Rav School - Part 1

During class, someone asked a question of Rabbi Peril and she began yelling like a banshee. “All of you wrote in your applications that you knew all these things.”

I was tired of her teaching style and almost said, “No, Cheryl. My application detailed exactly what I know. I’m here to learn, not be yelled at by a spoiled five-year-old. If you don’t want to teach us, I will walk to the office right now and withdraw from the program.”

Usually, when I need to speak up for myself, an invisible hand wraps itself around my throat and my words are trapped. That time, there was no invisible hand. I looked at the faces of my fellow classmates, remembered them discussing how important it was not to make waves, and I held myself back.

At that moment, I guess still had some of the confidence I’d mysteriously gained over the last few years. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t last much longer in that environment. Speaking up in that moment might have gained me some allies among my fellow classmates. Or not. I’ve never understood what happened there.

Part 1    Part 2 (Prelude)     Part 3

"Live in and honor both Death and Life"

Carolyn Cushing just sent out her equinox newsletter for Art of Change. The article is very good.

It also contained several suggestions for tarot readings to explore the transformations we might experience during this time. This set of questions particularly interested me:

What obstacles might I encounter in moving toward Life? Seven of Wands

How do I move through them? Seven of Swords

Who/what supports me as I climb? The World

I'm the only one standing in my way.

(Images from the Robin Wood Tarot.)

Blaming the Neo-Pagans

Many Christians incorrectly blame paganism for the Holocaust. Surprisingly, many pagans do, too. Why? Naturally the people who perpetrated the Holocaust, don't want to take responsibility for it, but why do pagans seem willing to accept that their religion is to blame [1] when it's simply not true.

During the height of Nazi power, less than two percent of Germany’s citizens claimed to be pagan. [2] If the Nazi regime had been pagan, no one would have dared to admit being Christian, just as no one dared to admit being atheist. Hitler was raised a Christian and he never renounced his membership in the Catholic Church.

The two largest churches in Germany, Lutheran and Catholic, encouraged their members to stand up and stop the Nazi euthanasia program directed against “mental defectives.” The protest succeeded. However, neither church did anything to stop the deportation or murder of Jews.

Hitler Youth Insignia

"Fifty thousand Germans were involved in the Holocaust, and another fifty thousand were close enough to it to have known what was happening, and these people were overwhelmingly Christian. You can’t tell a secret to 100,000 people, and thus their willingness to kill Jews was based on the public Nazi ideology, the religious, creationist and Christian ideology presented in Mein Kampf.” [3]

The responsibility for the Holocaust lies with two thousand years of Christian theology that fuelled the Nazi regime. Why do pagans accept Christianity's attempt to shift the blame from Christianity to Paganism?

After the war, leaders in both the Catholic and Protestant Churches defended war criminals. The very few murderers who were executed had a minister or priest at their sides, helping them face their deaths with “dignity.” Germans viewed those executed as heroes and holy sacrifices. [4]

Nazi salute by Catholic priests

Most Christians ignore their religion’s role in the deaths of millions, including the six million Jews specifically targeted by the Christian Reich. (The number is actually much higher.) [5]

Not only do Christians ignore their theology's role in the Holocaust, but since World War II, many of them have appropriated the Jewish experience of the Holocaust. Catholics pretend that Edith Stein was imprisoned and killed for the Christianity she had adopted. The truth is that was sent to Auschwitz because she had been born Jewish. [6]

In our day, Protestant churches stage performances of The Sound of Music annually. It brainwashes children into believing that Christians were the victims rather than the perpetrators of the Shoah. It also promotes the myth that the evil of Jew-hatred has been defeated.

People never forgive those whom they have injured. So until Christians (and former Christians) acknowledge who perpetrated the Holocaust and work to understand why those people did it, they will continue the tradition of hating Jews, spreading lies about Jews, and ultimately, killing Jews.

The newest lies about Jews are different, but the hatred has its source in Christianity.  Today, most people do not believe that Jews desecrate the host. They do believe false accusations of Israelis committing genocide. (Check the population figures to dispel this absurd accusation.) Today, few people believe The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. They do repeat ridiculous claims Jews are colonial invaders of their own ancestral lands. (Look up 'colonialism' to dispel that one.)

Until people take the time to learn facts and overcome their often gleeful antisemitism, they are as Christian as those who perpetrated centuries of pogroms and the Holocaust.

Today, many people make an effort to understand and oppose other kinds of bigotry, but the hatred of Jews is still acceptable. It's so intrinsic to our culture that few people are able to recognize it, even when it's pointed out to them. But you owe it to yourself to learn. Why? Because there will be an attempted genocide against Jews in North America during my lifetime. [*] Do you wish to be complicit through ignorance?

*As of January 2020, there are worrying indications that my prediction might not be wrong.

Building Trust

Note: I lay out and read the cards from right to left.

You can conform to the rules of your community, hoping to gain the love and support of its members, or you can take the path the universe has set before you, hoping it leads to a good place where good people will come into your life.

New Blog Address

from WildApricot.com

It has been a year since I sold my house. After that, things stalled in a big way. Perhaps they needed to.

Finally, though, I can feel good changes coming. If I'm right, I'll be posting about all of it here, at my new blog.

My Kohenet Application

Four days of writing and crying have finally yielded a completed application. I will let it simmer for a day or so, and make revisions before submitting it to Kohenet.

KOHENET APPLICATION:

Here are my answers for all of the application essays. I have put them in a different order to make it easier for you to understand my responses.

6) What are your practices and priorities of self-care?

My self-care includes extreme caution with respect to any Jewish community. I've learned that if I can’t discern any warmth or welcome, I should get out as fast as I can.

I went to rav school in 2003/2004 and was ostracized because I am a convert. It was entirely unexpected, as the Jewish community had made such a positive difference in my life during the previous nine years.

Although I was one of only two people in my class who passed all my courses, all I felt was hurt, confusion, and, most of all, shame. After that, I longed for Jewish community, but was afraid to walk into a synagogue, and I spiraled downward. When I forced myself to go to shul, I couldn’t pray because the Hebrew letters danced around the pages of the siddur. I became again an awkward thirteen-year-old, terrified of people and my own voice.

Even then, my reaction seemed out of proportion to what had happened. Now I recognize that many events were reminiscent of traumas I’d had as a child and adolescent.

I have not found a safe Jewish community since then. Five years ago, I mistook another Jewish community for a caring one and was shamed and humiliated. I have not recovered from either experience.

Writing the “why did you convert” essay for my aliyah application was agony, even though it was about a joyful period that began the best decade of my life. And the first four times that I attempted to answer the Kohenet application questions, my insides knotted up and part of me curled up begging, “No! Don't make me do this!” Reflecting on my Jewish experience is hard. My Jewish identity is central to me, but it is also a source of pain.

Participation in Kohenet might be a very healing experience and a transformative one. However, it could be also be triggering. I know that I cannot recover a third time. It’s a risk. I had hoped to test the waters by taking online classes with both Taya and Jill before August, but Jill will not be offering an online class. Without some experience of her teaching or of Shoshana’s I won’t have enough information to risk myself.

There are many alternatives to Kohenet, but even the two that sound very good to me, The Greystone Path and Sisterhood of Avalon, are not what I truly want. I want a Jewish path, but the risk of a Jewish program may be too great.

I need to know that Kohenet’s leaders are invested in their students participating in the program, learning from it, and completing it, and I and need to know that other students will be kind, welcoming, and open.

4) What do you most deeply desire from the Kohenet Training Program?

I hope that the Kohenet Training Program will help me heal my Jewish self—it’s who I am and yet it’s my vulnerability. I want to learn to love myself and I want to become more resilient.

There is potential in me to become a mekonenet, a comforter of the bereaved and prompter of speech—but in addition to that important work, I want to find what joyful/fun priestess work I am called to do.

I aspire to be a kohenet to deepen and broaden my Jewish knowledge and to learn texts and traditions from a different perspective. I want to be part of a community of women transforming our culture.

1) Please briefly describe your spiritual path and practice.

My path for the last twenty-one years has been a Jewish one. And I just received my aliyah approval! So I will be living in the Land at the beginning of August or the end of August, depending on whether or not I participate in Kohenet.

Although, I've come to dislike the "C-word," I am a convert, and for many years, I was proud and happy about that fact. I've learned that being a convert is something to conceal. In The Hebrew Priestess, Rabbi Hammer related the midrash of Sarah nursing the children of local princesses and the idea that “all future converts to the Jewish people descend from those who nursed at Sarah’s breasts.” Although grateful to be Jewish, I was never felt comfortable calling myself “daughter of Abraham and Sarah,” because I am, in fact, the daughter of Roland and Dolores. The image of Sarah nursing one of my ancestors feels like a true description of my place within my people. It gives me a stronger feeling that I am part of our lineage.

Time spent in Israel made me recognize that I belong to the Land. I want to encounter Shekhinah / Asherah in her Land. For now, I commune with the saguaros and the spirit of the desert in Tucson. After a recent trip to Washington State, I discovered that I have become a lover of the desert. I named myself Toshevet Midbar because I am energized spiritually when I hike there.

Before I encountered Judaism, I was the ritual leader for a goddess circle. While being seduced by Judaism, I wanted to find meaning in Shekhinah and Rosh Chodesh circles—but I couldn’t. That wasn’t the Judaism that called to me. I left goddess spirituality and my women’s circle to embrace a more mainstream Judaism. I've often wished I could build a bridge between the two. Rabbi Hammer provided the connection between Judaism and goddess spirituality in her latest book, but I don’t think I could have heard her if I had not first journeyed a more typical Jewish path and been transformed by it.

A Jewish perspective changed my world view for the better, but it also changed how I experience the Divine Feminine—she is harder to find. I have only an amorphous awareness of Shekhinah. I feel ecstasy when the Torah is carried around a shul. During the singing of Lecha Dodi, I see a glorious woman entering and approaching the ark. Shabbat and community gave me a sense of the Divine Presence, but I do not know Shekhinah in a way I can describe.

I have written about the goddess Hestia; I could not do the same for Shekhinah. I am constrained from an experience of Shekhinah because she has been preserved but hidden in our tradition and, for the most part, I am looking for her there. Shekhinah is woven into the fabric of Judaism and Jews who seek her aren't rejecting our culture. Non-Jewish women are free to pick and choose goddesses, to find what they want or need, to understand goddess stories in light of their own stories. But what are Shekhinah's stories?

If we are constrained from finding her, then she is constrained or restrained in some way, too. Jews are commanded to care for the widow and orphan, but a solitary woman's place in Jewish society is precarious; she is invisible. Shekhinah has been invisible, a neglected widow, hungry, afraid, restricted by convention. She is a bound woman, a kind of agunah.

How do I approach that figure? I must be willing to draw near and wait patiently until she reveals her face to me.

2) What is your relationship to Judaism, to earth-based & embodied practice & to the sacred feminine?

Judaism is a lover and a heart-breaker. Hiking and being in nature are healing; I belong to the Land of Israel. The sacred feminine is a reflection of our desire to be one with the Force and Source of Life; She may be its desire for us.

3) Which of the thirteen priestess-archetypes (see Priestess Paths section of this website) do you resonate with most? Which do you feel least connected to or least comfortable with?

I feel most connected to the Mourning Woman Priestess and the Shrinekeeper Priestess and least connected to the Maiden, Mother, Queen, and Midwife.

Mekonet, Mourning Woman Priestess This is one of the two most compelling paths for me. I feel that “comforting the bereaved” is one of the most important mitzvot. The rabbi of my first Jewish community facilitated a culture in which people attended every funeral and shiva. His serious attention to mourners, his compassion for the deceased, and his respect for the process of death and mourning are beyond compare. Rabbi Alan Berg is a masculine face of Shekhinah and I want to understand what he knows that makes him so good in those situations. I want to be a mekonenet. I don't know if I could do the work of a shomeret and, since the local chevra kadisha needs only male volunteers, not female ones, I won't find out any time soon.

Tzovah, Shrinekeeper Priestess This is the other path that is most compelling to me. Thirty years ago, I first learned of the Goddess through Jean Shinoda Bolen’s book, Goddesses in Every Woman, and I recognized Hestia in myself. Later, I even recognized her archetype in my Jewish self when taking challah, making Shabbos dinner, lighting Shabbos candles, welcoming guests, keeping a kosher kitchen, and immersing in the mikveh for the anniversaries of my conversion. My home felt to me like a Jewish shrine.

The words "home" and "shrine" have many unarticulated levels of meaning for me. When I was growing up, my family moved about every six months. The idea of home obsessed me, but I was unaware of a sense of place. I did not expect to cry when I landed in Israel. I did not understand why I felt like I belonged to the Land. I had silently wondered why I thought Native Americans were like Jews, not realizing the obvious: Jews, too, are an indigenous people, belonging to the Land.

In Heschel’s The Sabbath, his description of Sabbath as a sanctuary in time amazed me. Can you imagine encountering the concept of Shabbat for the first time! But honoring our sacred places is important, too: not only the Kotel, but also places like the temple in Tel Arad, where we brought first fruits until the Muslim conquest, and the tombs of our ancestors in Hevron. There is archaeological evidence for a few of the high places; where else might there have been bamot?

Sacred space is important to me. After my mother died, I moved in with my father. He wanted no changes, so I couldn’t bring my things into the house or move anything to create a small altar. Both tradition and my own inclination told me I needed a single place to pray. I needed a portable altar and I immediately found one in an art co-op where an artist had just created her first portable altar. It was made of sheepskin and deer leather from the Navajo reservation and could be rolled up to carry on hikes. I inserted a belt into the roll and carried it across my back whenever I hiked. Each time I unrolled it, I would decorate it with whatever natural objects were in the area, rocks, small branches, leaves, and mistletoe.

I make a sacred space for others when I serve them tea or read tarot cards; I help them find their voices. People find my home restful and rejuvenating. But there’s another sanctuary I want to locate. Raised by a mother who was abusive and emotionally absent, I have always sought connection to women. The story of Demeter and Persephone always seemed incomplete. Jill completed the story for me when she related the kabbalistic myth that Binah and Shekhinah, Mother and Daughter, meet in the holy of holies on Yom Kippur and become one.

Oreget, Weaver Priestess I feel an attraction to the path of weaver.  When meal offerings were brought to the Temple, the priests would return ornate vessels to their owners, but they would keep baskets in which flour and oil and frankincense had been presented. I just took a beginning course in basketry from two Tohono O'odham Indians, Della and Fred Cruz, using materials native to the southwest. I want to discover what plants indigenous to Israel could be used to make baskets. I’m only a beginner now, but can’t help dreaming of extravagant possibilities: a Sukkot water basket without a base to stand on, a first fruits basket with a design of ravens, a pomegranate shaped basket, small Asherah shrines…Unfortunately, I don’t have enough years left to pursue this with the single-mindedness it would require.

Ba’alot Ov, Witch Priestess There is a bit of the witch in me, but not enough for me to follow this path. She is a diviner and, although I enjoy reading tarot for others, I am not a real diviner. What I do is use the imagery of the cards and girl-talk to let clients find their own answers with their own intuition.

I need something from the path of Ba'alot Ov: to learn to rely on my intuition. My trust has been violated too many times throughout my life, often because I failed to heed my own intuition. I need learn how to trust others appropriately and to trust my own intuition.

The Ba’alot Ov communicates with ancestors, but I did not know my parents well or my grandparents at all. I never connected with the Celtic mythology of my physical ancestors, even though my great-grandmother’s name was Brigit. I want to know more about the four matriarchs and the four holy mothers and I invoke them before tarot readings and prayer.

The witch priestess is also a shaman. I journeyed twice without any training or guidance. After years of wanting to, I finally took a shamanism workshop last summer, but I could not journey during the class and I haven’t been able to journey since. It’s disappointing, but the paths that I believe I’m capable of walking will be satisfying, too.

Neviah, Prophetess Priestess This is not a path I could follow at all, but I honor it. Prophets were people who could see clearly into the currents of the present time, but people today who can see into Torah are prophets, too. If we hadn’t moved from a land-based religion to a text-based religion, we wouldn’t have survived to return to our Land. In trying to eliminate much of our culture, King Josiah and the Deuteronomists saved us; I believe or hope that they also (inadvertently) preserved the Jewish divine feminine because she was already woven into the fabric of our religion. I wish I could read Torah creatively and see what is hidden there. But I can’t, so Neviah is not the priestess path for me.

Leitzanit, Fool Priestess If there is a best path, this is it. Sadly, there is nothing in my personality that would allow me to follow this path. My best friend, Rene, was undoubtedly a Priestess of Laughter. Despite all the years I knew her, I could never predict her jokes. She looked at the world in a very skewed but very accurate way. At her memorial, I wanted to say, “If Rene were here she’d be making us all laugh,” but I didn’t have to say it because everyone else did. That’s a gift I simply don’t have, so Leitzanit is not my priestess path.

Maiden, Mother, Midwife, Queen – I do not connect with the unselfconscious dancing of the Maiden, the childbearing and child-rearing of the Mother, the literal or metaphoric roles of the midwife, or the empowerment of the Queen.

5) How do you engage and envision your leadership in the world? How do you serve, or have you served your community?

Leadership? Goodness, no! I’m an ISFJ. Just tell me what needs to be done and I will make sure it gets done. You won’t even notice I’m here.

I’m a listener in my tarot practice and I’m a prompter of speech in mourners. And BJ (Before Judaism), I was good at leading ritual; you just make “space” for people to participate. A friend and I do phone rituals on solstices, equinoxes, and cross-quarter days; they’re great. A little structure gives participants a lot of freedom to express themselves spontaneously, just like Shabbos restrictions once made a lot of space for the divine presence in my life.

Comforting the bereaved is like creating ritual or reading tarot. In a way, it’s simply girl-talk; in another it’s like being a bridge between here and elsewhere, now and other times, self and self.

When I went to rav school, my aspiration was to serve as something I didn’t know there was a name for—a spiritual director. I don’t believe I’ll ever have the maturity or wisdom to do exactly that, but I think I could do little things that are similar to it. During my second semester of rav school, I took a hospital chaplaincy course and spent many hours with patients in a hospital. I was good at it and believed that, with training, I could become better. (I also feared that it was service that would eventually cause me to "burn out.")

My first synagogue encouraged volunteering. The activities I participated in that I recall most clearly were the library committee and working at an AIDS hospice. I regularly attended all services and every Torah study. At my second synagogue, I helped organize and advertise erev Shabbat services and dinners for the Young Adults Committee; when I moved within walking distance of that shul, others thanked me because they felt I was "supporting" their observance. I attended the entire service every Shabbat morning, and made a point of helping make a minyan for mincha/maariv on weekdays.

7) Do you have any health issues or special needs that may affect your participation in Kohenet or that would be helpful for Kohenet staff to be aware of?

I am sometimes uncomfortable when everyone in a group is required to hold hands or put their arms around each other. I often cringe at forced, non-consensual touching no matter how much I want to be part of a group. I know people can be hurt when I refrain. Do you know how I can avoid hurting or offending people in those situations? I don’t want to offend—I want to make friends.

It seems to me that a priestess should be able to sing and dance. I can’t carry a tune and I can’t dance (except with Reggae music). If there are ways to gain just a little ability in those areas, I would embrace learning them.