My experience at Burning Man, like all human experiences, was not without its blemishes. But still, on the whole, it had a flavor of Olam Haba, of the world to come, as was pointed out by the rabbi leading Kabbalat Shabbat services over at the Jewish camp at Burning Man. And in fact the whole week was more shabbos than I've had on any Saturday in memory. And the burning of the effigy of The Man - this year perched on a wooden space ship and done up to recall the robot Klaatu in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" - the burning of The Man, preceded by fire dancers and accompanied by fireworks was declared by my family to be: Best. Havdalah. Ever.
Read moreFounders' Syndrome and the Ethical Will
Moshe seems to have a case of what, in the non-profit world, we might call "Founder's Syndrome." He founded the Israelite people as we know them; he did the immense, unimaginable task of leading them - perhaps hundreds of thousands of them - out of slavery and away from their homes and the only life they'd ever known, to reconstitute them with new identity and vision and ambition. But now Moshe digs the heels of his sandals in deep because he knows change is coming. He doesn't think there is a successor equal to the task of leadership. And he doesn't see the possibility of the people as a whole exerting authority, even though the people who will experience this new life are, arguably, more qualified to step up and lead than Moshe, who can only guess at what the future might bring.
Read moreNachamu: Fly Thought, on Golden Wings
The exiles in Verdi, unlike the exiles in Psalm 137, don't refuse to sing. They actively engage their thoughts of Jerusalem. They imagine it in its beauty; they send their thoughts there with love. Their comfort, if there is to be comfort, does not come from silence but from song. They even protest to the very harps that the Psalm portrays as hanging, untouched.
Read moreMarriage and Mysticism in a Less-Gendered World
The thought of all these bearded mystics, all men, in their male-only academies, imagining themselves to be God's bride - well, that just pleases me in all sorts of ways. They were able to see the gendering of the system as a metaphor not tied to biological sex or lived gender perhaps more than we can. Whether or not that made a difference in the lives of their real-life wives is unknown. But still, they used their male privilege to imagine themselves not-male. And that's worth something in my book.
Read moreParashat Balak: Hatred & Angel Action
So where I've arrived is this: we are hardwired this way. We don't have to be carefully taught to hate. We have to be carefully taught not to. We have to learn to unlearn. We have to learn to apologizefor hate when we discover we've been behind it. After all, if the Exodus Ex-Gay Ministry which, baruch Hashem, closed their doors this week, can apologize for the merciless harm they inflicted on countless LGBTQ people, both directly and by propping up other people's hate, we can apologize for our missteps too.
Read more