At the Confluence of Shabbat Pinchas & the Sesquicentennial of the Declaration of Independence

Summertime has long given humanity conflicting messages. The intense heat can turn up emotions high enough to boil over with rage. The heat can also take such a toll on the body as to slow us down in exhaustion (literally, “heat exhaustion”). And while we can find the heat intoxicating when socializing, it can also be a repellent to physical proximity. We crave nothing more than a cool drink, a gentle breeze to stir the stifling air to glide lovingly across our perspiring skin, or a dip in a cool body of water.

Surrounded by bodies of water in the Tampa Bay area where I live, even the beautifully beckoning blue-green bays and bayous feel like a warm bath rather than a cool dip at this time of year, and one must traverse the heat of the beach, let alone manmade concrete and asphalt stretches, just to arrive at more heat. As I write, the dew point (the actual moisture content of the air) is high and makes even a pre-dawn walk feel a bit like parading through a suspended blanket of that which hangs between the biblical waters of above and below—clouds and earthbound waters [ba’shamayim/between the heavens and ha’mayim/the waters was the separation the God makes on the second day of the creation story of the first passages of B’reishit/Genesis]. I am not complaining, merely stating the facts of summer as my body feels it.

Since I was a kid, summer has been about reading. From my earliest years, I remember the air-conditioned refuge of the public libraries in my hometown (Upper Arlington, Ohio). Always my happy place with kind librarians and walls and walls and rows and rows of bookshelves filled with opportunities to travel in my imagination and with the assistance of the words of countless authors. Libraries are still my happy place. They are the sentinels that work to hold the line on our freedoms and remind us to be ever vigilant of our right to learn and expand our understanding of the past, present, and future. Especially as they have taken a heavy hit in recent years, libraries deserve our support and devotion to their maintained independence and thirst for the truth in all of its multiplicity.

This weekend, we move into the long-anticipated and seriously complicated celebration of the 250th anniversary of the birth of our nation—these United States of America. It is also Shabbat Pinchas—a biblical story with a very complicated message. Wrestling with Torah is my birthright as a Jew, and wrestling with the torah (words and learning) that surround the formation of the United States of America is my birthright as an American. I have been taking these inheritances very seriously for a long time and have been really leaning into learning this summer through the words of some trusted authors, podcasters, and journalists. I am grateful for the extra emphasis that Judaism places on honoring one’s teachers and the ways in which my American teachers (especially my mom, z”l, who died on our nation’s birthday seven years ago and LOVED being an American and a Jew) taught me to give proper credit to sources. Here, in no particular order, is what I have been reading and listening to as I prepare to meet this confluence of Shabbat Pinchas and July 4th:

The ways in which we read Torah and all of Jewish wisdom—stories and law alike—are a brilliant lesson for how to be in communication across generations of thought. Rather than reading either the words of scripture or any brilliant and celebrated teachers over the centuries as the sole or triumphalist truth, we read and discuss and consider in the context of conversation, preserving the majority and minority opinions and the other opinions with equality of respect, even if a choice was discerned for societal good or harmony. We neither expect nor demand “belief” in a single stream of thought; rather, we make space for a multiplicity of truths, holding the maximum capacity of human thought and imagination.

To see the United States of America through such a lens brings all of her colors to the fore. This relatively young and vast country of 50 states, several territories, and the District of Columbia is so remarkably diverse that to condense its 250+ year story into a single version of history is not merely simplistic and juvenile; it is to redact all of the color, texture, flavor, and beauty of the story, leaving a pale and pallid version for mass consumption. Not only does this denigrate 250+ years of history, it provides no vision for a future and locates us exactly where many of us find ourselves today—drowning in apathy, anger, and antipathy for the present state of our “nascent” democracy.

Generating the capacity to hold paradox and multiplicity of conflicting truths (something that has grown exponentially in me since I began studying for the rabbinate several decades ago) is to allow for the most human thought, hope, optimism, artistry, and other creative responses to crisis to percolate and flow from the Sacred Oneness and coexist in shared space. Expansive consciousness is not achieved in states of fear, loneliness, and oppression. To be expansive, we must have the freedom and encouragement to imagine both our ancestors' and our children’s realities and dreams in a continuum that includes our own, our neighbors, and all with whom we share this country. Thus, the very white, colonial story of America’s formation in 1776 that I learned by the time of America’s bicentennial in 1976 is only a truth when I place it alongside the stories I learned in school and beyond about indigenous annihilation and forced migration; enslavement of Africans and other people of color; maltreatment of immigrants from “less desirable" parts of Europe; antisemitism and quotas on many groups of people seeking safe harbor; internment of Japanese Americans; denial of voting rights and equality; mistreatment of Arab Americans and Chinese Americans; and more degradation of refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants fleeing persecution and poverty and adding their labor, care, and ethics to the American economy and our communities.

As I posted on Friday, in honor of the 4th and the seventh Gregorian yahrzeit of my mom, I shared these words about patriotism:

“I have been thinking a lot about “patriotism” and what it means to me and in the times in which we find ourselves as we approach the sesquicentennial of these United States of America. I’ve been doing a lot of reading about the parts of American history that have been subverted by the tales I grew up with and my remembered experience of 1976.

This morning, for the first time since it left its longtime home at 3848 Bickley Place in Upper Arlington, Ohio, I unwrapped the American flag that hung outside my childhood homes every Fourth of July, Flag Day, Memorial Day, etc. It has been sitting in my mom’s chest of drawers for the past seven years, carefully wrapped. The flag has become a political and polarizing symbol for me over the past decade. It lost its simplicity and significance to me as symbolic of all that I love about my country.

I was unprepared for the wave of emotions that charged through me as I touched it. Still crisply folded, it was perhaps last hung on the front porch on the day Mom died (July 4th, 2019) or maybe we didn’t have the presence of mind to do so on that liminal day, 7 years ago … I don’t recall…

What feels so sacred is how it feels and smells, white stars, slightly beige from years of age and sunlight, perfectly sewn on the blue field, folded with precision and care. I remember both Dad and Mom teaching us how to properly fold the flag before we learned at school and scouts. I remember the joy of waking up on July 4th in Upper Arlington to get to the fabulous parades (especially those of my youth with the amazing neighborhood floats). I remember July 4th, 1976, when I was 10 and my understanding of American history was limited enough that I merely appreciated the fife and drum trio who began the parade without knowing the important shadows of our nation’s history.

I am so grateful for my childhood and my memories and my parents and all that has descended and ascended from them. I am so grateful for the ways that my life affords me the opportunity to learn and grow and live in this very imperfect nation filled with so many extraordinary people, birthright citizens and immigrants—documented and undocumented—alike.

When I shared this with my dad he gave me a new layer insight and appreciation into THIS flag. It was purchased by my grandfather, Frederic F. Marks, as a gift to my parents when they purchased their first house in Yorktown Heights, NY, because the house had a flagpole in the front yard and a flagpole deserves a quality flag, he felt. So it turns out that the flag and I are both 60 years old this July 4th.

Patriotism as I learned and practice it is a sense of optimism, dignity, and respect for the country that is your home—the land, the people (all the people), the principles and ideals shared. So today and tomorrow, and on future days of national merit and celebration, the Shimberg family flag will be hung with dignity and respect and pride (not untarnished, and pride all the same) in the window of our home. Shabbat Shalom and Happy Interdependence Day, y’all.”

My 60-year-old patriotism is necessarily more nuanced than my 10-year-old patriotism. It reminds me of the difference between a pediatric notion of God and the multilayered awe and unknowing of a mature perception of the Sacred in this world. Just as I cannot read biblical text without wrestling with angry, vengeful, immature depictions of God behaving in what I can only describe as a hotheaded manner, I cannot read the stories of America’s formation and the crafting of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution without knowing that some of our beloved founding fathers owned slaves and slept with mistresses and held beliefs that would not stand up to the scrutiny of our societal norms today. Thank God for The 1619 Project and books about anti-racism and white Christian nationalism and our nation’s indigenous history and treatment of native peoples and land. Thank God for the work being done by organizations and individuals across these United States to hold our government accountable for the treatment of immigrants who reside here and for insisting that administrations (across political parties) restructure our immigration and asylum systems to reflect our 21st-century realities so that we can grow our capacity to welcome people into this country as we have done (well or poorly) for 250 years.

My patriotism became Jewishly elevated for the first time when I began attending programming held by ALEPH (Jewish Renewal) in 2009. I had learned about Jewish Renewal through the writings of Rabbi Tirzah Firestone (With Roots in Heaven) and Rodger Kamenetz (The Jew in the Lotus), yet my first fully embodied experience arrived somewhat circuitously when the Jewish Renewal community from across the globe gathered practically in my backyard—at Ohio Wesleyan University, just up the road from Columbus, in Delaware, Ohio, in the summer of 2009. I volunteered to assist as a local Ohioan and got to take a morning class. I chose a class about nusach, singing, and hazzanut offered by the great Hazzan Jack Kessler, z”l. Later, Jack became my teacher and coach. He was an enormous presence and a champion of spiritual transmission of liturgy and Torah (in the largest sense of the word).

The Jewish Renewal community gathers every summer to learn, pray, sing, eat, and grow together. To maximize the ability of folks to travel, the gathering always includes the 4th of July holiday. This means that we are always together for the U.S. Independence Day and often Canada Day as well (July 1st). In 2009, Shabbat and July 4th, just like this year, fell together, and our Shabbat morning service was filled with the ideals of democracy and interdependence. I remember listening with rapt attention to Rabbi Arthur Waskow, z”l, who was well known to me as an author, activist, and prophetic voice for the environment and humanity. After Torah is read using a special series of melodic phrases (trope) as part of the Torah service on Shabbat morning, we read from the section of scripture that we call Nevi’im/Prophets using Haftarah trope. Hazzan Jack rose and came to the shtender/podium. And then this holy teacher declaimed the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in haftarah trope, drawing every person in the room into a sacred vortex. I remember crying with joy and gratitude that I had found a group of people who were so creative and steeped in tradition. This was the beginning of my journey toward my rabbinistry.

A book that is inspiring me today, seventeen years later, weaves the Declaration of Independence into the author's refreshing views of democracy as a mindfulness practice and way to live in society interdependently. He begins in a way that I received as a balm for the weary American, so battered by the current state of our democracy and cultural ethos as to feel weary and ready to disengage and/or incessantly provoked and angry all the time. “Consider this book a warm hug for weary hearts,” Jeremy David Engels offers us. "It is written for caring people and compassionate citizens who want to stay engaged, who desire to do their part to make the world a better place, but who are exhausted by the unending rhetorical battle that democracy has become.” “What passes for ‘democracy’ today is anything but. We’ve been tricked into thinking democracy is a ‘war’ between political parties for control over the levers of power, with everyday citizens like you and me expected to enlist in the ‘battle’ to defeat our ‘enemies.’… This model of democracy is not just ineffective and wrongheaded. It’s destroying the human spirit, making us wary of our fellow citizens and compromising our capacity for wonder, belonging, mutual care, and shared joy.” Engels is a professor of communications and ethics, a student of Thich Naht Hanh, and a yogi. His writing is at the same time refreshing, bold, and blessedly simple. His Declaration of Interdependence, which Engels placed in the book in a way that it can be removed, signed, carried, and utilized daily. He postulates that the world needs a new declaration:

We live in a culture that seems determined to get us down—on ourselves and on each other. Hope is in short supply, but even in moments of conflict, division, and great suffering, like this one, the conditions for transformation are also present. We already have the things we most need to build a more loving and compassionate world: we have each other. …To practice mindful democracy is to see a path toward ending the political war, and queiting the vituperation [bitter and abusive language], so we can get down to the noble work that needs to be done: building a healthy world where everyone belongs, is safe, and can experience well-being, a meaningful world where everyone is free to answer life’s ultimate quesitons in their own terms, a compassionate world where no one wastes away from want when there is such abundance, a world where we have each other’s backs, a wolrd at peace with itself.”

One of my favorite ideas from this book is the revolutionary nature of mindfulness in a distracted world. Engels identifies the purpose of practicing mindfulness as sharpening our ability to see reality most clearly and being present with what is so that we can respond to that from a place of openness. This is a way to respond to the agony of being constantly forced into false binaries, which he calls the agony of “duelity.”

“Practicing mindfulness to gain insight into the reality of interbeing and awaken to the shared miracle we call life, we see the injustices that cause us the most pain are shared with others. Many people are affected by foul air, fetid water, poverty, the inability to find a meaningful job, discrimination, racism, sexism, ableism, xenophobia, environmental destruction, rising seas, wildfires, imperialism, neoliberalism, war, and violence. If we are going to be safe and happy and free and at peace, we must be safe and happy and free and at peace together. When it comes to our shared miracle life, we are not enemies at all. We are collaborators bonded together in a pact of mutual care.”

And if suffering is shared, so too are remedies. This book is a fast and joyful read. Permission to be hopeful and meaningfully, mindfully proactive in growing democracy. And if Engels' book is a balm, the other book I am reading—United States of Rejection by Alison Kinney—is a provocative and valuable window into individual stories and the neuroscience of how rejection has shaped our history as a nation. As one reviewer put it, “Rejection is the throughline that connects power dynamics and inequality with the potential for transformation through community building and collective refusal to accept the status quo. Change is always possible. This book is a testament to that fact.”

This week’s Torah portion was also on my reading list this week. Pinchas begins with another difficult and bloody story. In addition, we have entered the three weeks on our Jewish calendar when we grieve ancient destructions and societies. Each year I struggle with this story and the ways in which the murderous rage of Pinchas is rewarded by God. My teacher, Rabbi Yael Levy, came to my rescue earlier this week, as she often does, illuminating the Brit Shalom/Covenant of Peace in this parsha in a deeply meaningful way. “Each year,” she reminds us, “this season calls us to acknowledge the hatred that has taken root in our hearts and face the destruction that is the result of human arrogance, disdain, and cruelty." Here is a selection from her beautiful offering:

In the rabbinic text Pirke Avot, (Ethics of our Ancestors) it states:

Be like the disciples of Aaron, love peace, pursue peace, love creatures and creation, and draw close to ancient, eternal wisdom.
Pirkei Avot 1:12

This is the brit shalom we are asked to enter.

Even as we experience the horror and destruction of our times,
even as we face all that must be challenged and changed
in our country and the world,
we are asked to a make a commitment to shalom,
so that hatred does not take root in our hearts
and cruelty does not become the acceptable law of the land.

How to enter this covenant?

Be like the disciples of Aaron and act from love.

Look under the rage you feel as you witness cruelty,
greed and shameful acts of power.
Look beneath the anger you experience
as you see all that is being trampled and destroyed
and reach for what you love and value.

Feel the love that manifests as rage.
Touch the love that becomes fury.

A brit shalom does not call us to deny anger.
It says, experience the fury,
let it fill you with energy and strength.

And then, pivot from rage
and pursue peace with love.
Pursue healing and justice
out of love for creation and all beings.

Act from and for love.

As we enter these three weeks and step toward July 4th
may we be rooted in what we love.
May we be empowered by all we love.
And may we rise together with strength and devotion
for the sake of shalom.

As I read Rabbi Yael’s words multiple times, I realized that my practice over the past number of months is having a profound impact on my psyche and my capacity because I am in the process of pivoting from rage and using the experience of fury to restructure, mindfully, my capacity to hold joy, love, democratic values, and shalom/peace.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Jessica K. Shimberg

• Hazzan Jack Kessler, z”l, declaring the Declaration of Independence in Haftarah trope—a mind-blowing and spiritually transformative experience I had for the very first time on Shabbat exactly seventeen years ago in my metaphorical backyard in Ohio. ALEPH Kallah was held at Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio, in 2009. This was the first time that I encountered Jewish Renewal IRL, and it rocked and changed my Jewish and human journey in ways that are still unfolding.

• United States of Rejection, A Story of Love, Hate, and Hope, Allison Kinney (learned about thanks to Tombolo Books, a St. Pete local independent/interdependent bookstore)

• On Mindful Democracy, A Declaration of INTERDEPENDENCE to mend a Fractured World, Jeremy David Engels (learned about thanks to a forum offered by the Institute for Jewish Spirituality)

• A Way In Jewish Mindfulness Newsletter for this week, Holy Rage and a Covenant of Peace, Rabbi Yael Levy