Jordan Max, while digging out his driveway in Toronto, imagined various Jewish leaders giving him advice on shovelling snow, and his parody travelled around the internet. When I first read it, I was involved with the experimental, New Agey Jewish Renewal movement, and came up with my own version lampooning Jewish Renewal leaders. (This will not be as funny if you don't know this cast of characters, but those who do have greatly enjoyed it.) (Apologies for my fake Hebrew....)
Rodger Kamanetz: I stood before the snow, shovel in hand, and reflected on my brief time with Reb Coyote Winklestein of the Wedeln Havarah. My quest for a Judaism of Snow had taken me from the powdered peaks of Vail to the ice-crusted hills of Vermont. As I began to dig out my car, I realized that the movements of my body were recalling the meditation on the Ski-Sephirot Reb Goldstein had taught me on the slope the previous afternoon ......
Abraham Joshua Heschel: Behold the magnificence of Snow, all whitely laid out before Man, who passes through chamber after chamber of growing Awe: first the Polartec sweater, then the Boots, then the Shovel, and finally Man emerges into the all-encompassing Whiteness that is truly his Outer Sanctum: this is the Day of Shovelling.
Shefa Gold:
Brucha at Yah, Ruacha ha Olam .... (3x)
This snow on my heart, lift it up, lift it up .... (2x)
hallelu-hu, hallelu-hu .... (bass line)
(chant in 3 parts, or maybe as a round)
Reb Sammy Intrator: What I want you all to know at this time is that the snow represents the real toyrah that you have to come to with your own shovel, and if Reb Schlomo were here, he would say "What should we do with all this snow?" And I know, I really know, that Reb Schlomo would want all of us to pick up that shovel and shovel that toyrah into our hearts ......
Marcia Falk:
It is good to bless
falling snow
our white day
our blue shovel
from WalMart
our life
our death
our falling day
Amen
Reb Zalman Schacter-Shalomi: Right here where we could say the Shechecheyanu, there is also a bissle space to make a snow brocha. Now how do you make a snow brocha? Vell, if you remember this morning ve talked about how the prayers of the Colorader Rebbe vent down into the earth, of course this is not a literal earth but Adamah-Yatom, the first earth that comes up with the shovel of the heart, you understand? Soooooo, in that earth there is mixed some snow, and I'll sing you a little of this brocha, it goes like this .....
Marge Piercy:
What is it about shovels,
I wonder? Do they remind me
Of your black look when
I say, "Dear, the snow has
Covered the sleeping driveway,"
Or is it my mother's black
Dress I used to hide behind
In shul on Shabbos morning?
Black shovels, white snow,
Nudging women, resigned men,
Yellow onions, Siamese cats,
Or anything else I can cram
Into this sort of Jewish poem?
Rabbi Arthur Waskow: Dear Chevre, my latest book has a chapter on the great intertwining of the feminine G!D-force with the human stirrings of eco- consciousness that dances together with our shovels of desire for food, money, sex, and a little rest, nu? So, shouldn't we be asking ourselves: Was this snowfall caused by global warming? Join me for a mass shovel-in in front of the Capitol building tomorrow at noon! Unless the snow melts, in which case I'll send another email. (Apologies for cross-posting.)
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