WRITINGS & TEACHINGS

This week, in parashat Shemot, we encounter Moshe at a juncture in his life when he must choose between continuing to trod a well worn path, or take the risk to turn aside, led by wonder, towards something beyond himself. As he asks himself what is before him, what may have at first seemed a scraggly shrub reveals itself as a being on fire with life, animated by holy becoming - a force that calls itself Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh (Exodus 3:14).

In order to find out...what around us is yet to have its creative potential unlocked...we need to peer into the twilight – the murky, ungraspable space between day and night. We attune to this space by activating it within ourselves, tapping into our own inherent creativity in order to open our eyes to the world of the in-between so we might...draw out what is waiting for us at the world’s twilit margins. Pen to paper, brush on canvas, fingers working knitting needles or clay, wood or stone, we awaken something from its slumber, dormant from the dawn of creation until this moment. As we engage in the creative process, we ask the materials before us “what else can this be?”

Our holy objects represent how we are bound to each other, and to something vaster than any one of us: when we don a tallis, its fringes remind us of the invisible ways we are joined together; the mezuzot on our doorposts symbolize God’s steady presence when we come home, and when we leave.

The Israelites once depended on having a particular structure through which to meet the Holy One. Losing this familiar rhythm was hard, and left some people uncertain and anxious about how they could reconnect with each other and their guiding values. But on the other side of this loss…people began to find God any place or time they chose to act in godly ways.

A few weeks ago, my fellow chaplains and I learned with author and chaplain, Rabbi Elliot Kukla, about something called “ableism.” He defined ableism as a form of discrimination based on impairment. On reading this week’s Torah portion, our conversation lead me to ask myself, if the priests are supposed to model the highest aspirations of the Israelite community, wouldn’t [the] set of prohibitions [here] instead lead to an intolerant society, one that leaves behind, or sees as less holy those who don’t meet this exclusive set of physical standards?

Counting these 49 days may sound simple, but in my experience, it’s one of the most difficult rituals to actually complete. As I count, I notice how much I want to speed through challenging moments or hold onto pleasant ones. The 49 days of the Omer, unlike other periods in our lives, cannot be rushed or drawn out: we count 49 days. Then we stop. That is the practice.

The war in Ukraine is hitting many of us harder than other global conflicts; the Pale is deep in the Jewish psyche. As I look at pictures of my relatives, I’m compelled to imagine how challenging their lives must have been: people were poor, life often interrupted by anti-Semitic violence. But this region also became known as the birthplace of some of the greatest Jewish creativity of all time.

These days, we have no ephod, no mishkan; no priests making offerings of animal or grain. Instead, each of us serves as Priest, making offerings of heart, through our prayers, rituals, and good deeds. Through our sacred service we carry our entire people, those who are here, as well as those far away, or no longer here into the life of our community.

This is the key to finding balance in a chaotic world. By mentioning Shabbat right before the Golden Calf; our day to stop and breathe, gifted us the moment before our most devastating act of impatience, Torah reminds us it is precisely in the very moment we want to act out whatever emotion is boiling inside us, that we need to stop, and take a breath.