For Lancelot, getting up in the morning and coming face-to-face with a dragon was as exciting as swatting a fly from his head.

He had lost track of the number of quests he had been on. Perhaps 157? His parents could give a perfect inventory of his awards, trophies and medals. His father could state the stats of the length of every dragon’s wingspan. His mother could share how many damsels in distress he had saved including the fabric and style of the ladies’ dresses.

A museum had opened to display the heads of the dragons Lancelot had slain. Princesses and duchesses entered these halls. They batted their eyes and flickered their fans to get Lancelot’s attention. He rolled his eyes and excused himself saying he had another quest to fulfill. A lady often fainted at these words.

“Another day with the dragons,” mumbled Lancelot to his horse.

After hum drumming for 13 miles, he and his beautiful steed halted outside the dark entrance to a dragon’s lair. Lancelot slumped off his horse and casually walked to the cave. In a voice with as much enthusiasm as a snoring bull, he cleared his throat to announce what he had announced for all 157 quests.

“Today you face judgment with my sword—blah, blah, blah—for it is I, Sir Lancelot, who seeks your head!”

Rumbles echoed inside the cave’s walls. The dragon rushed out of the cave and glared at the knight with its scales laid flat.

“RRAAARRRRRR! How dare you speak in such a tone! And saying, ‘Blah, blah, blah!’”

“After 157 quests you’d probably get bored, too. So you know the routine. I’ll wield my sword about a dozen times. We’ll run in two figure eights. You’ll throw around a few fireballs. Then, I’ll stab you in the heart and finally cut off your head.”

“If we do it your way, I don’t get a happy ending, do I?”

“Stop talking and let’s get to work! I have another ‘amazing’ quest to go on.”

“Well, don’t you have a sense of humor!”

Lancelot completed one turn around the dragon when he froze. His sword hung in mid-air. He had heard a word that he had not heard in years.

“What did you say?”

“I said, ‘don’t you have a sense of humor!’”

Lancelot lowered his sword and put it back in its sheath.

“Humor? Yes! Humor! Oh—thank you!”

Lancelot charged the dragon—not with a lance—but with open arms and gave the shocked creature a hug around its neck. As the knight raced back to his steed, the dragon watched, unable to move from astonishment. Perhaps that dragon is still frozen in place.

As Lancelot rode back home, he didn’t hum drum or haw or sigh.

He thought back to when he was a child, about the height of his father’s knees.

Trumpets had blared from the castle walls as word was heard of a grand festival complete with jesters and jugglers. He tugged on his mother’s sleeves.

“Can I go, mom? Can I go?”

“Of course, sweetie. Your father will take you.”

Before Lancelot could protrude his lips in disappointment, his father picked him up and placed him on his shoulders.

“Oh, we will go to the jousting tournament. I dare say you want to be a knight and fight dragons!”

Lancelot’s legs dangled around his father’s neck. He squirmed and wiggled to get back on the ground so he could run away to find the jesters and jugglers. His father only hung on tighter, convinced that his son was excited to see the knights.

Conquered, Lancelot placed his elbows on his father’s head and then placed his head in his hands.

After the jousting tournament, Lancelot and his father journeyed home. Lancelot turned his head towards the festival grounds. He saw a jester stuff some crazy things into a burlap sack, swing the sack over his shoulder, and continue down the path—away from Lancelot.

All through dinner, his father shared the amazing feats of the knights and Lancelot stared at his food until it got cold. When his father finished his story, Lancelot blurted out, “I want to be the royal court jester!”

His mother dropped a plate. His father dropped his mouth. No more was said.

Later that night, before Lancelot went to sleep, he heard his mother wailing to his father. “Oh, how can our son think of being a jester? To betray his lineage?”

Lancelot never spoke his dream out loud again and followed the course his father showed him. He became page then squire then knight.

“Yet, the dream will be spoken now!” cried Lancelot as he came out of his daydream.

Lancelot knew he must approach the king yet he could not simply march up to the king and ask to be a jester. Usually a knight asked to become a lord or a duke and be over his own palace. No one asked to be demoted as an ordinary citizen, especially to be a jester.

Lancelot rode to the closest kingdom. For his plan to work, he needed to have the palace buzzing about a traveling jester headed there. Lancelot went to the marketplace and approached several villagers.

“Hey, did you know there is a jester who wants to be a knight? Have you heard of such a thing?”

The people never had heard of such a thing and it wasn’t long before news reached the king. At once, the king requested that this jester come to his court.

When Lancelot heard of the king’s interest, Lancelot exited the palace gates and went into the nearby woods. Out of a burlap sack, he took out a bright costume he had made. While putting it on, he experimented voices he could use as a jester. He put some white powder on his face. Then he pulled out an old broom, his new “horse”, from the sack. He broke off a branch above him to be his sword.

Lancelot galloped along the path atop his trusty broom.

As he neared the kingdom, guards spotted him and announced the jester’s arrival to the king.

Trumpets sounded as Lancelot rode into the palace gates. Lancelot sauntered on his broom all through town and finally to the courtroom. The sight alone of the jester on his “horse” drew a large crowd full of curiosity.

Then Lancelot cupped his hands and mimicked the trumpets.

“Dodododo! Ah! Your majesty! I come before you to become a knight. My training is unsurpassable!”

“Is this so, Jester? How have you trained yourself?” mused the king as he twirled his beard with his fingers.

“I am an expert in the most strenuous exercise of all . . .laughter! Did you know ten minutes of vigorous laughter equals ten minutes of rowing a boat? Let me demonstrate.”

The jester turned to one of the king’s guards. The biggest guard was twice the size of the jester.

“May I borrow your sword? Place it on the ground?”

The guard’s sword was the same size as the jester.

“You may wonder if I can lift this sword! First, I will laugh. Hahahahahahahhahahahah! Now my muscles are ready.”

The jester seized the handle.

“To slay a dragon—gasp, gasp, gasp—it’s important—gasp, gasp, gasp—to intimate it by swinging the sword—gasp, gasp, gasp—a dozen times.”

The sword had not budged from the ground. The jester let go of the handle.

“Hmmm, it appears I shall have to increase my laughter exercise from thirty minutes to an hour for this sword! No matter, I will use my own sword!”

The jester swung his “sword”, the branch, several times and smacked his face a few too many times with the leaves.

The king furrowed his brows.

“Next it is required in a dragon battle to complete two figure eights to avoid tackle. Let me show you my figure eights that I learned through ice-skating. Guard, you will be the dragon.”

The jester took long awkward strides around the guard and completed the lopsided figure eights.

“Now watch as the dragon—guard, that’s you—blows his humongous fireballs!”

The giant guard stood at attention. Nothing happened.

“Ahem, now watch as the dragon blows his humongous fireballs!”
The guard still stood at attention. Nothing happened.

“Come on, guard, you are the dragon. Show me a fireball!”

The guard looked at the king, rolled his eyes, and blew a tiny puff of air from one side of his mouth.

“Guard, is that any kind of a fireball? Bigger! Bigger!”

The guard made a larger puff of air but was not about to do anything more.

“Hmmm, must be a baby dragon. Oh well. It is time to take my sword. . .”

The jester held up his branch.

“. . .and stab the dragon in the heart.”

The jester threw the branch like a spear and made a “tink” against the guard’s armor.

“With a strike like that, any dragon would plunge to the earth!”

The giant guard stood at attention. Nothing happened.

“Ahem, with a strike like that, any dragon would plunge to the earth!”

The guard still stood at attention. Nothing happened.

“Oh, guard! Please cooperate. Let’s try again.”

“With a strike like that, any dragon would plunge to the earth!”

Again the guard looked at the king, rolled his eyes, and slumped to the ground. The jester placed his foot on the “dragon” and pretended to saw the guard’s head as trophy. The jester lifted the imaginary head and exclaimed, “Ah! I have conquered!”

The palace erupted with applause and the jester gave a bow and threw out kisses to the ladies in the court.

The king was quiet. Then the king put his hand to his mouth. Finally, the king wrapped his arms around his stomach from all the laughter!

“Oh, Jester! Now I see how laughter is an exercise. Oh, my stomach hurts!”

After the king collected himself, the jester knelt before the king.

“I am ready to be knighted, oh king!”

“You? I enjoyed your demonstration, but I would sooner turn one of my knights into the royal court jester than have a jester become a knight!”

The jester smiled. “Do I have your word on that?”

“Yes, of course.”

The jester stood up straight and smeared the white powder from his face with the burlap sack to reveal Sir Lancelot.

“Oh king, I, Sir Lancelot, desire to be your royal court jester.”

The whole palace, which had once been full of roar and applause, became completely silent. Everyone waited to hear the king’s response.

After what seemed like hours, the king said, “I cannot have you lose your rank as knight!”

Lancelot drooped his shoulders.

The king continued. “So from now on, instead of being known as Sir Lancelot, you will be known as Sir Laugh-a-lot, my royal court jester!”

Upon hearing his dream spoken out loud, Lancelot picked up his trusty broom and galloped home, thinking of his next routine as a “normal” jester.

At one time the plants existed peacefully in the Garden of Eden, but when Adam and Eve were cast out, there was chaos in the world.

Oaks and pines shoved each other’s trunks to get a better position of the sun’s rays and caused battle scars called “knots.” Those can still be seen today. Roses formed thorns to rip the leaves of other flowers and prevent others from taking their portion of the sun. Bark was just another name for armor while branches and thorns pierced like spears and arrows.

Seedlings never had a chance to get a taste for light. Casualties mounted from the greed and finally many flowers retreated to the meadows and to the fields. Trees and shrubs of the forest rejoiced in their victory but quickly turned on each other—the war far from over.

Refugee flowers could not rest long as dandelions soon dominated the fields.

When the moon appeared, all plants curled and clung their branches and leaves together so as to have enough energy to battle and fight once more when the sun rose.

One gray flower grew weary of this forever battle. She never bloomed for she never reached the light. The slightest nudge from a stem plunged her face first into the ground.

While in this position, she contemplated the possibility of becoming some kind of underground plant such as the potato or the carrot. Then she would not have to fight above ground. She slowly lifted her face and swung her bud downward into the dirt to dig a home underneath, but the presence of clay made one of her petals fall from the force. She was about to try a second time until she remembered that even underground plants need the sun.

She glanced at the red rose with thorns that seized petals of other flowers and wore them as medals of war. No one could conquer the rose.

The gray flower looked at the ground. Sharp-edged rocks surrounded her and a pine tree nearby was bleeding with sap from the last encounter with an oak tree. She stretched with one of her leaves and took some of the sap and rubbed it up and down her stem. Then she picked up some of the sharp-edged rocks and glued them to her. The first rock she placed on herself tore through her stem. She closed her eyes at the pain. She put on another rock and another rock and another rock. She glanced at the rose with tears in her eyes and finally pulled the rocks out. She was not meant to have thorns.

While healing from the cuts in her stems, she looked at the hardy dandelion. He could grow anywhere and everywhere and could squeeze through clay and stone alike. The dandelion even looked like the sun.

The gray flower lifted pebbles to strengthen her leaves and stem until finally she could advance to stones. She spied a stone as big as her head and wrapped her leaves around it. She could feel part of it lift from the ground and then she heard a terrifying rip. It was her stem. It had bent in half. Now the gray flower was forced to face the ground. Her spirit was gone and she knew she was doomed to extinction.

She curled closer to the ground and dreamed before she would die. She felt warmth on her cheeks and could feel her tightly closed bud open. Her petals were no longer gray but shone silver underneath the . . . she opened her eyes and saw not the glorious sun above but the majestic moon. She turned and saw the other flowers, shrubs, and trees sleeping. She alone rejoiced and bloomed during this peaceful night.

Few know of the beautiful silver Moonflower, but those who stroll along a path under a full moon shall never forget her.

After about 11 years looking in, searching around, studying, visiting and practicing so many different spiritual paths, I finally returned to Judaism. And the signposts that helped me find my way back was stories and storytelling.

Rabbi Ted Falcon is a wonderful storyteller and his telling Hasidic stories back in the early 1980’s was one of the main reasons I cam back and stayed.

And that by itself is a big breakthrough. However, the really big breakthrough , for me as regards the path of the storyteller, was the story that came to me as a member of the choir in Rabbi Falcon’s congregation at that time, Makom Ohr Shalom: A Place for the Light of Healing.

This was 1986. It was the second day of Rosh Hashanah—the Jewish New Year. It also happened to be, through an accident (there really are none) of the Jewish calendar, a calendar based on the lunar cycle,and the recent leap year that that particular Rosh Hashanah second day was also my own personal New Year: my birthday. That would not happen again until THIS past year, 2005, when for the first time since 1986, my birthday would fall on the second day of Rosh Hashanah And it was not just another birthday, but it was my 30th birthday—certainly a landmark year for most of us.

So there I was sitting in the tenor section of the Congregation Makom Ohr Shalom choir and Rabbi Ted was leading us in one his wonderful guided meditations. And normally, when we were doing these meditations, I went along with wherever Ted was going.

But this time, I went somewhere else. Some side way off the main path. And wherever that was, I received something, a gift, I had never received before, nor ever received since. I heard a story that the Rabbi was not telling. It was a complete story with a beginning, middle and end. There was no creative struggle or any of the usual process I experience while creating a story. No, this story came right through as if it was being told to me. I had never heard it before and as far as I know it had never been told or written anywhere else. Just inside me at that moment, like it was being dictated. Or as I said, it was being told to me. Inside.

I later decided that it was. That whatever an angelic encounter was, this was as close as I was probably ever going to get.

I kept thinking of the story for the rest of the service and as soon as I could, I wrote down a little note to myself so I would remember it. I wrote on the front cover of my copy of the meditation book/prayer pamphlet/songbook that we used: “Invisible Mezuzzah”.

This story has turned out to be one of my favorite stories to tell. That mystical experience of receiving the story led me, just a few weeks later to want to audit a class Rabbi Ted was teaching at the University of Judaism (UJ) in Bel Air, which led me to fall in love with that campus there in the Santa Monica foothills, which led me to register as an undergraduate in the UJ’s Lee College, which led me to apply to rabbinical school, which led me to be a rabbi now (and also to meeting my wife, but that is another story). Which led me to start a congregation here in Northern California, which led me to a trip to Israel…

But wait. There is something that comes before that.

Being at the UJ, also led me to spending a Shabbat (Sabbath) retreat there on campus in the dorms, and chapel setting with one of the great master storytellers of our generation, Peninah Schram. Peninah spent that Shabbat with about 10 students (there were few living there anyway and most of them did not stay around for the Shabbat). In one of the student lounges, she told us a story. And it was great.

Then she asked the students to tell a story. Only two of us were willing: a rabbinical student, and me (still an undergrad at that time).

The story I told was “The Invisible Mezuzzah”. Afterwards, Peninah told me that it was a great story and that I was a very gifted storyteller.

Well, after my head stopped spinning and I came back to earth, I though about this whole new concept of storytelling as an “art form” (I had heard of it and I had told stories in educational settings for years, but I had not thought of it before as an actual art form). And that haunted me throughout my rabbinical school career (which lasted 6 years AFTER finishing the 3 years needed to complete my undergraduate work since I had never completed my bachelor’s degree as a music student in my early twenties) and my first few years as a rabbi (since 1996, my ordination year).

Now, last year, in December 2004, I led a group of 10 of us from our little 30 member household congregation here in “lost” Jewish world of Solano County, Northern California on a tour to Israel, as part of a much larger group of people from Southern California.

Close to the end of that tour, I, along with one family from our congregation, was on a bus, that had been for most of the tour, occupied by the rabbi, his wife and child and his congregants from a very wealthy and large synagogue in one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in the US. It was mostly a very pleasant bus. However, the children on that bus had been given a free pass to make as much noise, move around freely on the bus and basically do anything they wanted. It was decided that it would be a “kid friendly” bus—that on that bus, they would let “kids be kids”. Which basically meant in that situation that the children had a license to scream, carry on and do anything they wanted, as long as nobody was killed. This was a problem for the Israeli tour guide, as the most he could hope for most of the way, while he talked to us about the sights and interesting background, was a low roar.

Well, we were on our way to Tzefat (aka “Safed”), the mystical city of Israel, which has a very rich legacy in the development of Jewish mysticism known as Kabbalah.

Since I love that city, maybe even more (or certainly as much) as Jerusalem, I felt inspired. I asked the other rabbi, if I might tell a story to the bus through the bus PA system. He said “Sure, but since it is a ‘kid friendly’ bus, don’t expect them to actually listen or be quiet while you tell it. And we can’t really demand that they do, since the agreement with parents was they had the freedom to “just be kids”. I said okay.

And then I began to tell them the story of the “The Invisible Mezuzzah”. And about 1 minute into the story, you could hear a pin drop. Well, actually you could hear the sound of the bus engine, the outside ambience and me telling the story. And that was really the first time you could hear those first two since we had entered the bus. To be fair, there was a few moments of laughter from the children and the parents at points in the story, I often expect laughter. They listened to the entire story and afterwards, there was a moment of silence and then applause.

A few minutes later, we arrived in Tzefat.

After we disembarked from the bus, the man who was the husband and father of the only other family from my congregation (all the others had left that bus after the first day we rode with them. They could not take the “kid friendliness”), said to me, “Rabbi Steve, I want to make you an offer you can’t refuse.”

No horse heads or contracts at gun point, I hoped.

“I will pay all the costs for your first storytelling CD. I think that you are a great storyteller and I think your stories need to be heard. Whatever it costs, I will put the money up. You can pay me back if and when the CD pays for itself and then the rest is yours.”

Well, that experience was certainly a breakthrough. And it was based on a story that had come to me at an earlier breakthrough, 18 years earlier. In the Jewish tradition, the number 18 stands for “Life” because in Hebrew letters are numbers and the letters “yud” and “Het” are the 10th and 8th letters respectively and they are the same letters for the word “chai” which means life. And in between the receiving of that story and its 18th year of life, was that telling of it in that little student lounge back at the UJ in Los Angeles before I entered rabbinical school.

I am now working on that first CD and on the first of this year (2006), I had my first official storytelling performance at a local United Church of Christ church. I have another performance scheduled this month and two more at a local Episcopal Church in February. My feet are now firmly on the storytelling path.

Or we could say, my life as a storyteller is now fully born, after a long pregnancy period. I see the receiving of the gift of that story and then the telling of it, first at the UJ to that small group of students and Peninah Schram and then on that bus in Israel on the way to the mystical city of Tzefat, as being the three biggest landmarks or road signs on my storyteller path. I only now am entering into this life long passion and love of mine with full force. And it is the story of the journey of the story of “The Invisible Mezuzzah” that carried me here.

May it carry me, accompanied by many other stories and story angels forward on the path of the storyteller.

Soon after, I went to an intensive three-week clown workshop led by Bob Berky. I was psyched to show off and strut my stuff to him and to the others. Up until now, I had received only positive strokes from my telling, and I was fully expecting similar raves. Bob was an excellent instructor, but he wasn’t a gentle, sensitive coach like Doug Lipman. Basically, I got slammed and I took it really hard. Yes, I was good at animating the story, but I was told in no uncertain terms, that there was no connection to the audience, that I may as well be up there performing for myself. I don’t know if he used the word masturbatory or not, but that was the harsh gist of it.

I distinctly remember riding the bus back from that workshop, and writing myself a note about the key lesson I had painfully learned. The same asset that I had of being able to “get into” the action of the story was a potential liability. Yes, I was enjoying the story myself and I was a good craftsman, but the art was missing if I wasn’t keying in with the audience and inviting them to enter the story with me. The art and joy of performing is in being aware of the audience and feeling them throughout the telling. In a way, it was good that I had such a poignant lesson so early in my performing career. It’s almost as if I had to start all over, but with a new awareness that I believe has informed my work ever since.

The crux of my story is that it was a critical outside eye that enabled me to have this pivotal breakthrough. What I received was not the feedback that I was expecting, but it was exactly what I needed. Would I have welcomed that critique if I had had a clue as to what was coming? I can’t say for sure about then, but I know what the answer is now. After performing for nearly thirty years, I know how crucial it’ll always be to workshop new pieces and to solicit honest, candid critique.

I use the outside eyes of a small group of colleagues with whom I meet monthly. Judith Black is among them, and over the years, a great bond of respect and trust has developed within the group. We no longer need to pussyfoot with each other. We ask for what we’re looking for when showing our works-in-progress, and we are open to whatever comes back. Granted, when Judith and I coach others with whom we don’t have as much of a history, we are much gentler with our observations. But now if one of us just wants to know what’s not working and where the weak spots are, that’s what we’ll get pointblank. This candor may not be for everyone, but it works for us and makes our process that much more efficient. Sometimes, we find ourselves working on a wobbly “baby” that hasn’t yet found its legs. When that is the case, we are comfortable admitting our vulnerability, which is kindly taken into account when we ask for feedback.

Sometimes you know what you need and can ask for it. Other times you may not have a clue. When you do invite a respected eye for whatever input they are willing to share, you are opening yourself to all kinds of breakthroughs that may have entirely eluded your radar. Take those new bearings and fly with them.