Stone Pillow

  11/28/20

Jacob went out from Beer-sheba, and set out for Haran. He came upon a certain place and stopped there for the night, for the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of that place, (God is ofter referred to as a rock or stone, and one name for God is HaMakom, The Place, which for me means god is wherever you are) he put it under his head and lay down in that place. He had a dream; a stairway was set on the ground and its top reached to the sky, and angels of God were going up and down on it. And the LORD was standing beside him and He said, “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac: the ground on which you are lying I will assign to you and to your offspring. Your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you and your descendants. Remember, I am with you: I will protect you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the LORD is present in this place, and I did not know it!”   Shaken, he said, מַה־נּוֹרָ֖א הַמָּק֣וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה

“How awesome is this place! This is none other than the abode of God, and that is the gateway to heaven.”

In 2015 I wrote a drash on this passage.  I was in a time of personal despair and fear and loss, and this is what I wrote, ostensibly in the voice of Jacob but really in mine:

 

Sleeping at this place

Or at least trying.

A stone for my pillow,

There is no comfort here.

I obsess and worry,

I have made such a mess.

I see steps that could take me away.

There could be happiness,

There could be One-ness,

But not yet.

Not at this gate at the entrance to heaven.

 

I want so much.

I want to be of help,

I want to do good,

I want to experience everything,

I want to be wanted.

I watch so many others make the effort

But I don't know what it leads to.

I stare through the bars of every unlocked gate,
But I don't go in to

This entrance to heaven.

 

What if all it leads to is oblivion?

What if there is no traveling up that ladder?

Only pain, then nothing?
No one will remember a thing.

I'm an idiot,

A fraud!

Overconfident and messy,

Brash and hurtful,

Selfish and false,

No one needs me.
Soon it will not matter.

 

Amidst all this self-pity

I have one thing to hold onto.

Yes,

It's that stone pillow

For my hard, hard head.

It tried to make me comfortable,
In its own rocky way.
I asked for a place to sleep and it said,

Here I am

At the gate and the entrance to heaven.

 

In the morning I will be exhausted.

I probably will have slept but I won't remember having done so.

I will move on, because that's what I do.

I will leave behind the stone pillow
In this place

As my assertion

That I was here

That I saw what there was to see,

That I considered my options

And that maybe I will return,

And maybe not,

To this rock

At the bottom of the stairway

That led to the gateway to the entrance to heaven.

 

I was writing about trying to lean on God, or the idea of God, or on something bigger than myself, to grab a rock, find a place, that would give me something to hold onto while I started on a journey I didn’t want to be on and wasn’t sure I was going to survive.  All I saw was my fear of the future and I ignored the rest of this parsha, where Jacob goes on to work hard, fall in love, have many children and then go home to face the pain he caused his brother.

 

I used to use this depressing piece for Tachanun.  For those of us who only go to Shabbat services, which these days includes me, Tachanun is a series of prayers you say after the weekday Amidah, with your head in your hands, admitting to your recent horribleness and asking for mercy and forgiveness.  You only say this after the weekday Amidah and even then there are many exceptions, because you’re not supposed to say Tachanun on a festival or a joyous day, like Shabbat.  Something I didn’t notice when I first started to use this for Tachanun is that implicit in a prayer for forgiveness is hope. You don’t  pray for mercy if there’s no chance you might get some. And I forgot that.

 

Anyway, I did survive, with a lot of help, much of it from members of my shul and our clergy.  Five years later, and  I read this five year old kavannah in preparation for today’s drash, thinking I’d already done most of the writing I’d need to do and could coast for most of this week. But when I read it I realized, alas, that it doesn’t fit me now, and it doesn’t even fit the Jacob I’m seeing in this portion but I couldn’t see then. Jacob works his ass off. He doesn’t give up. Jacob hopes and he hopes hard.  So who was I to give up?  Especially in light of what we’ve been going through the last four years, and the last nine months, all that shared fear and loss and despair, all that shared hard work to get us to a new place, all the gratitude I resented and, this week anyway, I adore and cling on to, who was I to stay stuck in anger and depression? There’s a vaccine and Trump lost and I had a great meal on Thanksgiving.  How awesome is this place! 

 

Five years ago, in 2015, I didn’t notice in these verses that the angels were ascending and descending the stairway, all I experienced was that I was standing outside of heaven, wrapped up in lonesomeness and yearning. But now, in the midst of Pandemic Time and at the end of Trump Time, I see those angels and they are going up and down, up and down. And the gateway to heaven isn’t shut, and God is not taunting Jacob with what he can’t have, God is talking to Jacob and showing him a future that ascends and descends and ascends and descends, in constant change, we are always changing, and it’s the rock that’s solid, where God, or God-ness, or Holy Wholeness or the community of good people or loved ones, whatever is holy and divine for you and for me, whenever and however, these people and things, This hope, they are rocks, they are my place, our place, haMakom. 

 

So I wrote a new version, for this Shabbat, and for us.  Maybe it’s the trytophan/sauvignon blanc/Thanksgiving version, could be, and maybe it will pass, but here it is anyway:

 



Sleeping at this place

Stones for our pillows,

There is comfort here.

No matter what messes we have made

We can be angels

For other people

And as we go up and down

We can change and make change.

It gets better

It gets worse

Nevertheless

We survive.

There is grief and

There can be happiness,

There is One-ness,

And we are always,

If we but have the eyes to see,

At the bottom of the staircase to this gateway to the entrance to heaven.

 

We want so much.

We want to be of help,

We want to do good,

We want to experience everything,

We want to be wanted.

We all make so much effort

Never really knowing where it will lead.

But if we unlock the gate

Or climb over stupid walls,

The entrance to heaven belongs to us.

 

And what if there is no heaven and all it leads to is oblivion?

What if there is no traveling up that ladder?

What if there is only nothing?
Oh well.

 

We are grateful for these stone pillows

For our hard, hard heads,

Trying to make us comfortable
In their own rocky ways.
We asked for a place to be and each rock pillow said,

Here I am

I am always here

Relax

At the bottom of the stairs to the gateway at the entrance to heaven.

 

And like Jacob,

We will return

To ourselves

To each other

To this awesome place

And this holy ground

Real or metaphoric or myth

It is ours

And we deserve it.

Thank you, rock

At the bottom of the stairway

That leads to an unlocked gate.

 

How awesome is this place! 

It is holy ground.

This is none other than the abode of God, 

And that is the gateway to heaven.

Thank you.

Amen

 

 

My Maccabees

This year

My Maccabees

Wrote postcards

Made phone calls

Texted

Knocked on doors (safely)

 

This year

My Maccabees

Taught their children at home

Channeled their anger

Watched a lot of TV

Learned to use Zoom

 

This year

My Maccabees

Reported to work at hospitals

Saw thousands die

Helped many people live

Counseled survivors 

 

This year

My Maccabees

Embraced their righteous anger

Held signs

Organized protests

Marched in the streets

 

This year

My Maccabees

Voted

Made sure everyone else could vote

Danced in the streets

Defended the outcome

This year

My Maccabees

Mourned

Lost their jobs

Stood on lines

Worried

This year

My Maccabees

Wore masks

Washed their hands

Kept their distance

Stayed home

 

Blessed Holy Wholeness — 

I give thanks for these Maccabees,

My heroes.

May they have sustenance in place of anxiety,

Health in place of sickness,

Joy in place of grief,

Justice in place of evil.

Amen

Prayer Writing Classes!

 Hi, people who have expressed interest in prayer writing classes!  Hope you are well and happy. 

I am hoping to offer a variety of prayer/kavannot (intentions) writing workshops on Zoom starting this month and continuing into the winter and I hope you will be able to join me for any (or all!!) of them.  After each session, you will have written your own prayers in an atmosphere of trust and safety, guided by prompts, meditations and discussons and shared those prayers (but only if you want to) with your fellow prayer writers.  The experience can be profound, emotional and fun.

 I can do any and all of these below, either for individuals or in classes (I hope for at least three in each class).  Please let me know which of these interest you, or if you have another topic you’d like to write prayers and kavannot about.

Dates and times TBA based on your availability.  References available upon request.

Prices:  

o   Classes, $50/ session per individual 

(If you are arranging a workshop for your organization, price will depend on number of sessions, number of participants and topic.)

o   The Amidah, 7 sessions: $300 pricing

o   Individual tutoring $75/session (for prayer writing and/or on the liturgy)

 All sessions can be done individually or in workshops. All sessions are half off if you’re one of my Patreon patrons  ($18/month or more).  If you see a series you like but are unable to attend all sessions, we can try to work that out. Below are workshops on offer, thus far:

1 session Workshop possibilities:

1.     Healing

2.     Hanukkah

3.     Tu Bishvat

4.     Tachanun 

5.     Any topics on which you’d like to write prayers and kavannot 

Workshop 2:  Prayers for the Pandemic and 2020      2 sessions.   

1.     Prayers about Anger, Claustrophibia, Fear, Despair, Hope, Mourning

2.     Prayers of Healing (Personal and Community), Change and Hope

Workshop 3: Social Change & Justice  2 sessions

1.   Prayers for What’s Wrong

2.  Prayers for Fixing the World

Workshop 4  - Morning and Bedtime Prayers 3 sessions, (maybe 4 sessions if you get into it, no extra charge if that happens)

1.     Waking up and Going to Bed (Modeh Ani, Ma Tovu, Bedtime Shema)

2.     Birchot HaShachar – Morning Blessings

3.     Morning Blessings, cont.

Workshop 5  The Shabbat Amidah – 6-8 sessions (approx.)*

1.     THE PETICHA  Open our mouths in Holy Conversation?  What is Praise?  Why do we pray?

2.     ANCESTORS – Are we praying alone or with our families, with other Jews, with history?Celebrate them, mourn them,

3.     POWER – What is the power of God, Prayer, Community, Life, Death, however we understand those?

4.     HOLINESS – What is divinity, what does it mean to name God?    What is holiness? Is it something we pray to or for or something altogether?  How does separation create holiness?  Which God do we pray to, God of Torah, Midrash, Rambam, Zohar, shtetl, parents, ours, our childrens?

5.     SHABBAT – what is holy about a day of rest?  What is deep rest?  

6.     WE ARE THANKFUL – do we bend our knees and bow as we pray gratitude?  How do we jkeep this profound?

7.     PEACE AND WHOLENESS – Shalom comes from the Hebrew word that means “Wholeness”  How do we pray for wholeness?

8.     OPEN MY HEART – We pray to be heard, we pray to hear.

*If any of you want to do the weekday Amidah and write your own versions of the 13 petitionary prayers, I’d love to do that, if there are enough of you we can do a separate class, that would probably need another 2-3 sessions.

Let me know if you are interested in any of these!  

Trisha.arlin@gmail.com

Trisha

 

No Hanukkah Party This Year, 2020

So anyway, God,

Here I am. 

Alone

On Hanukkah. 

No party at shul,

No table covered in aluminum foil,

Adorned with menorahs

The families bring from home. 

No cantor leading the blessing,

No tedious contest between latkes and hamentaschen

(Fried potatoes vs. dry prune pastry?  

Don’t waste my time.)

Speaking of, no latkes in the social hall basement,

Or at the party at my neighbors’, no parties at all. 

No presents, from anyone, why should there be?

I’m too old for getting presents 

And there are no children to buy for. 

So why bother lighting the menorah?  

Who for, me?

All alone on a jewishly insignificant minor holiday?

Feh. 

Fire hazard. 

But in a year of lonely death and negligence,

In a year of right wing thugs and fascists,

In a year of proud racists and anti-semites,

I buy an electric hanukiah for the window. 

It has small tasteful blue LED bulbs 

That are hard to see before the fifth night,

Faint light in the winter darkness

But there they are. 

And I imagine all the Jews

All over the world,

Waiting for the sickness and the evil to pass,

Doing the same. 

Amen.