Torah for now

Archive for September, 2025

G8d is my dragon!

I have a bad habit: when I daven (pray), I look up, heavenwards. Apparently that is terrible for singing. How did I learn to look straight ahead? Here is the story.

When I was a younger person, I delighted in SciFi Fantasy novels, Ray Bradbury, JRR Tolkien, Ursula K LeGuin (Earthsea), and among my favorites, Anne McCaffrey’s “Dragonriders of Pern” Series. It has been decades since I have enjoyed these types of novels: tastes change, I told myself, and that was that… until last month. On vacation in Lenox, Mass. I stopped in to an independent bookstore. While my friend was browsing, I picked up a dragon novel and sat down in a big cozy chair to read, and when I left I bought the book: for the sake of supporting the author and the bookstore, I reasoned. But I discovered why I loved them. The book, by Naomi Novik, didn’t capture my imagination until the dragon hatchling and the reluctant rider bonded: fell in love, really.

G8d* is evoked with the powerful combination of love and awe in Jewish prayer and tradition. We prayer to “Yotzer Ohr”, fashioner of light, followed by Ahavah Rabba “great love” which leads us to Shema “Listen up, oh G8d wrestlers (Israel) Adonai, our G8d is ONE” followed by the command to LOVE! Here is this dragon tale carrying a human flying above the earth, bonded in a love that will motivate them to care for and protect one another. Now I have a new metaphor for G8d in my life: G8d is my dragon, bonded in love, the Holy One of Blessing takes me soaring on dragon’s wings in awe.

Now I don’t need to look upwards, I’m already there!

*G8d is God, with the center replaced by 8, a sideways infinity sign, and one more than the full perfection of Biblical seven! It indicates the extraordinary.

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Be a Song, on a Shofar

For the 15th day of Elul.

The 15th day of any Hebrew month is a full moon: it’s a lunar calendar. Each letter in the Hebrew alef-bet is also a number, and yud=10 and hey=5, so yud-hey would logically be used for the number 15. Yud-Hey (Yah) is also a name for G8d, (as in Hallel-ulYah (praise yah). so often 9+6 is used instead. Rabbi Arthur Waskow urges us to re-embrace G8d in the full moon, and full moon Holy Days. That is a powerful call! This is not just any month, it is Elul, whose hebrew letters are an acrostict for “Ani L’dodi v’dodi li (I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine) in which we seek G8d’s nearness, and the forgiveness of other humans.

The moon will begin to wane now, negating her “ego” becoming hollow, bittul (empty of herself) like the shofar. It is, according to the Zohar, the day in which, in the full moon, David sees Bathsheva bathing on the roof (did she know the king could see her?!) and summons and takes her. She becomes pregnant with Solomon, and in Second Samuel, David sends her husband, Uriah, whose name is linked with Ohr, light, to die on the front lines of a battle. Samuel approaches David, and David admits he was wrong, and he writes psalm 51 in his quest for forgiveness. King David was given credit for writing all the psalms. He was a musician, whose music calmed Saul’s troubled heart, and had a magical harp. In preparing for my High Holy Day pulpit, I am steeped in the melodies of these days, which are unique.

Rabbi Jill Hammer in her “Book of Days” ends this day with a blessing, that I adore:

As the High Holy Days approach, we find ourselves at a crossroads.

Carried by the music of the penitential season, we set off down the road,

following songs that will lead us to better lives

During these very difficult and heart-wrenching times, may we become hollow, and BECOME a song, and a shofar, to alert ourselves and others to the changes that must happen, for the sake of our children. “Hashkeit, ushema Yisrael” hush up and LISTEN commands Moses in this week’s Torah reading.

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