A Very Narrow Bridge

The world is a very narrow bridge; the important thing is not to be afraid. ~Nachman of Breslov

Category: Seasons

September 12, 2013

This is the Blessing

Close your eyes and think of your first love.

Yeah… I know.

We spend so much time on first love. We celebrate it. We mourn it. We claim it will define all our other loves.

How often do we talk about last loves? How will we know who our last love will be? Or possibly who our last love was?

I’ve been thinking about Moshe again. This week, at least on Monday and Thursday morning, we read וְזֹאת הַבְּרָכָה V’Zot Habracha, the last parsha in the Torah. It means “This is the Blessing” and it ends with Moshe’s death.

And it’s sad. And it’s also not sad at all.

It’s about love. Last love. But let’s start with first love first.

Who was Moshe’s first love? His mother, who hid him? His sister, who followed him as he floated in the Nile? Pharaoh’s Daughter, who drew him out of the water and raised him? Is first love really the love we learn at home? This is what they tell me. Though when you closed your eyes and thought of your first love, that wasn’t what you thought of, was it?

Probably you thought of a middle love.

Who were Moshe’s middle loves? Aharon and Miryam who were with him along the journey that defined his life? Pharaoh, the adversary who forced him to find his courage and power? Tzipporah, who saved his life in one of the strangest incidents (Exodus 4:24-26) in the Torah? Yitro, who offered help when he needed it most? Korach, who broke his heart? Already middle love is more interesting, I think. The middle is the interesting part, isn’t it? The hardest part, at any rate.

Middle loves hurt us and are hurt by us; they teach us and learn from us. We run from them; we regret losing them. We long for them; we hate them. Sometimes they are the kindest people who ever left us, and sometimes the most cruel people we ever allowed to stay with us. Any of these can be true in turn. All of these can be true at the same time. The middle is the hard part.

This is the blessing.

I don’t know what last love looks like. I don’t think we can know until the end. But there are hints. Last love starts out looking like first love for some of us. Sometimes it stays like that. More often, I hope, last love starts out looking like middle love. If we are lucky—and I hope to be this lucky someday—the middle love becomes a last love.

We read about Moshe’s last love at the end of the last parsha in the Torah. Moshe climbs Mount Nevo and God shows him the Promised Land. The Land he won’t be entering. And then He kisses him and buries him.

This is last Love. This is the Love who scares us, who forces us to become more than what we think we are. This is the Love who supports us, and with whom we fight. The Love who denies us our wishes and who also gives us so much. This is the Love whose attributes, comforting and maddening, we understand. This is the Love next to whom we stand and look at what we’ve accomplished together. This is the Love for whom there could never possibly be anyone else like us. This is the Love who, in the end, kisses us and buries us. The Love who has been with us all along. This is the Love who provides the Proof. Because it is the Proof that provides this Love.

Yom Kippur is almost here. The hard work is finished. The middle, for this year at least, is behind us. We are looking at a beginning. And we are searching for something–
and we are being searched for.

On Rosh Hashana and on Yom Kippur we are reminded in Unetaneh Tokef: [Our lives are] “like a broken shard, like dry grass, a withered flower, like a passing shadow and a vanishing cloud, like a breeze that blows away and dust that scatters, like a dream that flies away.”

Our Last Love is searching for us, and we are like a dream that flies away.

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August 22, 2013

Grammar and Love

It’s halfway through Elul. How’s that heshbon hanefesh coming along, Harry?

So. Anyway…

I’m just going to cut to the chase.

This week we read Ki Tavo (Devarim [Deuteronomy] 26:1 – 29:8).

There’s a nice part about bringing fruit to the Temple. More blessings. More curses. More things to avoid doing so you won’t be cursed. Threats of never-ending hemorrhoids. Seriously. Never-ending hemorrhoids. Check it out: Devarim 28:27.

But in the middle (before the hemorrhoids) there’s this, which is more important (26: 17-18):

אֶת-יְהוָה הֶאֱמַרְתָּ, הַיּוֹם:  לִהְיוֹת לְךָ לֵאלֹהִים וְלָלֶכֶת בִּדְרָכָיו, וְלִשְׁמֹר חֻקָּיו וּמִצְו‍ֹתָיו וּמִשְׁפָּטָיו–וְלִשְׁמֹעַ בְּקֹלוֹ

 וַיהוָה הֶאֱמִירְךָ הַיּוֹם, לִהְיוֹת לוֹ לְעַם סְגֻלָּה, כַּאֲשֶׁר, דִּבֶּר-לָךְ; וְלִשְׁמֹר, כָּל-מִצְו‍ֹתָיו

26:17 Today you have selected Adonai to be your God, to walk in His ways, to keep his hukim and his mitzvot, and His mishpatim, and to listen to His Voice.

26:18 And God has selected you today to be His treasured people, as He told you, and you should keep all his mitzvot.

Hukim are statutes and mishpatim are ordinances. Both are important.

I’m just going to keep thinking of mitzvot as connections.

Traditionally, mishpatim are laws that reason would suggest are necessary. Laws against murder, robbery, adultery—that sort of thing. Hukim are different. They don’t make sense. Laws about not mixing wool and linen in the same cloth. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Hold onto that thought for a minute. It’s going to be important, I promise.

I suck at Hebrew grammar, so I will probably get this completely wrong, but the verb form that the word for “selected” takes in those verses is the hiphil which is often used to denote the causative. In fact this extremely informative video explains just that.

So, the verses could be read: “Today God is causing you to select Him…” and “And you are causing God to select you…“

Honestly, that’s not my interpretation. Rashi’s grandson, Rashbam said it first.

So what?

God caused the Israelites to select Him. The Israelites caused God to select them.

Remind you of anything?

“You told me that silly story, and it made me fall for you.” “You always listened and remembered, and it made me love you.”

 God and the Israelites fell in love.

Love is a connection.

Love involves some rules that make sense: “Don’t cheat on me.” Or “I want you there with me on the best day of my life and on the worst day of my life.” Those make sense. They are logical. Right?

Sometimes love involves rules that don’t make any sense: “I took out the garbage last time, it’s clearly your turn.” Seriously, who cares as long as the garbage goes out?

Love sometimes makes sense, and sometimes it makes no sense at all. But it’s always a connection. It should always be a rootedness.

If it doesn’t have that connection, that rootedness, no amount of making sense will make it work. And, I suppose, if it doesn’t have that completely illogical part, it will be boring.

How often have I missed that?

Welcome to my Elul.

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August 16, 2013

This Might Not Make You Happy

Hey. Listen. I had kind of a shitty week.

I didn’t get enough sleep. I attached myself to a lost cause again—and lost. Phone calls were not returned. A package never arrived. Plans I was looking forward to got cancelled.

Shitty week.

Even this didn’t help:

My grandmother wasn’t worried if I was in a sulky mood about something…If I complained, ‘but I’m not haappy,’ she would tell me, ‘Where is it written that you’re supposed to be happy all the time?'” —Sylvia Boorstein (Shambhala Sun Interview)

This week we read Ki Teitzei (Devarim [Deuteronomy] 21:10 – 25:19).

It didn’t help my mood.

Here’s a rundown of some of topics covered:

  • Captured women mourning their parents
  • Hated wives
  • Lost property
  • Recalcitrant children (being put to death)
  • How to treat the corpses of the executed
  • Rejected wives
  • Slander against rejected wives
  • Adultery
  • Rape
  • Excluding the maimed from the community
  • Excluding those born outside of marriage from the community
  • Excluding certain ethnic groups from the community
  • Divorce
  • Kidnapping
  • Poverty
  • Fighting
  • Dishonesty

I am completely failing to acknowledge the fact that many of these topics are described in terms of how to show compassion as these horrible things come up.

But…you know…

Shitty week.

It turns out, though, that Ki Teitzei actually addresses my shitty week.

At the very end.

Of course.

The last verse, actually the last part of the last verse, says this: תִּמְחֶה אֶת-זֵכֶר עֲמָלֵק, מִתַּחַת הַשָּׁמָיִם; לֹא, תִּשְׁכָּח Timchah et zeicher Amalek mitachat hashamayim. Lo Tiskach. “Blot out the name of Amelak from under heaven. Do not forget.” (25:19)

Amalek attacked the Israelites as they were making their way out of Egypt, when they were hungry and tired, and he attacked the most vulnerable among them. The Hebrew word for Egypt is Mitzrayim, literally: “The Narrow Place.” Its root is also used for the word for “despair.” Amalek attacked when the Israelites were physically vulnerable. That’s bad enough. He also attacked when they were moving out of despair, which is a whole other kind of vulnerable.

He attacked when they had the potential to move into hope.

Destroying hope is the kind of violence that makes me shudder.

We are charged with blotting out Amalek’s name from under heaven (Actually, we’re charged with blotting out his memory, but I’m taking a small liberty with the text–shitty week). And we are charged not to forget.

That doesn’t help my mood.

Then I think about Elul. And I remember that I love Elul. And I remember that this is not supposed to be an easy month.

We are supposed to do both.

We need to remember. We need to remember the fear, the destruction of hope, the abject misery.

We need to remember that this journey, this being human, this spiritual path, is not always happy-clappy. Sometimes it sucks. It’s not written anywhere that we should be happy all the time.

And, guess what?

That’s spiritual too. So we remember.

But we also blot out Amalek’s name (I have mentioned it 5 times so far, by the way.) We should blot out his name because we need to remember not to do what he did. We should never take on that name. That description.

We need to remember what it was like.

Shitty week.

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August 4, 2013

Shabbat Before Elul

…The Sabbath is endowed with a felicity which enraptures the soul, which glides into our thoughts with a healing sympathy… It is a day that can soothe all sadness away. —Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath, p 20.

It is Shabbat afternoon. I have been silent for hours now. The only words I have spoken today are prayers at the synagogue this morning. Walking along the trail in the park, I am still silent. I am having a silent Shabbat to see what it’s like.

It’s not easy.

I am having a hard time feeling the felicity Heschel writes about. My soul doesn’t feel enraptured. It feels alone.

As I walk, I find myself looking at my watch. But it is Shabbat and I don’t need to be anywhere at any particular time. I take the watch off and put it in my pocket.

Then my thoughts creep in: Why wasn’t I stronger? Why wasn’t I bolder? Why wasn’t I more willing to stand up for what I knew to be correct? Why didn’t I do things years ago? Why am I always alone? Why do I attach myself to lost causes and then become upset when I lose?

It is the last Shabbat in the month of Av. This coming Wednesday will be the first day of the month of Elul. I will sound the shofar at shacharit (morning services) at the synagogue. We do this every morning for all of Elul, the month before Rosh Hashanah. We are waking people to their heshbon hanefesh, to the beginning of their soul’s accounting.

Suddenly you are awakened by a strange noise. A noise that fills the full field of your consciousness and then splits into several jagged strands, shattering that field, shaking you awake. The ram’s horn, the shofar, the same instrument that will sound one hundred times on Rosh Hashanah, the same sound that filled the world when the Torah was spoken into being on Mount Sinai, is being blown to call you to wakefulness. You awake to confusion. Where are you? Who are you? —Alan Lew, This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared, p 64.

How can I be expected to wake my community when I am so unsure of where I am, of who I am? When my own accounting doesn’t seem to be adding up?

I take a breath. I let it go. I take another and let it go. And another. And another. I begin to allow my thoughts simply to be thoughts. They come up and I can let them go with my breath. I begin to listen to the sound of my feet on the trail. The crunch of the gravel, the sound of my shoes on the dirt.

The only words I have spoken in hours are prayers.

And my favorite words from any prayer come to me: עָזִּי וְזִמְרָת יָהּ וַיְהִי לִי לִישׁוּעָה Ozi v’zimrat Yah vay’hi li lishuah. My Strength, and the Divine Song, and What Will Be—My Salvation.

My Strength is not trivial. I am a physically healthy and substantial man; I am filled with purpose. But that is not enough.

My Strength and the Divine Song.

Once my friend Dale brought me to the chemistry lab and showed me a machine that analyzed molecules based on where they appear on the spectrum. Each molecule resonates at a different frequency.* Essentially, the entire universe is singing. You, me, the stars, and the cocker spaniel down the street. We are all vibrating at the frequency of the molecules we are made of. The Divine Song. But even my strength and the Divine Song are not enough.

My Strength, and the Divine Song, and What Will Be.

What Will Be? Very near the end of 2013 (as opposed to 5773, which is the year according to the Hebrew Calendar), we will read Parshat Shemot (Shemot [Exodus] 1:1 – 6:1). This is a good one. It has the baby Moshe in the basket, it has the Burning Bush, and it has “Let My people go!” Some real Cecil B. DeMille stuff.

At the Burning Bush, Moshe asks God what he should say to the Israelites when they ask who sent him. God’s answer is אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה. “I Will Be What I Will Be.” God is present in every moment. This hike, the sadness I am feeling, my awareness of the sound of my feet on the trail. This moment is filled with the Divine Presence. Whatever this moment Is or Will Be.

My Strength and the Divine Song, and What Will Be—My Salvation.

On Wednesday I will sound four calls on the shofar: Tekiah, Shevarim, Teruah, Tekiah. “Tekiah means that which is rooted; shevarim means that which is broken; and teruah refers to an image of shaking.” (Rabbi Matthew Berkowitz)

Tekia: The strength which grounds me.

Teruah: The shaking vibration of the Divine Song.

Shevarim: The brokenness we can feel in any given moment.

Tekiah: Moving from that brokenness back to strength is My Salvation.

The order of the shofar calls is not the same as the prayer. Life doesn’t always happen in order. When I hear those sounds I will hear my whole past year beginning to be laid out before me and I will be reminded that the order of the events of the last year no longer matters. Not as much as the strength with which the new year will begin.  

At the end of Yom Kippur, the final tekia of the holidays for which I am preparing will begin my year with strength, rootedness, an improved awareness of where I am, and who I am.

But I can’t get there without facing the shaking and the brokenness; the Song and the Presence. 

* Please forgive me if I have the science wrong—this was almost 15 years ago.

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July 25, 2013

Cowboy Up

Last week we read, in Vaetchanan (Devarim [Deuteronomy] 3:23 – 7:11), about Moshe’s plea to God to forgive him enough to allow him to enter the Land—just for a look around.

God won’t be moved. The answer is no. The answer is actually:

רַב-לָךְ–אַל-תּוֹסֶף דַּבֵּר אֵלַי עוֹד, בַּדָּבָר הַזֶּה

Rav-lach–al tosef daber alai od badavar hazeh! (You have enough! Don’t speak to me about this any more!) (Devarim 3:26)

And that’s that.

Sorry. It’s just not going to happen.

This week, in Eichev (Devarim [Deuteronomy] 7:12 – 11:25), it’s time to see what the people are all about.

When they enter the land, will they be scared? Will they turn to other gods? When they experience abundance, will they forget that they didn’t do it all on their own? Will they decide they’re special? Entitled?

Will they be able to tap into the fierceness necessary, not only to conquer, but to continue to live their lives with discipline and authenticity?

What are they made of, anyway?

Moshe thinks he knows, and he’s not at all happy.

Moshe. Rejected Moshe. Moshe who got what he’s getting. Who shouldn’t bring it up again. Hurt Moshe. Moshe who’s read ahead and knows what’s coming.

Moshe who had to intercede on the people’s behalf so many times. Who fasted for 40 days–twice (and at his age) in order to receive the Torah. Who’s already buried his sister and his brother.

That Moshe.

That’s the Moshe who has to go before these people and tell them, in effect, that it’s time for them to cowboy up. These people who’ve been a pain in the ass from the first day he met them.

And then.

Then something amazing happens. Because we find out how they are going to accomplish that:

וּמַלְתֶּם, אֵת עָרְלַת לְבַבְכֶם; וְעָרְפְּכֶם–לֹא תַקְשׁוּ, עוֹד

U’maltem et arlat l’vavchem, v’arpechem lo takshu od. (Devarim 10:16)

Want to know how you’re going to grow up? To let that cowboy out? You’re going to open your heart and stop being stiff-necked and stubborn.

Know why that works?

Because you’re going to get hurt. That open heart is going to be broken.

You know what happens then? You learn that heartbreak isn’t the end of the world. And if you loosen your neck, if you stop stubbornly clinging to the idea that you deserve more, you’re going to realize that what you got actually is enough.

Rav-lach isn’t just “you have enough,” it’s “you have a lot.”

I need to remember this. I need to remember to open my heart and accept the abundance I have been given; the fierceness is always there.

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July 15, 2013

What are you waiting for?

“What are you waiting for, Tisha B’Ab?”

My dad loves that expression. As I think about it, I’ve never heard anyone else say it. Maybe he got it from my grandfather. I don’t know. I’m not entirely sure he’s ever really considered the deep meaning of Tisha B’Av. That’s fine—it’s not his thing.

For better or for worse, it’s my thing. I suppose that’s why I’m writing this less than three hours before I have to be at the synagogue to listen to the book of Eicha being read and to begin my long fast. What I really should be doing is eating a light meal and drinking a lot of water. This is going to be a quick one—there will be typos.

I talked about Tisha B’Av last year, so I’m only going to recap:

Tisha B’Av (the ninth day of the month of Av) is a day of mourning and a fast day commemorating a series of tragedies that have struck the Jewish people throughout our history.

I don’t want to minimize tragedy. I am not going to minimize tragedy. I would never say this to someone who is in the midst of experiencing something tragic.

But.

I’ve been thinking about tragedy and I’ve come to the conclusion that what tragedy is (not what it means—it doesn’t help to search for the meaning in tragedy): A radical shift in the nature of the moment.

A loved one is here and then they are gone. Buildings stood, now they are rubble. There was hope and belief and a sense of order, now there is despair, doubt, and chaos.

It appears that way from the middle.

But from further down the road it’s different.

Babylon gave us Jeremiah, and one of the most beautiful phrases in the Tanakh: Kol sasson, v’kol simhah, kol, hatan, v’kol kalah. (The voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.) We sing it at weddings, filled with hope and love. And it goes on. From the ruins of Jerusalem we went to Yavne and created the Mishnah and began to focus on prayer. In our expulsion from Spain, we traveled to Turkey and Morocco and composed unimaginably beautiful music.

Things don’t go according to plan. Life is not what we imagined it would be and it feels like everything’s flying off the rails. At least from the middle. We feel no control because the reality of the moment has radically changed.  This is where we are.

And, frankly, it sucks.

Tisha B’Av is important. We should weep and mourn. We should look at ourselves and the hatred we nourish despite the fact that this hatred kills us. We should remember what it feels like to be in that place where everything has changed in an instant and we are lost.

We should recognize that we can’t always control what happens. And this is where we live.  If we accept this, we will see God in that moment. And hear the Voice of Joy, unlikely as it seems.

“What are you waiting for, Tisha B’Ab?” my dad asks.

What are you waiting for? A radical change?

“It may not happen, or it may happen in a way you never imagined,” he seems to be saying.

“There is nothing to wait for; this is where we live,” I reply.

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July 27, 2012

Eleven Months Part 5: Start Now

Tisha B’Av begins at sundown tomorrow Saturday, July 28.

The saddest day of the Jewish year is one filled with tragedy upon tragedy. One of these tragedies, the destruction of the Second Temple is said to have been caused by sinat chinam, baseless hatred.

Is baseless hatred actually justified hatred that nets the hater nothing, as is concluded in the lesson I linked to just now? Or is it hatred for hatred’s sake?

You know what? It doesn’t matter. You know why? Because everyone gets angry and everyone has the potential to hate. Sometimes anger seems justified: You break my heart, I’m hurt and I’m angry with you. You hurt someone I love, I’m hurt and I’m really angry. And, if I hold on to that anger, it becomes hate.

One story behind the destruction of the Second Temple is a story of clinging to anger, public humiliation, more anger, and vengeance.

Hatred destroys. It destroys our cities, but it also destroys us. Hatred focuses ourselves on ourselves. Hatred removes the possibility of connection to each other from our consciousness.

Tisha B’Av is about remembering these tragedies, but not in order to cling to the pain they caused the Jewish people. We can note our tragedies without adding them to a scorecard of pain and suffering and reasons why we have the right to be angry.

It’s about remembering those tragedies so that we can move on. We are hurt. We are angry. We are bereaved. These are normal human states, but we can take this day and focus on moving forward. Letting go.

As usual, someone else said this much better and more succinctly:

Tisha b’Av is the beginning of Teshuvah, the point of turning toward this process by turning toward a recognition of our estrangement from God, from ourselves, and from others. ( Rabbi Alan Lew (z”l): This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared, 2003, p. 52)

And so, in the middle of summer, in the middle of the heat and the bright, long days, we can consider those limitless possibilities that summer brings to mind, but first we should turn inward and do a little letting go.

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