Category Archives: Inuyim – Prayer reflections and ruminations

A Pure Soul – A poem for Parashat Shmot in honor of Moses and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

12 Thursday Jan 2012

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry

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The Book of Exodus is essentially a story about God’s saving love for the oppressed Israelites. It begins with the birth of Moses and follows him as a young prince turned into a rebel and outlaw, then a shepherd, and finally THE prophet of God.

Why Moses? What was so unique about him that God should choose him to be His most intimate of prophets?

Moses is a complex man; passionate, pure, just, humble, at home no where, carrying always the burdens of his people and the word of God.

God identified him because he was unique, and that is what my drash-poem below is about; namely, the uniqueness that would draw Moses out to become the most important Jew in history.

Dr. Martin Luther King, though not Moses, was a prophet for our times, and on this weekend we celebrate his legacy.

—–

So often we walk about in a daze, / Eyes sunk in creviced faces / Fettered to worldly tasks / Blind to rainbows.

I imagine Moses, in Midian, like that, / Brooding in exile, / Burdened by his people’s suffering, / Knowing that each day / They scream from stopped-up hearts / Shedding silent tears.

A simple shepherd Moses had become / Staff in hand / Counting sheep / Until one day / Weaving through rocks / Among bramble bushes / The shepherd heard thorns popping. / Turning his head / His eyes were opened / And he would never be the same.

God had from his birth taken note of him / And waited until this moment / To choose him as prophet.

Dodi dofek pitchi li / A-choti ra-yati yo-nati ta-mati. / Open to me, my dove, / my twin, my undefiled one. (Song of Songs 5:2)

Moses heard the Divine voice / His eyes beheld angels / His soul flowed with a sacred river / Of Shechinah light.

‘Why me? / Why should I behold such wondrous things? / Unworthy am I!’

God said, / ‘Moses – I have chosen you / Because you are soft / Because you weep / Because your heart is burdened and worried / Because you know this world’s cruelty / Yet you have not become cruel / Nor do you stand idly by.

You are a tender of sheep / And you will lead my people / With the shepherd’s staff / From Egypt / And teach them to open their stopped-up hearts / Without fear.’

Trembling, Moses peered a second time / Into the bush aflame / Free from ash and smoke.

His eyes opened as in a dream / And he heard a soft murmuring sound / Like the sound breath makes passing through parted lips.

MOSHE MOSHE!—HINEINI!

Two voices—One utterance! / He hid his face / For the more Moses heard / The brighter was the light / And he knew he must turn away / Or die.

The prophet’s thoughts were free / Soaring beyond form / No longer of self. / To this very day / There has not been a purer soul than his.

God said, ‘Come no closer, Moses! / Remove your shoes / Stand barefoot here on this earth / For I want your soul.

I am here with you and in you / I am every thing / And no thing / And You are Me. / I see that which is and which is not / And I hear it all.

Take heed shepherd/prince / For My people‘s blood  / Calls to me from the ground. / The living suffer still / A thousand deaths.

You must go and take them out! / Every crying child / Every lashed man / Every woman screaming silent tears.

And Moses, know this / “With weeping they will come, / And with compassion will I guide them.” (Jeremiah 31:8) / The people’s exile began with tears / And it will end with tears.

I have recorded their story in a Book / Black fire on white fire / Letters on parchment / Telling of slaves / Seeing light / Turning to Me / Becoming a nation.

The Book is My spirit / The letters are My heart / They are near to you / That you might do them / And teach them / And redeem My world / That it might not be consumed in flames.

“What a Wonderful World” with David Attenborough

26 Monday Dec 2011

Posted by in Art, Beauty in Nature, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry, Quote of the Day

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As the year 2011 comes to a blessed close, the lyrics of “What a Wonderful World” originally set to music by the great Louis Armstrong (lyrics: George David Weiss, George Douglas, and Bog Thiele) has been reinterpreted by David Attenborough on the BBC with exquisite nature photography – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8WHKRzkCOY

“I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
They’re really saying I love you.

I hear babies crying, I watch them grow
They’ll learn much more than I’ll never know
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world.”

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (zal), filled with wonder always, put it this way:

“Our radical amazement responds to the mystery, but does not produce it. You and I have not invented the grandeur of the sky nor endowed [hu]man[kind] with the mystery of birth and death. We do not create the ineffable, we encounter it.

The awareness of the ineffable is that with which our search must begin…The search of reason ends at the shore of the known; on the immense expanse beyond it only the sense of the ineffable can glide…reason cannot go beyond the shore, and the sense of the ineffable is out of place where we measure, where we weigh.”

May your soul rejoice and your heart sing!

L’shanah tovah chiloni

Rabbi John Rosove

 

“Again we begin anew, as all begin…” Natan Yonatan

12 Monday Dec 2011

Posted by in Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Poetry, Quote of the Day

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In the morning liturgy, we express gratitude for consciousness and life (Birchot Hashachar), for the workings of the body (Asher Yatzar) and the Divine origin of our souls (Elohai N’shamah), and we begin each day (indeed, every moment) as if for the first time. This poem by the Ukranian born Israeli poet, Natan Yonaton, reflects this wondrous spirit.

“Again we begin anew, as all begin; / The plougher, the collector, the poet, / The falling leaves on the wind, / The pearls of dew / And the returning wave to the sloping shores.

Again we begin anew, as all begin; / We’ll sing the song with the same words / Which never tire, as the waves / That endlessly return / To the vast sea / To the sandy, sloping shores.”

Taken from “Again We Begin Anew” by Natan Yonatan (1923-2004), translation from the Hebrew by Rabbi Maya Leibovich

Into My Children’s Cups – A Poem for Parashat Toldot

25 Friday Nov 2011

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry

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Isaac is the most misunderstood and underappreciated Patriarch. So often he is cast by commentators as feeble-minded and weak, a passive victim to his father’s zealotry, manipulated by his mother Sarah and his wife Rebecca, taken as the fool by his son Jacob, passed off as a simpleton and follower minus the revolutionary fervor of Abraham and the dream visions of Jacob.

I believe this view of him is unfortunate and wrong. Indeed, without Isaac Abraham would have passed into oblivion because Isaac re-dug his father’s wells (Genesis 26:18+), an act of profound yearning and faith. After he did so God gave this blessing: Al tira, ki it’cha Anochi u-vei-rach’ti-cha v’hir’bei-ti et zar’a-cha ba-a-vur Avraham av’di – “Fear not, for I am with you, and I will bless you and increase your offspring for the sake of My servant Abraham.” (Genesis 26:24)

Like his father Abraham and his son Jacob, Isaac recognized the significance of his Divine-human encounter. The Midrash and mystical traditions understand his re-digging his father’s wells as Isaac’s own spiritual search for God.

The well, with its hidden waters, is a symbol of soul-light covered over by physicality (i.e. klipot), and Isaac’s “digging” and seeking that Ineffable light became the central organizing motif of his adult life and a sign of his spiritual maturity.

Though Isaac broke no new ground, by re-digging Abraham’s wells the son embodies spiritual continuity and the virtue of perseverance, each a core necessity for the perpetuation of the Jewish people and tradition.

Not all of us are revolutionaries digging new wells and forging new spiritual paths, or visionaries intuiting God’s presence and calling us to God, but our role as re-diggers of our forebears’ wells needs always to be appreciated as essential to life itself and the sustenance and future of Judaism and the Jewish people.

The following is my poetic tribute to Isaac, one of my favorite figures in all of Torah, because he was a pre-eminent “digger” of faith.

I am Isaac. / Tradition doesn’t esteem me / as my father and son. / To our people’s cynics / I’m a passive place holder, / set between two visionaries / one hearing God’s voice, / the other communing with angels.

To them I’m the do-nothing / dull-witted middle-man, / neither here nor there, / coerced into submission by a father, / tricked by a son and abandoned by God, / who willed me slain / to test my father’s faith, / and thus become / history’s most misunderstood near-victim.

My father was driven by voices, / left home on a promise / and journeyed to a Place he’d never seen, / a low-lying mountain shielded round about by a cloud / beneath heavenly fire.

My son dreamed of angels / ascending ladder rungs / from land and form / into spirit and spheres.

Tradition diminishes me / insinuating that I merely built a worldly fortune / on my father’s wealth.

Ancestors all / I’m far more than this / for you see / the wellsprings I’ve uncovered / are more than you know / greater that waters deep, calm, cool, and tranquil / their streams flow to the Source of souls.

I dug anew these, my father’s wells / the same the Philistines / with stopped-up hearts / and clogged souls / filled in when he died.

I and my servants dug and dug / our thirst unquenchable / passions unleashing / hearts expecting / souls soaring / on angels’ wings.

And after all our digging / we found the well and the spring / flowing in earthly and heavenly wetness.

The inflowing fountain never dries up. / The well is replenished / continually / and whoever drinks from its waters / merges through supernal faith.

The wells I have dug / are the same as my father’s. / That is our gift to you!

All I yearn for / is to pour the waters into your cups / that you carry on and dig anew / and pour out the same / into your own children’s cups.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Being Grateful While Living in Both “Light” and “Shadow”

23 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Ethics, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Life Cycle, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Quote of the Day

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Tennessee Williams said, “You know we live in light and shadow. That’s what we live in – a world of light and shadow; and it’s confusing.” (Orpheus Descending)

None of our lives is simple, but along comes Thanksgiving each year and the expectation is for us to emphasize that for which we are thankful regardless of how we might feel.

For some of us, gratitude comes easily, and for others feeling grateful is a significant challenge. I believe that nurturing gratitude is one of the most effective means to dispel the “shadow.” For some, pharmaceutical help is indicated, and I urge it if that is your situation. For most of us, we need a way to help ourselves get out into “light.”

I have a suggested exercise that may help. If each of us were to take out a blank sheet of paper and list on one side all the good things in our lives and all the negatives on the other, which side would be longer? Spare nothing in compiling your lists. On the positive side, start with “I am alive!” even if you are sick or in pain. Include all that you have – home, food, medical care, family, friends, the ability to see, hear, walk, use the bathroom, to help others. Take your time and make the list as detailed as you can.

Then list all the negatives. Include every ache and pain, every loss from which you have not been able to heal, the holes in your heart, your frustrations and aggravations, your unmet dreams, your overly thin-skin, your inability to control rage, envy, jealousy, resentment, your feeling victimized, etc.

Now, given the two lists, which one takes most of your time, vitality and attention?

For me, thankfully, the side in “light” is so much longer than the side in “shadow,” yet there are times that I spend proportionately too much time in “shadow.” Not good for me or for those around me, and I know it.

On Yom Kippur, I made a commitment that I would emphasize the “light” of my life and not the “shadow.” The good news for me is that I feel and express gratitude easily despite my spending more time in “shadow” than is good for me.

Yet, I wake up each morning usually feeling refreshed, and excited about the morning sun, the new day, new opportunities to learn, think and create, to be with the people I love and enjoy, and to do meaningful work in my synagogue and friendship communities.

If you too often find yourself in “shadow”, perhaps these quotations on the theme of gratitude can help make this Thanksgiving Day happier and every day more meaningful.

“Hodu l’Adonai ki tov, ki l’olam chasdo” (“Give thanks to God, for Adonai is good…God’s steadfast love is eternal.” –  Psalm 136 (9th century, B.C.E.)

“When you arise in the morning give thanks for the morning light, for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food and the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies in yourself.” – Native American Prayer, Tecumseh Tribe

“How strange we are in the world, and how presumptuous our doings! Only one response can maintain us: gratefulness for witnessing the wonder, for the gift of our unearned right to serve, to adore, and to fulfill. It is gratefulness which makes the soul great.” – Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972)

“Ingratitude to a human being is ingratitude to God.” – Rabbi Samuel Hanagid (993-1056 CE)

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” – William Arthur Ward, American scholar, author, pastor and teacher (1921-1997)

“Gratitude, not understanding, is the secret to joy and equanimity.” – Anne Lamott, writer (b. 1954)

“Thank everyone who calls out your faults, your anger, your impatience, your egotism; do this consciously, voluntarily.” – Jean Toomer, poet and novelist (1894-1967)

“We should write an elegy for every day that has slipped through our lives unnoticed and unappreciated. Better still, we should write a song of thanksgiving for all the days that remain.” – Sarah Ban Breathnach, author (b 1948)

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.” – Cicero, Roman philosopher (106 BC – 43 BC)

“If the only prayer you say in your life is ‘Thank you,’ that would suffice.” – Meister Eckhart, German theologian, philosopher (1260-1328)

“I can no other answer make but thanks, and thanks, and thanks, and ever thanks.” – William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

 

Go Forth – Amir Or for Lech L’cha

04 Friday Nov 2011

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Poetry, Quote of the Day

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Go forth from your land, my Lord, / Go forth, come to me, / travel my skin with your lips. / Come dark, come night, / touch all of me, touch, / leave no soundness. / Rise in omens within me, grant / on everlasting inheritance, a multitude / of seed, my Lord, / because I grant it to you / I will increase your hire.

Go forth from your body, my Lord, / go forth, come to me, / wound my heart, smooth of teeth. / Touch my face, touch my eyes, / truly kill, leave nothing. / Rise within me to the fingers of tears, rise / to the man, until before you / I / shall end.

Go forth from yourself, my Lord, / go forth, come to me, / travel my length, my width, / travel my horizon / I / will burn before you, not consumed. / See my spirit / but some face to your void, see / here I am / no more.

(Translated from the Hebrew by the author. From “Modern Poems on the Bible: An Anthology” – edited with an Introduction by David Curzon, publ. JPS, 1994)

Amir Or was born in Tel Aviv in 1956. He is an editor, translator and poet whose works have been published in more than 30 languages. Or is the recipient of the Prime Minister’s Prize for poetry.

 

“A Rebbi’s Proverb (From the Yiddish)” – a poem by Danny Siegel

18 Tuesday Oct 2011

Posted by in Holidays, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry, Quote of the Day

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In the time of the Messiah, Sukkot will still be observed. It is the quintessential messianic holiday of Judaism. The poet Danny Siegel expressed the Messianic thrust so very well with this beautiful poem.

“If you always assume / the man sitting next to you / is the Messiah / waiting for some simple human kindness–
You will soon come to weigh your words /and watch your hands.
And if he so chooses / Not to reveal himself / In your time–
It will not matter.
Danny Siegel  “And God Braided Eve’s Hair” (1976); “Unlocked Doors” (1983)

Z’man Simchateinu – The Messianic Thrust of Sukkot

14 Friday Oct 2011

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Holidays, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

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The Kotzker rebbe was asked once if he had the power to revive the dead. He answered: “Reviving the dead isn’t the problem; reviving the living is far more difficult.”

On Sukkot we are told to build temporary dwellings in which to reside for 7 days to remind us of life’s frailty and our dependence on God for physical and spiritual sustenance. As we build these flimsy dwellings, the festival reminds us of our duty to take action, rebuild our lives and not default to passivity nor fail to work to heal a shattered world. In this sense Sukkot is a messianic holiday, and the four species of plants in the lulav-etrog bundle present a messianic ideal.

The tradition of the Lulav and Etrog is based on a verse from Leviticus (23:40); “On the first day you shall take the product of Hadar trees (the etrog), branches of palm trees (lulav), boughs of leafy trees (myrtle – hadas), and the willows of the brook (aravah) and you shall rejoice before Adonai your God seven days.”

The Midrash (Vayikra Rabba 30:12-13) to Leviticus compares each plant to a different kind of Jew:

“THE FRUIT OF THE HADAR TREE symbolizes Israel; just as the etrog has taste as well as fragrance, so Israel have among them those with learning and good deeds. BRANCHES OF PALM TREES, too applies to Israel; as the palm-tree (lulav) has taste [i.e. the dates of the palm] but no fragrance, so Israel has among them such as possess learning but not good deeds. AND BOUGHS OF THICK TREES I likewise apply to Israel; just as the myrtle (hadas) has fragrance but no taste, so Israel have among them such as possess good deeds but not learning. AND WILLOWS OF THE BROOK also applies to Israel; just as the willow (aravah) has no taste and no fragrance, so Israel have among them people who possess neither learning nor good deeds. What then does the Holy One, blessed be God, do to them? … says God, let them all be tied together in one band … If you have done so [says God], then at that instant I am exalted…”

The Jewish messianic ideal requires that the Jewish community as a whole be united. The four species bundled together symbolize a unity not yet achieved, but inclusive of every kind of Jew, regardless of knowledge, ethical and ritual behavior.

The four species represent Jews from the most learned and diligent in the performance of the mitzvot to the most unlettered and negligent. The lesson of the lulav and etrog lies in the fact that as long as all four are part of the whole, even Jews with little knowledge of Judaism and little observance of the mitzvot, have a role to play in our community. When we exclude anyone from the fabric of Jewish society, we are essentially incomplete. The message is clear. We need everyone, and though we are so often at odds with each other, Sukkot reminds us that enmity and alienation from one another cannot be allowed to stand.

At the same time, Rabbi Yitzhak Arama (15th century Spain) teaches that Sukkot is far more than a holyday only for Jews. It is also universal in scope and vision embracing all of humankind. When we look at the “four species,” he taught, we are reminded of the four types of existence in the universe:

[1] The etrog is held apart from the other three and is not bound up with it. We hold it in the left hand opposite the heart. The etrog represents the highest form of existence, that which is perfect in all its aspects – namely, God;

[2] The lulav/palm branch represents purely spiritual creatures, the angels (mal’a-chim), and is the most honored of the remaining three species of plants and the tallest;

[3] The hadas/myrtle represents the stars and planets, luminary bodies of an enduring nature;

[4] The aravah/willow represents the world of humankind replete with all our inadequacies and imperfections.

The prophet Zechariah, which is read on the first day of Sukkot, tells of the nations coming to Jerusalem to celebrate Sukkot, for it is more universally messianic than any other holiday in the Jewish calendar year uniting the Jewish people, humankind, nature, the heavenly bodies, the angels, and God.

We call this festival of Sukkot – Z’man Sim’cha-tei-nu – the Season of our Joy – and when considering the universal and messianic nature of the chag is it any wonder why? This kind of joy is our response to the vision of a perfected world in the image of the dominion of God.

May that vision be our hope and our blessing. Chag Sukkot Sameach!

 

 

A Simple Thought in this New Year

10 Monday Oct 2011

Posted by in Holidays, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Quote of the Day

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We have just come through the most intense and introspective 10 days of the Jewish calendar year. For us rabbis, cantors and synagogue staff, we are bone weary. Nevertheless, in these initial days following Yom Kippur and before Sukkot commences I feel not only renewal but simple gratitude for the blessings of my life, my wife Barbara, my sons Daniel and David, my dearest friends and colleagues, our community, and the tradition, faith and people of Israel.

Here is a thought from outside Jewish tradition, yet reflective of who we are as a people.

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.
–Cicero, Roman philosopher (106 BC – 43 BC)

L’shanah tovah u-m’tukah and beginning on Wednesday evening, chag Sukkot sameach!