Parashat Shemot: Animated by Holy Becoming

It’s so good to be with you all! For those I haven’t met yet, I’m Rabbi Adam Lavitt, with Jewish Studio Project, where we cultivate creativity as a Jewish practice for spiritual connection and social transformation.

Through the mishegas of the past few years, many of us took refuge in the familiar. Maybe you numbed out a little bit - stayed extremely busy, binge-watched Netflix, or mindlessly scrolled social media - all understandable escapes when we’re feeling overwhelmed. But over these lengthening days and at the start of 2023, we may be growing restless - perhaps why many of us came here - the habitual grooves we built both feeling constricting, and like comforting rituals.

How powerful that our gathering coincides with the 50th yahrzeit of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, zichrono livracha. Heschel highlighted the way our habitual way of relating to the world can become an obstacle. He famously wrote:

Awareness of the divine begins with wonder…. The greatest hindrance to such awareness is our adjustment to conventional notions, to mental cliches. Wonder or radical amazement, the state of maladjustment to words and notions, is therefore a prerequisite for an authentic awareness of that which is. (Man is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion, Abraham Joshua Heschel, 1951)

In order to connect with the living world, and its animating power, Heschel reminds us to become aware of the miraculous within the ordinary. To slow down to take note of the wondrous things in our lives that inspire and open us to possibility.

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).

For Heschel, the sunrise was an essential glimpse into this holy becoming. He was known to begin many speeches: “I am surprised every morning that I see the sunshine again.” Sunrise: a remarkable, if daily, moment of possibility. We don’t need a big event, a booming voice, a smoking mountain - even a burning bush - to shake us awake, and into an encounter with God's presence. An article in last week’s New York Times points to the importance of attending to these more easily overlooked occurrences, and says:

Experiencing awe comes from what Dr. Keltner [a psychologist at UC Berkeley] has called a “perceived vastness,” as well as something that challenges us to rethink our previously held ideas.

At Jewish Studio Project, Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh comprises one of the six pillars of our Torah of Creativity: “God is Process”. When we rejoice in the play of our senses, we can directly experience the idea that our world is animated by God’s process of becoming - through the smell of the lilacs in springtime, the way our hearts open again after they’ve broken, the pleasure of seeing what emerges when we engage creatively with an ordinary page.

As we activate our own inherent creativity, we open to the unexpected, asking: “What else can this be?” Is this a scraggly shrub or a being on fire with life? What is wondrously unfamiliar, enticingly or uncomfortably resonant, about what is in front of us, and how can we respond to its invitation to let something new emerge - a different image, shape, or texture from what we imagined when we first sat in front of our page?

Whether by catching a sunrise or engaging in a creative practice - may we all find opportunities to respond to these everyday invitations to slow down, and turn aside from our habitual and limiting ways of perceiving ourselves, each other, and our world - letting the play of our senses open us to divine presence as, in Heschel’s words, an authentic awareness of all that is.