional connection with him. I pretended to be fine, but something about that experience cut off the special “daddy’s girl” bond we had been cultivating. I became suspicious of him and started to feel rejected. I could never find my way back to the connection that existed when I was able to put my hand in “daddy’s pockets.”
The person I am now would return back to that moment and argue the point fiercely, or find something funny and undermining to make him see how ridiculous it all was. I would fill his pockets with my snotty tissues. I would stubbornly fight for my right to his pocket. Today, I try to address emotional pain as it happens.
Back then I was too young to learn that lesson. Instead, I stopped going to shul altogether, choosing to stay home and cut lettuce.
Read blogger Stacey Zisook Robinson’s response to Basya Schechter’s Jewel HERE.
8/29 Jewel by Maz Jobrani, an Iranian-American comedian and actor
Growing up, my family didn’t have any coming of age traditions. No bar mitzvahs, no crownings, no sacrifice of a chicken’s head, nothing. There was, however, one incident in college when I became a man.
My dad was very generous to us. A self-made millionaire back in Iran, he was able to bring a lot of money with him to the U.S. and spoil us. Like Vito Corleone from The Godfather, he was a larger than life character, always helping people out.
Whenever I’d ask for movie money, he would reach in his pocket, pull out a wad of cash, and break me off a piece.
I became used to this until I went to college and felt it was time to stop accepting money and become a man – except for one last time. Early on at the university, my father gave me a couple of hundred dollars. A few weeks later, I paid him back with a check. He was shocked and asked in a thick Persian accent, “Vhat eez dees?”
“I’m paying you back.”
“Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha! You pay me back? I keep in my vallet, but I no cash eet. I keep as souvenir!”
Fast forward a few weeks and I needed some money to grab dinner at the local pub on campus. I went to the ATM, put in my card, entered my passcode and was told that I had insufficient funds. “Insufficient funds?” I thought, “How was that possible? I had over two hundred dollars in there.” And then it hit me. My dad had cashed the check! He lied to me! How dare he! I was broke.
From that day forward I took responsibility for myself and my finances. I also learned that the next time I borrowed money from my dad, I would pay him back in cash.
Maz Jobrani is an Iranian-American comedian and actor. www.mazjobrani.com
8/28 Jewel by Michael G. Santos, a motivational speaker
Foolish, bad decisions I made during a reckless transition out of my adolescence led to my arrest on August 11, 1987. Prison gates slammed and locked me inside cages and walls. For the next 9,500 days, I lived as a prisoner, frequently walking through puddles of blood that spilled from the violence inside.
Yet, during those 26 years I learned a great deal. Stories of the courageous men and women who endured the atrocities of Sobibor, Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and other indignities inspired me. They convinced me that attitude and perceptions were the keys to emerging stronger than when guards first locked my body in chains and shackles. I learned by reading narratives that showed how men and women empowered themselves through a commitment to make a better world, despite the challenges they faced. I regret my failure as a young man to learn from great leaders like Viktor Frankl, Elie Wiesel, and Primo Levi. Had I understood more about their philosophy on each individual’s responsibility to build a better society, I would not have engaged in the type of behavior that led to my imprisonment.
It is never too early or too late to receive such messages. When I concluded my obligation to the prison system on August 12, 2013, I knew a lot more than when those gates first slammed me inside and much more than when my descent into the vortex of crime began. I would have liked to know then what I know now.
Michael Santos is a motivational speaker who spent 26 years in federal prison.www.michaelsantos.com
8/27 Jewel by Afshine Ash Emrani, a cardiologist
1978-2014. My younger self awaits me in that old home. He stares at the future that would be me; I ponder the past that was him. We connect on a bridge made of yearning and nostalgia. Hesitantly, we embrace. We fall to our knees and sob.
I ask if he ever told dad about how he bounced the ball that cracked the chandelier in our living room. He asks if I will ever stop doing and start being. I say, “You should have told the satin-haired girl you loved her when you had your hand on her shoulder for the school play.” He says, “Work less, love more.”
I advise, “Be patient and familiar with discomfort and loneliness – in those moments you will burst into expressions that will be me.” He advises, “Don’t judge me so harshly.”
“Don’t let others discourage you from dreaming. Failure is a suitcase full of regrets (I should know).” He urges, “Your gray hairs, your wrinkles and scars are signs of battles won.”
I beg, “Never hold tightly to someone who wants to go; never anchor a ship that must sail.” He asks why I came back to visit? I applaud him for not embarrassing the math teacher when she was unable to solve a problem to which he knew the answer. He insists, “Tell your patient her grim prognosis.” I disagree. “You are too young to understand. There comes an age where hope feeds hunger more than food. You have much to learn.” He tells me I have much to unlearn.
I wonder if my younger self was wiser than the older me. I wish to return into innocence, to be born into the freedom afforded only to children, to go back to Eden, and to throw the apple into the lake that echoes my love into eternity.
Afshine Ash Emrani is a cardiologist, Assistant Clinical Professor at U.C.L.A., a writer, and a mystic.
The intro for this year’s Jewels of Elul is written by Rabbi David Wolpe, and included here as a taste of the Jewels to come:
Freud wrote of a repetition compulsion. He thought that we reenact scenes or situations in our lives in an attempt to get a better result. Of course, if we ourselves have not changed, then the outcome will not change. And so many of us go on making the same mistakes in new guises, wondering why things never seem to improve.
The essays in this wonderful booklet are about how to repeat the past differently, about how we ourselves can be different. Our souls need not be static. In the Torah, years after a bitter break, Jacob reencounters his brother Esau and it ends not in recrimination, but in reconciliation and in tears. It changed repetition into encounter.
What was your moment? Was there a time that you could revisit and relive as a lodestar for progress? When I am tempted to despair, I recall certain moments that remind me I am lucky to be alive – like the moment my daughter was born; and the revisiting of that moment when I see her, eloquent and insightful, writing in this very booklet.
God, the prayers tell us, renews creation every day. We too can be renewed each day. Reach into your past to change your future. These wise meditations will help point the way.
David Wolpe is the Senior Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, CA