On my walk, I found a speckled yellow mushroom. An app on my phone told me this mushroom only grows in association with the Eastern White pine. The mushroom is just a hint, a temporary manifestation, of the massive web of tiny filaments that invisibly bound themselves to the roots of that Eastern White pine to help it grow. This is how I imagine the great love all around us: it steadfastly sustains our world, operates invisibly, except at rare moments when it shows itself to us.
Read MoreRav Kook, an early 20th century rabbi and philosopher explains in that moment, Adam “did not know how to give a clear answer to the question, ‘Where are you?’, because he did not know himself, because he had lost [touch with his essence].” I’m sure we can all relate to this feeling. Especially at this point in pandemic, we are all just trying to get through the day. As Aline mentioned at Community Meeting, “How are you?” is no longer a good question, because we just don’t know the answer anymore.
Read MoreToday, we come back into a sense of closeness with the divine presence. This Shabbat before Sukkot, we begin to see God not as transcendent king, but as immanent nurturer: We take refuge in God’s sheltering presence. Find protection and support - in the words we prayed earlier - in the sukkat shalom, the Holy One’s shelter of peace.
Read MoreDuring 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.
Read MoreThree 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.
Read MoreToday, we return to a collection of powerful metaphors: a Book of Life we yearn to be written in for a year of health and happiness; the shofar (the ram’s horn), which evokes the wails of our foremothers as they confronted unspeakable loss and sought consolation; the gates of prayer that stand open before us, assuring us our heart’s longings might be received at this special time of year. These images point toward truths about life we sense but cannot name.
Read MoreJust as resting is the way the world begins, endlessly working the land will be the way the world ends. We watch anxiously as droughts and wildfires plague the West Coast and wider world. Extreme weather, hurricanes and floods, predicted to happen once a century now happens every few years. Our society demands we prove our value through doing; but it consistently fails in its capacity to invest in being. Our ancestors knew how dangerous this could be - how easily it could lead us to create vast inequalities between the haves and the have-nots, devalue elders, and cause us to exploit each other and our planet.
Read MoreThe ways we get ready for Shabbat and holidays - dressing, eating, and speaking with more intention- reminds us of our aspirations towards physical and spiritual renewal, and show we’re ready for a different world. When we enter the world prepared for change, we are no longer waiting for the world to get better: we are making a change ourselves.
Read MoreThe 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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