Living in. coronavirusworld 170: L'Shana tovah

 

9/18

All is one

A day so much out of the house….coffee with a friend whose sister died. A well known author. Long family debates about what they could do in the midst of Covid. Had to make a decision fast. Just direct family members, graveside.  A local Episcopal priest, sensitive to the needs of the family. And it was over. The  public memorial that would have been  so meaningful to so many couldn’t happen.  I will tell her that when this is over, it would still be appropriate. The months have  been hard on my friend. Months without seeing …or touching…her grandchildren. I know what that feels like. Finally over. For her.  The disorienting brokenness of time and how hard it is to maintain your sense of identity in isolation, alienated from your regular sense of order. Taking its toll.

Dinner with another friend. As the sun sets, it’s getting that feeling of fall in the air. Unmistakably.  We haven’t seen each other in six months. She is a pastor on the staff of a tall steeple church. No stopping live streaming any time soon. Even with their resources, health concerns are paramount. No reopening until sometime next year. We have other friends we need to reconnect with. Another friend left after 20 years to return to Scotland. In the midst of covid. We never got to say goodbye.  He had been kind of the glue for the  clergy in the  neighborhood. Called us together for study. And social events. And sometimes  even action. It was a completely unofficial role. But he filled it.  Since he’s gone, no one has taken his place.  Which makes it so hard to respond to something like the current homeless in hotels controversy in the upper westside as an organized faith community.  Oh, and this was her first August in over a decade to be in the city and not Europe. 

Sahbbat shalom

Tonight is Rosh Ha Shana. The Jewish New Year. This was my post:

To my chaverim....L'shanah tovah....if ever there was a time we needed a fresh start, this would be it...let this be a beginning and may we make the most of it...

A friend posted this message:

RBG 

RIP

According to Jewish tradition, a person who dies on Rosh Hashanah, which began tonight, is a tzaddik, a person of great righteousness. Baruch Dayan HaEmet.

That word, tzaddik, truly defines Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg who died today. May she rest in power. 

Her loss is great. Especially knowing that the Republicans will do everything in their power to push through a nominee before the election. Even given that Senator McConnell proudly refused to allow  President Obama’s nominee to even be presented and heard. ‘Let the people decide” he said then. Now he says, the people decided. Hey, one more struggle in a year of struggle.

9/19

The year of coronavirus (Farmers' Market art) 

Stop the dying (Farmers' Market art)

The trip to the farmer’s market yields fresh apples and a round raisin challah for Rosh Ha Shana. And a bottle of artisanal rye. Masks in place, as always.

Going to the Times Square neighborhood to see my first live concert in six months. A new music chamber group.  In a rehearsal studio. Masks required. Only ten audience members allowed. 

On the subway ride there, for the first time in six months, the “show time” B-Boys are back using subway racks and polls for intricate daring athletic gymnastic hip hop dance moves. They ask several of us to move  for room for their show.  I regret how ambivalent I feel about all this. On the one hand, they present another small step on the road back to normalcy. On the other, I enjoyed the quiet spaced out rides these last several months. A reminder of the daily human hum and throb we accept as normal. ‘I miss the quiet,”: she said.

The street speaks

To get into the concert, I have to have a beam shined on my forehead to take my temperature. Have to remove my hat. A Siri-like voice responds “temperature normal” and I enter. I have missed these musician friends. Obviously most of their audience is still  online. The concert is “This is the winter of our discotheque.” Mixing together Shakespeare, disco, chamber and covid. It’s oaky to raise  your mask for a vodka.

I linger in Times Square on the way home. Amazed at how many people are out. Street performers are back. And the annoying cartoon characters who try to get you to take their picture fo r$20. My annoyance argues with my awareness that most of these characters are immigrants doing their best just to get by. I have not seen the Naked Cowboy or las desnudas yet, however. Who is here? Why? Certainly not tourists. Not with 31 states still on the quarantine list. Probably a pretty fair share of Bridge and Tunnel people. Other than the street performers, nothing's going on. No Broadway shows, no music scene to speak of.  Maybe just some city people happy to get out. Happy to recreate something that brings back a memory of a different time. The performers, the characters, desperately need the money. 

L'shana Tovah 5778

10/1

The High Holy Days Band and me....

As the Jewish High Holy "Days of Awe" come to an end, I want to share with you thoughts from the  sermonI preached for my friend Rabbi  Steve Blane's "Sim Shalom"  Rosh Ha Shana service at the Bitter End, the famous Greenwich Village night club. For me there's an irony in having my first real gig at the Bitter End as a preacher, not as a singer-songwriter.

Rabbi Blane has his jazz group with bass and piano and drums backing him this year augmented by a friend who's played with me many times, Lizzie Taub.

So after the Torah reading, Rabbi Steve called me up

Robert Brashear and Rabbi Steve Blane

and this is what I had to say:

OK...so I have to ask....Rabbi,  this is the first day of the Jewish New Year, right? So what month is it? Tishri? And he replies that it is the ninth month.  What? I ask. How's that?

Well, I've done some reading and I discovered that the commentators record how the Jewish faith community faced a difficult decision. Would it be a holiday in the first month, Nisan, which celebrates their liberation? Or this day from the  ninth month, celebrating creation?  And so the community chose creation, a universal symbol, instead of a tribal celebration. And I am convinced that it is that choice that has enabled the Jewish religion to be a true "light to the nations."

The world needs a birthday...and this day is as good as any. It's an opportunity for a fresh start....and how we need a fresh start. Since last year, 5777, I wish we could have a whole do over, but that's not going to happen so a fresh start, a new beginning, will have to do. Never turn down an opportunity for a fresh start. 

So these days are days when you seek to become "one" with God again. And there are rituals related to forgiveness. It's good to remember that we don't ask God for forgiveness for something done to another person. We have to begin with that person. Likewise, we can never offer forgiveness for something not done to us. And ultimately the forgiveness we offer, the letting go, sets us free. It frees us from defining ourselves by our suffering inflicted by others. 

Reconciliation on the other hand is something different. It's a process. It takes two. And takes work. So I have two challenges for you during this season...first, think of one relationship that is damaged or even broken.,think of just one thing you could do to take the first step back to relationship and do it. Just one step. It's one step back towards wholeness. 

Now the other is this. I recently heard a Lutheran pastor say  that the one person who is the most difficult to forgive is ourselves. I knew that's true. So in these days of seeking and offering forgiveness, start by forgiving yourself. That would truly be a new beginning. That's what being inscribed in the book of life feels like. 

I love the symbols of the season....the round challot, for the ever flowing cycles of life. The apples and honey for a sweet year. 

It's the first day of Tishri, it's Rosh Ha Shana. Take the new beginning.  Enjoy the sweetness of living. L'Shana Tovah.

Rosh Ha Shana 5774

9/4

It's Rosh Ha Shana. The Jewish New Year.

It's late. I've been gone all day. On the steps, Keith is there with Joe. After all our emotional conversations, after all the struggle to start out in a new direction, after all the promises...back on the steps. Keith, what's up? I don't understand. 
He shrugs his shoulders, wags his head, Ah, I got fed up. (Referring to whee he was staying.) Couldn't take it any more.
The steps, you shouldn't be here, you need to be somewhere. What about your daughter?
Ah, that's complicated. 
So I shrug my shoulders.

Walk around the side on 86th Street. And there's Sean. At least he's got his electric cart back. And another shitload of clothes. He asks me to take two big bags inside for him. OK, I'll do that, but you can't be here all day...

I know that man, I know that. but you got to talk to those people. I can't be in no place with no 8 people. I'll lose it .I'll assault someone. can't do it. You got to talk to those people. They shoulda had me a place soon as I come back from getting my feet cut off. Shoulda had me a place. Can't be taking my cart to no shelter. Look, sometimes I just want to give up. Wheel my self into the middle of the street and just sit there and wait to see what happen. Can't take it no more. 
So I agree to take his stuff inside for the night.
What time can I get my stuff tomorrow?
Try around 10, I say.

Some people call this the Yupper West Side now. For all intents and purposes the old red neighborhood is nearly completely gentrified. The sidewalks sometimes gridlocked with SUV baby strollers. Some home owner reds and octogenarian activists in rent controlled apartments still around. And there's the young adult meeting/mating grounds between 78th and 86th. But for the most part, it's quiet, respectable. Sometimes I get complaints and want to say, if you want to live in Westchester, live in  Westchester.

Still, there's a whole world that goes unnoticed. The world of the public housing projects, the homeless, the dope dealers, the SRO's, the poor eldery, the crazies...they're all here. I suppose if you pretend that you don't see them, they become invisible, don't exist. And you don't see them.

The streets are filled with people walking home from their after shul New Year's dinners. Whole families walking home. It's a time for new beginnings. To eat apples and honey and challah and wish for, hope for a sweet year. Rosh Ha Shana. L'shana tovah, my friends, l'shana tovah...

Today is Rosh Ha Shanah

9/29

Today is Rosh Ha Shana, the Jewish New Year. By tradtition, the birthday of the world. The beginning of the days of awe, an annual week of reflection on how one’s life journey has been going, what needs to be changed, the days when one’s fate for the next year is all written into the Book of Life, all leading up to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.  

I have enjoyed these days from my time at Bridgeport with David Leichman and Stratford Hall, 37 years ago, to my days in Tulsa and my friends at B’Nai Emunah and Temple Israel, my ten years in Pittsburgh and our time at Temple Emmanuel and with my own family, here in New York. Time that promises do-overs is always worth claiming.

It’s a moment to be thankful for Ted and Asya and Mim and Jon and Alice  who  have given so much to make the Center a reality.  And a sweet year to Katherine, to Marc and Sara as well . 

A call from Reachout. When they came by early this morning, they found four guests, three of whom were undocumented. A new high, in line with the city's growing homeless population. And the balding man (Paul?) continues to be non-cooperative and hostile.  They encourage us to call the precinct, he may be using, may be psychotic.  With these kind of numbers, they'll stay a little closer for awhile. 

Danielle and I working to move forward on the boiler plan. More publicity for the Forgiveness series. And then I’ll head out to Queens for a Rosh Ha Shanah luncheon with Ellen.

                                                                  * * * * 

Once more to see the Tenant, tonight hosting my colleague Alistair and his father from Scotland.  Tonight following the story of Maman and her disabled daughter. And once again picking up new information about other characters. I realize that for these two actors, it’s pretty close to a tour de force, no down time and lots of emotional peaks.  Ending with the daughter’s intense dance in the backyard. I look up and see someone in a room from Capital Hall looking down into the yard, watching, like a real life echo of what is being performed.

Alistair has enjoyed the play and its way of enveloping an audience member. But as a pastor, it's his first awareness of how much damage had actually been experienced by the building. 

 I’m talking with Aaron, who plays Claudia, in the bar after the show. The actors have been anxious  to  know what their colleagues are doing so they’ve decided to do for each other their various best scenes, greatest hits as one put it.  So when remaining audience members have left, cast members in thier street clothes grab drinks and head back to the courtyard to organize their performances for each other. 

It’s a real privilege.  Their scenes are played out with real professionalism and passion, their colleagues responding with laughter and applause.  And mainly mutual appreciation and respect.  I realize that almost every character has  been given their own monologue, their own aria, and that there is a quality to the writing not readily apparent on a first scattered viewing. Though as Aaron says, your experience is what the play is. 

I finally meet some people for the first time. And in the room for the Tall, Pale Man, the actor who  plays Alain thanks me and the church for giving them the opportunity to have this experience. And I am glad for their having breathed life into this space for awhile. 

As I head home, I see that the steps are empty.