Wisdom of the Heart

Ki Tisa at Torah Study, a special guest post by Keith Weinstein

2010-03-09T16:19:00.000-08:00

After Rabbi Sara Leya’s Drasha on Shabbat Eve, the Torah study group met on Saturday morning and delved further into the significance of Moses desire to see God face to face. We found ourselves talking about a far range of topics like inviting wealth and Neuro-Linguistic Programming. It’s a lively group and we encourage you to join us if you have the inclination.

There are actually two other topics in this weeks parsha that warn us of the hazards of seeing: the census and the golden calf. In the first, the Israelites are told not to take a head count but rather to have everyone give a shekel. Even with this precaution, many thousands die of plague because the count has occurred. Is this a warning about the danger of seeing people as objects to be counted? Certainly there is the risk in modern times of deceiving ourselves into reducing life to a numerical value. Still, it is pragmatic that when you are trying to get organized you need to know how many people are in the tribe. Econ 101 certainly says so.

In the second topic, the Israelites, terrified in the desert and unable to bear waiting any longer for Moses to come down from the mountain, persuade Aaron to make for them a golden calf which they can see and worship. For this sin, the original tablets are destroyed and many more thousands are killed. Our tradition warns us strongly against making a visual representation of Divinity. What is without limit (Eyn Soph) cannot be reduced to physical form. Yet, visual images and idols have been a central and vibrant part of human spirituality from time immemorial. The Ancient Egyptians were not alone in this. Maria Gimbatus and Rianna Eisler certainly say yea.

Finally, Moses asks to see G!d and is told that this is beyond what is possible to experience and yet live. Instead, G!d arranges to shelter Moses in the cleft of a rock and cover him as S/he passes by and then allow him to see His/Her back. Even Moses, it seems, who has been sitting and talking with G!d for weeks, has this burning desire not merely to hear but to see G!d with his own eyes.

In seeing, we think we know a thing, don’t we? “A picture’s worth a thousand words.” Yet this kind of knowing accentuates the surface of things and the desire to possess it. “You can’t tell a book by its cover,” and "still waters run deep," are the antithesi here. Well then what is below the surface?

Vision is a latter development in evolution and much of the brain is devoted to de-coding and processing visual input. Speculatively, we can say that vision is further removed than the other senses from the experience of oneness and connectedness out of which conscious emerges in both infancy and evolution. Sight emphasizes separation and boundaries, hearing and touch reinforce connection. And that sixth sense, kinesthetic feeling, gives us direct access to intuition (the gut) and the embodied experience of Shekhina (the shiver in our spine and the melting of our hearts).

We humans want many things and long for a few. When most of us get down to the bone, our hearts want to love and to let love in (though a few of us hold out for power it’s true). Counting keeps us focused on the many, mostly money and the things it can buy. Wealth is when we have what we need to thrive and grow and it is important to actualize this desire. But wealth is not spending our energy, chasing what we don’t need, because we’re caught in the hype. What leads us towards hype? Visual images primarily. We see a thing and want to possess it, as the advertising industry knows so well. Whatever we have, it is important to practice “Dayenu,” (it’s enough) so we can be present to where we actually are.

Idols like the golden calf orient us towards a fixed image of what we desire. The pageant of the Academy Awards and the crop of new films it displays dazzles us with a brilliance and beauty that might just rival what Aaron was able to produce from gold and jewels in the desert. At best, film can expand our imaginations, giving us courage and inspiration. At worst, films can serve as a substitute for our lives, helping us numb out to the challenges and opportunities that greet us each day. Undoubtedly, film is a visual feast. But, “it’s not the same as reading the book.”

Finally, not many of us get invited to sit with God and write the rules, let alone ask for a personal cameo appearance. Still in our Kaballat Shabbat service this past Friday night when we sang Chochmat’s version of the Priestly Blessing for the newborn Elon Yehuda, I had the distinct feeling that the Presence was with us. I suppose a baby on the Torah surrounded by a community of love is a scene that the Shekinah wouldn’t miss. But don’t count on it. Just believe.

Keith Weinstein
3/7/10

Parashat Miketz: Genesis 41:1-44:17

2009-12-14T14:16:00.000-08:00

Middah for the Month of Tevet: Delight

“Ki-yitron ha-or min ha hoshekh – the most preferred light comes from the darkness.” (Ecclesiastes / Kohelet 2:13)…as translated by my teacher, Rabbi Moshe Aharon Krassen: “the light from darkness is a superior light”.

Not only are we approaching the Winter Solstice, but this week is the new moon of Tevet – the time of the darkest nights of the year. Into this darkness we light our Hanukkah candles. This light is more than symbolic, we truly draw hope and optimism and a new way of seeing into our souls and from our souls into the world.

We are enjoined to place our illuminated Hanukkah menorahs in a window so that the light shines out into the street. In a posthumously published book of teachings by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, we are reminded that what is most special about the light of these candles is that they light up the exterior with light from the inside. On Hanukkah, those interior soul-places, which are often dark and poorly-illuminated, become candles which radiate light and good will toward the outside.

Let’s send blessing for candles that are set aflame on the darkest nights of the year, and for those places inside ourselves that yearn to become sources of healing, warmth and light.

May we all experience the wonder of children as we gaze at our candles this week – and with this intention begin to contemplate the soul-trait of delight.

Rabbi SaraLeya

28 Kislev 5770

Parashat VaYeishev (Genesis 37:1- 40:23) – Shabbat for blessing the Month of Tevet

2009-12-08T14:21:00.000-08:00

Middah for the Month of Kislev: Gratitude

Hanukkah starts Friday night!!!

“We bless you, Source of Life, who made miracles in those days, at this season – bazman hazeh. Thank you for giving us life to enable us to reach this moment – lazman hazeh.”

These are the words we recite after lighting our Hanukkah candles. The rabbis have long taught that hidden in these words are the understanding that the miracle of light did not just happen once a long time ago, but is renewed each and every year during this Solstice season.

As we kindle the candles of the hanukkiah, our eyes are bathed in light from another dimension, from the timeless place where miracles happen. This is healing for our sense of sight so that we can truly see beyond the trivial and the ordinary into the essential. Just as the olive oil for the menorah in the temple represented the distillation of the essence of the olives, so the light of the Hanukkah candles brings the essence of our souls to awareness.

Our spiritual sight is renewed as we gaze into the candlelight. We see our life as it is fundamentally a – miraculous, mysterious, sometimes challenging, but often joyful – gift from the Divine. So, this Hanukkah, let our intention be to look at each other and at our universe with renewed wonder – to see the soul and not the garment.

I hope to see you Saturday night at our community Hanukkah party (if not in body, please be with us in spirit).

With blessing for light and clear vision,

Rabbi SaraLeya

Parashat Toldot: Genesis 25:19- 28:9

2009-11-19T15:05:00.000-08:00

Middah for the month of Kislev: Gratitude

This week is the new moon – Rosh Hodesh – of Kislev, a month in which both the Hebrew and secular calendars converge in calling us to gratitude.

The holiday of Thanksgiving, this year on the 9th day of Kislev at the time of the waxing moon, overtly asks us to pause, share a festive meal with family and friends, and consciously acknowledge our appreciation of the natural world for its sustenance. On this Hag HaHodayah, the day of giving thanks, we recognize our indebtedness to the Source of All.

Then, on the 25th of Kislev, with the waning moon, the holydays of Hanukah arrive, a time of gratefulness for the miraculous, a time of consciously bringing more light into our world. The daily blessing for gratitude – Birkat Hoda-ah recited thrice daily in the Amidah, is expanded to explicitly express thankfulness for past wonders, and implicitly to acknowledge the ongoing miracles in our lives.

Two levels of gratitude: for the ordinary and for the extraordinary. Both are especially recalled during Kislev: Thanksgiving Day rituals emphasize honor for our natural world; Hanukah memorializes the miraculous order of Existence. Both are essential to a sense of grateful awe.

With blessing for generosity and wisdom of heart as we deepen our communal practice of gratitude,

Rabbi SaraLeya

30 Heshvan 5770

Parashat Hayei Sara — Genesis 23:1-25:18

2009-11-12T15:39:00.000-08:00

Middah for the Month of Heshvan: Equanimity

“V’Avraham zakein, ba bayamim, va-Adonai beirakh et Avraham bakol – and Abraham was old, advanced in days, and Hashem blessed Abraham with all.” (B’reisheit 24:1)

The late Slonimer Rebbe, in his opus, Netivot Shalom, reminds us that each day uniquely illuminates a specific spark, showing us a tiny piece of what we must accomplish during our lifetime. Each day is a special creation, unique unto itself. Each day has its own integrity. When we bring intentionality to our living of every day, the sparks coalesce to create a vessel that receives Divine love and bounty, enabling us to share this richness with the world.

We hope, then, to receive the blessing of Abraham in this parasha – to be blessed with all that we need for our purpose to be fulfilled. As we advance in days and years, we pray for the strength and integrity to be present to life’s vicissitudes with equanimity. In this way, we can, b’ezrat Hashem (with Heaven’s help), each become a source of blessing to our world.

Rabbi SaraLeya
23 Heshvan 5770

Parashat Vayera∙ Genesis 18:1-22:24

2009-11-04T10:57:00.000-08:00

Parashat Vayera∙ Genesis 18:1-22:24

Middah for the Month of Heshvan: Equanimity

At the start of Parashat Vayera, Abraham is sitting in the opening of his tent, in the heat of the day: “YHVH appeared to him….and [Abraham]…lifted up his eyes and saw 3 men standing before him”. (B’reisheit 18:1-5).

Presumably Abraham is resting, recovering from the pain of his circumcision at age 99, and from the miraculous recent events including new names for himself and his wife, the news that 90 year old Sarah will birth a son, the promise of a covenantal relationship throughout the generations, and that Yishmael, his first son, will also become the father of a great nation. [Incidentally, later, v 18:19 – we receive the first hint that our covenant with Divinity will involve walking the spiritual path and of righteousness and justice.]

How does one maintain equanimity in the midst of the turmoil of such events? The mystical tradition teaches that Abraham is sitting in deep meditation. Through meditation, we experience an opening into worlds not otherwise accessible. As we continually re-focus our awareness on the present moment – yeshuv ha-da’at, the return to consciousness (a Hebrew translation of equanimity as we have discussed previously) – we experience the connection with Consciousness. As our verse teaches us, by sitting in the opening, Infinity can be manifest to us.

Of course, then, when we open our eyes, the verse continues, we see each other and our world, reaffirming our knowing – da’at – that it is through the manifest world we know and experience Infinity. And this knowing leads to actions of hesed, of loving-kindness.

The blessing of this practice is that the ability to re-center and re-connect with the godplace within, will, over time, bring less reactivity and more equanimity to our moment-to-moment interactions.

Writing from Jerusalem,

Rabbi SaraLeya

14 Heshvan 5770

The Middah Project: Heshvan--Equanimity

2009-10-30T13:54:00.000-07:00

Parashat Lekh Lekha ∙ Genesis 12:1-17:27
Middah for the Month of Heshvan: Equanimity

I write to you this week from Jerusalem.

The saga of the foremothers and forefathers begins in this week’s Torah portion with Avram (later to become Abraham) hearing – and acting upon – the Divine imperative to leave his ancestral home – he hears the words “lekh lekha” – get up and go! – and he responds.

This week, the Bay Area Jewish Community publicly reminds itself that we are not immune to situations of domestic abuse. Shalom Bayit, our non-profit agency that supports battered partners in creating a life of safety, has asked spiritual leaders to speak about this issue in the context of this week’s Torah portion. How hard it is to leave a difficult – often dangerous – situation without the support of community. Shalom Bayit reminds us that we must say “hineni- here I am” in order that an abused partner will have the courage to heed the voice of “lekh lekha”.

Particularly in this context, we are reminded that our middah (the ethical soul trait we are exploring this month) of equanimity does not mean passivity.

For the victim of domestic abuse, cultivating equanimity might involve learning to center and to hear the inner voice of truth, reaffirming ones self-worth and not accepting the voice of the abuser as ones own. For the abuser, equanimity may be learning to be less reactive and to modulate feelings of anger and jealousy, looking inward for the source of the feelings, and not projecting violence (physical or emotional) onto one’s partner.

Certainly, the stories of Abraham and Sarah’s family are not stories of mythically-perfect relationships without reactivity and anger. Often we learn about the way we would like to be by seeing examples of how we prefer not to be. As we read the book of Genesis this year, I invite us to allow the narrative to shine a mirror into our own souls.

With blessing for the path of cultivating hokhmat ha-lev, wisdom of heart,

Rabbi SaraLeya

8 Heshvan 5770

Parashat B’reisheit (Genesis 1:1-6:8)

2009-10-15T11:27:00.000-07:00

Once again we begin the cycle of studying our holy Torah, plumbing her text for meaning and insight. Genesis’ weekly readings are fast paced. This week the narrative encompasses not only the creation of the world but the archetypal stories of the first family – Adam, Eve and their children.

Last week, as we gathered in the sukkah, Rabbi Jonathan Omer-Man brought us a very deep teaching (from a contemporary Jerusalem text called Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh) about the names Cain and Abel – in Hebrew, Kayin and Hevel.

The root of the Kayin is related to acquisition, possessions – our very way of being in the material world: kinyan is the process of ownership. Hevel, on the other hand, is a word connoting insubstantiality; it means vapor, breath, emptiness, worthlessness. The book Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), read in its entirely during Sukkot, uses the word hevel repeatedly to describe the difficulty the author has in making sense of human existence.

The story of Cain and Abel, then, is not just a story about sibling rivalry that highlights the unintended outcome of jealous, angry, and violent action. The brothers’ names bring us the opportunity to meditate on how a name can affect one’s way of being in the world: perhaps we are asked to contrast attachment with non-attachment. How does attributing these meanings to their names affect understanding of the story?

I invite us to consider this extra layer of meaning to a very old story and to gather together this Shabbat for an even deeper exploration of these ideas.

With blessing for wisdom of heart in our ongoing process of learning and study,

Rabbi SaraLeya

SUKKOT 2009

2009-10-02T14:18:00.000-07:00

So we have traveled through the ups and downs of Rosh HaShanna and Yom Kippur, and we now find ourselves in the holiday of Sukkot, where it is customary to eat and sleep in small huts or booths, fragile structures with roofs made of tree branches, corn stalks, or other organic material. One should be able to see the stars through the roof material; this is a time when we are living in a temporary dwelling and the separation between us and the heavens is reduced. The sukkah reminds us of the temporary shelters in which the Israelites lived during their years of wandering in the wilderness, and at the same time it brings us a visceral, embodied experience our vulnerability to the elements, to the passage of time, and to the viscisitudes of circumstance.

On Sukkot we read Ecclesiastes, or Kohelet in Hebrew. You may be familiar with a traditional, and rather bleak translation of the beginning of Kohelet:

Vanity of vanities; all is vanity…

But in a more contemporary translation of the text, Rami Shapiro gives us an alternative perspective on these words and on the deep meaning of Sukkot. His translation, THE WAY OF SOLOMON, Finding Joy and Contentment in the Wisdom of Ecclesiastes, begins:

Emptiness! Emptiness upon emptiness!

The world is fleeting of form, empty of permanence, void of surety,

Without certainty.

Like a breath breathed once and gone,

All things rise and fall.

Understand emptiness, and tranquility replaces anxiety.

Understand emptiness, and compassion replaces jealousy.

Understand emptiness, and you will cease to excuse suffering

And begin to alleviate it.

Solomon, the presumed author of the original text, is passing on his own hard-won wisdom to us, his heirs, on Sukkot. He is telling us that we all fall into the same traps that have captured us for millennia. He is saying that we are constantly trying to get somewhere, accomplish something, all ultimately in a vain attempt to ward off our awareness of life’s impermanence. He repeatedly asserts that we suffer because of our illusions of permanence, separateness, and control.

And just when we feel overwhelmed by the harsh reality which he insists we confront, he offers us his prescription for peace:

Life is fleeting, the passing of moments upon moments.

Embrace them as they come; do not cling to them as they go.

In this alone is there tranquility.

So, this year as we spend time with community in the sukkah, may we be blessed with the wisdom to be present with What Is, savoring the sweetness as it lands on our tongues,

Opening to whatever is in front of us, with trust and faith.

- Laura Goldman, LCSW

Rosh HaShannah 5770

2009-09-17T13:07:00.000-07:00

This week we come together to celebrate both Rosh HaShannah and Shabbat as we fully immerse in the practice of Teshuvah – a process of returning and turning, of self-examination and re-connecting with our Divine center.

But, sometimes we might feel blocked and not know even where or how to start. Teshuvah can seem like just another meaningless word, one with no relevance to our own lives. When we see others immersed in communal prayer, dancing and singing, our own sense of inadequacy can be magnified and we might be tempted to give up.

Rebbe Nahman of Breslov has advice for us. He reminds us that we each have a place of divinity inside, what he calls the nekudah tovah, the point of essential goodness, our holy, never-besmirched soul-place. It is impossible, he continues, that we have not done at least one good thing this year and we must dig deeply to find and recognize it – the smile, the helping hand, the selfless act. The first point is always the hardest to find – trust that the next will flow more easily. For Rebbe Nahman, this acknowledgement cannot help but to bring us to the beginning of joy and, thus, to teshuvah, to a reconnection with our soul’s essence.

In community, we are able to help each other to find and see these places of wholeness. Together we raise up these points of goodness to create the niggun of our collective soul, the melody we will, with help of Heaven, sing and dance together during the coming Days of Awe.

I so look forward to sharing this time with you all.

With soul-blessing and heart-wisdom,
Rabbi Saraleya

Parashat Eikev

2009-08-07T15:35:00.000-07:00

Parashat Eikev—Deuteronomy 7:12-11:25
2nd Haftora of Consolation—Isaiah 49:14-51:3

What an honor last Shabbat for our community to host the East Bay renewal communities’ GLBT annual Friday night service! Song, dance, prayer and profound teaching left a lasting imprint on our sanctuary’s walls. And so it is all the more poignant that we mourn with our brothers and sisters in Tel Aviv the senseless murder of two young gay people there on Saturday night (and the violent injury of 15 others).

Our Torah portion begins with a profound statement: “eikev tishm’un eit hamishpatim haeila u’sh’marem v’asitem otam…the consequence of your listening to and fulfilling these laws will be the ongoing covenantal love relationship between you and your God. You will be loved and blessed - you and your land will be fruitful.” (Devarim 7:12-13).

Soon thereafter, however, our text continues with a painful recounting of the destruction to be wrought by the Israelites on the Canaanite tribes.

How deep is the worldview of self and Other seared into our communal psyche!

Isaiah, in the section from the prophets we chant week, promises that Zion will never be forgotten by the Holy One, that she is engraved on the palms of the Divine hands....and that the children she thought she had lost will be returned (49:14-22).

We pray together this week that this promise to Zion be a promise we make to every child. Let each child receive the assurance of a brit— covenant—we make with each other and with All of Existence not to rest until each is loved, accepted, honored and celebrated as an essential and unique incarnation of Divinity.

With blessing to always see and act from a place of hokhmat ha lev—wise heartedness,

Rabbi SaraLeya

13 Av 5769

Parashat V’ethanan

2009-07-31T12:41:00.000-07:00

Deuteronomy 3:23 – 7:11

“Ata hareita la’da’at ki Hashem hu haElohim, ein ode milvado –you have been shown (by your own seeing) an intimate knowing that YHVH is Divinity, and there is nothing else.” (D’varim 4:35).

In our parasha, Moses recapitulated the Sinai theophany including a second recounting of the 10 Commandments. Just before that, he explained to the Israelites the importance of their actually having seen and experienced the Reality of Divinity.

The traditional translation of “ein ode milvado” is that there is no other god than YHVH: ‘the Lord is God and there is none other’. However, for the Ba’al Shem Tov, these words confirm the non-dual theology that infuses his teachings: there is nothing other than the One. We experience YHVH as Elohim, the All as manifest via time and space, but Reality is that all is God. In the words of the much earlier mystics of the Tikkunei Zohar, “leit atar panui minei- there is no place devoid of the One”

As we travel this week through the mourning and destruction of Tisha B’Av to the comfort and optimism of this coming Shabbat of Consolation, we acknowledge that our brokenness, grief, shortcomings and illnesses, as well as our wonder, dancing and joy are all integral to the Oneness.

We suffer each others’ pain; we are made whole by each other’s healing.

With blessing for hearts of wisdom that truly know and understand the deep truth of our Unity,

Rabbi SaraLeya

6 Av 5769

Mase’ei: Journey to Our Land, Journey to Ourselves

2009-07-17T13:07:00.000-07:00

In this week's parsha, Mase’ei or “Journeys,” we recount the forty-two stages of our epic journey through the wilderness from the narrows of Egypt to the Promised Land. Then, G-d describes the perimeter of our physical land, and gives us our very first rule for how to relate to our land. G-d tells Moses: “open space all around the cities shall you give to the Levites. The cities shall be theirs for dwelling, and their open space shall be for their animals, for their possessions, and for all the amenities of life.” (Numbers 35:2-3). Later, the Talmud applied this rule to the land of all Israelites.

The Torah uses the Hebrew term ‘migrash’ to describe this “open space.” What is a ‘migrash’? Some define it as pasture, or functional agricultural land, while other sages, such as Onkelos translate it as ‘revah,’ simple, natural space. Either way, it is notable that the first requirement for how we are to settle our land is to carve out a part of the land and preserve it without building or planting on it.

Why did G-d require a migrash? Some argue that it was simply smart urban planning. Rashi dispells this notion, emphasizing that a migrash refers to an area consisting of a permanent open space serving as a place of beauty and respite from the city. Maimonides further expounds on this idea, stating that one may not make a migrash into a city, nor into a cultivated field (Mishna Torah, Zeraim, Laws of Shmita and Yovel 13:4-5).

So, even as we end the long journey through the wilderness, and prepare to build our cities, we understand the need to carve out untrammeled space to connect with nature, for there we can find the source of ourselves. As A.D. Gordon, the early labor Zionist explained, “Teshuvah, ‘return’ back to God,’ really means human’s return to nature. This is because teshuvah means going back to one’s point of origin, one’s source, coming back home after a period of absence.”

In our modern world of today, how shall we understand the law of migrash? Considering a historical perspective, we were literally exiled from ‘our’ land and repeatedly displaced from lands for almost two thousand years. Thus we were unable to practice migrash because we were alien people in other people’s lands. Even upon our literal return to ‘our’ land with the return to Israel, we have yet to implement migrash again. Some would say this is because of political and economic realities, which may be true, but on a deeper level I believe that we are currently unable to practice migrash because the mode of exile has become so deeply engrained in each one of us, as Gordon explained, “exile reflects the rift between the Jew and nature.”

Gordon’s perspective resonates with my own, that our inability to practice migrash, and our other land-based covenants such as schmita, is as much a symptom of our physical reality as it is a metaphysical one: “The Jews’ return to their land symbolizes human’s return to nature and cosmos, which is a necessary precondition for one’s regeneration and a Jew’s regeneration in particular and humankind’s regeneration as a whole.” Thus, it is my prayers that on whatever land we reside, may each of us end the journey of exile and begin to repair the rift between nature and us so that we may fully return to ourselves.

Zelig Golden

Parsha Shelach-Lekha: Send for Yourself and Transcend your Fears

2009-07-17T13:04:00.000-07:00

In the parsha for this week, we confront the core obstacle of becoming who we are: fear. After a long journey, Moses and the recently liberated people of Israel stand just outside of the Promised Land. Hashem tells Moses, “Shelach Lekha” – ‘Send for Yourself’ by sending scouts to investigate the land, its resources and the people who reside there. One member from each of our twelve tribes goes forth to explore.

Upon their return, one by one the scouts recount the magic of the land – the land indeed flows with milk and honey and the fruit hangs heavy on the vine. Yet ten of the scouts declare that entering the land is impossible – describing the people of the land as giants that make us look and feel like grasshoppers – “the land eats up its inhabitants,” they told. Based on these reports, the Israelites break out into shrieks of grief and despair, calling for a return back to the narrows of Egypt.

Only two scouts, Joshua and Caleb, pleaded with the Israelites: “The land we traversed and scouted is an exceedingly good land. If Hashem is pleased with us, Hashem will bring us into that land . . . have no fear….” But the Israelites respond with threats of stoning Joshua and Caleb. In the end, only Joshua and Caleb will enter the Promised Land. The scouts who spread fear die of plague, and the rest of the Israelites must wander the desert another forty years, until they are prepared to enter the land.

This story tells of an invariable spiritual truth – it is profoundly difficult to escape the slavery of our conditioning and fear. Even when we glimpse the Promised Land, the place of freedom, and land of milk and honey, we must return to the wilderness of our lives to continue the journey of self-discovery, healing, and knowing the One. As Rabbi Shefa Gold teaches, “over a lifetime we are given glimpses, flashes, and hints that open our awareness to the Reality of paradise and unity that underlies this world.” Our journey is long, yet like the seed of a tree, each glimpse of freedom is the fuel for our journey through the wilderness of our growth.

Yet we also learn from Caleb and Joshua that with faith we can muster the courage to enter the Promised Land whenever we choose. To move us closer to this faith, this parsha ends with a blessing. We are instructed to remember the path of Hashem – by following the mitzvot and connecting with the divine, we can transcend our fears. We are also given a physical tool for remembering – we are told to put tzitzit (fringes) on the corners of our garments with a thread of ocean blue. When we look upon this blue, we recall the ocean, which reflects the sky, and reminds us of the Throne of Glory that we glimpse in each moment of clear awareness. (Talmud Menachot 43b).

Zelig Golden

Parashat Naso (Numbers 4:21-7:89)

2009-06-05T12:40:00.000-07:00

Parashat Naso (Numbers 4:21-7:89)

Naso is the longest weekly portion – a complex tapestry describing portage duties of the Levites, a ritual for suspected adultery, a way for self-dedication to a path of rigor, and a repetitive list of gifts by each of the tribes at the dedication of the Tabernacle. The central gem is the text of the Priestly Blessing.

“Eish o-eisha ki ya’asu mi kol heit ha’adam lim’ol ma’al ba-donai v’ashma hanefesh hahi. When a man or woman commits any transgression that a human might do, the Holy is defrauded and the person’s soul bears responsibility (Numbers 5:5-6)”. When we veer off the path, we are also breaking faith with Reality. Our deception and harm have cosmic repercussions. A deep tenant of Jewish mysticism is that our actions actually affect the Mystery itself; our misdeeds shred the fabric of Existence. We are held to the highest ethical standards.

Similarly, when we do what is right and just and holy, we mend those holes in the structure of our world- this is mystical meaning of Tikkun Olam. It is also a deep meaning of Teshuva, the act of returning and repentance: we can repair the damage our inattention and carelessness may have caused, and, even more importatnly, rectify intentional wrongs we may have perpetrated.

Thus, we are fully interconnected with each other and responsible to each other and to the All. This interconnectedness is essential to the act of blessing, and the Priestly Blessing – Birkat Kohanim – is at the center of Parashat Naso. “Yevarekh’kha Hashem v’ yishmerekha. Beloved, please hold us and bless us. Yaeir Hashem panav eleikha vihuneka. Let the light of Your Face shine toward each and everyone of us and bring grace to our lives. Yisa Hashem panav eleikha v’yaseim l’kha shalom. Lift us up, accept us as we are, and make us whole (Numbers 6:24-26).”

In the Holy Zohar (3:147b), we are told a story of a priest who raised his hands to offer the Priestly Blessing, but since he and the people were not connected by love, he crumbled into a heap of bones! Without the ground of love and connection, blessing is ineffective, and even potentially harmful. Without love there can be no shalom - no peace and wholeness. And, according to the midrash (Bemidbar Rabba 21:1), without shalom, there is no vessel to contain blessing.

The section of the Priestly Blessing ends: “v’samu et Sh’mi al B’nei Yisrael va-Ani avarkheim. Place My Name upon the Children of Israel and I will bless them (6:27)”. Torah is clear that the priest is merely the channel through which Divine blessing flows.

Let us share the intention to always manifest our Heart-Wisdom in our choices, our actions, our loving and our blessing. Let us each be conduits for Your blessing to flow to each other. Let us together form a vessel of wholeness that can hold blessing for our world.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi SaraLeya

Behukotai - Covenant and Consequences

2009-05-15T10:10:00.000-07:00

אם בחקתי תלכו ואת מצותי תשמרו ועשיתם אתם:....

If you walk in my ways - specifically those that are impossible to understand - and if you observe those commands which actually do make sense to you... and..... you actually do it.... I will give you rains at the right times and a land full of produce and fruitful trees... you will be satisfied when you eat your bread and you will dwell in security with your land. I will grant shalom in the land and you will lie down without trembling and no frightening beasts will disturb you and there will be no destruction by drought or sword.

ופניתי אליכם .... והקימתי את בריתי אתכם

ונתתי משכני בתוככם ... והתהלכתי בתוככם...

... ואולך אתכם קוממיות

I will turn to face you and live in covenantal relationship with you.

My Mishkan, my dwelling place, Shekhina, will be among you and inside each of you. I will walk amidst you.... with Me, you will walk upright...

As beautiful are these promises, the next sections of this parasha are troubling. A list of dire consequences for abrogating the covenant is described, in much excruciating detail.... so much so that this section is read very quickly in a quiet voice...

Let’s examine the language of “If...... then....”

Are we speaking here about reward and punishment, and thus bristling at a Deity who gives incentives and takes retribution, who can be punitive and mean? Or, is this a language of consequence, resonance, mida q neged mida, מדה כנגד מדה, measure for measure -good brings more good, destruction more destruction.... blessing and reproach flow from the natural order.

Our text told us earlier that the land is G!d’s and she resonates, reverberates with what is right and true....

This places us, and our conduct at the center of the cosmos... when we are in right relationship, the earth responds.

We are to be in right relationship with the earth, with our selves, with each other, and then with Gd, too -- a relationship of mutual regard, and mutual caring. A relationship that recognizes the essential sameness of the spark of Divinity within us, within the other, and within the land.

The land has a soul and she responds to our behavior -- importantly, not just the way we treat her, and her creatures, but to how we treat each other. This is a recurrent theme in the Priestly text of Leviticus and a fitting way for the book to end.

When we bring kedusha to our behaviors, the cosmos reverberates with blessing and we are in covenental relationship with the Mystery. We shine the light of awareness on our inter-dependence and we refuse to be separated from the aliveness the hayut, חיות which is our essence and the essence of the entire created universe.

My ברכה, b’rakha, blessing, is that we deeply discern what it means to walk in the path of the Divine Order- the walking, halikha, הליכה, the Tao, and the halakha, הלכה , the guiding principles.

Our tradition gives us Torah and mitzvot - teaching and instructions. Our task is to discern how to live in relationship to this tradition, especially when it is not always so beautiful and easy.

We are called to be sources of blessing.... Abraham was told וֶהיֵה ברכה -veh’yei brakha- be a blessing. We are called to be blessing itself. Walking in the Mystery is to transform our daily routines into a path toward sanctified living.

When we are שומרי הברית shomrei ha-brit, covenant keepers, we are pledged to Higher Service, in covenantal relationship with the Holy Blessed One as She manifests as self, relationship and the natural world....and, we pray that goodness will flow as a natural consequence of right relationship.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi SaraLeya

Erev 22 Iyyar 5769

G’vura she b’yesod

Kedoshim - Holiness from the Inside Out

2009-05-01T10:18:00.000-07:00

קדשים תהיו כי קדוש אני יהוה אלהיכם:

Kedoshim tih’u ki kadosh Ani.

You will be holy because I, Infinity manifest, am holy - you will manifest My best traits - just as I separate out the gold from the dross, so you will, with intention, shine the light of awareness on your hearts and actions. I YHVH - all of existence, HaVaYaH, am the godliness that manifests in your lives.

Our parasha gives us many “thou shalt not’s”...

nevertheless, a very high standard:

לא־תעשו עול במשפט

bring no wrong/ injustice to your justice

בצדק תשפט עמיתך:

judge your companions righteously

לא־תלך רכיל בעמיך

don’t walk about bearing tales

לא תעמד על־דם רעך אני יהוה:

don’t just stand around while your friend’s blood is being shed (literal physical harm or metaphorically being shamed)

לא־תשנא את־אחיך בלבבך

don’t hate your brother or sister in your heart

הוכח תוכיח את־עמיתך ולא־תשא עליו חטא

reprove your companion so she does not take on further negative karma

לא־תקם ולא־תטר את־בני עמך

no revenge and no grudges

Finally the one positive mitzvah - “thou shalt” :

ואהבת לרעך כמוך אני יהוה:

love your neighbor as yourself....

This is seemingly an impossible list... particularly when it comes to my innerness, my פנמיות - to know that I am being called to scrub my insides clean of hatred, resentment, grudges, judgments about others, and yet to be given responsibility not to watch idly by as my sister is going down the wrong path, to not stand by while my brother is being harmed.

I need to manifest in the world,the highest values - this is holiness, this is acting with godliness.

Dovid haMelekh King David said to Shlomo (Chronicles 1 28:9), Solomon.... my son,, know - be intimate - with the Holy One, serve G!d בלב שלם with a perfect heart ובנפש חפצה and with a willing soul, for YHVH searches all hearts, and understands all the machinations of your thoughts, you have but to seek The Holy you and you will find the Divinity that is the lifeforce (חיות) of all...

Last week, I met a man of faith and action who perhaps comes closer than any other person in my experience to truly achieving

לא־תשנא את־אחיך בלבבך a lack of hate in his heart. Some of us may have heard Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish speak last week. He is a Gazan physician, who practices in Tel Shomeir hospital in Tel Aviv, who lost 3 daughters and a niece at one moment in the recent war in Gaza, and yet refuses to hate. He teaches us that the path of reconciliation, of faith in the meaning of tragedy and life circumstances, of seeing and supporting the essential humanity in each other is the way to shift reality. To feel pain and grief and sorry and loss - and yet not to take on the mantle of victimhood - not to hate the Other - is his mantra.

So I bless him and I bless all of us with the essence of this parasha: it our Divine nature to be, Holy, Sanctified, Consecrated, Kadosh.

Let us all be a Searcher of Hearts, calling ourselves to this highest of all the mitzvot - not just manifesting good deeds in the world - that is assumed, the minimum that is asked of us - but to truly to be love in our innermost places and radiate that love out into the world.

Shabbat Shalom.

Rabbi SaraLeya Schley

Chochmat HaLev

8 Iyar 5769 Gevura she b’Netzah

Parashat Sh’mini

2009-04-16T11:06:00.000-07:00

This is a pivotal parasha in the book of Vayikra. Its underlying theme is the exploration of the boundaries between the ordinary and the holy, the prescribed and the dangerous, the usual and the supernatural. Sh’mini addresses the danger of the Holy, a concept that is somewhat foreign or unwelcome to us as we thirst for the ecstatic, for the immediate connection with the Divine.

In Torah study this week, we studied commentaries by the Kotzker Rebbe^{^[1]} and the Or HaHayim^{^[2]} who built their teachings on a much earlier midrash. They explored the requisite spiritual preparation for us to enter into the Holy, particularly the quality of תמימיות temimiut - honesty, integrity, simplicity, completeness - a sense of wholeness of heart and intention without distraction from the negative inclination, that which pulls us out of the present moment relationship with the Divine or leads us to act in a way not in alignment with the Highest Good. This is the state described in the 1848 Shaker song^{^[3]} “‘’tis the gift to be simple...”. When we have achieved this state - even if momentarily - then the Divine Presence - kavod, shekhina -

[1] Wikipedia: Rabbi Menachem Mendel Morgensztern of Kotzk, better known as the Kotzker Rebbe (1787-1859) was a Hasidic leader. Born to a non-Hasidic family in Goraj near Lublin, Poland, he became attracted to Hasidim in his youth. He was known for having acquired impressive Talmudic and Kabbalistic knowledge at a young age. He was a student of the Rebbe Reb Bunim of Peshischa, and upon the latter's death attracted many of his followers. The Kotzker Rebbe is well known for his incisive and down-to-earth philosophies, and sharp-witted sayings. He appears to have had little patience for false piety or stupidity.

[2] Rabbi Chaim ben Attar (1696-1742) was born in Morocco, moved to Lovorno, Italy, where he briefly served as Rabbi before making Aliyah to the Holy Land, first settling in Acre, thence moving to Jerusalem. Or Hachayim is considered a classic commentary. The original text of this commentary is found in most editions of Mikraot Gedolot.

[3] 'Tis the gift to be simple,'tis the gift to be free,'tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,And when we find ourselves in the place just right,It will be in the valley of love and delight.

Refrain:

When true simplicity is gained,To bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed.To turn, turn will be our delight,'Til by turning, turning we come round right

'Tis the gift to be loved and that love to return,'Tis the gift to be taught and a richer gift to learn,And when we expect of others what we try to live each day,Then we'll all live together and we'll all learn to say,

Refrain:

'Tis the gift to have friends and a true friend to be,'Tis the gift to think of others not to only think of "me",And when we hear what others really think and really feel,Then we'll all live together with a love that is real.

Refrain:

Shabbat Shekalim 5769

2009-02-26T11:26:00.000-08:00

There are four Shabbatot leading up to Pesah and this is the first.
Next Wednesday is the first of Adar , the month of Purim.
He who brings in Adar, increases joy!
mi shenikhnas
Adar marbim b’simha dgnya miaxn xc` qpkpy in
And, this Shabbat is designated at Shabbat Shekalim... the Shabbat of the
small coins. We are reminded that each year during Adar, the annual
sanctuary tax is collected.
During our service tomorrow morning, we will bless the new month of
Adar and read the following extra section of the Torah (Exodus 30:1116)
11. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
12. When you take the census of the people of Israel according to their number, then shall they
give every man a ransom for his soul to the Lord, when you count them; that there should be no
plague among them, when you count them.
13. This they shall give, every one who passes among those who are counted, half a shekel
according to the shekel of the sanctuary; a shekel is twenty gerahs; a half shekel shall be the
offering of the Lord.
14. Every one who passes among those who are counted, from twenty years old and above, shall
give an offering to the Lord.
15. The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel, when they
give an offering to the Lord, to make an atonement for your souls.
16. And you shall take the atonement money of the people of Israel, and shall appoint it for the
service of the Tent of Meeting; that it may be a memorial to the people of Israel before the Lord,
to make an atonement for your souls.
Thus each person is to give exactly the same amount, the half shekel, the
mahazit hashekel lkyd zivgn ,whether rich or poor even,
according to
the Rambam if a pauper needs to give from the alms received. And the text
also connects this democratic donation to the soul work of atonement which
is in and of itself a very deep teaching that deserves its own
meditation and drosh!!!
Why specifically is a halfshekel
required? The Slonimer Rebbe relates the
halfshekel
to the underlying spiritual of the structure of the world the
2
the flow of shefa rty, divine bounty is related to bringing together the
halves, the parts, and creating zecg`, ahdut, oneness, cohesion,
unification. [Mystically the raising up the energy so that the Divine union,
coupling (zivug beef) can occur.] Where does the other half come from? ...
from the power of joining hithavrut zexagzd with
each and every other
member of the community, and with the Divine. By giving of our half
shekel we help create the mishkan, the place where dpiky Shekhina, the
Divine Presence, can find a home among us and within each of us. We
thus fulfill the mitzvah of “uvo tidvak wacz eae(Deuteronomy 10:20) cleave
to Divinity! “
The donations are called trumot zenexz from the word larom mexl to raise
up (as in the Rommemu prayer we davened earlier). We literally raise our
physicality up to a higher level when we contribute to building a home for
Spirit.
We raise up our required donation and benefits flow down to us.
This is about the spiritual principal that the itaruta d’letata `zzlc `zexrz`
leads to an itaruta dele’eila `lirlc `zexrz` every
arousal from below
leads to an arousal above.
Rashi tells us that, based on this section and an earlier parasha, there are
three types of zenexz t’rumot and each is essential.
the halfshekel
given for the building of the physical mishkan, used to
create the adanim mipc` base sockets in which the planks for the walls of
the mishkan would stand literally
forming the foundation of the
Tabernacle
the ongoing annual halfshekel
donation to fund the communal
sacrifices
the nedivot zeaicp generosity gifts which come from the heart and which
have no specific measure these
decorated the sanctuary and enabled
the creation of the holy vessels and implements.
And so, as we daven together in wonder, sharing this sanctuary with each
other, the message of this shabbat, I believe, is to understand in a very deep
way, that we are obligated to support, not only what we experience here
(1)
(2)
(3)
3
together, but also the flow of Divine energy throughout the worlds. We
have no choice but to give our half shekel. What our hearts lead us to give
beyond that of
our selves, our time, our skills, our riches is a more
individual choice. But we each must give that halfshekel,
even if it is out
of our subsistence allowance....
And this shabbat, we bless this new month of Adar, during these times that
feel so precarious, that Adar come in with life and peace and joy and
happiness and comfort and redemption!
I bless each of us to be able to look deeply inside and meditate on this
ancient teaching about the obligatory annual halfshekel
sanctuary
donation.
I bless us to look deeply inside to that place of nedivat lev al zaicp ,
generosity of heart, of t’ruma ,dnexz, of raising up, to find the truth of this
Torah for ourselves... and then to manifest action in the world
accordingly.

Parashat Beshalah and the month of Sh’vat: d’var Torah

2009-02-11T16:27:00.000-08:00

“And the Divine walked before them during the day as a pillar of cloud to guide them on the way, and at night in a pillar of fire to illuminate for them, to walk on day and night”

My holy teacher the late Slonimer rebbe, may his memory be for a blessing in the world that is coming and his soul rest in the celestial shelter, the Netivot Shalom, uses these words to teach us about walking the path (the halikha, not the halakha – spiritual instructions not rules of conduct).

There are times that are light and times that are dark, some times good and some more challenging, and our task is to somehow live in the certainty that all is Divine manifestation, that all was created for the Divine Honor, l’khvodo.

The purpose of our very existence is to keep going during the days and nights….lalekhet yomam v’laila ללכת יומם ולילה says our verse. In every season and situation, those who are on the path of Jewish practice are enjoined to continually discern, and then fulfill, the Divine will – asking what G!d asks of us at this moment.

בכל העתים והמצבים יעבוד יהודי לשי"ת היעשה תמיד את רצון השי"ת הנדרש ממנו בעת הזאת.

In times of ease, when there is ambient light, circumstances are easy, our connection to the larger Essence is apparent, we serve through the trait, the midda of love, ahava. The clouds that guide us during the daylight are the Clouds of Glory, annanei ha kavod, the apprehension of the Divine Presence, Shekhina Herself , the sukka of peace that holds us and shelters us.

In times of relative absence of light, we serve with the aspect, the midda, of awe, yira. And this is a more difficult task. Sensing the Divine Presence when all is going well, is easier. In times of darkness we are asked to look deep inside and illuminate the spark of faith, that these difficult circumstances, too have meaning. We are asked not to allow ourselves to give up hope, to become immobilized by depression, but to remember that there is a Divine purpose to everything. In the words of the midrash, there is justice and there is a Judge (Midrash Raba – אית דין ואית דייןד) . And it is this very act of faith that sweetens the circumstances and illuminates the darkness.

What a high and difficult path…. the path of Divine service during dark times requires more spiritual strength and inspiration than experiencing and manifesting the love of G!d when all is easy and we are in the flow of sensing the bounty of the Universe.

And so we get to the month of Shvat…. This is the month when outside it is still dark, but the roots and seeds are just starting to come to life deep within the ground. And so we look deep inside for those seeds of hope, those seeds of faith – and we nurture them, and encourage them to sprout, and take the nourishment they need to break through into the light.

Parashat Vayigash - Genesis 44:18- 47:27

2008-12-31T11:21:00.000-08:00

“And Judah approached him (Joseph) and said, please my lord, may I speak with you without your anger flaring…..?” (44:18). This dialog between Judah and Joseph is one of the most poignant moments in the book of Genesis.

Yehuda is the Hebrew for Judah and comes from the verb-root yod-dalet-hey. This word teaches us a fascinating lesson. As many words in Hebrew, it has two meanings. Most commonly I think of hodaya as thankfulness or gratitude. We say upon arising “Modeh ani lifanekka… I am grateful to you….” The second meaning of hodaya is that of confession.

What is the relationship between gratitude and confession? How does acknowledgment of life’s gifts relate to acknowledgment of mistakes? Perhaps through confronting our fallibility and error, we reach a deeper level of gratitude. Perhaps Judah’s life experience has taught him appreciation for the complexity and preciousness of family relationships; thus, he moved toward leadership and responsibility.

The depth of the Genesis familial stories lies in their complexity and in the deep lessons we can glean from the faults, blunders and heroic actions of the characters.

May our wise hearts help us as we engage with the path of Yehudim – spiritual descendants of Yehuda – a path of hodaya – of both gratitude and teshuva,

Rabbi Sara Leya

Parsha Va-Yetseh – Jacob’s Ladder, Balancing Heaven and Earth

2008-12-05T12:29:00.000-08:00

By Zelig Golden

In Parsha Va-Yetse, Jacob goes out into the world in a way that neither Avram nor Yitzakh could. He is the first person we see in Torah who actually works for a living, and it is in his struggle to balance the needs of him and his family in the material world with his spiritual endeavor of uncovering G-d consciousness, that Jacob fully comes into his power.

The parsha opens with Jacob leaving for Beersheva to fulfill his fathers’ wish that he finds a wife back in his mother Rebecca’s home of Haran. Like Isaac’s prayer in the fields that opened him to his love for Rebecca, Jacob discovers the key to striking his balance while alone in the desert alone, before encounters true love with Rachel.

On the way to Haran, Jacob lies down, his head on a stone, and dreams of a ladder set upon the earth with its top touching heaven. Angels are ascending and descending before him as G-d appears to Jacob and promises that the land upon which he sleeps will be for him and his offspring. Rambam teaches that Jacob’s dream is one of ultimate security – G-d promises: “I am with you, and will guard you wherever you go.” Yet Jacob is afraid. As the Midrash teaches, G-d asks Jacob “Why don’t you go up the ladder?” The Midrash explains that Jacob feared that if he ascended, he would also have to descend. However, G-d promises Jacob that if he climbs the ladder to heaven, he will not have to descend, yet he still refuses to climb. Why?

When Jacob returns from his dream, he proclaims “Surely G-d is in this place, and I did not know it!” “How awesome is this place! This is none other that the home of G-d, and that is the gateway to heaven.” Jacob understands from his dream that the holiness of G-d in heaven is found equally on earth – that earth is equally the home of G-d. Indeed, the Hebrew word Makom, or “place,” is one of the many names for G-d.

Jacob’s encounter with the ladder, connecting heaven and earth, is Jacob’s ultimate teacher on how to balance his life in the material and spiritual worlds. The ladder teaches him that the holiness found in heaven is equally found here on earth. Thus Jacob occupies the seat of balance in our tradition by living in direct communication with G-d as he lives, works, and loves right here on Earth.

Parashat Hayei Sara

2008-11-20T13:41:00.000-08:00

Shabbat Commemorating Transgender Day of Remembrance

“V’Avraham zakein, ba bayamim, va-Adonai beirakh et Avraham bakol.

And Abraham was old, advanced in days, and Hashem had blessed Abraham with everything” (B’reisheit 24:1)

The Holy Zohar interprets the words “ba bayamim” literally, saying that Abraham was old and “came into his days”. The Zohar considers of the days of human life, according to D. Matt, Ph.D., as “living entities, preceding one’s earthly existence and enduring afterward.” If our days are alive, then we are called to deeply experience that life in each moment.

The Zohar continues, telling us that throughout all of Abraham’s days, he drew closer to the Holy, rung by rung, step by step, drawn inward (and upward). “Happy is the one whom You choose and bring close” (Ps 65:5). The Ein Sof desired that Abraham come into his particular place, so that when Abraham finally grew old, he attained his ultimate rung of knowing the mystery of faith “raza d’meheminuta”. From this place of timelessness – which is beyond days – all blessing and goodness flows. And thus Abraham (and we, too) receive the blessing of the spiritual path. The text begs us to ask ourselves, “what is the mystery of my own faith, what is my personal secret to a spirit-infused life? (Can I even ask myself this question?)”. In our text there is a to-and-fro movement, Abraham always reaching for the next step and the Divine extending a hand, as it were, in aid. At times it is we who might initiate the movement, at times it is the Infinte calling us closer.

Further the Zohar tells us, “Happy are those who are masters of returning”. Through teshuva we can each approach the special place, and take hold of the special mission, that is particularly designed for us. And, thus we are blessed. Each day is a new returning, a new rung on our soul-ladder. With each conscious moment and each conscious movement, we get closer to intuiting our life’s purpose.

Yesterday, 11/20/08 was Transgender Day of Remembrance, set aside for especially remembering those who have had their lives cut off prematurely because of being Transgender. This Zohar teaching is so appropriate for this time because it reminds us that each of us has our unique soul-journey to discern and follow. The practice of teshuva is a path to discovering our soul-essences. Each of our lives’ paths and stages has its own special blessing. For many of us, gender has not been an issue of concern, but for some of us, it is the essence of our spiritual path. In the words of Chochmat HaLev’s beloved Maggid Jhos Singer “Maybe some of us were selected to take on this work. Perhaps it’s not just about me and my comfort.”

Let’s bring intention and integrity as we come into every day with consciousness. We remember the importance of every life and every day of our lives. We honor the memories of those who have lost their lives in following their soul- paths. (This Shabbat we also remember the 45^th anniversary of JFK’s assignation!). Let’s pray together for the end of interpersonal violence.

With wise-hearted blessing from the timelessness in each day and the preciousness of each life,

Rabbi SaraLeya

Parashat Lekh L’kha

2008-11-06T11:13:00.000-08:00

“ ve’h’yei b’rakha…v’nivrikhu v’kha kol mish’p’hot ha-adama. Be a blessing! … and, through you, all the families of the earth will be blessed!” (B’reisheit 12: 2-3)

With this week’s parasha, we begin the saga of the forefathers and the foremothers that starts with Avram and Sarai’s journey. We will be immersed in this complex, and often troubling, generational story through mid-January, ending with Joseph and his family in Egypt.

Avram is told by the Holy One to leave his familial home and go on a journey. He is not told the ultimate destination. He is reassured that he will become a great people and will be well known, but his main charge is to “be a blessing”. The words are often translated “and you shall be a blessing,” but the Hebrew is clear – it is an imperative, a command – not a reassurance.

I ask us, this week, to consider what it means to be commanded to be a blessing. How might it affect my life if I accept that my mission is to be a channel – a tzinor – of blessing for the rest of the peoples of the world?

As spiritual descendents of Avram – who by the end of our parasha will be renamed Avraham when he enters into covenantal relationship with Hashem, we, too, are given this charge. Our lives are to be dedicated to being sources of goodness and vitality and righteousness and impeccability. Through our intentional living, we increase Divinity in this world. Kein ye’hi ratzon! So may it be!

With blessing for wisdom of heart and clarity of intention,

Rabbi SaraLeya

Parashat Noah

2008-11-06T11:09:00.000-08:00

“And the Holy One saw the rampant evil in the world and…regretted ever creating humankind, and felt deep heart-sadness - vayityatzeiv al libo ….[but] The eyes of the Holy One saw grace – hein in Noah. Noah was righteous and whole as he walked with G!d. … and the earth was full of hamas – violence” (B’reisheit 6: 5-11).

Usually, when we read this parasha, we focus on the story of the flood, the ark full of paired animals, the dove with the olive branch and the rainbow covenant.

Today, however, I ask the question: what is the lesson we can learn from the way Torah describes Noah? Noah’s name comes from the Hebrew la-nuah, meaning to rest, to be pleasing or to be set down in place. When the letters nun-het are reversed, we have the word hein or grace. When one is at rest, centered and calm, one is in a state of grace. When one accepts one’s circumstances, Presence, too, can rest. This is contrasted to the violence and evil of the entire world surrounding Noah. Despite the temptations of his generation, Noah is called righteous and whole, walking the path of closeness with the Divine.

Noah’s name and traits teach us, that, even in the worst of circumstances, one can become a center of integrity and calm. And so, in the midst of the maelstroms of conflict and emotion in our families and communities, we, too, can be at ease in our own wholeness, staying connected to what we know to be True. Our world, too, can be full of conflict and violence and negativity, but I bless each of us that when the Holy One gazes upon us, She sees grace and calm, wholeness and decency. I bless us that we can have the serenity and acceptance that will allow us to manifest our missions in repairing our world.

With blessing for the grace and centeredness to manifest Wisdom of the Heart,

Rabbi SaraLeya

Sukkot 5769

2008-10-21T13:17:00.000-07:00

“S’molo tahat roshi vimino t’habheini – his left arm is under my head and his right arm embraces me”. So says a lover in the Song of Songs (8:3). Minimally the sukkah must have two walls and a hand-breadth length of a third wall: thus, the sukkah is compared to this embrace of lovers. Metaphorically, we are being held in the arms of the Holy One when we are in our sukkah.

As we spoke about over Yom Kippur, when we have fully engaged with wonder and trembling during the Days of Awe, we receive Divine love as a gift. This is the essence of Sukkot, z’man simhateinu, the time of our joy. Together we experience the sense of being held, being protected, being cared for.

Why else is Sukkot specifically called the season of our joy? Being joyous on every holyday is a mitzvah – a way for us to connect our lives with Divinity – but the mitzvah of joy is mentioned specifically about Sukkot. Joy is the essence of the holiday of Sukkot. Psalm 100:2 teaches us to “serve Hashem with joy – ivdu et Hashem b’ simhah” . If we are always to serve the Divine with joy, what is so special about Sukkot?

Our process of teshuvah begins with the 40 day journey from the beginning of the month of Elul to the release of Yom Kippur. During that time we experience remorse, sadness and, hopefully, forgiveness. We arrive at Sukkot having done serious spiritual work – avodah – and we can rest in the sukkah, in the shelter of the wings of Shekhinah, protected by the canopy of peace and wholeness – the Sukkat Shalom that we pray for during the evening service. As a community, Chochmat HaLev certainly experienced joy when danced together at Neila – but even that is not enough, we need Sukkot to complete the process of teshuvah, and thus to know true joy. The special joy of Sukkot is the certainty that we are accompanied on our journeys by the love and protection of the Holy Blessed One. And… the metaphoric Book of Life is not sealed until Shimini Atzeret, the 8^th day of the Sukkot season when, traditionally, Jewish worshipers gather to say the blessings for the rainy season and again to recite Yizkor, the memorial prayer (this year Tuesday 10/21).

My blessing for Chochmat HaLev is that each of us will be able to sit in a sukkah this year and feel the Divine embrace, so that we can share this knowing of love, protection and containment with each other as the ground of our spiritual community. Through this experience my we experience the most profound joy ever!

With blessing for wisdom of heart and mo’adim l’simhah – for seasons of deepest joy!

Rabbi SaraLeya

Parashat Vayeileikh

2008-10-21T13:14:00.000-07:00

This year as I read this parasha, I was struck by a linguistic theme in the latter chapters of Deuteronomy. The Hebrew word-root s-t-r –seter- secret/hidden is used in two different sections. There is that which is revealed to us – nigleh - and that which is hidden - nistar.

Last week we read: Ha nistarot Ladonai…v’ ha-niglot lanu- the hidden are Hashem’s and the revealed are ours (Deuteronomy 29: 28) Perhaps this means that what is not yet manifest in our lives, nonetheless lives in the infinite potentiality of the Divine Mind. Only when we exercise our power of choice does a specific possibility actually become manifest. We sometimes use “The Mystery” as a name for the Divine, which might imply that we live in awe of the hidden ways the Universe manifests in our lives. We delight in the uncovering of the sod, the mystical interpretations of Torah, in revealing hidden meanings.

In this week’s parasha, we read the prediction that, when the Children of Israel break their covenant with the Holy One by worshiping other gods, Divine anger will be manifest, the Divine Face will be hidden and tragedy and troubles will occur- v’hara api bo…v’histarti panai. When the Israelites acknowledge their role in this predicament, Hashem affirms, v’anohi hasteir asteir pani – I will surely (continue) to hide My Face… (Deuteronomy 31: 17-18). Because of our actions, God’s self is now hidden from us. When the Divine Face is hidden, we experience abandonment and disaster. God is concealed. In fact, Martin Buber wrote a book about Holocaust theology called “the Eclipse of God”.

I bring these two verses to your attention so, during these Days of Awe and Teshuva, we can meditate on what it means for there to be revealed and not-yet revealed realities. When we think of the Divine as The Mystery, we are thrilled at the hint of a deeper mystical dimension of life – the hidden potential to infuse life with light and meaning. But when the Divine is in hiding we may experience that same Mystery as alienation and abandonment.

I invite us to contemplate these sections of Deuteronomy. How are they both speaking about the Light of Divinity which, for those with faith, is always present? How does one come to such faith? What might it mean for the hidden mysteries to be so fascinating and meaningful, but the hidden face to be so dismal?

I ask your forgiveness for any ways which I may have slighted, offended, or otherwise been less-than-impeccable in our dealings with each other. Know that such errors have not been intentional. Please, let’s work with such challenging situations to advance our Conscious evolution. I look forward to our unfolding and deepening relationships.

With blessing for wisdom of soul and heart,

Rabbi SaraLeya

Parshah Ki Tavo

2008-10-21T12:43:00.000-07:00

With this parasha we return to the challenging theology of the book of Deuteronomy, the paradigm of covenantal promises. If children of Israel follow YHVH’s commandments, they will be blessed, and if they don’t, they will receive the opposite. There are several verses with very general blessings, but, oy!!! …there are several pages of tokheha, of admonition, listing all the specific and dire consequences of our failure to fulfill the covenant. (This tokheha is traditionally read rapidly and quietly during the Shabbat Torah reading so as not to give further spiritual reality to the very difficult and graphically-negative words.) We are asked to believe that if we behave correctly –according to the guidelines set out by Moses, blessing will flow; and if we mis-behave, we will be much less fortunate, even cursed.

The text is troubling, because we know that this world-view is too simplistic. We know that “bad things happen to good people” and the scoundrel often appears to win the prize. Yet, we also know that our choices do affect the quality of our lives. In fact, back in Genesis, Abraham is told (Deuteronomy 12:2) “vehyei brakha” – be a blessing!” We can walk the spiritual path so that we bring spaciousness and equanimity into our lives; or, we can live the unexamined life and allow reactivity or anger rule our moment-to-moment existence. Our actions are important in and of themselves, not just as means for being rewarded.

Once again we are asked to expand our heart and consciousness beyond this narrow reward -and- punishment view of Reality and seek the healing of such black-and-white thinking. We do our best to be a source of blessing and not of negativity even though we know that, despite our most sincere efforts, Existence will not always be fair to us. We do not deserve all the dire consequences enumerated in Ki Tavo, but we know that life is not always easy and painless. How we react to adversity defines our humanity.

Yet, there is something of the child in us, that still wishes Existence would be like a fairytale in which the wicked are punished and the righteous are rewarded. What we can hope for, I believe, is that the circumstances of our lives not be made worse by our choices and that Consciousness will evolve sufficiently that we can truly manifest grace and wholeness.

The Israelites wondered in the wilderness for 40 years before they were ready to receive “a heart that knows and eyes that see and ears that hear” (Deuteronomy 29:3). May these gifts of spiritual maturity be our reward for our commitment to teshuva this year, for our choice to walk together on the ever-challenging path of righteousness.

With blessing for wisdom of heart,

Rabbi SaraLeya

Parashat Shoftim

2008-10-21T12:16:00.000-07:00

“You shall appoint shoftim, judges and shotrim, officers, at all your gates... and they shall judge the people justly. Do not pervert judgment by showing favoritism or taking bribes... Tzedek, tzedek tirdof -justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may live, and inherit the land....” (Deuteronomy 16:18-20)

Our parasha begins with the injunction to set up a system of courts. In fact we are to actively pursue righteousness – tzedek (a word with the same Hebrew root as tzedaka which means far more than just charity) - in our judging of others. This is a higher standard than that of simply deciding guilt or innocence. I invite you to consider how justice and righteousness (two common translations for the word tzedek) might, in fact, differ…

Hasidic thought, however, directs these verses to the individual. The gates of the person are the 7 openings of the senses: 2 ears, 2 eyes, 2 nostrils, one mouth. Thus we are enjoined to judge and monitor the gates to the inner recesses of our selves. We can refuse to listen to slander. We can open our eyes to let in injustice, but not to witness the shame of another person. The sense of smell connects directly to the deepest, most primitive places in the brain. We can be scrupulous by taking in only ethically-raised food, savoring it with gratitude. We can be certain that only words of integrity leave our mouths. How else might guarding our senses be beneficial to our well-being?

“When you go out to war.... a man who is afraid and tender-hearted may return to his home lest he melt the hearts of his brothers…” (Deuteronomy 20:1, 8)

These are words I wrote 3 years ago for this parasha, as my son Carl prepared to follow his heart’s path to join the army in Israel:

We are certain that all of our sons and daughters who are soldiers are souldiers-- with a core place of rakhut-lev --tenderheartedness. We know our children and we know that they all have that place of deep inner goodness and vulnerability, that inner point of essence, that inner point of goodness of which the hassidic rebbes speak. And we pray that this place be protected from soul-injury when they go to battle. We pray that, when called upon, they act from this place of truth, that they always pursue righteousness and justice - tzedek tzedek tirdof. We know that the young men and women who go to war will be changed by what they experience. We can only pray that they heal from their time of soldiering.

Here is the blessing from this verse: we know that all of our souldiers have tender hearts, they all have families and homes they love. We bless them with strength and protection to follow their ideals, to fight for what gives their lives meaning and to come back from war with their core of goodness intact and unharmed.

With blessing for of wisdom of heart,

Rabbi SaraLeya

Mase’ei and Rosh Chodesh Av: The Threshold of the Promised Land - by Zelig Golden

2008-08-04T10:17:00.000-07:00

During this Shabbat we celebrate Rosh Chodesh Av (The new moon of Av) and we confront a great paradox. The full summer sun is passing high in the sky. Flowers are blooming; tomatoes are bursting from the vine; we are harvesting the fruits of our labors on earth. Summer is the time of greatest abundance. Yet in our tradition, we are moving through a period of darkness.

We are in the midst of a 21-day period of reflection on brokenness as we approach Tisha B’av, the commemoration of the destruction of the Holy Temple, a day of fasting and mourning our dark places. During these three weeks “between the strictures” we are invited to look deeply into ourselves and into the world and ask “what is broken?”

Deep in the psyche of our tradition is the notion that wholeness comes from brokenness, just as we learn in the first lines of the Torah that light comes from darkness. (Gen. 1:1-3). Thus, this time of dark reflection serves to enable us to bring light from within ourselves into the world. As Rabbi Eliezer teaches, just as this period of darkness from the 17th of Tammuz to the 9th of Av lasts 21 days, the almond tree blossom flowers for 21 days. (Lamentations Rabbah, Prologue 23). From Rabbi Eliezer, we learn that tragedy and mourning are ephemeral blossoms, leading to greater experience and understanding, and eventually opening us to joy and celebration.

This week’s Torah portion, Mase’ei (the marches), epitomizes why we must explore our brokenness in the heat of the summer and resolves for me the paradox of Rosh Chodesh Av. In Mase’ei, we reflect on the 40 years of marching and wandering through the b’midbar – the ‘wilderness’, the ‘desert’, the expansive place of reflection and learning – with Moses as our guide from Egyptian liberation to the threshold of Canaan, the ‘promised land’. This Torah portion also finishes the book of Numbers and marks the end of our physical journey with Moses. Here at the boundary of Canaan, our people will finally arrive in the ‘promise land’ – but Moses will not enter. We will do it on our own, independent of our father, guide and leader of over 40 years.

Rosh Chodesh Av and Mase’ei together teach that we must explore the b’midbar of our lives and reflect on our brokenness so that we can fully step into our wholeness as individuals, and as a nation. Only then can we step across the threshold into our ‘promised land.’

Parashat Pinhas

2008-07-15T14:35:00.000-07:00

In the parasha named after him, Pinhas, grandson of Aaron, the high priest, and nephew of Moses, receives a Covenant of Shalom and Eternal Priesthood. This was the reward for an abrupt and violent act of bloodshed (described at the end of last week's Torah reading) that ended a plague among the Israelites. We are left asking how an act of killing can be thus rewarded. Can violence among people ever be what the Holy One desires? Our text brings this question to us directly. Pinhas acted decisively and selflessly for the sake of the sanctity of the Tent of Meeting. Violence was the solution in this story, but we choose to pray, in our time and world, that other means be more effective.

Any violent act, however, no matter how "justified", leaves its scar on the actor and a trail of grief, mourning and pain for others. When you look at the hand-written text in the Torah scroll (Numbers 25:12), the letter vav of the word shalom is broken into two pieces, perhaps, reminding us of the wound in the fabric of Existence that is both the antecedent and the result of any act of violence. And, so, we pray for the new Way to manifest so our actions will truly bring about shalom – peace and wholeness. Let this be our communal covenant: to always see the spark of Divinity in each other and always treat each other in a way that serves the purpose of manifesting ever more kedusha – holiness - in our lives. Then we can truly be a community of priests and priestesses, all dedicated to the purpose of becoming a source of healing and transformation for ourselves, for Gaia and all the beings who share this holy earth with us.

With blessing for wisdom of heart,

Rabbi SaraLeya

Parashat Balak

2008-07-15T14:31:00.000-07:00

A talking donkey and a sword-brandishing angel draw us into the story of Bilaam, a non-Israelite prophet who had a direct relationship with YHVH. The Moabite king, Balak, is terrified of the Israelites after their conquest of neighboring tribes and promised Bilaam riches in exchange for cursing the Children of Israel. Three times Bilaam opened his mouth with the intention to curse, but only blessings came out. Our morning prayer, "Ma tovu ohaleikha Yaakov, mishkinoteikha Yisrael - How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places O Israel" comes from this parasha and are the words of the Divine coming through this non-Israelite prophet.

One simple lesson from this story, something we experience together at Chochmat HaLev, is that relationship with the G!d of Torah is not exclusive to the Israelites – a priest from another tribe has the spiritual power to both bless and curse as well as communicate directly with YHVH . To us, this lesson may seem obvious. For those more attached to the rightness of their own religious paths, however, the understanding that there are many ways to the Oneness may not be so apparent, and our parasha teaches this to us specifically.

But Bilaam's story also leads us to ask what it means to "do G!d's will". So often we pray that our will be aligned with that of the Unity – that what we want for ourselves and what the Universe gives us be the same. This is not always the easy path. Bilaam had no choice but to speak the words which Hashem placed in his mouth, even though his lesser self would rather have taken the riches promised by Balak.

As an incarnate soul with limited vision, I pray that, when I bless others, my words carry the power of that which is Best and Whole in the world. May we always be able to hear the words of our speaking donkeys and see the angels who show up to help us walk our lives' paths.

With blessing for wisdom of heart,

Rabbi SaraLeya

Parshat Hukkat

2008-07-01T17:02:00.000-07:00

In a typically terse Torah story (Numbers 20), we learn that Miriam died and was buried. The next verse simply states that the people were without water and complained to Moses and Aaron. And so a rabbinic legend about Miriam's miraculous well fills in the space between these two verses. Miriam was the source of water as the Israelites journeyed in the wilderness for 40 years. When she died, the well dried up and the people panicked. YHVH appeared and told Moses to speak to the rock so water would flow. Moses apparently didn't pay sufficient attention, or was tired of the people's complaints and lack of faith over the years – perhaps made even more irritating as he mourned for Miriam – and he hit the rock instead of speaking to it.

From that moment of impatience, the Divine Wisdom realized that Moses and Aaron were not the leaders who could take the Israelites to the next step. Their soul-missions were complete and they would rest in the wilderness and not cross over the Jordan River into the mythical Promised Land. Joshua and Eleazar will lead the people in the next phase of their journey.

Once again, Torah leads us to ask deep questions and, hopefully, allows us to receive the blessing of insight into ourselves. Moses' mistake was one of being angry and irritable. He acted impulsively instead of according to instructions. How often does our emotional state lead us to act before reflecting, to react before listening? What gets in our way of hearing what the Divine voice is saying to us?

I take Moses' action seriously as I begin to work with Chochmat HaLev as rabbi and spiritual leader. I pray that I always be patient enough to hear both what is said and what is not said, and that I consider carefully before I act. I bless us all that we may manifest the soul-traits of wisdom and tranquility of heart as together we move to the next phase in the life of this holy community. May the wellspring of inspiration accompany us on this journey.

With blessing for wisdom of heart,
Rabbi SaraLeya

Parashat Korah

2008-06-25T11:02:00.000-07:00

Once again Torah confront us with troubling narrative. Much earlier, in Exodus (19:6), The Holy One tells the people through Moses “You will be for me a nation of priests and a holy people”. Now, Korah, with 3 other leaders and another 250 people of good reputation, complain that Moses and Aaron have taken too much for themselves. “You have too much! For the entire community, they are all holy and YHVH is in their midst. Why do you raise yourselves above Hashem’s congregation?" (Numbers 16: 3).

The punishment for the participants in this “rebellion” was severe – being swallowed by earth or consumed by fire, and those who then complained about the severity of the penalty were afflicted by a plague. Centuries of commentary have sought to find answers and justifications to the deep questions raised, but I continue to be haunted by the simplicity of the question: are we not all equally holy? Certainly Korah’s band may have been resentful of Moses’ power and Aaron’s priestly rights, but does not their question have merit?

Perhaps, the imagery of Aaron’s flowering staff (17:23) contains an answer. Aaron’s produces almond flowers because his path is that of the priesthood and that is the path discussed in this Torah story. We each have a metaphoric staff to use for support as we walk our path, a staff that will flower when we are on our unique life-mission. We each are equally holy. We each have a perfect and divine soul. We each have an essential role to play in the evolution of humanity. But, too, we each are different. Korah could no more be Aaron than Aaron could be Moses. I pray that we each embrace our personal blessings and challenges as our unique path to holiness. In community, may we sustain and complete each other.

With blessing for wisdom of heart,

Rabbi SaraLeya

Sh'lakh L'kha

2008-06-17T14:16:00.000-07:00

Parashat Sh'lakh L'kha begins with the story of the 12 tribal leaders who were sent by Moses to scout out the land across the Jordan in preparation for the Israelites to enter this place that had been promised to their forefathers. The land was indeed flowing with milk and honey, but 10 of the 12 scouts were terrified by the daunting task of conquering the peoples who lived there. "All the people we saw in it are men of great size….we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves and so we must have looked to them" (Numbers 13:32-33). Despite the arguments of Joshua and Caleb, the 10 convinced the rest of the Israelites of the impossibility of the task and the people were condemned to wondering in the desert for 40 years until the generation who left Egypt – and had known slavery - died off.

This is my birth parasha, the portion that was being read during the week of my birth. As such, each year I look for a special meaning in my life. The practice of looking into one’s birth parasha can be an annual source of deep spiritual discovery.

This year, I wondered about the response quoted above – first the scouts felt like grasshoppers and then attributed this judgment to the Canaanites. How often we project our own insecurities and assume that others' opinion of us mirrors our own poor self-esteem! How do we find the perfect balance between undeserved self-aggrandizement and self-effacement that does not serve our higher purpose? Marching off on a mission of which I am not capable is as foolish as failing to step up to something that I must do, and that I can do. True humility acknowledges our gifts and missions while accepting the truth of our strengths and weaknesses. Just as blind egoism does not serve the soul, neither does false humility.

What lessons are in this parasha for this special GeLieBTe Shabbat? Three small gems present themselves. This is the week we have been celebrating the extension of the right of civil marriage to the GLBT community and we read in verse 15:15 that when offering up sacrifice, there shall be a single rule for the kahal as a whole, including both the congregation and for the resident stranger. Too long the GLBT community has been treated as resident outsider. This Shabbat we celebrate the biblical injunction that there be one law for all of us– hakahal hukat ahat. The text is even more inclusive when it acknowledges that an entire community can make a collective mistake and be then forgiven (15:24-26): we bear shared responsibility for all the times we have allowed someone else to be treated as “other”, and as a community we ask for pardon. Finally, our parasha ends with the commandment of wearing tzitzit, fringes, on our garments – a visible reminder to awaken to holiness (15:37-41) and the last paragraph of the Sh’ma. When we say the Sh’ma and affirm the Oneness of all, we gather in the fringes of our selves to our heart. And, so, may all the disparate elements of our community be gathered together into our one unified heart.

Together, let’s begin the deep inner work of seeing ourselves in the light of truth and meditating deeply on our lives’ soul tasks. May we acknowledge that we can only be a community when it becomes a home for every individual.

With blessing for wisdom of heart,
Rabbi SaraLeya

Rosh Chodesh Sivan and Tikkun Leyl Shavuot

2008-06-06T15:20:00.000-07:00

By Rabbi SaraLeya Schley

Dear Chochmat HaLev Community,

Hodesh Tov! This week we celebrate the new moon of Sivan – the month of transition between spring and summer. New moons are always a time of potential for transformation. We are also in the final week of counting-down to the Shavuot festival when we stand together again at Sinai. This is the week of Malkhut, the week of the week of Shekhina, the week of receptivity and becoming the vessel that will allow us to experience Revelation anew.

And, the parasha for this week, Naso, is the longest weekly portion of the entire year – a complex tapestry describing portage duties of the Levites, a ritual for suspected adultery, a way for dedication of the self to a path of rigor, and a very repetitive list of gifts by each of the tribes at the dedication of the Tabernacle. The gem at the center of this parasha is the text of the Priestly Blessings – a topic we will be studying together at the community-wide Shavuot learning fest Tikkun next Sunday evening at the East Bay JCC.

Tucked away into these accounts is a pearl of spiritual advice (Numbers 5: 5-7). Here we learn that whenever we commit any of the misdeeds possible for us to do as humans, we are breaking faith with the Holy One, too. Whenever we deceive or harm each other, there are cosmic repercussions – our actions actually affect the very fabric of existence, the Mystery itself. Once again, we are held to the highest ethical standards as we realize our interconnectedness and honor the Unity. Each of us, as an incarnate Divine spark, is integral to Divinity, and, as such our responsibility to the All is serious.

I bless us to be worthy of each other and of our holy community. Let us open ourselves to receiving the renewed Torah that is waiting to come through each of us.

With blessing,

Rabbi SaraLeya

Bemidbar, and Greetings

2008-05-28T15:23:00.000-07:00

By Rabbi SaraLeya Schley

Dear Chochmat HaLev community,

First, I want to let you know how honored I am to have been selected to be your spiritual leader and I look forward to July when I will actually begin. As I wrote in my application letter, this is the culmination of 10 years of dreaming and studying. It is my intention, with the help of the Holy One, to write a brief Dvar Torah – word of Torah – for the weekly newsletter as often as possible.

This week we begin reading the 4^th book of Torah. Its Hebrew name, Bemidbar, reminds us that the setting of this book is in the midbar – the wilderness (desert is a less-accurate translation) of Sinai. In contrast, the English name of the Book of Numbers speaks to the content of the parasha which is about counting and the orderly arrangement of the Israelite tribes. Early rabbinic midrash comments that “anyone who does not make oneself hefker – ownerless - like a wilderness cannot acquire wisdom and Torah”. Just as wilderness cannot be claimed as property, in order for us to become wise (to acquire chochmah) we also must become ownerless. For me, this means letting go of preconceptions and attachments that limit my potential in study and prayer and community. For some, it might mean sitting in the stillness and listening. For others, it may be the openness experienced after ecstatic prayer and dance. What does it mean to you? How can being “ownerless” lead us to wisdom and Torah?

And, we remember, that the story of our text also reminds us that we are simultaneously in the wilderness and being counted as integral members of community.

With blessing as we journey together to create a community that allows each of us to be both unbounded and Connected,

Rabbi SaraLeya

Drash: Kedoshim

2008-05-03T13:46:00.000-07:00

By Brian Schachter-Brooks

In Bereishit, which contains the creation myth of the Torah, there is a strange line about the function of the first human beings who are created and placed in the Garden of Eden. The text says that God put them there l’avdah ul’shamra- “to work it and to guard it (2:15).” It is strange because the rest of the text does not paint a picture of gan eden as a place that needs to be worked. On the contrary, Adam and Havah seem to just walk around and eat the fruit which grows on the trees; there doesn’t seem to be any need for “gardening” the garden. Furthermore, the need to work the earth seems to arise as a curse for eating the forbidden fruit- “…b’zayat apeykha tokhal lekhem- by the sweat of your brow you will eat bread (3:19).” Living in the gan seems to mean harmony with nature, eating that which grows naturally. Living outside the gan means civilization; it means working the earth to grow grain and eat bread rather than fruit.

So what does it mean, then, that Adam and Havah worked and guarded the garden? In nature, there is nothing that exist only for itself. Although every life form is driven to preserve and perpetuate itself, the life process of each life form is integral to the life processes of many other life forms, tied together in a delicate web of give and take. We humans tend to impose our shortsighted morality onto nature, seeing nature as a brutal and amoral place. But this is due to our own lack of vision of the Whole. For example, we tend to cringe at the violence of a predator killing its prey, unaware that the suffering of being eaten is far more merciful then the slow starvation which would happen if the prey were to become overpopulated.

So in this sense, the situation of living in harmony with nature is the way one “works the garden.” Adam and Havah weren’t farmers; simply by living, by eating and breathing and excreting and reproducing, they were playing a role in the life of the whole planet.

This myth is probably a deep memory of prehistoric humanity- life before humans entered the stream of recorded time. When Adam and Havah are expelled from the garden, the hallmark quality is a sense of separation in three forms. First, they become separate from each other, as they realize they are naked and cloth themselves. Second, they become separate from God, as it says that they hid themselves from God out of shame. Third, they become separate from nature, as it says that the ground is cursed, and “…b’zayat apeykha tokhal lekhem- by the sweat of your brow you will eat bread (3:19).”

And what is the thing that creates this condition of separation? The eating from the eitz hada’at tov v’ra- the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad. What does it mean to eat? It means that the thing you eat becomes part of you; it becomes who you are. The Tree of knowledge represents division; it represents seeing the world as split into that which “I” want and that which “I” don’t want. It represents division. So when they eat from the forbidden fruit, they are making division part of themselves; they are becoming divided.

This is not to say that prior to eating the fruit they didn’t have preference or desire. On the contrary, it says that “vateireh ha’isha ki tov ha’eitz l’ma’akhal- and the woman saw that the tree was good to eat.” Havah wanted to eat from the tree, so desire must have existed before she ate. Of course, all animals have desire and preference. The difference is that after eating, preference becomes identity. And this is the beginning of history with its heroes and villains- no longer is the universe a unified garden, but humanity is pitted against a universe that must be controlled in order to bend to human preference. But since reality is fundamentally uncontrollable, we are forced to experience the meaninglessness of our efforts. We try to immortalize ourselves in various ways, just like the pharaohs of Egypt sought immortality through embalming their bodies in pyramids, but ultimately everything dies and decays. The answer is not winning the fight with nature, but consciously returning to the state of unity prior to becoming separate.

How is this to be accomplished? It cannot be accomplished; it cannot happen by doing something, but by learning how not to do something. That is, learning how not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. How do we eat from the Tree of Knowledge? By contracting around our own preference, by insisting on something from reality, by demanding something from God.

But to surrender our preference means first we have to be willing to see how we cling to our desire. We have to be willing to let our desire be there without clinging to it, and this implies separating ourselves from it. And this is the paradox- that by separating ourselves from the Tree of Knowledge, we actually fall back into Unity. By separating ourselves from our tendency to create separation, we recover the original Oneness of Eden.

The word for this kind of separation that actually reveals unity is kadosh. Kadosh means holy or sacred, in the sense of being special, set apart, or set aside. In our tradition we have so many examples of things that are holy- holy times such as Shabbat, holy books such as the Torah, holy words of prayer and so on. All of these things are set apart from ordinary life in order to point to the Unity, to point to God. but the ultimate kadosh is not in setting aside special times or rituals, but in setting aside yourself. That is, setting aside your false identity which divides the world according to your preferences.

Then you can realize the truth of the opening words of this parashah: “kedoshim tihyu ki kadosh ani HaShem Elokeihem- you shall be holy, for I am holy, HaShem your God.” Meaning, when you become holy by setting yourself aside, you realize that you are not separate from HaShem; the same Oneness that expresses Itself in all of nature is expressing Itself in you also- there is no separation. At that point, our actions lose that suffering quality of “…b’zayat apeykha tokhal lekhem- by the sweat of your brow you will eat bread,” and instead express the quality of simplicity, of “tending the garden.” Through the wholeness of all our relationships, we naturally play our role within creation, surrendered to the Order that effortlessly includes us within it.

Kedoshim, the Holy Ones

2008-05-02T15:30:00.000-07:00

By Zelig Golden and Kerrick Lucker

The parsha this week is Kedoshim, meaning “holy ones.” Kedoshim is how some people refer to the Jews killed in the Holocaust—appropriate for today, Holocaust Remembrance Day or Yom ha Shoah v'ha Gevurah. In Kedoshim, God tells Moses: “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”(Lev. 9:2). This parsha then prescribes many of the mitzvot, or rules of conduct, that should lead to this holiness. For example, here we are told to honor our father and mother, observe Shabbat, and leave some crops in the field for the poor. This parsha, however, also offers rules that may no longer resonate with us—in particular the prohibition of intercourse between men as punishable by death (Lev. 20:13).

How can we follow the mitzvot when some resonate with us and others seem cruel or nonsensical? The famous story of Rabbi Hillel the Elder is instructive. When a student challenged Hillel to teach him all of the Torah while standing on one foot, Hillel taught, “That which is hateful to you do not do to your fellow. The rest is commentary—go and learn it.” Hillel’s legacy is a powerful one—and allows us to understand the Torah based on our time. We understand the intent of the mitzvot is to keep us from doing to another what is hateful to us; if a mitzvah seems to require us to do to another what is hateful, we must interpret it according to our heart’s truth.

We may also ask how, in face of genocide such as we remember today at Yom HaShoah, as we have seen in Rwanda, and as we see right now in Darfur, we can have faith in humanity and God. After so long, how is it that humans have not learned Hillel's fundamental truth? That we remember Yom HaShoah today of all days may help us. Passover has just ended; we stand in our liberation. Spring is bursting forth from the earth with green new life. We are also on the 12th day of the counting of the Omer—hod b’gevurah, which can be translated as “receiving the brokenness.” Thus we are taught that even as we recognize our rebirth, we also recognize our brokenness, and from this brokenness we move toward wholeness – the end is a beginning and the beginning is an end.

As we solemnly remember the fires of the Holocaust today, we also must recognize that we are singing, dancing, praying and following our Jewish practices in freedom and without fear. The message, then, is one of hope. Yes, we have experienced much tragedy that we must never forget and there is tragedy in the world today that we must not turn our back on. And we can have faith that from this brokenness will grow wholeness. As Holy Ones, our job is simple: to remember, to have hope and to love. While it is not our job to finish the work to bring wholeness to the world, we are instructed as Jews not to refrain from it.

Drash: Tetzaveh

2008-02-18T16:51:00.000-08:00

By Brian Schachter-Brooks

One of the great failures of the religious traditions is that in attempting to forge a vision of unity, they tend to reduce the richness of our multi-faceted experience into only one type of experience. An example of this can be seen in the different approaches to the duality of “personal” vs. “impersonal.”

Some teachings claim that everything that happens is totally personal. In this way of thinking, it is not merely our human relationships that are personal, but the meetings we have with nature, the seemingly random events that happen to us daily, and even the positions of the stars are totally personal. To embrace this kind of approach is to see meaning everywhere and to have a personal relationship with all of existence.

Other teachings claim that reality is essentially impersonal. In this approach, one is encouraged to see even human relationships as impersonal. The same impersonal laws of nature which govern the cosmos are also unfolding in how we interact with one another. We are encouraged to “take nothing personally” and to not project our own sense of meaning on the world. To embrace this kind of approach is to not be caught in the web of judgment and accept things as they are, without personal attachment.

Both of these views are born of an attempt to reconcile the confusion of our dualistic, complex experience. But the fact is, we experience reality as both impersonal and personal, and this is unsettling. We long for clarity, for a universe that makes sense, for a view that will give us a unified way of approaching life. And so we gravitate toward beliefs that are reductionist, that elevate part of our experience as real and label the other part as unreal.

But these reductionist approaches, whether they be the personal, faith-based leaning of Western religions or the impersonal, non-attachment leaning of Eastern religions, ultimately do not work- not just because they are not true, but because they fail to reach the heart of the problem. The heart of the problem is not the complexity of our experience, but the complexity of the “I” that is experiencing it. If we want to find real unity, we won’t find it by pretending that reality is simple when it’s not. Rather, we need to discover the aspect of ourselves that is unity; we need to find the root of our experience which is the deep source of thought, the totally simple and radiant root of our own being, which is also called Hokhmat HaLev- Wisdom of the Heart.

This parashah begins with the mitzvah of pressing olives for olive oil that is to be used to light the ner tamid- the constantly burning lamp in the portable sanctuary called the mishkan, and later in the Jerusalem temple. “V’atah t’tzaveh et b’nai Yisra’el- and you (Moses) shall command the children of Israel- v’yik’hu eilekha shemen zayit- they shall take for you olive oil- zakh, katit lama’or- pure, pressed for illumination- l’ha’alot ner tamid- to kindle a lamp continuously.”

When you press olives for oil, you are taking something that is complex- the olive fruit, with its skin, flesh and pit, and you are extracting from it something that is simple- the continuous, flowing substance of the oil. Then, when you burn the oil, it becomes the fuel for producing heat and light. This process is a precise metaphor for the inner work. First you must take that which is complex- your own infinitely branching tendrils of thought, and “press” it into its essence, which is a pure simplicity. How is this done? “L’ha’alot ner tamid- to kindle a lamp continuously.” The “kindling” of the “lamp” is a metaphor for awareness; just as you need light in the physical world to see, so you need awareness in your inner world to perceive. So to the degree that you can keep your inner lamp continuously burning, your ever branching streams of thought return to their root, which is awareness itself.

In this way, rather than pacifying the anxiety of living in a reality that is one moment intimately personal and the next moment vastly impersonal, we open to the all embracing unity which is our own attention. Because in the field of our attention, all opposites can coexist without tension; our awareness receives everything as it is, with all its contradiction.

There is a mystical idea in the Kabbalah and in Hassidism that God is the true reality, and that the phenomenal world we see around us is like a covering, hiding the reality of God. But the truth is actually the exact opposite. When we look around, we often don’t connect with the world, because there is the barrier of our own minds in the way. We feel disconnected, and we long for unity, so we invent the mental idea of “God” which is the true reality, as a Being separate from the world. But what we really need to do is find the world hidden in the word “God.” Because “God” is ultimately not something different from Reality Itself; if we want to find God, we need only to pay attention to reality around us in this moment.

This is also the message implied in the holiday of Purim which is coming in this month of Adar. On Purim we read the Megillat Ester- the Scroll of Esther- in which God is not even mentioned once. The idea is that God is the story itself; the synchronistic events in this redemptive story are the unfolding of God as reality; God and the world are not two separate things. Similarly, this parashat T’tzaveh is the only parashah in the book of Sh’mot in which Moses’ name is not mentioned, implying that the Torah, the Teaching, is not limited by the man Moses, but is the unfolding the story itself. And the “story” is happening Now; it is reality unfolding in this moment. From this we can begin to understand the Talmudic saying that “God, Israel and the Torah are One.”

There is another saying- “Misheh nikhnas Adar marbim simkha- when Adar enters, joy increases.” What greater joy could there be than realizing that the God we seek has been here all along and it could never be otherwise! As we approach the celebration of Purim with its concealing costumes and masks, may we remove the mask of our own judgmental minds, so that we may behold the Divine which is nothing but Reality Itself.

Parsha: Tetsavveh & Ti Kissa: Hearing God’s Word

2008-02-15T16:38:00.000-08:00

By Zelig Golden

In this week’s parsha, Tetsavveh, Moses stands alone on the Holy Mount Sinai – for forty days and forty nights – downloading from God the rituals that will become the roots of Jewish priestly practice. Moses’ solo journey on Mount Sinai continues into next week’s parasha, Ki Tissa, where Moses receives the Pact between God and the people carved into two tablets “by the finger of God.” (Exodus 31:18). Of course, we never know the contents of the first Pact, because Moses smashes them upon his return to the people, where he is enraged by the sight of the Golden Calf and the lack of faith it represents. (32:19).

Moses later returns to the Holy Mountain to once again receive the pact with God. But this time, God tells Moses to carve them himself (34:1). Ultimately, then, the commandments from God come to us through the conduit of Moses. From this story, I burn to know what it means to hear God’s instruction. How do we know what is truly God’s word?

In a rare Torah moment, we get some insight when Moses turns to God and asks God to show itself, to prove its existence to Moses. (33:12-13). God agrees, with the caveat that Moses cannot see God’s face, “for people may not see Me and live.” (Ex. 33:20). So, God places Moses in a cleft of rock, where he shields his face until God has passed so that Moses can get a glimpse of God passing. (33: 22-23).

In this passage, I am encouraged to embrace the mystery of life. To see God’s face, to see the complete truth of the universe, would mean the end of the mystery that drives our lives. As the people Israel – “God Wrestlers” – we are here to struggle, to yearn, and to live in awe of the vast beauty of God’s creation.

Even Moses, our greatest prophet, could not see the whole. The Jerusalem Talmud teaches that when Moses asked God to teach him the truth of Jewish law, God responded, “That is impossible, because the Torah requires us to interpret her many faces … for there are forty-nine way of interpreting the Torah.” (Sanhedrin 4:2).

To live is to embrace the mystery of life, and accept that there is no one truth. As individual sparks of the divine, our journey in finding God is to learn to hear the word of God with our own ears and our own hearts, and to interpret the faces of Torah from the place of our own faith; and ultimately, to share our insights with our unique voice. Then, in conversation with each other, we may come to more fully understand the whole of creation.

Parsha: Mishpatim

2008-02-07T13:57:00.000-08:00

By Kerrick Lucker

This is a shortened version of an essay I wrote for Jewish Mosaic's Torah Queeries. I included the shortened version in the Shabbat supplement on Friday, February 1, and reprint it here by request.

Revolution is the Easy Part

It's one thing to break down barriers of oppression. It’s quite another to build a community of shared liberation. This is what Moses and the People of Israel learn in this week's Torah portion, parashat Mishpatim.

A shared sense of community sometimes arises naturally out of shared oppression, but when liberation happens—and we start to experience the brisk wind of real freedom—that sense of community often quickly dissolves. Freedom is hard work. Self-governance is hardest of all.

Once you’re out in the desert and having to find your own food and make your own laws and mediate your own conflicts, there can be a strange yearning for the old days in mitzrayim, the narrow place.

At Chochmat HaLev, we engage with Jewish practice in many ways. There is room for different interpretations of Jewish law and tradition by those among us. Some of us observe Jewish laws very closely; still others don’t consider themselves Jewish at all. The standards to which we hold ourselves in our covenant with G-d are very different. So how much more important it is to create and keep common agreements about how we treat each other!

What does it mean to you to treat others justly? Much of Mishpatim deals with how one treats one’s neighbors. What does Mishpatim say about how we compensate each other for the hurts we cause? How do we, as members of one community, hurt each other? To whom do we owe recompense, and how much?

Considering these things—frustrating, but rewarding; political and complicated, but heartfelt if we do it right—is part of what it means to build a community. When we turn our attention from battering at the things that hold us back, we look forward, in trepidation and awe, at the task of moving into freedom. An essential part of that task is making community. Otherwise, there is no “we” to be free.

Drash: Parasha Mishpatim with Karen Erlichman

2008-02-01T10:50:00.000-08:00

By Karen Erlichman, Director of the San Francisco Office of Jewish Mosaic

Good Shabbas.

This week’s Torah portion is Parasha Mishpatim, which translates as “rules” or laws, and delineates some of the most central sacred teachings and commandments of Jewish life and practice.

This list of rules and laws was mind-boggling to me as I read it. The text starts out with guidelines for how Jews will treat their Hebrew slaves, and then goes on like this:

• You must not carry false rumors;
• You shall not join hands with the guilty to act as a malicious witness;
• You shall not oppress the stranger;
• Let the needy among your people eat;
• On the 7th day you shall cease from labor, in order that your farm animals may rest and that even the stranger and the bondsman will rest/replenish their souls.
• Observe the pilgrimage festivals 3 times a year;
• Do not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.

There is so much in this parasha that it was overwhelming to sift through. Just to absorb the fact that Jews kept slaves, let alone enslaved other Jews was difficult enough. As I read on, I thought the psychology of slavery and the impact of slavery on us as a people. What has become our slave mentality as Jews? How do we experience ourselves as oppressors and oppressed? And what does that teach us about how to treat the ger, the different one among us?

The word ger, or gerim in the plural, is usually translated as "stranger," although Everett Fox translates it as “sojourner,” and my Hebrew-English Dictionary defines ger as a “proselyte,” a disciple or convert.

The commandment that instructs us not to oppress the stranger is repeated twice in this parasha, and appears 36 times in the Torah, more often than any other.

The text first says:

V’ger lo toneh v’lo til’chatz’nu, ki gerim ha’yitem b’eretz mitzrayim.
You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. (22:20)

Then about 20 lines later, it is re-emphasized with an important added reminder:

V’ger lo tilchatz ve'atem yedatem et-nefesh ha’ger ki-gerim he’yi’tem be'eretz Mitzrayim.
Do not oppress a stranger, because you know the soul, the nefesh, of the stranger, because you were strangers yourselves in the land of Egypt. (23:9)

In our contemporary Jewish community, the word ger is most often used to describe the non-Jew who has entered into our community in some way, perhaps through marriage or partnership. However, I would like to suggest that we engage with this particular text by defining the ger as "the different one."

Perhaps the ger is the non-Jewish partner among us, or the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer person in our community, or the Jew-by-choice, or the Jew of color, or the non-Zionist Jew, or the Jew who grew up secular and is now exploring Jewish spiritual practices.

Take a moment, and if you’re comfortable, please close your eyes, and recall a time in which you were the Other in your own community and someone reached out to you. Picture a moment in time when you were the only one in some way, and someone genuinely saw you or reached out to you. Take a deep breath and connect to that feeling.

Where were you? How did you feel? What happened when you connected with that other person? How did you experience the presence of God in that moment of connecting soul to soul with the other person? Take another deep breath and open your eyes.

In her book Torah Journeys, Rabbi Shefa Gold says,
“When I encounter the stranger, I am commanded to know her soul, to step inside her skin, to see that his pain, his joy, is not different than my own.” (p. 82)

Remembering our own enslavement in Mitzrayim as we encounter the Other is a spiritual practice, and a practice of tikkun olam. For those of us who are also lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex or genderqueer, we are simultaneously members of the tribe and gerim/the Other.

Personally I find tremendous comfort in the line of this parasha that says,

Hiney Anochi sholeyach mal’ach lifanecha lish’mar’cha ba’derech, v’la’ha’vi’acha el-hamakom asher ha’khino’ti.
I (God) am sending an angel before you (ahead of you) to guard you on your path, and to bring you to the place I have prepared for you.

Who are the angels that have been sent before you to guard you on your path? And what is the place that God has prepared for you?

May we be blessed in every moment to truly welcome every single person into our community, to know with compassion the soul of the stranger, and to remember our own experience of being enslaved in the land of Mitzrayim. May we remember to reach out to the Other, to become angels of compassion, and to see the face of God in every person.

Shabbat Shalom.

Eco Tu b'Shevat Seder Post

2008-01-24T09:54:00.000-08:00

Over at The Jew and the Carrot, Zelig wrote about the amazing and uplifting First Annual Eco Tu b'Shevat seder:

While the Seder followed the traditional trajectory of the four-worlds laid out by the 16th Century Kabbalists, this Seder had a distinctly unique flavor. Everyone brought their own plate and cup. Any disposable dishes were compostable. The Haggadah was printed on Hemp. We meditated on the first fruits. And for each world, we addressed how our environmental choices, particularly our choices around food, square with our tradition to “love your neighbor as you love yourself,” and how we relate to the “Good Land” that was our heritage (Deuteronomy 8:7-10).

Kol ha'Kavod all those who made this great event happen! I'm looking forward to next year's.

Parsha: Be-Shallah - the Faith of Moses

2008-01-18T16:33:00.000-08:00

By Zelig Golden

In this week’s parsha Be-Shallah, we celebrate Shabbat Shira – the Sabbath of Song – named for the song Moses sang to the children of Israel at the red sea. Moses sings his song of victory and faith in God after their passage through the parted waters of the Red Sea, the seminal birth moment of the Jewish people. (Exodus 15:1-18).

In parsha Be-Shallah (Ex 13:17-17:16), we witness what may be the greatest miracle in our story. God leads the people Israel out of Egypt as a pillar of cloud by day to guide us and a pillar of fire by night so we can see. God parts the waters of the Red Sea so that we may cross out of the land of our slavery and be born into the land of our freedom. Along the way, we witness miracles within miracles. For example, when the sea parted, God turned the sea into dry ground. (Ex. 14:21). One fantastical midrash teaches that upon this dry ground between the vertical sea walls, apple and pomegranate trees bloomed for the hungry children to pick as they walked to freedom. (Exodus Rabbah 21:10).

Yet, as the miracles of our Exodus unfolded, the children of Israel cried and complained. When Pharoah waged his last attack on Israel, camped by the red sea, we blamed Moses– “it is better to serve the Egyptians than to die in the Wilderness.” (Ex. 14:12). After the miracle of the red sea crossing, the people kvetched, “If only we had died in Egypt … for you have brought us out into this wilderness to starve to death.” (Ex. 16:3). And later encamped at Rephidim, we kvetched from fear of thirst, “Why did you bring us up from Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock from thirst.” (Ex. 17:3).

In The Book of Miracles, Lawrence Kushner describes two children, Ruven and Shimon, who can only see the mud on their feet as they cross through the great walls of the parted sea. “Their eyes were closed – they may as well have been asleep.” (quoting Exodus Rabbah 24:1). Kushner teaches, “People see only what they understand, not necessarily what lies in front of them . . . to be a Jew is to wake up and to keep your eyes open to the many beautiful, mysterious, and holy things that happen all round us every day.”

So how do we wake up to see the miracles around us? One answer to this is finding faith – faith in God and faith in our ourselves. In the Exodus story, Moses demonstrates this faith. He shows us too that faith is not something we inherently have, but something we cultivate. Early in the Exodus story, Moses rejects the notion that he is capable of leading us – “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and free the Israelites from Egypt?” (Ex. 3:11). “What if they do not believe me and do not listen to me…” (Ex. 4:1). Moses even doubts his ability to speak because he is “slow of speech and slow of tongue.” (Ex. 4:10.). By following God’s instructions, becoming a conduit for God’s miracles, and stepping into communal leadership, however, Moses gains faith in himself and God. His transformation is complete when, under attack by Pharoah and pinned by the sea, Moses proclaims without God’s instruction, “Have no fear! Stand by, and witness the deliverance which God will work for you today.” (Ex. 14:13). He then lifts his arms to part the sea and lead his people to freedom.

Moses shows us a universal truth. We doubt ourselves; we doubt God. But even with our doubts, we can learn to sing our own song and we can find faith – and when we do, our eyes are open and there is nothing we cannot accomplish.

Va-Era – The Plagues of Exodus – A Call To Transformation

2008-01-04T14:21:00.000-08:00

By Zelig Golden

In this week’s parsha Va-Era, Moses becomes the emissary of G-d in fomenting the Exodus from Egypt with the first seven natural disasters – blood, frogs, lice, insects, cattle disease, boils, and hail – that Egypt suffers because Pharaoh refuses to free the Jewish slaves. (Exodus 6-9). As each disaster takes its toll on Pharaoh’s people, he decides to free the Jews, but then G-d hardens his heart and Pharaoh changes his mind, eliciting yet more punishment on the people.

If G-d is so powerful and so clearly desires the freedom of Israel’s tribes, why does G-d make Pharaoh so stubborn? On one level, G-d may simply want to demonstrate her power to the faithless Jews so that they will heed the words later transmitted at Sinai. G-d may also be teaching the Egyptian task-masters a lesson for subjugating Israel’s people to slavery. On another level, the drama of the ten plagues speaks to a deeper truth about what it takes for us to grow, transform, and navigate through Mitzrayim (Hebrew for Egypt, also meaning the narrow places in our lives).

It seems to be a universal truth that people often must experience tragedy to catalyze change. Individually, personal growth often follows hard times – depression, loss of a relationship, feeling lost in life – some call this the dark night of the soul. We sometimes have to hit rock bottom before we begin our Tshuvah, or return to ourselves, through therapy, spiritual inquiry and awakening to our true nature. Societally, change may come at an even greater cost – consider global warming. As the polar ice cap is melting, and even though our communities and nations know that severe ecological disasters will result from our greenhouse gas emissions, we continue to drive our cars and burn coal for power because the effects have not yet hit us at home.

Like Pharaoh, we don’t change until we really hit rock bottom. It takes the physical death of Pharaoh’s own son – from the tenth plague, death of the first born – from him to finally release the enslaved. (Exodus 12: 29-32). In a similar manner, our mystical tradition teaches that to evolve as individuals, we may need to undergo spiritual deaths of ego and internal restrictions so that we may emerge from the narrow places of our own lives to more fully connect with ourselves and G-d. As the Ba’al Shem Tov prayed, “I desire to kill (or afflict) myself in order to serve G-d in truth and with a whole heart, in love and awe, that I acknowledge His Unity fully.” (Tzava’at Harivash, 43a).

The show of force that are G-d’s ten plagues teaches us of our own resistance to change, and what that resistance may bring. The violence of the Exodus story shows us one path – the heart and prayer of the Ba’al Shem Tov shows us another. Ultimately, the Exodus story calls on us to be proactive at this critical juncture in human history.

Parsha: Va-Yechi –From Darkness to Light, Reconnecting To our Food Source

2007-12-21T14:18:00.000-08:00

By Zelig Golden

In Va-Yechi, our creation story culminates with Jacob on his deathbed blessing his sons. (Gen. 49.) He highlights characteristics that are unique to each of his twelve sons, the fathers of our twelve tribes. According to Rashi, five of these blessings focus on the agricultural specificity of each tribe's territory in the Land of Israel. For instance, Talmud Megillah tells us that Zevulun’s territory was agriculturally poor but a lucrative resource for farming the snails from which blue techelet dye is made to dye tallis threads, while Issachar, whose tribe's destiny was immersion in Torah learning, was bestowed a place where fruits grew in abundance, making food production easy and leaving time for devotion to study.

As Rabbi Julian Sinclair teaches, Rashi shows us that each region of Israel has its own native crops, that each tribe, connected to different regions of the Land, is also connected to different crops – Judah grows grapes, Asher grows olives for oil, Issachar harvests fruit. Biblical Jews knew their food with a direct relationship to the place and the people who brought it forth from the earth.

Today, in modern Israel and the U.S., we have all but lost such intimate connection to the land, the source of our food. For over 100 years, the “Green Revolution” has brought us industrial agriculture and the global commodification of food. Yes, we eat mangoes in Berkeley, and we have abundance in January, but we have also lost a primal connection to our source.

It is striking that the Torah raises the land-food connection during this final story of Genesis. Due to famine, we have become dislocated from our land, beginning nearly two centuries of life in Egypt, most of which will be spent enslaved. The end of Genesis thus marks a distinct movement toward the darkness.

In the first moments of the Torah, however, we are taught that from the darkness comes forth the light. (Gen 1:2-3.) Thus, our exile to Egypt is the planting of the seeds of our return to ourselves, and to our land. Likewise, our current disconnection from land is merely the ground upon which we are planting the seeds of renewed connection. This summer, for example, Chochmat Ha Lev piloted the first west coast Tuv Ha'Aretz (“best of the land”) program, connecting our community to Eat Well Farm to bring us fresh produce every week. And next December, Hazon (www.hazon.org), the organization that brings you Tuv Ha’Aretz, will bring the annual Jewish Food Conference, the heart of the Jewish Food Movement, right here to the Bay Area (Dec. 25-28, mark your calendars!).

As we pass through the winter solstice, literally the darkest time of the year, the Torah teaches us that even as connection to land is lost, we must remember and begin our return. Just as we begin our return to longer sunnier days, let Jacob’s blessing be a reminder to begin the return to our connection with land and food.

Some ideas and references in this commentary adapted from Rabbi Julian Sinclair, “Eating Holy Food in a Holy Way,” Eitz Chayim Hee (evonne@canfeinesharim.org )

Drash: Vay’khi Ya’akov b’eretz Mitzrayim sheva esrei shana- “Jacob lived in the land of Egypt for seventeen years…”

2007-12-21T14:05:00.000-08:00

By Brian Schachter-Brooks

Vay’khi Ya’akov b’eretz Mitzrayim sheva esrei shana- “Jacob lived in the land of Egypt for seventeen years…”

In this last parashah of Bereishit, we come to the end of Jacob’s life during the time which is the beginning of the Israelite sojourn in Egypt. Jacob calls to his son Joseph and asks Joseph to swear that he will not bury him in Egypt, but instead will transport him back to the cave of Makhpelah, where Abraham and Isaac are buried. On the surface, the request seems straightforward; Jacob wants to be buried with his ancestors. But the symbolism of this narrative reveals a deep commentary on the spiritual function of suffering.

To uncover this symbolism we must look at the context in which the narrative takes place- the Israelite descent into slavery and the eventual Exodus from Egypt. There is a kind of irony to the story, because on one hand, our liturgy seems to celebrate God’s power of liberation. We sing, “Mi khamokha b’eilim Adonai?- Who is like You among the gods, Hashem?”, celebrating that God was able to overthrow Pharaoh and his army. But the Torah makes it clear that it was God who put us into slavery in the first place. In Bereishit 15:13, God says, “…yado’a teda ki ger yiyeh zarakha- know for sure that your descendants will be strangers- b’eretz lo lahem- in a land that is not theirs- v’avadum v’ino otam- and they will be enslaved and oppressed.”

This is expressed most poignantly during the ten plagues narrative. After each plague, Pharaoh is about to relent, but then his heart hardens, and he brings yet another plague upon himself. Before the narrative of the plagues even begins, Hashem tells Moses, “va’ani akshe et lev paro… I shall harden Pharaoh’s heart…” It sounds almost like a sadistic version of the Divine- Hashem punishes Pharaoh for not letting the Israelites go free, but at the same time prevents Pharaoh from doing so.

How can we understand this? Why are we praising God for freeing us, when it was God’s fault that we were enslaved in the first place?

According to tradition, the purpose of the slavery was that the Israelites had to “bake” in the oven of slavery in order to become spiritually ready for peoplehood. They also had to emerge from the oven of slavery at exactly the right time. This is also one of the explanations given for the fact that the matza is eaten in haste on Passover- the Exodus had to happen quickly at the precise moment. If it were to be too early, they wouldn’t be “done” yet; they wouldn’t be forged into a people through their suffering. But if they waited too long, they would have solidified into the identity of being slaves to Egypt, and they would have lost the ability to meet their destiny.

So the real power that is being celebrated is not dualistic; it is not the triumph of God’s power over Pharaoh. Rather, it is the power which uses the totality of the story- both the “good” and the “bad”, toward the goal.

And what is the goal? The answer is in the Torah itself, in the mitzvot that Hashem gives the Isaelites: “…v’ger lo toneh v’lo tilkhatzeinu- don’t wrong the stranger and don’t oppress him- ki gerim heyitem b’eretz mitzrayim- for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Ex 22:20). Again, in the next chapter, we read: “…v’ger lo tilkhatz- do not oppress a stranger- ki atem y’datem et nefesh hager- for you know the soul of the stranger- ki gerim heyitem b’eretz mitzrayim- for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (23:9).

The Torah is trying to point to a genuine way; it is showing how suffering can be used to create connection rather than alienation. The root of suffering is alienation, which is why the archetypal example of suffering is slavery in Egypt. Our ancestors experienced this suffering, and then produced this Torah which functioned to elevate that which was degrading into something which was ennobling. In this way, suffering is not random misfortune or Divine wrath, but it is a kind of sacrifice; it is that which allows us to truly understand the one who appears to us as the ger, the other.

But it is not enough to merely refrain from oppressing others. In the last book of the Torah, D’varim, we read: “…v’samakhta lifnei Hashem Elokekha- and you shall rejoice before the Divine!- atah uvinkha uvitekha- you and your sons and your daughters… v’hager v’hayatom v’ha’alamanah asher b’kirbekha… and the stranger and the widow and the fatherless who are among you… v’zakharta ki eved hayita b’mitzrayim… and remember that you were a slave in Egypt…” The Torah paints a picture of rejoicing with the stranger. It is saying that one should not merely refrain from the negative, but actively create the positive- “You shall rejoice!” because in true rejoicing, there is no longer any stranger.

But how does this happen? In order for someone to be a stranger, it means that you have some concept of what it means to be “one of us”, and that the stranger doesn’t fit into that idea. Furthermore, the idea which differentiates between “us” and “them” is based on the past. So the only way to transform estrangement into genuine connection is to free oneself from the past, and this is the underlying meaning of Jacob’s request to have his remains brought out of Egypt. The corpse symbolizes that which is old and dead- the past. To bring the corpse out of Egypt, then, means to free one’s past from the suffering, represented by Mitzrayim which means “narrow”, and into the “Promised Land”- meaning into new possibility.

Notice that it doesn’t say to forget the past. Some teachings confuse freedom from the past with forgetting the past. This is because ordinarily our memory of the past creates a negative, pessimistic belief which perpetuates the same dysfunction from the past into the future. But there is a powerful lesson here: If you try to free yourself from the past by forgetting the past, you may only be burying the past in your unconscious, where it will continue to live by coloring your reaction to the present. Forgetting the past does not lead to freedom, but simply to an unconscious rather than conscious repetition; rather than being free from the past, you are a slave to it without even knowing it! But to “bring the bones out” means that the past is actively remembered and used to create a new reality; the memory of being a stranger motivates us to rejoice with strangers, thus creating a new reality where the cycle of unhappiness and oppression is totally transformed.

The key to being able to use the past to envision a completely different kind of future is separation from the momentum of the past. There must be temporal space, or extended moments in time, within which you can feel freedom from the momentum of your life enough to realize that it does not rule you. You need to taste the sweetness of freedom so that a genuine positivity can grow within you, and that is the offering of Shabbos. May our Shabbat rest give us the taste of freedom in the present so that we can nourish the seeds of positivity within us to create a truly messianic future!

Parsha: Mikeitz – Joseph’s Path – Bring Light from the Darkness

2007-12-07T14:03:00.000-08:00

By Zelig Golden

In Mikeitz, our Torah parsha for the week, Pharaoh of Egypt has a dream: seven healthy, robust cows ascend from the Nile, followed by seven emaciated cows that devour the seven healthy cows but remain emaciated; seven full, healthy ears of grain grow from one stock, and then seven dry, thin ears of grain follow, swallowing up the seven good ears of grain. (Genesis 41:2-7.) Nobody in Pharaoh’s Egypt can interpret the dream. Only Joseph the dreamer can interpret it to foretell a blessing of seven years of abundance in the land, followed by a curse of seven years of famine. (Genesis 41: 25-28.)

And what a blessing for Joseph that he is able to interpret this dream for Pharaoh! By doing so he is freed from prison, comes to power over all the land of Egypt (Genesis 41:40-43), reconnects with his wayward brothers that sold him into slavery, and saves his entire family from the famine in Canaan by relocating his father Jacob and his entire lineage to the choicest land of Goshen in Egypt. (Genesis 47: 11, 27.)

But isn’t Joseph’s ability to interpret dreams his greatest curse? Joseph first dreamt of his brothers’ sheaves bowing to his (Genesis 37:5-7), and that his entire family, represented by sun, moon, and stars, bowed to him (Genesis 37:9-10), which led to his brothers coming to hate him and sell him into slavery to the Ishmaelites (Genesis 37:28). This eventually leads to Joseph’s imprisonment in Pharaoh’s prison (Geneis 39: 20), then to Joseph’s rise to power in Egypt that brings the Jews to Egypt in the first place, eventually landing our entire nation in the hands of slavery.

So how are we to understand Joseph’s power of dream interpretation? Is it a blessing or a curse? It is both, and it is neither. Like us all, Joseph must be who he is, share his gift of dream interpretation with the world, and follow his path through the darkest of times and through the brightest of times. Joseph’s power lands his father’s entire lineage in slavery, yet it is only by going into the Mitzraim (“narrow place”) that is Egypt, that the Jewish people can later be reborn through their Exodus from Egypt to receive revelation at Mt. Sinai of Torah and our spiritual path.

This is also the message of Hanukkah. From the darkness comes the greatest light. From the greatest curse comes the greatest blessing. All we can do is walk our path, through the seasons of our lives, accepting each trial and victory in our lives. Whether it feels like a blessing or a curse, like Joseph, we must simply walk our path of Hashem.

Parsha Va-Yetseh – Jacob’s Ladder, Jacob’s Roots

2007-11-16T14:17:00.000-08:00

By Zelig Golden

Genesis 28:10-16

Jacob left Beer-sheba, and set out for Haran. He came upon a certain place and stopped there for the night, for the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of that place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. He had a dream; a stairway was set on the ground and its top reached to the sky, and angels of G-d were going up and down on it. And G-d was standing besides him and He said, “I am the Lord, G-d of your father Abraham and the G-d of Isaac: the ground on which you are lying I will assign to you and to your offspring. Your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you and your descendants. Remember, I am with you: I will protect you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is present in this place, and I did not know it!”

In Parsha Va-Yetse, Jacob is sent out of Canaan by his father Isaac to find a wife back in his mother Rebecca’s home of Haran (and to flee the wrath of his brother Esau from whom he stole the birthright and Isaac’s blessing). Like Isaac’s prayer and planting in the fields that opened him to the love he found with Rebecca, Jacob must also stop in the desert alone before he may encounter true love in Rachel.

After the sun set, Jacob lies his head down on a stone to sleep and he brings in his first vision: a ladder connecting earth to heaven, angels traveling up and down the ladder. The Midrash tells us that in the dream, G-d invites Jacob into heaven, asking “Why don’t you go up the ladder?” The Midrash explains that Jacob feared that if he ascended, he would also have to descend. However, G-d promises Jacob that if he climbs the ladder to heaven, he will not have to descend, yet he still refuses to climb. Why?

Jacob’s awakening may explain. When Jacob returns from his dream, he proclaims “Surely G-d is in this place, and I did not know it!” “How awesome is this place! This is none other that the home of G-d, and that is the gateway to heaven.” Maybe Jacob’s decision to stay on earth was not from fear, but a realization from his dream that the holiness of G-d in heaven is found equally on earth - in the cold stone beneath his head, the dry sand that made his bed, and the warm sun that greeted him to awaken. Indeed, the work Makom, or “place,” is one of the many names for G-d. And our sages teach us that four-letter name of G-d represents the unification of the transcendent, unknowable aspects of the world (yud he) and the tangible, grounded, knowable aspects of world (vav he). Jacob’s dream teaches him that while he could have left this realm by ascending to heaven, he knew that the holiness of G-d equally resides right here on earth.

Jacob, who remains on earth to become the father of the twelve tribes of the Jewish clan, becomes one our greatest teachers. He demonstrates the importance of acknowledging the importance of both the spiritual and the worldly, the “holy” and the mundane. He teaches us to equally respect G-d in heaven as well as G-d on earth.

Drash: Vayeitzei

2007-11-16T13:49:00.000-08:00

By Brian Schachter-Brooks

Vayeitzei Ya’akov mibe’er shava vayelekh kharana…

Ya’akov, Jacob, is coming from Be’er Shava and going toward Kharan, and between his origin and his goal, vayifga bamakom- he “enountered the Place”. Hamakom, “The Place”, is one of the names of God; so the text is giving us a hint about where God is found. Where is The Place? It is between our origin and our goal. That place, of course, is always where we are already. But like Jacob, we tend to view where we are as merely a passageway toward something else. And so even though the place where we are is real, meaning that right now we have reality all around us, it can feel unreal; we feel disconnected from This. Our imagined goal, on the other hand, can feel very real. Most psychological pain actually stems from this: the conflict between what really is with what we are imagining.

This condition of being disconnected from where we are can come to dominate a person’s life, until the point at which the alienation becomes so painful, that something has to shift. This is what happened to Jacob.

Where was he coming from? He was coming from the place where he cheated his brother Eisav; in other words, he had missed the reality of his brother as a living being, and instead saw him as a stepping stone toward his own later success; the imagined future obscured the reality of the present. And where was he going? He was going to his uncle, Lavan, who is going to do the same kind of trickery back on Ya’akov. Furthermore, his destination is Kharan, the place where Avraham came from; so Ya’akov’s future is actually his past. And the place he is coming from, Be’er Shava, is the place his descendants are destined to live, so his past is really also his future. Do you see? The meaning here is that his past and his future are identical, and therefore hopeless, because the future is just a perpetuation of dysfunctional patterns from the past. And amazingly, those patterns can still be seen in the “Promised Land” today, between the descendants of Avraham.

But in the life of a person, there comes a time when the burden of the past and future become too great, and there is a moment of despair. And this appears to be the place that Ya’akov has come to: Vayalen sham ki va hashemesh- “and he spent the night there because the sun had set”. The setting of the sun is symbolic of an inner darkness- Ya’akov’s despair over his situation.

So what does he do? Vayikakh me’avnei hamakom vayasem ra’ashotav - “he took from the stones of the place and placed them for his head…” So it sounds like he is using stones for a pillow. Would you want stones under your head? Wouldn’t stones be the most uncomfortable thing for your head? When we see absurdities like this in the text, they hint that something deeper is going on.

What are the qualities of stones? They are dense. They are heavy. They don’t blow around, but are still. A person’s head, on the other hand, is the place where thought happens. Thought is perhaps the least physical thing in our experience. Rather than being still, it constantly bubbles this way and that. So when it says he took stones for his head, it is hinting at a reversal of perception of where he is. Before, this place was merely a passageway between Be’er Shava and Kharan, meaning that it was defined that way by Jacob’s thought; it had no reality of its own. But now that Ya’akov is beginning to despair, he is letting go of his context in time; he is giving up hope. And in this giving up, he is beginning to notice the place he is in; he is bringing his mind all the way down to the stones and becoming still.

Next it says, vayishkav bamakom hahu- “then he lay down in the place.” It doesn’t say he went to sleep, but only that he lay down. This is in the same language as the v’ahavta, where it says that you should speak “these words” when you “lie down”. So for Ya’akov to lie down in the Place means that he beginning to be where he is; he is beginning to meet the present.

And then something startling happens: Vayakhalom- “and he dreamt”- v’hinei sulam mutzav artzah - “and behold, a ladder was set toward the Earth”- v’rosho magiya hashamayma- “with its top toward Heaven”- v’hinei, malakhey Elohim olim v’yordim bo- “and behold, angels of God ascended and descended upon it.”

What is the meaning of this vision? There is a tradition that everything that happens actually has an angel, or spiritual force, compelling it to happen. So according to this idea, all the events we experience are nothing but a playing out of something that is determined in the “spiritual” realm, and we really have nothing to do with it. There is a statement in the Gemara which says, “everything is in the hands of heaven except the fear of heaven” (Berakhot 33b), implying that everything that happens is predetermined, and that the only real power we have is whether we have a spiritual attitude or not; we have no power over what actually happens. So seen from this point of view, the angels which are descending the ladder would be the ones determining what goes on in our world.

However, there is another opposing idea in the tradition that every deed a person does actually creates an angel. So if we are good, we create good angels, but if we do bad, we create bad angels. These angels then go around producing good or bad effects in the world. So in this view, what happens in the world is not determined by angels, but by human beings who create the angels. In this view, everything is in our hands. This view is represented by the angels which are ascending the ladder.

But Ya’akov’s vision is that there are angels going up the ladder and down the ladder; he sees the paradox of both realities at once: Everything is determined by forces which are created by our actions, yet our actions are themselves determined by forces, which are themselves created by our actions, and so on ad infinitum.

So what is the meaning here? The answer is in HaMakom- this place we have now come to. Because in order to access the Divinity of the present, you have to surrender your preoccupation with the way things “come out”- you have to give up control. This is the realization of the angels coming down- it’s in the “hands of heaven”. At the same time, this supreme surrender actually frees you from your automatic responses to things. You are no longer a victim of your own preferences; you have choice. So next time you get annoyed with a loved one and you feel yourself going into your same old response, stop. Surrender. Access the power of transformation- the power that allows you to choose how to be. Then you will realize like Ya’akov did: akhein yesh Hashem- “Surely God is present”- bamakom hazeh- “in this place”- v’anokhi lo yadati- “and I didn’t know it”.

There is a mishna which sums this up well. Pirkei Avot ch 3 mish 19 says, hakol tzafuie, v’har’shut n’tunah- “Everything is foreseen, yet freedom of choice is given”. Hakol tzafuie- everything is foreseen, you have no choice, so surrender your attempt to control anything. But har’shut n’tunah- in that surrender, you connect with the only true free choice there is, which is how you respond in this moment.

Shabbat is such a powerful opportunity to stop the momentum between where you’re coming from and where you are going, to lay down your burden of time and see that the goal of the whole business- the connection between heaven and earth- is actually present now.

Welcome!

2007-11-14T15:48:00.000-08:00

By Kerrick, office manager

This is Chochmat HaLev's new blog. Here we will be posting, by kind permission of our service leaders, teachers, and community members, some of the drashot and parsha commentaries offered in our synagogue. Since this is new for Chochmat, let me take this opportunity to open the circle and set our intention.

It is our intention to facilitate access to Chochmat HaLev's spiritual teachings. We intend to make the teachings available for those who can't attend particular services, or any services. We would like to give people who are curious about Chochmat a clearer picture of who we are. We would like to record memories of what we have shared together for the future, and we want to facilitate more discussion about our spiritual teachings and practices.

Because we believe that free flow of discussion is vital for spiritual learning and growth, we welcome comments on the teachings we post here. In consideration for your privacy and that of our young community members, comments will be hidden until made visible by the blog moderator. If we decide not to unscreen your comment, if you provide your email, we will get in touch with you and tell you why.

Similarly, if you have a spiritual insight or question you would like to share with the community, please email it to frontdesk@chochmat.org with "blog" in the subject line. I can't promise that we'll publish everything we receive, but again, if we can't, we'll be in touch with you to tell you why.

Everything published on the blog remains the property of the author. If you want to use something you found on this blog, you must get permission from the original author first. You can email frontdesk@chochmat.org with the author's name in the subject line and we will pass on your request if we are able to.

By giving us permission to post something on the blog, you give us permission to leave it up here for good. We won't republish it commercially without getting your further permission first.

Let us in our writings here, as in our speech and in our prayers, be mindful of one another. We are each of us pure souls. When confronted with nothing more than text on a screen, it is easy to forget that. Let us remember: We are all alike in our origins, and all different in the many ways we understand and express Divine reality. The differences and the alikeness alike are holy.

Parsha Chayeh Sarah: Isaac's Prayer in the Field

2007-11-02T10:58:00.000-07:00

By Zelig Golden

In this week's Parsha, Isaac meets his bride, Rebecca. Their love at first sight moment may be the climax of the story, but possibly even sweeter is that Isaac encounters Rebecca while praying in the fields: "and Isaac went out to su'ah in the field before evening…" (Gen. 24:63). Based on this Genesis, the traditional afternoon prayer service – mincha – has been attributed to Issac’s early evening walks in the fields.

The meaning of su’ah, traditionally interpreted as prayer, however is not so clear. Some translate su’ah to mean meditate, supplicate, yet others liken it to “tree,” as found earlier in Genesis: "Now all the trees (si’ah) of the field were not yet on the earth and all the herb of the field had not yet sprouted, for HaShem G-d had not yet sent rain upon the earth and there was no man to work the soil." (Gen. 2:5). Rabbi Shmuel ben Meir (Rashbam) suggests that what Issac was actually doing in the field was planting trees as well as checking up on his agricultural efforts. (Gen. 24:63).

What’s the connection between planting trees and praying or mediation in the fields? The Great Rebbe Nachman of Breslov’s instruction, that we should go outside alone each day and cry out to G-d alone (a practice called hitbodedut), helps us to understand. Prayer alone in the natural world connects us to Divine, spiritual energy flowing from G-d in nature. It is in this place that we can truly reconnect to the Source and to ourselves. Isaac’s early evening ritual instructs us – through his connection to nature, he plants the seeds of his future. It is in this moment alone, with G-d in the field, that he can encounter his future with Rebecca and find love.

The lesson is clear – while it is an essential teaching that we are to gather and pray in community, it is also powerful to connect with G-d alone in nature. By going out and touching G-d’s creation in this way, we may more readily grow the trees of our own lives as we grow closer to G-d.