Torah for now

Posts tagged ‘love’

Interdependence in four worlds

This sermon was given the morning of Erev Yom Kippur at the Universalist Unitarian congregation at Davie, Florida, who were kind enough to let us use their space for Yom Kippur Services.

Everything is connected. When we try to pick out any one thread by itself, it is hitched to everything else. ~John Muir

Jake was a twin, born second,  when his mom delivered them, literally  grabbing at his brother’s heel. By the time the boys were grown It seemed Jake spent his whole life reaching for light in the shadow of his brother. Although older by only minutes, his big brother was everything he was not – tall, strong, and did I mention, Dad’s favorite. Things got out of hand, and before you know it, Jake was running for his life, chased by the voice of his brother vowing to kill him after  their dad died.

Do you recognize this story? This vignette is the story from Genesis, the death threat in chapter 27:41  The brothers are Jacob and Esav,or maybe you recognized it from a family you know -the story is as new as today, and as old as humanity. The brothers are in competition & the parents play favorites, and the family falls apart its center cannot hold.

We need each other in four worlds. The four worlds, in Jewish mystical tradition, exist simultaneously in different levels. They sort of correspond to Abram Maslow’s levels of human needs. The first level is physical. A story that I read a couple of weeks ago in the NY Times, was of a journalist who went on vacation to spend time with her elderly mother. The two of them went snorkling together. At first it was wonderful, but then her mom got into trouble. Getting water into her snorkel, she began to flounder. At first the journalist  tried to rescue her mother, swimming toward shore with her mother in tow, but there was a current, and she wasn’t getting anywhere. She was quickly becoming exhausted. She suddenly realized that if instead of swimming, she use one hand to hold her mother, and the other to wave for help, someone would see them who would be much more able than her to help!  Her mother lived –and is in her 90s now. The article was entitled: What all successful people have in common. It turns out the “thing” is the ability to round up help, not to tough it out alone! We need one another on a physical level.

The next level of existence and of needs is emotional – we need to feel safety and a sense of belonging. Dr. Naomi Remen (of blessed memory) tells the story of a college student named George, in her wonderful book, “Kitchen Table Stories”. Remen counseled George when his father had suffered from cancer and his housemate Michael had been a tremendous help and support. They became roommates the following year as Michael continued as a grad. student. But this year Michael was getting into trouble using a lot of cocaine and such, hiding it so that nobody else seemed to notice. George was a practitioner of Buddhism. The core of his teaching was to be non-judgemental, and not to interfere. This was not easy for George –in his family folks were always telling the kids what to do. Their friendship reached a crisis point one evening when George brought Liz, a girl he was fond of to the apartment to find Michael shirtless, dazed and covered in his own vomit. When he looked at Liz’s shocked face, he just “lost it”. He picked his friend up, put him in the shower, and told him all the criticisms he’d tried so hard not to say. “It’s too hard watching you throw yourself away” -and then an ultimatum: clean up or get out. Next morning George felt awful –contrite, scared, ashamed of having lost the discipline of ten years of Buddhist practice. He’d responded just as his dad would. Would Mike even be there, he wondered.

He was –pale and looking ill, but straight. Sitting on the sofa and waiting for his friend. They talked. George heard things he hadn’t known about Michael. He was the only child of a wealthy family, raised by “paid strangers” and sent away to boarding school and camp. He’s been given anything he ever wanted, except for the time and attention children/people need so much. In the shower, Michael knew his life mattered to George, and knew he was causing his friend pain. “I knew I was in trouble, but I didn’t know anyone enough to help. Will you help me, George?” George and Michael went to addiction counseling together and stayed friends. George’s honest, authentic self was just what Michael needed! We need one another on this second, emotional level.

On a third level we are connected to all living things. In the natural world interdependence is simply a fact –Life is a magnificent web and we are a part of it. it’s how ecosystems, habitats and the creatures in them survive .Perhaps you know about the teeth cleaning fish and the sharks – or the clown-fish and the anemone. Competition, as we saw with Jacob and Esav does exist – the clashing of antelope horns, the pounding of the silverback male gorilla’s chest, but they are for show, very rarely resulting in death. Humans are the only animals to do that.  All the creatures need one another, as we need other creatures for our oxygen, our food, for digestion and much more.  Within our bodies, organs are interdependent,  within our tissues cells are interdependent, and within our cells chemicals, which themselves are dead as a doornail interact and give rise to much more than the sum of their parts – to life itself. When we were children, we knew we were a part of nature. We disconnect ourself now to our detriment. This poem by the medieval Sufi poet Kabir expresses this poignantly.

I talk to my inner lover and say

why such a rush?

We sense there is some sort of spirit

that loves birds and animals and ants.

Perhaps the same One who gave you Radiance in your mother’s womb

Is it logical that you would be walking around entirely orphaned now?

The truth is you turned away yourself, and decided to go into the dark alone

…You have forgotten what you once knew

The One referenced in this beautiful poem can be God, who is also the connection who saves Biblical Jacob. Unable to ask his brother for help, he dreams of a ladder whose feet rest on the ground, and whose head is in the heavens, and awakens knowing “God is in this place but I, I didn’t know” This ladder to the heavens, connection to the Divine Sublime, is the fourth level of existence. For me (this was my capstone)

G8d is in the magic and the mystery in the spaces between parts of a system.  G8d is   In the love sparkling between a mother and child, lovers, or friends, as well as in the gravity that holds galaxies and planets and atoms together Those seem very different, – they are G8d immanent, and G8d transcendent. The interstices – the part you don’t see at first glance – in the Relationship between the parts, that’s where life is, that’s where love is, that’s where G8d is.  In a Torah scroll, the letters are hand written in black ink. Each letter is limited. But the spaces between the letters are continuous, and unlimited.  The Torah was given, say the mystics in black fire upon white fire . Here are the centuries of interpretations, the holiness that surpasses a generation’s limited understanding, the flexibility to evolve with the times. Here is where scripture comes alive. For example

 Deuteronomy 30:19 G8d tells us: I have set before you this day, life and death, blessing and cruse, Uvacharta b’chayim choose to be In life so that you and your offspring may live.  The medieval commentator Ibn Ezra explains what it means to choose life – to love is to live- for love surpases death. According to shir haShirim, the song of songs – only love is as fierce as death.

What story will our lives tell. If we choose rightly and often enough, to embrace inter -loving, the world we are building can be the world we envision in our dreams

Life happens in the space between…..I wrote this song, Between from a place of despair:

Take my hand & help me climb, I’ve been in the depths below

Why am I here among all these broken hearts

Ok, it’s my own heart, that’s been so hollow I’ll admit

How can I climb, Help me see beyond, my own four walls

Life happens in the space between

And there are angels going up and going down

You are that angel

Helping me to see the way to climb free

Ev’ry rung is made of love, and gravity

Helps me to return the favor done me

Jacob he ran to the wilderness

Leaving behind security, in the quest for superiority

Made of his brother an enemy

But Jacob don’t you know

It’s brothers that we need

Chorus

Maybe between is all we ever have

Between heaven and earth…death and birth

Between you and me G8d can rest

Helping us find our way through this wilderness

Jacob never climbs that ladder in between

So did he miss the point of his great dream

G8d was in this place though it did not seem

It would take a struggle so supreme

To help him realize that dream

Chorus

May the spaces between our two communities be filled with love and understanding, and may we be renewed for a year of life in all four worlds!

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“Life is to Love”

This is the time of year to “Return”–to do Teshuvah,in Hebrew, as we lead up to standing before God on the High Holy Days. We search our souls, identify our faults, offer apologies, and offer apologies to the Source, perhaps for not keeping G8d before us always (psalm 16) The meaning of teshuvah is clearly “to return” though it is sometimes translated as “repentance” — But return to what? Shlomo Carlebach’s song “Return Again” sung here by his daughter, Neshama, explains that we are to return to the “land of the soul” and “to who you are…born and reborn again” Hashiveinu, from lamentations, offers: “if you return us, we will return”. In other words Teshuvah, which we are told in Deuteronomy 30 is “not too hard or too far for us, but in our mouths and in our hearts to do it” is actually hard -we need the help of the Holy one of Blessing! In the same way, where in Deuteronomy 10 we are commanded to circumcise our own hearts, in Dueteronomy 30 we are assured to have G8d’s help with this task as well. Sources here.

The word Teshuva, is from the Hebrew root Shin, vav, vet, and is repeated over and over again in chapter 30 of Deuteronomy (archive source) In verse 3 alone it’s repeated three times (!), and in a puzzling way. I have added verse 4 for its poetry and beauty.

וְשָׁ֨ב יְהֹוָ֧ה אֱלֹהֶ֛יךָ אֶת־שְׁבוּתְךָ֖ וְרִחֲמֶ֑ךָ וְשָׁ֗ב וְקִבֶּצְךָ֙ מִכׇּל־הָ֣עַמִּ֔ים אֲשֶׁ֧ר הֱפִֽיצְךָ֛ יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֶ֖יךָ שָֽׁמָּה׃

And YHWH your God will return your “sh’vut’cha“, and have compassion on you:
G8d will return to collect you from all the peoples,
If you be led away to the ends of the heavens,
from there YHWH your God will collect you, from there he will take you,

But wait – How can G8d return? Is the Holy One in exile, and why is it repeated so often?

Many sources – Rashi, Zohar, all make a case, that when we are exiled – spiritually or physically- that G8d or Shechinah is with is in our exile! And that G8d takes us each by the hand to return us to who we are. The repetition of shuv so many times can refer to: spiritual or physical, G8d and the People of Yisrael. It can refer to the good parts of us with the parts that stray. The third repetition is from the word “sh’vutcha” – your returnings. Tanya says that when we do teshuvah, the letter “hey” will be returned to us, making us complete – as Avram and Sarai received the letter “hey” added to their names.

Tomer Devorah, an ancient mystical work often read during this time claims the world was birthed with the letter “hey” and where the baal teshuvah – the returnee stands, not even the tzaddik can stand – it’s a greater route around the outside of the “hey” then up through to the open window. G8d’s forgiveness is greater than ours, and even allows those who have really missed the mark to rise higher – their own love traversing a longer distance as well as G8d’s love. This is the gist of Jonah.

Maimonides allows there are three levels of “Yirah” – the lowest is fear of G8d, the second is awe, gotten by means of awe of creation, and the highest is love of the Holy One.

Chapter 30 contains the exhortation to choose life that we and our children may live. Ibn Ezra’s comment is my favorite – to live is to love.

I propose that return means to return to loving – ourselves, in spite of our flaws, one another, and the Creator of life and love

L’Shanah Tova – a Good year to all!

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The (maybe) Happy Ending of Exodus

This past fall I saw the show “Maybe Happy Ending” (mini concert of show) Like the Robots, the Israelites began as slaves and their happy ending is love.

The Book of Exodus ends with the completion of the Mishkan (tabernacle) being in flame at night and covered with a cloud to shade it during the day, meaning that the Divine presence will be with us in these forms. Fire is the terror of Sinai, the inspiration at the burning bush, the manufacture method of the Golden calf, and the instructions to B’tzalel on how to build the Mishkan (sources on Sefaria Here) My Grandfather’s Hebrew name was B’tzalel and one of my children are named for him. The name means “in G8d’s shadow.” There is only an outline in a shadow, and shelter from the blazing sun. I suggest that the fire is the intuition and passion of the artist – The ability to be inspired is certainly a gift. G8d chooses B’tzalel because of this gift. The Holy One then provides a general outline, a material list – just as a shadow casts a general outline of the One who casts it. It is a combination of fire and cloud – of inspiration and of protection from constant demand of creating this beautiful artwork. That protection from demands is introduced at the beginning of this week’s reading Vayakhel meaning “and you shall gather them in community” It specifies, commands you shall not kindle a fire. In contrast to slave labor, we are to have the opportunity to unwind, to refresh.
I tend to do too much. I know this because one of my kids gave me a book as a gift called “The Art of Doing Nothing” But make no mistake, I believe in Shabbos – that palace in time described by Rabbi Heschel. First to just be, then to glimpse beyond myself, and to be “Vayakhel” gathered in a community. To inhale deeply , in medical talk inhale is inspire. It means to be able to lift our heads from the grindstone to see the sparks, the fire cast in the heavens and create things from those patterns using our intuition. In Shaarei simchah, I am yearning to find kindred spirits with whom to sing, and play and imagine.

Intuition and imagination what we can gain from a combination of inspiration and time to do “nothing” B’tzalel creates tapestries of weaving that should be impossible. Talmud Yoma describes the tapestry, with its weave going through to the other side making two images. B’tzalel somehow made a weave so that on the other side appears the image of a different animal: a lion on one side, and a condor on the other. Interestingly, those are 2 of the 3 chimeric animals in Ezekiel’s vision of G8d’s chariot. The ox, oh so similar to the calf is the third. That ability – to hold different ideas together and come up with something new is genius, and not robotic.

So the enslaved Israelites, like robots, first live only to work, that is their only purpose. In the show, when the Robot’s work is done, they are left to die. Instead they connect and find love. This is the purpose of the Mishkan – for People and the Divine to live in a loving relationship, the Mishkan is symbolic of a G8d coming “home’ to us. What is my evidence that the Mishkan is built like us- by and for love? Believe it or not, it’s the copper mirrors donated by the women to build the washbasins for the Levites to wash. In Exodus 38:8 Rashi cites a Midrash (see the Rashi on source page) where Moses doesn’t want to accept the mirrors, as instruments of vanity and sexuality. The Holy One replies that the mirrors are the most precious gifts of all. G8d explains that when Pharaoh command brutal workloads, the women would go to their husbands in the fields, bringing refreshments and their mirrors. Each would tease their husband about who was better looking, until the husband’s passion was aroused. This is how a generation was conceived: in play, in leisure carved impossibly by love. The song of songs is then cited by Rashi here (Song 8:5) “I awakened thy love under the apple-tree”, (referring to the fields where the men worked) This is why we make apple charoset on Passover. And that’s why the book of Exodus has a “Happy Ending”, maybe..

Below: the image of the creatures (they will be chimerized together) of Ezekiel’s vision. The golden calf was a tiny piece of reality that was owned to manipulate. Betzalel’s tapestry had woven a lion on one side and a “nesher” r tcondor on the other from the same weave! complex and unlimited.

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The Binding of Isaac, cords of love?

“Take your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac, and go with him to the land of vision, Moriah, and offer him up as a burnt offering” Gen 22:2 How could a father attempt murder of a longed-for, beloved child at the command of a loving G8d? This is a question many have tried to answer. One tradition sees Virtue in Avraham’s willingness to sacrifice his child in obedience. Another tradition, however, as Rashi quotes in midrash, says this last of ten “tests” that challenge Avraham is Satanic. The accuser, Satan, challenges Avraham’s love of G8d, who enacts the test. According to the Midrash, Satan then descends to earth trying to talk Avraham out of the sacrifice, using all the reasons we would argue today. Avraham in mystical tradition represents the sphirah of “chesed” loving-kindness. Why does Avraham listen to the command to offer up his “only” son as a burnt offering? Was it fear, pure faith?

I propose another interpretation: the binding of Isaac is a parable about the sacrifices we make to honor our parents, in obligations borne of love. This is more consistent with the themes of love and strength in Genesis, and bears powerful wisdom for our lives today. According to Maimonides, Abraham does everything for the love of G8d and humans, who are in the Divine image.

“Scripture says (Deut. 11:13): ‘To love the Lord
your God’-whatever you do, do it only out of love.”…
Abraham our Father achieved this level; he served God out of love. ~Maimonides’ Introduction to Perek Helek Introduction to Chapter ten of Mishna Sanhedrin

Avraham is the model of hospitality, his tent was always open, he interrupts an audience with the Divine to feed and wash the feet of three strangers, who reflect G8d’s image (when he is 90 and recovering from circumcision!) He plants an “eshel”, interpreted to mean an orchard or a hotel, to feed people, and teach them that bounty comes from G8d.

If Avraham is all about love, how can this be harmonized with attempted murder of Isaac? Consider this: love is the rope that binds his son. I have a newborn grandbaby, and it is stirring strong memories of motherhood. When that baby cries, you are bound to respond. A parents’ life is not their own. Mara Benjamin, in her article “The obligated Self: Maternal Subjectivity and Jewish Thought” brilliantly uses the experience of maternal obligation out of love to speak of religious obligation, a concept we are sometimes uncomfortable with. She writes

Maternal obligation, in both its practical and its existential dimensions, offers contemporary Western people’s most substantive experience with the meaning of obligation. …The care for an infant perfectly captures the pairing of command and love at the heart of rabbinic thought. If God is not only loving parent but demanding baby, we may find within ourselves the resolve to meet the demand.

But what of caring for aging parents (or other relatives), is that not also an obligation bound by cords of love? According to tradition, Isaac was 37 at the time of his near sacrifice. (Based on his mother Sara’s age at his conception, 90 and the timing of binding of Isaac immediately preceding her death at 127 years) Avraham was 137 years old. In my mind I halve all the ages in the Avraham saga to make it relatable, still he’s elderly, perhaps disabled. Somehow he makes a three day journey on to mount Moriah and climbs a mountain. Although the donkey may carry him to the foot of the mountain, how does he climb, when the donkey is left behind at the foot of the mountain: Does Isaac carry him? I have recently had to put my life on hold to care for a disabled relative, I did it out of obligation borne of love. It is difficult, and my actual identity at times seemed subsumed by the obligation. I propose that, as many adult children Isaac is a care-giver whose obligation to care for his father is the rope that binds him. This makes sense of the ages of Avraham and Yitzhak, of the love that Avraham is said to embody. What about Yitzhak, named for the laughter of his elderly parents? He represents “gevurah” or strength in tradition, and it takes so much strength to care for aging parents. These obligations bind us but should not slay us. Avrahram responds to G8d’s call, lifts up his eyes to see the miraculous ram, that takes the place of his son so that Isaac can be a link in the chain of generations.

Isaac embodies the fifth of the Ten “Commandments” at Sinai: Kabed et avicha v’et imecha… honor your father and your mother, that you may long endure on land. According to Sefer Hamitzvot command “honor” means to give them to eat and drink, bringing in and taking out” This sounds like being a caregiver to an elderly disabled parent! According to Ramban, to honor parents is to honor G8d.

Sources on Sefaria

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The Most often repeated command: Do Not Oppress the Sojourner!

This week’s Torah portion is Mishpatim, meaning “laws”. The narrative of Revelation is interrupted to give a whole bunch of laws, although Moses is still up on Sinai! These laws include some troubling ones, as well as some beautiful laws (Source page Here )There is a flashback to before Revelation as well, where Moshe reads everything that came before Sinai to the Israelite people, and they answer as one All “na-aseh v’nishma” We will do and we will hear. How can you agree to do if you haven’t heard what the deal is. Rashbam explained it means we will do all we’ve been commanded so far and listen to upcoming ones. But the Me’or Einayim hints that the doing will open your heart, and bring so much joy and love, that you will simply be attuned to the Holy One. A voice from Heaven (bat kol) hearing the Israelites say “naaseh v’nishmah, asked “who told you this secret?” for this is how the angels serve the Blessed Holy One. It is a beautiful thing! So what is it we must do? The single most oft repeated command in the Torah stems from our experiences leaving Egyptian slavery. It is this: Do not oppress the stranger, for you know his nefesh soul, for you were strangers/sojourners in the land of Egypt. According to the Talmud, Rabbi Eliezer stated that “the Torah warns 36 times, and some say 46 times, not to oppress the stranger” (Babylonian Talmud, Bava M’tzia 59b) Twice in this Torah portion alone. By the time we get to Leviticus, it has morphed into a command to actually love the stranger as we love ourselves! Leviticus 19:33–34 and Deuteronomy 10:19

Once again, our neighbors and friends are being rounded up in churches and schools without any regard to being deserving or not. They are undocumented, they are vulnerable and sojourners. Our command is clear

HEAR THEIR CRIES, by Miryam Margo Wolfson December 30, 2018

You already know how it goes 

To be so far from safety, from home

To be alone, to be a stranger in a narrow zone

Love the stranger, you were strangers too

Love the stranger, you know their soul

Hear their cries and know

You can be part of the healing, 

make things whole

A little girl cries in the nlght

Though they hear her no one comes to hold her tight

No one makes it right, or reunites

The world seems far too big and too cold

Without Momma beside her to hold  

Bridge

Naaseh v’nishma, We will help and then truly hear

When we comfort and dry the tears 

It can open pathway so we

Can be free, to live in dignity

Naaseh v’nishma,  

Let us open our hearts and our ears

Cause there will always be mountains to climb

We can truly be there,*

even gather a glimpse of Divine

if we..

Love the stranger, we were strangers too

Love the stranger, we know their soul

We Hear their cries and know

we  must be part of the healing, 

make ourselves whole

* Moses is told to climb the mounain and be there!

Pulitzer prize winning photo by John Moore

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Just Breathe for Qohelet/ Ecclesiastes

I  spent a day last week with one who was dying, body failing, spirit hovering. The hospital machines whirring and spinning, some would soon be removed. “Breathe” urged the loved one to the dying one, when every breath was painful effort. “Breathe” and for him she did for a few more days.

“Hevel, merest breath”, is our life, says Qohelet, (Q1:2) Biblical book of wisdom. Yet merest breath is a Divine gift, and cannot be forced.    “It sucks, said the loved one” “Yes” I replied, validating his sorrow and anger.  “Only love is as strong as death,” (shir ha’shirim 8:6 )I suggested, but his need/desire was too great to let go.

  We seek insights on what it means to be alive and in relationship with others. In the ancient Biblical words of Qohelet we find  wisdom to help us gain perspective and understanding of the enormous issues of where G8d is in the passage of time and mortality, and why bad things happen to good people in the presence of a loving G8d. This gift of wisdom is not unique to Jewish literature and also appears in the ancient Chinese wisdom of Lau Tzu’s Tao te Ching. Of the beloved’s strong need for his wife’s breath “…free from desire, you realize the mystery, caught in desire, you see only the manifestations, Yet mystery and manifestations arise from the same source. This source is called darkness. Darkness within darkness, gateway to all understanding” (TTC 1).

The fact that we are here, as unlikely as that is, is a miracle, as are love, and beauty and goodness. These we attribute to a loving G8d.  However, coming to terms with mortality, the inhumanity of some human behavior, illness and suffering can powerfully challenge us. “no amount of effort can make right something truly perverse, and things that are lacking almost never manage to come into existence in a real enough way to count” (Q1:15) says Kohelot, in the gorgeous melody of a trope that paradoxically lifts our spirits. These words validate our fears, acknowledging their weight and their shared human concerns. All people in various cultures who have sought wisdom must deal with such questions. We perhaps reject, as I do, a G8d that micromanages, and can make our team win with supplications or animal sacrifices. Just having lived to pursue goodness may have to be enough. In trying to control and fix the world, we have separated ourselves from it, and created ecological ruin. The technology that protects us, uses resources, creates waste, destroying the natural environment, which we are meant to be a part of, Just as the technology that prolongs death destroys dignity, and we must let go in the end.

In this week’s parashah, Yaakov, who has been the heel-grabber, tries to manipulate things to “win” at life, will finally wrestle with his demons and his intense desires to dominate his brother. He will let his family and wealth  cross over to offer them up to his brother, and there see the face of G8d. Perhaps this can only happen wrestling with the Source  in the darkness. In the mystery he will be blessed with disability and re-Named, yet the Tau warns us. …the Name that can be named is not the eternal Name (TTC:1)

  Qohelet, much like the Tao te Ching, says the world can’t be tampered with, or “you’ll ruin it”,  that the Master sees things as they are without trying to control them (TTC 29)…lets them go their own way. Our technology is “shaping clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds what we want.”  (TTC 11)  Qohelet recognizes the  “helvel/emptiness inside”. The river of time and events “flows into the sea, yet the sea is never filled” (Q 1:7). It cannot be stopped, we cannot fight it. The spectre of death is also a(n) hevel/emptiness, but one which gives life infinite meaning. The value of humans is not what we can get out of one other, but is in their bonding. Qohelet says “two are better than one…if the one should fall down, the other one can at least help him up…if someone attacks two can fight (them) off (Q4:9-12).  It is brothers that we need!

 In Jewish tradition, Qohelet is read during Sukkot, our week-long festival spent outside, in a fragile hut, unprotected, and open enough to see the stars, and find our perspective in the larger world. We read Qohelet to know that life is ephemeral, and precious: “Do whatever you can manage to accomplish in this life, because in Sheol you fill find no activity, no reckoning, no knowledge and no wisdom, and that is precisely where you are going!”(Q9:10) 

Similarly, the wisdom of the Tao is reflected in Chinese paintings which offer a different perspective, of human beings as a small part of a much larger creation. We can be liberated by giving up control of things beyond our strength to the heavens, in the words of Qohelet: banish worry from your heart, and regret from your flesh, for childhood (life) lasts as long as a breath. Then when we return to our dwellings, perhaps our roof will be unable to separate us from G8d. Our gratitude will be richer for our blessings, and a full harvest, or even death will not harden our hearts. If he can let her go, their love can survive beyond her body.  Perhaps the harmful dramas will abate as we relinquish control. Rather we can be generous with ourselves and others, to “send our bread out onto the water….(and) sow (all) our seeds and not desist even in evening” And emerge into the day and declare “how sweet the light and how good for the eyes to see the sun!” (Qohelet 11:1,6, 10, 7) .

If I can let you go as trees let go
Their leaves, so casually, one by one;
If I can come to know what they do know,
That fall is the release, the consummation,
Lose what I lose to keep what I can keep,
The strong root still alive under the snow,
Love will endure – if I can let you go.

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