Rabbi Chaya Gusfield

Rabbi Chaya Gusfield, Jewish Renewal, rabbi, spiritual director, chaplain

Reflections on Love


Filed Under: Chaplain Reflections, Grief Writings, Healing, Music/prayer, Prayer, Reflections on Love, Torah/Life Writings
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The Crying Rabbi (Inspired by the Torah portion Vayetzei)

 

This was a first. When I lead services or speak publicly, I have been known to tear up, have my voice crack, take a minute, and authentically show up to the moment, to the place. At this Friday night Shabbat service it was very different.

We were exploring the Torah where Jacob experienced a moment of awe directly from his dream vision.  In his dream he received blessings from God and saw angels going up and down from earth to heaven. There were words like “stairway”, “awe”, “God’s house” and “gateway to heaven” in just a few sentences.  The word, הַמָּקוֹם  HaMakom, which literally means The Place, and is also understood as a name for God, was found numerous times throughout the reading.

Jacob awakens with awe in his heart and says, “There was sacredness here and I didn’t even know it!” And then he says מַה-נּוֹרָא, הַמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה Ma nora hamakom hazeh, “How awesome is this place!” We wondered together why Jacob was given such a profound vision and blessings, and why we are called Israelites, as descendants of Jacob who later becomes Israel. I mean, he wasn’t such a great guy-stealing blessings from his brother Esau, lying to his father, running away from Esau who wanted to kill him, and more.

According to Rabbi Jonathan Saks, one possibility we are called Israelites is because at the time of his dream vision Jacob was alone, scared and away from home. He wasn’t in a good place. And yet, he awoke to the consciousness that God was present. He felt God accompanying him and offering him blessings.  Even in our worst days, even in the days of despair and hopelessness, we are invited to know we are never truly alone.  This is what we learned from Jacob’s experience, and why we are his descendants. Maybe, this is what it means to be a Jew.

This Shabbat was unique. We could feel the impact of Jacob’s dream in the room.  We experienced the sense that we are never alone. That’s what it means to be a Jew, an Israelite.  I could have cried, but I didn’t. Not yet.

The heart was open. The love in the room was strong.  The community was feeling it. And we sang, “MA NORA HAMAKOM HAZEH”, How awesome is THIS place!  If we could have, we would have sang and danced for 10 minutes.  But we had healing blessings to offer and people to remember who had died.

I sent healing to a young child I knew recovering from serious surgery. We sent love to friends we knew with COVID, ALS, Parkinsons, a broken rib, dementia, extensive dental work, etc.  And we remembered our loved ones who had died.

During this time I was surprised to learn about the death of a beloved teacher I hadn’t seen in 40 years.*  While holding space for others, the tears unexpectantly began to flow and flow and flow.  The gates opened to memory and grief.  The tears sang their songs of love and transformation. There was no stopping them. The heart remembered a 25-year-old learning and growing, passionate and creative, finding her way, guided by this teacher. Now he is in a new Place, finding his way.

I hadn’t known how much he had meant to me. I certainly would not have expected such a strong response to this news while I was leading a congregation. Normally I would have been able to stay focused and save my bigger tears for another time.  But, like Jacob’s encounter, I was surprised to be swimming with the Sacred. This time, with Sacred Memory.

Even though it was awkward to have such big public emotion while leading a service, the surprise was in fact a blessing, held by a Sacredness beyond time and beyond words.  The congregation was so supportive. I came to feel, very personally, “How Awesome is this Place!”

מַה-נּוֹרָא, הַמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה

*Peter Gabel, Zichrono livracha, may his memory be a blessing.

 


Filed Under: Prayer, Reflections on Love, Torah/Life Writings
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“May You be Inscribed in the Book of Life.” The High Holy Days are over, so what can this still mean to us?

During the Jewish High Holy days we pray to be inscribed in the Book of Life before the gates close, either at the end of Yom Kippur or some believe not until the end of Sukkot on Hoshana Rabba.  If taken literally, there is something that doesn’t seem right about this. Does it mean anyone who dies during the upcoming year or even during the 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur hasn’t prayed hard enough or hasn’t done enough teshuvah? Or their mistakes outweighed the good they did?

As someone who has worked as a chaplain for many years and is close to numerous people struggling with life threatening diseases, this model can seem to cause harm by blaming the sick for their disease or death.

So why do I still pray my heart out during the holy days and still use this language? This year I experienced this strong message as an intense imperative to invite me to start the new year with the important lifegiving themes of the High Holy days, every day, not just during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur:

  • Facing our mortality and fragility of life every day. This helps me increase my gratitude and be more mindful of every moment I am alive.
  • Turning our direction towards becoming our better selves. How can I begin to find moments of forgiveness/compassion for self or others?
  • Leaning on our ancestors and our sense of God/the Mystery. I do this through prayer, reflection, and acts of remembrance.
  • Giving tzedakah. This helps me be aware of more than just myself. I also notice the unmet basic needs of so many, as well as the myriad ways to contribute to help affect change.

“May you be inscribed in the Book of Life” means to me “May you be engaged with life fully, always, not just during the High Holy Days”. With the Torah beginning this week with Breishit, let’s embrace a new beginning, and harvest the lifegiving learnings from the High Holy Days going forward.


Filed Under: Chaplain Reflections, Grief Writings, Healing, Reflections on Love
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Who Will Live and Who Will Die?

No matter how many people I have accompanied or witnessed or just heard about who have died, I am always surprised at the great impact hearing of their death has on Life itself. The bucket, or pot, or cloud, or breath of grief we carry from past losses, from fear of future losses, from losses other than the loss of human life, is touched.  The earth shifts, the birds sing differently, and dreams change. Colors dim or brighten, sounds come into focus.

Food tastes different even with the death of people I didn’t know well, but impacted my life.  Like a kind Jewish lesbian writer extraordinaire*, and an attorney I worked with in my youth for whose passion and craft freed prisoners unjustly convicted of crimes.** And then there is the 102 year old woman who hosted a cheese and wine gathering days before her death. She changed lives with her love pouring all over you, so you couldn’t help but love yourself.***

We ask big questions at High Holy days, “Who will live and who will die, and how?” “Who by cancer, who by suicide, who by fire? Who by racism and who by negligence?” Other questions are arising, “Who will I lose as family and/or whose family will I join?”  “How will I be surprised?” And “Am I willing to accept the change?” “What part of myself is forever changed this year?” ”What part of the earth will survive and what part of our precious earth must we mourn?” “Can I hear the wail of God?” “Do I join their weeping?”

For now, my queries and responses are coming through my art, and less through words, so I share some with you.

*Elana Dykewomon (Oakland)

**Dennis Riordan (San Francisco)

***Lizie Goldwasser (Champaign, Ill.)

May their memories be a blessing

 

 

 


Filed Under: Chaplain Reflections, Grief Writings, Healing, Prayer, Reflections on Love, Spiritual Direction
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We Can Dance

We can’t always be brave, but we can get out of bed in the morning, even when the demons of the night have held us captive in clammy moments of terror. When sleep is a foreign concept.

We can find reasons to live when our mind screams otherwise.  Yes, this is brave.

We can sit with another as they face the end of their life with regrets, grieve their unrealized dreams, and cherish their memories.

Without words, we can gently hold the hand of the young mother about to lose her child. Our hands touching, being the strength allowing her to be present for one more moment.  Yes, this is brave.

We can’t always be brave.

We can go to the street where a fire has devastated homes, and bless the survivors with words spilling out from the throat, from the heart, from the precious sanctuary of this moment.  Only this moment. Yes, this is brave.

We can’t always be brave, but we can sigh deeply as we slowly breathe our way into forgiveness, even when bitterness and anger feel more comfortable.

We can love with the music of the wind on our faces, and create a new life when climate change is burning, wars exploding, and the future uncertain. Yes, this is brave.

We can’t always be brave, but we can speak the truth about injustice when doing so is bigger than our own safety.

We can continue to breathe, go to the grocery store, eat a meal, and get dressed when our hearts are broken and shattered.  Shattered and broken.  Yes, this is brave.

We can’t always be brave, but we can cry out for a witness, for accompaniment on the journey of despair. We can take the hand offered. And hold on.

We can sway, moan, groan, wail.  We can sing.  Yes, this is brave. All of it.

We can’t always be brave, but we can dance.


Filed Under: Healing, Reflections on Love, Torah/Life Writings
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Crowded Rooms*

There is no reason to feel lonely. The room is crowded with those that have shaped, guided, and offered me gifts, whether they were invited to or not. Born into a Jewish family I was literally shaped with the thighs of my people.  Ashkenazi Jewish thighs.  Yiddish, secular, Reform Hebrew School, and stockings the morning of Christmas.  I swam in the culture of an assimilated, middle class, 1950’s Jewish American pride.

From our gay elders I was gifted Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual pride which expanded into varied gender nonconforming expressions.  Living on lesbian land as a young adult, I floated in the Eel River, learning from and connecting with Mother Earth and her creatures.

I was ordained as a rabbi by Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi, z”l,  and his students. I was brought into their chassidic spiritual lineages of the Baal Shem Tov, the Lubavitcher rebbe, Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev and the women mystics we uncovered.

As a hospital chaplain, I was held with love under the loving tutelage of beloved Buddhist/Baptist, AME church, Unitarian Universalist, and Presbyterian supervisors.  I became a hospital rabbi for Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, the atheist and the spiritual but not religious. I prayed with Jews who had never prayed in their own words before.

The Mercy Center Catholic nuns taught me how to listen with devotion and how to pray outloud, getting quiet in order to let the voice of God emerge, serving as a Spiritual Companion to those seeking to find the Sacred in their lives.

With my partner, I know joy and play, struggle and return, and dream for more days together. Always  finding the unexpected.

With my beloved study partners I pray the text and inhale it into my soul.

Through my writing teachers I unleash the creative unconscious through words. Listening to the still small voice.

From my parents I learned how to think, how to question, how to use my gifts to help others, how to receive the pain of others without dying, and how to care for the elderly.

From my sister who died too soon, I experienced tragedy and made meaning from it.  I accompany others who have experienced something similar in their families.

From my daughter there is the eternal dance of closeness and space, and the unspoken connection that has no name.

From Torah, I inherited many ancestors deep within our collective dreams, conflicts, and celebrations.  I do not turn away from the difficult reflections of our lives found within our wisdom tradition.

From niggunim, I listen into and feel my heart, and sigh.

The room is full and more keep squeezing in.

Welcoming each guide, I accept their gifts.  There is no room for loneliness.

*who is in your crowded rooms?


Filed Under: Healing, Reflections on Love
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Happy Birthday to my Daughter, Feb. 2, 2022

There are words and sentences and paragraphs and stories to describe you.

There are phrases and poems to illuminate the love I have for you.

But I can’t find them.

They rebel against these familiar methods of communication.

They can’t sing their truest notes or phrases or rhythms or harmonies.

No dance understands the fullness of life within you or moves with

the syncopation that touched your hearts’ beat, arriving when you were born.

The letters which make up words don’t seem to find each other,

in any language, to paint the piece of art that knows you.

And yet, in the trying, there is the gentleness one could

call the love of a mother for her daughter.

Always filled with surprise, like the exhalation of breath, but no.

There is more.


Filed Under: Chaplain Reflections, Grief Writings, Healing, Kaddish Musings, Prayer, Reflections on Love, Torah/Life Writings, Writings on Suicide
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Celebrating Rabbinic Ordination

This is the drash (sermon) I gave at my rabbinic ordination in January, 2006.  It is still relevant today. As I celebrate my 16th year as a rabbi, I share this with you.  The Torah portions mentioned were read in synagogues during the prior two weeks during 2021/5782.

In this week’s Torah portion, Vayechi, Jacob blesses his son Joseph, by giving Joseph’s sons Maneshe and Ephraim a blessing.  He says “y’varech et hana’arim v’yikare b’hem shmi v’shem avotai avraham v’yitzchak .” (Genesis 48:16)  “Bless the young ones, may MY name be called through them and in the name of my forefathers Abraham and Isaac”

Simply stated, “May the memories of the ancestors be upon them as a blessing.”

We also see in Shmot, next week’s parashah, God says to Moses, “Ze shmi l’olam, v’zeh zichri l’dor dor.”(Exodus 3:15)   “This shall be My name forever.  This is my memorial from generation to generation.”

Once again, the name is used for a blessing.

In our tradition, we say of loved ones who have died, “Zichronam livracha” “May their memory be a blessing.”

Sometimes we say, “alav or aleha shalom”…May peace be upon him or her.

This is one of our most precious meditation practices.  When we mention the dead and stop to say zichrono livracha, or aleha shalom, we have the opportunity to continue our conversations with them, to receive blessing, and to offer them blessing, through the process of remembering them.

One day, I received an unexpected call from someone I didn’t know from New York who was trying to reach someone else at Kehilla Community Synagogue and stumbled upon my name and number in the process.  She told me that she knew my family from when I was a child.  My whole family.  And then she said, “I knew your sister Julie, zichrona livracha.” She said that they were the same age.  It made me stop.  The fact that she said her name and then followed it by zichrona livracha took my breath away.  I don’t believe I had ever heard anyone say Julie’s name with that blessing before.  I asked myself, what was the blessing that I was suppose to receive by remembering her in this moment?  I thought about it for many days.  What is the blessing?  My sister died a tragic death and for most of my life remembering her did not always feel like a blessing.  It was a difficult memory.  It brought great pain and suffering to our family.

I suspect that there may be people in your families who have died for whom remembering them wouldn’t always feel like a blessing.  And yet, our tradition asks us to remember them as a blessing EVERY TIME we mention their name.  Is this a mean trick–a way to ignore reality?  I believe it offers us an opportunity.  An opportunity for healing.

Reb Marcia invites us to see a bracha (a blessing) as the process of humbling ourselves by bending the knees (birkayim), reaching into the pool (breycha) and  experiencing the fountain of blessings as ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES.

Zichrona livracha –“may her memory be for endless possibilities”.  Whether you are the survivor of someone who experienced a tragic death, whether you have only difficult feelings about the person who died, or whether all you can remember are sweet moments, by saying zichrono livracha, we open the door to endless possibilities.  To anger, radical amazement, deep grief, a softening of the belly, the warmth of our heart, deep humility.  The key is that there are endless possibilities…The door is open to those who have died, and to our own healing process.

“Zecher tzaddik livrecha l’chayei haolam haba” “Remember this good person for a blessing for life in the world to come.”  By saying this expression when we remember someone who has departed, we send blessings to them-endless possibilities-in the world they inhabit.

We come together today in sacred community, a day filled with many brachot, many blessings.  A day that offers us endless possibilities from the deep pool of blessing.

Please join me in dipping into that pool by bringing into your heart and mind someone in your life who has died, to remember them for a blessing of endless possibilities.

The door is open to continue your conversation with them.  We may think we know what this conversation should be, but just for today, just for today, allow the conversation to arise on its own-in the quiet and sacredness of this community.

Zecher tzaddik livracha   —  May their memories bless our lives….

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Filed Under: Grief Writings, Healing, Reflections on Love
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Erev Rosh Hashanah Sermon 5780 (2019)

My sermon from 2019 about unconditional love.  Time to revisit this!

 

I recently watched the movie Boy Erased based on the memoir of Garrard Conleys.  It’s a very intense movie which described a true Christian Gay Conversion therapy program in the 1980s and 90s in Memphis Tennessee. It was called Love in Action. Most of the young people who went there were forced to go by their very religious parents.  It was an abusive program where the participants were belittled, yelled at, and harassed.  Every day they heard real voices telling them they were sick, they were going to go to hell, God didn’t love them the way they were, and much worse. It was not easy for them to voluntarily leave the program. Several people died by their own hands rather than continue in the program.

The movie saddened me, but did not surprise me or shock me. What caught my attention was the two lines at the end of the movie that told us that the main leader of the center, John Smid, had resigned, left the conversion therapy movement and was now living with his husband in Texas.  I was curious about him and how that transition happened, so I did some research. 

I learned that he had been gay, had two marriages to women, and got involved in the movement because he was trying to stay straight.  He was the leader for over 20 years. How did he get out?  How did he come out again? 

This question is the heart of the Rosh Hashanah journey. How will we change and evolve and ultimately work with forgiveness this year? The story goes that there were protestors who stood outside of the program for eight weeks chanting, “We love you just the way you are!”  Although we might think they were trying to support the participants, Smid said that even when he arrived in the morning, they would address him, the head of this program, the abuser, with the same language, “We love you just the way you are.”  They may have also added, “God loves you just the way you are.”   It took him weeks, but he finally heard their message. He realized in that moment that God’s voice was coming through to him and it was time for him to accept himself. After participating in the harm of so many young people, including those who died because they weren’t allowed to love themselves, he heard God’s voice and got out.  He came out. Because of the protestors consistent message of love, he was able to change his self-talk that by being gay he was succumbing to the devil, into self-talk that he was loved by God just the way he was.

Hopefully our lives are not that extreme.  Hopefully we aren’t waiting for an epiphany like that to quiet our self-talk. 

However, in my years as a Spiritual Director, Rabbi and Chaplain I’ve heard a lot of very harmful self-talk and it saddens me.  “I’m not smart enough, it’s my fault I got cancer, it’s my fault my daughter got cancer, I don’t do enough to save the world, I don’t do enough to contribute to my community, I’m a bad mother, I’m a bad spouse, I’m a bad daughter, I’m a bad friend, I’m a bad person.  I’m ugly, I’m not lovable, I hate my nose, I hate my body, I hate my culture, I hate my life.”  How can we expect to engage in a meaningful life when there’s a voice yelling at us all the time and the voice is ours?

It is Rosh Hashanah, and we are looking at our lives, our connection with the Source of All Creation and Love, and we probably are aware of some of the self-talk that is hard to quiet.  I suppose the one up side of these repetitive accusations is that we are already very experienced mantra meditators.  If we can only learn to change the words that we repeat to ourselves daily, hourly, perhaps we can find a path to kindness and greater participation in our lives. Perhaps we can find a glimpse of a fresh start this year.

Rabbi Naomi Levy in her book Einstein and the Rabbi teaches a beautiful approach to help us calm the negative voices yelling at us from within, using one Hebrew word. Chusah.  Let’s say it out-loud together. Chusah.  It makes a sound like waves crashing against the shore.  There’s a whoosh to the word, a feeling of cleansing.  Rabbi Levy interprets CHUSAH this way:  It’s not pity, not mercy, not just compassion.  Chusah is the special kind of love that an artist has for her own creation, even when it’s imperfect.  It’s a compassion for somethings that’s flawed.  Chusah involves the absence of judgment.    The prayer, Haneshama Lach pleads God to have compassion and tenderness for the soul and the body that God created.  We plead with God to have compassion on us no matter our flaws. 

Chusah is the way we love our children even though they are messy and unique.  Their uniqueness makes them even more beautiful.  Chusah is the way we love their artwork and put it on our walls even when it is a mere scribble on paper.

Chusah, is the voice of the soul that says, “Try again, it’s okay, you are precious”.

So instead of the litany of self- talk that speaks like a judge, we can let our compassionate soul fill us with unconditional love using the word Chusah.  Chusah doesn’t mean denial.  It means that with kinder eyes we give ourselves permission to look at ourselves without cringing and without hate, so that we can actually see what’s there, what needs fixing.  So we can face what we resist.  The soul’s voice says, “I don’t need to only take stock of my failings, I need to take stock of my strengths.  I need to know what I’ve been blessed with so I can understand what I have to work with.” 

Chusah can also teach us to soften the judgments we place on others, loved ones, colleagues, and absolute strangers too.  There are accusations we hold against people who harmed us in the past.  There are snap judgments we make about people we don’t even know based on nothing but their appearance or a single bad encounter.  We label people at work, people in our communities, and people in our families.  We place them in a box, “immature, lazy, annoying, stupid, ugly”.   We rarely take the time to reassess the sentences we’ve passed against them.  By doing this, we put ourselves in the box, isolating ourselves from others.

Rabbi Levy teaches that it is deceptively simple to work with the word Chusah for a healing purpose. Tonight we will play with this word for just a minute.  Let us sit quietly.  Let the word Chusah float inside you.  Don’t say the word aloud.  Let it roll around inside your mind and throughout your limbs.  You can imagine you swallowed the word like a painkiller, and soon it is relieving the pain wherever you hurt.  Just let the word do what it needs to do.  Don’t worry if you lose the word for awhile.  Just return to repeating it in your mind.  Take it lightly, don’t try to push or to stress over it.  Let it dance inside you like a flickering flame, illuminating you from within. 

IF you found meaning in this practice, I invite you to do it for 5 minutes and then stretch it to more and more until you reach 18 minutes of unconditional love.  Day by day, the word Chusah begins softening our judgments, melting our barriers. 

It allows us to look upon others with a more forgiving eye.  We begin to look upon ourselves with a more forgiving eye.

The protestors outside of the Love in Action program were like the word Chusah washing through John Smid every day until he could feel it throughout his body and soul.  He internalized what the protestors were saying to him, that he is worthy of love, even God’s love, just the way he is. At the same time, he knew that all the people in the program were similarly worthy of love just the way they were.  This deep knowledge allowed him to step back, see all the harm his program had done, accept responsibility for his part, and then move forward to do right by shutting down the program and take steps to make repairs. And then there was the aftermath. How did John Smid face himself in his part of causing serious harm, even death?  I can’t imagine what it was like for those who suffered because of the program.  I also know that John Smid had to live his life knowing how much he caused the longtime suffering of others.  Smid said it was really hard to live with what he had done.

When I hear his story, I see how important the concept of him knowing we are all worthy of love was the catalyst for change.  However, using the tools of teshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah may have helped him begin to repair the harm he caused. For example, he attempted teshuvah by shutting down the program and by making public apologies. He invited people who had been harmed by the program to speak with him directly so he could do whatever repair work was possible.

He also said that sometimes he had to live in denial because otherwise he might not be able to live with the heart break.  Denial as a coping strategy, when used in small doses can be very effective to help us manage otherwise overwhelming matter.  Our heart can’t survive in a constant state of brokeness. This is also where tefillah/prayer could come in.  Sometimes the only place to take our heartbreak is to tefillah.  By accepting our heartbreak and expressing it, sometimes the heartbreak softens.  

I don’t know if John Smid donated any money to any pro-gay or other causes, but that was and still is an option for him.  Tzedakkah doesn’t fix the harm, but it acknowledges that repair is needed and can soften the long- term effect of what happened. 

Could he forgive himself? Could he forgive the forces that put him in the closet in the first place? I don’t know, but I do know the protestors, the voices of love without judgment, the voice of Chusah, was key to his “recovery” from negative self- talk, and key to stopping the harm he had participated in. Hopefully it was also the beginning of a process of forgiveness.

On this Erev Rosh Hashanah, I invite us to feel wrapped in the power of Chusah, love without judgment. I invite us to allow our tools of teshuvah/tefillah and tzedakah to help us begin to transform and repair that which is sorely in need of repair.  I invite us to soften, soften, soften, towards ourselves and each other.

And let us say Amen,

Shana Tova