Gathering the tzitzis from the four corners of the tallis

 

I have had the experience, since conversion, when gathering the four tzitzis together at v’havienu l’shalom me-arba kanfot ha-aretz, of feeling like I was gathering the disparate parts of myself into one, like the One in whose image and likeness every human being was created, whose Oneness is proclaimed in the Shema shortly after. The Shalom into which these are gathered is the oneness/wholeness/peace of G!d.

Today, as I was davening, I had an additional thought building on this. First, perhaps the four tzitzis/corners of the earth are the four levels of the soul – nefesh, ruach, neshama, chaya – that are being gathered as one to unite with G!d in the yechidah, the fifth level of the soul in the Shema. I know the four levels of the soul correlate with the four parts of Shacharit – brachot/korbanot, psukei d/zimra, Shema, and Amidah. So maybe they are also being gathered together in preparation for the Amidah.

And since I see the Amidah as a roadmap for a spiritual journey toward wholeness, maybe there is something about this inner self-unity that needs to begin before we are ready for the Amidah, for this journey. Of course, this coming together is referenced again in the very middle blessing of the weekday Amidah – ve’kabtzenu yachad me-arba kanfot ha-aretz. And maybe the Shalom of Ahavat Rabbah and the Yachad of Mekabetz Nidchei Amo Yisrael are the same thing, perhaps on different levels.

I’m sure others have drawn similar conclusions – but it is to these realizations that this embodied experience of Jewish prayer leads me.

Rosh Chodesh Av

 יוֹצֵ֥ר אוֹר֙ וּבוֹרֵ֣א חֹ֔שֶׁךְ עֹשֶׂ֥ה שָׁל֖וֹם וּב֣וֹרֵא רָ֑ע אֲנִ֥י ה' עֹשֶׂ֥ה כׇל־אֵֽלֶּה׃

I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create separation; I am the LORD, that doeth all these things. (Isaiah 45:7)

Chodesh Menachem Av Tov!

May we be zocheh to have all inauthenticity stripped and washed away so we may come face to face with the mourning we need to do in this time of sadness, so that we can move from the darkness of the pain of separation - from ourselves, from others, from G!d - to the light of shalom/peace/wholeness - from Tisha B'Av to Tu B'Av.

Wrapping Tefillin and the Thirteen Attributes

I had a realization about wrapping tefillin today - probably not the first person to notice this, but here goes.

One wraps the tefillin strap around one's forearm seven times. This creates 13 bands - the 7 strap indentations and the six bands between them. This correlates, in my mind, to the Thirteen Attributes of G!d - both the essential attributes in Exodus 34 and the Supernal Attributes in Micah 7:18-20. There are also thirteen blessings specific to the weekday Amidah (between the three opening blessings and three closing blessings always said) - which I also think of as correlating to the Thirteen Attributes.

So not only are the tefillin shel yad a sign on one's hand/arm - so are the marks left behind, serving as a sign of the Thirteen Attributes of the G!d we serve and which we are to emulate, being made in the likeness and image of G!d.

Isaac's Pet Donkey - How He Left His Father and Started a New Life

It might be helpful to familiarize yourself with the Akedah, Genesis 22:1-19, and the G'vurot blessing in the Amidah prayer in the Jewish liturgy prior to reading this.

In the Akedah, Abraham left the two lads with the donkey – the chomer – as he took Isaac off to be sacrificed. He returned to the two lads without Isaac – and they were there without the donkey. The donkey – the chamor – is chumra – stringency – and Abraham had saddled his donkey – his stringency – to be able to murder his son in the service of G!d. But he left the donkey – his stringency – behind to take Isaac up the mountain – and was able to hear the rachmanes – the mercy – of Hashem telling him not to murder his son. But Isaac was able to hear the call of G!d to take up the chamor – his chumra – his stringency – for himself - and left without Abraham, first getting the donkey and riding it off to the next chapter of his life.

It was only by adopting and riding the donkey that Isaac was able to leave the abusive situation he was in and find his own relationship with G!d – ultimately being able, when he went out into the field to meditate – and daven Mincha – that he was able to look up and see camels, gemalim – gemilut chasadim – acts of lovingkindness. 

May we find the gevurah – the strength – to adopt the chumras – the stringencies – that make space for meditating in the field and looking up to see the gemilut chasadim – acts of lovingkindness – we can do – lifting up the fallen, healing the sick, freeing the captives – to be like G!d.

Pinchas

No commerce on Shabbat - we accept the innate perfection within the world.

No commerce (insofar as is possible) during the Three Weeks - we accept the brokenness of the world.

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In this week's parshah, we have the brit shalom with the broken vav (broken wholeness) for PInchas; the note that the entire generation that left Egypt, apart from Yehoshua and Kelev, died in the wilderness; and, in the law of the musaf offerings for Rosh Chodesh, the sin-offering brought for G!d - which midrash tells is to atone for G!d's embarrassing the moon. A true meditation on brokenness. May we, like the daughters of Tzelafchad, push for a tikkun for the brokenness.

Brief thought about holiness - set-apartness

Thought of the day from morning prayers:

The word kadosh (Hebrew usually translated as "holy") means set apart. G!d is holy because G!d is set apart - and by extension, so are we.

Yet, in the words of the seraphim in Isaiah's vision in Isaiah 6, it says that the whole world is full of G!d's glory.

This line appears three times in the Jewish morning liturgy and the first time, it's in the middle of the blessing before the Shema praising G!d for creation.

So here is my thought - what if G!d's set-apartness, G!d's holiness, is G!d's immanence - G!d's presence in the world - NOT G!d's transcendence? Perhaps the angels see G!d as set apart from them precisely because of G!d's presence in the material creation.

Which means that our holiness lies not in transcending or running away from material creation, but in embracing and deeply engaging in that material creation - that we are set apart to be holy material creations?

On the Death of Pat Robertson - BDE

Baruch Dayan HaEmet - Blessed is the True Judge.

The world is a nicer and safer place today.

When my abusive father died, the world felt safer. When my high school bully died, the world felt safer. And now Pat Robertson has died, and the world feels safer.

Pat Robertson was a very wicked man who claimed to serve G!d but whose toxic evangelical Christian theology consisted of spreading hate against lgbt folk and anyone he disagreed with politically - even blaming bad weather and 9/11 on us, blaming poor people and sick people for their poverty and illness because of a "lack of faith," spreading racism by accusing the Haitian slaves who revolted against their slaveowners and won independence of having made a pact with the devil, spreading conspiracy theories, calling for violence against people, and using his ministry to personally enrich himself.

This feels personal to me because it always enraged me, when visiting my parents, to see that my father - who was not wealthy (because the prosperity theology that my father shared with Pat Robertson is a lie) - sent him money every month. When he called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez (who, admittedly, was also evil - but clergy calling for assassinations is an abomination), I complained to my mother and she talked my father into ending the donations - but for some silly reason probably related to my father's narcissism, not for an ethical reason.

A far better theologian than Pat Robertson, the Talmudic sage Beruriah, when her husband, Rabbi Meir, was robbed and he was praying for his robbers' downfall, quoted the final verse of Psalm 104, "May sinners disappear from the earth, and the wicked be no more," but said that the Hebrew word for "sinners" should be read as "sins" instead so that the wicked are no more because they have done teshuvah (repented) and are no longer sinners. (Berachot 10a)

Even as I have a lot of anger at the profound spiritual and political damage that this wicked Christian minister wrought, following the holy Beruriah, I express the hope that he repented before his death or that at least he repents now when seeing the enormity of the evil that he wrought in his wasted lifetime.