Chanukah: Let Go

There is a strange Chanukah halakhah that we have been exploring in my high school Gemara class this week -- If your Chanukah candle goes out, even right after you lit it, you are not required to relight it. This is not to say that you can’t relight it or are not encouraged to do so. It’s great to keep the flame going. But you are not required to. You have fulfilled your mitzvah by the mere act of putting light to the candle or oil. That is enough.

This feels deeply significant to me. The miracle of Chanukah that we are commemorating is similar; they found enough oil only to last one day, even though they needed it to last eight. What did they do? They did their part -- only the initial lighting; the result -- the continuance of the flame for all 8 days-- was not their doing or their responsibility.

We are so controlling. We hold on tight to make sure things work out just so, to ensure the proper result. We want things to be perfect, to last just the right amount of time. But the halakhah teaches here to LET GO. Or as someone once said to me -- Let go and let God. Sometimes we hold on so tight, controlling every moment and watching carefully how things turn out, that we don’t allow the flow of God’s rhythm and goodness to enter; we don’t surrender. We hold on for dear life and try to make it all fit.

On Chanukah, we turn away from our this-worldly affairs and enter the world of the miraculous, the supernatural. This light of Chanukah is different from shabbos; on shabbos we are meant to use and enjoy it; it is ordinary light for our ordinary purposes of eating and reading. But on Chanukah we aren’t allowed to use the light; the light is of another order, from another realm; it has sanctity and miraculousness to it; it flickers with wonder, drawing us into another world. This other world only exists if we allow it to, if we make room for it, if we stop holding on so tight and forcing things to go exactly how we want and expect them to, if we make room for surprises, if we make room for the divine.

One other thing -- that same gemara (Shabbat 21a) talks about whether you can use wicks and oils on Chanukah that don’t burn so well. One is not allowed to use these on shabbos, but it turns out that on Chanukah you ARE allowed to use such imperfect materials. Although we mostly try to use the best on Chanukah and there is a minhag to use pure olive oil -- this is again not a requirement. The requirement is just the bare minimum -- some kind of oil and wick or candle, something at all to light with. We are not looking for perfection or even striving here. It is as if we are saying -- don’t think it’s all in your hands. Don’t think that if I do it perfectly --my life, my job, my relationships -- if I do it with the very best oils and I never allow for imperfection and substandard performance, if I hold on super tight and make sure everything is just right -- then, and only then, will it all work out. NO. The message of Chanukah is again one of letting go -- letting go of control, letting go of perfection, of the need to hold on tight and do things just so. You think it only works out because you are making it all work? No. There is a larger much more powerful force at work here.

Sometimes we feel like the world depends on us, that the earth won’t keep turning unless we do things right, that the class won’t learn unless we teach it just so, that our children won’t grow up happily unless we parent perfectly. This type of thinking does not allow room for God, for the flow of goodness that pours down continuously, with or without us. Yes, we need to participate, to take the first step, to light the light. But after that, even if we have done a substandard job, even if we are not perfect and our oil is smoky and impure, even so, the light will shine bright and clear because this is the light of another world. May we know how to let go and allow it into our lives.

Parashat Vayetze: You Matter!

Yaakov dreams of a ladder with angels going up and down on it to heaven, and God standing above, protecting him and caring for him.

What strikes me about this image is how individual it is. Avraham dealt with grand visions of a future people as numerous as the stars. He is av hamon goyim, the father of many nations. Yaakov, though, Yaakov, at least here, is just a little guy trying to survive and find a place for himself in this rough and tumble world. His vision is personal, intimate, exactly what he needs to hear -- that God cares about one little guy and what happens to him.

Yaakov has reason to believe that he doesn’t deserve God’s care. He has not been a very upstanding character, cheating his brother and running away from the anger he caused. We can imagine what he feels -- that he is a castout, a reject, a nothing, that he doesn’t deserve either kindness or protection.

We are sometimes in this place. We are disappointed in ourselves; we are running away from our mistakes; we have messed things up and are trying to escape. And in those moments, we may wonder whether we even deserve this life, whether we may have forfeited our right to God’s love and care, whether it even makes sense for God to care about one little person like us, with all our problems. In the larger scheme of things, it seems to us that we do not really matter. There is a world full of such individuals, many more talented and worthwhile than we are. Really, why should God care? Why should we matter at all to Him? Do we really matter?

There is something in this text that answers a resounding yes to this question of individual mattering: Yes! You, as an individual, do matter! The Torah portrays a world in which God does care about a single person, no matter how messed up. Yaakov does not need to DESERVE this care. He may feel that he should, that he does need to earn it; indeed, he seems a little insecure about it, making a deal -- if You protect me, God, then I will do such and such in return, as if God would only do it for the sake of such a vow. But God doesn’t make such deals. He offers the care for FREE, no strings attached. There is no earning it or deserving it. God is just standing there, breathing life into us, in and out, in and out, like the angels going up and down on the ladder. God is steadfast with Yaakov, and steadfast with us. We feel insecure, but He is always there. We can’t lose Him or become unworthy of this care.

This feels like an essential message, one we can’t hear often enough and one that needs to really sink in for us to live fully, for us to be lifted optimistically and securely into action, as Yaakov was after this encounter (Vayisa Yaakov et raglav). The message is: God is standing above you right now, looking out for you, protecting you, standing by you, sending His angels of love in the form of the exhale and inhale, the in and out and the up and down of the divine breath of life that pulses through you. We have not earned this breath; we do not deserve this life or this love. They are free gifts, and importantly, they are given to each one of us as an individual.

At this moment, God deems it good that you in particular should live and breathe and be taken care of. You in particular, not just general humanity. God is looking down on you -- just you in all your craziness and specialness -- and smiling and sending you life and love and care. Soak it in.

Parashat Toldot: On Anxiety, Control, and Expansiveness

I am missing Avraham these days.

Think of how he went through trial after trial with faith and trust in the divine process, and a long range perspective. There was no worry or hurry or attempt to control the future; if the land had a famine, he simply went abroad. If his wife was not having children, he trusted that somehow God’s promise of great progeny would still work out. He beheld the vastness of the sky and the sea and kept those in his sights at all times. Sent to sacrifice his promised son? No worries. HaElokim yireh lo haseh le’olah. The Lord will see to the sheep for the sacrifice. The Lord will provide. Avraham merely follows the path the Lord has set out for him, and trusts in all its twists and turns.

Not so the next generations. Underneath all the squabbling and fighting and extreme manipulation over lentils and blessings and birthrights is a deep sense of anxiety. There is no trust that things will simply work out according to God’s plan, no going with the flow. Yaakov is a reacher, a striver, a manipulator. He does not feel that blessings flow down to him by divine grace; he feels he has to micromanage the situation (with the aid of his mother) and connive his way into such blessings. Food is not pictured, as in Avraham’s household, as an abundant cornucopia that flows freely even toward the stranger, but on the contrary, becomes an instrument of barter in a constant negotiation over scarce resources. As Esav comments when Yitzhak seems unable to find him a second blessing -- habrachah ahat likha, avi? Do you really only have one blessing, my father? Is the divine blessing really so limited and scarce that we have to fight over it like this? How can that be what it means to be blessed?

Yitzhak’s well experiences mirror this sense of scarcity. Fights erupt between his shepherds and the neighboring shepherds over fresh water resources, each claiming ownership of the same wells, so that the wells are named “Contention” and “Harassment.” The feeling is that there is simply not enough to go around. Think back on Avraham and Lot. What was Avraham’s attitude when there was fighting? There is plenty of space. The land is vast and expansive; you go one way and i will go another. There is plenty to go around. Avraham seems to keep this sense of expansiveness -- the image of the stars of the sky and the sand of the sea that God has shown him --- with him at all times, and he is guided by it, trusts in it, is patient and generous because of its calming influence

Thankfully, hints of this perspective do remain in the family. After “Contention” and “Harassment” there is a third well which is named Rehovot, or “Expanses,” with the explanation: “Now at last the Lord has granted us ample space.” Ah. There is that sense of openness and vastness once again; trust comes back, and generosity, too, in place of competitiveness. We can relax into the expansiveness.

That Rehovot perspective feels messianic. It is what we aim for, not where we are. The world is generally in a place of squabble, scarcity and anxiety over how things will work out. We are more often in the place of controlling things like Rivka and Yaakov do than we are in the place of trusting and going with the flow and simply waiting it out, like Avraham.

Our anxiety is not without good reason. I suspect that Yitzhak passes on a basic anxiety caused by the trauma of the akedah, the experience that life might at any moment be cut short in a cruel merciless way. Yitzhak does not experience the vastness of the sky but instead the tightness of the bonds of the lamb bound up for sacrifice -- the narrowness of its horizons and the shortness of its life span. He is old before his time, and talks and worries about dying (as does Esav) in a way that Avraham never does.

And so anxiety is born and brought into the family, passed along subtly to his children, this sense of scarcity and uncertainty, leading not to trust and faith but to an attempt to control the future -- a ceaseless backfiring attempt -- that will never succeed and never rest.

We, as a people, have inherited Yitzhak’s trauma. Not just that one trauma, but the many that have transpired since then. And so we are not really only the children of the pure simple trusting faith of Avraham, but always also the children of the restless controlling anxiety of Yaakov.

Still, we hold on to those hints of expansiveness, the places that can feel like Rehovot, where we can see the entire sky and the entire sea, and feel how divine blessings are not scarce, but unlimited and regenerating, and how our paths, though seemingly crooked, are divinely guided, and not to be fought, but to be trusted with patience and faith. Ours is a harder task than Avraham’s, but ultimately what the world needs -- to bring trust and expansiveness into our way of being, not just before the trauma, but also after it -- to see and understand the anxiety and the resulting impulse to control, and to integrate those, too, into the vast sky of divine trust.

A Prayer for Yom Kippur

O Lord of Forgiveness, Forgive Us!

Forgive us for our imperfections, for all the times we wanted to do something well and it came out poorly, and for all the ways we constantly fall short of our own intentions and values.

Forgive us, and teach us to forgive ourselves.

Forgive us for not remembering what is important, and for getting lost in what is not.

Forgive us for not being fully present to Your Presence in the world at each moment, for all the times we did not see the beauty and the preciousness all around us and for all the times we did not appreciate Your gifts or feel the overflow of Your love.

Forgive us and let us feel Your love now; let us know that You love us even with our imperfections, so that we may learn to love ourselves and others in the same way, with infinite compassion and forgiveness.

O Lord of Forgiveness, Forgive Us and Heal Us!

A Shofar Meditation in Three Parts

The shofar is a cry inside each of us that needs to be let out.


It is a cry of overwhelm and sometimes despair. O God, this life you gave us, it feels impossible to live, impossible to get done what needs to get done, impossible to really do it well and right, impossible to please everyone. We try so hard to succeed, to function, to thrive and survive, but in the end, something is amiss; we are incompetent, deficient, not enough. It is all too hard. O God, You are in charge. You are king. In the end, there is only surrender to You. We have tried, but not fully succeeded. We cry out to You to hold us in our imperfection, to hear us and see us and bear with us, to help us know that it is You who rules the world. We have not fully succeeded, but it’s ok; we are not in charge. (Malkhuyot)

It is a cry of loneliness. We are busy with people; we talk and interact and love and give and receive all day. But there is still loneliness. Deep in our hearts, there is still loneliness. It remembers something, this loneliness; it remembers a distant time of perfect union, and it yearns with all its might for return to its source. Usually we forget. But sometimes, when we sit near a river and see the flow of the water, we remember; we remember the feeling of being a drop of water in a mighty flow, a part of something alive and moving and eternal; we remember and we long for the connection, for the sense of belonging and peace and completeness. We cry out to You, O God, to remember us, too, to return to us, too, to heal our loneliness through an awareness of Your constant Presence, to help us know that it is with You that we belong. (Zichronot)

It is also a cry of hope. In the end of the day, we do not succeed; much is left undone and our yearning for connection is never completely satisfied. And yet, we feel better for having cried. The cry itself is an expression of hope. In You we have hope; we have cried and You have heard us, and even if our problems remain, we feel different; we are lighter in Your light. We feel the possibility amidst the impossible, the perfect within the imperfect, and most of all, we feel Your deep abiding Presence. Redemption is possible, and so life itself is possible; we have faith that we can live in Your light. (Shofarot)

אשרי העם יודעי תרועה, ה' באור פניך יהלכון

Fortunate is the people who know how to cry; O God, in the light of Your face will they walk.

Parashat Bekhukotai: Walking with God, Not Hiding

Vehithalakhti betokhakhem. “And I, God, will walk amongst you (Lev. 26:12).” This is one of the blessings described in our parsha of a life of following God and His mitzvot. That God will walk amongst us.

Rashi says this means that God will wander about among you in the Garden of Eden. I think the reason Rashi points to the Garden of Eden here is that the verb vehithalakhti, the reflexive form of halakh, “walk,” is used in reference to God in one other place – in Breishit, in reference to God’s voice wandering the Garden just after the first humans eat the forbidden fruit. What happens there? The people hear God walking and hide from Him among the trees; He calls out: Ayeka? Where are you? And they respond that they are fearful and hiding because they are naked.

This is the normal state of humanity – one of hiding and shame. We act in ways that we judge wrong (and often are wrong), but that is not really what removes us from God’s presence. What removes us from God’s presence, and in many ways, from our own presence, is the secondary aftereffect of our own judgment of ourselves – the hiding and the shame, our own assessment of our shameful “nakedness,” our own sense of unworthiness before God and humanity, and the hiding from truth and God that immediately ensues.

The blessing promised here for walking in God’s ways, for walking with a sense of His presence at all times, is in a way its own reward. What is the reward for walking in God’s ways? It brings a return to a pre-sin state, a return to the moment in the Garden of Eden when we could sense palpably God’s Presence walking about amongst us. But this time, instead of hiding and feeling shame, if we are really walking with God, then we learn not to hide, even if we are at times unworthy, not to hide, but to trust in the relationship, to trust that we are still worthy of God’s presence.

Tara Brach, a meditation teacher, likens our human situation of self-judgment to two arrows. There is the initial arrow of hurt, pain, anger, wrongful action, whatever, and then there is the second arrow, which digs us in so much deeper, the second arrow of self-condemnation and shame. When this second arrow hits, we are no longer walking with God; we no longer feel worthy of God’s presence. We hide from God and from ourselves and punish ourselves for our sins by distancing ourselves from God.

But God is still walking about the Garden looking for us. The key is to be steadfast with ourselves and with our relationship with God, not to quit on ourselves and hide and decide it is over and we are unworthy. That would be to walk with God bekeri, with a certain happenstance quality, sometimes on and sometimes off, depending on whether we feel worthy. No, we need to know that at all times God walks with us. To know this is in and of itself to return to the Garden of Eden, to return to the sense of peace and trust of that relationship. It was not the sin that destroyed it – God still wants us after we sin, is still walking the garden; He knows we are imperfect – it was the hiding, the distancing of our own selves from Him. It is the shaming that turns us away from Presence, convinces us that we do not deserve God and therefore do not seek or sense Him.

To walk with God, not bekeri, not with a sense of randomness or unsureness, but with a sense of sure-footed steadfastness, is to trust that God is walking with us, too, at all times, no matter what; it means never to give up on ourselves or shut down and hide, but to have the courage to face Presence at all times.

For Bedikat Chametz

The Sefat Emet explains that when we say that matzah is lehem oni, poor person’s bread, what we mean is that matzah is the very core of bread, the bare bones dough; spiritually, it represents the essence of our inner selves, our most basic inner divine point.

On Pesach we peel away all the extra layers and remind ourselves that this simple core of ours is enough. All year we work to develop this core, to spread it and make it do fantastic feats. This is good, but we need to know that these extra developments are not essential to who we are, that our worth does not depend on this striving in the world, on how puffy our bread is, how productive or successful we are. No, that is all extra.

On Pesach, we remember that our core is enough, that even if we strip away all this work and striving and success, the essence, what matters, is still there; it is still bread, very very simple bread, but still bread; we are still complete without the puff.

This year when I look for chametz, I will be looking for the places inside me that don’t know this truth, for the places that work feverishly because they think they have to prove my worth, that without them I would be nothing. I will be looking for those parts of me that say, like chametz – I only matter if I rise; I am only complete if I spend time and effort and work at being something great.

I will be searching for these places and then I will burn them. They are not the truth. I will watch as the ashes swallow up all that striving and underneath all that striving, that feeling of not-enoughness.

I will watch the flames burn up the chametz and then I will turn to the matzah and know that, like matzah, my essence is enough. It is great to be risen bread, but it is not essential. I am enough, worthwhile, whole, with a pure divine spark, just as I am, in my most stripped down basic form. To know this is peace and to know this is freedom.

For Pesach: On Human Effort and Dependence

We work so hard for this holiday.

And yet, on some level, the message of Pesach is that we are taken care of. God took us out not because we deserved it; we didn’t. He redeemed us simply because we are His and He loves us. It is a leil shimurim, a night of protection, this seder night, not a time when we have to do anything to protect ourselves. God is in charge. In the Haggadah, we emphasize that it was God alone who redeemed us; we don’t mention Moshe’s name, because the emphasis on God is key; on this night, we need to know that we are dependent on God alone. We recline at the table like someone who is totally relaxed, secure in the knowledge that Someone else will take care of things, that we have “Someone to lean on.” We do not pour ourselves wine, but the custom is to be the recipient, to feel for one night that we have no worries over the replenishing of our cup; it will happen without our effort.

So why on this holiday, when we are meant to feel that we are totally cared for and protected from above, why is this the holiday that actually requires the most effort on our part to prepare for?

There is some deep psychological truth here, some connection between all this work and the feeling of total dependence that we aspire to.

There is the dependence of the child, an unexamined dependence which (hopefully) passes with time as the child becomes more independent. And then there is a deeper sense of dependence which we can only come to after some experience of independence and some experience of great human effort on our part.

It reminds me of the first two steps of Alcoholics Anonymous – first, we admitted that we were powerless, and second, we came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. We have to first bottom out with human effort; we have to first work really hard and try as hard as we can to do everything, to get it all right, to get our lives in order. We have to go that route and only after we have gotten to the point of knowing that even with all that effort, still, on some level, we are powerless to control our lives and make them work the way we want, only after we have come to that realization, that knowledge that “we can’t” – only then will we be really open to the One who Can, to the truth of our dependence on Him, to the appreciation of our gifts and the peace of not being in charge.

So both the effort and the feeling of being taken care of are part of the package on Pesach. Perhaps this is the meaning of our movement from slavery to freedom; we begin as slaves to our own human striving and work capacity and we move toward a feeling of the freedom and peace of knowing that ultimately, whatever work we do, however important it is, we are held in a larger cushion of divine love. Such knowledge of our dependence is a kind of freedom; it frees us from our enslavement to our very human projects and gives us a taste of something larger, more eternal.

For Pesach: Nothing After the Afikoman

Our answer to the wise child of the Haggadah is: ayn maftirin ahar haPesach afikoman. “One adds no after-dinner revelry after eating the Passover sacrifice.” Normally, after the meal, we might have another mini dessert party. But not tonight. The mitzvah is to end with the Passover lamb. [In our seders today, of course, since we no longer have a sacrifice, we end with the taste of matzah, which, ironically we call the “afikoman,” the word for the after-dinner revelry we are not to have.]

One should end with Pesach, either with the actual sacrifice or with some experience, like the matzah, that is specifically related to our Pesach experience of redemption. After that, nothing more should be added.

This idea reminds me of Nadav and Avihu, of the notion that the moment of divine revelation inside the Tabernacle, that moment that God’s Glory first came to fill up that space, that moment was the peak. It was enough and complete. For Nadav and Avihu to add to it, to try to top that moment, was an act of sacrilege; they meant to add, but they were actually taking away from the moment. (See my earlier Shmini blog).

Here, too, on Pesach, we are meant to have such an experience of divine Presence, indeed, to feel that God has redeemed us in particular right now and taken us out of Egypt. We need to be totally present for that experience, not to try to add to it afterwards, to think we need more, but simply to be present. Nothing extra. This moment is total and complete as it is. It is enough.

I think it’s interesting that this message is deemed especially appropriate for the wise and knowledgeable among us, for the overachievers, the strivers who are always looking to learn more and add one more insight and one more text and one more halakhic regulation, to add “dessert” to our Pesach. While the Haggadah encourages us to add to the telling of the story and to elaborate, there is also a place for minimums, for knowing what the core is – pesach, matzah and maror; feeling that you have left Egypt; singing praise to God – and sticking to the core.

Pesach can be a time of overdoing it, overdoing the cleaning, overdoing the shopping and the cooking and even overdoing the seder. There is a restlessness in all our striving that could lead us, like the wise son, to miss the main point, to be so worried about the dessert that we forget the main meal. The Haggadah warns us, at the start, ayn maftirin ahar HaPesach afikoman. Don’t be extra. Get to the Pesach itself, have an experience of God’s redemption, and be totally present for that. Know that that is enough. Indeed, know that that is everything. To do more detracts, and is indeed a kind of slavery, a slavery that comes from a lack of faith in the simple power of presence. There is nothing more. We will only be free when we know that in our full presence we are enough.

For Peh Sach: God's Never-ending Speech

To feel that God is constantly involved in our lives and redeeming us, continually performing miracles on our behalf right now – that is the goal of the Seder. Not just to remember the past and be thankful, but to feel the constant Presence, care and involvement of God in our lives.

There is a famous play on the name Pesach – reading it as peh sach – a mouth that speaks. Normally we understand this mouth that speaks as our own mouth speaking the story of the exodus. The Kedushat Levi reads it differently; the mouth that speaks on Pesach is the mouth of God continually speaking. God is a constantly “speaking mouth.”

What does this mean? God created the world through speech acts. He said “let there be light” and there was light. One might think that after this beneficent act of creation, He disappeared. He set the world in motion and sat back and watched. But no, to say that God is a continually speaking mouth is to say that in some sense, creation never ended. God is constantly speaking the world into existence. As we say each morning, He is mehadesh betuvo bekhol yom tamid maaseh breishit, He is, in His goodness, renewing the work of creation each and every day. At each moment, He continually speaks each of us and every piece of grass into continued existence. Creation was not a one-time act, but a never-ending show of love.

With the exodus from Egypt, God manifested to the world this hidden continual care, says the Kedushat Levi. We normally don’t take notice of it, but then, suddenly, through miraculous interventions (the plagues and the Red Sea) that went against the natural order that He had set up, God showed that He was still involved on a regular basis. By clearly acting in the world, He manifested what is normally hidden – His continued involvement in the world He created. It is as if He popped up and said – See?! I have been here and involved all the time. I am showing you now so you can know it and remember.

On Pesach we remember that God is a constant peh sach by ourselves becoming a peh sach. We continually, each year on Pesach and each day in the Shma, again and again, speak this truth into the universe: God did not leave; God is here, Present at all times and involved in our lives. Through speech acts of remembering and reminding, we experience His continued involvement; we activate that sense of His speech through our own speech.

What does it mean to feel God’s continued miraculous involvement in our lives? We are so full of problems and suffering and worries and unbelief. How do we feel God’s continual redemption? I am searching myself but there are little inklings, and I think it is the little inklings of this Presence that Pesach asks us to notice and speak out loud – the moments when there is indeed some sense of personal redemption, when we are helped or healed or cared for or guided or given strength where there is no strength. There are also moments of revelation, moments when we get a sudden insight, a glimpse of some greater truth or understanding, what is known in Hebrew as a hiddush, “a new thought,” a gift from God’s constant work of renewal in the world. And finally there is constantly around us evidence of God’s continual care in the form of nature, the miracle of our own existence and of the beautiful universe around us. Perhaps that is why Pesach is in the spring, a time when the physical world is indeed in a time of glorious renewal, a new act of creation.

These are all little shafts of divine light entering the universe, little glimpses of God’s constant care. On Pesach we become a peh sach, a mouth that speaks this truth of God’s own continually speaking mouth. He is here now and still speaking to us. Let us pause and enter the conversation.

Parashat Shemini: There is No Need for Extra

In the story of the death of Aharon’s two sons, Nadav and Avihu, there is a moment that sometimes gets lost, probably the most important moment. It is the moment just before they act, the moment when, after all 7 days of practice and an eighth day of rituals and sacrifices, God’s Glory actually finally does appear to the people; the people perceive it, and the people sing out and fall on their faces, joyous and awed and totally satiated from this experience of the divine.

What happens next is “extra,” as my teenage students would say. Nadav and Avihu take pans and bring incense and fire “which they were not commanded to do.” There are many interpretations of what exactly Nadav and Avihu did wrong, and a lot of them seem true and sensible and have something to teach us. But at this moment it seems to me that the primary problem was simply that their action was “extra,” and sometimes extra actually detracts from the moment.

There is nothing more complete than an experience of divine presence. Nothing more could possibly be needed. The people as a whole understood this; they did not act; they re-acted --- they performed two actions that showed on the outside how they were taking in this incredible sight on this inside; they sang, expressing joy and praise (the Sefat Emet says it was the same song they sang at the Sea) and they fell on their faces, expressing awe and a sense of overwhelm and humility at the enormity of the experience.

Nadav and Avihu, by contrast, actually took away from the experience because they took a new action, as if what had just happened was not complete on its own. This is very important. We often don’t appreciate the fullness of our moments because we are too busy trying to improve on them, to add icing to the cake, to add more activities to our schedule, to add another dish to the menu, to add another phrase to the sentence. We think more is needed, that there is a need for “extra,” when actually the world, God, ourselves are all already enough. Let me say it again – the world, God, ourselves are all already enough.

We are so restless sometimes, worrying about adding and acting and more and new and outdoing the past generation and the last moment, but the truth is that this moment is enough, totally complete in itself. All that is asked of us is to acknowledge its magnificence, not to bring new fires, but simply to sing out as we feel the fullness of this moment, the fullness of God’s goodness filling us up. It is enough.

For Purim: Groundless Together

Purim – both its story and the way we celebrate it – always gives me a vague feeling of unease and instability.

First, the story. Yes, we do win in the end, but the forces against us feel very real, and the victory sudden and unreliable. It is the story of Jewish history; they hate us and want to kill us, but somehow we survive, and are even victorious. The problem is that it keeps happening, and often, although we end up surviving as a people, there is a fair amount of suffering before we get there. The whole thing does feel a little like a pur, “a lot;” there is nothing stable here; at any random moment, we could be subject to hatred and killing, just as at any moment we could be granted salvation. There is nothing to hold on to, no ground to walk on.

The celebration only seems to intensify this sense of groundlessness. All rules are temporarily suspended; drink as much as you want; wear whatever clothes you want; say rash things in the guise of humor; “boo” someone in public. It is as if there are no longer any inhibitions in public or in private. The gemara (Megillah 7b) tells a story about two rabbis who had a se’udah together on Purim; they drank too much and one killed the other. On Purim anything goes. It is as if we all feel this sense of groundlessness and instability about our futures and so we adopt a gallows humor; who knows if we will live or die so might as well enjoy today and not worry about any rules!

There is a truth to the groundlessness behind Purim; we actually do have very little control of the future. We are like ships tossed in the sea, dates cast in a lot. Purim asks us to surrender to this reality and even revel in it.

What anchors us on Purim? What normally anchors us is God, but I don’t think that it is God that anchors us on Purim. His name is absent from the Megillah, and indeed, not a single one of the four main mitzvot of Purim is directed toward God; we read the story (no God); we eat a meal together; we send each other food gifts; and we take care of the needy.

No, Purim is not focused on God. Though we know that God lies behind our redemption and our survival time and again, our experience of history is that we are tossed about in an unpredictable way. Yes, in the end, He will come to our rescue, and that does provide some long-term comfort, but in the mean time, when we look around, what do we have to hold on to? Each other.

We don’t know what will happen tomorrow and there is a certain unease we have to live with. Purim’s answer to that unease is to turn to one another. All four mitzvot involve gathering – hearing the Megillah is to be done in large groups; mishloach manot are to share food and bring a sense of kinship ish lere’ehu, “a person to his fellow;” we take care of the poor; and we eat festive meals together. All are done together.

It is as if we have all been riding a boat together for a long time. We don’t really know when we will reach our faroff destination. There have been storms and bright days and even hurricanes, and through it all, the one constant has been one another. We pause for a moment and appreciate each other, appreciate that we are on this journey together. As we are tossed about on the sea, there is some comfort in knowing that we are not alone.

Parashat Zachor: The Vulnerable Inside Us

One of the primary characteristics of Amalek is that they attack hanekheshalim aharekha, “those who are weak in your rear.” They attack the weak and the vulnerable.

We feel intuitively how wrong this is, and we understand that a society should be measured by how kindly it treats its weakest members.
I want to take this idea a step further, and think not just on the level of society, but also on the level of the individual and each of our own internal struggles. How do we treat the weakest, most vulnerable parts of ourselves?

Let’s say you are in a situation that makes you feel inadequate in some way – not smart enough, not organized or competent enough, not assertive enough, not attentive enough, too awkward, too loud, whatever your trigger is – how do you react? If you are like most of us, you attack that part of you. Another part of you starts saying things like: “What did you do that for?” “You’re such an idiot!” “You’re always so awkward!” “That’s pathetic!” and so on.

Essentially, we act like Amalek inside of us. We attack those very parts of us that are weakest and most vulnerable. We attack the parts of us that we are not proud of, that hide in the back, our personal places of imperfection, incompetence and disability.

This is not a question of improvement. Yes, it is good to improve and strive and become better at the things we are not great at. But attacking does not help that project, and probably hinders it.

What is the alternative? Kindness. The Torah often speaks about being kind to the stranger, the orphan, the widow, the Levite, the poor or anyone else who has reason to be underprivileged. These needy among us are not to be mistreated or attacked but to be given love and generosity and kindness. Imagine what this looks like internally, to turn to the places inside us that are most needy and vulnerable, most incompetent and shameful, to turn to those very places with kindness, to imagine that these parts of us are like little neglected orphans in need of love. Imagine how, under such care, these orphans might relax after all those years of harsh treatment, and maybe even turn out to have a special shine of their own.

The pasuk that comes to mind is from Hallel: Even ma’asu habonim, hayta lerosh pinah. “The stone that was rejected by the builders has become the chief cornerstone (Psalm 118:22).” A miraculous transformation has occurred; the very parts that seem most unworthy -- the parts that we are most apt to reject about ourselves -- have turned into “cornerstones,” essential, foundational elements that we rely on for further building and growth. It turns out that if we stop rejecting them, they are our pillars.

This Shabbat we remember “what Amalek did” and are bidden to strive to eradicate Amalek entirely. We look around the world with all its problems and evil and suffering and we feel overwhelmed by the impossibility of the fight for the good. Perhaps the fight against Amalek in the world begins inside, begins by learning to turn towards our most vulnerable parts, not as Amalek did, with hatred and a desire to attack, but instead with love and compassion. Who knows which rejected parts of us are the cornerstones to redemption, not just for ourselves but also for the world?

Parashat Pekudei: The Glory of God Fills the Mishkan

Ukhevod Hashem malei et Hamishkan. And the Glory of the Lord filled the Mishkan (Tabernacle). This phrase appears twice, in two successive pesukim, at the end of this week’s parsha (40:34-35), after the completion of the Mishkan.

The Glory of the Lord filled the Mishkan. It is difficult to imagine what that must have felt like – intense bright warm light, clarity, awe, truth. Also, quiet, gentleness, compassion, simplicity, wholeness, a whisper of tenderness. And most of all, limitless love pouring forth.

The truth is that God’s Glory is always filling the entire universe. Melo kol ha’aretz kevodo, His Glory fills the earth, a phrase from Isaiah that we say in kedushah. God’s Glory fills the earth, but the universe is such a vast space that we have trouble wrapping our minds around this concept and really feeling it. Also, I wonder whether it isn’t necessary for us to act in some way, to take the initiative, to build, to actively call down God’s Presence, not in order for It to be here, but in order for us to perceive it. And so, although the universe is already full of God, we need to build Him a sanctuary; we need to decide we want Him in order for us to feel Him.

This physical Mishkan is a metaphor for the human heart. Bilevavi mishkan evneh. In my heart, I build a Mishkan. In my heart I build a place for God to dwell; I open myself to contain His light, His Truth, His Love. I invite His Glory to shine inside my heart, that I may be a vessel for His love and kindness in the world.

We have finished the parshiyyot of building the Mishkan. They began with the instruction: ve’asu li mikdash veshakhanti betokham. They should build Me a sanctuary and I will dwell in their midst. Many have noted that God does not say He will dwell in its midst, but rather in their midst, in the midst of the hearts of every single person.

We have finished building the physical Mishkan. How do we build a mishkan inside us? We have to want it, to work at it, to believe it is possible; we have to believe we are worthy and we are wanted; we have to believe we are capable of carrying the divine Glory inside us.

That is why it is so important that this final chapter of the Mishkan happens after the sin of the Golden Calf. Even after their sin, God testified through His Presence that He still wished to reside among the people. God’s Glory comes down among us, when we ask for It and work for it; we do not need to be worthy of it. Indeed, we are not worthy of it. We can remain in our imperfect humanity, and the Glory of God will still dwell inside us. Karov Hashem lekhol korav. God is close to all those who call Him, who call to Him in earnest.

The Glory of the Lord filled the Mishkan. The word for “filled,” malei, could also be read in the present tense: The Glory of the Lord fills – right now, and at every moment – the Mishkan, the world and our hearts.

Parashat Vayakhel: A Home for Our Needy Hearts

This week we come to the end of the Mishkan (Tabernacle) parshiyyot. We began with two, Terumah and Tetzaveh, and we end with two, Vayakhel and Pekudei, and sandwiched in between these two double-layered walls is Ki Tisa, the story of the Golden Calf.

The story of the Golden Calf is, in some sense, then, at the heart of the Mishkan, standing right in the middle of its sacred sanctuary walls. It is as if the divine sanctuary is there to hold, to embrace, to surround the very human neediness displayed in the act of the Golden Calf, our own tender human heart.

Let me explain. What happened at the Golden Calf? The people saw that Moshe was gone a long time and they began to wonder what had happened to him and to feel insecure and uncertain, a little like a small, bewildered child who suddenly finds herself alone in a vast terrifying place, the only source of comfort and security nowhere in sight. She feels lost and abandoned, desperately in need of something to attach herself to, to calm the feeling of being afloat without an anchor.

The Golden Calf is fundamentally an expression of deep human suffering. Coming down from the mountain, Moshe hears a sound. Yehoshua thinks it is the sound of war, but Moshe corrects him – this is not the sound of winning of losing, but rather kol anot, which, although not usually translated this way, can be understood to mean “the sound of suffering,” from the root inui, for suffering, the same word for the suffering the Israelites felt in Egypt.

I think most of us know what this groundlessness feels like, the sense of uncertainty and aloneness, this hole inside of us that desperately needs to be filled by something, to be attached to something, anything, in order to feel that we have some ground to stand on. So we, like the Israelites, look to some other source of security and attachment; there are many kinds of idolatry – substance and food addictions, money, success, ego, even the worship of another human as wholly powerful in some way.

In the end of the day, none of these prove to be secure enough for us; none of them totally fill our gaping open heart.

There is, it turns out, nothing to do for this groundlessness, this desperate neediness of ours. God knows this; what he offers us is simply accompaniment, a dwelling place for this heart of ours. The Mishkan is a symbol of God’s embrace, of the ability of the divine to HOLD all of this human brokenness, to surround it with Presence.

This needy heart of ours is not a bad thing; left on its own, it constructs idols, but it is actually made of pure gold, and, when it feels the accompaniment of the divine embrace, it is elevated and raised up to unimaginable levels of service. The response to the request for donations for the Mishkan in Vayekhel is “over the top”; the people come tripping over themselves, their “hearts raised up” (nesa’o libo), to give more and more until a halt is called; there is more than enough. This needy heart has an intensity to it; it is not just the source of idolatry, but also the source of our yearning for connection to something larger than ourselves, of our ability to give limitlessly, to be part of an eternal project. In the Miskhan, in God, this searching heart finds a home, finds security, finds the ultimate neverending Ground.

Parashat Yitro: Clearing Time to Go up the Mountain

Very strange. We always imagine that God called Moshe to come up the mountain and that’s how he knew it was the time and place for the big event. But if you read the verses, actually what happens is that the people camp across from the mountain and Moshe goes up on his accord, without any call from God. Only after Moshe takes the first step does God then call to him and begin the process (Exodus 19:3).

This makes me wonder: Perhaps God was there on the mountain waiting for many days, years, generations even, for someone like Moshe to come up and want the Torah. Perhaps God is always simply there waiting for us to reach out, to uncover Him, to ask for His Torah, for His Presence to be revealed to us in the world. We think we are waiting for Him to show Himself. But perhaps it is for us to begin the climb up the mountain. There is a famous midrash that says that God’s voice calls out every single day from the Temple Mount: “Return, My children!” The fact that we don’t hear it has to do with our own inability to tune in. The voice is there; the Torah is there; God is on the mountain; we just have to go up.

What is it that allowed Moshe to tune in at that particular moment? The Torah tells us in its prelude to Mount Sinai. Yitro comes and sees his son-in-law serving as a judge from early morning until nightfall every day, dealing with every little squabble in the camp. Up till now Moshe was too frenetically busy to climb the mountain in search of God, to hear God’s call, or to receive His word. A person needs to open herself, to free herself, at least a little bit, in order to hear God.

What Yitro advises is that Moshe get auxiliary judges to do most of the judging so that Moshe’s time is free to serve as an emissary between God and the people, bringing their issues to God and bringing God’s laws to them. In other words, Yitro tells him – you are too busy to serve your real purpose right now! Your real job is with God! You can’t do it all. Only if you free yourself up from all of these other daily responsibilities will you be able to do the real service you are here to do – to serve as a bridge between God and the people. At the end of his advice, Yitro says to Moshe, “If you do this thing,” then vetzivekha Elokhim, literally, “God will command you (Exodus 18:23).” In other words, if you do this thing, if you free yourself in this way, then you will make yourself into a vessel for His commandments.

There are two take-aways from all of this. First, we shouldn’t be waiting for the “call.” We should start the climb, take the initiative in our relationship with God, in our search for His Torah and for His presence. He is waiting for us to approach.

Second, we need to make the time to hear God. If our lives are filled with frenetic rushing and details, we will not be serving our real purpose as a divine vessel. Obviously not everyone is Moshe, but we all have a particular divine purpose in this world, and somewhere inside us, we know what it is. Often, though, what happens is that we let life with all its details and busyness dictate how we should spend our time, rather than being clear about what our particular role is meant to be and setting our own agenda and priorities so that we can actually do it. May we find the time to set out up the mountain!

Parashat Bshallach: Let it Shine!

The end -- the culmination of the exodus -- is song. A song of spontaneous praise to the Lord. In next week’s parsha, the song will need to be turned into law, into a way of living every day with God’s presence in our actions, but for now, what is captured is the essential religious sentiment, the point of leaving Egypt – to feel the call to praise God rising up in our hearts, to feel the sense of amazement and gratitude at God’s miraculous salvation.

It is on the 7th day since the exodus that the Israelites are at the Sea and sing this Song, and so each year we celebrate this Song on the 7th day of Passover. The Sefat Emet connects this 7th day to our weekly 7th day of Shabbat, and this song to the song of that day each week -- tov lehodot laShem ulazamer leshimkha elyon. It is good to praise God and to sing to Your name, Most High. Like the seventh day of Passover, Shabbat is the telos of creation; its purpose is to pause and notice and appreciate and sing out in praise and amazement at the glories of the Lord in our world. It turns out that such songs of praise are the very purpose of our existence.

But how do we sing? How do we praise? Where is this song of praise inside us? In a discussion with some high school students last week about the phrase, Hashem sefatay Tiftah, ufi yagid tehilatekha, “O God, open my lips, so that my mouth may say Your praise,” what came out was the difficulty we all have with praise. It’s a lie, one girl said. When God opens my lips, what comes out is not praise.

But perhaps it is. Perhaps deep down, if we got rid of the obstacles and the distractions and were really present and allowed ourselves to be open to what is and to feel God’s Presence, perhaps what we would find inside ourselves – as the Israelites did at the Sea – perhaps what we would find at the very core is indeed praise, is a song of light and gratitude and amazement. Passing by the Music Room on my way out of AJA today, what wafted out was the song, “This little light of mine – I’m going to let it shine. Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!” What would happen if we did let it shine? Sometimes I can see clearly that there is inside each and every one of us a song of such light and such brightness, such clarity and brilliance and total praise for what is – that the world would explode if we all sang at once. Perhaps this was the experience at the Sea.

The poet Mary Oliver died yesterday and it seems poignant and fitting that it was on the week of our reading of the Song at the Sea. As she wrote, “When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement.” May we know how to see and sing with amazement as she did and as did the Israelites at the Sea. May God Himself open up the locked places inside us to let the song out. Let it shine! Let it shine! Let it shine!