Thich Nhat Hanh Jewish Roots The Better Way to Live Alone in the ...

Jewish Roots,OutstretchedBranches, &Buddhist LeavesBy Laureen Lazarovicijewish ROOTSOne of the most satisfying aspects of my retreat at Deer Park inSeptember was taking part in the Jewish Roots discussion group.I knew they were my dharma brothers and sisters and at the sametime my tribesmen and women, connected to me by 6000 yearsof Jewish history and heritage. I heard tales of ambivalence, innerconflict, pain, and also joy, liberation, and compassion. We were allstruggling with integrating two moral systems and two sets of spiritualpractices into our lives in authentic and meaningful ways.I’m now realizing how much I saw and experienced the entireretreat through Jewish eyes. For instance, I had great resistanceto having meals in silence. In Jewish cultures, and many othersas well, meals are times for family and friends to gather, discuss,argue, debate—in short, to be noisy. Jewish holidays are oftenorganized around festive meals and special dishes: the Passoverseder features symbolic foods to commemorate the Exodus fromslavery to liberation, or we break the fast together after Yom Kippur,the day of atonement. So to be silent while eating when therewere other people around was a challenge.As if to rebel, I made inane small talk in my head and atemy meals as mindlessly as if I were making inane small talk withmy friends. I know this was a lost opportunity to practice withgratitude, but it was an eye-opener in its own way.A Buddhist Bar MitzvahDuring the retreat, I had the privilege of witnessing thetransmission ceremonies for the Fourteen and the Five MindfulnessTrainings. My reaction was, “We should do this instead ofbar mitzvahs.” A bar mitzvah is the coming-of-age ceremony forJewish thirteen-year-old boys; for girls, the ceremony is calleda bat mitzvah. The translation is “son or daughter of the commandments.”For the first time a young person reads from theTorah publicly in synagogue and—ostensibly—takes on the moralresponsibility of adulthood.But in our society, thirteen-year-olds aren’t really on the cuspof adulthood, and many bar and bat mitzvahs simply involve bigparties and awkward teenagers trying to pretend they are havinga good time. Watching the transmission ceremonies, I thoughtabout how much more powerful it would be if our coming-of-agerituals allowed people—at whatever time in their lives they feltready—to proclaim publicly and in front of their communities acommitment to live by a set of guiding precepts that bring harmonyand happiness to our hearts, our families, our neighborhoods, andour world.Segregating the SexesThe night before one of the transmission ceremonies, themonks and nuns told the Sangha that for the following morning’sritual men would sit on one side of the room and women on theother. I’m emphatically not a morning person, so the next morningI dashed to the meditation hall barely awake. In my foggyheadedness,I sat on the men’s side of the hall by mistake. A manI heard tales of ambivalence,inner conflict, pain, and also joy,liberation, and compassion.sitting in front of me leaned back and tapped me on the knee inwhat felt like an unnecessarily harsh way. “The women sit on thatside,” he hissed.I skulked to the back of the hall and examined my emotions. Ifelt humiliated and angry, but out of proportion to the incident. Ittook me a few days to realize why this experience touched a softspot. Much more than a rough tap on the knee, what bothered mewas the ongoing struggle for equality within Judaism.For their prayer services, very religious Jews segregate themen from the women. The two genders sit on separate sides of thecontinued on page 43the Mindfulness Bell 11