Torah for now

Posts tagged ‘torah’

Light within dark times.

Sometimes I feel like I’m surrounded by darkness. Now is such a time. There is lack of empathy for the most vulnerable among us, immorality at the highest level of government, and a populace which supports and (in some countries) has democratically chosen such leaders. There is blindness to climate change, which is damaging our life support system, and is affecting us all, but is more devastating those who already have the least among us. In this darkness, where is the light?

The Torah portion read this week, parashat Bo, includes the final three “signs and wonders” which afflict Egypt, all of which involve increasing darkness, culminating in the darkness of death. Focusing on the ninth sign “choshech/darkness”, it is no ordinary darkness, but one which is substantial, can be felt. It is described as so dark that you could not,,,,, How would you end that sentence, perhaps: “see your hand before your face”? Rather, it is described as one in which folks could not see “their brother” or sister. This is a moral blindness, a complete lack of empathy. This was not inflicted by G8d*, our Source of Life and Light, but rather The Holy One transformed the invisible into a sign that could be seen by the morally blind. The moment the Egyptians took part in Pharoah’s genocidal decree and helped throw newborn boys in the River, they sowed darkness: no wonder the Nile turned to blood! G8d simply made it apparent, they did not recognize their own brutality. These signs were needed to illustrate a story for the generations, “Who lives, who dies who tells your story..” as Lynn Manuel Miranda wrote – Signs and wonders were needed to open hearts to the pre-existing inhumanity: perhaps in their slave mindset, even the Israelite victims took it for “the way things just were” and the Egyptians so blind so as not to see/care about their fellow human being. This narrative with its signs and wonders was important enough to illustrate dramatically so it could be passed to the children at the seder table.

In seeing the light within the darkness, the parashah begins with “Bo” come, rather than “go” Awareness, daat, intimate knowledge of the laws of decency, of who we are in relation to nature and one another were in exile. See my source page in Sefaria Bo is spelled Bet, Aleph, and the word “bet” means “house” The Aleph, according to Meor Einayim represents the light of G8d, to bright to experience with out the comforting shield of “bet”. The light within the darkness is hidden within the very first word that G8d says in this parashah.

Need more light? Leonard Cohen famously wrote, “there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in” When we are in darkness, the cracks in ourselves and the world are places where light can enter. The pain we are feeling is a sign for where to apply the healing, and how urgently it is needed. And we don’t know with which broken parts of ourselves or our world we can help to liberate this light: so we must bring all we’ve got to bear upon it because we, and all nature is filled with G8d’s light. (See Mevo HaSh’arim on the source page)

There are “signs and wonders” today which point to injustice and lack of empathy. Rabbi Shai Held wrote, in 2017 book, (I had not yet read Naomi Klein’s This changes Everything, 2016″

“Imagine living in a world in which violating the laws of morality leads inexorably to consequences in the world of nature. .. the thought of living in such a universe can be frankly, terrifying.” ~ Rabbi Shai Held: The Heart of Torah, Volume 1:

Global climate change, rapid species extinctions viral plagues, are all signs in which nature herself is revealing the lack of care for nature, and lack of empathy for others, and blindness to own self interest! It’s not “the environment” but our own life support system, designed by G8d and infused with the Presence that we are harming. Yet, our hearts remain heavy, hard, and strong willed (my translation of the three adjectives describing Pharoah’s heart). What will it take for us to become aware?!

Perhaps awareness of the holiness in one another and in nature. I offer my setting of Shiviti,https://soundcloud.com/biomusicmm from psalm 16, which means we must set G8d before us always.

Shiviti Adonai L’negdi Tamid

G8d, I set you before me continually

I know you in the blessings that come to me each day

Sweetened by Gratitude, deepened by sharing them with You

I feel you in the spaces between me and the people I meet

Help me to know that it’s Your light that I see deep in their eyes, deep in their heart

And when I walk in wild places, my head reaching for the skies,

Help me to guard and to keep your garden green by and by

And oh in the darkness, help me be/see the light

And when You feel so far away,

Help me to know that the yearning’s OK,

The yearning can be a pathway.

*I use the 8 rather than the “o” to spell G8d out of respect for this name. The 8 is infinity and represents one step beyond the completion which is 7

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CONSTRICTED THROATS: Moses, me and Esther

– Did you ever get emotional, so that there was a lump, a constriction in your throat, and you were temporarily unable to speak? When The Holy One asks Moses to go to Pharoah and demand “Let my people go” Moshe responds “NO, they won’t listen to me! I have a kabed peh, a heavy mouth u’chvad lashon What does it mean to have, like Moses, a heavy tongue?

G8d’s answer: Who but I give a mouth (and speech) to humans, and who makes those who are mute?

But G8d creates all through acts of speech (in what language I’m not sure: math, physics, music, love?) and creates we humans who are partly defined by speech and are Btzelem Elohim In the Divine Image, in that way. Is G8d also the power who creates those who are mute? Many things can make a person mute: being born without hearing, for example. With therapy sign language can be taught. The mind can make you mute: my eldest daughter, so brilliant and super sensitive would lose her voice whenever she became sick! But trauma can make a person mute as well, as the heart wrenching literature of the Shoah attests.  The Slonimer Rebbe speaks of slavery in Egypt as so crushing, that their minds were enslaved, not just their bodies. He explains when finally the slaves were able to get out a geshrei, a good primal cry, it was the first step in their deliverance. That was when G8d heard their voice, their cry and sends Moshe. He speaks of the tightness or constriction in the throat where the soul cannot get out or express itself.  Moshe, the Slonimer continues was actually as an avatar of the Israelite people. Therefore he was unable to speak fluently! The word ּכְבַ֥ד  The shoresh/root also means “honor” Perhaps “k’vad peh uchvod lashon” means a mouth and tongue that honors the people that Moshe serves. There are times when it is inappropriate to be verbose, such as entering a house of mourning.  Until the Israelites could move from the Narrow place of tzuros, Mitzrayim and be free and to SING at the sea, Moshe could not be the orator who would be the channel of Torah from Heaven to earth. I personally found my voice first through teaching, then through singing. I am still finding my voice.  Moshe’s life begins in a similar way. He is born into danger. Zipporah, his mother keeps him hidden and safely for three months. When he is no longer able to be silenced, she trusts him to G8d, fate and the Nile. Now he can cry and win the heart of the Pharoah’s daughter..

In the land of Shushan, Persia, many years following was a beautiful Jewish girl named Haddassah. But when the kings men came to uncle Mordechai’s house looking for the most lovely to be queen, she was silenced, not to reveal her true identity, and given a new name, Esther, from the same root as nistar, hidden.  She hasn’t been paying attention to the happenings of the kingdom when she is told of Mordie in sack cloth and ashes – send him some new clothes. She wants to remain deaf and mute to trouble, hard to blame her, who wants trouble?!  Mordechai then delivers my favorite line of the whole Megillah

Chapter 4:6 “If you keep silent in this crisis, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another place, while you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows, perhaps you have risen royal position for just such a crisis.”

And our unlikely heroine is born. She does not fight hatred with fists, but with seduction and revelation.

What is it in our lives that we’d like to ignore, issues we’d rather not think about. And what is your position of influence, what can YOU do? Moshe’s heavy mouth was a sign of his complete entanglement in the people he served. Esther’s hiddenness, the secret of her success. Perhaps it is your deepest flaw or disability which can actually be your superpower.

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