Don't Be Afraid! A Tribute to Rabbi Alan Lew

"I have not found serenity. Serenity is nothing other than prophecy."
- Baruch ben Neriah, Shir haShirim Rabbah on 6:10

Today Rabbi Alan Lew, the rabbi emeritus of Congregation Beth Shalom, and a beautiful teacher of Jewish meditation in San Francisco, died unexpectedly. He was one of the people responsible for the fact that I am writing this entry from my room in Jerusalem, after having spent the day in a traditional beit midrash, a house of study. I am shocked to hear of this loss, and I am moved to tell the story of how his teachings helped orient me, in subtle ways, toward Judaism, toward meditation, and toward California.

Once when I was home on a break from my freshman year of college, I went over to a friend's house, and after talking for a while with my friend's mom, I walked away with a signed copy of One God Clapping, Rabbi Lew's autobiography about his years practicing Zen meditation in northern California, and his decision to leave the monastery for rabbinical school. I was to major in religion, looking thematically at world religions to explore how they provide ethical norms, inspire people to the highest forms of art and wackiest forms of transgression, and at its core, why religion always has and always will exist in every human culture. I took something essential from this book-- certainty and loyalty. Whatever I learned in my religion classes and my travels, however attractive the ideas and adherents of Buddhism and Rastafarianism and the mystical traditions, after college, I knew that, like Rabbi Lew, I would return home, to my Jewish path, having experienced and better understood all sorts of rituals, beliefs, and spiritualities, knowing that Judaism could fulfill all my spiritual expectations and desires, if I could look deeply enough and in the right places.

Fast forward a few years. College. A year in Israel. Five years after I tore the cover of that signed copy of One God Clapping on a bike ride across town, I found out that Rabbi Lew was teaching an evening class in Jewish meditation at the San Francisco JCC. I had just moved to the Bay Area a couple weeks earlier, supported by an entry-level job at a law firm in San Francisco, and this was exactly the kind of experience I needed to integrate my previous year in Israel with my first-ever daily grind.

He explained the technique of meditation. We learned a teaching from Rebbe Nachman. One of the leather biker guys or a financial-type yuppie or someone who had already told me about his experience in rehab would ask a question. I'd notice the colors of everyone's socks. Then we'd sit in silence on our cushions for 45 minutes, meditating. That was the class. My first foray into Jewish California. It tasted simple. And sweet.

Rabbi Lew gave thoughtful, loving answers to questions. He had followers, who went wherever he taught. Perhaps this was the first time I ever saw people who were so normal and easy to talk to venerate a rabbi. I didn't feel I knew him well enough to venerate him. But his class helped me transition from my life in Israel, where I had spent most Shabbat afternoons meditating in a celery field in a small town in the Negev, to negotiating how I would observe Shabbat, practice meditation, and find a Jewish community in California, where I had moved on something of a whim. I also know that when I passed on some of his words of Torah at my first Shabbat dinner in San Francisco, my life changed forever. But that's a story for another day.

I went home to NJ that December, and met with the rabbi of my parents' synagogue. I like to check in with him, and I was impressed with his attempts to offer meditation evenings at the synagogue, and his own serious meditation practice. He asked me if I would review Rabbi Lew's other book for him--Be Still and Get Going: A Jewish Meditation Practice for Real Life. I made my way slowly through this book. I savored it on weekend retreats that I helped lead for high school students, when I could steal some time alone in my cabin. It was on one of these retreats that I got to Chapter 4: Don't Be Afraid! A few pages into this chapter, I felt a sudden conviction: this was my truth! I would not live my life afraid of what could happen, or afraid I would make a wrong decision. I wanted to live with this conviction: to remain fiercely or change fiercely, but to commit to each moment. As a result, I let myself fall in love.

Rabbi Lew conveyed the deepest, most universal truths. He handled them delicately, but never seemed distant or untouchable. His openness and honesty, and the simplicity and profoundness of the teachings he passed on inspired me to believe that my journey could be something like his. I might discover beauty in foreign places, find my way back to Judaism, do some serious Jewish learning, and one day become a teacher who could convey profound teachings and articulate a path toward serenity with utmost humility and lovingkindness. Any teacher who can inspire such a desire is someone we will continue to learn from despite losing him from this world. May his memory be for a blessing. May his family be comforted among all the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.