Student rabbi KOach baruch frazier; havaya has range
Yom Kippur 5784
September 24, 2023
View the video here.
יְהֹוָ֣ה ׀ יְהֹוָ֔ה אֵ֥ל רַח֖וּם וְחַנּ֑וּן אֶ֥רֶךְ אַפַּ֖יִם וְרַב־חֶ֥סֶד וֶאֱמֶֽת׃ נֹצֵ֥ר חֶ֙סֶד֙ לָאֲלָפִ֔ים נֹשֵׂ֥א עָוֺ֛ן וָפֶ֖שַׁע וְחַטָּאָ֑ה וְנַקֵּה֙
These words are recorded in the thirty fourth chapter of the book of Exodus – at a really precarious time. You see, the people had done something that made Gd ready to cuss. And while it seems to me that they were doing what folks do when they are uncertain, the making of the golden calf was one of the things that Gd was unable to accept. Indeed a plague was unleashed on the people after Aharon made that calf. And Gd told Moshe Rabbenu YOUR people are stiff necked, or in the words of my granny, these people are hard headed!
But, Havaya has range.
It wasn’t too long after that, that Moshe Rabbenu got a visit at the tent of meeting so that he and Hashem could have a lil chat. Moshe pleaded with Yah not to abandon him or the people. He even requested to see the Holy One’s kavod – which according to the Brown, Driver and Briggs dictionary can be translated as the Holy One’s abundance. And it was with this abundance that the words that we will collectively say later came to be. But what has become known as Shelosh Esrei Middot, the thirteen attributes of Gd, have been a bit of a mystery. Why do we say them? What do they have to do with us? If you have asked yourself these and other questions, you are in good company, the rabbis did as well.
In tractate Rosh Hashana, in the Babylonian Talmud, the rabbis discussed what they thought these middot were and how they relate to us. Here are some highlights:
Why is Gd’s name repeated? Rabbi Yochanan says that the first instance of The Name means that Gd’s mercy extends BEFORE one misses the mark, and the second instance of The Name means that this mercy extends AFTER one misses the mark. Rabbi Yochanan understood the repetition of The Name to mean that Gd’s mercy is ALWAYS there.
What does it mean to be abundant in kindness? Beit Hillel was known to say that it means that if there was a scale with missing the mark on one side and hitting it on the other, Gd would recall all the times when one hit the mark tipping the scale towards kindness.
Why does it say abundant in kindness AND truth? Rabbi Ilfye says that Yah tried dealing with the world with just truth, which they considered to be an attribute of justice, and you guessed it, Yah failed in this endeavor and understood that abundant kindness was needed.
Here, the rabbis affirmed that Havaya indeed has range.
And I appreciate these rabbinic ancestors leaving us with a legacy of wrestling with the text – closely reading into it to find meaning and nourishment for themselves and their people. And it is with much anavah, humility, that I take the space that they left for us to share some of the wrestling I have been doing with these attributes.
It has always been clear to me that the reason we say these thirteen attributes is that they are supposed to stir us into action. And everytime we chant these words, we get a little more inspired to be in right relationship with one another, finding new ways to journey our way through teshuva. These attributes are guiding lights, the tools and the mechanisms that can help us have some of that range that Havaya has.
While I wish we had time to make our way through every single attribute, I know that we simply can’t do that tonight. Maybe another time! But if you stick with me for a few minutes, we’ll dig into three of them together.
Hmm nigun
אל, these two letters, aleph and lamed, which together have many definitions including gd, can mean power or strength. And in Proverbs 3:27, we read
אַל־תִּמְנַע־ט֥וֹב מִבְּעָלָ֑יו בִּֽהְי֨וֹת לְאֵ֖ל יָדְךָ֣ לַעֲשֽׂוֹת׃
Do not deny good from anyone when you have the power to do so.
Here we have a directive to do our best not to take away good from folks. What does this mean? I think my friend Rebbe Nachman, a hasidic sage who lived between the 1770s and early 1800s, can help us. He teaches in his seminal work,Likutey Moharan,
“Know, a person must judge everyone favorably. Even someone who is completely wicked, it is necessary to search and find in them a molecule, a drop, a shed of good. And by finding in them this bit of good and judging them favorably, one genuinely elevates them to the scale of merit and can bring them to repent.”
What does it mean to not deny the good from anyone? We must do the work of finding good points in folks, even when they are on our LAST nerve. And to be sure, it might take you awhile to find it, but make it a practice to find the good. Now, this is not just a practice to do with others, some of the hardest work we will ever do is to find the good in ourselves. This is very similar to the directive we get in Leviticus 19:18, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” And it is clear that you can’t love your neighbor if you don’t love yourself. So starting with you is a great way, dare I say the only way, we can find the good in others.
Now, in the hopes of not withholding things from you all, I want to share an embodied practice for each of these middot. This first practice is one that some of you know well. It is an affirmation that came through me to go with a song written by Bon Singer. I first heard this song from my brother Tony Westbrook and I was struck with how these words, ahavah, v’rechamim, chesed, v’shalom were middot for me to aspire to. But sometimes it is hard to aspire to these middot when I, like Gd, am ready to cuss. Yet it is in this very moment that I NEED to find these good points in myself. So when I felt and sometimes still feel the sting of being ostracized by some of my family, I sing to myself, 🎶I am Love, I’m Compassionate, I am Kind, I am Whole🎶.
I sing it until I believe it in the belly of my soul. I find the good in me, which helps me show up in my integrity whenever our family gathers, making room for a little more openness to what might be good in the folks who can’t often find the good in me.
Do not deny good from anyone when you have the power to do so.
Havaya has range. And so can we.
🎶Hmm nigun🎶
אֶ֥רֶךְ אַפַּ֖יִם, these two words, אֶ֥רֶךְ meaning long or patient and אַפַּ֖יִם meaning face, nose or anger are usually translated as long suffering in anger or slow to anger, are pointing us towards a pausing in our tendency toward anger.
In Proverbs 14:29, it says,
אֶ֣רֶךְ אַ֭פַּיִם רַב־תְּבוּנָ֑ה
Patience brings much understanding.
And Gd knows that in the heat of conflict, despite what it feels like, what is needed is to stop a beat and catch our breath.
My teacher Resmaa Menakeam, in his books My Grandmother's Hands and Rock The Boat, puts it this way, in order to move from the best parts of ourselves and build our capacity for growth as we move through conflict, we must do it through our body, and the first step is to PAUSE.
One way to help you pause is to imagine that you are not alone in this world. To find yourself surrounded by the support of the universe. Beshem Hashem, the mystical prayer meditation that is often said right before bedtime, is a great way to pause.
🎶בְּשֵׁם הַשֵּׁם אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, מִימִינִי מִיכָאֵל, וּמִשְּׂמֹאלִי גַּבְרִיאֵל, וּמִלְּפָנַי אוּרִיאֵל, וּמֵאֲחוֹרַי רְפָאֵל, וְעַל רֹאשִׁי שְׁכִינַת אֵל.🎶
I invite you to close your eyes or lower your gaze and imagine yourself being supported by your uniqueness on your right side, your tenacity on your left side. In front of you is your brilliance, and the possibilities of tikkun, of mending what needs to be repaired is behind you. And above you, is the presence of any and all of those you need to call in to be with you. It might be the divine, it might be ancestors, it might be a dear friend or animal. You are surrounded, supported, cared for as you pause, allowing there to be room for understanding that might not have come if we moved too quickly.
If you are inspired to use this prayer as meditation for your pause, my dear friend Cole Krawitz has created a beautiful recording of this meditation on bandcamp and it is a fantastic way to engage with this prayer.
Patience brings much understanding.
Havaya has range. And so can we.
🎶Hmm nigun🎶
אֱמֶֽת this word, which contains the first, the middle and the last letter of the aleph bet, is not only the name of Mamie Till’s son, it is truth, reliability and faithfulness. Psalms 85:12 reads,
אֱ֭מֶת מֵאֶ֣רֶץ תִּצְמָ֑ח
Truth sprouts from the earth.
How many know that the earth is full of wisdom and is more reliable than any human could be? The earth sustains, nourishes and supports us, IN SPITE of what humanity has done to destroy it. Our biblical ancestors not only relied on the earth for food and work, but they brought the hebrew calendar into existence centered around their relationship to the earth.
Jill Hammer, in her book, The Jewish Book of Days states, “The deep wisdom of the Jewish year invites us to understand ourselves as embodied beings, rooted in the earth and in our own sensory experience and rooted in the truths of our people.” My friends, by connecting adam to adamah, the possibilities of connecting to the earth and her truth increases.
In times of conflict and stress the most reliable thing I have is earth. I make prayer beads which are made of wood, I carry stones in my pocket and I have let go of my burdens at many rivers, lakes and streams. Some of you might have done that very thing over these 10 days using the practice of tashlich…releasing to the water what won’t serve you in this new year.
When my nervous system is overwhelmed during heated conversations, I hold onto the rock in my pocket—envisioning myself being solid as a rock.
When I am anxious, I use my prayer beads to chant the shema or ana b’koach–imagining myself being rooted like a tree.
🎶Solid as a rock. Rooted like a tree. We are here. We are strong. In our rightful place.🎶
There is powerful grounding and energy in the earth and over these next 25 hours and perhaps throughout the year, I invite you to play in the dirt, visit a body of water, be present with a plant or a tree, or a stone.
Because truth sprouts from the earth.
Havaya has range. And so can we.
Now, I have to be truthful and say that none of this is easy. Even Yah had a hard time with this. In the book of Numbers, we find that the people are again dealing with uncertainty. Scouts were sent to the land to see who and what were there. When they came back, ten of the twelve reported that the land devours those who live there and they looked like grasshoppers compared to the people living there. The people were distressed and cried out that they would have been better off back in Egypt than to go to a place where they would die.
Hashem was again ready to be done with these hardheaded people. And it was at this moment that Moshe Rabbenu said, “don’t you remember saying:
יְהֹוָ֗ה אֶ֤רֶךְ אַפַּ֙יִם֙ וְרַב־חֶ֔סֶד נֹשֵׂ֥א עָוֺ֖ן וָפָ֑שַׁע וְנַקֵּה֙
And Havaya said, my bad, you’re right.
And here is an important caveat. In order for any of this to work, you must have someone who can help you return to your best self when you forget. We were never meant to do this by ourselves. Even Gd needed a partner in the difficult task of always remaining in integrity.
Havaya needed to be reminded of Its range. And we will too.
May it be so that through the recitation of the Shelosh Esrei Middot, we are inspired to find the good points, encouraged to pause long enough to remember that we are not alone and drawn into a deep connection with the earth as we return to our best selves over and over and over again.
Gmar Chatima Tova
Shanah Tovah
September 24, 2023
View the video here.
יְהֹוָ֣ה ׀ יְהֹוָ֔ה אֵ֥ל רַח֖וּם וְחַנּ֑וּן אֶ֥רֶךְ אַפַּ֖יִם וְרַב־חֶ֥סֶד וֶאֱמֶֽת׃ נֹצֵ֥ר חֶ֙סֶד֙ לָאֲלָפִ֔ים נֹשֵׂ֥א עָוֺ֛ן וָפֶ֖שַׁע וְחַטָּאָ֑ה וְנַקֵּה֙
These words are recorded in the thirty fourth chapter of the book of Exodus – at a really precarious time. You see, the people had done something that made Gd ready to cuss. And while it seems to me that they were doing what folks do when they are uncertain, the making of the golden calf was one of the things that Gd was unable to accept. Indeed a plague was unleashed on the people after Aharon made that calf. And Gd told Moshe Rabbenu YOUR people are stiff necked, or in the words of my granny, these people are hard headed!
But, Havaya has range.
It wasn’t too long after that, that Moshe Rabbenu got a visit at the tent of meeting so that he and Hashem could have a lil chat. Moshe pleaded with Yah not to abandon him or the people. He even requested to see the Holy One’s kavod – which according to the Brown, Driver and Briggs dictionary can be translated as the Holy One’s abundance. And it was with this abundance that the words that we will collectively say later came to be. But what has become known as Shelosh Esrei Middot, the thirteen attributes of Gd, have been a bit of a mystery. Why do we say them? What do they have to do with us? If you have asked yourself these and other questions, you are in good company, the rabbis did as well.
In tractate Rosh Hashana, in the Babylonian Talmud, the rabbis discussed what they thought these middot were and how they relate to us. Here are some highlights:
Why is Gd’s name repeated? Rabbi Yochanan says that the first instance of The Name means that Gd’s mercy extends BEFORE one misses the mark, and the second instance of The Name means that this mercy extends AFTER one misses the mark. Rabbi Yochanan understood the repetition of The Name to mean that Gd’s mercy is ALWAYS there.
What does it mean to be abundant in kindness? Beit Hillel was known to say that it means that if there was a scale with missing the mark on one side and hitting it on the other, Gd would recall all the times when one hit the mark tipping the scale towards kindness.
Why does it say abundant in kindness AND truth? Rabbi Ilfye says that Yah tried dealing with the world with just truth, which they considered to be an attribute of justice, and you guessed it, Yah failed in this endeavor and understood that abundant kindness was needed.
Here, the rabbis affirmed that Havaya indeed has range.
And I appreciate these rabbinic ancestors leaving us with a legacy of wrestling with the text – closely reading into it to find meaning and nourishment for themselves and their people. And it is with much anavah, humility, that I take the space that they left for us to share some of the wrestling I have been doing with these attributes.
It has always been clear to me that the reason we say these thirteen attributes is that they are supposed to stir us into action. And everytime we chant these words, we get a little more inspired to be in right relationship with one another, finding new ways to journey our way through teshuva. These attributes are guiding lights, the tools and the mechanisms that can help us have some of that range that Havaya has.
While I wish we had time to make our way through every single attribute, I know that we simply can’t do that tonight. Maybe another time! But if you stick with me for a few minutes, we’ll dig into three of them together.
Hmm nigun
אל, these two letters, aleph and lamed, which together have many definitions including gd, can mean power or strength. And in Proverbs 3:27, we read
אַל־תִּמְנַע־ט֥וֹב מִבְּעָלָ֑יו בִּֽהְי֨וֹת לְאֵ֖ל יָדְךָ֣ לַעֲשֽׂוֹת׃
Do not deny good from anyone when you have the power to do so.
Here we have a directive to do our best not to take away good from folks. What does this mean? I think my friend Rebbe Nachman, a hasidic sage who lived between the 1770s and early 1800s, can help us. He teaches in his seminal work,Likutey Moharan,
“Know, a person must judge everyone favorably. Even someone who is completely wicked, it is necessary to search and find in them a molecule, a drop, a shed of good. And by finding in them this bit of good and judging them favorably, one genuinely elevates them to the scale of merit and can bring them to repent.”
What does it mean to not deny the good from anyone? We must do the work of finding good points in folks, even when they are on our LAST nerve. And to be sure, it might take you awhile to find it, but make it a practice to find the good. Now, this is not just a practice to do with others, some of the hardest work we will ever do is to find the good in ourselves. This is very similar to the directive we get in Leviticus 19:18, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” And it is clear that you can’t love your neighbor if you don’t love yourself. So starting with you is a great way, dare I say the only way, we can find the good in others.
Now, in the hopes of not withholding things from you all, I want to share an embodied practice for each of these middot. This first practice is one that some of you know well. It is an affirmation that came through me to go with a song written by Bon Singer. I first heard this song from my brother Tony Westbrook and I was struck with how these words, ahavah, v’rechamim, chesed, v’shalom were middot for me to aspire to. But sometimes it is hard to aspire to these middot when I, like Gd, am ready to cuss. Yet it is in this very moment that I NEED to find these good points in myself. So when I felt and sometimes still feel the sting of being ostracized by some of my family, I sing to myself, 🎶I am Love, I’m Compassionate, I am Kind, I am Whole🎶.
I sing it until I believe it in the belly of my soul. I find the good in me, which helps me show up in my integrity whenever our family gathers, making room for a little more openness to what might be good in the folks who can’t often find the good in me.
Do not deny good from anyone when you have the power to do so.
Havaya has range. And so can we.
🎶Hmm nigun🎶
אֶ֥רֶךְ אַפַּ֖יִם, these two words, אֶ֥רֶךְ meaning long or patient and אַפַּ֖יִם meaning face, nose or anger are usually translated as long suffering in anger or slow to anger, are pointing us towards a pausing in our tendency toward anger.
In Proverbs 14:29, it says,
אֶ֣רֶךְ אַ֭פַּיִם רַב־תְּבוּנָ֑ה
Patience brings much understanding.
And Gd knows that in the heat of conflict, despite what it feels like, what is needed is to stop a beat and catch our breath.
My teacher Resmaa Menakeam, in his books My Grandmother's Hands and Rock The Boat, puts it this way, in order to move from the best parts of ourselves and build our capacity for growth as we move through conflict, we must do it through our body, and the first step is to PAUSE.
One way to help you pause is to imagine that you are not alone in this world. To find yourself surrounded by the support of the universe. Beshem Hashem, the mystical prayer meditation that is often said right before bedtime, is a great way to pause.
🎶בְּשֵׁם הַשֵּׁם אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, מִימִינִי מִיכָאֵל, וּמִשְּׂמֹאלִי גַּבְרִיאֵל, וּמִלְּפָנַי אוּרִיאֵל, וּמֵאֲחוֹרַי רְפָאֵל, וְעַל רֹאשִׁי שְׁכִינַת אֵל.🎶
I invite you to close your eyes or lower your gaze and imagine yourself being supported by your uniqueness on your right side, your tenacity on your left side. In front of you is your brilliance, and the possibilities of tikkun, of mending what needs to be repaired is behind you. And above you, is the presence of any and all of those you need to call in to be with you. It might be the divine, it might be ancestors, it might be a dear friend or animal. You are surrounded, supported, cared for as you pause, allowing there to be room for understanding that might not have come if we moved too quickly.
If you are inspired to use this prayer as meditation for your pause, my dear friend Cole Krawitz has created a beautiful recording of this meditation on bandcamp and it is a fantastic way to engage with this prayer.
Patience brings much understanding.
Havaya has range. And so can we.
🎶Hmm nigun🎶
אֱמֶֽת this word, which contains the first, the middle and the last letter of the aleph bet, is not only the name of Mamie Till’s son, it is truth, reliability and faithfulness. Psalms 85:12 reads,
אֱ֭מֶת מֵאֶ֣רֶץ תִּצְמָ֑ח
Truth sprouts from the earth.
How many know that the earth is full of wisdom and is more reliable than any human could be? The earth sustains, nourishes and supports us, IN SPITE of what humanity has done to destroy it. Our biblical ancestors not only relied on the earth for food and work, but they brought the hebrew calendar into existence centered around their relationship to the earth.
Jill Hammer, in her book, The Jewish Book of Days states, “The deep wisdom of the Jewish year invites us to understand ourselves as embodied beings, rooted in the earth and in our own sensory experience and rooted in the truths of our people.” My friends, by connecting adam to adamah, the possibilities of connecting to the earth and her truth increases.
In times of conflict and stress the most reliable thing I have is earth. I make prayer beads which are made of wood, I carry stones in my pocket and I have let go of my burdens at many rivers, lakes and streams. Some of you might have done that very thing over these 10 days using the practice of tashlich…releasing to the water what won’t serve you in this new year.
When my nervous system is overwhelmed during heated conversations, I hold onto the rock in my pocket—envisioning myself being solid as a rock.
When I am anxious, I use my prayer beads to chant the shema or ana b’koach–imagining myself being rooted like a tree.
🎶Solid as a rock. Rooted like a tree. We are here. We are strong. In our rightful place.🎶
There is powerful grounding and energy in the earth and over these next 25 hours and perhaps throughout the year, I invite you to play in the dirt, visit a body of water, be present with a plant or a tree, or a stone.
Because truth sprouts from the earth.
Havaya has range. And so can we.
Now, I have to be truthful and say that none of this is easy. Even Yah had a hard time with this. In the book of Numbers, we find that the people are again dealing with uncertainty. Scouts were sent to the land to see who and what were there. When they came back, ten of the twelve reported that the land devours those who live there and they looked like grasshoppers compared to the people living there. The people were distressed and cried out that they would have been better off back in Egypt than to go to a place where they would die.
Hashem was again ready to be done with these hardheaded people. And it was at this moment that Moshe Rabbenu said, “don’t you remember saying:
יְהֹוָ֗ה אֶ֤רֶךְ אַפַּ֙יִם֙ וְרַב־חֶ֔סֶד נֹשֵׂ֥א עָוֺ֖ן וָפָ֑שַׁע וְנַקֵּה֙
And Havaya said, my bad, you’re right.
And here is an important caveat. In order for any of this to work, you must have someone who can help you return to your best self when you forget. We were never meant to do this by ourselves. Even Gd needed a partner in the difficult task of always remaining in integrity.
Havaya needed to be reminded of Its range. And we will too.
May it be so that through the recitation of the Shelosh Esrei Middot, we are inspired to find the good points, encouraged to pause long enough to remember that we are not alone and drawn into a deep connection with the earth as we return to our best selves over and over and over again.
Gmar Chatima Tova
Shanah Tovah