Is This Kosher?

On big faithfulness and following one's path

This email, upon the conclusion of my first online Jewish learning offering in partnership with IYUN, made my day yesterday. I’m sharing it here with Mendel’s permission.

Hi Jena,

It was truly a wonderful experience joining in learning together over the past few weeks. I appreciated the open and nuanced approach to learning that you encouraged and that everyone participated in. I learned a lot from you, from the text, from the others, and also from myself. Most importantly, this was a positive experience that I’m taking with me going forward. It reinforced my positive association with Torah leaning and community and I’m eager to find other opportunities like this.

Sincerely,
Mendel

Another participant in the small cohort was Gail. Gail is 80 years old. She became a fundamentalist Christian as a teenager and began exploring wider territory over the years. She was a therapist and later founded a retreat center for personal growth, poets, and seekers

Gail hired me seven years ago as a writing coach, but realized in her own evolution that she was drawn to the spiritual exploration she felt free to engage in with me. She felt I was more like her rabbi than her writing coach. She wanted to call me “Rabbi Jena” playfully, but it was also meaningful to her.

I went to my rabbi and asked, Is this kosher? We talked about it. He said, given that “rabbi” is another word for “teacher,” it was fine, so long as I wasn’t misrepresenting myself. Gail knew I wasn’t actually a rabbi, so I told her yes, my rabbi gave permission. She nicknamed me RJ. At the end of our session on Tuesday, I shared this with the other four participants. It was a sweet moment of expansion.

I drafted a d’var this week for my next time subbing again for a rabbi friend, Valerie. She gave me some great feedback (it needs a stronger ending) and a fantastic title suggestion: Cloudy With a Chance of God. I’ll publish it here on Friday, June 5.

This morning in my journal, I wrote out the modah ani prayer, the one I write every day in Hebrew, a testimony to the fact that repetition can lead to memorization, which can deepen meaning. The last two words of the prayer are rabah emunatecha – big faithfulness. It’s not pointing to our big faithfulness in God, but God’s big faithfulness in us.

Thank you for putting me here and now, I wrote.

My thoughts flashed to a number – 414. I am a big numbers person. For several weeks earlier this spring, 414 was the number I kept seeing everywhere. The numbers resonated for me, in part because my birthday is 1141974. Since this was happening around Purim, I thought to look it up in the Book of Esther.

Guess what?

Esther 4:14 is when Mordechai tells his sister: “And who knows, perhaps you have attained to royal position for just such a crisis.” In other words, she had the opportunity to save her people from the evil Haman. Did she take it? She did.

Many great “p” words come to mind: Path, plans, purpose, passion, plot, practice, position, prayer, play. I am beginning to understand why so many women say good things about being in their 50s.

Here’s what my son Pearl wrote about passion in his Wild Children zine post:

“What makes you passionate? What could you talk about for hours in front of a crowd of people who may or may not be interested? What do you completely lose track of time while doing? What makes you smile without any effort? No such thing as right or wrong answers.”

No such thing as right or wrong answers is exactly what made the Torah study so rich. A few people used the word “nourishing” when we went around at the end, each sharing a personal takeaway from our three sessions together.

Rabbi or not, I have discovered I love teaching. More sessions forthcoming!

Thank you, God, for your big faithfulness in me.