by Sam Glaser
My wife buys the smallest packages of food in order to conserve space in our three-shelf pantry. When I open it on any given morning and find one of those 10oz. boxes of Cheerios I cringe and dream of a time when we can shop at Costco. Furthermore, I insist on having a plethora of cereal options so that I can mix and match my breakfast. She retaliates by buying the mini jars of peanut butter. I get the same grief when it comes to my closet full of clothes. She argues that I have more than she does and calls me a pack rat. I respond that I like lots of choices and see no reason to throw my old favorites away, as long as they still fit. So too with my CD collection, the gear in my music studio, my library. Am I too attached to material things? Yes. But I prefer to give my obsession another name.
Shefa. Shefa is one of my favorite Hebrew words. It means abundance, and it’s something to which all of us aspire. On the most basic level it’s having plenty of money in your bank account. For our family, after our household expenses and day school tuition, this “plenty” is highly variable. I think my array of cereal and t-shirt choices is a subconscious attempt to live in that world of shefa, for at least some of my day. Another way we add shefa into our lives is by celebrating Shabbat in grand style. We get tremendous pleasure out of entertaining guests. Even though it’s expensive to buy all the food and my wife works so hard to make a delicious and beautifully presented meal, one day a week we reign as the monarchs of Livonia Avenue.
I resonate with the idea of living large. I love my king size bed, skiing big mountains, eating overstuffed burritos. I sit in an enormous relax-the-back chair in my studio; I love epic movies on big screens and all-day-long music festivals. Big things give me big joy. I recognize that this conspicuous consumption flies in the face of political
correctness. We live at a time when conscientious Americans are trying to reduce our carbon footprints, bringing canvas bags to the supermarket, driving hybrids and recycling. I’m not suggesting that we abandon these astute practices, God forbid! I am suggesting that we distinguish between minimizing our consumption and maximizing our joy.
Some feel that invoking shefa to accumulate wealth is at odds with Judaism or a liberal agenda. The fact is that all of our patriarchs and matriarchs were loaded. Their illustrious stories are enshrined in our national consciousness to teach that financial abundance isn’t just tolerated, it’s encouraged! The single caveat is that one must remain a mensch (kind-hearted person.) When Abraham left Egypt with the trappings of wealth he took care that his vast flocks didn’t graze on anyone else’s property. Isaac managed his holdings with a low profile and when neighbors maliciously tampered with his wells he reached out with overtures of peace. When Jacob made his fortune he radically transitioned from hardened businessman into the spiritual father of the Jewish People.
Kabbalah describes a higher meaning of shefa: our God is essentially GOOD, and created the universe to extend His/Her good in every direction. Shefa isn’t just material abundance; it refers to the FLOW of God’s beneficence in every form. Imagine a brilliant beam emanating from a spotlight towards a performer on stage. This is like the divine light highlighting all creation. Spotlight operators have the choice of filters to dim the light all the way down to near darkness. What most self-help books and seminars attempt to show us is that we are in control of these filters and can open or close our personal flow, based on our actions and attitudes.
I chose to write about shefa this month because I feel that we tend to self-limit our own shefa, the flow of God’s light in our lives. We allow global economic woes to diminish our outlook, feel beaten down at work, have less time to do the things we enjoy, feel hopeless trying to pay stacks of bills with shrinking salaries, feel helpless dealing with health issues. Life is scary. Living in fear takes us out of the flow of shefa. The million-dollar question is how can we attract blessing in our income, health and happiness? Thankfully, for the Jewish people, there are very specific ways to master the law of attraction.
Our crowning quality as human beings is our freedom of choice. God created a world where we must choose constantly, where our own micro universes are manifestations of our daily choices. God implores us to “choose life,” to arm ourselves with the information of exactly what is life and what is death and to choose appropriately. Just like we might obsess over which new HD3DTV to purchase on Black Friday, in order to get into a place of divine flow we must we investigate our spiritual choices and then commit to a path.
Our most fundamental choice is whether or not we choose to have God in our lives. Choosing God requires that we create the space for a relationship and connect on a regular basis. You wouldn’t call a once a year Facebook post a great relationship. That’s right, we need more than just the High Holidays to “go with the flow.” Relationship building in Judaism is a two way street: we have to pray with passion and we have to study God’s Torah to hear God’s voice in return. Any deep relationship has the important prerequisite of humility. With the same stubbornness that I will drive around lost rather than ask for directions, I often forget that God is here to help me and bring bounty in my life. The Kotzker Rebbe says, “Where is God? Wherever you let God in.” Get your ego in check, open your heart and simply ask for guidance and sustenance. This is the magic of prayer. To get on the E-ticket ride on this Heavenly wave, all we have to do is ASK for it.
Another aspect of bringing shefa into our lives is in fashioning vessels that can handle ever-increasing blessing. A sixteen-year-old praying for a red Ferrari most likely is not ready for such a vehicle. The answer to his prayer, regardless of how earnestly he asks, is likely going to be NO. Too much shefa can destroy us. Over our lifetime God gives us challenges to see how much shefa we are ready for. The tests we get on a daily basis are here to build us into people who can deal with greater gifts. Only God really knows how much we can handle, even better than we know ourselves. Of course, random acts of loving-kindness are shefa
“magnets”; if we prove that we know how to do the right thing in any situation, clearly God can trust us with abundance. God aches to give us more, but we have to CHOOSE the relationship, we have to ASK for what we want and we have to BUILD ourselves into individuals who can handle abundance.
At a conference at which I was performing a few years ago I met a Chassidic maple syrup farmer named Shmuel Simenowitz. He lectures on the subject of eco-farming, getting back to the land and working with one’s hands. One thing he warned of however, is knowing when to be thrifty and when to aim for abundance. We must tread lightly on our planet, but with God we have to live LARGE and ask for the moon. He brought with him a diminutive, two-handled cup for the ritual washing of the hands. He explained that it was given to him by a Jewish ecological organization to minimize the water used in the hand washing ceremony. In no uncertain terms Reb Shmuel lambasted this assault at shefa. Indeed, we bring abundance into our lives when we wash with a lot of water! In other words, don’t hold back with your mitzvot. Do them with alacrity and dedication. Give big charity, make loud blessings over your food, learn Torah with fervor. Take shorter showers but pour it on when you wash.
My regular readers know that I’m a big advocate of halacha, or Jewish law. Halacha has at its root the word “pathway” or how one walks. Halacha may seem formfitting but it is truly a unique channel for each individual. It serves to orient our neshamot (souls) on a step by step ascent towards that spiritual beam of light. Halacha gives us the ability to know the choices at hand and to choose wisely. This is true “informed choice.” Halacha teaches us how to walk humbly before our Creator. It gives us a daily workout of our spiritual muscles in the form of prayer and blessings, even when we don’t feel like working out. It doesn’t turn us into robots; it molds us into the best individuals that we can possibly be, the most refined version of ourselves, the ideal receptacles for God’s blessings. Just like planets and atoms have orbits, animals have instincts and trees know which way is up, so too do we human beings have a divine pathway.
One issue that I’m sure is not unique to the Jewish people is that we often let our tightly defined denominations limit us rather than allow us to bask in the rays of unadulterated shefa. We tend to deem those less observant than we are as heretics and more observant as fanatics. When I grew up in the Conservative movement, I somehow thought that the laws of kashrut were only for the rabbi. I often hear my Reform friends say “well, as a Reform Jew I don’t have to ________” (fill in the blank with whatever mitzvah is deemed too difficult.) Some Modern Orthodox Jews scoff at their “backwards” Haredi neighbors who are simply trying to be earnest in their divine service. My point is that we are all on a personal growth continuum
and should use our Jewish institutions to enhance our connection rather than provide a glass ceiling to our growth. My friend David Suissa comments that in religious life we decide, “that’s not what I do” and then defend that stance religiously! We argue: why try a mitzvah one time if it makes us a “hypocrite” for not sticking with it? As Jews, our access to shefa is closely aligned with the mitzvot that we take on. Take a chance! Be a hypocrite once in a while. Suissa quotes Rabbi Shlomo Schwartz as saying “God counts only the mitzvahs you do, not the ones you don’t.”
Another point of blockage to that loving beam of spiritual light is our own feelings of inferiority. Often we feel like we are not deserving. We can be our own worst enemy. We label ourselves “bad Jews” and sinners and become paralyzed with depression and doubt. There is no such thing as a perfect person. Proverbs tell us that a righteous person falls seven times. But he or she gets back up! Dust yourself off, pound your chest, start a new day and get over it! God created teshuva (return to a spiritual path) before creating the world. God is infinite and therefore infinitely forgiving. God has such tremendous gifts in store for all of us. If we can just get out of our own way.
My wife loves me so much. A few months after the cereal argument she told me that she realizes that having great variety is an important ingredient in my personal quest for shefa. Now she not only provides it lovingly, she actively shops for the brands I like. The boxes are still small, however. Our relationship with our Creator is much like a marriage: success is based on knowing what makes your partner tick, expressing heartfelt gratitude, being sensitive to what makes the relationship flow and rectifying what doesn’t. God is continuously showering us with shefa, in the form of the breath we take, our insight, relationships, awareness and inner peace. And of course, in wearing a favorite outfit, getting that perfect gig and blue-sky powder days on the slopes.
trying to hold onto my kids just like I’m trying to hold onto this water.” As I reached into the river for handfuls of water it just escaped through the cracks in my fingers and continued on its inevitable descent. I sobbed tears of sadness and relief as I acknowledged this bittersweet pain that I have been carrying inside.
God’s ability to sustain me and keep my family together is crumbling. Rather than serving as an example of holiness and living at peace with the Universe, open to whatever God has in store, I am a frightened child trying to protect all my toys from the neighborhood bully.
clearing in the forest where we could peer into the pitch-black new moon sky with a sixteen-inch mirror telescope. My friends, I saw a global cluster, the Whirlpool Galaxy and “eye of God” Ring Nebula with my own eyes! All of these celestial bodies have a specific place in the universe, predictable orbits that they follow, so reliable that we can use their light to steer our ships through the night. All of creation is on a path, with atoms in ordered arrays, electrons and protons spinning around nuclei, trees arching towards the sun, ants marching in single file, pelicans drafting off each other’s wingtips. Why should I dread any aspect of my own path, my lifecycle? Thankfully the Jewish People have been given the gift of a long and winding road of 613 mitzvot, in a system called Halacha, the path. Jewish law can be seen as oppressive and burdensome, or as a collection of helpful spiritual signposts to keep us joyful and inspired on the annual orbit of the Jewish year.
amazing tools to stay on track but I can testify that it is possible to live within halacha and become a robot. I think the key is focusing on filling our lives with kindness to others and gratitude to our Creator. I am grateful for the time God has allotted me to be with my children. I am grateful for vacations and National Parks. I am grateful for stars, rivers and friends. I am grateful for the air that I breathe. I am grateful for my wife, my children, my parents, my extended family. I am grateful to be Jewish. I am grateful for skateboards, skis, guitars and gravity. I am grateful for challenges to overcome. I pray that all of us learn the art of letting go, prying open our hearts to the messages of Heaven and finding our true path. Thanks to a river, a telescope and a new friend, I am a bit closer to finding my own.
My cherished custom every time I land in Florida is to head straight to the beach and jump in the glassy, warm water. The shock of the Pacific chill is absent…no wetsuit required…and the white sand unfolds to the North for hundreds of miles. Upon arriving on this last trip with my fellow Jewish singer and good buddy Todd Herzog, we dropped our bags at the beachfront hotel and davened a peaceful mincha (afternoon prayer) before jumping into the shallow blue-green playground. As we pondered the pelicans and sandpipers, Todd asked me some penetrating questions about why one would want to say the same exact words three times a day. He was curious what I get out of it. Am I was focusing on just getting the words out or am I actually thinking about meanings? Where do I add my own thoughts? And what happens on Shabbat when we stop making requests from God…what am I praying for then?
central prayer nearly 2500 years ago…and it was clearly already in use when they did so. Among their ranks were several sages of prophetic stature. They boiled down God’s will for the Jewish People in eighteen (later nineteen) crucial categories. When we repeat this menu of our deepest needs, we enact our partnership with God in bringing them to fruition. So central is this prayer to our existence that it is simply referred to as tefila (THE prayer) when discussed in the Talmud. The Sh’ma and psalms are important, but the Amidah is IT. I think Rashi says it best when he explains that l’hitpalel, or to pray, means to dream or think ultimate thoughts. We utter nineteen dreams for humanity and those dreams become part of us, defining our aspirations and clarifying our service to God.
there’s any place that you want to deeply focus and use the formulaic words of the millennia, this is it.
Allow me to take you on a tour of adults seated in this sweet portrait, from oldest to youngest. My dad, seated on the couch, is looking somewhat haggard thanks to the 15 grandchildren that invaded his peaceful Pacific Palisades home for the week of Sukkot. He was raised in a WWII-era Bronx family that moved in LA while he was a teenager. He went to LA High, rebelled and joined the army instead of going to college and then took over a division of his dad’s garment company. He went from his Orthodox upbringing to eventually join one of the largest Conservative synagogues in LA, Sinai Temple, the congregation in which I grew up. Nowadays he regularly leins the Torah for his local Chabad and actively engages in the passion of his retirement years: studying and teaching Jewish history.
I’m sharing this gory detail to point out that in spite of our many differences we find common ground and celebrate our love for one another. Yes, there are frustrating moments like dealing with degrees of kashrut on Pesach and accepted sleeve length. Certain cousins hug the opposite sex, others can’t be touched. We have to negotiate how to attend extended family simchas when they fall on Shabbat but we ALWAYS go. The cousins may come from three countries and dress differently but perceive they are one family. Jennifer told me that her kids went into mourning when their Chassidic cousins returned to Israel. We know that together we are strong and we need desperately each other and we have far more in common than those details that divide us. Sound familiar? This is the story of the Jewish people. We are like five fingers on one hand.
with the punishment of the perpetrators of this desecration. They cannot continue to abuse the system and avoid the consequences of the ripple effect of their insensitivity. One of the basic seven laws of humanity is to set up a system of courts and uphold justice. Israeli police cannot tiptoe around the offenders for fear of Charedi riots. There must be teeth in the punishment of hate crimes for us to hold up our heads up as a Light unto Nations. As the Midrash says, ”Whoever is kind to the cruel will end up being cruel to the kind.” Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet of the UK stated, “We must be intolerant in order to defend tolerance, or unkind in order to defend kindness, or hateful in order to defend what we love. Such ‘acts of terror’ have no place in any democratic society, let alone a Jewish State, whose “ways are kind ways, and all her paths are peace.”
the rare gift of speaking about spiritual subjects close to my heart to students who were attentive and hungry for the information. I enjoyed the chance to hear both the veterans in Jewish music perform in addition to sampling the hot, upcoming talent. I went to amazing lectures, relished in stories from master storytellers and listened in wonderment to a fifty-voice choir that formed over the course of the conference. And every night, from midnight till 3am, the musician insomniacs gathered in a “kumzitz mafia” jam session of outrageous proportions.
this twenty-year odyssey as a Jewish composer. These are the community leaders who have rallied to bring me to their congregations, who cherish my CDs, who share my music with everyone they know. Many of them met me when I was single and have followed my life through my engagement, marriage and rollercoaster experience as the father of three. Scarcely a CAJE meal goes by without my having to break out pictures of the family.
getting invitations to perform out of town. Amazing! This year NewCAJE gave me a taste of new artists Noah Aronson and Max Jared, among others, about whom I will rave and support in their journeys.
that they return is the camaraderie. There is no price tag one can put on belonging to such an esteemed, generous family. Tragically, teachers are usually on the low end of the socio-economic totem pole. The individuals that we empower to bring the newest generations into the fold can barely afford to live in the neighborhoods of the synagogues they serve. CAJE gives these righteous individuals a chance to stand up and be recognized and appreciated. It’s renewing, refreshing and rewarding. Some chastise the organization and say it’s nothing more than Jewish summer camp. But if summer camp is the “great white hope” for our kids, then why can’t the teachers of our students have their moment in the sun?
Debbie’s last official concert was everything that we fans wanted. All the hits, the crowd singing at the top of our lungs, tears aplenty at her epic ballads. Her voice was frail but she still hit the notes. Her humor was spontaneous and spot on and of course her trademark issues with guitar tuning created several classic improvised moments. Our beloved EJ Cohen was there to interpret both of our shows with her flowing, artful bi-lingual sign language. Debbie asked that no one video, photograph or facebook about the show. Just to be present, to be with her. Of course she sang Misheberach for us and then us for her. Little did we know.
I had one of the most uplifting weeks of my life. Such powerful concerts and interactions. Wonderful audiences in New York, New Jersey and St. Louis. I finished this leg of the tour at the General Assembly Conference, the flagship meeting of Jewish Federations from around North America, feeling optimistic and empowered.
Conference, a gathering of 750 black-hatted rabbis and their friends from around the world. In New York my brother Yom Tov and I gave a concert for Chassidim in Boro Park, then on to St. Louis where I worked with three day schools, led a Shabbaton and a concert at a popular outreach synagogue. My policy is to sing for all Jews, wherever they may be, and my personal mitzvah, my Letter in the Torah if you will, is to inspire audiences to be more connected with Israel, each other and their Creator.
Then the terrorism began. A young woman just a few rows behind me stood up and started chanting that the “settlements delegitimize Israel.” She continued to scream while robust African-American guards dragged her a few hundred yards to the back exit. The other four hecklers timed their nefarious attack with every-five-minute precision. The leader of the Jewish people could only stand there in silence and frustration. The crowd attempted to drown out the perpetrators with screams of their own, which only furthered the degree of damage. I felt like my insides were turned to jelly with pain and outrage at each affront. It was bad enough that all decorum was lost. But these were young idealistic Jews who didn’t hesitate to resort to deliver such a “low blow” to the proceedings. I’ve never seen a better excuse to deploy a taser. We can be our own worst enemy.
men on the park bench. (I know, many jokes start like this!) One is reading the Jerusalem Post and he looks over and is shocked to see his friend reading a radical Arab paper. “How can you do that?” he cried. His friend replied, “You read about Jews being persecuted, attacked, assimilated. I read that Jews own the banks, control the media and rule the world!” The lesson I came away with last week is that in the macro sense we are being brow beaten in the media, face intense threats from our neighbors and are paralyzed with hopelessness on many fronts. In the micro realm, however, there is room for celebration. Amazing new organizations are galvanizing young Jews. Witness the strength of the internet to unite and inform. Birthright, Ramah, Aish, Chabad, Jewlicious, PJ Library, NFTY, Nefesh B’Nefesh. Want to regain the feeling that anything is possible for the Jewish people? Don’t watch CNN or read the New York or LA Times. Don’t get your online news from AP and Reuters. Instead, try researching the Jewish Community Heroes, the accomplishments of the Joint Distribution Committee, IDF field hospitals, Tomchai Shabbas, JLTV, Israeli High Tech.
