By Janice Steinberg
SAN DIEGO — Rabbi Lawrence Kushner doesn’t bill himself as a dancer, and I didn’t go to see him at San Diego’s Yom Limmud in my role as a dance critic. But the rabbi’s got moves!
Rabbi Kushner was giving a talk titled “Jewish Spirituality: It’s All God.” I was interested because I’ve read and loved several of his books, especially God was in this Place & I, i did not know, a multi-faceted riff on Jacob’s dream of the ladder between heaven and earth; it was one of a handful of key books and events that reconnected me with Judaism 20 years ago.
By the way, this is not the When Bad Things Happen to Good People Rabbi Kushner; that’s Harold. Rabbi Lawrence Kushner writes about Jewish mysticism with what feels like a Zen sensibility. His 17 titles include Eyes Remade for Wonder and I’m God; You’re Not: Observations on Organized Relation and Other Disguises of the Ego. You can hear him on the “On Being” radio show, talking about “Kabbalah and the Inner Life of God.”
Having encountered Rabbi Kushner’s graceful wisdom and gentle humor on the page, I wasn’t surprised that he spoke in the tradition of Hassidic masters, teaching by telling stories. But I had no idea that he would dance his talk. As he spoke about how everything is connected, his hands wove filigrees in front of his face. He often spread his arms like wings; it’s a gesture any dancer recognizes as breath-expanding and heart-opening.
There was a lovely fluidity to his movements, a quality you see in people who practice contact improvisation or the Israeli form Gaga. What a perfect illustration of how everything is connected: heart, mind, body. And the connection involved not just his heart, body and mind, but ours.
It’s believed that watching other people move stimulates the muscles and nerves we’d use to make those movements in our own bodies. This phenomenon is called “kinesthetic empathy.” So when Rabbi Kushner winged out his arms, it created more space for our hearts and breath. We had new neural networks spinning as his hands described calligraphy in the air.
I thought of Rabbi Kushner’s guffaw-inducing tales as holy shtick, hilarious yet profound. And his dancing was Baryshnikov meets the Baal Shem Tov.
*
Janice Steinberg is a the author of The Tin Horse (Random House), about a Jewish immigrant family in Los Angeles, and an arts journalist. She may be contacted via Janice.steinberg@sdjewishworld.com
Another terrific piece, Janice! I, too, was at Yom Limmud, and heard/saw Rabbi Kushner. You captured his presentation perfectly!