we have more life

Yesterday, Abby and Madison sent out an email sharing some highlights of this past year and the subject line ("A remarkable year at KT") really spoke to my experience. It really has been a remarkable year. We have celebrated a gorgeous stream of simchas. B’nei Mitzvah, baby namings, conversions, auf ruf, graduations - with no end in sight. The family of one baby naming asked me a few weeks ago, “Do you always have this many simchas?” To which I responded, “I hope so!” 

I can hear my grandmothers saying “kanehora” and “Si kere el Dio! Echar ojo!” , respectively. The rhythm of our year has been defined by weeks spent protesting war, punctuated by shabbat spent celebrating life, praying for peace and mourning our dead. It has been rigorous and beautiful.

Nestled in our siddur is an excerpt of Aurora Levins Morales’ V’ahavta. I have a practice of reading it aloud at B’nei Mitzvah to make the Shema more accessible, which means I have read it aloud more than usual this year. I love these words. They restore my hope. 

As the year progressed I began to silently fill in the paragraphs we excerpted (because by now I have it nearly memorized). In particular the second paragraph, which I never read aloud, has felt most resonant. It reads: 

“Thus spoke the prophet Roque Dalton:
All together they have more death than we,
but all together, we have more life than they.
There is more bloody death in their hands
than we could ever wield, unless
we lay down our souls to become them,
and then we will lose everything.  So instead,

imagine winning.  This is your sacred task
This is your power. Imagine…”

On some level I don’t know who is meant by “they” and “we”. I don’t want to suggest there are good guys and bad guys, or reify binaries of good and evil. But on the other hand, there are people orchestrating catastrophic loss and there are the rest of us. A few weeks ago, mid double-hora, it clicked for me, that all together they DO have more death than we, but all together, we DO have more life than they. 

We are so full of life. We can experience profound joy. 

But honestly, not without effort and discipline. I know throughout the year some of you have expressed to me, “I am not sure if I am up for another simcha this week.” And I understood the instinct, and might have stayed in bed myself. 

Which is why the Torah instructs us, “Choose life.” 

Even more specifically, 
וּשְׁמַרְתֶּ֤ם אֶת־חֻקֹּתַי֙ וְאֶת־מִשְׁפָּטַ֔י אֲשֶׁ֨ר יַעֲשֶׂ֥ה אֹתָ֛ם הָאָדָ֖ם וָחַ֣י בָּהֶ֑ם
“Observe mitzvot and let them fill you with lifeforce” (Lev. 18:5). 

This has been my experience. Mitzvot, including Shabbat and lifecycles, can provide the needed structure and routine to unstick our souls and draw forth the joy we need. 

I can say as the person who has been at just about every simcha that it was glorious. It has been a true blessing to access, share and spread joy in the midst of so much suffering. It truly has been lifegiving. Celebrating together has kept me from despair. Your smachot (simchas) have refreshed and sustained me all year long. 

Thank you for the blessing of being one of your rabbis. 

I now understand on a cellular level why the core mitzvot of shabbat are menucha (rest) and oneg (delight). Together they are the tonic we need to metabolize our fears and reset our nervous systems, weekly. 

Our unrelenting singing reminds me of a moment in this week’s Torah portion Chukat, when the Israelites find themselves parched in the desert and they begin to sing, “Spring up from the well, waters of life. We sing to waters, to the Source of all” (Numbers 21:17). 

Like our ancestors, we too sing and dance and teach our children to keep imagining a world that is whole, a world inseparable from everything holy. 

In the words of Rabbi Yael Levy: 
“May practice and devotion hold us steady.
And may the dance of the waters
Inspire our songs.”