Posts tagged transformation
The Blessing of Imperfection (Yom Kippur Day 5782)
The Blessing of Imperfection (Yom Kippur Day 5782)

During the rest of the year, while we may have moments of transcendence from time to time, we mostly muddle through each day’s measure of joy and pain. More often than I like to admit, I speak and behave in ways I later regret. I get impatient and defensive, and am misled by my desires. The last year and a half of the pandemic has broken our hearts and distorted our self-image - we feel more self-conscious about our bodies, and struggle with what we might consider normal social interactions. We are less certain about who we are, what we believe, and where we belong.

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sermonAdam Lavittangels, mortality, transformation, teshuvah, hope
Melted Down to Our Essence (Erev Yom Kippur 5782)
Melted Down to Our Essence (Erev Yom Kippur 5782)

Three years ago, my husband, Alex, and I had a direct experience of melting down metal, and finding history transformed in that act: It was the fall of 2017, and our wedding date was set. My mom had given me my grandfather’s wedding ring. With my mom’s permission, we decided to melt it down, and combine it with some material from Alex’s family - and from it form two rings, our wedding bands - to represent the way, in marrying each other, we were bringing our families’ stories together.

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sermonAdam Lavittforgiveness, transformation, history, Holocaust, High Holidays
Belonging to Longing (Shabbat Ki Teitzei)
Belonging to Longing (Shabbat Ki Teitzei)

The way I respond to the deepest yearnings in my life — more often than I’d like to admit — is to refresh the New York Times homepage, or eat chocolate. We distract ourselves so we don’t have to acknowledge how far we are from who we want to be. Judaism offers us another way to respond: teshuva – often translated “repentance” and which literally means “turning” or “transforming.”

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Adam LavittElul, teshuvah, transformation, meditation, love, relationships
Transition as Transformation (Shabbat Shemini)
Transition as Transformation (Shabbat Shemini)

We journey toward the lives we had incrementally, as we navigate, outside our community, a world that still mostly hasn’t had access to the vaccine. While it would be so easy to put our hopes and expectations on hold until everything was exactly the way we wanted it to be, our tradition challenges us to instead use this time intentionally. Torah could have simply instructed us to observe Shavuot — the day we commemorate our gathering at Sinai, right after Passover, our moment of liberation — but it instead instructs us to build in 7 weeks, between these two central moments in our people’s story.

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Adam Lavitttransformation, Sinai, Omer, wilderness, liberation, Passover