Author Archives for r'av yo

haYom shnei yomim laOmer: gevurah she b’chesed

“first a person should put his house together, then his town, then the world”

r’ salanter, father of modern mussar offers this advice, and it suggests the introduction of gevurah (‘judgment’) into the chesed  (loving-kindness) in which we dwell every night of the count this week.  we should see that there is no suggestion of cutting off chesed herein, but rather an ordering of it, an admission of judgment in it (of this, more next week when we practice interinclusions in gevurah all week).

instead of all love to all at all times, most of us are better adept as recognizing where and when and what is a better way for us to do tzedakah, to love chesed…in a way that is actually more efficient for us. now we aren’t looking at cost-effectiveness per se, though all of us have limits to our monetary ability to give, but rather  at a spirit-effectiveness.  some of us are gifted ourselves with bringing cheer to those in need, others are better at organizing charitable giving, still others are best giving time to teach, etc.

judgment in love is something adele probably should sing more of….else her songs are destined to be always sad.

but the real kernel that emerges out of gevurah she b’chesed is the character trait of achrayut, or ‘responsibility,’ which operates even in love…none of us, save the Holy One, has unlimited capacity for everlasting love. but we build spriritual responsibility only by practicing very careful judgment on how much limitation, how much restriction, how much reigning in we do. might have to come off cruise control, but there is no need to hit the brakes!  gevurah brings shape to our chesed, so that we are like better behaved puppies…we are still always happy and full of love, but have learned that maybe jumping up on folks all the time isn’t best.

mussar for gevurah she b’chesed

gevurah-chesed with another….bein adam l’chavero   remember that we are still in the sefirah of chesed…so how would you apply chesed to one for whom you just don’t care much for? someone who aggravates you, someone you just don’t get along with?  too much gevurah and you just don’t deal with them…and that is not ok. parents: consider how you can better love your children with caring discipline. and all of us can follow the practice of reaching out to help one who troubles us…better yet, reach out to do something that an enemy needs.

gevurah-chesed with yourself….bein adam l’atzmo  assess what you are good at. what are your best traits of action?  what sorts of doing do you naturally vibrate with?  find a way to accept the responsibility that you should be exercising your strengths in a responsible fashion for yourself…..but then ask yourself what am i if i only use my strengths for myself?

kabbalah for gevurah she b’chesed

in assiyah….the world of doing/completion   many of us know people who are engaged in caring for elderly parents.  it can be profoundly exhausting, and can easily drain energy away from caring for spouses, children, friends…and others outside the family circle entirely.  particularly in the case of an elderly person suffering from dementia, doing chesed can sometimes simply be a chore.   some time today meditating on how one carves time, sets up reasonable but necessary boundaries, shares caregiving responsibility. chart a better  course of governing your love (either up or down).   oh, and if you were gardening on day 1, feel free to weed a little on day 2.

in yetzirah….the world of feeling/formation   parents especially need to consider how to bring structure to their childrens’ activities.   how often do we encounter children who become whole and independent completely without some boundaries being set?   but lovers can be the same way, so carried off with joy that responsibility is lost….how much more so in a marriage, wherein we may feel that the revery of love is washed away by the responsibility.  practice governing today, racheting up love that is lean or lost, and stepping down the urge to throw restraint to the wind.  what is the test token (remember the film inception?) that lets you know when you are dreaming in love and when you must  ‘come back to earth?’

in b’riyah….the world of thought/creation   gevurah can express itself not only in restraint, but also in simple discernment.  sometimes i think that there is no more important spirit world and sefirah than a little gevurah in our beloved chesed in the places where we think and create.  perhaps the sort of work that was so very right for us at 25 is less so–or not so–at 57.  certainly your practice of judaism should have taken different paths over time.  the spirit way of age 13 was not intended to last a lifetime (though the skills are!). ….meditate on your way in G’d now.  what jewish ways, which practices, which emphases continue to stoke the love of G’d but recognize how far you have come in your creative thought about the holy?

in atzilut….the world of nearness to G’d/intuition   among G’d’s great attributes is erech apayim,  ‘being slow to anger.’  it is not that anger is absent for those created in the image of G’d, but that it is very well tempered. i often teach the way of the Koretzer rebbe who taught that he had mastered his anger, placing it in his pocket.  when he had need of it, he could simply take it out.  how many of us have the presence of mind to live with anger but to control it so very well?  meditate on ‘being slow to anger’ until you see the chesed in it.

kinyan 2 of 48 ways to acquire Torah

Shmiat haOzen…Listening    we wear tzitzit in order not to be distracted and led astray by our eyes.  we are yet tempted by the bright, the fancy, the bigger…the badder….as hannibal lector famously points out “we begin by coveting that which we see  everyday.”  but the sparkly and brilliant often skips across the intellect without leaving much of a mark. interestingly, we have no such restraint on our hearing (at least not before the advent of the iPod) .  indeed, crucial mitzvot like shofar, and hearing the reading of Torah rely on an unimpeded ear….one is called upon to remove the foreskin of the ear in order that we may listen clearly.  the ‘central faith statement of the Jewish People’, the shema itself urges that we hear…..all the way into our hearts.  G’d set the exodus in motion when he heard the cries of the People…not when he saw their work.  so it is in the acquisition of Torah.  reading it silently in the fashion of modern scholarship will never penetrate to the heart, but hearing it, listening to the words as well as engaging the mind to come to understand the meaning  thereof is the way of grabbing the ‘good taking’ that G’d has revealed to us.

haYom yom echad laOmer: chesed she b’chesed

for G’d so loved that he gave the world

does it sound odd to you? oh, i know, you’ve heard something of a variant on this theme in christian circles, but think about that variant and then consider what is above, for what is above is the essence of the jewish view, i think.  it really doesn’t need latter-day emendation (though see ‘of chesed’ in the lefthand menu of pages).

i hope that many of you will remember back just to last night’s seder, in which is found hallel, nestled into which is the much repeated call to prayer: “hodu l’adonai ki tov” to which we answer repeatedly,  “ki l’olam chasdo,” or

thanks to G’d for G’d is good           everlasting is G’d’s loving-kindness

some of you may know that the word  ‘olam’ is both world and eternity….and that eternity is ‘beyond time,’ extending back as well as now and forward. the kabbalah has long taught that G’d created the world due to his overflowing capacity to love….creation erupts out of the ein sof from the desire to love.  in Psalm 89:2 we learn further that: “the world is built with chesed.”  last night we reiterated how we were redeemed from the narrow straits by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm….the power of G’d’s redemptive love for the enslaved.  but G’d created all with chesed, with loving-kindness, and it is therein that the mightiness of the hand and the extending power of the arm is centered.

well, today is day one of the Omer, and the interinclusion is chesed that is in chesed. a double dose of chesed…the loving-kindness that is in loving-kindness.  just as the world itself, our rebuilding of our spiritual world, now that we are freed from the slaveries we had imposed upon ourselves in the past year, begins utterly in chesed, the way of Avraham Avinu, who could plead for even the evildoers of sodom.  what did Avraham have to gain by the possible continuation of the line of sodom?  well, nothing.  and there is the understanding of chesed she b’chesed.

how different would things be for trayvon martin and george zimmerman had there been a little more chesed?

the real question is, having once done a single act of chesed, can we become one of those who pursue it always?  can we, like G’d, not only create a loving-kindness locale, but sustain and renew it constantly?   the Zohar teaches: “who is a chasid?  one who does chesed with the Creator.”  we can do loving-kindness with our Creator if we realize that the ur-image of G’d that is our birthright is none other than chesed, giving that is unending and that does not look to take….or even receive.

mussar for chesed she b’chesed

chesed with another….bein adam l’chavero  can you feel sympathy for strangers?  for both victims and victimizers?  not being sympathetic to any wrong done, but having empathy for both parties in their pain? that may be a bit much for many, so try it closer to home.  give something to someone in need without weighing the decision or minding the amount. don’t wait to be asked!  if giving change, simply empty your pocket…pull a bill out of your wallet without looking at the denomination….just sit down and listen to someone trying to tell you something–with no time limits, with no interruptions (no matter how badly you want to offer advice), with nothing but loving-kindness in your heart.

chesed with yourself….bein adam l’atzmo  a classic exercise from the Steipler gaon is to try to speak (do email, etc) today without saying ‘i’ or ‘me’.

kabbalah for chesed she b’chesed

in assiyah….the world of doing/completion   the weather forecast for the daylight hours is sunny and mid-60’s, so get outside and garden!  but plant and feed…don’t weed!  sustain your closeheld piece of Creation today, mindful of the needs of your plants, and  all the critters that will benefit from your labors.

in yetzirah….the world of feeling/formation   do you recognize how your parents, perhaps your best and oldest friends, or maybe your mate, have loved you with a sustaining chesed kind of love?  one that takes you as you are?  one in which your needs were so often intuited…or just known without your saying a word–and too often without your recognizing at the time that they were right?  focus on that loving-kindness.  imagine offering that to the world.

in b’riyah….the world of thought/creation   each of us doubts, has anxieties, personal disappointments, shameful failings…nonetheless, each of us is subject to G’d’s everlasting loving-kindness.  we were created in it; we are sustained in it.  every morning we acknowledge that our neshamah-soul is breathed entirely pure into us by G’d. meditate on bringing that purity and sustaining loving-kindness to your dark places and afflictions.

in atzilut…the world of nearness to G’d/intuition   the neshamah is breathed into us pure by G’d.  do we ever take a breath that is not given by G’d?  and when we exhale, are we ‘rid’ of G’d’s gift? or are we simply extending it to the rest of Creation?  meditate on the everlasting sustaining nature of every breath you take….

kinyan 1 of 48 ways to acquire Torah

Torah….Learning    “ki lekach tov natati lachem Torati, al ta’azovu”…’a good taking i have given you, my Torah, don’t leave [it].’   so the first way of acquiring (kinyan) Torah is to learn?  uh, isn’t that just a bit redundant somehow?  of course you acquire Torah by learning it!  but the verse from Proverbs (4:2) points out the meaning: Torah is a good taking…we must grab it good….and hold on for dear life…not abandoning it.  but we know that there are 47 other ways of acquiring Torah, so how can we do nothing but study Torah all the time?  by taking it in.  by making Torah firmly fixed in mind and heart and soul, we are ready to learn Torah in all that we do.  and when we encounter someting that doesn’t seem to be Torah to us?  well, hit the books again.  when we look to Torah for the way to live, and not for any other personal gain, then it becomes a balm of life (Ta’anit 7).

sefirat haOmer T-2: words, words, words

because T-1 is Pesach and Shabbat this year, baruch haShem, this is the last post before the onset of the count itself. we will all begin on saturday night, 7 april 2012 of the secular calendar, to count the Omer!

look for a now hidden post on the sefirah of the week, ie, chesed, and the interinclusion of the day, ie, chesed that is in chesed, to appear at 3 stars saturday night…..

you should notice that 3 menus have been added to the left under the header. in each of them, and in order, you will find a kavanah to be heartily said, the blessing for the mitzvah of sefirat haOmer, and the formulae for the phrasing of the counting itself.  you can turn to them at any time that you wish to count.  but rest assured that each day’s correct phrase for counting will be posted in the main area at around dusk each day….

why dusk? well, the jewish day begins with darkness as it was in the first days of Creation itself.  so counting at night is a show of zerizut…a diligent, energetic eagerness to do a mitzvah at the first opportunity.  “seek peace and pursue it” (Psalms 34:15) and “righteousness, righteousness,  shall you pursue“(Devarim 16:20) show us that we should go after (stronger: ‘hunt down’) all mitzvot with energy;  David haMelekh sums it up in Psalm 119:60:

“i hastened and did not delay to perform Your Mitzvot” 

zerizut is zeal in time…alacrity…..why waste time when you could/should be doing a mitzvah?  and what exactly is the excuse for not counting the Omer?  we’ve all been counting since our toddlerhood.  seriously, can you think of an easier mitzvah to do in its mechanical essence?  we aren’t talkin differential equations, after all….so go bananas about sefirat haOmer…nightime come and me wan’ go count!

the mussar exercises and kabbalistic meditations, the foci in prayer and additional prayers for each day or week that will be offered in the walkinTorah posts can wait for any hour in the day. a more contemplative and unhurried pace is the proper walk for them…just as one runs to mitzvah, one can profitably saunter in meditation!

so next time we meet in the ether, b’ezrat haShem, we begin the jewish long count toward Sinai.

to be clear: don’t go lookin for a T-1 text here…after all, the text for T-1 is quite well established….and remember that the mitzvah on Passover itself is in the sipur, the telling.  why with all that sipurring, we ought to be well warmed up for saturday night sefirring, don’t you think?

chag kasher v’sameach, v’shabbat shalom

sefirat haOmer T-3: one way or another, you’re gonna find you

2 ways of counting: days and then weeks and days. and 2 ways of making it count more: mussar and kabbalah. it’s not at all that they are divorced from each other, and we will be doing a bit of both over the course of the 49 days. but i thought we should know a tad more about why we are doing a bit of each.

the way of mussar

the mussar way is based on contemplative practices, actions mapped to each day.  simply put, you do each spirit exercise in order to focus on and then clear away the accretions of habits, leanings, and just plain imbalances that prevent the inner light of your soul from shining forth.  just as in mainstream kabbalah, the crucial understanding is that each of us is a soul yearning for the G’dly.  hence it should be no surprise to any of us that major kabbalistic thinkers often are associated with the most powerful mussar texts….

and we are reminded of that  today as it just happens to be the yahrtzeit of r’ yosef karo, master halachist and kabbalist who worked no small amount of mussar  (derech eretz) into the weft of the warp he is best known for, the Shulchan Aruch.

there are a couple of touchstones for mussar in sefirat haOmer.

one springs from the Pirke Avot 6:6 where we learn that there are 48 kinyanei Torah, ie, 48 ways to acquire Torah.  48 is mighty close to 49, and the plan is to study 1 of the 48 each day of the counting, leaving the 49th day for review of the lot. we will touch on one of the kinyanim (or middot) each day.

the other approach stems from r’ elazar’s teaching, also in Avot, that the most important middah is a lev tov (a good heart), which has a gematria of 32.  so on each of the first 32 days of sefirat haOmer we will dwell on actions that improve relations ben adam l’chavero (between person and person), using the last 17 days to do mitzvot ben adam l’makom (between man and G’d).  those of you who remember lag b’omer, ie, the 33rd day of omer, will immediately see that it would correspond to the day on which the work changes from the human-human sphere to the human-divine sphere.  a lot of you may also notice that this 2-part approach parallels the work of the Days of Awe, during which we set things right with people before we can finish the setting aright with G’d.  we’ll try to honor this approach as well during the sefirah.

the way of kabbalah

the kabbalistic way is polymorphic, but focuses on a more purely mystical meditation or hitbonenut. we will try to relate each interincluded day (interinclusion is the all in one idea that each sefira comprises all the other sefirot within it) of the count to meditations rooted in the spiritual levels of the 4 worlds:

assiyah…the world of completion/doing associated with nefesh (the indwelling/resting soul)

yetzirah…the world of formation associated with ruach (the free will/turbulent soul)

b’riyah…the world of creation associated with neshamah (the renewable/breathing soul)

atzilut…the world of nearness to G’d associated with chayah (the life-force/living essence soul)

we will examine/contemplate on aspects of our existence that allow for the soul to shine forth and rise up through the levels of the worlds to get closer to our root in G’d.  ideally, these contemplative exercises will dovetail into the mussar practices more days than not!

so that is the sheaf of mindblowing, soulglowing methods we will ripen into for each of our days, shredding the husks that confine us as we swell in soul…nurturing our individual hearts of wisdom….readying better selves for the receipt of Torah again in Shavuot.

sefirat haOmer T-4: reap, sow, reap…repeat

perhaps we should remember the agricultural roots of sefirat haOmer in  Torah:

“and from the day on which you bring the sheaf [of measure ‘omer’] of elevation offering–the day after the sabbath [Pesach]–you shall count off 7 weeks. they must be complete: you must count until the day after the 7th week–50 days; then you shall bring an offering of new grain to G’d.” (Leviticus 23:15-16)

so we bring an elevation (or wave) offering of barley immediately after the holy day (day 1) of passover.  barley is the first fruit of the grains of the Land of Israel, and the wave offering of it makes all the other produce of the new crop permitted for use by the People outside of the Temple.

we then count the omer till we arrive at a full 7 weeks.  then we  bring an offering of wheat (the 2 loaves) on the holy day of Shavuot, after which the rest of the new meal crop is permitted for use as offerings in the Temple.

1 sheaf of barley measuring 1 Omer of grain offered immediately after Passover day 1.  hmmm.  now when is that barley reaped so that it is ready in Jerusalem immediately after the Holy Day ?  it was reaped on the day of the festival…and even on shabbat! (see Menachot 6 in the Mishnah)

how’s that as a proof for the importance of Omer?

so important that the 49 days following are named and counted by the measure of that single sheaf of barley. so important that the time of ripening of the life-or-death important wheat crop is counted off in the measure of that sheaf of barley.   so important that the only specification as to when Shavuot occurs is by the count of the measure of that sheaf of barley.  so important the to this day we still engrave headstones with a sheaf for the phrase in the kel mole rachamim “may he/she be bound up in the sheaf of eternal life.”   and you thought that barley was just for making soup a little more hearty!

it is the Omer that makes the new year for the grain crop real for the People…before then they can use only the previous year’s grain….and that was probably getting a bit long in the tooth by then (so last year)…..and full of chametz.  aha! how do you avoid chametz during passover?  not just by careful watching of some of the grain from the previous year, but by using absolutely fresh, locally sourced barley from day 2 on.

now we know that chametz represents the wrongheadedness of pride and puffery.  it is the symbol of our self-separation from G’d by seeing the entirety of Creation as only our view…as an extension of ourselves instead of as an extension out of G’d.  we must flatten our exalted self-importance in Passover.

but the counting of the Omer comes to give us more, to take us from the bread of affliction to the joy of fresh soul in the harvest loaves of a renewed Creation.  here is a kabbalistic ‘correspondence’ for all you kabbalistas: yetzirah is integral to both Passover and  Shavuot.  Passover is the festival of the exodus from mitzrayim.  Shavuot is not only the festival of weeks and the festival of the giving of Torah (though baruch haShem it is those!), but also Chag haKatzir, the festival of reaping.  think of the letters–add kuf to the scarcity of tzadee resh (tzr) and you have plenty; add yud to the narrowness of slavery in tzadee resh  and you have freedom.

bring the yud of G’d’s Name to narrowness/scarcity and freedom follows;

bring the kuf of G’d’s Holiness to narrowness/scarcity and bounty follows.

it is in the counting of the Omer that we will free ourselves, with G’d’s help,  from our spiritual constraints.  it is in the counting of the Omer that we will go, with G’d’s help,  from scarcity to bountiful harvest of the spirit.

and it is in the counting of the Omer that we will go from broken matzah to the plenty of 2 complete loaves.

sefirat haOmer T-5: all in one, one in all

Norman Fischer seems to grasp the counting of the Omer in his lovely translation of Psalm 90:12:

“help me understand how to count my days…how to embrace my life…that i may nourish a heart of wisdom”

we have to count the days, AND we have to count the weeks.  it isn’t a simple count that gets you to a heart of wisdom, it seems.  oh, and that ‘how to embrace my life‘ part isn’t literally in the hebrew of the psalm at all….but boy is it ever in sefirat haOmer, in the understanding of counting the days.

we have to cycle and cycle again…7 days per week, 7 weeks (each of 7 days) for the whole of sefirat haOmer.  and in each day we have a reciprocating cycle of interactions of sefirah that is in sefirah.  7 paired interactions, 1 pair per day,  of sefirot in each other ; every week focusing on another of the sefirot as the dominant aspect of the week, and working through the 7 sets of interactions each has with each other.

chesed with gevurah with tiferet with netzach with hod with yesod with malchut….working through each interaction down the tree…but simultaneously up from selflessness in chesed to majesty in malchut.

so while we will follow the interaction of each sefirah in every other sefirah as we move down the lower 7 of the etz chaim, we will with every day of week add up to a week. we move down the sefirot as we count up the days…not unlike the angels of Yaacov’s vision of the ladder:

“….and here, messengers of G’d were going up and down on it'” (Genesis 28:12)

up and down, back and forth, each in each to each from each.  our messengers from G’d are found in the way we interact with ourselves and the world, for in our spiritual character, our emotional responses, our ethical ways of interacting that we find our clear vision of G’d in the world.  it is in the aspects of ourselves as affected by all else that we find the image of G’d in which we have been uniquely created.

to sum up, we perceive G’d in the world according to how we relate with the world in all its myriad differences.

let’s make it simple, yes? say we have a family of 7, from 2 grandparents through 2 parents with 3 kids.  we will be exploring the affect of the grandfather on himself, the grandmother on the grandfather, the father on the grandfather, the mother on the grandfather, the eldest child on the grandfather, the middle child on the grandfather, and the youngest child on the grandfather.  that is 1 week. then we do the same with each on the grandmother, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.

we all of us understand that each is affected by every other in a family, right?  and maybe that the dynamic of the interactions between them is more than the mere sum of the parts?  each of us is more than just the sum of our encounters with each other and the world…..but in each encounter all are touched, and from each touch we affect our next touch of another…up and down, back and forth, cycling each in each to each from each.

hugs all round, i say, and somewhere in that embrace of life we will each find that heart of wisdom that we were born to nourish.

sefirat haOmer T-6, but not yet counting

today we start to countdown to the time we begin to count up…again…as Leviticus 23:15 requires we should:

“You shall count for yourselves…from the day when you bring the Omer of the waving…7 weeks, they shall be complete.”

we count up 49 days and the 7 weeks from the night of the second day of Pesach (feast of passover) right up to the night before the festival of Shavuot (feast of weeks…get it?!)…itself the 50th day.  jubilation!

the simple mitzvah is literally to say a blessing and count each night for the full 7 weeks. you will find the text of the blessing and the formula for the counting the Omer in just about any siddur….take a look. now, we have been minding these 49 days every year since the exodus from egypt, for we know from Torah that it took 49 days for the People to reach Sinai and to encounter the beginning of the Torah journey that has been our walk ever since.

but numbering alone hasn’t been enough for spiritual jews for centuries.  the Israelites began the work of walking out of spiritual bondage into freedom, and since then we have seen the time between Pesach and Shavuot as a long march of self-reflection and self-redirection–‘count for yourselves’–much like the instruction to Avraham Avinu to ‘lech l’cha’ or ‘go toward yourself”.  it is a time for reaching into our emotions, our opinions, our acts and efforts…for reaching into our very souls.  we try to build up our character traits; build up our prayer ability;  build up our ability to love one another; build up our ability to be closer to G’d.  we build our abilities to ascend Sinai one day at a time; week by week.

and the kabbalists among us recognized that the  7 weeks corresponded to the 7 ’emotional’ sefirot from chesed through malchut.  each week is associated with 1 major sefirah:  and since each sefira contains the aspects of all the others, each day focuses on the affect of another of the 7 sefirot on that week’s major sefirah.  for those of you with the tree of life in hand, take a look.  we will speak more of the plan in the day’s leading up to Pesach.

what we will try to do this season here at walkinTorah is offer thoughts, meditations, emotional and spiritual exercises…and encouragement!… to help all of us reach into ourselves daily in order to open out to the world of G’d’s creation more fully as each day and each week passes.

for those who are members of congregation beth shalom–and you know who you are–we will try to meet each sunday morning EXCEPT on 8 April 2012, which is the the second day of Pesach (and the first day of the Omer count), to share the week past and prep for the week to come.  for those who join us but can’t do the face-to-face meetings, we’ll try to make sure that enough information is published daily on walkinTorah to help you keep up the pace.

let us go then, you and i, when the evening is spread out against the sky…..and learn to measure out our lives in more than coffee spoons!