May I stay amazed through all of my days
In all of the ways of the world’s turning
Amazed at what I’ve got, not what I’ve not
All soon forgot in the world’s turning
May I stay amazed! Some folks and all toddlers are amazed with life. But how do you maintain this sense of “radical amazement”, as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heshcel says – how can you avoid the burnout.
I once saw a sign on a coffee house window, which I never forgot: middle age is a time when a narrow waist and a broad mind swap places!
Recently I began to wonder – what is the connection to cafe?
A bit of history of coffee from Britannica encyclopedia, just because it’s so interesting..
Wild coffee plants were native to a flat region in Ethiopia known as Kaffa. One legend of its discovery is that of a goat herd who was curious – his goats were performing strange antics! He followed that curiosity and sampled the berries the goats had been munching on. He felt exhilarated. And viola! This is the year 850 or so of the common era. From ethiopia, the beans crossed the red sea to Yemen where they were grown.Sufi monks brewed the bean, and used the resulting beverage to stay up all night and praise through the night. Making its way to the Muslim world, coffee houses began, even though the beverage was outlawed, with stiff penalties. From Turkey to Europe. In London in 1600s a cup cost a penny, Coffee houses became nicknamed penny universities –folks would stay up half the night engaged in philosophic, scientific and political discussion. Make no mistake, I am not pushing coffee drinking, I drink it rarely, and only decaf. I find natural ways to boost curiosity
There is mystery – a deep unknown at the heart of the universe, at the core of life itself.
How do we respond to things we just don’t understand? With fear, or with curiosity – is central to the story of our life!
Someone whom I love dearly is transgender. Just a week ago, A friend who has met them asked me what makes them that way? She was curious of something she did not understand. I sort of dismissed it, I responded “that’s a mystery.The important thing is to love and accept them. She agreed- perhaps her curiosity, and open mind is a reason why?
The dark is mysterious. It contains things imagined and real. On October 29 8:00 Pm a category 1 hurricane reached the shores of NJ, where I lived. It collided with a cold air mass which pulled it up the Jersey coast, turning it into a 900 mile wide super-storm named Sandy The damage was tremendous. 8.5 million people were blacked out, including my home. That’s when I first felt that G8d was present even, perhaps especially in the darkness.
The interplay of light and dark is mysterious, Where were you on August 12th of this year/thousands flocked to Spain to see the Total eclipse of the sun. This twilight darkness during daytime – it fills us with awe. It was very moving, emotional, said my daughter. She could not describe the emotion – it was not joy, no ordinary emotion. She is a person of words, a voracious reader. For the second time in her life she was speechless. The first time was at her wedding. The stars fill us with one kind -Awe of G8d transcendent, and love is the signature of G8d imminent. Unfortunately At about the same time, fires, heat waves and drought raged in Spain,later that month catastrophic mudslides devastated Nepal-Tibet border, as retreating glaciers destabilized mountains, The cause of these disasters is not mysterious, the sad consequences of a world that will not stop burning fossil fuels, for some mysterious reason…btw climate change threatens the future of coffee crops.
The word “yirah” in Hebrew, is super important to understanding G8d and Jewish spirituality. But Yirah has two related meanings: it means both fear and awe. Both were in full play this summer. But fear tends to close the heart, and awe to open it – how could one word mean both?
What fills You with Yirah? fear? With Awe? Perhaps these things are not so separate. A year ago I got to hold my first & possibly only grandchild, I gave to him his Hebrew name, Shalom, from my dad, who died many years ago. In January of this year I was at my mother’s side when she passed away. Birth and death, the reminders of time and mortality fill us with awe and fear – there is the unknown- darkness mystery, danger and in each. And in that darkness G8d is with us: Every beat of that baby’s heart, a complex dance of proteins in split second timing -every beat is a miracle, and so is the heart’s capacity for love that outlasts death.
The Awe of G8d can be found – by being amazed by creation, by creatures,
Hummingbirds hearts can beat up to 20 times per second during flight
A seed – contains a plant embryo, and enough food to start a redwood tree.
But plants that heal can also poison – all parts of the foxglove plants are deadly, yet from these can be extracted the potent heart medication digitalis.
A story from our tradition.
Medicine
Rabbi Baruch was Tzaddik in Poland, leader of his community, He had a beloved daughter, Rayzel
. His daughter was ill, and though he prayed, she had gotten worse so Rabbi Barukh went to the city and bought medicine.Rabbi Barukh stared at the bottle, realizing that some of the herbs in the remedy were poisons! He experienced yirah was scared, amazed, curious – how could it be? And why didn’t G8d just heal his daughter from his prayers
If it is Your will Holy One that my daughter, Raizel recover, she would need no medicine. But if You make your miracles visible to all eyes then no one would need faith. So You cloak your doings in the processes of nature. That is why You created healing herbs. Baruch began pacing again. But why are they poisonouos, and why do we give them to the sick? An answer came to him. A little background into Lurianic Kabbalah
AT the beginning of time there was only G8d. G8d longed to be in relationship, and so withdrew and placed some of G8d’s light into vessels. The vessels weren’t strong enough and so they shattered, and the shards, containing sparks of the light formed the material world. So the answer came to him. Aha – the sparks of plants yearn to return to you.
But how can the sparks that fell into poisonous herbs be redeemed? G8d intended them for the sick: and when used with holy intent, the patient redeems the poisonous plant – it too can be reunited with its source.
We are here tonight connect to the Creative Power of the Universe, and the only way to do that is to always be curious,, to always learn -to allow the Awe to grow in you, until says Rambam, the love of the this power fills you,
Maimonides the great medieval philosopher, physician and Rabbi talks about Yirah from his Mishneh Torah
Yirah h is divided into…two parts the first of these parts is fear – fear of consequences, of punishment. Some fear can be helpful, keeping us from getting in trouble, giving us wisdom
The second is the “end of fear” which is awe, which is attained after fulfilling the commandments according to Rambam, the very reason for the mitzvot is for humans to cultivate, or attain Awe of G8d! And following the awe is love of God, which we will return to tomorrow.
So we asked how can Yirah mean both fear and awe? One answer we’ve explored – is the things that provoke them are not so different – but our reaction – do we close in fear or open in love?
Another possiblity
Rabbi Shai Held in the name of his teacher Bernard Steinberg, “Awe is what happens to fear when it stops being about me” – I stop thinking of the consequences to my body, my ego. I can think about G8d. When my mind travels beyond my personal concerns to the wonder of being alive. Life itself, a miracle of the highest order, every second of our existence a complex world, Our own consciousness, an order beyond that. We are here to be grateful for our lives, but beyond gratitude is praise,
This gratitude awe and love commands us to choose and protect life. Especially in the darkness, especially if we don’t understand.
Our tradition has a pathway to live a life of gratitude and awe – says the Talmud, each person is to recite 100 blessings each day. 100 time each day we are to say “wow” – and bravo to the composer! To see each sunset and twilight as a total eclipse of the sun. To be wise to the dangers our actions evoke, consequences such as superstorms and glaciers melting and to have a healthy fear of them. To know in our hearts that G8d is present especially in the darkness. To know that a cup of coffee is amazing, you would not be able thank all the i people that helped bring it to your doorstep, but you can thank the source of seeds and rain and the human mind. To thank the Creator for making us beautiful just as we are, and to remain curious about and grateful for, life.
The traditional blessing begins Baruch ata Ad*nai, You are the source of blessings oh Holy one. Think it’s difficult? Come to our morning services – for a gratitude and awareness – a yirah bath. It’s much easier with friends, One prayer alone contains 19 blessings. I challenge you this year – 100 wow and bravos per day. It has the power to change you and the world.
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