IS LIFE RANDOM OR CONNECTED?

Here's a mystery for you to ponder:

On May 22nd at Ahavat Torah Congregation in Brentwood/Westwood, there was an extremely full sanctuary because three fascinating women were having an Adult Bat Mitzvah. All of these three diverse women were extremely articulate and inspiring about their complicated and non-linear spiritual path in life that resulted in their mature decision to explore their Jewishness more deeply.

One of the women, Laurel Gord, said something which has spun my brain around and caused me to wonder what is random and what is connected in the way things happen in this world. Here's what she explained:

Like many modern Jews, Laurel was raised in a household where her one Jewish parent emphasized the importance of repairing the world but this parent was very skeptical about religion or belief. So Laurel became a helping professional and volunteer working for many years on numerous heartfelt social issues, but she stayed away from temples or synagogues for the most part.

Then a few years ago when Laurel had just begun to start learning more about Judaism, she was talking with a Sufi Muslim friend named Noor-Malika Chishti at an Interfaith event. When Noor-Malika heard that Laurel hadn't yet found a congregation or a rabbi that felt comfortable to her, she decided to tell Laurel about the "wonderful and welcoming Jewish congregation that shares the same building on Saturdays with a church group that worships on Sundays and with a Sufi Muslim Masalah that meets there weekly on a different day as well."

That one informal conversation between a compassionate Sufi Muslim woman and a compassionate secular Jewish-by-birth woman resulted in Laurel showing up a while later for the 9 am Saturday Mussar (ethics) class at Ahavat Torah. Then Laurel found that she enjoyed the singing and the warmth at the weekly Shabbat services. Eventually she became interested in studying with Rabbi Miriam Hamrell and the congregation's in-house Bat Mitzvah tutor Rena Jaffe to prepare for an extremely empowering and life-affirming Adult Bat Mitzvah.

As they say in Yiddish, "Go figure." If you connect the dots, you will find that Noor-Malika has been in a "Cousins Club" dialogue of Jewish women and Muslim women for the past 8 years with a number of remarkable women who belong to Ahavat Torah, including Jean Katz, Vivian Gold, Linda Schorin, Rinat Amir, Shayna Lester, and Rabbi Miriam Hamrell. The women in the "Cousins Club" mostly thought they were building bridges for peace and mutual understanding. Probably no one imagined that the Jewish-Muslim Women's Dialogue would result in a referral for a wonderful new member for the congregation.

Laurel's spiritual journey to reclaim her Jewishness and the unexpected match-making by Noor-Malika got me thinking and wondering--what key events in our lives are random coincidence and what key events are a holy moment of beshert ("meant to be") that mysteriously connects us to some awesome higher energies? What is "accidental" and what is part of a bigger picture that we humans can't fully fathom?

AN ENTHUSIASTIC CONVERSATION

Laurel's story of how she found her way to a congregation and a rabbi that she grew to love, caused me to remember the moment when I first heard about Ahavat Torah. In the summer of 2004, I was giving a workshop to a group of Jewish adults about my recent book "When Difficult Relatives Happen to Good People." Two of the people attending the workshop told me enthusiastically during the snacks portion of the event, "Hey, there's this relatively new congregation called Ahavat Torah that has an extremely warm and approachable Rabbi, terrific music, some great classes and celebrations, along with a very warm, creative membership and not a lot of egos."

A few weeks later my wife Linda and I decided to sample one of the congregation's events that was being held at the Rabbi's home. We were amazed at how participatory, unpretentious, welcoming, and deep in wisdom the event was. A few weeks later we began attending High Holyday services and Shabbat services with this new congregation and eventually we became members.

I sometimes stop and wonder, "What if those two people hadn't told me their enthusiasm for Rabbi Miriam Hamrell and the 'One Torah, One People, Many Teachers' approach at Ahavat Torah? Linguistic scholars say that the word "theos" or "God" is contained in the word "enthusiasm." But can we know for certain if those two enthusiastic people were doing God's work, or was it just a random event completely devoid of any meaning or beshert-ness?

What do you think? Do you believe that you are sometimes a vessel or a conduit for specific awesome energies that are bigger than we'll ever know? Do you ever wonder if our heartfelt conversations (or our I-Thou moments as described by Martin Buber) contain sparks of the Divine Presence? Do you ever feel as if you are part of a holy chain of events when you tell someone about a beautiful work of art, an exquisite piece of music, a wonderful Rabbi or congregation, or a possible soul mate that he or she should meet? Or is it just random luck and trivial small-talk, but nothing more?

OPEN OUR LIPS THAT OUR MOUTHS MAY DECLARE

Whether or not you believe you are an instrument that is breathed into each day by an Infinite Breath is up to you. I can't prove it to you one way or the other. In fact, in Judaism there is a lot of room for varying beliefs. Some Jews believe it is all orchestrated. Other Jews believe there is a Presence which gives us clues, but that we are quite free to miss or rebel against the clues. Other Jews believe we are guided by the teachings of a Great Teacher who usually does not intervene in daily life. Other Jews believe there is a Shefa or flow from a compassionate Source, but that it is up to us to align ourselves with that flow.

The one thing that nearly all Jews agree upon is that we human beings don't yet know the whole picture. In the Kaddish prayer and in many other places, it says that the Eternal One is "beyond any words or concepts that we humans can describe." It's quite humbling to be a human being.

So when you tell someone about a beautiful work of art, an exquisite piece of music, a wonderful Rabbi or congregation, or a possible soul mate that he or she should meet, there probably needs to be both enthusiasm and humility. Enthusiasm means being open to the possibility that a spark of the Infinite Creative Source is contained in your conversation. Humility means you don't know for sure and you therefore have the gracefulness to not twist someone's arm mercilessly because of your enthusiasm.

But it still seems like one of the great mysteries of life how we find a mate, a creative path, a spiritual home, or a wonderful series of friends because of one humble and enthusiastic comment from another human being at an unexpected moment.

If you think about Laurel Gord's story or your own unique story, does it make you wonder how each of us finds a place that eventually becomes an inspiring spiritual home? Over the past few months I've asked many members of Ahavat Torah, "How did you first hear about the congregation?" Depending on your belief system, the answers can sound extremely random or extremely beshert and mystical.

One congregant told me she heard about this lively place to sing, learn, and connect from a doctor who liked to converse while she was in stirrups.

Another congregant told me she happened to spontaneously ask her neighbor to suggest where might be an inspiring place to reconnect with High Holyday services after many years away.

Yet another congregant told me she was dating a divorced man who told her about his wonderful rabbi and an extremely friendly and unpretentious congregation. This woman eventually got free of the guy but became very involved with the congregation.

Another congregant told me he was at a social activism event and he was curious about why such a small and new congregation had such a sizable presence at this important event.

Finally, another active member of Ahavat Torah told me she was congregation-less for many years (and happily so, she said) until she happened to come to an Adult Bat Mitzvah several years ago where she was inspired by the honesty, the depth, and the caring she saw in the congregation. She said, "I don't usually join groups," but this time she made an exception.

SUMMERTIME CURIOSITY

In the next three months, lots of women and men in Los Angeles will begin trying to figure out where they could feel most comfortable and most inspired for the High Holydays this September (especially since Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur arrive quite early on the calendar this year). Some of these individuals are our family members, friends, neighbors, and colleagues. Others are complete strangers with whom we might be sharing a meaningful conversation at the most unexpected moments.

If you happen to be talking to any of these individuals and you want to share your enthusiasm about the pleasures you have found at an inspiring congregation where there is abundant singing, learning, celebrating, and a healthy sense of community, please be humble and graceful in your enthusiasm.

And if it is meant to be, we can all look forward to meeting these individuals at the Mussar class, or at Shabbat services, or at other upcoming events, or at High Holydays services.

Maybe even in a few years you will be sitting in a packed sanctuary at an Adult Bar or Bat Mitzvah celebration and hearing this individual tell the story of a surprising moment when someone talked about a growing congregation and a light flipped on for this person. Will it seem random to you or will it seem blessed by a Source that is beyond words?

For more information about Ahavat Torah Congregation, please visit www.ahavattorahcongregation.org or request a free weekly newsletter of events by contacting jgmmd@roadrunner.com.

Or if you are interested in learning the steps toward an inspiring Adult Bar/Bat Mitzvah, please speak with Rabbi Miriam Hamrell or Rena Jaffe.

Or if you want to sample the weekly Mussar/ethics class (9-10am each Saturday) or the lively Shabbat services (10am-12:30pm each Saturday followed by a free pot-luck dairy lunch), please visit the congregation at 343 Church Lane (near Montana Avenue and the 405). During the Sunset Boulevard construction, it's best to go north from Wilshire along Sepulveda until you reach Montana. Turn left on Montana and go under the 405 Freeway. Then turn right on Church Lane and look for parking.

WHY DO SOME PEOPLE HAVE A BAT MITZVAH AT 30, 40, 50, 60, OR 70?

On Saturday morning, March 18, 1922, a twelve-year old named Judith Kaplan stepped up to the bimah of her father's synagogue and did something radical. She later admitted, "It shocked a lot of people, including my own grandparents and aunts and uncles." Her father, a Conservative rabbi named Mordecai Kaplan (who later started the Reconstructionist branch of Judaism), beamed with joy.

For several hundred years, the teenage ritual of studying enough Jewish wisdom in order to consciously accept the responsibility of becoming a Jewish adult and being a key part of the weekly prayer service was reserved for men. Even after the first bat mitzvah of young Judith Kaplan, it took more than 50 additional years before human beings with XX chromosomes could fully lead Shabbat services as ordained rabbis (the first ordained woman rabbi was Sally Priesand at a Reform temple in Jackson, Michigan in 1972).

In fact, the vast majority of bat mitzvah ceremonies until the 1970's were either on Friday nights without reading directly from the actual Torah, or they were held on Saturday mornings with a young woman bat mitzvah celebrant reading (like Judith Kaplan had done) from a printed copy of the text rather than from the sacred ancient scroll.

As a result, most Jewish women alive today in 2009 either didn't have a bat mitzvah as a teenager or they had a watered down version that was "different" in important ways from what the young men were encouraged to do for gaining full entry into the historic community of responsible Jewish adults.

According to Sasha Firman, an ESL (English as a Second Language) educator in Los Angeles, "For many years I'd thought the bat mitzvah I had as a teenager was the real thing. But I later discovered it was held on a Friday night for specific reasons and I was only allowed to recite a particular prayer in the early half of the service because women at that time in my synagogue were still not allowed to interact with the sacred Torah scroll."

But now in the 21st century there are new possibilities. At Ahavat Torah Congregation in Brentwood, there was a packed house of friends, family, congregants, and musicians on a recent Saturday morning. Two more adult women, Sasha Firman and Rita Reuben, stepped forward to culminate their studies and lead the congregation in a bat mitzvah ceremony of Torah chantings, prayers, teachings, and personal insights on what it means today to become a spiritually-morally-conscious adult. Even though the congregation is only six years old, there have been a number of emotionally-inspiring adult bat mitzvah ceremonies every year since 2005 led by Rabbi Miriam Hamrell.

THE DEEPER REASONS WHY

Exactly why does a person in his or her 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, or 70's (with a busy life and lots of responsibilities) decide to spend a significant number of months preparing for this sacred ritual of becoming an adult bar or bat mitzvah?

For Kimberly Haynes, a professional singer who lives in the San Fernando Valley, "As soon as I heard a few years ago that Rabbi Miriam was conducting a class for adult bar and bat mitzvah students, I wanted to say yes. I had just given birth to my son Joshua and I knew he would one day have a bar mitzvah, so I wanted to be able to teach him and inspire him at something I had also done personally. I needed to know what it was all about to stand in front of the congregation and say I'm ready to be part of this great tradition of being a conscious Jew who can take a portion of the Torah, turn it around from various viewpoints, and understand how it applies to our daily lives. I remember sitting at the kitchen table with Rabbi Miriam and the other bat mitzvah students in my group, as the Rabbi taught us how to look deeply into a Torah portion that didn't make much sense at first. But she showed us how to find the nugget of wisdom, the guidance that we can apply to our daily lives. I felt so grateful to be a part of such a beautiful tradition."

According to Estelle Fisher, a psychotherapist in West Los Angeles, "Prior to my bat mitzvah I'd been deepening my spiritual experience through my practice of yoga and both Hindu and Buddhist teachings. Though I was still fully immersed in the culture of Jewish practice, my spiritual needs seemed more deeply addressed through these Eastern practices. But when Rabbi Miriam announced the second adult b'nai mitzvah class, I started thinking about how this ritual and the preparatory study could be significant for helping me to deepen and strengthen my spiritual roots as a Jew. Then when I found out Rabbi Miriam would be taking a group to Israel in the spring of 2008, I proposed the idea to her of doing my bat mitzvah at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. I saw the wheels turning in her head as to how to make it happen. And several months later I was there at the site that would bind me in time to my ancestors...just the thought of it makes me weep."

Rita Reuben, a social worker, mother and grandmother who lives in the mid-Wilshire district, describes how, "I felt as a girl I got short-changed. It had percolated for a long time--my secret desire to want to do a bat mitzvah. But I was a six-time Hebrew school dropout because it had always been too difficult for me to learn a new language as an adult. Yet when I studied with Rena Jaffe from our congregation and with Rabbi Miriam, I was finally able to learn enough Hebrew to understand some of the deeper meanings of many of the prayers, and to get comfortable with the beautiful trope singing of the Torah portion. In fact, I grew to love the Torah chanting--not only because of the beautiful melodies but also from the mystical feeling of reading from the actual Torah."

Arva Rose, an actress and therapist, comments, "I got interested in an adult bat mitzvah when my goddaughter and her mother, my best friend, intimated that they might do it. I'm not sure exactly why, but when I knew it was there, laid out, made available, I trusted that Rabbi Miriam would be kind and helpful and uncritical. So I decided to say yes."

Gloria Orenstein, a professor of comparative literature at USC, recalls, "What I remember from my earlier years is that my brother was given the blessing 'to go forth in life' and I was not. For many years afterward, any time I wanted to engage in some new pursuit, I kind of ran a survey of everyone I knew, seeing whether they thought it was ok for me to do this new thing. I never felt I had the go-ahead to do these things (take risks, go to grad school, get a PhD, etc.) I knew intellectually I didn't need everyone's permission, but I also felt a bit paralyzed. So when I became an adult bat mitzvah, I wanted to speak all that to God. And I discovered by studying for my bat mitzvah, that I am finally able to 'go forth' with a full blessing and to feel so grateful for all that my Jewish background has taught me on how to live in this world."

Ellen DuBois, a history professor at UCLA, explains, "I combined the bat mitzvah with a lavish sixtieth birthday party and it was quite meaningful that my relatives from Seattle, Tucson, Boston, Atlanta and Baltimore all came here to be part of it, since I'm usually traveling to where they are for big events. But what I remember most about my bat mitzvah is that I had a mammoth fight with my sister the night before the ceremony. Even the next morning, I was still struggling with why it happened and what it meant. Then it came to me the morning of the bat mitzvah that my drash about wanting to 'see God's face' was very theoretical and not very personal. Suddenly I decided to end my drash by talking about how we can't see God's 'face' but--thinking about my sister--we can struggle to see God in the faces of other human beings. My point (and I don't think I said it exactly) was that I had lost the image of God in my sister's face and I needed to get back to it."

FEELING FULLY EMBRACED

According to scholars who have studied this coming-of-age ceremony that goes back to the Middle Ages, at its core a bar mitzvah or a bat mitzvah is NOT about reading perfectly, chanting perfectly, speaking perfectly, or "performing." Rather, most experts say it's about being welcomed and fully embraced into the community of adult Jewish seekers of a moral compass for living a meaningful life. When a teenager (or a mid-life individual) stands up to help lead the congregation in prayer or Torah study, he or she is saying implicitly, "I belong. I'm part of this ancient and modern struggle to understand life's challenges through the ever-expanding wisdom of my tradition."

As Rita Reuben explains, "I had imagined I would be up there on the bimah singing the ancient words and melodies, trying to do it 'right.' But at my bat mitzvah a few weeks ago, I felt as if the ancient words and melodies were singing me. It's hard to describe, but it was an other-worldly feeling of being at one with the beautiful melodies and the words of the Torah. I also felt a deep connection with my father and the whole history of the Jewish people--those who were in the congregation, plus those who came before us and those who will follow us, including my grandchildren."

Kimberly Haynes recalls from her adult bat mitzvah three years ago, "I was nervous that day about going up to the front to read from the ancient Torah and giving a speech. But looking out at the sea of people--there were so many loving faces and so much good feeling in the sanctuary. It was like this enormous embrace from all the people there in the room. To receive all that love and support, I feel as if everyone was so proud of us bat mitzvah celebrants for who we truly are as individuals. And that's been a rare feeling in my life."



Please feel free to forward or give this article to anyone who might find it inspiring or useful in their own spiritual journey.

Or if you are interested in possibly having an adult bar or bat mitzvah, you are welcome to talk with Rabbi Miriam Hamrell in person.

Or if you would like additional information about the participatory prayer services, classes, and social action programs of Ahavat Torah in Brentwood, log onto http://www.ahavattorahcongregation.org/ or visit http://www.creatingsacredcommunity.blogspot.com/.