An easy fast.

Another Yom Kippur here in the galut, the exile. Another fast spent surrounded by the sounds and smells of people who have no idea what I’m doing, or why, another year in which I don’t get to hear the blessed hush of a nation’s highways and byways silenced by a minimal respect for the religious dictates of the day. Another year as a Diaspora Jew.

I don’t like fasting — I like eating too much to like fasting. And I am, aside from anything else, a big crybaby. I don’t deal as well as I would like with discomfort. But, if I could like fasting, I liked it in Tel Aviv. There is a magical something that comes over a busy city silenced by a shared and ancient act. Not everyone fasts, of course, but on that one day out of the year, the vast majority of Israel’s majority (secular Jews) bow to the needs of the spirit. There is no (publicly audible) music, there are no cars, there is no picnicking — if you eat, you do it behind closed doors. I miss that.

But here I am, another year away. I am where I chose to be, and I chose to be here for good reason.

And I am fasting, not because others see and understand, but because, for reasons I cannot name, it is meaningful to me. (I tried not to one year — oy. That did not go well). I join my people when I do this, and I say to God: heneni - I’m here. And the hunger and the self-imposed deprivation sharpens the mind (some years) and focuses the spirit. I just don’t understand how it all adds up. I don’t know why it becomes a driving need to do an unpleasant thing that I honestly think matters very little to God. I suppose I do think, though, that what matters to God is that I be honest about who I am — and who I am, should fast. And so I fast.

If you fast, I wish you an easy one, tzom kal. If you don’t, I’ll just wish you another hearty shana tova — the year is still fresh, and I hope it greets you well!

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If you want to think a little bit more about fasting, and what it can mean, you might want to look into Ta’anit Tzedek: The Jewish Fast for Gaza. I confess that I haven’t signed up, because I know I won’t stick with it — but any Jewish effort to draw attention to the insupportable suffering of the people of Gaza is a worthy effort. Take a look at the list of rabbis involved — you might see someone you know!

And finally, there will be no post on Monday, as I will be praying and fasting and no doubt wishing I could eat — but hopefully also sorting through the larger questions, too. I  will return to you on Tuesday, a wiser woman, I’m sure!

Shana tova.

This evening marks the beginning of Rosh HaShana, a holiday known as the “Jewish New Year” but which is really the Jewish celebration of the anniversary of Creation, and is, thus, the World’s New Year — a two day celebration of Creation and God’s malchut, sovereignty, over the Earth.

It’s a time when we are meant to consider our role in the world, our deeds and plans, and reflect on what we can do to make the next year better than the last. It’s also the start of a ten-day cycle that ends on Yom Kippur, our Day of Atonement, on which we ask forgiveness (of God and each other, and, to my mind, ourselves) for sins known and unknown, for the cleansing of our spirits as we move out of our prayers and back into the world, renewed and ready to continue our work of tikkum olam, repairing the world.

Because the world is not yet finished, we’re taught. We are partners in God’s creation — “His work,” as our prayers have it, “that God created in order to do.” That which He created was created in order to do, to make, to build, to heal, to repair — to work with the Holy One Blessed Be He, and make the world with Him, every day.

Given my years of peace advocacy, when we come together to celebrate our holidays, I tend to go straight to thinking about issues of peace and justice, about Israel and Palestine, about people living in bombed out homes (whether in Sderot or Gaza), about children growing up in fear, and my anger — my rage — that we have yet to find a just solution, one that acknowledges the humanity and dignity of all of those created in God’s image — “He has told you, oh man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you: Only to do justice and to love goodness and to walk modestly with your God.” (Micha 6:8)

I want, however, to find a place within me in which my Judaism is not About Israel.

Because it’s not. It’s can’t be. Faith cannot be about one’s relationship with a place — no matter how important — or a people — no matter how beloved. It must, first and foremost, be about the relationship between the Creator and the created, between the Divine and the human. My Judaism must be about how I worship God with my acts and move through the world, conspiring with Him in the act of creation, every day, in every place. It cannot — it must not — be so narrowly defined as to refer only to one place, and one political struggle.

Else, it will be too easy to turn away. It will be too easy to give in to the rage, to the fear, to the pain and the hurt, and announce “a pox on both your houses! On all your houses! On anything to do with any of you!” And walk away.

I do not know much about myself, on any given day, but I do know this: I’m a Jew. That has got to mean more than moments of rage and pain, arguments and advocacy. As the world renews itself and begins its New Year, I will pray that the Holy One will aid me as I work to renew myself, and my faith, and my part in creation.

יהיו לרצון אמרי פי והגיון לבי לפניך, יהוה צורי וגאלי

“May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart find favor before you oh God, my rock and my redeemer. ” (Psalms 19:15)

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UPDATE: I just read this, “In This New Year, Be Careful with Words,” by my friend Ori Nir, spokesman for Americans for Peace Now. Please go read it — it’s lovely, and it’s just so apt. Go, shoo, go read it.

On godless heathens.

Remember Lovely Friend? The friend with whom I had a lovely lunch and discussed hunger in America?

Well, she is not only lovely, in ways of both the mind and the flesh, she is also a deeply moral person, a person who knows her wrong from her right and acts on this knowledge in a multitude of ways in the course of any given day. I mean, come on: She feeds the hungry! How much more moral can you get?

Well, one more fact about Lovely Friend: She’s an atheist.

I know! Almost impossible to believe, what with all that moral behavior and whatnot!

No, seriously, apparently many, many Americans still have a really hard time believing that you can be literally godless, and a good person. Many, many Americans still believe that if you are the latter, you cannot — truly — be the former. You might think you don’t believe in God, but — you believe in God.

She and I, and a smattering of our equally lovely and equally godless (or nearly so) friends (some of my best friends are atheists! etc.) were discussing this just the other day, and I thought I might write about it — only to remember that I already have! It was a couple of years ago, but little appears to have changed* in that time, so I thought: What the hey! I’ll run that piece. It appeared in the Dallas Morning News on April 1, 2007.

*Actually, in his inauguration speech, President Obama said this: “We know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth” — and when he said “nonbelievers,” this believing Jew teared up (well, I was probably crying already. I cried through the whole damn speech, I seem to recall. But I know I cried harder!). Because he was recognizing some people who I happen to love very deeply,  and I was more grateful than I can say.

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‘Godless’ people deserve tolerance, too

America shouldn’t rush to judge atheists, says EMILY HAUSER

12:28 PM CDT on Sunday, April 1, 2007

Congressman Pete Stark of California made national news earlier this month simply by confessing his atheism.

I’m sorry. What? The fact that a man doesn’t believe in God is news? Well, in a country where 55 percent of the people wouldn’t vote for such a man (according to a recent Gallup poll), I suppose it is.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m Jewish, and personally, I’m all for God. I pray, I keep kosher, I’m a believer born. My relationship with the Divine plays an enormous role in my life.

But my husband – not so much. Eran is an unwavering atheist. He’s also Jewish, though, and because Jews do a lot that can really just be about heritage, we’ve found a fairly easy middle ground. For me, lighting Shabbat candles consecrates the day; for Eran, it’s a nice thing to do with the kids. Tomato, tomahto.

Yet I will be the first to admit that the margins of the middle ground are broad, what with me seeking guidance from a Creator whom Eran believes is all in my head. Furthermore, I’ve begun to realize is that as broad as the margin is on my side, Eran’s is equally wide.

He’s argued with me for 14 years that there’s little room in Western culture for nonbelievers – and I say “argued” because, through he’s never been anything but supportive of me, I’ve mostly not taken him seriously. No room? Please. I have spiritual struggle; he gets to eat bacon.

Like a constant drip on rock, however, his comments have begun to wear away my ignorance, and I’ve had to take notice. Americans hold to an unspoken understanding that is so deeply ingrained, it appears to be natural law. A belief in God, we think, is the well from which all morality springs.

Consider, if you will, the word “godless.”

The cadences of Scripture run through American thought. We read that “the fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, their deeds are vile” (Psalms 14:1), and our highest officials regularly make clear that they believe it.

At our dawn, Thomas Jefferson wrote: “While I claim a right to believe in one God, I yield as freely to others that of believing in three. Both religions, I find, make honest men. …” Much later, President Dwight D. Eisenhower echoed Jefferson, saying that belief in God generates “honesty, decency, fairness.” More recently, Sen. Barack Obama, seeking to reassure nervous Red Staters, declared that we in the Blue States “believe in a mighty God.”

Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of the seminal When Bad Things Happen to Good People, took this approach to its logical conclusion in his 1995 book When Children Ask about God: “The person who is good because he believes that certain things are right … need not take literally the image of a divine person in Heaven,” he wrote. “[He] believes in God and is acting on that belief.”

That is, even if my husband, a real peach of a guy, doesn’t believe in God – he believes in God. He’s good, isn’t he? In the words of one member of my synagogue: “Oh, don’t worry. He’ll come around. They always do.”

Living with Eran – one of the most truly ethical people I know – I find I can no longer accept these things at face value. Our beloved American respect for all creeds is revealed as just that: for the creed-ed only. The creed-less need not apply. Even the separation of church and state becomes suspect, as it presupposes, by definition, a church.

When pressed, Eran will grudgingly admit a vague possibility that Something created the universe, but he can’t accept that said Something has anything to do with history or humanity’s ability to reach its highest ground. We live, we die, certain things are right, others are wrong, and we can find them without being told.

This approach to ethics is supported, in fact, by recent discoveries in evolutionary biology suggesting that the faculty for developing a moral sense is a genetically designed feature of the human brain. Now I might argue that God created that faculty in humanity, but I can’t know, in any verifiable sense, that Eran is wrong when he disagrees with me. That’s why we call it faith.

Like most Americans, I live my life in the belief that I’m guided and comforted by a being outside me and all human experience – but the bald truth is that on this side of death, I can’t know for sure.

I can, however, look to Eran’s works and see his goodness, look to his heart and see his honesty, and concede the point: There might not be a God. And my husband is no more prone to corruption and vile deeds than the next guy for thinking so.

What I do know is this: If there’s a heaven, Eran’s a shoo-in. The mighty God in whom I believe is far too great to care if my husband’s righteousness was born in Torah study or his own precious soul.

As a country, we would do better to leave matters of faith to the recesses of private hearts and measure the integrity of our leaders by their deeds, rather than their affiliations. Take it from the wife of a godless man. I’ll bet Pete Stark isn’t all that bad, either.

Emily L. Hauser is a freelance writer living in Oak Park, Ill. Her e-mail address is elhauser@hotmail.com.