Hazzan Dulkin

Spirituality: the word itself elicits either enthusiasm or eye-rolling. You may associate spirituality with an ecstatic, emotionally charged prayer experience, or perhaps with a particular practice, such as meditation, fasting, or chanting. It can also be a more gradual, evolving process: I define spirituality as a search for a personal, intimate relationship with the Divine. It is a process of becoming, of cultivating the divine spark within oneself, and I believe that each Jew is as obligated to explore his or her relationship with God as they are to do the mitzvot. The paths to God are many within our tradition, yet do we even begin to talk about or think about our relationship with God, when we don’t have a clear concept of what or who God is?

It all begins with the name. What to call God? HaShem simply means, “the name” –made popular because God’s true name, the yud-hey-vav-hey, is no longer known to us. Yet, upon closer evaluation, we have many names for God apart from the yud-hey-vav-hey; just examine our liturgy, our text, and our experience. Why so many names? Each one of us relates to God differently, and this relationship evolves throughout life. A child may relate to the image of God as parent (Avinu), while as an adult he relates more to HaRachaman (Merciful One), or El Chai V’kayam (the living God who makes things possible). When tragedy strikes, our relationship to God may be challenged: God seems pushed away (The One whose Face is Hidden), or brought close as a refuge (Tzur Chayyeinu - The Rock of our Lives). There are personal names for God (Elohai – My God, Adonai, My Lord) and communal names for God (Eloheinu – Our God, Elohei Avoteinu – God of our Ancestors). There are names of God that inspire fear and awe (Adonai Ish Milchama – God of War, Adon HaNiflaot - Master of Wonders), and names of God that inspire familiarity (Shekhina Indwelling presence)

With all these names for God, none of them appear in the Book of Esther, which we read this month. At first glance, it is a story whose plot is completely driven by the human characters. Haman, Esther, and Mordecai interact and affect each other’s actions directly. God doesn’t step in with a mighty hand and outstretched arm, nor does God call from the heavens. In this drama, not only does God not have a speaking part, God is not even referred to by the characters! The Rabbis, naturally, had trouble with this: how can God not be present at all in the text? They remedied this problem by suggesting that the word “HaMelech” (The King-referring to Ahashverosh) appears as a name for God. Therefore God’s name does appear in the text, but only as a hint, a possibility of divinity within the humanity of the story. The Rabbis invite God in to a story that ostensibly excludes God’s presence, and, in doing so, teach us that we must do the same.

In 21st century America, like in ancient Persia, we don’t hear God’s voice, and we don’t see God: so can God’s presence be felt? We use the tools of human expression available to us to attempt to articulate our understanding of who God is. We write, we make art, we compose music and poetry, we meditate and rationalize and experience and live, and somewhere along the way, we may come to an understanding of divinity in the world that works for us at that moment. But the meaning is made in the journey, to finding the name that speaks truthfully to our hearts, minds, and souls.

Dr. Neil Gillman, a professor of Jewish Philosophy at JTS, and my beloved teacher, likes to relate the following story: someone will approach him saying they don’t believe in God. Instead of trying to convince them that yes, God exists, and explaining why it’s possible, Gillman says to them, “Tell me about the God you don’t believe in, and I probably don’t believe in that God either.” In other words, many of us have been taught, perhaps by a well-intentioned but misdirected teacher, that who God is, and how God is, is not to be questioned nor explored. The God-concept we were taught about as children needed to be “un-taught” at adulthood, such that when adversity struck, there was no choice but to leave God behind. As Jewish adults, we must have the tools to negotiate science and faith: Gillman teaches that it is both possible and necessary to believe in both God and the Big Bang Theory. As Conservative Jews, we consistently negotiate the line between maintaining tradition and balancing changes in that tradition, because we live in a world that is complicated, nuanced, and unpredictable. So too can be our relationship with God. In this month of Adar, may we reveal what is hidden to us. At the time where we honor Esther, whose name itself means “hidden,” the challenge awaits each of us who asks the question, “who is God, truly, in my life?”

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The Shabbat of Parshat Beshallach (which we read on Feb. 3) has a special name: it is also known as Shabbat Shira, or the Shabbat of song. It is called this because both the Torah and haftarah contain songs, sung by Moses, Miriam and Devorah. Moses and Miriam, upon the crossing of the Sea of Reeds, celebrate God’s triumph over the Egyptians, and, Devorah, the Judge and prophetess, sings upon the military triumph over Sisera and his army. The songs we hear on Shabbat Shira form an extraordinary literary link between not two, but three leaders of the People of Israel, and two of the three are female. Moses’ song in chapter 15 of Exodus is much longer than Miriam’s, and has traditionally reciveived more “air time” (we say it every morning in P’sukey d’Zimra), yet the songs of Miriam and Devorah are enjoying a resurgence, with many contemporary musical compositions by Debbie Friedman and others inspired by these ancient songs.



While Moses’ song is introduced with the simple words “The Moses and the children of Israel sang this song to God,” Miriam’s song is introduced with an overture, of sorts: “Then Miriam, the prophetess, sister of Aaron, took her timbrel in her hand, and all the women followed after her with timbrels and dances. Miriam sang, ‘I will sing unto God, for God is exalted, horse and rider God has thrown into the sea!’” Her singing is introduced with the description of the instrumentation and dance that accompanied it, providing a powerful picture of the exaltation by the sea. Devorah’s song, longer than that of Moses and just as eloquent, highlights yet another woman’s role, Yael, in that victory. “Blessed above women shall Yael be, the wife of Heber the Kenite, above women in the tent shall she be blessed.” Yael was, after all, responsible for killing the general Sisera after he escaped into her tent, thinking it was a place of refuge. Both Miriam and Devorah were leaders of our people, and their songs on Shabbat Shira give voice to their vision and leadership as we sing them each year.



There is no coincidence that Shabbat Shira often falls just before Tu B’shevat, or in this year’s case, on Tu b’Shevat, the Jewish new year of the trees. Tu b’Shevat marks the beginning of the descent of the sap on the trees, and the first buds of the almond tree in Israel: a harbinger of spring and rebirth. Yet another connection between our biblical foremothers and Tu b’Shevat is made by scholar Penina Adelman, who points out that the important women in the Tanakh have names signifying trees, or are closely connected to them. Tamar, Judah’s wife, means date palm. Devorah sat under a date palm tree, named as “Tamar Devorah” – the date palm of Devorah, to render her judgements. Esther’s name in Hebrew is Hadassah, meaning myrtle tree. The “alon bachut,” or weeping tree, stands where Rebekah’s nurse, also named Devorah, died. The Torah itself is compared to a tree,with wisdom as its fruit; women, who bear the fruit of our generations, are part of this life-giving cycle.



On Shabbat Shira this year, we will be celebrating with Hannah and the Boxerman family on the occasion of Hannah’s Bat Mitzvah. Hannah will be chanting the words of Moses, Miriam and Devorah, as she takes her place in the chain of tradition, another Jewish woman who uses her strong voice to sing of God’s triumphs. May we all go from strength to strength, and from song to song, and may we see the fruit of our labors, as we celebrate Tu B’shevat, Shabbat Shira, and the women of our tradition.

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In a particular home renovation show on television, neighbors are asked to fix up a room in one another’s house. Two days and a thousand dollars later, each room is transformed, from beige walls to red. Old furniture is covered with new fabric, a mirror or plant is strategically placed and voila! A completely new perspective!

Having just moved into a new house, I have been thinking lately about building a Jewish home. What are its components? There are the physical indicators: a mezuzah on the door, a Kiddush cup in the hutch, Jewish books on the shelves, or Jewish art on the wall. Most importantly, in a Jewish home, God is our roommate. Each Jewish home is like a mishkan, the portable tabernacle built in the wilderness. God asked the children of Israel to build the mishkan so that the Divine Presence could dwell among them. We build a Jewish home by choosing to live a particular way: the choices we make about what to eat, how to treat one another, or even what to watch on TV (home renovation shows aside), all can be instructed by our tradition.

How else can we make our homes Jewish? One easy and low-impact “spiritual renovation” idea is to build a Jewish CD library. Invest in several CD’s and play them while doing a Jewish art project with your children or grandchildren, or while preparing the house for Shabbat. Some of our family favorites include the Klezmatics, Flory Jagoda, Debbie Friedman, and Craig Taubman’s “Celebrate” CD series (compilations for holidays and topics such as healing, peace, and even Jewish hip-hop). Try Israeli artists such as Chava Alberstein, Sarit Haddad, Naomi Shemer, Yehuda Poliker, Shlomo Artzi, and Acinoam Nini. For children’s music that is enjoyable for parents too, try Kol B’Seder’s Songs for Growing, Shlomo Gronich and the Sheba choir (Ethiopian Jewish children’s choir), The Sixteenth Lamb (compilation of Israeli children’s songs), and CD’s by Shira Kline of Shirlalala. For the nontraditional ear, try Joshua Nelson’s Jewish Gospel CD or the Abayudaya Jews of Uganda’s CD Shalom Everybody Everywhere. There is an abundance of new-age Jewish liturgical music from Rabbi Shefa Gold and Hannah Tiferet. For a taste of the old country, try From Avenue A to the Great White Way and listen to how Cantorial music formed the backbone of the American song book and the Yiddish theatre (and Cab Calloway singing Hazzanut! ). Naxos Records is also in the process of releasing an entire archive of CD’s of previously unrecorded music spanning the 350 years of American Jewish history.

Please contact me at Hazzan@ShaareZedek.org for assistance in locating any of these recordings.

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There was once a little girl who had a daily routine. Each morning, she would slip out the back door, run into the forest behind her house, and find the same clearing next to the same tall trees. In the shade of the trees she would open her siddur and pray the same words, from start to finish. One morning, after many days of this, her mother asked her, “Why don’t you change your routine? Every day you go to the same place, and say the same words out of the same siddur.” The little girl replied, “My routine is the same every day, but every day, I am different.”

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