DAY 586: Reflections On My Retreat: On Being “Border-less”

February 6, 2014
By bethmordecai
no comments.

DAY 586: Reflections On My Retreat: On Being “Border-less”

Dear Hevreh,
 
The last time I wrote to you, I was on my way to a retreat for the purpose of “refresh[ing] my energy and creativity” with some “rabbinic ‘soul food'” (DAY 582: Excited For Some Rabbinic “Soul Food”). Well, I’m happy to report that the retreat certainly delivered on its promise. Through talking, socializing, davening, learning, brainstorming, and relationship building, the retreat helped give me that sense of renewal I was looking for.
 
Each one of us has hopefully experienced a similar sense of renewal when we go away on retreats/trips/conferences and other similar opportunities. Certainly the setting of “getting away from it all” helps make experiences like these so powerful, but it seems to me that more than the setting it’s the people involved that really make the experience transformative. And that’s what made this retreat with Rabbis Without Borders so special…the people.
 
And what is special about these people, these rabbis? Perhaps it’s the fact that each rabbi in this network and on this retreat are, in certain ways, reaching beyond the borders (hence “rabbis without borders”) of what we might attribute to normative rabbinic ideas, beliefs and practice. These include:
 
– a rabbi who lives across the Green Line in Israel and describes himself as a “fanatical pluralist”;
– a Reform rabbi who holds conservative political ideas;
– a Conservative rabbi who promotes the path of interfaith families raising their kids as both Jewish and Christian;
– a feminist, Orthodox spiritual leader who deeply engages in interfaith work.
 
Truthfully though these sample descriptions belie the deep sophistication of Rabbis Without Borders because if you ask them to describe themselves, they will formulate a cogent and beautiful description of their rabbinates while at the same time deconstruct that description to show how it doesn’t hold the whole truth, that their identities are so much more complex and nuanced than even the most complex and nuanced description of their identities.
 
This kind of identity formulation though is not specific to rabbis. If each of us looks into our own souls and our own identities, I think we will probably discover (if we haven’t already) that we are just as nuanced, and complex, and borderless in at least some aspect of who we are. Our identities are always growing and changing without any clear restrictive “borders,” and when we surround ourselves with people who are open and self-aware enough to recognize the “border-lessness” of our identities, there is no telling what amazing things we can do together. 
 
Kol Tuv, 
 
Rabbi Ari Saks
 
P.S. If you feel comfortable, please share an aspect of your identity which you would consider to be “border-less” (i.e. a complex and nuanced part of your identity that might surprise others). Also, please share why you would describe that part of your identity as “border-less.”
 

Category : Rabbi Rabbi's Journal
Tag :