Rabbi Emma Gottlieb
  • Welcome
  • Vision
  • Resume
  • Lifecycle
    • Baby Naming Ceremonies
    • Wedding Officiation
    • Bereavement
  • Writings
    • Sermons
    • Poetry
    • Publicity & Publications
  • Connect
  • Affiliations
  • Blog

The Drive Home

12/23/2018

0 Comments

 
As we drive over the pass, high up on that huge mountain - the pass that takes you up and over and down the mountain in one swift twist and turn - I make sure the kids don't miss the view from the top just before the descent. They've surely seen it before but they seem as awed as I am. It is an astounding sight. And also, as I take in the scenery in snatches (since I'm also keeping my eyes on the tight turns in the road), I note that it's unfamiliar. The town on the coast in the distance is not Cape Town. These mountains are not MY mountains. Later, a map tells me that the pass is called St. Lowry's Pass and the town is Gordon's Bay, on the East side of False Bay (not the ocean, as I had thought). I looked at the map when I got home because I couldn't picture in my mind exactly where we were as we drove (partly because I thought ocean instead of bay). The highway is one straight shot, and even though I am disoriented about what is what, I don't have to rely on my sense of direction because I know if I just drive straight, it will take me all the way home. Practically to my doorstep. There is no way to mess it up. Which is pretty awesome.

As we pass a township - the big one that J called "wealthy" last week; the one with all the satellite dishes; the one that the map told me later was Khayelitcha (of famed renown, meaning, I've heard of it) - I am aware that I am a white woman driving alone with two (white) children. And, okay, a pit-bull, and it is the middle of the day with lots of cars on the road, so we are safe. But still, I am aware. I am aware of the people walking along the side of the highway (especially when we are stopped at red lights). I note what must be a church group of some kind, in robes, bathing in some small body of water just off the road. It is Sunday. Some kind of communal baptism. I've seen it once or twice before. Each time, wondering about the group. About the cleanliness of the water. And I think about the conversation J and I had about poverty in Africa and poverty in North America and how one is so visible and the other is less-so, but still very much extant. And about how I had to explain to him the term "house-poor" and how he said he's grown up seeing townships and can't imagine a place without them. And I think about the children in the back of my car and how this must be true for them as well. How do our responses to such poverty change when they are a "regular" part of the landscape? When they are hidden from view and we don't know about them until later in life? Is it harder to ignore your own privilege here or is it easier to become blind to what you are so used to seeing? 

When Devil's Peak comes into view I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. I know my way home from here. Even if the road wasn't a straight shot. I know that I live just at the base of that peak. I can trace the line down the mountain side right to my door. I feel the same thrill I felt when I flew in from Durban and realized I could find my neighbourhood based on the position of the mountain, that I can find my way home from anywhere if this mountain is in view. I have never lived somewhere like that before. It is incredible and reassuring. That mountain is ancient. Unmovable. If my home is always anchored to it than it feels like my way home will also always be clear.

The rest of Table Mountain comes into view and a few minutes later my friend the Lion welcomes me back. These are My Mountains. Every time I am away from them and come back, I feel myself relax. Even if I haven't gone farther than the airport or the shipping yard. Even if I just forget about them for a while and then suddenly look up, like the other day when I was flustered when I was parking in the city and didn't look around myself more than at the numbers on the buildings and then when I came out again to go back to my car I was shocked to see that Table Mountain loomed above and filled the entire space in front of me (and in full view of where I had parked) - like I could reach out and touch it. And I laughed out loud to find it there, as if suddenly appeared. And I laughed out loud to find that I could be so distracted as to miss something so remarkable. 

These mountains are my daily miracle. They call me to attention. They anchor me to ancient divinity. They point the way home. Home, to this incredible and complex city where I've chosen to throw in my lot. Home, to my cozy victorian cottage, now filled with my belongings so that when I come in, I don't just marvel at the character of the floors and windows and the trim, but at my beloved things that have come through their voyage across the ocean - from so far - and that somehow look perfectly at home in this foreign land. Fitting in perfectly, as if meant to be here.

​I do not yet belong here, but sometimes I think I could, one day, not feel like such an ignorant  stranger. Like maybe one day I too, will look perfectly at home here. And feel it as well. At some point, people will stop introducing me as "the rabbi from Canada". At some point I won't be new. I won't struggle to understand everyone. I won't have to look at a map to know what is around me. There is a long road to travel to get from this place to that one, and it will not be a straight shot. But just like today's drive, it will take me from unfamiliar landscapes to ones that are recognizable, and that whisper to me: You are home.

0 Comments

An Alphabet of Familiarity

12/5/2018

0 Comments

 
Had occasion to be at the Jewish cemetery again today.
Struck by the same sense of this is what we do, no matter where we are
and the same sense of connection to the names on the stones:

Strangers, and yet
the names are the same
Applebaum, Bloch, Cohen, 
Danzig, Epstein, Feinberg,
Goldstein, Greenberg, Glass - 
An Alphabet of familiarity.

In Cape Town the graves are filled with sand.
It thumps softly on the plain pine box
not like the painful thunks of our North American soil,
often frozen or filled with stones.
This feels so much gentler.

I am thinking of the way our people have been described -
scattered to the four corners of the earth - 
this place, more than any other, feels like proof;
really makes me understand the truth of that description.
We are scattered and we took our our names with us 
and you can find us in all corners of the world 
living vibrantly at best
but carrying on these final rituals either way
Our names signifying our stories
our histories

Buried each of us alone, but also 
very much together.

-EKG'18
0 Comments

After the Wrestling, the Wrestling

12/1/2018

0 Comments

 
​At the beginning of last week’s parasha, Jacob was given a new name – Israel; the name that would also come to be the name of our people; the name that signified strength in having struggled with beings both human and divine. We learn from this passage that struggling is in our very nature, and that struggling can lead to blessings.

Which is a good thing, because after that, it all seems to go downhill for Jacob and his family. By the time that parasha concludes, Jacob’s daughter Dinah has been raped by the local prince and his favourite wife Rachel has died in childbirth, at the side of the road, where he is forced to bury her – separate from where all the rest of our patriarchs and matriarchs are buried.  
And then in this week’s parasha, the struggles continue as Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers where he is sexually harassed, falsely accused of rape, and thrown into prison. Meanwhile his brother Judah’s daughter-in-law has no choice but to trick Judah into sleeping with her in order to get him to give her what is rightfully hers (a new husband and hope of children).
So, it’s fortunate that we have been told that struggling with God is a good thing, because these are passages of Torah with which we must, indeed struggle. What to make of how Dinah and Tamar are treated by the men, and by the text? How to feel about brothers who will avenge their sister’s honour with mass-murder and then turn around and just about commit fratricide? This is our family history! This is our Torah! And so struggle with it we must.
Over the centuries, rabbis and Jewish thinkers and Jewish writers have helped us to consider different interpretations of these narratives and to wrestle meaning out of what might otherwise seem a hopeless legacy or, even worse, a meaningless one.

But just when it seems that the world of our ancestors has gone dark, as we read about Joseph in the prisons of Egypt and all seems lost, the Torah itself tells us (Gen. 39:21 and 23), “But God was with Joseph and showed him kindness. . .and all that he did, God made is prosperous.”

This is the biblical equivalent of the #ItGetsBetter movement or, if you’re a fan of the movie Finding Nemo, Dori’s song to “just keep swimming”. Sometimes, the world seems dark and the struggle is hard and it feels like all hope is lost. But just as the woes of our ancestors are preempted with the lesson of the importance of struggle, so too are they concluded with the reminder that even in the darkest, scariest places on Earth, God is with us, and hope is not lost.
And after that, indeed, it starts to get better. Joseph’s skills at interpreting dreams leads not only to his own freedom from prison, but to the eventual saving of his family from starvation during the famine and to the set up that ultimately concludes in our people’s redemption from Egypt and our being able to receive Torah, God’s greatest gift, at the foot of Mt. Sinai.

The important legacy we have inherited is not the one of familial violence and strife. It is the one of strength in the face of struggle. Knowing that even when we are struggling with our own history, identity and sacred text, never mind the ever-darkening world around us, we can find blessing in the struggle and assurance that God is with us, and that better times are surely just ahead.

Kein Yehi Ratzon, May it Be God’s Will.
0 Comments
    Picture

    Who Am I?

    I am a rabbi, teacher, daughter, sister, friend, dog-lover, woman, human being. Called to an active Jewish life through music and prayer, I endeavor to bring the teachings and traditions of Judaism to others. I truely believe that Judaism can deepen the meaning, understanding and spirituality of both the sacred and ordinary moments in our lives.

    Archives

    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    June 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015

    Categories

    All
    Home
    Shleimut

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.