A Wild Faith , livre ebook

A Wild Faith: Jewish Ways into Wilderness, Wilderness Ways into Judaism
2007 First Printing 2007 by Michael Comins
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I am extremely grateful to Joseph Cornell and Dawn Publications of Nevada City, California, for permission to use exercises found in Sharing Nature with Children, Twentieth Anniversary Edition and Sharing Nature with Children II. Excerpts from Listening to Nature by Joseph Cornell. Copyright 1987 by Joseph Cornell. Reprinted by permission of Dawn Publications. Excerpts from God in Search of Man by Abraham Joshua Heschel. Copyright 1955 by Abraham Joshua Heschel. Copyright renewed 1983 by Sylvia Heschel. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Comins, Mike.
A wild faith: Jewish ways into wilderness, wilderness ways into Judaism/ Mike Comins.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-58023-316-3 (pbk.)
ISBN-10: 1-58023-316-3 (pbk.)
1. Spiritual life-Judaism. 2. Nature-Religious aspects-Judaism. 3. Hiking.
4. Meditation-Judaism. I. Title.
BM723.C65 2007
296.7-dc22
2007001134
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Cover design: Tim Holtz
Manufactured in the United States of America
Printed on recycled paper
Published by Jewish Lights Publishing
A Division of LongHill Partners, Inc.
Sunset Farm Offices, Route 4, P.O. Box 237
Woodstock, VT 05091
Tel: (802) 457-4000 Fax: (802) 457-4004
www.jewishlights.com
FOR MY PARENTS
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
A Note on the Text
Foreword
1. The Call of the Wild
2. The Stereotype of the Unnatural Jew
3. Do I Have to Believe in God?
4. Finding God in Nature
5. A Map of the Heart
6. The Mindful Hiker: Learning to Listen
7. Yearning and Gratitude: Opening the Heart to God
8. Seeing the Sacred: The Way of Blessing Part I
9. Filling the World with Holiness: The Way of Blessing Part II
10. Heart-song in the Heart-land: Jewish Prayer in Wilderness
11. With Your Whole Self: Living in Your Body
12. Four Winds, Seven Directions
13. Teshuvah: The Wild Heart of Repentance
14. Putting It All Together: Wilderness Retreat
15. A Wild Faith
Appendix 1: But Rabbi, Is This Jewish?
Appendix 2: But Rabbi, Should I Talk to Trees?
Appendix 3: The Nature of Jewish Study
Appendix 4: Traditional Nature Blessings
Notes
Resources
Index to Practices
About Jewish Lights
Copyright
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I shared several ideas for a book with freelance editor Donna Zerner after she participated in a TorahTrek retreat. She politely told me to put them on a shelf and, instead, write a primer on Jewish spiritual practice in wilderness. I followed her advice, but when I sent her my first book proposal, most of it ended up in the circular file. I went back to the drawing board. The second proposal was entitled A Wild Faith. This book would not have been written without her wise counsel.
My thanks to Stuart Matlins and the Jewish Lights staff, particularly Maura Shaw, for discovering me a few weeks before I submitted that proposal, and Emily Wichland, for patiently and kindly shepherding this first-time author through the maze of writing a book. My editor, Bryna Fischer, improved the manuscript immensely through her insightful criticism on issues of both content and style. Her knowledge, creativity, and patience are greatly appreciated.
A number of friends generously donated their time and expertise in reading drafts of the manuscript. Many thanks to Rickey Berkowitz, Claire Gorfinkel, Mary Hoffman, Jody Porter, Rabbi David Seidenberg, Jenna Snow, and Darcy Vebber. I also received the help of rabbis Jill Hammer and Gershon Winkler.
I have enjoyed an eclectic education in a multitude of educational centers and organizations, and all of their voices come through in this book. My heartfelt thanks to Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem; the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem; Hebrew University; the Israel Ministry of Tourism (for their desert guide course); the Elat Chayyim Center for Jewish Spirituality; Metivta, A Center for Contemplative Judaism; The Institute for Jewish Spirituality; the Spirit Rock Meditation Center; Sacred Passage; and C-Deep.
I have learned from too many superb teachers to list here. Nevertheless, at the risk of offending, I am compelled to mention those whose spiritual teachings directly contributed to this book: David Abram, Sylvia Boorstein, Rabbi Shefa Gold, Dr. Arthur Green, Israel Hevroni, Jack Kornfield, Rabbi Chaim Meiersdorf, John Milton, John Travis, Rabbi Gershon Winkler; and those who taught me through their writings and work: Ellen Bernstein, Dr. Eugene Borowitz, Rabbi David Cooper, Joseph Cornell, and Rabbi Lawrence Kushner.
Thanks to all who have supported TorahTrek: those who participated in a TorahTrek program; the organizations and institutions who commissioned TorahTrek programs; and the wonderful folks of the Jewish Community of Jackson Hole, who brought me to Wyoming and gave me a job in wilderness paradise. Thank you, Mitch Dann.
Special thanks to Marty (Martha) Peale.
Outdoor Jewish education and adventure programming is a lonely endeavor. I have gained strength and inspiration from my friends and colleagues who, against all odds, have pursued their passion in wilderness: Rabbi Howard Cohen (Burning Bush Adventures), Dr. Gabe Goldman (currently at the Brandeis-Bardin Institute), Rabbi Jamie Korngold (Adventure Rabbi), and Josh Lake (Outdoor Jewish Adventures). I have also been blessed with the friendship of fellow traveler and confidant on the path to spiritual practice, Rabbi Helen Cohn.
My gratitude as well to the beautiful place, people, and programs of the Murie Center in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Many thanks to the friendly folks at my office, the crew at the Platt Avenue Starbucks in West Hills, California.
If you want to torture your partner and strain a relationship, try writing a book. My amazing partner has never complained. Thanks to Jody, for her patience, back rubs, and endless love.
My earliest memories are of places in wilderness, as my parents took me camping before I could speak. I was graced to spend my childhood summers in Big Sur and Yosemite. When the RV revolution hit and the campgrounds suddenly became crowded and noisy, my parents took the revolutionary decision (at least in their circles) to outfit the family with down jackets and sleeping bags. I was twelve, my sister, Felicia, nine, and my brother, Alan, six when the family started backpacking. I m sure they had no idea what they were starting in the life of their son.
My father, Harold, has blessed me with his analytical mind; my mother, Dorothy, has blessed me with her artist s heart. Both have given me the gift of wilderness. It has not been easy for my parents to watch their son forsake a normal career path to follow his dreams, first to Israel, then to wilderness. But they have done so with love and understanding, and I could not have done it without their steadfast support. This book is not only a writing project. It is the product of a life s journey, and I hope my parents see themselves in it as much as they see me. With love, I dedicate this book to them.
A NOTE ON THE TEXT
Unless otherwise noted, biblical quotes are from the New JPS Translation-Second Edition in the JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1999). In the interests of presenting gender-neutral language vis- -vis a gender-neutral Being, Adonai has been substituted for the usual English translation of L ORD .
Were they alive in our time, Abraham Joshua Heschel and Martin Buber would most likely have written in gender-neutral language. However, to present their quotes accurately, their words have not been altered. Hopefully, this will not be a barrier between readers and these two gifted teachers.
FOREWORD
There are two sorts of people who should be reading this book: The first are those who have not spent much (or perhaps any) time in the wilderness; the second are those who have spent lots of time in the wilderness. I imagine that I was invited to write this Foreword because I used to be in the first group and now I am in the second.
I had two key moments of transition from the first group to the second, and the initial one was not in wilderness at all: it was in Golders Hill Park in North West London, on a cold clear early February morning. I was walking through the park and reading an affirmation from Life! Reflections on Your Journey by Louise Hay. The words were: I listen to the divine, and rejoice at all that I can hear. And as I walked through the park, and said these words, and looked at the trees, and felt the cold, and saw the ducks on the lake, I felt my relationship with the world around me change. It was some years after this that I first read Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel and came upon his idea of experiencing radical amazement when in the presence of the Divine; and when I did so, I understood that my first sense of radical amazement had been that morning in the park.
The second moment of transition was in November 1994. A friend of mine invited me to join him and three other men in hiking from sea to sea -in this case, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Sea of Galilee. I agreed without much thought. Six weeks later I was standing at the foot of the midrachov (pedestrian mall) in the center of Jerusalem, in drizzling rain, wearing what seemed like an eighty-pound