Rabbi Naomi Levy

A Prayer of Healing From the Tragedy in Newtown

2012-12-20T15:12:03-05:00

Our hearts are breaking, God,
As our nation buries innocent children and brave teachers.
The loss is overwhelming.
Send comfort and strength, God, to grieving parents,
To siblings, family and friends in this time of shock and mourning.
Shield them from despair.
Send healing to the schoolchildren who are lost and frightened
Whose eyes witnessed unfathomable horrors.
Ease their pain, God,
Let their fears give way to hope.
Let their cries give way once more to laughter.

Bless us, God,
Work through us.
Turn our helplessness into action.
Teach us to believe that we can rise up from this tragedy
With a renewed faith in the goodness of our society.
Shield us from indifference
And from our tendency to forget.
Open our hearts, open our hands.
Innocent blood is calling out to us to act.
Remind us that we must commit ourselves to prevent further bloodshed
With all our hearts and souls.
Teach us perseverance and dedication.
Let us rise up as one in a time of soul-searching and repair
So that all children can go to school in peace, God,
Let them be safe.

God of the brokenhearted,
God of the living, God of the dead,
Gather the souls of the victims
Into Your eternal shelter.
Let them find peace in Your presence, God.
Their lives have ended
But their lights can never be extinguished.
May they shine on us always
And illuminate our way.
Amen.

The Bible Says to Rejoice, But Is Happiness Really a Choice?

2010-10-04T17:18:00-04:00

In the Bible, in a discussion of the Jewish holidays, we find an odd commandment: "And you shall rejoice!" But is happiness really a choice?

You can't command something if it's not a choice. So I've been asking myself: in what way is happiness a choice?

I'm thinking of gratitude. Yes, there are so many reasons to be angry or despondent. There are innocent people suffering across the world. Children don't have enough to eat. Nations are embroiled in wars. Peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians still seems like a far off dream. Global warming is real.

And of course there are personal reasons for feeling down. Life is chaotic and uncertain. Love can be elusive. Money is tight. Traffic is awful.

And still the biblical command echoes through time. You shall rejoice. Yes, there are so many reasons to cry, but it would be a crime to ignore all the reasons to dance.

It's so easy to wake up in the morning and say, "I'm having a bad day." You slept through your alarm, the kids are whining, you burned your toast, you spilled coffee on your pants, the freeway is a parking lot. But we all need to stop! Take a look around. The world isn't conspiring against you. What if the world is conspiring for you?

You are alive. You are here in this place at this moment. Take in the blessings that are here. Every one of us is surrounded by them. What are yours? What beauty did you ignore today? Look at the sky. Look at the earth. Listen to the sound of your own breath. Look into the eyes of the person beside you. Feel the strength in your arms and legs. Know the strength of your own spirit. The strength of your convictions. You power to act. You ability to make this world a little better for someone who is counting on you. This whole world is counting on you.

Yes, and then there's your power to choose.

Happiness is a choice. Choose it.

Noa and Amara: A Real Interfaith Dialogue

2010-09-20T00:55:36-04:00

My 14-year-old daughter Noa has physical disabilities and learning disabilities. We spent much of her early years in waiting rooms of doctor's offices, waiting rooms for physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, vision therapy -- the list goes on and on. In the waiting rooms there were kids with cancer, kids with cerebral palsy, kids with autism, kids with amputated limbs, kids who had been born prematurely. In their daily lives these kids stood out, they had developmental delays, they were teased, they were picked last for every team at P.E., and some awful teacher was always burying them in the back row of every school performance. But in the waiting rooms no child stood out, no one was special. Everyone special was normal.

Noa has spent her life embracing differences as normal. And she also has known the sting of being left out and mistreated because of her own differences.

This summer Noa signed up for a creative writing class at our local library. When I dropped her off on the first day, I saw that there was a Muslim girl in the class wearing a hijab, the Muslim head covering, who looked quite uncomfortable and shy. When I came to pick Noa up at the end of the day, I saw her and the Muslim girl, Amara, sitting together and giggling. They had already exchanged emails and cell-phone numbers.

One day on a field trip Amara turned to Noa and asked, "Why aren't you like other girls? Why haven't you asked me about this?" She was pointing to her hijab. Noa said, "'Cause I already know what it is." Amara said, "But kids always ask me about it." Noa said, "Well, if you'd like me to ask you about it, I'm happy to." They both laughed.

Noa told Amara that she was Jewish. "Cool," Amara replied. Noa added, "And my mom is a rabbi." "Way cool!"

Ramadan began. I could hear Noa talking to Amara on the phone. I heard Noa asking, "Aren't you hungry? Aren't you just dying for a Snickers bar or something?" Amara said, "Well, yeah." More sweet laughter.

Week after week Noa and Amara shared their writing. They wrote stories about cool kids and cliques, and they wrote about teen love, broken hearts and loneliness. They wrote sci-fi fantasies about a futuristic Los Angeles. They wrote about peace.

Their interfaith dialogue consisted of, "Hey what's up? What kind of music do you like?" They talked about crushes and boys. They shared their favorite songs. They compared notes on their favorite TV shows. Glee was at the top of their list.

In her final essay for the class, Noa wrote, "Sometimes I wish that I could be an ordinary girl. ... I am never going to be one in the crowd. ... My life was always about doctor's appointments and therapy. ... Now I see who I truly am. ... I am not perfect, I am beautiful in my own way. ... I have disabilities, so what? The great thing about people like me is we are always different. ... Nothing can hold me back ... because I am not an ordinary girl -- I am way better. I am Noa, the extra-unordinary girl!"

We are all different. And we are all the same.

In April I sat down with Pastor Joel Osteen to talk with him about faith and hope and who can get into heaven. He said to me, "Naomi, I don't judge anybody else. ... You know, I don't believe in telling one group who can and can't go to heaven. I believe that's up to God." I asked, "So do you think it's possible that our God, the God of the universe, might have an equal plan for all good people?" Joel replied, "I believe that any of that is possible." Of course on the Internet there were Christians who condemned him to burn in hell for making such an inclusive statement.

Over the summer as Noa was taking her creative writing class, I was reading a book called Fingerprints of God by Barbara Bradley Hagerty. The book delves into the world of transformative religious experiences. One paragraph stuck in my mind and remains with me still: "I had noticed in my reporting that the people who experienced mystical states tended to drop religious labels," Hagerty wrote. "One thing they often rejected, however, was an exclusive claim to Truth."

Summer is over now. Noa and Amara's class has ended. A fall chill is in the air. And with it, the prospect of new colors. And a new fall season of Glee.

Yes, we are all different and the same. And I believe a true religious experience is one that leads us to see our differences as variations on a theme, variations that make the whole even more breathtaking and beautiful. Like fall leaves on a bright October day.

Rabbi Naomi Levy's new book Hope Will Find You is just out. She is the founder of NASHUVA: The Jewish spiritual outreach movement.

My Rosh Hashanah Prayer: A Prayer for the Jewish New Year

2010-09-07T15:26:02-04:00

I once read a Hasidic story about a wealthy man who approached the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, and asked if he could meet Elijah the Prophet, the messenger of God who rose to heaven in a chariot of fire. The man

had heard rumors that Elijah wanders the earth to bless people in need of his

help.

At first the Baal Shem Tov insisted he didn't know how to find Elijah. And

then one day the Baal Shem Tov said to the man, "You can meet Elijah this

Sabbath. Here is what you must do: Fill up your coach with a Sabbath feast.

Pack bread, wine, chicken and vegetables. Pack cakes and fruit and delicacies

and bring it all to a certain hut in the forest and ask if you can spend the Sabbath

there."

On Friday afternoon the wealthy man rode his coach along a winding

forest trail until he came upon the hut the Baal Shem Tov had told him about. He

knocked on the door and a poor woman in tattered clothes answered. The

wealthy man asked if he could spend the Sabbath with her family.

The husband and his wife were overjoyed to have a Sabbath guest even

though there was barely enough food to go around. Their emaciated children

giggled with excitement. Then the wealthy man showed them the feast he had

brought. For a moment they froze at the sight of such abundance. And then the

children cheered, the wife wept with joy, her husband comforted her.

That Sabbath eve was like no other this family had ever experienced.

They ate well, drank well, sang, prayed. The wealthy man kept staring at the

poor father. Could this be Elijah? He asked the poor man to teach him Torah,

but the man was illiterate. The father ate until his belly was full, he drank and

burped and picked his teeth. This wasn't Elijah. All through that night and the

next day the wealthy man waited impatiently for Elijah to appear. But there was

no sign of the holy prophet anywhere.

On Saturday night, as the Sabbath came to an end, the wealthy man was

fuming. "The Baal Shem Tov deceived me. He made a fool of me." And then he

said his goodbyes to the family and raced outside in a huff. As he was stomping

away, the wealthy man's boot got stuck in the mud. As he leaned down to pick it

up he overhead sounds of rejoicing coming from inside the window. The children

were jumping up and down and squealing with joy over the most wonderful

Sabbath they had ever seen.

The wife said to her husband, "Who was that man who brought us all that

food?" Her husband replied, "Don't you see? It was Elijah the Prophet who

came to bless us."

Suddenly the wealthy man saw who Elijah was. "Elijah is me,"

he said to himself.

Yes, we are all Elijah. And so often we fail to recognize the role we can

play in healing this broken world. We are so much more powerful than we realize.

Peace is in our hands. Forgiveness is in our hands. Comforting others is in our

hands. Raising up those in need is in our hands. Can you imagine what this

world would be like if every person claimed his or her true identity? What if we

all unleashed the power within us, the power to heal this world?

That is my prayer for this Jewish new year. That we will all wake up, look

in the mirror and say, "Elijah is me."

The Sabbath Unplugged

2010-08-19T13:55:18-04:00

"The Sabbath is a taste of the world to come."
-The Talmud

A dear friend of mine recently moved her office into her home. When she first began working out of the house, her biggest fear was that her home life would distract her from her work. She worried she'd be answering the home phone too much, finding excuses not to work. She thought she might spend too much time grazing in the refrigerator.

But a very different problem emerged. Her work invaded her home life. She said it might be 11:00 PM and she was still finding excuses to do more work, to respond to more emails.

We live in a time when so many boundaries are being blurred. Our work invades our home; our work invades our time with our kids, our spouses, our friends. I bumped into a friend of mine on the street and he had two different cell phones, one in each pocket that he was switching back and forth between as we were talking. He looked like he was drowning. Our cars have become our offices. Our phones have become our computers. Our computers have become our TVs. When my kids were young, I swore I'd never let them have TVs in their bedrooms. But we did let them have computers. And now my son watches YouTube in his room while my daughter stares at The Gilmore Girls in hers.

Ecclesiastes wisely teaches us, "To everything there is a season. A time to be born and a time to die, a time to laugh and a time to cry, a time to build and a time to tear down." But he didn't mean all at once!

All the lines are getting blurred. What happens when you lose your boundaries? What happens when you mix all the playdough colors together? I know it's a big crime, but I've done it, haven't you? What do you get? Excrement. Everything turns to brown.

When we live with blurred boundaries life starts to happen to us and we're not even there to enjoy it.

In June I went to get my summer haircut. The woman who was cutting my hair was on her Bluetooth having a big fight with her husband. She wasn't even paying attention to what she was doing to my head. She kept yanking my hair and snipping away as she screamed at him. Finally I said, "Stop. I'm not a mannequin. I'm a rabbi. I can help you with your husband." But by the time she stopped she had already given me a shag. I looked just like David Cassidy. All summer long my husband Rob kept turning to me singing, "I Think I Love You."

All creation begins with chaos. But creation happens through a process of separation: light and darkness, day and night, land and sea, heaven and earth. It's only through separation that colors start to emerge: green, yellow, blue, red.

If we live in a blur, everything suffers. Creation suffers, vision suffers. We're all capable of so much goodness, so much creativity and love, but we keep getting lost in chaos.

The greatest way I know to restore boundaries is to take a Sabbath day of rest. You don't have to be Jewish to have a Sabbath. Just celebrate your faith's day of rest and unplug yourself from your cell, your smartphone and your computer. Or if you do not follow a faith tradition, take a day and call it your Sabbath. Sabbath rest allows you to make a clear distinction between what is work and what is not, between the mundane and the sacred. Jewish tradition gives God many names. One of them is Shadai, which means "the God who said, 'Enough! I'm done creating." Can you say "enough" to your work week? Can you find the space to breathe, to let go, to experience gratitude, awe, joy?

Taking a Sabbath day allows you to live in color, to once again see life with the fresh eyes of a child. It is a way to turn your brown world into a rainbow of peace and light. It's a way to return to the old story called your life, your home, your family, and to find something holy and new and sacred there.