Miryam's Space

As I write this, 300,000 are evacuated from Spain and France due to climate fueled fires. The whole earth is filled with G8d’s Kavod/Presence. Soon Spain will experience a total solar eclipse. People today experience a sense of the majesty of the solar system in viewing things so grand. In ancient days, it was a fearful portent, to see the sun’s power dimmed. The beginning of wisdom is fear of G8d – the Big picture of the Universe, (Proverbs 9:10) The dual meaning of the Hebrew yirah is fear and awe. We need tears, the thickening of our hearts to be cut open (Deuteronomy 10:16) We have just emerged from Tisha B’av, soon to be immersed in TuB’Av, the Biblical Holiday of Love, and comfort as the refugees returned from Babylonian Exile. More than ever we need hearts broken by awe and fear to fill with love.

It would take a couple of hard smacks from life before my heart could heal.

The theme of opening our hearts to bring tikkun repair to ourselves and the world runs through this amazing parashah in three parallel ways!

https://soundcloud.com/user-30824119/vakhalta1. Gratitude: Birkat Hamazon, the blessing after a meal, is partly here.  We are always yearning, hungry, But each item on your plate is grown from the earth, watered, harvested, delivered, prepared – a miracle. To stop, and really enjoy the food, is another miracle, and to really allow yourself a moment to say – wow I am satisfied! (It is easier without distractions, electronic or otherwise) I have found that even a brief blessing said with focus, or Kavannah can be transformative. Here’s a quick one based on words from Deuteronomy 8:10 V’achalta, v’savata, uverachta,et Adonai Elohecha(It is written that you shall eat, you shall be satisfied and you shall bless!)Blessed are you G8d for goodness, and holiness, for the land and for this food. Here’s a lovely version from Hannah Tiferet Siegel

2. Open our hearts to the vulnerable, the immigrant: because it is how G8d acts: 18) G8d upholds the cause of the orphan and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving them food and clothing.— (19) You too must love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

3. What if the rain were G8d’s tears? In Eikev Rain is clearly dependent upon our ability to act in justice and to love. Unlike Egypt where slave labor irrigated farms from the Nile, The promised land drinks water gifted by the Holy one. These passages are the second paragraph of the Shema, but here the command to love G8d has moved from singular to plural, communal.  The shema itself is a progression of love rippling outward from the center: beginning between your eyes and upon the heart of a person to your family/children, to the borderlines of your home, across your gates, and into the outside world, where, earlier we learn to love the stranger. It is parallel to the journey from Mitzrayim, the narrow straits, to the wide skies of freedom.

All depends on water, water is life. What if the rain were G8d’s tears, and they being withheld because of our heartlessness? What if this were the spiritual source of climate change?

I wrote the song Water planet inspired by the text and associated meditations from Rabbi Jill Hammer’s Return to the Place: The Magic, Meditation, and Mystery of Sefer Yetzirah

Water planet from the Breath of Life

Dazzling blue suspended in the night,

If we could hold it as Holy One might

We would feel the fluttering of life’s wings

How fragile our lonely home world seems

Our heart–beats sending lifeblood that we need

To heal the suffering our callous actions bring

To turn the sad melody G*d’s tears sing.