Daughter Tali gave birth to twins!!

Our daughter Tali Magal delivered twin baby girls on Thursday morning January 15, 2015. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birth date.  Auspicious!  I am so delighted, proud, happy, relieved.. many emotions all at once.  I got the news while I was at Ohalah, an annual conference for Renewal Rabbis, Cantors, and Chaplains who gather together in Boulder, Colorado to reconnect with colleagues and mentors, share innovative prayers, music, teachings, and refill spiritually!

       Tali Magal with Amalia Belle and Gabriella Roux Fleishman

I was walking up a hill with about 25 people for Minchah, afternoon prayers, on Tuesday afternoon, January 13, when I got a text from Tali that she was going into labor.  I began to weep, and as I turned off the phone and joined the circle, I heard each prayer in a new way, relevant to giving birth, feeling gratitude for life, being connected with the Creator and all the many generations since ancient times.  At the end of the brief service I called out to all those friends present, "My daughter is about to go into labor with twins!!"  and they closed the circle around me; offered blessings for the health and safety of mother and twin babies about to be born. There happened to be four or five doulas in the group (!) who offered me Jewish birthing and nursing prayers. Can you imagine that??!! The rest of the conference I kept running into people who told me they were a twin, and asserted what fun they had growing up.  After the conference, I stayed for Shabbat at the home of my close friend Eve Ilsen, whose husband, Reb Zalman Shachter-Shalomi, had passed away in July, and who had been a mentor for me and all the other Renewal clergy who gathered at the conference to tell stories about his influence on them.  Eve and I went to services at the local Conservative shul, and the Gabbai, volunteer helper to the rabbi who offers honors to members and guests participating in the service, approached me to ask me to take an honor during the Torah service.  Her name was one of the names considered by my daughter and her husband Craig for one of the twins: Gabriella!  I took that as a sign.  Everything was a sign about twins, birthing, and blessings for new mothers.  After the long labor, Tali and Craig now need some time to heal, bring the babies home, get into a routine with the help of a baby nurse, and then they'll be ready for visitors.  So my husband Itzhak and I are planning to go to New York City in a few days to visit in person and hold those little babies, and get to know them.

What will we be called?  Savta and Saba, Granmother and Grandfather in Hebrew!

  

You might want to view my mother Nika Fleissig's blog as well: 
http://www.lifebeginsat90.blogspot.com/

 

"Doing?"

For those of you who do not get our synagogue newsletter, here is my monthly column and blessing for January 2015:

“Doing?”

When our daughter Tali was just a little over a year old, she already talked and communicated with words.  If we were busy with something, she would run over and look up with a questioning expression on her face, and say, "Doing?" A whole sentence there... clearly meaning, "What are you doing?"

We have kept that expression all these years in our family and often ask each other, "Doing?"  meaning we are interested in everything that is going on in your life and want to hear news.

So, I thought of taking a moment to answer the question, "Doing?" regarding your rabbi's current activities and projects.

I have begun an art project of mixed media collage, paint, and calligraphy, depicting letters of the Hebrew Alef-bet, with a brief explanation on the back of the small canvases about the letter's mystical energy and meaning. These “Alef-bet Collages” on canvas are available exclusively in our gift shop.

Letters Yud, Shin, Daled, part of the Alef-Bet Collage series by Rabbi Alicia Magal

In the Interfaith community, I have been participating since October, and will continue through February, in a bi-weekly Social Justice Public Policy Seminar for Faith Leaders.  I am the sole rabbi in our cohort this year.  This informative series is funded through the Monsignor Edward J. Ryle Fund, with the mission of “Working for justice, dignity, and the common good.”  The program presents faith leaders with information about communicating effectively on public policy issues, within the limits of functioning under a 501C3 status.  The series is designed to enable faith leaders to explore and understand Arizona’s social justice public policy issues and to demonstrate and communicate the importance of these issues to their congregations and communities. Some of the topics include Health and Human services, Education policy, the Environment, Justice System and Prisons, Immigration, the Arizona Legislature, Faith Communities and Public Policy, Money: How Government Gets It and Spends It, and Translating Knowledge into Action. 

I look forward to sharing some of these issues with you and hearing your response.  Our prophetic tradition demands that we raise our voices and take action for justice.

A personal area of development that I am pursuing is through the Mussar Institute, from January through this coming summer: an in-depth, spiritual immersion for Rabbis and Cantors. The 6-month online study program will culminate in a retreat at Brandeis-Bardin Institute campus in the Los Angeles area this summer. The goal is to nurture and develop personal, spiritual practice with the tools and traditional Jewish wisdom literature of Mussar. The Hebrew term Mussar (מוּסַר), is from the book of Proverbs 1:2 meaning righteous, moral conduct, instruction, and spiritual discipline.   

I will share insights from this study and practice in the coming months.

So, besides preparing weekly “journeys” we take together here at the JCSVV at Shabbat services and Torah study, offering prayers and visits to congregants who need blessings for healing, teaching classes, and performing life cycle ceremonies, I am fully occupied with continuing personal growth and learning which I bring to you, my beloved congregation and community. 

And… of course, Itzhak and I are personally awaiting the birth of grand-baby girl twins, hopefully sometime in late January.  Now you know a bit of what I’m “doing.”

-- 

Blessing for Tevet  (Dec. 23, 2014  - January 20, 2015)

May we show patience during the darkest, coldest time of year, and use the time to bring warmth and light to those around us.  May we offer gratitude as we turn the corner toward  longer days and more light.  May we each embody this time of turning by demonstrating an intention to grow, learn, and continue to gain insights, so that we improve our positive speech and action.   –Amen.

PS. If you want my review (negative!) about the new Exodus movie, check out my blog. http://www.redrockrabbi.blogspot.com

Exodus movie - YUCK

Just came home from the much awaited movie Exodus... I am so upset and disappointed.  The movie was not true to the Torah, the midrash, the archeological findings... and left out much of the scenes of awe and wonder.

So there might be conjecture as to whether Moses knew of his true ancestry before he was an adult... but turning this into a brother against brother was a stretch.  Where was the scene where he kills a taskmaster to save a Hebrew slave and then needs to flee?  I'll skip over the drawn out battle scenes at the beginning where he saves his "brother's" life... the future Pharaoh Rameses.  His Egyptian sword is practically elevated to a character in itself, but where is his staff?

Where is his being called from the burning bush? Rather he is buried in a rocky landslide during a rainstorm with only his face above ground, and suffering from a broken leg???  Huh?

And God is portrayed as a petulant boy who chides Moses rather then empowering him???!!!

Where is the humble, stuttering Moses who needs Aaron his true brother as spokesman? Nowhere.  Where is a "duel" using his staff turned to snake matched by the Pharaoh's wizards? Nowhere.  Rather there are scenes of Moses as guerilla army trainer preparing the Hebrew men for battle through archery lessons.  God as the little boy tells him he isn't getting anywhere that way (Hebrews are being hanged every day for not giving up Moses who is hidden in their midst at the home of Nun - papa of Joshua ben Nun who doesn't appear at all as protege for the future... ). So the plagues begin in a graphic, naturalistic style to force the Egyptian people to pressure their Pharaoh to give in to Moses' demand that the Hebrew slaves be set free.  There are no warnings or repeated requests by Moses to Pharaoh... Those ugly blistery, bloody, scary plagues just keep on coming.

The slaying of the first born is a touching scene that finally does break Pharaoh's resolve.

Moses wants to lead the Hebrews out by the route he had taken years before southward through the straits of Tiran to Midian where he had met Zippora, was accepted by her wise and kind father Jethro, and started a family.  Zippora seemed like the best cast character in the whole movie.

Moses decides instead to take a route eastward through the mountains, since the rocky terrain will make it very difficult for Pharaoh's chariots to follow.  When Moses leads the Hebrews down the cliff sides to the sea, it isn't marshy or easy to ford as he had expected from his previous crossing to Midian, but rather there are crashing waves and very deep ocean water.  Rather than confidently stretching forth his staff, he lies down on the beach after throwing his Egyptian sword, which he has kept all this time, into the water.  Alerted by cawing birds he later notices that his sword is sticking up out of the water, showing that the water had receded.  He seems bewildered, surprised... unsure of how to proceed. 

Where is Nachshon ben Amminadav to show his faith by jumping into the water which then recedes?  Where are the walls of water on each side?  Nowhere.  They Hebrews kind of slosh through muddy pools that look like the bay on Cape Cod at low tide.  Pharaoh and his remaining charioteers soon follow into the water.  The Hebrews scramble onto a rocky shore on the other side, and suddenly there is a mano-a-mano moment where both Moses and Pharaoh are alone facing each other, and both are thrust into the tsunami-like tidal wave that envelopes them, followed by a slo-mo montage of drowned and floating horses, pieces of chariot wheels, and dead soldiers.  Somehow the next scene features close ups of both Moses on one side of the sea which has returned to its lapping of the shore, and Pharaoh is standing on the other side, dazed, bruised, but whole.

Fast forward, not to a monumental Sinai ablaze with smoke and fire, from which the elders are warned not to approach, but rather to a unassuming rocky outcropping where Moses is busy chipping away with a hammer and chisel at stone tablets.  No booming dictation of the Commandments; nor even a holy silence filling the screen, but merely the God-boy figure warning Moses that if he doesn't have the faith to follow through he should put down his hammer.  Moses reflects for a second and keeps on chiseling.  That's it for the Giving of the Ten Utterances??!!

So skip over building the Mishkan - Tabernacle with the golden ark and its coverings.  None of that here. Jump to the very last scene years later as Moses, aged, with a flowing white beard,  rides in a covered wagon kind of cart with a plain wooden box, ostensibly containing the Tablets of the Law, placed unceremoniously and unadorned behind him. 

There are so many midrashim possible to mine for gems.... How did the writers and director come up with these scenes that extended the battles and reduced the awe-inspiring narratives?

The costumes, sets, music, and effects were so professionally crafted, why not the dialogue and character development?

I am mystified by this production, and saddened that this is what may stay in the minds of movie-goers, especially those who haven't studied the Torah and its commentaries.

You know what would have been great... if they included bits of midrash - children finding whatever they wanted in the walls of water... etc.

and... a kind of dream sequence when Moses leads the Children of Israel out... they start to sing Mi Chamocha… and it turns into Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking to the blacks in America about their Exodus from slavery…. a contemporary seder with children singing "Let my people go" and strains of Hallel. "B'tzeit Israel.." When Israel went out of Egypt ... all kinds of Exodus reminders in our world today…..

Rabbi Magal - Philanthropist of the Year, Spirit of Sedona Award

Rabbi Alicia Magal 2014 Spirit of Sedona ... - YouTube

► 8:34► 8:34

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp1I2NybJng

47 mins ago - Uploaded by Terrie Frankel

Rabbi Alicia Magal received the Spirit of Sedona, Philanthropist of the Year Award from the Sedona ...

Poetry Hike in Sedona

Great Idea:  A Poetry Hike!

I want to get away from my desk and off the paved roads!  I live in Sedona and haven’t been making use of the gorgeous outdoor trails for hiking…. So when I saw that OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) was offering, among its many intriguing adult classes, a four-week session of “Poetry Hikes” I signed up!  We gathered at the Yavapai campus at noon on this warm, clear October day.  I had a hat, sunscreen, plus sunblock scarf and shirt, light slacks, ankle-supporting hiking shoes, water, an apple, and a sense of excitement to be out on my day off having fun! 

Our leader Gary organized us into carpool groups, and we set off for Sugarloaf parking lot in the Coffee Pot hiking area.  We set off in silence for about a mile, among junipers, manzanita trees, cactus and agave plants, and the red sandstone formations on every side against a deep blue sky. 

We arrived at a shady spot where we gathered, sat down and smiled at each other for no reason other than the sheer beauty and pleasure of being in this group of men and women enjoying the outdoors together.

Marilee took over, introducing us to the poetry of Sharon Olds. 

I felt that Marilee cracked open the shell of the poems and showed us the liquid aliveness inside.  People opened up as well, commenting on the imagery of love, intimacy, disappointment, loss, and mourning in the sweep of her poems over three decades.

As we turned to follow the trail back I realized that I was walking behind the leader, placing my footsteps in the outlines of his footsteps… and suddenly I was back as a ten and twelve year old spending summers in a Kinderheim, like a sleep-away camp, in Gstaad, Switzerland. The teachers took us children out for hikes ver often, and we followed in single file behind our leader.  I kept my eyes on the boots of the guide right in front of me, and placed my small footprints within the larger footprints of the adult ahead of me.  The path was often wet, mossy, and the surroundings very green, as we forded streams, and crossed meadows with the sound of cows’ bells tinkling. 

STEP

Step

            STEP

            Step

STEP

Step

            STEP

            Step

I guess that is where I got into the habit of looking down as I walked, and only looking up when we paused for a drink, or to take in the view and appreciate the vista of mountains, valleys and streams.   Through the years, my mother often told me in a park, at the beach, or walking down the street, “Look UP!”  I guess I had been doing a “walking meditation” all along!

So… back to the trail in Sedona.

Suddenly I remembered with great fondness the many hikes my husband Itzhak and I took when our children Tali and Amir were little.  We’d go to the mountains in his camper, already a great adventure, and then line up:  Abba (Hebrew for Daddy) first, then Ima (Mommy), then the children.  And Itzhak would start a chant that we repeated in singsong… “Heidy heidy heidy ho…” (repeat!), “Heidy heidy heidy ho” (repeat); “Ho Ho Ho Ho” (repeat), “Heidy hey” (repeat), “Heidy ho” (repeat, “Heidy diddly heidy hey” (repeat and start all over for miles)!

And when we hiked, I again, as an adult, looked at the sturdy calves of my husband up ahead, and stayed in the footprint path he created. 

I did quite a bit of time travel on that one mile return walk! 

Now looking forward to next week’s adventure!

Exciting and humbling award

http://www.sedona.biz/news-from-sedona/sedona-community-foundation-announces-2014-spirit-of-sedona-award-winners/ 

Here is a link to a description of the upcoming Sedona Community Foundation Awards. I have been honored with the Philanthropist of the Year Award.  I feel that choosing me a the winner is a symbol of everyone's capacity to do good in the community, and to encourage others to offer their passion and talents to groups that work for the environment, the hungry, the needy; to organizations that enhance education, arts, safety, quality of life for the elderly, etc.

Compared to others who have been honored with the Philanthropist of the Year Award, I have very modest means... so I understand this award as a break-through decision for the local awards committee, empowering many more people to feel that their efforts are worthy, needed, important, effective.

I am truly humbled by this honor.

I'll post something after the awards ceremony that will take place on November 16. 

Rabbi Alicia Magal

Rabbi's Words on CONNECTION - Yom Kippur 5775 (2014)

Rabbi Alicia Magal

Jewish Community of Sedona and the Verde Valley

2014 - 5775

Kol Nidre  Friday, October 3, 2014

– untying knots, releasing complications, renewing ties, far away connections like with Israel.

 

Rabbi Alicia Magal before Yom Kippur services.
Notice the Angel in her shadow!!

During these High Holy Days I am presenting my theme of CONNECTION – KESHER in Hebrew. On Rosh Hashanah I spoke of sailor knots, and of knitting, of how to connect one little loop or stitch to another to create something useful.  I talked about the connections we make with close family and friends. Tonight and tomorrow I want to speak of larger connections, beyond our individual small circles.

It is vital to look beyond our own immediate lives here, and seek more knowledge about our wider connections – with Jewish communities around the world, and a sense of close connection with Israel, her people and her future. The world order is changing in ways we never experienced before.

One way to connect with our Jewish tradition to help us be informed and strong is through the Kesher Study Progam I am instituting this coming year.  I hope you will sign up for the Chai Mitzvah course that meets once a month beginning in November and will continue through June.  Each participant will be encouraged to follow their own areas of interest related to the study topics presented at each session.

(Just for reference… don’t read out loud)

Study materials will include those three pillars of existence we always sing about Torah, Avodah, Gemilut Hasadim:

]a) learning/knowledge,                      

b) ritual/spirituality, and

 c) social action/helping others.

  the benefits are: a) deepened friendships with the other participants, b) expanded rewards from being Jewish, c) seeing links between Judaism and eight other aspects of a gratifying life, and d) having a set of enjoyable and meaningful monthly experiences.   At the end we will hold a Chai Mitzvah ceremony/party to celebrate your new stage of Jewish development.  There is an $18 fee for materials for members.

First meeting will be on Tuesday, November 4th from 3:00 - 5:00 p.m. 

Nov. 4:  Orientation

Dec. 9:   Tzedakah

Jan. 6:    Interpersonal Relationships

Feb. 3:   Mindfulness

Mar. 3:  Enriching the Seder

Apr. 7:   Days of Remembrance 

May 5:   Gratitude

June 2:  Judaism and the Environment

Flyers are on the table and the information is in our newsletter.

---In addition, for those who want an even deeper connection with tradition and text, I’ll be teaching a class on the 3^rd Tuesday of those same months for those who wish to have an adult Bar or Bat Mitzvah, learn to chant trop for Torah, Haftarah, and if you know those, then trop melody for High Holy days, Purim Megillah, or Lamentations.  I will include selections from Psalms, Prophets, and Talmud according to the level of the group.

I feel so very connected to each of you, and my wish is to have an even stronger connection forged over this coming year – through personal meetings, time at services and afterwards, in classes,

Social Action projects, committee meetings, visiting members of the community who are ill, visiting at your home, hiking on the trail, at knitting group, organizing Mitzvah Day in May, wherever your interest and need show up. If you need a mezuzah put up at your home, call me to do a home dedication.  If you have a Simcha, let’s celebrate at a Shabbat service and plan an Oneg. If, God forbid, you have a crisis or loss, let me help you grieve, mourn, and celebrate the life of the loved one with the comfort offered by Jewish tradition.

Make connections to the wider community through local interfaith programs such as the Interfaith Thanksgiving and Mitzvah Day; stay informed about all the amazing achievements of Israel and speak up about unfair and incorrect press reports and condemnation.  Travel to Israel if you can, and see the marvels for yourself. I will invite our member Dan Gordon, who still serves as an army spokesman for the IDF and who was in Israel at the Gaza border through Operation Defensive Edge, to speak to us in the coming weeks about the truth and distortions reported about Israel’s situation. He is speaking on Yom Kippur at the Performing Arts synagogue in Los Angeles about his experiences in the recent war.

While we cannot know what is written about “Who shall Live and Who shall Die…” we can write in our own “book of living fully” each day, reaching out, connecting to others and feeling that our lives are worthwhile. Each of us is unique and has a special job while we walk this earth.

On these days of judgment and repentance, let us wipe the slate clean, start over again, and face the new year with confidence, joy, and hope.

L’shanah Tovah… May you be written and sealed in the Book of Life in the coming year.

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 Rabbi Alicia Magal  

JCSVV 2014 - 5775

          Yom Kippur Day, Saturday, October 4, 2014

– Standing before God – the highest connection, and also the deepest, reconnecting with inner soul. Wrap it all up from the other drashot and bring it to a deep connection with soul, which is also the highest connection with God!

Today is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the Day of At-One-Ment… as we stand before our God.  We are connected, as we say at each prayer service, when we sing out the Shema – Hear O Israel, God is One, and we are all connected to God.

There are moments when we are moved to tears… why is that?  Words are simply not enough to hold the emotion bubbling up and it spills over …. Tears of joy and gratitude, tears of sorrow…. Just beyond logical, limited words. 

Maybe that is why poetry is so powerful, it cuts right through to the heart of feeling.  We have created - with the help of Ann Metlay, at our Elul workshop last month - a series of poems related to the themes of the High Holy Days, and hung them, with the help of Helen King, in our meditation garden behind the synagogue, at the corner of Meadowlark and 179.  You are invited to wander through there after the morning services and throughout the afternoon, before and after the Discussion, and before the Afternoon, Yizkor, and Neilah services resume later today.  Maybe you will be touched in a new way about some of the ideas of forgiveness, not carrying a grudge, seeing the best in others, and judging them with mercy in the way we each hope to be judged by God.

In the play put on by our members this past Sunday, The Gates Are Closing, we could hear the thoughts of the characters as they grappled with their connections with their family, with society, with God. If we could share those moments of deepest, most honest thought, today, what would we learn about each other?  What are the yearnings of your hearts?

Mine are to be more present, more attuned to the vital issues touching our congregants and our community.  And to balance that with being aware of my own needs for health and renewal as a person, wife, daughter, mother, and soon, grandmother, God willing.  Our daughter is pregnant and due to give birth in late January or early February.  How do I and Itzhak become good grandparents, helpful, but not meddling, offering our life experience, but leaving the new parents a sense of their own discovery, and not commenting on what we perceive as mistakes? 

I ask of you to be more connected, more welcoming and considerate of each other, and to offer rides, visit the sick, and do what you can and a bit beyond what you thought you could, for this mishpacha. 

---

I had a dream this past week that I was chanting the very Torah portion in the melody of the High Holy Days that I will be chanting this morning

Atem Nitzavim Hayom Kulchem… You are all standing here today, to receive the covenant, you and all the Children of Israel, and all the generations to come, yet unborn. , and then… in  my dream the chanting turned into Joni Mitchell’s song:

They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot. 

Don’t it always seem to go

that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone,

they paved paradise, and put up a parking lot.

They cut down the trees and put them in a tree museum

And all the people paid a dollar to see’em.

Don’t it always seem to go,

that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone,

They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot.

Wow, that woke me up at 3:47 a.m. on Monday morning.  The mystics used to awaken in these Days of Awe at 3 a.m. to meditate… so I guess I am part of a strong tradition.

Have we paved over entrance to “Paradise,”   the way in to the ultimate connection with our Creator, with a parking lot, a static place of leaving our cars when we aren’t there? Through our Torah portion we proclaim that we are all connected and are continuing to receive Torah, instruction, in constant relationship through the generations.

And yet… do we really listen to this or do we pave over and block out the message so that when the life-giving rain falls, it runs off and is lost?

Every time we say a blessing to do a mitzvah, such as studying Torah, we are connecting with holiness. That is how I translate the blessing formula: Baruch Ata Adonai, Eloheynu Melech Ha-olam, asher kidishanu b’mitzvotav, v’tzivanu…. And then whatever follows, lighting candles, studying Torah, etc…

“Holy One of Blessing, Your presence fills creation; you have given us the opportunity to connect with holiness through the mitzvah of….”

This past Sunday in our religious school, Diane Schoen, School Director and teacher, was telling the students the story of the prophet Jonah (which we will hear this afternoon, with commentary by Karyl Goldsmith).  The older children offered their idea of what a prophet is…

One who has sacred visions, and tells the rest of the people what God’s message for them is; who points out what the results will be if they continue to live their lives the way they are going now.

One of the younger children (Lola, Gail’s granddaughter) turned to me and asked, “Rabbi, are YOU a prophet?”

Well, that took me aback for a moment… and I replied, “I think part of my job is to be like a prophet.”

Out of the mouths of babes.

But Moses said, “Would that all my people were prophets!”  Let’s all open our minds and hearts to the messages this day and not pave them over.  Be guided by your own Inner Prophet as well as by the prophets of our tradition.

The words we hear today are part of Moses’ song to our people… this is truly “Our song” that we are playing today.

May we be written and sealed in the Book of Life and continue to sing our 'song of connectedness" together.