Tefillah Thoughts 1

1. Ashrei Yoshvei Veitekha: Happy are those who dwell in Your home, O God. I used to think this referred to the Temple or the Tabernacle or, in today’s world, to the synagogue. But today, looking out at the sun and the trees and the green sky, it occurred to me that it might also mean the world. Happy, fortunate are we who live in God’s home, this world. Happy, fortunate are we if we can appreciate that good fortune, if we can cherish the beauty, see the divinity in the world around us. There is holiness not just in the four walls of a prayer house, but in every step we take outside it. Ashrei Yoshvei Veitekha.

2. Karov Hashem Lekhol Korav, lekhol Asher Yikra’uhu Be’Emet: “God is close to all who call Him, to all those who call to Him in earnest.” It begins with us. As the Sefat Emet is always pointing out, you get what you put in. God is close to those who make the effort to call to Him. How to experience, to feel God’s presence? Call to Him and call to Him in earnest, with a full heart.

This morning I had a broken heart. It felt open and wounded. Nothing calamitous had occurred, but for some reason, after dropping my kids off at the day camp bus stop, I drove home with an emptiness and a loneliness and a sense of loss and endings. My children are leaving me. That is the way of the world. People leave each other. Some of our closest friends in Albany are moving out of town. There is a feeling of loss and grief.

I took the Piasetzner Rebbe’s advice this morning and decided to view such a feeling as “an opening of the soul,” an opportunity to cry out to God. Karov Hashem lekhol Korav. God is close to those who call Him, to those who call to Him be’emet -- in earnest. Usually it is hard to call in earnest; we are closed over to our soul and our feelings, a thousand practical concerns whirring through our minds. So, every once in a while, when the opportunity arises, and you are feeling strongly anyway – happy, sad, angry, irritated – seize the opportunity. That’s the Piasetzner Rebbe’s advice. Trying it this morning, alongside that feeling of loneliness and loss I also felt a sense of Presence.

3. Shma Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Ehad: Hear O Israel, Hashem is our God, Hashem is One. I have been struggling with the particularlity of Israel and confused about my connection to both the people of Israel and to all of humanity. I wonder if that’s what it means to say “Hashem Elokeinu” – this God of ours, ours in particular, is also “Hashem Ehad,” the God of Unity, of All, the God who helps us see the unity of the universe and the connections. We begin with a personal feeling about Him, that He is ours, but somehow that needs to lead us next to a sense of wholeness and openness to everything, to the Unity of all.

Parashat Re'eh: Today

Hayom. Today. A mantra in this week’s parsha and throughout the book of Devarim. It is today that I am talking to you, commanding you these things. As Rashi interprets, you should feel as excited about the Torah as you would about a new declaration from the king that all run out to hear.

That is how we should greet each day. We say that God is mehadesh betuvo bekhol yom tamid ma’aseh breishit, that He renews the work of creation each morning with sunlight. All of creation, the grass, the trees, the birds and us are new each day. With what wonder we would look at the world and ourselves if we really felt that. It’d be like having the eyes of a child.

The word hayom literally means “the day.” Today is “the day,“ the most important day. Today the world was created. Today I experience revelation. The Rebbe of Kubrin, when asked: What is the most important thing a person needs to do, answered: Whatever needs to be done right now is the most important thing to do.

This message may seem obvious and simple, but it is such a struggle. We do so much planning and so much delaying of gratification, that after a while, we stop seeing the present as important. The present is always in the service of some other more important time. When does that other more important time finally arrive? How can we be really present to the present?

Summer Musings on Parashat Ekev and the Philiosophy of "Whatevs"

I decided to try adopting my son Medad’s new favorite saying, “whatevs” (translation: “whatever”) as a way of life. I noticed he says it when things don’t go exactly as he had planned or hoped: “whatevs,” meaning, “It doeesn’t matter that much. I’m just going to let it slide. I’m not going to let it bother me.” Essentially: No big deal.

I could use some of this attitude. I frequently wake up in the middle of the night with a worry that in the clarity and optimism of the morning light seems not to really matter all that much, certainly not to be worthy of lost sleep. I’d be happier and healthier if I just said “whatevs” more often.

At the same time I’ve been holding in my head a Rashi that my father pointed out to me this year, the first Rashi of this week’s parsha. Ekev, says Rashi, means that “If you keep even the mitzvot that you would normally trample on with your heels (Hebrew: ekev), then God will take care of you. “ The point is to be careful with a mitzvah kalah, a seemingly trivial mitzvah, just as you are careful with a mitzvah hamurah, a more serious one (to put in Pirkei Avot terms) – in other words, to take what seems to be exactly the opposite attitude of “whatevs” ; here everything matters, even the small stuff.

This careful, sincere attitude seems equally compelling – as my father pointed out to me, often it is indeed the small gestures in a relationship that make an impact, the daily acts of care, and in relation to God, the daily acts of devotion. Judaism, with all its intricacies, is based on this idea – you have to be careful how you act, not take things too lightly.

Both these ideas seem compelling to me; they both seem to hold a piece of the truth; and I’ve been trying to work out how to reconcile them. Here are some attempts (I’m open to others – please comment):

Maybe they each occupy a different realm. In relation to yourself, when things happen to you that you are unhappy or uncomfortable with for some reason, that is the time to say, at least most of the time – “whatevs.” It’s the ego that’s getting in the way here, so letting it slide is a good habit; it’ll gradually help us get out of our tiny individual shells and see the larger picture. On the other hand, in relation to others – people, animals, the earth, God – “whatevs” is a form of laziness and disloyalty, a lack of caring. You should never expect someone else to say “whatevs” in relation to something you do to them or fail to do; you can only do that for yourself; for others, you have to take the more careful, activist approach.

Or maybe the two ideas exist side by side in us and are meant to form some healthy tension. It may not always be easy to tell which side of the balance is called for. It is the old question of knowing which things in life can be changed and which cannot – some we need to dive into with all our attention to every detail, and others we need to simply accept with a shrug: “whatevs.” And maybe some situations and especially relationships require us to somehow maintain a posture of both at the very same moment – deep engagement with a light carefree laugh. It matters both a great deal and very little in the scheme of things. Life is both unbearably light and incredibly weighty at the same time.

Post Tisha B'Av Reflections 2013

#1:
I’ve noticed that when I’m sick or when I’m fasting there is a certain calm clarity that comes over me. My energy level is very low and I expend it only sparingly. It is suddenly clear to me what matters and what doesn’t. The emails can wait. It is right to just sit with my children and watch them eat. Only simple things are really necessary in life. I walk slowly and notice the flowers. It is like the world has suddenly become slow motion. I pray to take this perspective with me into my normal energetic detail-filled life.

#2:
Why fast and mourn on Tisha B’av? Why have Tisha B’av at all? Why not just focus on the light, on the joyous side of life – the Purims and the Hanukkahs? Because this, too, this deep sadness that is a part of our history, this heritage of suffering and pain, this, too is a part of God’s world. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the Shma statement, and how we say all the time (twice a day) that God is one. What does it mean to be one? It’s all His. You can’t only want the good moods and the laughs. You have to somehow learn to embrace the crying. Not just to survive it. My oldest son Medad fasted the whole day for the first time this year, and that last hour, he said something about how he just wanted it to go fast, to get through it. I understood, but at the same time, I wondered – Shouldn’t we somehow embrace this, too? There is no hour in our lives that is not a part of God’s history, our precious gift. In one of the Tisha B’av kinot, lamentations, alternating lines end with Betzeti Mimitzrayim and Betzeti Miyerushalayim, “When I left Egypt,” and “When I left Jerusalem.” The one was a joyous leaving, the other a sad one, and the poet juxtaposes them to show the contrast, but at the same time, one gets a sense of the similarity, even in the way the two phrases sound. Tisha B’av comes to remind us to embrace all of our history and all of our lives, the ups, the downs, the joys and the irritations. Somehow they are all one.

Parashat Balak: Not Turning Away from the Negative

We break the world up into good and evil. But I think one of the points of monotheism is that it’s all from God, all interconnected in some way.

Maybe that’s the point of the enemy’s blessing of Israel in this week’s parsha, Parashat Balak. If we divide the world up into things worth pursuing and those not worth pursuing, then an enemy’s curse would definitely be among those to avoid. And yet, we end up using the words of this enemy’s curse turned blessing in our regular prayer service each morning – mah tovu ohalekha Yaakov, “How good are the tents of Jacob.” There is energy and power in the negative, and if we can somehow tap into that energy and make it our own, then we have truly made the world one.

The lesson is about not writing anything off, either in ourselves or in others. Sometimes it is precisely that moment of pain, of anger or of illness which has the most to teach us, the most power to bless us. Everything is a tool in our work in this world.

I think that part of believing in one God involves believing that these painful aspects of life are also part of God’s world, and that they too have an energy and a power that is in need of redemption. We are called not to shut them out, but to use them -- as an opportunity for growth, as an opportunity to transform them and ourselves from a curse into a blessing. May we find the strength to do this work.

Parashat Hukat: Speech that Draws Water

God instructed Moshe to speak to the rock and it would bring forth water for the people. Instead, he hit the rock twice.

Maybe he did try speaking, but the speaking didn’t work. The Torah tells us that he gathered the people and, before hitting the rock, he spoke these words: Shimu na Hamorim, “Listen up, you rebels, are we going to get water from this rock?” This is speech. Perhaps this was the speech that Moshe thought would elicit water from the rock.

But it didn’t. It didn’t because only gentle loving speech brings forth water. Moshe’s speech is angry and dripping with sarcasm. He attacks the people at their very essence. He doesn’t just say, “You acted badly and rebelliously,” but you are rebels. These are words of despair and faithlessness in the possibility of change. They do not inspire, but degrade. They make the people feel badly about themselves. We will never be any good. We are, of our very essence, bad people.

Such words cannot bring forth water; they block it from flowing. There is water of life and creativity and spirit in every thing and every person in this world. God created them all through speech and speech is capable of bringing out their essence, their beauty, their power. But not such speech, not angry, hopeless speech.

What it takes is the speech of brachah, blessing. After God created the world with speech, He gave over the power of speech to humans, the power to praise God and recognize the beauty of His world through speech and the power to bless other human beings. This is the speech of song and the speech of love. It is the speech of Yaakov on his death bed who says, “May the angel who rescued me bless these children” and it is the speech song of the people of Israel at the Sea: “Who is like You, O Lord?”

Such speech does have the power to bring forth water. (Indeed, see a bit later in the parsha, where the people sing another water song, connected to a new water well they have dug – 21:17). In its joy and its love, such speech brings forth the hidden well-springs of water in each of us. Angry speech like Moshe’s does not accomplish its purpose and so necessarily leads to blows. The rock – and the people – will not bring forth water that way except by force. With a gentle loving speech that inspires, who knows what kind of water can come forth?

Parashat Korah: Korah is Not Yaakov

Katonti Mikol Hahasadim Umekol HaEmet Asher Asita et Avedekha. “ I am unworthy of all the kindness that You have so steadfastly shown Your servant (Gen 32:11).” This is what Ya’akov says in the beginning of his prayer before Esav’s approach. Before asking for help, he first acknowledges his overwhelming sense of gratitude to God for all that he, Yaakov, has already been given. Katonti, he says; I feel “small,” in comparison to the gifts bestowed upon me, gifts of life and family, health and prosperity. I feel small and unworthy.

No, we are not in Parashat Vayishlach. In fact, we are not in the book of Genesis at all right now. But it strikes me that this sentiment of Yaakov’s is the perfect foil for the sentiment expressed by Korah in this week’s parsha. Korah is a Levite, and as such has certain special priveleges and roles to perform in the community. But instead of feeling fortunate, he looks at his cousins Moshe and Aharon and their roles as leader and High Priest, and feels jealous. Rav Lakhem, he says. You, Moshe and Aharon, have too much. You have taken too much for yourselves. All the rest of us deserve more.

Korah can only see the bounty of others, not his own. (Indeed, Moshe responds with the same phrase turned back on Korah: Rav Lakhem Benei Levi: Your Levites also have a lot, too much). Korah’s problem is that he doesn’t have the feeling of gratitude, the sense of being overwhelmed by the gifts of life, that Yaakov had. Yaakov says: I don’t even deserve what I have already been given. Korah says: I deserve more.

We all have this Korah tendency. It’s like the way children look at the size of their siblings’ cookies and say: Hey, how come she got more?! (My own children would never do this; it’s just what I hear from other parents.) It comes from a basic misunderstanding of the way things are in this world, thinking that we’re all separate, that there are a finite number of gifts, and if one person gets more, the rest of us get less. That’s not so. In some deep way, the more one person gets, the more we all get. That’s part of the notion of monotheism: God is one, the world is one, everything and everyone is interconnected and of a piece.

Korah’s view of the world leads into the ground which opened its mouth to swallow him. Yaakov’s leads up to heaven on the ladder he saw in his dream. Korah’s desire to be large makes him disappear into nothingness. Yaakov’s understanding of his smallness gives him access to greatness.

Katonti mikal hahasadim. I am unworthy of all the kindnesses. We have all been given many gifts in life. We are a thousand times blessed. May we learn to see the world not through Korah’s eyes, but through Yaakov’s.

[Israeli singer/song-writer Yonatan Razel recently put beautiful music to this “Katonti” passage. Click here to hear it.]