uncertainty

The ability to live with uncertainy is an act of faith.

The ability to choose faith in the face of uncertainty is the sacred task of living.

wanting the opposite

What is the opposite of loss?

The opposite of loss is the fulfillment of inner peace.

What is the opposite of fear?

The opposite of fear is love.

one year later

On June 10, 2009, I got a phone call that changed the trajectory of my life's work. An employee of GWU Hospital, where I served as Director of Spiritual Care, said, "Rabbi, you have to get down here. Something terrible has happened."

Earlier that day, a man dressed in a confederate coat had walked up to the entrance of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. A security guard named Stephen Johns saw him and moved to open the door for the 88-year-old man, who then opened fire on the museum with the rifle hidden in his coat. Johns was taken to GWU Hospital, along with the perpetrator, who had been felled by the museum's other security guards.

I was called to the emergency room to attend to Johns' wife. The waiting room was chaotic; in addition to two other chaplains, there was a flood of hospital administrators concerned about this high-profile incident. Meanwhile, Johns and the perpetrator were being operated on side-by-side by two different medical teams.

Family and friends of Johns began to arrive, and they were moved to a larger room closer to the post-operative care unit. It was at that time that I met Pastor John McCoy, the leader of the Word of God Baptist Church and the officiant at Stephen Johns' wedding. A nurse briefed us several times during the course of the operation. In the growing group of family and friends, there was crying, prayer, shock, disbelief, and anger. Then the nurse approached me and said, "Will you come back into the room with me? I have to give her the ring and tell her that her husband didn't make it." Stephen and Zakiah Johns had been married for only a year.

I went into the room with the nurse. She placed the ring in Zakiah's hands and gently said, "I'm sorry we couldn't save him." Another chaplain grasped Zakiah's body so she wouldn't fall to the floor.

Later I walked with the family to one of the intensive care unit rooms where Officer Johns' body had been placed. The initial screams and general pandemonium that had accompanied the announcement of Johns' death had given way to quiet tears. His family then offered their goodbyes.

I walked down the hall with Pastor McCoy. At 6'1", he towered over my petite frame, but we were still eye-to-eye. I was reminded of another traumatic racial injustice of my past. On November 3, 1979, in Greensboro, N.C., my childhood friend was shot in the head by a Klansman during a protest rally on behalf of the textile factory workers. Paul Bermanzohn survived, but five other young people lost their lives that day in what has come to be known as the Greensboro Massacre.

Fifty-one days later, I was fired by GWU Hospital.

The days that followed the shooting left me in tears and occupied by nightmares. Flashbacks to my childhood sitting in my parent’s kitchen among the survivors of Hitler’s war caused painful screaming in the middle of the night. My energy diminished as I carried myself through a robotic day. The tension rested in my back. My walking was compromised.

One night, after a fitful start to my sleep, I went and sat in front of the computer. I wrote down all that I had been thinking. In the morning, I sent it to a colleague. He suggested I send it to the editor of the "On Faith" blog at the Washington Post. With a click on the computer, my story was published online on June 25.

My back pain increased. I went to see my orthopedic physician who prescribed a week’s disability for rest and relaxation. “You are coming out of a traumatic experience, and you need peace and quiet. All your stress is in your back.”

When I returned to work, I was suspended and then dismissed ostensibly because of the article I wrote about the incident that dark night. But I believe I was let go because of my outreach efforts to the African-American community. My desire was to offer spiritual care to a diverse and multi-faceted community at the hospital, specifically recruiting African-American chaplains for the African-American patients of the D.C. community. My campaign for equal pay as a female chaplain probably didn't help either.

It's been a year since Stephen Johns was murdered. I've lost the illusion that things have moved forward in terms of the racial integration in this country. I've lost my naivete about ethical behavior in the workplace. I've lost a job that provided me with meaningful work. I feel in some ways that I lost my identity -- the status I had in the community because of my job -- not to mention financial security. I feel I was betrayed by people I trusted while I remained loyal to the mission of the institution. Loyalty is not a two-way street.

I gained a friendship with a contemporary African-American pastor. The relationship offered me spiritual succor in a difficult time. I gained a new self-identity, one of empowerment instead of victim, in the face of discrimination. I gained a new perspective about my calling to do inter-religious work. I realized what a strong support network I have; I felt at times that I was being held up only by the nurturing of my friends. I am grateful for everyone who encouraged me and then supported me in my effort to right a wrong.

“You did the right thing, Rabbi. I am proud of you.”

I have no regrets about speaking out in the many ways that I did (about diversity, about pay-based gender discrimination, about Stephen Johns). My true nature is not one of antagonism, but in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

New Spirituality Group

Sometimes we need a dose of spirit and community to lift us up during our weekday busyness.

To that end, I will begin leading a spirituality group every Wednesday, beginning June 16, in the atrium at the Center for Integrative Medicine.

WHAT: Spirituality Group

WHEN: Wednesdays beginning June 16, 6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.

WHERE: Center for Integrative Medicine (908 New Hampshire Ave., Suite 200; Metro: Foggy Bottom)

COST: $20 (cash, or check made payable to Health Partners, Inc., a 501(c)3 nonprofit foundation)

Topics will vary from week to week, and we'll begin and end each session with meditation, prayer and/or chant. Various technologies will be presented for self-healing and introspection. Individual support will arise from the mindful conversations of the community. No reservations are required. We'll begin gathering at 5:45 p.m.

I hope to see you there, and please share this information to anyone you think might be interested!

An Unending Love on Facebook

This was my first Facebook birthday party, and I loved it!

Emails poured in with words of blessings and good wishes. I received loving kindness through the Internet airwaves from co-workers, relatives and friends from all over the world. (I am still counting my blessings and my Facebook posts!)

I was not into my birthday this year. Years come and go; the important thing is to pass into them gracefully. My day was a kaleidoscope of my life which included breakfast with my mutual birthday girlfriends (Susan and Judy), taking care of my granddaughter while my son-in-law had knee surgery, dinner with my son, and a work project completed.

The icing on the virtual cake was the unexpected birthday wishes on my Facebook wall connecting me to the universe of friendship and love.

I recalled the poem by Rabbi Rami Shapiro that is found in the Reconstructionist Prayerbook: My gift to you!

We are loved by an unending love.

We are embraced by arms that find us

even when we are hidden from ourselves.

We are touched by fingers that soothe us

even when we are too proud for soothing.

We are counseled by voices that guide us

even when we are too embittered to hear.

We are loved by an unending love.

We are supported by hands that uplift us

even in the midst of a fall.

We are urged on by eyes that meet us

even when we are too weak for meeting.

We are loved by an unending love.

Embraced, touched, soothed, and counseled

ours are the arms, the fingers, the voices;

ours are the hands, the eyes, the smiles;

We are loved by an unending love.

A Mikveh Delayed

Last night I saw the play "Mikveh" at Theatre J at the Washington DC Jewish Community Center. I recommend you see it. It inspired me to write this piece.

Soon after I got engaged, I decided to honor the tradition of immersing in the mikveh before my wedding day. I was twenty-one years old.

I signed up for "kallah" (bride) classes at a local orthodox synagogue. This six-week course taught young women about the practice of mikveh in their married lives.

Throughout Jewish history, unmarried women have immersed in the mikveh prior to their weddings. And married women immerse after seven days from the end of each monthly menstrual cycle in preparation for the resumption of family relations in their most fertile days.

Submerging in a pool of water expressly to symbolize a change-of-soul was a deeply spiritual and immensely compelling reason for me to mark this new station in my life from bride to wife.

Even though our home was of orthodox observance, I went to public school. This was not true of the other women in the class. They were all products of the neighborhood girls yeshiva (the Jewish parochial school).

I had been dating since I was thirteen. Many of the women in the class vaguely knew their husbands to be, but I had dated my fiance for two years. They were virgins. I was not.

It never occurred to me that this single fact would interfere with my desire to perform this mitzvah before my wedding night. My mother had questioned my motivation in even signing up for the class, so I couldn't ask for her counsel.

Perhaps I was naive. Perhaps I was in denial.

I lived an orthodox lifestyle. I never spoke about sex to my girlfriends. I assumed that they, too, were not virgins. As each of them became engaged, and the topic of the mikveh came up, I realized that they were the real virgins. I was a virgin wannabe.

Week after week, the level of my guilt heightened after every lecture about the laws of family purity. Discipline and pure intention was required.

I still remember the small, classic, hard-covered red book entitled "The Hedge of Roses" by Rabbi Norman Lamm. It was an ideal size for carrying in a pocketbook for reference. The message elevated the monthly mikveh visit to an act of spiritual holiness.

I believed in the power of this mitzvah (commandment).

The lectures were practical and based on the law. My fellow classmates giggled with every sexual suggestion. I knew something they didn't know and felt unworthy to be in the same room with them -- or in the same mikveh.

I was not giggling. I was squirming inside. What if they were right to have held on to their "virgin" status? If they were right, then I had been wrong.

I never completed the "kallah" course or the mikveh experience I so longed for. I never consummated my marriage through immersion in the mikveh.

Twenty-two years later, after six years in seminary and a detailed course of biblical study on the laws of family purity, I went with two of my fellow female rabbinic students to an orthodox mikveh on the West Side of Manhattan a few days before our ordination.

The mikveh lady asked nothing from us except the minimum eighteen-dollar charge.

She showed us the accomodations and quickly left to administer to the other monthly visitors to the mikveh.

We became each other's mikveh ladies. We said the blessings and witnessed each other's immersions.

The regret of not having immersed as a young bride returned to me.

The mikveh is a status changer.

I am no longer a bride, yet I am ready to walk down the aisle that God has placed before me.

My name begins with Rabbi.

Reciprocity

My eldest daughter Naama needed me to chaperone my granddaughter on her first grade field trip to Great Falls National Park. l accepted with great enthusiasm. What are grandmothers for if they can't fill in at important life events like a field trip?

A little yellow school bus greeted me in the parking lot. The kids jumped out like jelly beans on their way to the factory packaging plant. They left their static classroom desks and white teaching boards to delve into the verdant forest and rushing waters of pure nature. The children's spirits were released. I was so grateful to experience their vitality.

We hiked to watch the waterfalls. We skipped along the canal's towpath. The children picked up rocks and played with the insects that crawled beneath them. We made three bathroom stops in the space of an hour. And then, lunch!

Everyone went to sit next to their lunch boxes including my granddaughter, Noa Rebecca. There on the table was a lunch with my name on it: "Savta" (Hebrew for grandmother).

My daughter prepared a picnic lunch just for me: humus, red peppers, a whole wheat wrap with carrots, an apple, and trail mix.

The lunches I had made over the years for my four school age children were as numerous as the stars in the sky. No exaggeration!

Now, decades later, my own daughter made me lunch. One individually packed, homemade lunch stared back at me. I succumbed to its gift and ate it voraciously.