The World will be Saved by Beauty

The world will be saved by beauty (Dostoyevsky)

Open to the beauty around you.  Go to beautiful places.  Create beautiful things.  Make your home beautiful.  Adorn your body with beauty.  Look in the mirror and see your own beauty.  

See the beauty in each of your parents. See the beauty in your beloveds, in your ancestors, and in your descendants.  See the beauty in each encounter with another being, for seeing beauty calls forth the beauty, releasing sparks of primordial light.  If at first you can’t see the beauty, look and look again.  Trust in the presence of the God-spark.   

Listen to the mountains, listen to the oceans, listen to the forests, listen to the lakes.  Plant flowers and rejoice in the innocent beauty they unfurl.  Watch the clouds, each moment a new painting on God’s sky canvas.

Eat foods that bring the beauty of creation within.  Savor their smells and tastes and textures.

Make beautiful music. Dance a beautiful dance.  Be always on the lookout for beauty.  Live in a state of awe and wonder.  

See the beauty in what is yours and rejoice with others for the beauty that is theirs.  

“Beauty is My gift to you,” says the Holy One.  Drink it in!  

Adapted from a piece I wrote in August 2016, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at a retreat with Rabbi Shefa Gold. Our assignment was to write our own version of the 10 Commandments.

A Prayer from the Heart for those Serving our Communities and for those most Vulnerable

We hold in our hearts all who are serving our community to keep us safe, many at risk to their own lives:

those who keep the electricity on and the water flowing

those who provide food for our tables and healthcare for the sick

those who clean and repair and pick up the trash

those working in factories and transporting packages

those who are serving governments around the world in good faith

those developing new vaccines and treatments

those who help to keep the peace and to put out literal and figurative fires

those creatively adapting to teaching students and leading communities

those caring for the dying, the dead, and the bereaved

and those caring for children and elders.

We also hold in our hearts all for whom these times are particularly challenging:

those for whom sheltering at home is a danger 

those who do not have a home

those who cannot go home

those who cannot visit with loved ones

those suffering from debilitating mental illness

those who have lost their sense of purpose

and those who are hungry.

Torah commands us to love the stranger as ourselves, to remember that we were strangers in the land of Egypt.  Even as we shelter at home, may our love and acts of justice extend far beyond our households to support those in need of sustenance, protection, and healing.  

May a Sukkat Shalom— a Shelter of Peace—spread over all of humanity.  And we say, Amen

Crossing the Sea

When you pass through the waters, I am with you, yes, I am with you.
I won’t let the rivers overwhelm you, I will be with you. (Isaiah 43:2, Chant by Rabbi Shefa Gold)

I lead a weekly Jewish meditation group on Tuesday mornings, which includes 20 minutes of silence together. This morning, we opened with chanting Through the Waters, a powerful chant practice for remembering that we are not alone in this journey of embodied life. Here is the teaching I shared before our silence:

We are approaching the final days of Passover.  There is a tradition that on the 7th day of Passover, which begins tonight, the Israelites cross the Sea.  

The Israelites flee Egypt following the 10th plague, the death of the firstborn of Egypt, and we might imagine that this is the dramatic end of the story of the Israelite’s exodus from Egypt, but no!  Pharaoh has another change of heart about releasing them from his service and he and his army pursue the fleeing Israelites with chariots.  

An angel of God intervenes—the pillar of cloud that had been in front of the Israelites, guiding them, shifts from in front to behind them, to separate the Egyptians from the Israelites by a cloud of darkness.   Then a strong east wind blows and turns the sea into dry ground, the waters forming two walls to the right and left, leaving a tunnel, or birth canal, for the Israelites to walk through.   

How do I imagine our experience of crossing the sea?

Here we are, together, in this tunnel in the sea

Nobody talking or singing or even humming

We are silent, together, not knowing what comes next

Will we make it to the other side?

Will the walls close in and drown us all? 

Will there be anyone left to remember us?  

Why did we leave?  Did we have a choice? 

Here we are, together

Future generations will say that we lived through a miracle

When we get to the other side, we will sing and dance

Yet for this moment, here we are, in this tunnel in the sea

Each step, each breath, a miracle

Seder Night 2020

A friend called me the other day to discuss preparing to lead a Zoom Seder for her extended family. She was struggling. “How do we celebrate redemption when we know that it’s not going to come this Passover? We’re in the thick of things.  Things are getting harder.”

This was a really good question. How do we celebrate in the midst of so much darkness, uncertainty, and fear?

While this may be a new question for our generation, this is not a new question for the Jewish people. Even at times of grave danger, whether from threats of violence or disease, Passover has continued to be celebrated. Our celebration is an act of faith. By sitting at the Seder table and enacting our yearly ritual with song, story and symbolic foods, we practice having faith that redemption will come. There is a sign hanging in my living room, which I had originally printed for a racial justice protest several years ago, that reads, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” (Martin Luther King, Jr). We take first steps by doing what we can to slow the spread of the virus, by sharing our resources, by advocating for the newly “essential” workers who have no sick leave or health insurance, by caring for our family and friends, and yes, by continuing to celebrate even in dark times.

I plan to lead Seder tonight by Zoom for my family in many places around the United States, and we will make space for being real with how we’re feeling, including our grief and fear. Yet grief and fear are not the whole story, even though it sometimes seems that way. We connect with our wholeness by celebrating our blessings—loving relationships, flowers, song birds, creativity, food, and the cycles of the moon that remind us that even as so much is changing in our day to day lives, there is a greater whole that remains steady.

At Passover, we celebrate leaving Egypt, or mitzrayim. From an inner perspective, mitzrayim is a state of constriction. What I have been experiencing during this last 27 days of being in isolation with my family is that I often enter Mitzrayim, a sense of constriction, feeling afraid and sad and grumpy and desiring to pull inward. Yet I am also learning new awareness of how to leave Egypt. Blessed with beautiful weather and living in an area where I can keep my distance from others, I step outside, focus on the beauty and patterns of the flowers and new leaves, listen to the baby hawks nesting near my home, breathe in the fresh air. When I pay close attention to nature, I am restored to an expansive state where I am trusting and ready to be generous. Our Seder ritual supports us in emerging into an expansive state, which is what will be needing to together bring about redemption.

Greta's Haftarah

In each generation, prophets arise to speak the truths that must be spoken, whether or not the majority of the population and the powers-that-be are ready to hear. For generations, Jews have been chanting the Haftarah, a message from the Hebrew prophets selected for each Shabbat (Sabbath), to awaken the community to act for love and justice. We present here the powerful words of Greta Thunberg, a prophetess of our times, chanted in the traditional Haftarah melody. Greta’s prophecy-as-Haftarah, as well as a link to her original speech, can be found at thrivingspirit.org/greta.

Transformation: Sitting in the Secret of the Highest

This poem came to me a few weeks ago while on retreat with my teacher Shefa Gold. After chanting Yoshayv b’sayter Elyon, b’tzayl Shadai yitlonan (Whoever sits in the secret of the Highest will abide in the shade of Shaddai (Psalm 91:1)), Shefa invited us to enter into a place of protection and nurturance. This is where I entered. You can listen to the chant by clicking on the words above.

One summer, I found caterpillars eating my parsley outside. A few of them came inside and heartily ate parsley until they were ready to transform. Here is the chrysalis stage.

in a chrysalis 

falling apart

disintegrating

letting go

i am lost 

no finding

no fixing

breathing in the Great Mystery

here i am

הנני Hineni

safe and salty

fresh and formless and void

I have been sacrificed. The מאכלת (knife) cut me through , dissolved me.

No ram in my place.  I am the sacrifice.

One day, I shall fly