The lovely month of May

By Rabbi Julie Wolkoff. D.Min.

In March, I wrote about making my own perfume. I’ve been wearing that spicy blend for the past two months, and I love it. But this month I’m not reaching for spice, instead I crave floral scents. Driving home a few weeks ago, the world was brown and drab.

Walking through that world, I can’t remember any particular scents. But suddenly – almost overnight – it seems, the drab brown surroundings changed to technicolor. It really felt like walking out of Kansas and into Oz. The colors of spring – neon green buds on the trees, the vibrant yellow of forsythia, the hot pink, light pink, and white of blooming trees, and the multicolored tulips – all screamed out: “Look at me!” And my nose started taking notice as well.

Last week I went to one of the local schools to vote. The trees lining the walk were covered in white blossoms and the mulch around them carried a fungal note. I walked in and didn’t think about my vote. Instead I sniffed and sniffed and thought – mushrooms.

Monday night I stopped at a local farm stand to see what I could find for my dinner. I paused on my way in to look at the pots of herbs. It seemed too early to plant basil or mint; growing up in the upper Midwest, you never planted before Memorial Day. Still, there’s no food smell more enticing to me than basil and I was strongly tempted to start a garden right there and then.

When I walked into the farm stand, I wasn’t consciously thinking about seasonal food. I was thinking about buying something prepared. That is, until I saw the ramps and the fiddlehead ferns. Four days later, after reveling in wild mushroom linguini with olive oil, mushrooms, fiddlehead ferns and ramps, my kitchen still reeks of ramps. Driving the back roads for work, walking through my neighborhood, even going to the cemetery for a funeral, it is so easy to say 100 blessings on a day in May. It may seem too easy, but thinking of blessings helps me notice more than just the colors and scents. I see the way the blossoming trees line the busy shop-filled streets of a nearby town. I realize that the close-to-dying tree in my front yard has more life left in it than I had imagined. I think of so many family and friends who have May birthdays and I want to fill their homes with flowers and sweet scents.

In case the drab colors of the late winter and early spring masked my blessings, the burst of colors of May brings them back to me. Every day I remind myself to look, to feel, to smell. Every day I remember that these colors, these smells, are fleeting. The neon green will change to a light green, to dark green, and finally to yellow or red. The lilies of the valley and lilacs will remain fragrant only in memory and in perfume. The glorious spectacle in my front yard will once again be a tree that is dying. But I will hold the sights and scents of this month in my heart and I will remember that they will return when the year cycles around and comes back to spring.

There’s still life in this tree.

 

 

Rabbi Julie Wolkoff, D.Min., CT, is a hospice chaplain in Massachusetts and a past co-president of the WRN. Find her at: http://fabricfiber.wordpress.com/

Freedom’s Smell

By Rabbi Julie Wolkoff. D.Min.

Bottling my perfume.

Last month, on vacation, I spent a morning taking a perfume class. I  had looked forward to this for over a year. The experience was everything I hoped it would be. It was creative, fun and educational. It was challenging – there were so many oils to chose from and so many scents to sample in the process. When the morning was over, I had a bottle of my own perfume – a special, spicy fragrance.

Part of the challenge of making my own fragrance was choosing the premixed base to begin with. The images they evoked for me when I sniffed them were varied and surprising. One base reminded me of old bureau drawers. It wasn’t musty but it had that “furniture that has been in the family forever” scent. Another one made me think of hummingbirds. This was a light sugary citrus smell, and I could just imagine birds flittering around in response to it.

My final product, the one I bottled and brought home, included cranberry. Did I chose that scent because it is the state berry of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and very familiar to me? Do we respond more strongly to fragrances that relate to where we live or where we grow up?

As I reflected on my experience, it occurred to me that three of the fragrances I had played with that morning – rose, almond, and cinnamon – are smells that I associate with Passover. I joke that I won’t buy Passover foods until after Purim, but it seems that once Purim has come and gone I also begin to think of Passover scents. The rose reminded me of the rosewater in the pistachio macaroons I make each year. The almond carried the memory of almond macaroons and the cinnamon reminded me of the charoset.

And then I began to wonder – I know what Passover smells like, but what is the smell of freedom? Is it the combination of scents associated with the places we vacation – pine trees and woodsmoke for skiers; salt water and sunscreen for those of us who go to the beach? Is it the smell of fresh laundry or a clean room? Is it a scent that makes us feel safe, secure, and protected? What does freedom smell like?

The Israelites wandering in the desert complained that they missed the food of Egypt. Studies show that our sense of smell is an intrinsic part of how we taste food. Did the Israelites also miss the scents of Egypt? The Torah and Midrash speak of the taste of the manna that the Israelites ate in the desert. We learn that its taste changed according to the desires of the eater but the only reference to the smell is that the leftover manna stank. Perhaps for the Israelites who left Egypt the smell of freedom was the smell of rotted manna. For them freedom’s smell did not evoke positive memories. Maybe the 40 years of wandering were necessary not just for  a new generation that did not experience slavery but for a generation for whom freedom had a positive scent.

May we all be blessed this Passover with scents that evoke happy memories, create connections to our past, and remind us of the gift of freedom.

 

(With thanks to John and Cyndi Berglund and Tijon – for a fantastic vacation experience and for giving me so much to think about.)

 

Rabbi Julie Wolkoff, D.Min, CT, is a hospice chaplain in Massachusetts and a past co-president of the WRN. Find her at: http://fabricfiber.wordpress.com/

משנכנס אדר מרבין בשמחה

It’s Adar — Be Happy!

People who know me well know that Purim is one of my favorite holidays. As a congregational rabbi I used to decorate the sanctuary for Purim with balloons, crepe paper, banners, and more. I had puppets and masks for the different characters in the Megillah reading and baskets of masks and noise makers. It was a lot of work and a lot of fun, but it was just a single evening’s service.

Then I moved into the day school world. As a day school rabbi I marked every Rosh Hodesh with a co-worker, greeting the students with treats as the day began. But for Adar we outdid ourselves. In jester hats and brightly colored wigs, with noise makers in hand, we began the day and the month in a riot of noisy activity. I especially enjoyed the students I referred to as “The Mishenichnas Adar singers.” As my co-worker and I created a happy ruckus, they danced and sang behind us. We pulled out our costume boxes and added to them.

One of the things I love about the idea of increasing joy is that there are no specific instructions on how to do it. Each of us has the opportunity in Adar to do things that are joyous for ourselves.

When I was a congregational rabbi and a day school rabbi, I focused on creating joy with and for my community. Whether through special programs, or candy, or wigs, or masks, or hats, or noisemakers, I tried to create an “Adar spirit.” Since Adar falls during the doldrums of winter (at least in the places that I have lived,) it helps brighten up the days until spring finally comes.

In recent years it has become even more for me important to increase my joy in Adar. As a hospice chaplain I am reminded every day to seize moments and celebrate even the little things in life. As a rabbi who works outside the Jewish community, if I don’t create Adar joy there is no one who will do it for me. So when Adar comes, I increase joy in a big way through lots of small actions. I change my facebook photo to a funny one. I wear sparkly earrings and mascara. I put feathers in my hair. I tell more jokes. I look for every opportunity to bring joy into my day and into the days of the people I meet at work.

Last year both Rosh Hodesh Adar and Purim fell on our hospice interdisciplinary team days.

I brought bubbles and noisemakers and toys. And I convinced my mostly non-Jewish coworkers to come in costume on Purim and bring food for a Purim seudah. My Indian co-workers wore beautiful saris. Our priest came dressed as a priest. We had a princess, an Elmo, a dog with angel wings, and masks and beads for those without costumes. We had a great time.

This year Adar enters on the heels of more than 2 feet of snow. After shoveling and shoveling and shoveling, I can’t wait to increase my joy. I have the sparkles and glitter and feathers. Bring on Adar – I’m ready!

My bags are packed . . .

By Rabbi Julie Wolkoff. D.Min.

I love the photograph on the top of of this blog. It’s from May 2011, the most recent WRN conference. Each time I see it, I think of my colleagues and the times we have shared with each other over the years. For me, the WRN is the professional organization whose conference is the one that is not-to-be-missed. I have missed only one over the years and I can’t remember or imagine what was important enough to take its place.

This may sound like hyperbole, but its not. I has been almost 18 years since I was a congregational rabbi. Several rabbinic careers later, I am a rabbi working in the non-Jewish world. In short – no convention allowance and conference time counts as vacation days. My time off is precious to me and I don’t give it up lightly, but I can’t imagine not taking the days off for the WRN.

Over the years the WRN conference has been the place where colleagues have shared their most personal stories. It’s where we’ve struggled and, at times, argued over our rabbinates, our relationships with women rabbis in other movements (and with each other,) and with how we divided our time and tried to balance it between self, family, job and life in general. It’s been the place where we’ve maintained connections begun in rabbinic school and where we’ve grown new connections.

WRN conferences over the years have seen laughter and tears. More than once I have come home with a new vision for my rabbinate. It was for a WRN conference that I first took the Myer Briggs Type Indicator. I came away with a clearer understanding of why some parts of congregational life were easier for me than others and a deeper appreciation for other parts that challenged me and helped me grow.

I could go on and on about my feelings for the WRN, but instead I’ll share another photo. If the picture at the top of the blog is a small snapshot of who we are now, this one is one of who women rabbis were then:

I think it’s it’s 1980 (and if it’s not, I know one of my colleagues will post a comment and correct my date.) A historian or anthropologist could have a field day with this photo. There are the obvious differences: this one is black and white and our group photos now are in color; we’re more formally dressed – no sign of the jeans and t-shirts (and this year the WRN fleece PJ pants) that many of us wear in the newer photos; there are no babies or young children in this photo. And there are more subtle differences: if I’m correct on the year, the students outnumber the ordained rabbis in this picture; and my personal favorite memory – you couldn’t sit in the front row unless you were wearing a skirt!

But one thing is the same – both photos contain some of my dearest friends and both are filled with women who mean the world to me.

I’m counting the minutes until we see each other in Memphis. My bag is packed (almost) and I can’t wait to spend time with my beloved colleagues.

Rabbi Julie Wolkoff, D.Min, CT, is a hospice chaplain in Massachusetts and a past co-president of the WRN. Find her at: http://fabricfiber.wordpress.com/

“Buy. Buy. Buy.” – Not.

By Rabbi Julie Wolkoff. D.Min.        

     For the past several weeks my mailboxes, both virtual and real, have been overflowing with messages urging me to “buy, buy, buy.” As a result, I have been spending a lot of time hitting “delete, delete, delete” and tossing torn envelopes and catalogs into the recycle bag to take to the town dump. I will admit to succumbing to some of the messages. There were some things I had wanted that were now on sale or came with free shipping. But mostly I’ve deleted and tossed. As I take my bags to the dump, I wonder if the rising numbers on the “recycle thermometer” reflect the seasonal increase in mail or are just the town catching up on numbers as the end of the year nears.

     The mail that doesn’t ask me to buy, asks me to “give.” Some of these are also easy to delete. There are the organizations I gave to in order to honor a bar or bat mitzvah, the ones that got my name from someone else, and organizations that I just don’t support. There is a smaller pile of organizations I support or are on my “want to donate to” list.

     All this mail means just one thing – the holiday season is upon us. If the mail didn’t tell me, the blogs I follow would. I read the concerns of parents – Jewish and Christian – who struggle to teach their children the meaning of their holidays. They write and talk and share strategies to move beyond “buy” and “gimme” and “I want” to the deeper teachings of their faith. They talk about creating memories and family traditions. They talk about giving to others – reflecting on the needs of so many who don’t have the resources to buy and buy.

     It’s not always easy to balance the urge to give our family members and friends something special, something they want, something they will always remember against our desire to make our holidays meaningful in their own right. But as I look at my friends blogs and facebook postings, I don’t see mention of “stuff.” I see pictures of candles, dreidles and latkes. I see families gathering together to make and share memories. I see smiling faces and love shared from generation to generation.

     And as always at this season, I think of my favorite Hanukah memory. Every year my grandfather, Jonas, of blessed memory, would go to the bank before Hanukah and get crisp new dollar bills. He would get 24 small cards, eight each for my brother, for my sister and for me. He would put one dollar in most of the envelopes, but some envelopes would have two or three bills. Each night of Hanukah we got to choose one of our envelopes to open. 

     We gave a lot of time to choosing the envelope to open. We would flip through them with serious thought. We knew that most envelopes had just one crisp new dollar. We knew that all three of us would end the holiday with the same amount of money. If one of us had already gotten two or three dollars we knew that we would find an envelope with two or three dollars before the holiday was over. But the choice of the night’s envelope was a serious one. As an adult I can appreciate the time and effort Jonas went to each year to make a not very large amount of money into a momentous gift.

     If you were to ask me, I would tell you that I can’t remember any presents I got on Hanukah. But I remember the joy each night of gathering with my family to light the Hanukah menorah and the excitement of opening an envelope and finding a dollar.

     At this season when so much of what we read urges us to “buy, buy, buy,” may we all find ways to move beyond the commercial messages and find ways to create lasting memories – memories of family, of love, and of special traditions.

     Happy Hanukah!

Rabbi Julie Wolkoff, D.Min, CT, is a hospice chaplain in Massachusetts. Find her at: http://fabricfiber.wordpress.com/

Teaching the Fifth Grade

By Rabbi Julie Wolkoff. D.Min.

I enjoy teaching. These days, I teach nurses, social workers, and case managers. I facilitate bereavement groups and speak to caregiver support groups. It’s different from what I used to do. I used to teach Confirmation and Bar and Bat Mitzvah classes. I taught adult education, religious school and spent a number of years teaching in day school.

Much as I like what I do now, I do miss teaching Jewish texts and traditions. I love it when I run into or hear from former students. They tell me about their current lives and some are doing exactly what I would have expected; exactly what they said they would be doing as adults. Others continue to surprise me with their choices.

But if you ask me what kind of teaching I like (or liked) the best, with all due respect to all my former students, I would have to say it was the years I spent teaching fifth grade religious school. I am grateful to a congregation and educator willing to hire an under-employed rabbi finishing her doctorate to teach in the religious school. More than just a help paying my bills, it provided needed balance to my days as my doctoral work was with Jewish nursing home residents.

One of the best things about teaching religious school was that students in the fifth grade are wonderfully betwixt and between. They are just moving beyond concrete thinking, but still need hands-on activities. They are direct and very “here and now.” They love to talk – about their families, their friends and their ideas of how the world works. They can’t wait to share their stories. They are willing to try things, even things that might seem silly. They go along when their teacher changes things “on the fly,” but they like having the planned schedule on the board and knowing where the class is going. The boys and girls in my classes also liked to be in groups together for activates. There was no concern about “cooties” and they weren’t yet interested in dating each other.

The fifth grade curriculum was Jewish holidays and life cycle. You might think that a rabbi knows all about these subjects and would have no problem teaching them. I’m sure that’s what I thought before I ended up in the classroom. They had a lot to teach me.

Some of my more memorable moments with them include:

• Bringing in willows (cut from the tree on my Conservative colleague’s lawn) on Hoshanah Rabbah. Marching around the classroom beating them against the floor, the desks and each other. (A first, and I’m sure a last as well, in this Reform congregation.) And I’m certain I didn’t apologize enough to the custodial staff for the mess we made.
• The afternoon class when we had the first noticeable snowfall. My students were far more interested in watching the snow than in learning Hebrew. I asked if they had had the opportunity yet to say shechecheyanu over the snow yet. They said “no.” One of the hard and fast rules was that your class did not go outside during religious school. I took them out. We went though the classroom door to the congregation’s lawn. We ran around in the falling snow. And we gathered together and said shechecheyanu.
• Teaching about Hanukkah. Me: “Hanukkah is a minor holiday . . .” My students: But Rabbi, it’s 8 days!” Me: “Hanukkah is a minor holiday that lasts for 8 days . . .” My students: But Rabbi, we get PRESENTS!!”
• When a student taught me why brides and grooms don’t go to the mikveh together before the wedding. (I thought it had something to do with modesty. What do I know?)  “Because if a girl saw a boy naked before the wedding, she wouldn’t go through with it.”
• Sitting in a circle learning to bentsh gomel. A student recited the blessing. We all read the response. Then the next student said the blessing and we responded. We did it until everyone had had the chance to say gomel.

I have many other memories of those classes. My time with the fifth grade stood me in good stead a few years later when I went to work at a Jewish day school. It was in religious school that I learned to write report cards and how to schedule a day balancing classroom learning with experiential activities. My fifth graders taught me to expect the unexpected in the classroom. They taught me that when you ask an open-ended question you get all kinds of answers, each of which could take the lesson in a different direction. They taught me that when students think they have distracted you and taken you off your lesson plan, you have the opportunity to add all kinds of teachings into the day and they will listen and ask more questions.

They taught me that the rabbis of the Talmud must have also taught fifth grade.

“Much have I learned from my teachers, more from my colleagues but most of all from my students.” (Taanit 7a)

Rabbi Julie Wolkoff, D.Min, CT, is a hospice chaplain in Massachusetts. Find her at: http://fabricfiber.wordpress.com/

#BlogElul 23 – Awakening

By Rabbi Julie Wolkoff

I am taking today’s theme from our colleague Rabbi Phyllis Sommer and her #BlogElul topics.

I drive a lot in my job. As much as I try to plan my days so that I visit places and patients who are geographically close to one another, it only takes one crisis, one new patient, one dying patient to make me throw my carefully planned schedule away, turn the car around and go off in the opposite direction. When you drive a lot, there are days when you reach your destination with little to no memory of how you got there.

I do notice traffic, but some days I have a podcast or book on cd playing while I drive and the miles fly by as I am caught up in the words and stories. These are the days where I get to where I’m going with no sense of how much time has passed. It’s not always a bad thing. I had an on-call day this past weekend when I drove 129 miles. Without something compelling to listen to, the day would have been interminable.

But when you drive on “auto-pilot” you miss many wonderful things. You may be awake to the traffic and to the words coming through the car’s speakers, but are you awake to the world around you? This weekend, as I drove to my on-call visits, I tried to be awake to the world I drove through.

I saw the trees beginning to change color. The roads I drove don’t look like autumn yet, but there are hints that it is not far away. I saw two different high schools holding car wash fundraisers. I passed several farm stands I didn’t know existed and discovered an orchard just a few miles from my house on a road I don’t normally travel. I saw flowers grown tall and raggedy, but bright with pinks and yellows and purples. I saw geese who seemed to think that they owned the road (and I was not stupid enough to challenge them.) I saw a rabbit. I saw ponds and rivers and the ocean.

It’s easy to miss all this when I drive, but I try to be aware of the world beyond the road, beyond my windshield. Especially in Elul, as we rush toward the Holy Days, I want to see – really see – the world. I want to reawaken to the awe and wonder that creation evokes. Next week, as I sit in the pews of the congregation listening to the music of Yom Tov and reflecting on the words of the mahzor, I want to be awake to the world, as once again we come together to celebrate its birth.

Rabbi Julie Wolkoff, D.Min, CT, is a hospice chaplain in Massachusetts. Find her at: http://fabricfiber.wordpress.com/

Scars

By Rabbi Julie Wolkoff

I was rushing out of my house on the way to the gym a few weeks ago when – I still don’t know. Did my foot slip out of my shoe? My shoe catch on the edge of the steps? My shoe get tangled in the cuff of my pants? Whatever happened, I know the result. I took a tumble down my side stairs. My leg hit the edge of one of the stone steps and my time in the gym was replaced by a visit to the emergency room.

As the doctor finished stitching up my leg (5 stitches in the “mattress stitch“) we talked about when the stitches would come out. They were going to stay in a few days longer than she recommended, as I was going out of town. “Not a problem,” she said, “except it will probably leave a bigger scar.” “I’m 56,” I replied. “I don’t care about a scar.”

It seems to me that when you reach my age, everyone has scars. Some of them are from unexpected, inadvertent happenings (like falling down the stairs.) Some are accidental. Some are from medical procedures. Some scars are major ones that we can’t avoid seeing. Some are so faint that we barely remember how we got them. Some represent victories or joyous moments while others reflect times of fear and challenge. And these are just the scars we can see.

Most of us carry hidden scars. The scar may be from lost love. Unfulfilled dreams. Jobs lost or never offered. Adventures we were to fearful to try. Risks we took that did not turn out the way we expected them to. Our hidden scars may reflect the expectations we had of how our life was going to unfold in contrast to the way it did. These are the scars that we don’t see; the ones that don’t reveal themselves to others.

Both the obvious scars and the hidden ones may be sensitive. We don’t always want to tell our stories. We may have told them enough times. We may have moved on and don’t want to pull the metaphorical scabs off. Even old wounds can continue to  be painful if we poke or pry at them. They can reflect the best or the worst of us – and sometimes both at the same time.

Some people define themselves by the scars they carry. Others barely pay attention to them. They may not be as noticeable as the one on my leg is right now, but we all have them.

My new scar and the soreness that is still there from the bruising are pretty much the grown-up equivalent of having a skinned knee. I know that it could have been much worse. I feel blessed that my fall resulted in such a minor injury. I am grateful to have health insurance, so the choice to go to the ER for treatment was not one that carried major financial implications. And despite the jokes that some of my friends have made about my accident being “proof that exercise is unhealthy,” I am thankful to be back in the gym.

My doctor may have been concerned about my scar, but I know that this is not a scar I will carry in my soul. And I realize that my words to her were not quite right. There are scars I care about. But this scar is not one of them.

 

Rabbi Julie Wolkoff, D.Min, CT, is a hospice chaplain in Massachusetts. Find her at: http://fabricfiber.wordpress.com/

 

What I Didn’t Learn in Rabbinic School

by Rabbi Julie Wolkoff

When I was a congregational rabbi, I used to think I should make a list of all the things I didn’t learn in rabbinic school. The list would cover the unexpected, unplanned, “who woulda thunk it” things that popped up in the course of my work. It would include all those events, activities, and comments I was not prepared for, the ones that blindsided me.

Eventually I figured out that no school could prepare you for the unexpected other than the school of experience. And no matter how many stories I heard from friends and colleagues about the things they weren’t prepared for, they never truly prepared me for unusual events when they occurred in my rabbinate.

I don’t worry so much anymore about things I’m not prepared for. I’ve become skilled at taking a deep breath and listening, activities that usually point me in the right direction. I’ve learned to pay attention to how I am feeling and reacting to a situation, taking a mental step back before jumping in. Sometimes all this helps. Other times I’m not so sure.

Last week I was meeting a colleague for coffee. We were both at Starbucks – just not the same Starbucks. As I was waiting, a woman came up to me and asked about what was on my head – my kipah. I answered her question and she followed it with other questions and comments about things in the community that, “as a rabbi you certainly should know about.” It quickly became clear to me that her reality and mine were not the same.

“Oh my,” I thought. “I’m wearing a kipah and a name badge that says “Rabbi” in big, bold print. This is like the early days of my rabbinate, when there were few women rabbis and lots of us felt we had to be hyper-aware of how we presented ourselves because our actions would reflect on all women rabbis. My actions in this encounter may give someone, for good or ill, a picture of how rabbis act.”

“I’m in a public place. I feel safe. All I need to do is be a ‘non-anxious presence’ as I learned from the work of Edwin Friedman.”

“Damn. Why did I tell my colleague to meet me at this Starbucks. No one ever notices it and every time I try to meet someone here, they end up at a different Starbucks.”

So I took a deep breath, listened, and politely asked questions. I agreed that this certainly sounded like something I should know more about. And when she gave me her name and spelled it so I could Google her and find out more about her truth, I wrote it down.

Later, after she had gone and I was waiting for my iced tea, a young woman came up and complimented me on how I had handled the situation. She told me that watching the interaction had given her ideas on what to do and how to respond in similar situations.

In retrospect, I realize that in many ways I am now prepared for the unexpected, the unplanned, the “who woulda thunk its” and, yes, the differing realities. My day-to-day work has filled the gaps that no educational program could. Thirty years in the rabbinate provides the experience and the perspective. I no longer feel the need to make a list of the things I didn’t learn in school. Instead my list is one of the unpredictable, unforeseen, surprising encounters that keep my work ever new and constantly stimulating.

Rabbi Julie Wolkoff, D.Min, CT, is a hospice chaplain in Masachusetts. Find her at: http://fabricfiber.wordpress.com/