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Shabbat with Rabbi Larry Kushner
One of Rabbi Kushner's more recent books is Invisible Lines of Connection, a collection of (true) stories that seem to show God's involvement in ordinary events of ordinary people. This idea -- lines of connection -- formed the theme for the visit. He told many stories on this theme (some from the book, some not), and tried to get us to think about God's involvement in our lives.
Aside: I heard an interesting insight into this week's parsha that I worked up into Thursday night's mini-sermon. On the subject of the golden calf we often ask "how could they?!" -- these were the people who directly experienced God, yet they reverted to idolatry a mere 40 days after the revelation. Rabbi Baruch Leff points out that in general we don't really change in response to large events; maybe we're just not wired for it. (Did you actually change your life after 9/11, for example? I didn't.) But that doesn't mean we can't make changes in response to small things. If God parts the sea for you you might not really change, but if he helps you reconcile with a family member or get back on your feet after a loss or just plain notice God's presence, maybe you'll change something small. And maybe if you make enough small changes you'll make a bigger change than you could have ever expected from the big event. End of digression.
The most rewarding part of the weekend for me was Saturday morning. He said at the beginning that we might not get through the entire service (and, in fact, we skipped the Torah service). But the goal was to teach, to experience, and to look at the service in a different way, and I think it worked really well. He explained a lot of things about the structure of the service -- many of which I already knew, but I could see that many around me did not. He tried to reach into the affective side of things; at one point during p'sukei d'zimra (songs of praise, which can be pretty free-form), he told each of us to find one phrase somewhere in the section that spoke to us and just say or sing or chant it over and over. I found this awkward at first, and disorienting (my neighbors were doing completely different things, after all, and audibly), but I eventually settled into it. Meditation will never really be my thing, I suspect, but it was valuable to try the exercise.
The best part was when we got to the t'filah (central prayer). Most Reform congregations do this part of the service together, either reading in unison or doing responsive readings. But that's not the way it's really supposed to be done; in a traditional congregation, each person prays this part himself. (And then there's a public repetition by the cantor, but that's separate.) On Saturday we did it ourselves, and he encouraged us to get up and move around the room to find a comfortable spot and to go at our own pace. I like this a lot, at least when I am not concerned about being slow. (For example, at Tree of Life I know that I cannot possibly finish before the rest of them are moving on to the Torah service, so I've learned ways to abridge what I say.) That uncertainty about pacing was present Saturday, and I couldn't help noticing that Rabbi Kushner was davening fairly quickly, but everyone waited for the last person to finish, so it turned out to be ok. Over tima a community develops a collective understanding of how long will be allocated for this; doing it for the first time you don't yet have that hint, so it's harder. But I would like us to try this, Saturday morning if not Friday night. (I suspect it wouldn't go over well on Friday night.)
In a lot of ways the morning service was what I've come to think of as "chassidic-ish" -- niggunim (songs without words), spending more time on fewer words, and looking for the experience rather than just trying to get through things. (At one point he talked about right-brain versus left-brain approaches, and that we basically had to bully our way past the intellectual left brain to get through to the affective right brain. Or something like that, and I might have the hemispheres reversed.) Even though we were sitting in a starkly-lit social hall rather than the sanctuary, I found it easier to connect with the real reason I pray than I'm used to. I'd like us to do more of this.
He gave a d'var torah on the torah portion (Ki Tisa) that I found interesting. This is the portion where Moshe asks to see God and God says "you can't see my face and live, but I'll let you see my back". Now setting aside anthropomorphism, what does this mean? Rabbi Kushner pointed out that the word for back -- acharei -- also means "after". So maybe it's not that Moshe saw a body part, but rather that he experienced God's after-image, so to speak. Why is that important? Because, he said, if you're really experiencing something fully, the part of you that is self-aware -- "hey, here I am experiencing God" -- can't be doing that, or you're not fully involved. So Moshe could only become aware of such an encounter after it had begun to wind down. Err, I'm not explaining this very well. Sorry.
This might help: he told a story of a rebbe who was walking with his chassidim when they all stopped to watch a man on a tightrope over a river. The rebbe was entranced, and when the students asked him what was so special about this he said that this was a man who had obviously removed all his self-awareness for a time. He couldn't be aware of the 100 zuzim he would be paid for this, because if he was he'd fall and plunge to his death. He couldn't even be aware of his technique -- move this so, and then move this -- because, again, he wouldn't be fully concentrating and he would fall. And he couldn't be aware of the people watching him, because... and so on. The idea was that he was completely immersed, and this is something we find hard to do.
Rabbi Kushner made an interesting comment Friday night when talking about connections. He said he sees each of our lives as a giant jigsaw puzzle. You, God willing, reach age 120, place the last piece, say the Sh'ma, and die. The trick, though, is that we don't have all the right pieces -- we're missing some, and we have some that belong to other people. Living life involves making connections with these other people, the ones who have your puzzle pieces. He explained this humorously but effectively; I suspect it doesn't work well in writing. ("You have a use for this yellow piece with a splash of red? Sure, take it -- I haven't been able to figure out what to do with it.")
I forget what led to this, but he pointed out an odd thing that does appear to be true (on further checking): in the last major story of Genesis, Joseph's story, God does not take an active role. The same God who interacted heavily with Adam, Noach, and the patriarchs was not actively involved in Joseph's story. Yet clearly God was directing things -- if the brothers hadn't sold Joseph he wouldn't have ended up in Potiphar's dungeon; if he hadn't been there he wouldn't have interpreted Paro's dreams; if he hadn't done that he wouldn't have been prime minister; if he hadn't then his family wouldn't have come to Egypt; if they hadn't then they wouldn't have been enslaved; if they hadn't been enslaved then they wouldn't have been freed; if... no revelation, no Jewish people, etc, and the Torah would have come to a rather abrupt end. What's the point -- that God micro-manages us? No, but that God's influence can be found in events where you wouldn't necessarily think to look for it.
Rabbi Kushner was one of my rabbi's teachers at HUC, and I gather that they are somewhat close. Saturday afternoon my rabbi offered to introduce me, and he said some amazingly flattering things about me that I'm not going to repeat. I'm afraid I probably didn't make a very good impression on Rabbi Kushner, because I was kind of stunned by that. I did manage to remain coherent while praising my rabbi to his teacher.
There was one down-side to the weekend, and I feel bad that it happened to Rabbi Kushner. We knew that about a hundred youth-group members (not all local) would be joining us for seudah ha-shlishit (the third meal) and havdalah (ending of Shabbat); there was a NFTY convention in town this weekend. The kids were quite rowdy and rude, though, to the point where Rabbi Kushner was having to struggle to maintain control at a time when he should have been able to just talk to us. Those of us from the congregation did what we could to shush these kids, but the real problem was that NFTY didn't have nearly enough chaparones and yet had brought a group of apparently-unwilling kids to this. Bah. (And I should clarify that we're talking about teenagers here -- definitely old enough to know better.) This should not have been how we ended Shabbat. Ah well.
All in all, though, it was a great Shabbat, and he was an entertaining, engaging, and thought-provoking speaker.