I had the privilege to share my thoughts about effective ways for couples to communicate before, during and after their wedding with  The Wedding Standard.  

Getting married is one of the most significant things you will do in your lifetime and making that commitment to another person requires not only love, but mindfulness, dedication and hard work. As is the case with taking on any meaningful endeavor, preparation is important if you want to be successful. I encourage couples to start early in establishing a healthy communication style to build a solid foundation as they begin married life.

I often say that the wedding planning process shines a bright light on relationship dynamics between partners, their families of origin and their friends.  These dynamics don't automatically disappear once married life begins but show up often in their future life together.  If couples can use the stressful time of planning their wedding as their bootcamp for developing and practicing healthy communication patterns, they will be setting off on the right path toward a successful partnership over the long haul. Researchers have found that communication style is the key.  
The way in which you communicate, and argue, with your partner is an even more important indicator of a successful marriage outcome than your level of commitment, personality traits or stressful life events.  Constructive communication means you engage with each other kindly.  You learn to be an active listener, seeking to discover what your partner is feeling rather than problem solving or offering unsolicited advice.  After listening to you partner carefully, repeat back to them what your heard so you really express an understanding of the issues at hand.  You should even try to make your partner laugh.  This type of positive strategy does not mean you shouldn't talk about stressful or difficult subjects.  It is just the opposite. If you don't talk about these things, resentment and anger can be a result and there is nothing more destructive to a marriage. Couples that yell or resort to personal criticisms or those that withdraw from the discussion altogether are more likely to break up than couples that argue constructively. The key is learning to tackle difficult topics as a team, rather than as adversaries, in a positive and constructive way.

This positive nurturing communication style really is the key to a healthy and happy long term partnership. Check in with each other often.  Take time out from technology to really focus on each other and share deep conversations. The time to start this practice is long before you walk down the aisle.   

 Arise my friend, oh beautiful one, and come away. For now the winter is past. The rains are over and gone. Blossoms appear in the fields and the time for singing has come.  The sound of the turtledove echoes throughout the land.  The fig tree is ripening its green new fruit and the budded vines give of their fragrance.  Arise my friend, oh beautiful one, and come away.                                   Song of Songs 2:10-13


When I moved to the Central Coast in 1985, I discovered all the places to go berry picking - strawberries in Nipomo, ollalieberries in Avila Beach and  raspberries at a U-Pick farm on the way to Morro Bay.   Berry picking outings yielded pies, jams, and berry laden yeast waffle breakfasts.  So berry picking has always heralded the beginning of summer for me.  It's a wonderful way to forget the "to-do" list, be out in nature and then enjoy the fruits of your labor. And it is a powerful spiritual practice to set aside one's own agenda and just be an expression of the ways of nature. 

There is a wonderful documentary titled “Stewards of the Earth: One Planet, Many Faiths.” The film highlights faith based environmental programs throughout the United States.  There is the Earth Sangha in Fairfax, VA, a Buddhist group dedicated to native plants and forest restoration.  The Jewish Farm School in New York is an educational organic farm teaching sustainable agriculture based on the Torah.  The United Church of Christ in Chester County, NY has a community garden which provides work opportunities for inner city youth and they give 10% of their harvest to local food banks.  All of these programs work to repair our relationship with the natural world which ultimately brings peace and healing to our own souls as well as to our relationships with each other.  It is what we call Tikkun Olam (repairing the world) and Tikkun HaNefesh (repairing our soul). 

The young enthusiastic organic farmers atThe Jewish Farm School call the Torah the ‘Jewish Farmer’s Almanac’ because there is so much agricultural wisdom encoded in its teaching.   There are instructions about what crops to plant next to each other and what not to plant next to each other and how long to wait before harvesting fruit so the tree has time to grow strong and mature.  But the teaching goes even deeper. There are ancient laws about sharing a portion of the harvest with the poor so that everyone has access to food. The ecologic wisdom in the Torah is inherently social justice wisdom.   It provides inspiration for going out and doing good work in the world making the ancient wisdom relevant in our lives today.

We can all do the sacred work of being stewards of the earth by recycling, restoring habitat, buying local and organic, and making sure everyone has food security.  These are concrete and easy ways we can ‘pray with our feet’ as Abraham Joshua Heschel once said.   The next layer of practice is to realize that food security leads to sharing and improved relationships. Restoring habitat allows you to experience nature not as a resource but as something to be appreciated for its inherent natural gift.   And growing and harvesting local, organic food becomes a powerful community gathering point.
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Rabbi Shefa Gold writes, “God speaks to us through the wonders and beauty and mysteries of Nature. We must learn how to listen.”  I hope each of you takes some time this summer to listen.

Planning a Jewish wedding ceremony is probably just what you would think.   There is a first phone call or email from the couple inquiring about logistics - date, time, place.  Then there is a conversation. With couples coming to the Central Coast from all over the world, that could be via Skype, phone or in person.   Once we all determine we are a good fit, the fun begins. And I really do mean fun, because this process is why I am excited to go to work every day.   I get to share Jewish tradition,  often seeing this tradition I so love through new and fresh eyes. I am blessed to continually renew my relationship with these ancient rituals as we cooperatively transform them for this time and age.  

Something else happens as we fine tune the ceremony.  I witness the transformation of two separate people with two different family backgrounds become a lovely melting pot of shared traditions. A groom with Jewish Sephardic background reads a poem from the Golden Age of Spain's poet Yehudi HaLevi and has Flamenco dancers dancing to Ladino melodies at the reception.   A bride with Mexican traditions incorporates the lazo along with the wrapping of the tallit for the Priestly Blessing.  Incorporating these cultural traditions serves to unite families as the newly married couple creates traditions of their own.  Creativity, flexibility and curiosity are needed in creating shared sacred rituals. We can take the traditions and make them relevant for our time.  As the great Rav Kook said, "Make the old new, and the new sacred."

The wrap-up of the holiday season means that Engagement Season is in full swing. Many couples choose to commit to each other in the presence of family at Thanksgiving, or with a neatly wrapped ring box as the Hanukkah or Christmas present.  And we can't forget the romantic New Year's Eve or Valentine's Day proposals.  Engagement Season marks the beginning of wedding planning and great energy and care is taken in choosing the venue, the caterer, the photographer, the florist and the music. I encourage couples to take the same care when it comes to choosing your rabbi. 

It is a good idea to start the rabbi-choosing process early.  Rabbis need to plan around Jewish holidays, Shabbat, and synagogue commitments so the sooner the rabbi gets your wedding date on her calendar, the better.    
Just as important as the rabbi's availability for your wedding date, is to make sure the rabbi and the wedding couple are a good  "fit" for each other.   This means that the rabbi's personality, sensibility, and skill set are a good match for the wedding couple's vision.   Jewish marriage is a sanctification of two people coming together and the rabbi sets the tone for, and holds the sacred space for, that sacred coming together. Your rabbi should also be concerned not just about your wedding, but about your marriage.  Your rabbi will encourage you talk about issues that will arise in your future life together and help you to develop skills in communication and conflict resolution.  The more you can anticipate and deal with issues ahead of time, the better success you will have as a couple. 

I encourage couples to choose a rabbi that "gets" them as individuals, understands their backgrounds, and connects to their vision of how they want their ceremony to be.  In order to accomplish this, take care in getting to know your rabbi and what he or she will bring to your ceremony.  You will know when you have made the right choice when you will walk away from your encounters with the rabbi feeling heard, affirmed, and relaxed about what lies ahead.  And when the "fit" between you and your rabbi is a good one,  magical things can happen on your special day. 

I am grateful to all the couples who put their trust in me.  It is why being a part of Jewish weddings is my favorite part of being a rabbi! 

"Rabbi Mehring is incredibly warm, understanding and real. She served as our wedding Rabbi and officiated in front of two relatively conservative Iranian-American families. Not only did she win the crowd (and obviously us), she brought real meaning and understanding to tradition. She even graced us with her lovely voice! If you are thinking about marriage, engaged, or recently married (or long-married at that), I would recommend talking to her about marital counseling and preparing for journey ahead. We love Rabbi Janice!                                                                                             -Daniel and Doreen Ahadian

Ever turning goes the spirit.
The spirit dwells on its turning.    Ecclesiastes 1:6 

Most of us know the dreydl as a symbol of Hanukkah.  We play the game and eat delicious chocolate coins/gelt and we use the dreydl to tell the story of miracles.  The four Hebrew letters on our spinning top ( nun, gimel, hay, shin) are an acronym for the saying “Nes Gadol Haya Sham – A great miracle happened there!”  Rabbi Stan Levy taught me the dreydl can move beyond its role as a Hanukkah betting game and can direct us toward a spiritual awareness during this season of dedication and light.   

The word dreydl is Yiddish and means a ‘spinning thing,’ like a top.   There is a Yiddish phrase about ‘fardreying’ your kopf, meaning your head is spinning. Rabbi Stan taught me that holding a dreydl in your palm is like experiencing the world in your hands.    When you spin the dreydl, imagine you are spinning the earth on its axis, and you are feeling the turning of our lives.  Allow your head to spin with possibilities.

When the dreydl lands on Nun, in points to Nes -miracles.  What are the miracles in your life?
When it lands on Gimel, it points toward Gadol-greatness.  What is good and great in your life?
When it lands on Hay, it points toward Haya, something which is happening.  Are you experiencing your life in the moment, as it happens?
When it lands on Shin, it points toward Sham, something which is there.   Where is “there” for you?  Is it here and everywhere and are you really ‘there’?  

Arthur Rubinstein was nearly 80 years old when he told a reporter “I want to live passionately. I’m passionately involved in life; I love its change, its color, its movement. To be alive, to be able to speak, to see, to walk, to have music, paintings – it’s all a miracle.  I have adopted the technique of living life from miracle to miracle.”  This Hanukkah give your dreydl a few spins with these intentions in mind. Share with those around you how you might rededicate yourself to living your life fully present to the miracles and goodness around you. 

Now is a time filled with new beginnings including the communal ones of a Jewish new year and the start of the annual Torah reading cycle.  It is also the time to reflect on personal "fresh starts" having just completed our transformative fall holiday season. What will this new year hold for you? Will it be about accomplishing goals and reaching destinations? Can you enjoy the ride along the way? 

Goal setting and completion is important and is an exercise that can give life meaning and purpose.  Jews feel accomplished when they have completed a year's Torah reading cycle as it is no small task to navigate these complex Five Books of Moses. Reading the Torah can be thrilling, disturbing, enlightening, boring, and comforting all at once.  But we have to ask if the purpose of reading the Torah, or of completing any worthy goal for that matter, is about the completion of the task or is it about what you discover along the way?

Martin Buber wrote, "All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware."  You think you know why you are marrying someone, or why you took that job or why you are buying a house. But you may be unaware of the hidden rewards, or secret destinations, of the endeavor. Being present to those unexpected revelations along the way shines light on the true meaning and purpose of our journey.  

Instead of concentrating on what you will get done this year, focus on how you will feel doing it.   Instead of asking "What am I going to do?" ask  "Who will I be when I do it?" Our spiritual health and well being is nurtured with this as our kavannah/intention and when our soul is enriched, we are better equipped to bring our material goals to fruition. 
During our holiday Simkhat Torah/Joy of Torah, we finished the Torah, acknowledging loss with the death of Moses.  And then we immediately turned to the beginning to celebration Creation once again.  So just as we danced and rejoiced on Simkhat Torah, let's join our heads and our hearts and our feet and dance together into the new year, open and welcoming of the secret destinations we come to along the way.

The Hebrew month of Tishrei, which occurs during the fall season, is loaded with holy days.  We move from the deep introspection of the Days of Awe into Sukkot, the celebration of abundance. We finish the season dancing and rejoicing with the Torah on the holiday of Simkhat Torah.   It is a whirlwind of emotion and joy and special care and pacing is needed to ward off holiday exhaustion.    But there is a reason this time is called Z'man Simkhateinu: The Season of Our Happiness.  That reason becomes clear when viewing these holidays through the eyes of a little kid.   Our temporary shelter, called a sukkah, was filled with children this weekend.  We sang and read stories in our sukkah.  We compared the etrog, the special citron,  to a regular lemon.  "It is lumpier."  "It is the same color -yellow."  "It has a pointier end."    We compared our sukkah to regular house.  "There is no kitchen."  "There is grass on the roof."  And they postulated what would happen if it rained.  And then we made edible sukkahs out of graham crackers, frosting, pretzels and fruit chews.  Is there anything more joyful than seeing a little kid covered in chocolate frosting? Rabbi Arthur Waskow, author of The Seasons of Our Joy, writes this about Sukkot. " We walk into the sukkah - the fragile field hut, open to the light of moon and stars, that our forebears lived in while they gathered in the grain. We dangle apples and onions, oranges and peppers, from its leafy roof. And we feel the joy that for a moment life is so safe, the world so loving that we can live in these open-ended huts without fear."  I feel happy sitting in the sukkah with people of all ages sharing in the gratitude of the blessings in our lives.  Though the sukkah is meant to be temporary, we pray that these feelings of joy, gratitude and blessing sustain us in the months to come. 

I just scheduled a Tuesday morning wedding.  For many Jews, Tuesday is recognized as a lucky day to get married, as well as to begin a new business, move to a new home, and start a new adventure. Tuesday is deemed an auspicious day because in the Torah's story of Creation,  Tuesday is the only day that God describes as "good" two times.  I was actually married on a chilly Tuesday morning in December. Tuesday was chosen to navigate around the December holidays and hectic work and travel schedules but the rabbi assured us it was a good choice.
Tuesday may be a fine day to get married but there are no traditional Jewish sources that deem Tuesday as the ideal day.   There has never been a particular day of the week deemed as THE Jewish wedding day.  Jewish weddings have occurred on Friday afternoon, Sundays, Wednesdays as well as Tuesday. Traditionally, weddings do not occur on the Sabbath (from sunset Friday until sunset Saturday) because historically Jewish weddings involved a monetary transaction and the signing of a legal document, both activities prohibited on the Sabbath.  Another reason for not marrying on the Sabbath can be found in the midrash.  Jewish weddings are not celebrated on the Sabbath or other Jewish holidays "because we do not mix one simcha or joyous occasion with another." To paraphrase, "Why not hold your wedding when its joy alone will be celebrated?"   In contemporary North America, there are Jewish weddings held on Saturday evenings now to accommodate traveling family and guests. 

Whatever day you choose for your wedding, may every wedding day be "ki tov" / good!  

Blessed is the creation of joy and celebration, lover and mate, gladness and jubilation, pleasure and delight, love and solidarity, friendship and peace.  Soon may we hear the world rejoice and celebrate all loving relationships.   
(An interpretive 7th wedding blessing of the Sheva B'rakhot  by Rabbi Leila Gal Berner)

The past days have been a blur of Jewish lifecycle events.  I officiated at the funeral of my father. I welcomed a new member of the Jewish people.  I named a baby and I stood under the chuppah to sanctify the union of a bride and groom.   All of these things remind me why I love being a rabbi but as this picture shows, the joy of blessing a baby is a highlight.  This particular simcha, or joyous occasion, is the model for love and hope and faith and dreams, all of which are reflected in the eyes of the parents and the hearts of the community.  Baby Eva hung on every word and smiled with delight at every musical note I sang.  I can't think of a more soothing balm for my grief.  We shower you with blessings and sing to you the ancient words of our tradition. 

May God bless you and watch over you.
May God’s face give light to you and be gracious to you.
May God’s face be lifted toward you and bring you peace.

This week marks the occasion of me becoming an orphan.  My mother passed away last December and my father joined her on Saturday night.   I am grateful that his struggle with Parkinson's Disease has finally come to an end and that he no longer suffers the confines of a wheelchair, the inability to speak above a whisper and the difficulty swallowing that led to severe weight loss. 
My family said goodbye on Tuesday with a chapel and graveside service, for which I officiated.  I did the things I always do at funerals for which I am the rabbi. I coordinated with mortuary staff. I counseled the family and taught about Jewish death and mourning traditions.  I sang Psalm 21 and Psalm 23 and chanted Eyl Malei Rachamim at the graveside.  And I facilitated the placing of earth on my father's casket as the final step in fulfilling the mitzvah of levayah, escorting him to his final resting place. 
But it took returning to the gravesite the next morning to really say goodbye and to embrace the concept that I was now an orphan.  People have been asking me how I am doing and feeling and the word that comes to mind is 'untethered,' without my sounding board and consummate cheerleader.  That quiet private moment at the graveside helped me not only embrace this reality of my parents' deaths, but it afforded great clarity. We buried my father next to my mother just the day before yet it was clear that they are not there in that static space or fixed in that set time. They are in my heart and my cognitive and subconscious thoughts every moment of every day.  They are everywhere.   I feel confident that it is just a matter of time before my perception of the meaning of "tethered" evolves and expands into an even greater sense of connection than when my parents were here in the physical realm.   Mary Elizabeth Frye, herself an orphan at age three, wrote this poem for a friend who was unable to be with her mother as the mother was dying.   I have said this poem and sung the music many many times but the meaning was never as clear to me as when I was sitting at my parents' graveside.  I may be an orphan but I am not alone. 

Do not stand at my grave and weep 

I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush 
Of quiet birds in circled flight. 

I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die. 
 
Donations in memory of Mel Pollack can be made to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research