|
Let me begin by praying, with all my heart, that the ceasefire actually begins on Sunday.
I pray that both Israeli and Palestinian hostages/prisoners can return home and that we can see this ceasefire through. Blessed are you, God, who frees captives. Please God let there be peace. This has been a disorienting week. Despite more than a year of organizing for a ceasefire and to stop the new Arena in Chinatown, the nearly simultaneous announcements came as surprises. I definitely feel gratitude, joy and relief. There is reason to celebrate. But if I am honest, I also feel wary. My heart doesn't trust it. If tectonic changes can happen overnight for the better, they can also happen for the worse. Strangely, these relatively good announcements have led me to further brace myself for Trump’s inauguration on Monday (and its disgraceful coincidence with MLK Day). As I studied this week’s parsha, Shemot, I found great comfort in beginning the book of Exodus in this political moment. For as long as there have been people organizing themselves into societies, there have been oppressive tyrants. And in response people have cultivated their spiritual lives to build inner strength and collective power to free themselves. Yet I am nervous that under Trump I/we will feel mistakenly powerless. This worry led me to zoom in on a particular moment in this week’s parsha that I want to highlight for all of you. In Exodus 1, the very first chapter, Pharaoh sends a decree to the Hebrew midwives, (sidenote: Were they Hebrews or just midwives to the Hebrews? It’s unclear and significant because they may have been acting on behalf of their people or in solidarity with the Hebrews.) ordering them to kill all of the male babies. Without skipping a beat or even a verse, they defy Pharoah’s instructions. וַתִּירֶ֤אןָ הַֽמְיַלְּדֹת֙ אֶת־הָ֣אֱלֹהִ֔ים וְלֹ֣א עָשׂ֔וּ כַּאֲשֶׁ֛ר דִּבֶּ֥ר אֲלֵיהֶ֖ן מֶ֣לֶךְ מִצְרָ֑יִם וַתְּחַיֶּ֖יןָ אֶת־הַיְלָדִֽים׃ But the midwives held God in awe, and they did not do as the king of Egypt had spoken to them; they let the children live (Exodus 1:17). I am struck by the fact that the text goes on a grammatical whim to describe the yirah, the awesome fear, that enabled these women to defy Pharoah. Their fear of undermining their own spiritual beliefs was so much stronger than their fear of Pharaoh. From the midwives I learned that it's possible to spiritually redirect my fear of a ruler of flesh and blood and to remember that the deeper risk lies in undermining my own spiritual and political convictions, denying my own power. And not only that, but when Pharoah realizes as much, he questions them directly, and they make up an amazing excuse and brazenly lie to his face: וַתֹּאמַ֤רְןָ הַֽמְיַלְּדֹת֙ אֶל־פַּרְעֹ֔ה כִּ֣י לֹ֧א כַנָּשִׁ֛ים הַמִּצְרִיֹּ֖ת הָֽעִבְרִיֹּ֑ת כִּֽי־חָי֣וֹת הֵ֔נָּה בְּטֶ֨רֶם תָּב֧וֹא אֲלֵהֶ֛ן הַמְיַלֶּ֖דֶת וְיָלָֽדוּ׃ The midwives said to Pharaoh: Indeed, not like the Egyptian-women are the Hebrew-women, indeed, they are lively: before the midwife comes to them, they have given birth! (Exodus 1:19) The next four years are daunting and there is reason to be afraid. But what the midwives remind me is that we are not powerless. From the birthing stone to the border wall, we will each be called to defend human dignity and maybe even life itself. Let us remember that the midwives and Torah are on our side. And let us muster the spiritual resolve to do what is within our power. Daniel Berrigan, the Jesuit priest turned anti-war organizer, once wrote: “One cannot level one’s moral lance at every evil in the universe. There are just too many of them. But you can do something; and the difference between doing something and doing nothing is everything.” I have deep faith in our ability to do something, individually and collectively. For this week, dayenu, that is enough. I instinctively find endings a bit sad, especially the end of something delicious. The end of a good book, a great movie, the last bite of pie, the last moments of a trip, the final days of summer, the last shofar blast of Neilah. It's all so beautiful and full and what I have been reading, praying, living towards. But then it’s over and I am left to savor it, crave it, miss it. I can’t get those moments, those laughs, those bites back. I am left to wonder, was I present enough? Was I aware and alive enough? Jewishly we know of this nostalgic ending in the custom of singing songs of deep longing in the darkening room at the end of Shabbat. The third meal can be surprisingly somber. The end of something good is almost tragic. Which is ironic because it's actually not yet over, it's still there. The ooze of blueberry still on the fork awaiting another lick. The quiet search for three stars in the sky, This week we read the parashat Vayechi, the final Torah portion in the book of Genesis. It begins by telling us that Jacob, aka Yisrael, would live for 147 years and these are his final days. Which he spends drawing close to each of his 12 sons and blessing them. The end of our origin story is also the end of our ancestral namesake’s life. The parsha savors the end of his life, and I find myself feeling sad, like its my loss, its my end. Which is why I find such great comfort in the ritual that succeeds the reading of the end of a book of the Torah. The reader recites the words, “Hazak hazak v’nithazek” and then the entire congregation sings them back, “Hazak hazak v’nithazek.” The meaning of these words is manifold, often meaning strength and courage. I can’t help but hear it in the words of India Arie’s song Strength, Courage and Wisdom. The thrice repetition of the word hazak is notable. Twice it appears almost as a command, and the third time in the self-reflexive form, as if to say, “Strength, strength, may you find the strength that is within you!” In my experience, the end is sad even when the next thing is beautiful, something to look forward to. The changing colors of fall, a sip of warm tea, the sequel, the book of Exodus. All the more so when the end is followed by something harder, less pleasant. The inauguration is looming and dreadful. Next week we will read in the Torah about the troubles that occur when a new King arises in ancient Egypt. In this time of endings and beginning again – biblically, politically, ecologically, personally – may we feel the deep blessing that Torah offers us this week, to gather strength to meet the next chapter with courage, curiosity, and compassion. I have many times read the poem Aristotle by Billy Collins, but mostly I dwell in The Beginning, and maybe once I lingered in The Middle. But today let us indulge in The End. He writes, “And this is the end, the car running out of road, the river losing its name in an ocean, the long nose of the photographed horse touching the white electronic line. … This is the final bit thinning away to nothing. This is the end, according to Aristotle, what we have all been waiting for, what everything comes down to, the destination we cannot help imagining, a streak of light in the sky, a hat on a peg, and outside the cabin, falling leaves.” May you feel yourself part of the great river losing its name in the ocean of time. May you remember the words of June Jordan, “We are the ones we have been waiting for.” May you feel inspired to keep imagining your destiny. I gathered this past week with the clergy from the other communities in Synagogues Rising to support one another, share ideas, study Torah and prepare for the year ahead. One of my colleagues taught us a very beautiful nigun that comes to us by way of the Ba’al Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidut. As we sat in a circle and sang this complicated tune, what emerged was a deep well of grief. And the longer we sang, the more sad I felt. Until the sadness started melting into the melody, like thawing ice into a river. It didn’t disappear but it did dissolve into something much greater.
Grief is also very present in this week’s parsha Vayeshev. This week we begin the story of Joseph which consumes the rest of Genesis. As a reminder Jacob favors Joseph which makes his brothers jealous. He dreams that he will one day rule over them. Incensed they throw him into a pit and leave him to die. He is saved by a caravan of Ishmaelites and brought to Egypt. When Reuben returns to the pit, he sees he is missing and he rends his clothing in mourning. Literally, “ וַיִּקְרַ֖ע אֶת־בְּגָדָֽיו - And he tore his clothing” (Genesis 27:29). Rueben did the practice of kriya, which we still do to this day. Then he gathers his brothers to tell Jacob that his beloved son has died, and Jacob enters into mourning. וַיִּקְרַ֤ע יַעֲקֹב֙ שִׂמְלֹתָ֔יו וַיָּ֥שֶׂם שַׂ֖ק בְּמׇתְנָ֑יו וַיִּתְאַבֵּ֥ל עַל־בְּנ֖וֹ יָמִ֥ים רַבִּֽים׃ “Jacob rent his clothes, put sackcloth on his loins, and observed mourning for his son many days” (Genesis 37:34) I learned a teaching about this moment in Torah transmitted by Rabbi Avi Strausberg. The Netivot Shalom, a 20th century Hasidic teacher, explains that the story of Joseph and his family’s grief always precedes the festival of Hanukkah because grief is fertile ground for redemption. He taught, “the energy of redemption becomes possible for a person — or a people — when two conditions are present. First they have to truly feel their broken-heartedness at the situation in which they find themselves. And second, they have to refuse to accept that the status quo in which they are is the only way reality can be organized. Then, and only then, can the energetic light of redemption enable seeds that were already there to grow into new redemptive possibilities. So it’s not that good follows the bad automatically, or that hitting some kind of low or bottom automatically creates the conditions in which something better emerges. Rather, it depends on our capacity to fully feel how brokenhearted we actually are and to steadfastly refuse to accept that things must be this way. Both of which can be enormously hard to do. And both of which are made easier when not doing so alone." This resonates deeply as a way to orient ourselves this Hanukkah season. We need to be willing to grieve fully and refuse to accept the way things are. The combination of our grief and our refusal creates the conditions in which change can happen. This wisdom was echoed in an email I received this morning. For the past 10 months I have been donating to a soup kitchen in North Gaza started by a desperate father, Hani Almadhoun. This morning, he wrote this: “Every day, we see destruction and cruelty, but alongside it, there are moments of hope—moments made possible by people like you who refuse to give up. The Gaza Soup Kitchen began as a response to heartbreak, born from an inability to stand idly by. Since its launch earlier this year, we’ve been humbled by the scale of impact we’ve achieved together.” This solstice Shabbat, and on the days of Hanukkah and Christmas ahead, may we light the candles with hearts full of grief and defiance. And may it seed or hadash, a new and needed light. This week has been a struggle.
I have been burning the candle at both ends, oscillating between teaching Torah and supporting organizing efforts to delay and defeat the building of a new basketball arena in Philadelphia’s historic Chinatown (Deep gratitude to all the Councilmebers who bravely voted no, including our own KT member Rue Landau and our district Council Member Jamie Gauthier!). Needless to say, the week has worn me out. Struggle is also the theme of this week’s parsha, Vayishlach. It includes the iconic story of Jacob wrestling with a being all through the night, only to emerge blessed and battered. It is from this encounter that Jacob is renamed Yisrael, meaning “one who has struggled with God and with men and has overcome.” And as a result of this encounter, the Jewish people acquired its name, B’nei Yisrael, the descendents of Israel. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, of blessed memory, notes, “It is, by any standards, a strange, unconventional, thought-provoking name. Jacob is not, at first glance, the most obvious figure in Tanakh to represent and epitomize the Jewish people.” Why not Abraham, Isaac, Moses or even King David? Why not any of the women who labored to birth our ancestors or the midwives who defied Pharaohs decrees? Rabbi Sacks goes on to note, “Nor is the phrase “one who has struggled with God and with men and has overcome” the most natural characterization of Jewish identity.” Which is where I disagree with Rabbi Sacks, of blessed memory. The fact that the root of our collective identity is a late night tussle both describes and prescribes a very healthy approach to religion. It could be a fun exercise: What verse in Torah would you name us after? And yet an unnecessary exercise, because we are in fact named for the seminal verse in this week’s parsha. We are named for Jacob’s struggle, his fearful fit, his solo camping trip by the river Yabbok. We are named for a moment of anticipation, as Jacob prepares to reunite with Esau; A moment that leads to ancestral healing between these two brothers. While it's not a particularly glorious story, it is quite relatable. Yesterday morning Rabbi Mó pointed out in our Parsha and Poetry class that all of the names that we are collectively called are drawn from the stories of Jacob. We are Yehudim, B’nei Yisrael and Ivrim. We are born of gratitude, struggle and boundary crossings. In her poem, Crossing a Creek, Martha Courtot writes: “some people think crossing a creek is easy, but I say this-- all crossings are hard, … and we must practice believing we will come through.” Struggles are so powerful because they require relationships. They inspire us to reimagine the way we see ourselves. To connect to our own power and commitments. They are intimate and visceral, often touching us at our core. The blessings that grow from Jacob’s struggle are courage, healing and reconnection. Sitting in City Council, with the powerful “No Arena in the Heart of our City” coalition I reconnected to a sense of possibility that had been missing in my own heart. It was invigorating. For which I am so grateful. In a week that has been full of struggle – personal, political and otherwise – remember the courage of Jacob and take a moment to draw forth a blessing. I know I could use one. Last week I was corresponding with a member of our community, and she wrote, “I will be 80 on my next birthday, and honestly, I have no idea how I made it this far. What I am especially thankful for is that I have lived long enough to feel this level of gratitude. I have also come, in my elder years, to believe that everything that exists is a miracle.”
I have been savoring her wisdom all week. The idea of being grateful to feel so grateful is precious. One of my teachers, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, would often say from the bima that gratitude is the beginning of a spiritual life. When her congregation CBST was designing their new sanctuary they placed the words of psalm 92 above the Torah Ark: “Tov l’hodot l’Adonai / It is good to be grateful.” For many years I understood this to mean, It is good to thank God, to praise the Divine. Which never quite resonated. But in recent years I have realized that this verse is a reminder that it is a good thing to express gratitude. As in, it does wonders for us, for our souls, our blood pressure, our relationships. Gratitude is water. It softens everything it touches. This week Rabbi Mó pointed out to me that gratitude is in fact the root of our spiritual lineage. In this week’s parsha, Vayetzei, Leah births the first four of Jacob’s 12 sons. For each of them, she imparts a name with deep spiritual significance. Reuben, Simon, Levi and finally Judah. For her first three sons, she is longing to feel love and connection with Jacob. And names them each accordingly. But with Judah she shifts her tone, saying, וַתַּהַר עוֹד וַתֵּלֶד בֵּן וַתֹּאמֶר הַפַּעַם אוֹדֶה אֶת־יְהֹוָה עַל־כֵּן קָרְאָה שְׁמוֹ יְהוּדָה וַתַּעֲמֹד מִלֶּדֶת׃ “She conceived again and bore a son, and declared, “This time I will thank The Holy One.” Therefore she named him Yehudah. Then she stopped bearing.” The hebrew word Yehudah comes from the root ידי, meaning to acknowledge. It comes from the word yad, as in hand, as in literally to point to a thing, to take notice. It is the root of the Hebrew word hoda’ah, meaning gratitude, which connects us to the phrase we sing each shabbat in psalm 92, Tov L’hodot. Gratitude is about taking notice, saying Thank you for the good in our lives. And it is not just the name of one of Leah’s sons, it is our namesake too. We are Yehudim, the descendants of the tribe of Yehudah. We are born of gratitude and we are called to express it routinely, even religiously. We have so many Jewish practices of giving thanks. Not confined to a day a year. But rather woven throughout every day and every week. We rise and say Modeh Ani. We bow in the Amidah and say Modim Anachnu Lach. We sing on Shabbat Tov L’hodot. Science now confirms what Judaism has long prescribed: say thank you as often as possible, and at least 3 times a day. I can still hear the voice of my nana, of blessed memory. When I would ask her “How are you?” she would say, “Thank god.” She was not a religious person. It would land like a milk placed in a bag of groceries. Routine and necessary. Gratitude does not need to be deeply felt to be expressed. Which is why it made so much sense to me that this dear octogenarian felt so grateful to feel so grateful. This morning in our Parsha and Poetry class, Rabbi Mó invited us to read a series of poems about gratitude. Then we wrote our own on the whiteboard tables, beginning with the prompt “We are saying thank you,” modeled after a poem by W.S. Merwin. With her permission, I will share Rabbi Mó’s ephemeral creation: “We are saying thank you, thick with loss and hope and terror, spangled and bedecked in beautiful frustration, sudden grief and long unfolding grief. We are saying thank you is impossible and required, is our vessel and our wound and our medicine, our intravenous drip, is our dance party and apocalypse and disco ball and thank you thank you is the salted coffee, postcard to the dead, the blessing blundered beside the bedside morning news today, and thank you, waging its weaponless war again.” I invite you to consider pausing and writing your own and seeing where it takes you. We are saying thank you… In the words of Psalm 115, לֹ֣א הַ֭מֵּתִים יְהַֽלְלוּ־יָ֑הּ׃ “The dead cannot say thank you.” Thank you is a sign of our aliveness. So thank you. Thank you. On Wednesday night I woke up to the sound of thunder and blurted out from my slumber, “It’s raining!” I was truly excited, even while barely conscious. The last measurable rainfall in Philadelphia was on September 28, 2024, which was 30 days before the city broke a 150-year record for dry days.
My excitement is both agriculturally and spiritually warranted. According to Rava (a fourth generation rabbi in Babylonia), A day of rain is greater than the day on which the Torah was given! (B.T. Taanit 7a). Rabbinic prayers for rain are about the need for water and the harvest it makes possible, but they also become a paradigm for praying for what we most need and want in this world. This week I noticed in myself a raw desire for the world to be different than it is and for the trajectory to be drastically different. My inner voice laments, “This is not how I want things to be. This is not the way the world should be. This is not the world I want my kids to grow up in.” I know this to be a stage of grief. I am so sad that I am willing to bargain for a better world. I have come to appreciate this as one of the core purposes of prayer. Prayer is a place we can bargain with God, a space to envision the world we wish was. In this week’s parsha, Chayei Sarah, Isaac takes a verse to regroup after his betrothal to Rebekkah. Genesis 24:63 reads, וַיֵּצֵא יִצְחָק לָשׂוּחַ בַּשָּׂדֶה לִפְנוֹת עָרֶב “As evening nears, Isaac goes out into the field to talk.” Who is he talking to? For the rabbis, Isaac is talking to the Divine. They teach, ain sicha ela tefilah – the mention of a conversation is a way to describe prayer (B.T. Brachot 26b). In fact, Isaac is teaching us one important way to pray. We need only begin a conversation. Be it aloud or in our hearts. Be it in the city or in the field. And most importantly, let it be in the middle of your day, in the middle of everything. This echoes the teachings of Rebbe Nachman who described prayer as a practice of hitbodedut - of being alone and in conversation with yourself. I know so many of us feel like we don’t know how to pray. Maybe we don’t know the words or the melodies or the choreography. Maybe we don’t know who or what we are speaking to or what the point is, what to make of the Divine. In her poem Ordinary Immanence, Jessica Jacobs writes, “…Many years, many states away, in a far more spacious place, at the braking of a garbage truck, at the creak and hoist of its mechanical arm pinioning a block’s-length of bins to hoist and dump, I look up from a book and know (the truck outside rumbling away, my waste fraternizing with the waste of my neighbors) that I want to believe in God. Just like that—a new door in a room I thought I knew by heart…” There was a point in my life when I actively chose to believe in God and to learn to pray. And it has been a huge resource and source of resilience. In the rhythm of the ancient words is a chance to pray for shalom, for my own livelihood, for goodness and blessings and healing. Which also creates a chance for me to imagine them, to place my attention on them. While I cannot control or change many external circumstances, I do have agency in what I pay attention to internally. In this broken world, paying attention to beauty, gratitude, and goodness improves the quality of my days. And that makes me better able to access compassion, patience and hope as a parent, a partner, an activist and a rabbi. The poem concludes, “How do you listen for a sound you’ve never heard? Or, more precisely, for a sound you know so well you’ve never heard it?” As the days get shorter, the inauguration closer, and a need for a ceasefire persists, may you too feel able to take a walk and pray for what you need most and what you feel the world needs most. May sounds of the city be a container in which to express your grief and your fears. And may the spacious sky invite your gratitude and your courage. Take a moment to imagine our ancestor Abraham sitting down beside a large oak tree in the heat of the day (Genesis 18:1). He plants his tired feed between the knobby roots, leans back against the wide trunk and slides his body down, taking a seat in the crook of the tree, resting his back against its thick bark and closing his eyes.
Who knows how much time elapses before the story resumes. I am not yet interested in what comes next. I am interested in what happens to our ancestors when they sit down beside a big old tree, and what happens to us when we do. A story is told of Honi the Circlemaker, who sat down beside a carob tree to eat some bread. Sleep overcame him and he slept. A cliff formed around him, and he disappeared from sight and slept for seventy years. When he awoke, he saw a certain man gathering carobs from that same tree. Ḥoni said to him: Are you the one who planted this tree? The man said to him: I am his son’s son, meaning his own grandson (B.T. Taanit 23a). The motif of sitting by an old tree is an invitation into deep time, to enduring inter-generational wisdom. Deep time is one of the gifts of ancient spiritual practices that come to us across generations and continents. Every week we sing prayers that have been recited for thousands of years, on nearly every continent and in every political context. It is why beloved melodies are referred to as “Mi Sinai” from Sinai. It's code for, really, really old. And not in a bad way. In a tried and true ever-lasting way. This week, I too found myself taking a nap under a large old London Planetree, absorbing the vibrations of its toad-like trunk. It was planted more than 100 years ago. I wonder who planted its seeds and who else had rested against its speckled bark. Leaning against an old tree helps me to feel a part of the vastness of creation. Did you know that the universe exploded into existence about 14,000,000,000 years ago? I can’t even conceive of time on that scale. If all of geologic time on earth was depicted in a 24-hour clock, the moon emerged at 15 minutes, the earth at 12 noon, dinosaurs at 11 pm and us humans in the final minute, at roughly 11:58:43 PM. We are the last blip of creation, negligible in the history of the universe. This week, as the news comes so fast, with the explicit intention of overwhelming and demoralizing us, I am finding this awfully comforting. These fun facts come from one of my favorite books called “Older Than Dirt,” gifted to me and my kids by a beloved cousin. I returned to its comical (both funny and illustrated) approach to human history, taking refuge in its scientific rendering of “deep time.” It is a way to remind myself that humans are making a guest appearance on the clock of the earth. Sometimes the best antidote to anticipatory anxiety is staying close to the present moment. But for those who don’t relate to meditation and mindfulness, here is another approach. This week, I have been zooming out as far as possible to gain some much needed perspective, some geologic breathing space from our current political horizon. Right now four years feels like a long time. It's been helpful to remember that it won’t even register on the earth’s clock! When the rabbis imagine the world to come, they describe it as yom sh’kulo shabbat - a time that is entirely shabbat. And therefore the inverse is true as well. That shabbat is a taste of the world to come, summoning our souls to enter time that is otherworldly; to exit the daily details of our calendars and rest our weary souls against the tree of life. Shabbat is our weekly invitation into deep time. A return to primordial time, to creation itself. Let yourself taste the pleasure of simcha and menucha, joy and rest. Take a break from your devices and the newscycle, play a board game, gather with friends for a meal, linger at the table, and sing your way through services. May you emerge refreshed and resouled, and ready for a new week. My father is conditioned to bless the good and the bad. His capacity to do so always amazes me. Growing up, when something would break, he would instinctively shout out, “Mazel Tov!” It didn’t matter if it was a mechanical pencil or something of great value, even a family heirloom. According to him, according to his ancestors, it was inherently good luck. This became even more true when I married into a family with a resident mosaic artist. My father now has a dedicated purpose for his broken treasures.
There is something whole to be made of everything broken, even the shattered pieces, even our broken hearts. I, for one, felt shattered on Wednesday morning. And so I called my father. We shared a deep cry. I am not yet ready to make something whole out of the election results. I am not done remembering what fascism has done to my people on other continents and fearing what it could do here. We are each entitled to our own response in our own time. I am, however, ready to remember that I have tremendous faith in us as a community, in the wisdom fo Jewish tradition, in the knowing that through us courses the blood of survivors, rebels, caregivers, and righteous souls. To remember that we are more powerful than we might feel this week. To remember that we cannot relinquish our dignity, our joy, our interdependence. Today I offer you each my heart, my practice, my reaching words as refuge. This week’s Torah portion contains one of the most formative moments in our spiritual legacy. Genesis 12 begins with God’s instruction to Abram to leave everything he knows, and journey to a place that will be revealed to him. How could he not have been afraid? In merely three verses, the call of Lech Lecha invites all of us to imagine our spiritual journey begins with the unknown, with loss, with letting go, maybe even with breaking. The call is deeply personal. Written in the second person singular, Lech-Lecha. As if to emphasize, this is your journey, on your terms. And while the description is undoubtedly external, to physically go from one geographical place to another, the grammar suggests that every physical exodus is supported by and necessitates a spiritual journey inward. The story of Abram comes just in time to remind us that the future was always unknown. We are the descendants of brave spiritual ancestors who risked everything in search of purpose, connection and survival. On the other side of this consequential election, the unknowns of the next 4 years are terrifying to consider. I am noticing that my anticipatory anxiety is surging. Trump's campaign promises threaten real, physical danger that will target many of us directly and all of us indirectly. So it has been very necessary for me to remember that those particular threats are not present this week. You can still prepare - see my PS below - but everything I have learned on my own spiritual journey has taught me that in the face of the unknown we are well served to stay close to the moment, to limit the stories we tell about what’s to come and to instead focus that energy on extending deep care to ourselves and others. Yesterday that inspired me to sit in Cedar park for lunch, to feel the warm breeze and notice the crimson leaves crunching beneath my feet. When my anxiety is high it is an important cue for me to return to my practices that ground me in the present tense. In my body and my breath. The beginning of this parsha contains not just the call of Lech-Lecha, but also the promise that we will be blessed, that when we have the courage to let go and brave the unknown, there will be blessings we can’t yet imagine. In her poem Mazel Tov, the poet Jessica Jacobs writes, “…Mazel tov! we say at births and other joyous occasions, the Jewish go-to for Congratulations! Yet טוֹב tov means “good” and מַזָּל mazel, “constellation” or “destiny,” and sometimes, like Abraham, you must leave the place that grew you to grow toward better stars…So, if I wish you, mazel tov, know what I mean is, May you find a reason to open your door to the dark. I’ll mean, May you live beneath good stars, and take the time to notice.” More than an affirmation on what has happened, Mazel Tov is an amulet for the unknown future. That you are able to orient yourself in time and space, and not lose your way in the darkness. That your stars may align. That your destiny contains goodness, sweetness, silliness, connection and joy. That you feel surrounded, supported, guided on your journeys. In honor of my father and in honor of broken things, I wish you a Shabbat Shalom and a Mazel Tov! May you live beneath good stars and find blessings in the dark. A friend recently introduced me to a story that Reb Zalman, z”l, tells about his rebbe when he was imprisoned by the secret police in Soviet Russia. The police officer was threatening him with a gun and the rebbe said to him, “I am not afraid of you. You see, if I had many Gods to serve and only one world to serve them in, I would be afraid. But I have only one God to serve and many worlds to serve him in so I am not afraid.”
Hearing this story reminded me of the Buddhist story I shared on the second day of Rosh Hashanah when I spoke about the quality of menuchat nefesh - equanimity and the need to cultivate a settled spirit. When the political flood waters are rising, as they are this week, there's reason for hope and there's reason for deep anxiety. The question is how do we settle our spirits? In what can we take refuge? As the Buddha tells it, “A fierce and terrifying band of samurai was riding through the countryside, bringing fear and harm wherever they went. As they were approaching one particular town, all the monks in the town’s monastery fled, except for the abbot. When the band of warriors entered the monastery, they found the abbot sitting at the front of the shrine room in perfect posture. The fierce leader took out his sword and said, “Don’t you know who I am? Don’t you know that I’m the sort of person who could run you through with my sword without batting an eye?” The Zen master responded, “And I, sir, am the sort of man who could be run through by a sword without batting an eye.” About this story the great teacher Sylvia Boorstein writes, “Our own benevolence is actually the protection that renders enemies impotent. In [depictions of this story], as the spears and arrows come to touch the shield around the Buddha, they fall to the ground as flowers all around him. I like to think of those flowers as an illustration of how each of us, by cultivating steadfast goodwill, can dissolve the forces of confusion and fear in the world.” This week’s parsha, Noach, offers insight into how our own benevolence can be a source of refuge. Genesis 6:9 begins, “These are the generations of Noah; Noah was a righteous man, and wholehearted in his generations.” In the Hebrew, Noah is identified as tzadik (righteous) and tamim (wholehearted), but these qualities are contextualized by the simple words that follow, בְּדֹרֹתָיו - in his generations. Which has led all subsequent generations to ask, Would Noah have been considered righteous in our time? Was Noah righteous relative to his not-so-good generation (low bar) or in spite of it (high bar)? One can make the argument either way. But I am most compelled by the argument of Reish Lakish, who taught that if Noah was righteous in his generation, surrounded by corruption, imagine how righteous and good-natured he would have been in other generations when he was surrounded by goodness (B.T. Sanhedrin 108a). Rabbi Oshaya imagines Noah, in his righteousness, to be like a flask of perfume or even the best essential oils, in the presence of a stench - it can actually purify the air. Which is to say, our goodness serves us, it protects us, and it also transforms the experience of those around us. This parsha gives us a second insight. In the face of doom and chaos, the Holy One tells Noah, ’bo el hateva - go into the teva”. The word teva is most often translated as ark, but it can also mean the word or even a bar of music. A teva is a place of refuge. It is the basket that saves Moses in the Nile. It is music and poetry. It is something we can enter and also an indestructible place deep within us. This shabbat, I invite you to hear the words of the Holy One. To build your refuge and enter it. To exit the noise of the news, the endless alerts, to invite in the quiet. And to emerge with a renewed commitment to wholehearted righteousness. To generosity, to kindness, to giving others and yourself the benefit of the doubt. And to trust that your benevolence will protect you in these times. Be equanimous.
Those were the opening words of a 10 day course I just completed with Sharon Salzberg, a world renowned teacher of mindfulness and Buddhist meditation. In Pali, the word for equanimity is Upekkha. In Jewish terms, this is called Menuchat Nefesh - a settled soul, or a rested spirit. It describes a kind of internal balance that is liberating. Equanimity is not the result of avoiding pain and stress, or pretending it doesn't exist. Equanimity is what emerges when we cultivate the spaciousness and wisdom that allows us to relate to any experience and still be free. Which is to say, we can be fully present and without being burdened or broken by life. This is not easy, for me. And apparently not easy for 10 of the 12 spies Moses sends to scout the promised land in this week’s parsha, Sh’lach. They return reactive and afraid, warning the people, וַנְּהִי בְעֵינֵינוּ כַּחֲגָבִים וְכֵן הָיִינוּ בְּעֵינֵיהֶם׃ “...We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.” This line is so vivid and has always captured my attention. For today, let’s set aside the colonial context it is describing. And instead notice how it closely echoes the teachings on equanimity. Sharon Salzberg explained, “Our reactivity causes us to wither in self-confidence and avoid our own purpose.” We become grasshoppers in our own eyes. This is perhaps the greatest risk we take when we allow ourselves to be consumed by anxiety and fear. We wither in self-confidence and avoid our own purpose. From this place we are not able to easily access clarity and calm, and this negatively impacts our thinking. However, if we can cultivate enough spacious attention around our feelings, wisdom can naturally arise. Confidence can take root. And we can lean into our purpose and power. All of this takes practice. And all of this is possible. In the moment when we learn how much we cannot control, we let go. And there is freedom in letting go. And there is a sense of security in knowing we can meet whatever is actually happening. It is one of my summer goals to keep learning about equanimity, to cultivate menuchat nefesh. So that as we together scout the landscape of our own lives and of the world in the coming months, we can greet it with more courage and confidence, rather than fear and overwhelm. I am excited to share that I will be teaching a series next year called Selah: Sunday Morning Mindfulness. I hope you will join me. This will be my final Friday email for a while. I offer you one more poem to take you into summer. Wu Men Hui-k'ai, a 12th century Chinese Buddhist teacher, wrote: “Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter — If your mind is not clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life. To see things as they are, to see the changing nature, to see the impermanence, to see that constant flow of pleasant and painful events outside our control — that is freedom.” Whatever your summer brings, I hope this is the best season of your life. |
Rabbi's Blog
|
RSS Feed
Office & Mailing Address: 5300 Whitby Ave, Commercial #2, Philadelphia, PA 19143
General Questions: (267) 702-6187 or [email protected]
Shabbat Services: 5300 Whitby Ave, Commercial #1, Philadelphia, PA 19143
General Questions: (267) 702-6187 or [email protected]
Shabbat Services: 5300 Whitby Ave, Commercial #1, Philadelphia, PA 19143