{"id":1403,"date":"2016-03-09T10:49:19","date_gmt":"2016-03-09T14:49:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/?p=1403"},"modified":"2016-03-09T11:00:52","modified_gmt":"2016-03-09T15:00:52","slug":"halakha-as-a-petaled-flower-lessons-from-rabbi-daniel-siegel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/?p=1403","title":{"rendered":"Halakha as a Petaled Flower – Lessons from Rabbi Daniel Siegel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hand crafting Jewish ritual wear is one of the ways I pray. This week, I am sewing angel tallitot<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When I designed my angel tallitot, I meant to solve specific problems faced by guitar-playing rabbis and cantors; rectangular tallitot often go askew or get caught in guitar straps. And I wanted to see if I could create a tallit with wings.<\/p>\n

One night, after a deep conversation with Rabbi Hanna Tiferet Siegel<\/a> about All Things Jewish, I saw the tallit I would create. Those who know Rabbi Hanna Tiferet will understand why the tallit appeared to me in the form of angels\u2019 wings.<\/p>\n

\"tie-dyed<\/a><\/p>\n

I spent some months designing a pattern. But while I drew, cut, and drew again, it was mostly Rabbi Daniel Siegel<\/a> who kept coming to mind.<\/p>\n

When I first started rabbinic studies with ALEPH, the Alliance for Jewish Renewal, a decade ago, I arrived with enormous enthusiasm, a pleasant singing voice, and modest guitar-playing skills. As someone who had grown up in fairly secular surroundings, I had little knowledge of Jewish ritual. I had next to no experience with liturgy. I knew, as my grandmother would say, \u201cfrom absolutely nothing<\/em>\u201d when it came to halakhah<\/a>, Jewish law.<\/p>\n

So when a classmate told me that the tallit I had made back then for my guitar-playing self was not \u201chalakhic,\u201d I felt worse than awful. I felt humiliated by my own ignorance.<\/p>\n

My first course with Reb Daniel was at an ALEPH Kallah. I knew from absolutely nothing then. Reb Daniel, on the other hand, was so steeped in all things Jewish that when he sang a niggun in his gravelly voice I felt I was listening to generations \u2013 centuries really \u2013 of Jewish longing for the Holy One of Blessing.<\/p>\n

Reb Daniel never seemed to care about our ignorance and never tried to measure it. He simply wanted to offer us \u2013 with both heart and mind \u2013 the beauty of Jewish tradition, learning, and text. He wove Chassidic tradition and halakhic intention together with such tender care that the room would shine.<\/p>\n

I went to Reb Daniel, who told me to get the tallit and meet him outside. When I returned, he was holding a number of books. He examined the tallit, which had been made with two shawls sewn together. He noted where I\u2019d placed the tzitzit. He began reading, translating and explaining from his various volumes. We went over the issue of corners the student had addressed. Was there, in fact, a limit on the number of corners a tallit could have or was the only question I needed to be concerned with around making sure the tzitzit were placed on the corners farther from one another?<\/p>\n

I will always remember the way Reb Daniel walked me through each of the rabbinic texts. I never felt small or ignorant. I felt, simply, like a beloved and respected student.<\/p>\n

I have never, ever forgotten the way I experienced my first real encounter with halakhah and the halakhic process. I learned from Reb Daniel how humane and life-giving Jewish law can be; I learned how to recognize its thoughtful purpose.<\/p>\n

But most of all, I learned how to teach those who are anxious and frightened because they think they aren\u2019t Jewish enough, don\u2019t know enough. Reb Daniel taught me: Open Judaism up like a petaled flower and your students will be glad to take in the beauty of their inheritance.<\/p>\n

So now, Reb Daniel, ten years later, I thank you for doing just that. Yours has been beautiful learning I won\u2019t forget.<\/p>\n

P.S. Happy birthday!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Judaism does many things well, including dealing intelligently with those in doubt. Our practices honor grief and offer mourners time for their sorrow. There is also plenty of joy to be had in our variegated traditions. But Judaism also has a problem. It is easy for members of the tribe to feel they are not \u201cJewish enough\u201d because they feel \u2013 or worse, they\u2019re told \u2013 that they don\u2019t know enough. Hence, my humiliated Self. At least I knew what to do: I sent my Self to Reb Daniel.<\/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":[183,143,359,360],"class_list":["post-1403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-aleph","tag-halakha","tag-rabbi-daniel-siegel","tag-rabbi-hanna-tiferet-siegel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403","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=1403"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1414,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403\/revisions\/1414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}