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Preparing for a Year of Study and Travel with American Jewish World Service (AJWS)

11/17/2015

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Several months ago, I was honored to be named a member of this year's cohort of the Global Justice Rabbinic Fellowship of American Jewish World Service.  The cohort met together for the first time in person over the last 48 hours so that we could begin getting to know each other, to absorb a crash course in all-things-AJWS, and to help celebrate AJWS's remarkable 30th anniversary.

Let me say a few words about AJWS and its mission in general.

I've known about AJWS for years...and Amy and I have been on-again, off-again donors.  We've had friends who have participated in AJWS study/service trips.  And we've had friends that have led those trips.  But I never really understood what made AJWS remarkable until this week.

Let's start with some basic, astounding statistics.

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I knew that AJWS was important. And I knew that it was the only Jewish organization solely devoted to doing this kind of development work.  But look at these numbers!  4th largest funder of environmental and natural resources rights WORLDWIDE?!  Unbelievable.  

​I had the privilege of offering some brief thoughts to open our meeting on Monday morning.  I reflected on the prominent image of Jacob sleeping (and dreaming) in this week's Torah portion.  And I wondered to what degree we (not just me and my colleagues - but of course, all of us) are asleep to the challenges of the world around us.  The heroic work of AJWS, inspired by the values of our tradition, calls us to wake up...to open our eyes...and to respond/engage with the needs of all of those in the world around us.

We spent the rest of Monday and most of Tuesday meeting with key people from AJWS's leadership team, as we studied about AJWS's unique development philosophy.  The philosophy is briefly addressed here.  And the UN explains the approach in greater detail here.  I was moved by the fact that the language around this approach was used so consistently by all of the staff and lay leaders I heard from this week.  And it should go without saying that I am VERY excited to be able to travel with my colleagues and the AJWS team to the Dominican Republic in January, where I will be able to see for myself how these theories are put into practice in terms of becoming witness to this on-the-ground development work.  (For a "preview" of one of the issues I will be learning more about in the D.R., click here.)

To top it all off, my colleagues and I joined with almost a thousand other AJWS supporters and stakeholders in celebrating the organization's 30th anniversary. There were extraordinary tributes to AJWS's outgoing-trailblazing-President Ruth Messinger and to three inspiring on-the-ground leaders who serve communities in Mexico, Burma, and the Democratic Republic of Congo respectively.  There was even an awesome video tribute to Ruth and AJWS from President Obama!

Thank you, @Potus @barackobama, for your support of AJWS on our 30th Anniversary tonight! #AJWSat30 pic.twitter.com/Aa6Bx04JQz

— AJWS (@ajws) November 18, 2015
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Parshat Vayeitzei: Waking Up to the Needs of Others

11/17/2015

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These thoughts were shared with my colleagues this week in our opening gathering, as part of our work in the Global Justice Rabbinic Fellowship with American Jewish World Service.

This week’s Torah portion, Parshat Vayeitzei, opens with the iconic image of Jacob of falling asleep, on a pillow of stone.

Avivah Zornberg notes that “Jacob regrets that during the time he slept, “he was not aware of himself…”

Zornberg describes this moment as the “paradox of sleep”…because sleep, on the one hand, is the state of our obliviousness - when we become ignorant of that which is playing out in the world around us; and yet: at the same time, sleep is the very setting in which God can potentially reveal God’s Self to us, through the powerful modality of dreams.

To what degree are we like Jacob, when it comes to our engagement in tzedek work?  To what degree are our rabbinates negatively impacted by our sleepiness, when it comes to the brokenness of our world, and our failure to wake up, open our eyes, and get involved.  

Speaking for myself: I know that I haven’t done all I can - all that I dream of doing.  And I have no explanation or excuse to offer except for my existential drowsiness.

Returning to the parsha text, Gen. 28:12 describes Jacob’s dream with these words: 

וְהִנֵּה֙ מַלְאֲכֵ֣י אֱלֹהִ֔ים עֹלִ֥ים וְיֹרְדִ֖ים בּֽוֹ׃
Of course, we have all read bo on auto pilot - presuming that the angels were ascending and descending on the sulam, mentioned earlier in the verse.

But, as Zornberg reminds us, the rabbis of Breishit Rabbah were less certain.  She cites the reading, from Gen. Rabbah 68:18, which imagines the possibility that bo means “on him” - as in, on Jacob.  The angels ascended and descended….not on the ladder, they speculate, but on Jacob himself.

Zornberg elaborates:

“Jacob is the focus of the angels’ activity.  He exists both in the higher worlds - in some ideal, spiritual, and wakeful form - and in the lower worlds - ungracefully, disgracefully asleep.  This duality exercises [or upsets] the angels considerably.  Their vertical movement - up and down - expresses the contrasts of Jacob’s human experience, spiritual and physical.”

Two Jacobs: one spiritually thriving - awake and aware.  The other: eyes wide shut, stuck in the darkness.

We are like the sleeping Jacob.  Our eyes have been closed too long to the brokenness and need of our fellow human beings around us.

But we are the other Jacob too.

We possess the profound potential to open our eyes, to more clearly see the world.  Isn’t this why we’ve come together, and why we seek to travel? Of course we’ve come together to help others.  But our parsha suggests that there is an inner tikkun that must be attended to, even before we repair the rest of the world.  God is calling to us from the dream-like state of our sleep…to awaken to our fullest selves…so that we can ultimately serve others.

The American poet Theodore Roethke tries to capture the impetus of the journey we’ll share with one another this year…both the inner soul-journey, and the outer journey to the Dominican Republic, in this excerpt from his work, “The Waking”:

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.   
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.   
I learn by going where I have to go.


We think by feeling. What is there to know?   
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.   
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.


Of those so close beside me, which are you?   
God bless the Ground!   I shall walk softly there,   
And learn by going where I have to go.


[And he concludes:]


I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.   
I learn by going where I have to go.


We learn…by going where we have to go…to the Dominican Republic and beyond…But please - let’s bear with one another, as we wake from our sleep…and take our waking slow.
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Scarsdale Synagogue 
Temples Tremont and Emanu-El
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