Rabbi Eleanor Steinman

That very handsome man in my uncle Alan.  To the world he’s better known as, Rear Admiral (ret.) Alan M. Steinman, MD.  Okay, I added on the MD but he is a doctor!  My uncle is an amazing person.  Here are a few reasons why (and my other uncles are amazing, too).

Alan is a retired officer of the United States Coast Guard and the Public Health Service.  He worked in a variety of locations as a flight surgeon and became one of the leading experts in the world on hypothermia.  He was the equivalent to the Surgeon General for the Coast Guard during his career and served in a variety of capacities.  One of the most notable roles Alan held was his position as Chief of Wellness for the Coast Guard in which he oversaw a variety of programs.  After the first Gulf War and Uncle Alan’s retirement he was appointed to the Presidential Special Oversight Board for Department of Defense Investigations of Gulf-War Chemical and Biological Incidents, where he served under Senator Warren Rudman (R-NH) as the chief medical advisor for the Board from July, 1998 to January, 2001.  He has a really impressive biography.  You can read it here.

My uncle Alan also attended every graduation ceremony I ever had.  High school, Brandeis, my M.A.H.L. and my rabbinic ordination, he was always there cheering me on.  Uncle Alan also created a Steinman family tradition, the elevator dance.  I cannot disclose this dance it is truly something that must be witnessed.  As the oldest niece it has been my familial duty to ensure that each of my cousins have learned and perform the elevator dance.  No there will be no videos either.

When Uncle Alan retired from the Coast Guard my dad went in support.  We all wished we could be there in support but school was calling.

Uncle Alan also is a gay man.  He was unable to come out publicly and even privately to our family because of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” a 1993 law established by Executive Order of President Clinton.  After a highly decorated military career, Alan couldn’t afford to be discharged from the Coast Guard in this manner.  Five separate times federal courts have upheld DADT.

Upon his retirement from the Coast Guard, Alan was able to come out to his family.  In 2003, the 10th anniversary of DADT, Alan became the highest ranking military officer to self-identify as gay.  He has appeared widely in a variety of venues about the problems of DADT and the tremendous negative effects it has on the military, service members, and our entire country.

Last night in his State of the Union address, President Obama used 38 words to address DADT.  He said, “This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are, it’s the right thing to do.”  This was a nod to the cause and now it is time for us to raise our voices.  You can visit the SLDN and HRC for more information.

You can rest assured that I will use this blog to let you know when it is time to phone congress and write faxes and emails.  I hope that you can see from take away from this post that DADT doesn’t just effect ‘people’ in some abstract way.  I am talking about people who want to serve their country and continue to be denied the opportunity.  It is discriminatory.  It is wrong.  It cannot be tolerated any longer.  No person should have to wait to come out to their family because they are serving in the armed forces.

It would be wonderful if one day I could talk about my uncle Alan and could talk about all the work he needed to do to end discrimination as part of a history lesson. Let’s all work together to make that day come sooner.

Oh and most important, I love you Uncle Alan!

So I said yesterday that I was going to post another blog that included some Torah.  You might notice no such post was written.  Dear reader, I am sorry.  I said I was going to do something and I didn’t do it.  Forgive me.

This week we are reading Parshat Beshallach as I mentioned yesterday.  As my friend almost Rabbi Noam Katz taught me this week, we have the very first recorded song session in the Torah.  As the people of Israel crossed the Sea of Reeds and made their way safely to the other side Miriam, Aaron’s sister, leads the women in song and dance.  What do you think the song sounded like?

P.S. You should also buy Noam’s new CD.

So I tried Tuesdays are for Torah a few weeks ago and yesterday was just a fantastically busy day so I didn’t get a chance to post something.  It was a good day though.

I want to encourage you loyal readers to do something this week.  This week is Shabbat Shirah.  It is the special Shabbat when we read the story of the departure from Egypt and the people cross the Sea of Reeds.  When we read these words some of them are in a special tune to highlight the unique importance of this passage.  At Temple Sinai this week we’re doing a very special, music-filled service.  Services begin at 10am.  Both the youth and congregational choirs will be participating, too.  If you’re in Toronto you should come.  There will be babysitting for the youngest members.

There will be another blog post today.

As hopefully you know, there is presently a trial taking place in San Francisco, Perry vs. Schwarzenegger.  Here is a very thorough article about it from the New Yorker.  I hope that many of you, dear readers, are already following the trial on twitter at hash tag, #prop8 and if you aren’t that you might start now because it is extremely important.  If twitter isn’t your thing, you can also check NCLR for a daily update.  Oh and if you aren’t convinced why anyone should care, here‘s a great article.

I was away last week on a little family holiday to Puerto Rico.  I’m back now and ready for action.  Well once I do laundry and catch up on mail, email and all of those other things that seem to accumulate whilst away.  How is it that when one goes away on vacation it feels like s/he needs a vacation from vacation?

A few days ago, the world lost a hero. Miep Gies died.  Her obituary from the New York Times is here.

After the Bible, The Diary of Anne Frank is the most published book in the world (no you shouldn’t quote me on this).  Miep Gies is the person in the diary who reminds all of humanity of the power of one person to save the world.  When we tell of the horrors of the holocaust, all to often the tales of the Righteous Gentiles are not part of the narrative.

When you first heard of Miep Gies, what were your impressions?

May the memory of the righteous always be for a blessing…

My thoughts are with the people of Haiti who are now suffering with the aftermath of a devastating earthquake.  Reports coming out of the region are of devastation of the capital, Port-au-Prince.  Death tolls are on the rise.

The entire infrastructure of Haiti’s fragile government is in ruins.  The parliament building has collapsed, as have schools and hospitals.  UN officials have been killed, and the Catholic Church is reporting the death of priests.

The most urgent need is for money to supply the organizations on the ground doing the aid work with the supplies that they need.  There are many ways to channel money.  AJWS has a good track record of getting money to the right places in earlier disaster situations.  It is where I will be giving my donations.

This week we read the second Torah portion from Exodus.  Because I was away last week, I didn’t get to write much.  To begin this week, here is something from the URJ and Rabbi Laura Geller I found thought provoking, interesting, and right on the money.

It happened again this week–this time at the gym. Just as I was finishing my workout, someone called to me:
“You’re Rabbi Geller, right?”
“Right.”
“You know what, rabbi? I don’t believe in God.”

It is hard to know how to respond when that happens. Usually I mumble about giving me a call to discuss it. Other times, when I have more time, I ask the person to describe the “god” he or she doesn’t believe in.
Nine times out of ten it is the god that the person first met as a child, the one who looks like an old man with a beard who lives somewhere in the sky and knows if you’ve been bad or good. The person is usually surprised when I say: “You know, I don’t believe in that ‘god’ either.”
The more we talk, the more the person shares how for him, coming to synagogue only reinforces that image of a god. Even our prayer book, gender neutral as it is, seems to support the image of a powerful ruler, delivering us from oppressors and saving us from tyrants. While the words don’t actually say it, this god looks like a king or a powerful father.
I don’t believe in that god either.
This week’s Torah portion begins: “God spoke to Moses . . . . ‘I am the Eternal. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make myself known to them by My name YHVH.’ ”
Here, in the middle of the famous story of Moses and Pharaoh and the plagues is a theological discussion about God’s names. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have one name for God and Moses has another. But what is even more surprising is the fact that that the name YHVH had already been known to Abraham (Genesis 15:7) and Jacob (28:13).
Akedat Yitzchak, cited in Nechama Leibowitz, Studies in Shemot ([Jerusalem: World Zionist Organization, 1981], p.133), explains: “From this it emerges that the text is a pointer not to God’s name but to God’s essence.” In other words, though this name of God had already been revealed to the patriarchs; what is new is the particular experience of God that the name connotes. For Rashi, that experience is of a God who fulfills promises, and it was only with Moses that God fulfilled the promise to redeem the people and bring us to the land of Canaan (Rashi on Exodus 6:2).
Cassuto, in his commentary to Exodus (cited in Studies in Shemot, p.139) suggests that El Shaddai is the God we experience in nature. No one is exactly sure what shaddai means: perhaps “mountains,” perhaps “breasts.” Could El Shaddai be a hint at a feminine description of God? (see The Torah: A Women’s Commentary [New York: URJ Press, 2008] p. 333). Some read the word as a play on El sh’ dai, “the God who is Enough” (see The Chumash, edited by Nosson Scherman [Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications, ArtScroll Series, 1993], p. 319).
The question of God’s name was central in last week’s Torah portion as well. Moses noticed a bush that was burning without being burned up. He stopped, turned around and paid attention (Exodus 3:3). How many others had passed that bush but hadn’t turned to look? We don’t know. We only know that Moses paid attention.
So Moses found God in the Burning Bush. And when Moses asked God to tell him His name, God replied “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh; I will be what I will be” (3:13-14). Ehyeh is the future tense of the verb, to be.
So what is the name YHVH? It seems to be a version of the present tense. It seems to mean: “IS.”
To say God is “IS-ness” is a little different from saying that god is that old man in the sky with the beard.
Imagine how YHVH might be pronounced if we actually pronounced it? It is all sounds of breathing, breathing in, and breathing out. Imagine that one of God’s names is the sound of breathing, and then ask yourself: “How many times today have I said God’s name?”
How many times have you stopped and noticed? The psalmist says: “With every breath, we praise God” (Psalm 150:6).
The challenge is to pay attention, to notice that God is as much a part of us as breathing and as necessary as our own breath.
God appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in one way and to Moses in another. The second Torah portion in the book called “Names” (Sh’mot) reminds us that there is one deity with many different names.
Think about the “god” you don’t believe in. Is it that you don’t believe in God or is it that you are stuck on one particular name, one particular metaphor that doesn’t name your experience of God? Might there be a different metaphor, another name that opens up the possibility of encounter with a power grander than yourself, with a web that can connect every person to every other person?
Here are some others: God is the engine that powers the universe and God is the gas in the engine; God is the Internet server that links us all together and the universe is the hardware; God is the ocean and we are the waves.
We know how God appeared to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses because they were willing to notice. Are we paying enough attention to notice how God can appear to us?

Well loyal reader, thank you for not abandoning me completely.  After a wonderful time on vacation, as well as a fantastic PARR conference in Palm Springs (not necessarily in that order) I have returned to Toronto.  I had to time to catch up with old friends, see some family, make some new friends and do some great learning while I was away.  During the PARR conference Mark Pelavin from the RAC was the scholar-in-residence.  He raises some great ideas, provided new tools, and I’m feeling even more ready to come home and get to work.

I am taking a few days off and heading out-of-town.  When I return to the blogosphere, time permitting, I will be at a rabbinic conference in Palm Springs.

Thanks, loyal readers and happy 2010!