{"id":1010,"date":"2015-03-13T09:44:08","date_gmt":"2015-03-13T13:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/?p=1010"},"modified":"2015-03-14T18:09:50","modified_gmt":"2015-03-14T22:09:50","slug":"thanking-my-hashpaah-teachers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/?p=1010","title":{"rendered":"Thanking My Hashpa’ah Teachers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"God<\/a>Honestly, I wouldn\u2019t know how to thank my teachers.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t mean those who patiently helped me understand why reading Philo was A Good Thing (really) or introduced me to the peculiar mix of Aramaic and Hebrew to be found in gnostic Jewish texts. I have had teachers who unpacked matters of history, language, liturgy, and texts study with enthusiasm and style. It\u2019s easy to thank them.<\/p>\n

It is far more difficult to know how to thank my hashpa\u2019ah teachers. They helped me learn how to stay alive to the moment, to the needs set before me. They taught me to acknowledge and work with my projections and my triggers.<\/p>\n

They are teachers of the heart, guardians of the divine. I am deeply dependent on them.<\/p>\n

These days, particularly. I am working with a brilliant and funny young woman. She is from North Carolina. She is not Jewish. She is twenty-three and she has been diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer.<\/p>\n

Not long ago, she was a student of mine. She knew me as \u201cDr. Thiede.\u201d Her main concern then was whether she had evidence for her class contributions, or a strong thesis statement for her papers.<\/p>\n

I had no idea why she called me \u2013 out of the blue \u2013 almost two years after she had graduated from UNC Charlotte. She told me about the cancer; I asked her if she wanted to come and visit.<\/p>\n

The first time we talked, she told me that she didn\u2019t know what she believed. But, she said, she had always had \u201cthese hunches.\u201d I asked her to tell me more.<\/p>\n

Then I asked: \u201cWhere do these hunches come from, Sarah?\u201d \u201cI have no idea,\u201d she said. \u201cDid you ever ask?\u201d She laughed. Then, we asked.<\/p>\n

Before she left, I asked her why she had called me. She explained. She and her boyfriend, Eric, had been driving around Houston after she got the diagnosis. She saw a temple and thought of me. She knew I had been ordained as a rabbi and had a small congregation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want you to do my funeral,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

I am not \u201cDr. Thiede\u201d now. Sarah is asking me to be a teacher of the heart; a guardian of the divine. I long for my teachers\u2019 wisdom.<\/p>\n

Rabbi Nadya Gross understands where Sarah and I are right now: Yes, it is necessary to name the threat. She comforts me: Yes, Sarah (and I) have the right to hope.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know you will love Sarah through this and help her connect to her eternal essence,\u201d writes Rabbi Hanna Tiferet Siegel. Simple, direct, a clarion call.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I cannot predict who will become one of my teachers. Last week it was Tara, my yoga teacher, whose elegant person and beautiful, disciplined form is an inspiration. Afterwards, I thanked her for a sweet and challenging class.<\/p>\n

\u201cTara,\u201d I said, \u201cI needed that.\u201d \u201cWhat\u2019s up?\u201d she asked. I explained: \u201cI am working with a brilliant, amazing young woman in her early twenties. Her name is Sarah. She has fourth-stage colon cancer. Tara, in ten years I never worked with anyone so young.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tara looked at me, her face open like a flower: \u201cWhat a blessing!\u201d she said. \u201cBecause now you have the knowledge and the wisdom you will need.\u201d<\/p>\n

The most important work I ever did was in the spaces of fear and pain. Paradoxically, those places are also those of healing \u2013 and love.<\/p>\n

Recently, Sarah came to see me together with Eric. I made us lemon ginger tea while they sat at my kitchen table. Before we walked into the library for our session, I noticed that Sarah and Eric were resting their hands, tapping each other\u2019s fingertips lightly, with tiny wavelike motions.<\/p>\n

In the library, Sarah cried. She felt like she was nearly buried in a tar pit. She couldn\u2019t move. She couldn\u2019t get out. I asked her to describe the pit.<\/p>\n

Initially, I panicked with her. Then, I remembered that moment in the kitchen, her hand and Eric\u2019s, their fingertips touching.<\/p>\n

\u201cSarah,\u201d I said. \u201cIn the kitchen you and Eric were tapping each other\u2019s fingers.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s just something we do,\u201d she said.\u00a0 \u201cWho invented that?\u201d I asked.\u00a0 \u201cEric.\u201d<\/p>\n

I asked: \u201cAre you still in the tar pit?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cYes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSarah,\u201d I asked, \u201ccan you imagine Eric reaching to your hand, touching your fingertips, tapping lightly on them?\u201d She could.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he steps backward, can you follow him, if he keeps tapping your fingertips?\u201d Once Eric was there, she was able to get out.<\/p>\n

I asked if she knew the Michelangelo painting on the Sistine Chapel, where God is just about to touch Adam\u2019s finger. She had seen it herself, she told me. She had been in Rome.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is the touch of the divine, isn\u2019t it?\u201d I said. \u201cWhen Eric reaches for your fingertips, he is touching you with the touch of the divine.\u201d<\/p>\n

I will not forget the way she looked at Eric. Or the way he looked at her.<\/p>\n

To all my teachers: You made that moment – a moment of healing and love in the midst of fear and pain – possible.<\/p>\n

I will continue to depend on you.<\/p>\n

Maybe that is my thanks?<\/p>\n

A note:<\/strong> This blog was approved by Eric and Sarah before posting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These days, particularly. I am working with a brilliant and funny young woman. She is from North Carolina. She is not Jewish. She is twenty-three and she has been diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[242,251,252],"class_list":["post-1010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-colon-cancer","tag-hashpaah","tag-sistine-chapel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1010"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1022,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions\/1022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}