Happy Birthday to Turn It, Turn It!
3 Things I've Learned After 1 Year + What Have You Learned?
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Today, we celebrate an entire year since Turn It, Turn It was launched. A year of late nights, early mornings, and lots of typos (I know you’ve seen ‘em). The year I left social media (mostly). The year I lost my teacher, Rachel Brodie z”l and started learning trope with another beloved teacher and friend. I’ve read a lot, written a lot, and learned a LOT. Today, I want to share with you what I have learned in this process as a sort of Torah all its own. In return, if you’re willing, at the bottom I’ll ask you to share with me.
Thank you for being here. And thank you for your time –the greatest gift of all.
1. A Scoop Out Of The Ocean
Each week when I look at the parasha or consider the upcoming holiday I wonder how the heck I am going to make sense out of all of the present material. The options are infinite. Paralyzing. There is no way I can do everything and say everything or get it all right. Each week it feels like taking a scoop out of the ocean. But then, once I narrow my focus and accept I can’t mention each thing I’m thinking about, I am freed to write something, at all. Sometimes you need to intentionally narrow your view to be able to create. Before I can write about the ocean that is the Jewish text in front of me, I need to take a scoop out of it – a verse or a character or a theme. It almost doesn’t matter what. It’s much more interesting what I do with it than with which material I start – yes I’m talking to you, all those kids whose b’nai mitzvah Torah portions are about animal sacrifice or skin disease.
How can this lesson apply to our daily lives? I’m thinking about deciding what to cook for dinner or what to wear to that party you were invited to because you are so popular and fun. You know that feeling when you have no idea where to begin in front of the ocean of options? That paradox of choice?! Take a scoop. Choose a spice or vegetable, or which shoes you’re going to wear and build the rest around that. This isn’t earth-shattering wisdom (see TEDtalk linked above). But, as a surprise to me, it is a muscle I’ve flexed significantly through my practice of reading and writing Torah.
2. The Power Of Jewish Humor
While I wouldn’t say my main goal has been to make you laugh, humor has become a defining characteristic of this journal over the course of the year. At the very least I’ve been striving for a nice balance between serious and playful, earnest and cynical, idealistic and realistic. After all, Torah is all of these things.
I’ve also been thinking about the wild year we’ve had in terms of public displays of anti-Jewish hatred, the hostage crisis Colleyville, etc. and I’m realizing what great medicine is to consciously bring humor into sacred Jewish spaces – spaces of Torah. Not to cheapen it. But to enliven it. To liberate ourselves from fear (or at minimum, nervously cope).
To end his story, Death Camp Blues, which he performed for The Moth in 2011, writer Shalom Auslander says, “For me, laughter is a victory of sorts…to me, laughter will set you free.”
How might laughter not only free us from the fears of our world, but free us to engage in Torah? Lower our defenses so we can engage more vulnerably with the text. Not take ourselves too seriously, and dare I say, not even take the text too seriously. Christopher Reeve famously said, “If I can laugh, I can live.” What if we said something like, “If we can laugh, we can learn Torah.”
Ok, now I have to end with a joke. Here’s a super random classic one:
A synagogue has a mice problem. The custodian tries traps, bait, cats, everything. Nothing can get rid of these pesky creatures. Finally, the custodian goes to the rabbi and explains the problem. “I know what to do,” the rabbi says. “What? What?!” says the custodian. “It’s a great plan. We have evidence dating back decades that this will work. They’ll be gone in no time!,” the rabbi says. “I’ll give them all B-Mitzvahs and I guarantee, after that, we’ll never see them again!”
3. The Value Is In The Impact
I love writing this journal and I’ve truly enjoyed coming up with new pieces each week for an entire year. But, there is nothing I have loved more in this process than learning how my writing has impacted you. Whether you are a close friend who has texted me to say something resonated or someone I barely know who replied to a random post to thank me. It means a lot to know we are in chevruta, in some expansive way. It’s why I’m not writing this in my diary and keeping it in my bedside draw to be discovered in 900 years when robots excavate our planet after the final global catastrophe that leaves only my diary, cockroaches, Cheez Wiz behind. My hope is that my writing empowers you in your Jewish learning and helps you stay attuned to Jewish time. My hope is that this journal has spurred discussion around your dinner tables or made you more curious about Jewish life, ancient and new. And my hope is that through reading my writing, you feel more ownership over your own tradition. It is yours.
This journal is a sort of classroom. A pulpit? Sometimes. I don’t hate to preach when the time and topic are right. But more so, a place to uncover Torah. To dig in and get our questions flowing. This year has sharpened that vision for me.
Now I leave it to you:
What have you learned here?
Why do you choose to continue to receive this journal in your inbox week in and week out?
If you would be so willing, it would mean a lot to me to hear from your. Please write your answers in the comments below.