The New Jewish Neighborhood (Part 9): Haunted Houses

This past week, Miriam and I saw Clybourn Park at Center Stage.  The Pulitzer Prize winning play offers a midrash of sorts, a rif on A Raisin in the Sun which tells the story of the same house on Chicago's Near Northwest Side.  Raisin, you may recall, is the tale of an African American family in the late 1950's who are purchasing a home in an exclusively white neighborhood.  The neighborhood association balks and offers the family (unsuccessfully) an exorbitant sum to not move in.  Clybourn Park portrays the other side of the narrative, a story (in Act 1) of the white family that sells to the black one and (in Act 2) of a white (pregnant) couple fifty years later who are moving into Clybourn Park and wishing to tear down the now deteriorated home in favor of something bigger and more modern.  This time the neighborhood association champions a different kind of historic preservation as they push the family to renovate and not raze the property.  It's a complex tale and there is much to consider.  

The piece that sticks with me, though, is the conceit that lurks in the play's shadows both in 1959 and 2009: the suicide of a young veteran who had returned from a nervous breakdown in Korea and hanged himself.  What is a haunted house after all if not a place literally saturated with fear and distrust?  The play asks a fascinating question: what are the ghosts that linger when houses, blocks and neighborhoods are tainted with the basest human behavior?  Can we possess something without being ourselves possessed?    

Recently, I taught at Limmud Baltimore on the "New Jewish Neighborhood."  A participant suggested that Reservoir Hill has been a "black" neighborhood for decades (implying that I ought to approach our community building and neighborhood revitalization work with humility and care).  I fully agree on the second point; human migration is complex; deep humility and patience are called for.  But I fundamentally reject the idea that there are black neighborhoods or white neighborhoods or Jewish neighborhoods for that matter.  If there is one take-away from my explorations in this blog and elsewhere it is that we all come to our relationships (and neighborhoods, at their best, employ a web of relationships) from our own perspectives.  These perspectives are formed over the course of our lives and influenced by our families, our friends, our studies, our faith, our experiences and more.  The work in which we at Beth Am are engaged involves a particular congregation of a particular faith tradition and culture in a particular time and place.  To be successful we must take note of geography, history and memory, and if we, Jews and human beings, are to move forward, we must talk about these issues openly, honestly and constructively.

The New Jewish Neighborhood is not a "neighborhood of Jews" though of course we are a part of it.  No, it is a lens through which I hope my people will begin to look at our diverse, multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-class communities and apply our Jewish values.  If we can confront common interests but also differences and challenges in this way, perhaps we can arrest the transmission of fear and distrust and exorcise the ghosts of neighborhoods past.

The Shamas is Coming!

Not long ago, I was at a shiva minyan (memorial gathering) at the home of a late congregant.  She was 100 years old when she died, and the mood in the room, though appropriately solemn, was also uplifting as family members shared stories of yesteryear -- literally a century's worth of nostalgia.

At one point, the deceased woman's son shared a story.  The kids used to play ball in Druid Hill Park, he said, not far from Shaarei Tfiloh Congregation (near the conservatory on the west side of the park).  In those days, as today in many traditional shuls, there's a man who's "job" is called shamas.  His role is sort of a cross between a caretaker and a ritual director, but his most famous role is to organize the daily minyan, and certain prayers (in non-egalitarian Orthodox settings) require a minimum of ten Jewish men or boys thirteen years or older.  This is important because in addition to fulfilling the community's obligation for thrice-daily prayers, there are usually people saying Kaddish, the mourners' prayer which requires the quorum of ten.

So, inevitably, when the men were short in their count, the shamas would come looking for a few boys to help make minyan, often coaxing them into his car to drive them over to the shul. (One gentleman at the shiva remarked that these days we'd put out an amber alert for such behavior).  But boys will boys, and boys outside on a nice day are loath to sit in services, so when some kid would look up from the game and see the man from the shul coming toward them, he would shout, "The shamas is coming!" - and all the boys would scatter.  

To kick off our "In, For and Of the Neighborhood" conversation, I brought a text-study entitled "Cities as Communities of Obligation and Intrinsic Value."  The first part of the title was coined by my teacher Dr. Aryeh Cohen who builds on Emmanuel Levinas' notion that we are necessarily obliged to our communities simply because we live here -- a fact of our humanity and geography.  One can hardly blame a bunch of kids for scrambling when faced with the choice between minyan and a sunny day with friends, but through the shamas's instruction, his willingness to hold them to their obligations to the broader community, those young men learned what it meant to be a part of something bigger than themselves.

The sage Hillel taught: Al tifrosh min hatzibur, "do not separate yourself from the the community" (Pirket Avot 2:5).  One of the great challenges of urban revitalization is to instill a sense of fellowship, of "congregation" in the truest sense of the term among a disparate and diverse population.  In Reservoir Hill, we have neighbors who are older and younger, wealthy, poor and middle-class, black, white and brown.  We have people who have never left the state of Maryland and transplants from New York and Chicago.  We are about as diverse a neighborhood as one can expect to find in Baltimore, and our diversity is a great source of pride.

The fundamental question in a neighborhood such as ours, though, is the following: how do we instill, in this generation and the next, a sense of obligation, of pride in ownership and responsibility to the other?  How do we bring together different people with diverse backgrounds and perspectives to work for the common good?  Only Jews count in a minyan, but in this "New Jewish Neighborhood," we must all be willing to stand up and be counted.

We can't just sit around and wait.  This time the shamas isn't coming.

Lollipop Judaism

Check out this inspiring TED Talk...

Pesach celebrates leadership -- "lollipop" leadership.  The Jewish people are redeemed, Moses is basically absent from the Haggadah while God's role is paramount, but, paradoxically, Pesach is also a call to human action.  Jewish passivity during the Exodus demands activism in subsequent generations -- as Rabbi Donniel Hartman so eloquently presents in his latest blog post.

Passover is a time of questioning.  My question this year is how might we set ourselves up for success in leadership -- in our communities and neighborhoods?  How might we allow ourselves both to feel gratitude for those lollipop moments and to stand ready to be such a leader for others.  Small acts of kindness can have a profound effect, and often we have no idea the extent our of impact.  But we do know when we are creating the possibility of leadership. We know when our words and deeds are l'shem shamayim (for the sake of heaven) and when they are not.  Perhaps the Hagaddah does Moses a disservice since his role was so significant in our redemption, but we tell his story each year, for 4/5 of the Torah!  The seder is a time to focus on God's leadership and by extension the myriad ways we might participate in the redemption of our fellow human beings.

A Joyous Pesach!

The New Jewish Neighborhood (Part 8): Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

Earlier this month, we launched the new phase of our exciting community building initiative.  Here's an excerpt from the sermon I gave on Shabbat morning:

...I’ve been speaking about trust and the importance of seeing one another face to face. This is hard when it comes to our fellow Jews. It is perhaps even harder when it comes to our fellow human beings. This afternoon, a number of you are planning to attend a text study which kicks off a Beth Am leadership development opportunity aimed at broadening and deepening our relationship with Reservoir Hill... The seven sessions of this initiative are designed to generate a systemic and thoughtful approach to our community with an eye toward fully exploring how we might be "in, for and of" our neighborhood. Sessions will include learning Jewish sources, community organizing, advocacy and relationship building. We will talk to one another and we will talk to our neighbors. I honestly don’t know exactly where it will all lead. I trust the well-designed process to show us the way, but I can say this: our initiative is founded on the principle that we ought to know, at a minimum, our neighbors’ faces.

And so I offer the following: when I first came to Beth Am, I was duly impressed with the post-Neilah Yom Kippur tradition of taking our lovely potted flowers to our neighbors’ doorsteps. Raise your hand if you have done this beautiful mitzvah. I love this! In fact, the first year I was here, in my attempt to learn all the peculiarities of a Beth Am yuntif, I completely forgot to remind people to do this. And some of you didn’t. And people from the neighborhood who had received a plant for years came up to me and said, “Hey Rabbi, how come I didn’t get my plant this year!” So, the next year, I remembered to announce it! But here’s the thing, my bet is many of you have been leaving a plant on the same doorstep each year for several years. What I wonder is how many of us have ever met the people who live behind the door? How many of us have gone beyond the initial and lovely gesture to hear someone’s story? To tell them yours? To see them face to face? Perhaps not just after Yom Kippur when we’re hungry, but some Saturday after shul or Sunday after Lab, might you knock on that door and say, “Hi. I’m not here because I need a thank you, but I’ve been leaving a plant on your doorstep for five years. My name is Daniel. What’s yours?”

This, and much more, I hope we’ll learn how to do together!

*(Full Text of the sermon can be found here).

As we head toward summer, there's a lot of wonderful activity in Res. Hill.  A book signing is being planned along with a Baltimore Heritage Tour.  A congregant of mine is rekindling a wonderful old neighborhood tradition - art around Druid Lake.  All of this is happening May 19th! The Whitelock Community Farm is hoping to expand this summer.  We expect new commercial development to come to the neighborhood within the next couple years, and Beth Am's own "Eutaw Place" continues to thrive with its one-year anniversary concert fast approaching on April 11, 2013.

But for all this activity, I'm reminded of the impetus for this blog in the first place.  Community development is first and foremost about people.  What gets me excited each morning is the opportunity to soften boundaries, to exchange stories and life-lessons across the membranes that so often appear as daunting barriers.

What began as one rabbi's musings in cyberspace is now a full-blown initiative involving dozens of people from my synagogue and (soon to come) many others from our neighborhood.  Contact me if you're interested in future sessions.  The next one is this coming week!

Receive it Forward

Remember that movie, Pay it Forward?  The basic premise, really quite lovely, is that the world and society are bettered when each of us gives generously, perhaps especially to those we do not know.  A couple weeks ago, I had a "pay it forward" moment, but instead of giving something I was called on to receive.

I was in Washington DC to support a congregant who was being honored that evening.  I figured I would come in early and spend a few hours schmying around the mall, museums, etc.  Lost and looking for the Georgetown garage where I was to leave my car for the day, I pulled into a loading zone to check my GPS.  I was fumbling with my iPhone when a man exited the car in front of me and approached my window waving a small white ticket.  "I just paid for 2 hours on this meter, but I have to go.  Take my spot."  I knew I had no use for the ticket.  The meter had a time-limit of 2 hours, and I needed to find parking for the whole day.  Schlepping back to Georgetown to move my car wasn't really an option. And yet as looked at this man rushing to get to whatever unexpected meeting caused him to forfeit his $2.00, something told me to take the ticket.  I did. I smiled at him and said, "thanks!"  After he drove off, I waited around for a few minutes to see if someone else would approach to whom I could pass along the favor.  When no one did, I went to find my parking lot.

There's a famous debate in the Talmud (Ketubbot 16b-17a) as to whether it's acceptable, even laudable to lie to a bride on her wedding day.  The sage Shammai says: Tell her the truth.  If she's ugly, say so!  Hillel, on the other hand, reminds us that all brides are beautiful - and certainly on their wedding day ought to be told so!  The Hebrew term for welcoming a bride is kabbalat panim (literally "receiving the face").  Hillel's message? Receiving with kindness is more important than receiving with brutal honesty.

Human beings give.  There is some fundamental need to do so.  Sometimes we are tested in our preparedness to receive.  Elsewhere, the Talmud tells us: "more than the calf likes to suckle, the mother cow needs to give milk" (Pesachim 112a).

Receiving is a gift we give to the giver.

Reservoir Hill in Words and Pictures

Please check out this link for a brand new book about my historic neighborhood.  Thanks to my friend Kelly Dale Terrill for telling this story of our wonderfully diverse community and its robust heritage!

Urban Apologia

Since last Friday, when a mad-man gunned down 20 children who were close to or exactly the same age as my own children, I've been thinking about my family's choice to live in Baltimore city.  This soul-searching is deeply ironic of course.  Newtown, CT, is a small town, and what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary is a sobering reminder that violence is hardly restricted to urban environments - it transcends race and socioeconomic level.  I, myself, encountered unspeakable violence in my safe and suburban hometown of Niles, IL, an experience I detailed in a sermon last year (click here).  And nearly two years ago, I spoke after the Tucson shooting on the importance of common sense gun control.  If you too are looking for something meaningful to do in the wake of Sandy Hook, please consider signing the following petition which calls for comprehensive reforms to end gun violence and ensure better mental health care access.

Yes, violent crime plagues our entire country: urban, suburban and rural, small towns, big cities and everything in between.  But despite this truth, one cannot argue with another truth: urban crime and violence are worse.  Crime happens more often to more people in cities.  It is perpetrated more frequently by city-dwellers.  Any other claim is plain denial, and denial isn't just a polluted river flowing beneath the JFX.  The fact is, urban living brings challenges.  Two weeks ago a young man was shot and killed in a targeted murder one block from where we lived until this past summer, two blocks from where I live now.  I was worried when, last year, someone tried (unsuccessfully) to break into our house.

This is not to say that Reservoir Hill is terribly dangerous.  We love our neighbors and walk the neighborhood with comfort and ease.  Our police commander has assured me that crime (including violent crime) is significantly down in our neighborhood this year as it has been for several years.  But the fact remains that population density, concentrated poverty, poor schooling, easy access to firearms, insufficient police funding - all the endemic challenges of urban life conspire to foster more crime and more violence.

So, again, I find myself thinking about my family's choice to live in Baltimore City.  And I conclude, once again, that we absolutely made the right choice.  Jewish living is, by definition, to be a change agent, to leave our society and our world better, fuller, safer and healthier than we found it.  I've explored, in numerous other posts, the benefits of city living.  Across the nation, cities are on the upswing.  They're cleaner, greener and (yes) safer.  But they don't get this way on their own.  Cities improve because significant numbers of people choose to live and work in them.  They invest time and resources, their social capital, into making their neighborhoods better.

Are we afraid?  Yes, sometimes we are.  Common sense precautions are certainly called for.  But, as the Midrash says, the waters could only part and the children of Israel could only be redeemed when Nahshon ben Amminadav stepped into the Red Sea.  And Michael Strassfeld reminds us that Chanukah's true miracle isn't really that the oil lasted for eight days.  The true miracle was that, given the insufficient oil to last long enough for more to be procured, the Maccabees lit the menorah anyway.  AJ Heschel coined the phrase: "a leap of action." Last summer, we bought a house in the city near Beth Am.  It's beautiful.  We love it.

And this Chanukah, we sat cross legged with our children and lit our chanukiot in the window-sills as Jewish families almost certainly did in those same windows over 100 years ago.

This is why I live in the city.