Don't know what a sermon slam is? Think slam poetry, The Moth, a d'var torah (aka Jewish sermon) and whip them together into a 5-minute performance... The theme was "Longing and Belonging, at the end of the book of Genesis" ... I took it a little liberally...
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I don't know if you remember the first book of Torah that you read in your native tongue. That first chunk of Tanach you sat and read cover to cover, start to end. Instructed only to understand the grace of the language or story before you.
My first cover to cover story was Job. Iyov.
Job
An English assignment given my senior year in my public high school. By the way, the first I’d read in Hebrew was Eicha - Lamentations.
Good luck to me and my theology.
The Job assignment was actually on adaptation [and was followed by a reading of the play JB by Archibald Macliesh (I recommend it.)] But before that, we dove deep into the Torah. When a classmate attempted to read aloud the Hebrew of God's poem, the voice from within the whirlwind, I learned the complicated poetry of Torah and I also learned that
Job of Ur was not a Jew.
So I went through the rest of my life just knowing this. Job did not belong to ‘us.’ But his deep, deep loss and longing was ours to witness.
From Eicha to Job, the ancient Jewish literature I'd been exposed to outside of Shabbat services was gritty and complicated. Like my dear Maya Angelou the poet. The author who'd inspired me for years. She was able to tell deeply personal stories. Dirty secrets and all.
God seemed to have spared no secrets from us, the Israelites in ancient times, tales which now belong to each of us, readers of Torah. And so I was ready to engage with a God who kept no secrets from me. In fact, before I got intimate with Job I was intimate with Kabbalah.
(I know, right?)
I don't know if you remember the first sermon you slammed, the first Jewish text you taught. But mine were the kabbalistic teachings of Isaac Luria who gives to us that when our endless God, (known as) Ein Sof created the world a shattering had to occur to make space for us and the world as we know it, and divine sparks spread across our universe. Ein sof left these sparks, markers, for us to gather, to act in concert with God by committing an act of repair, of Tikkun Olam.
What is your Tikkun olam? Is it the Torah you teach or the Torah you practice? Is it the way you spread light in the world, or amongst your closest friends? No matter the reach, your Torah, you, have value and worth beyond measure. So share yourself. Bring the spark. Or perhaps, you can let the spark be brought to you.
Just four years after I'd first uncovered Job I sat where God often isn't. Summer school. In a theology course. There, we re-approached Job with a professor who said, "I learn from my students, and I teach what they say when I lecture across the country, but I've never been given reason to quote my undergraduates" I gave him a reason. He asked why Job has been included in our canon. My answer felt trite to me.
When he teaches Job, he teaches me. And it seems, whenever I learn, Job finds me. Recently, I picked up the newest book written by my most revered teacher, Adin Steinsaltz. It's called "My Rebbe" about the Lubuvitcher rebbe.
Until just a few years ago the very thought of the rebbe made me shiver. When I was living in California and he was ill, I attended Lubavitch yeshiva. We were made to fast for him twice. I was in 5th grade. You can imagine that went over none too well.
But back to, My Rebbe. Not even a full page in, Steinsalz writes "The concept of holiness is not confined to traditional Jewish thought; nor are holy people only Jews. An entire book of the Bible tells the story of one such holy man who was not a Jew: Job. His conversation, as presented in Scripture, speaks of the spiritual realm, about a connection beyond the everyday world."
And in the next chapter, he focuses on the idea of Tikkun Olam referencing first its mention in the Aleinu prayer. He explains: “The work is ours to do. None of us is exempt from this universal mission. The completion of the world, its elevation into holiness and the elimination of evil: these tasks belong to all of us. In this way, we achieve God’s purpose in creating humanity.” He goes on to say Chasidic thought here rests on an ancient mystical tradition: the world is imperfect because God is hidden. It is true that – whether revealed or hidden – the Almighty is everywhere. A godly spark resides within everything in creation.”
Somehow my Torah is Steinsaltz’s Torah, is his Rebbe’s Torah, is my Torah. Perhaps we are all invited to be part of this cycle of Torah.
So I ask you now: What is your Torah? What text circles its way back to you over and over and over again? What is holy to you? What is the Torah that BELONGS to you? That can be taught in your name?
Mine might be: If faith in our Lord can be held by the downtrodden non-Jew, shouldn't it also be held by you? [It should certainly be held by me. A keepsake.] If we can find space for a stranger to belong, then I can find space in my own life to bring Light to the Plight of a stranger. If the Torah can be used as a tool to understand God, if it can be used as a tool to understand humanity, if we can understand those who long to belong, then TORAH becomes a tool to understand holiness.
I want to be immersed in Torah for the rest of my life. As long as Torah continues to change lives.
That's all I'm asking as you arrive at the end of your Genesis. Each time you approach Torah or Torah approaches you. Make space. Make space in your heart. Make space in your life. [And] make space in your dreams. If you create room for Torah, however you define it, however you teach it, your path will be more clear, your heart more complete, your teachings spread amongst all who are here to listen...
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