Yerushalayim means “Ir Shalom” - City of Peace. And yet, it has been destroyed twice, attacked 52 times, besieged 23 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times. How can this city, so beleaguered by conflict, be named for peace? Is it irony or paradox, or perhaps something more?  

It reminds me of another Biblical paradox – the burning bush. A symbol of the undoing of the natural order, where fire does not bring destruction...on the contrary, it brings revelation. The voice of God calls out from the impossible endurance of a shrub amidst flames. That which should logically be destroyed, endures. And not just endures, but initiates and ushers in what is to become history's greatest symbol of liberation, the Exodus from Egypt. The fiery shrub is the holy ground from which God speaks. 

This paradox of endurance amidst destruction is quite possibly one of the defining characteristics of the Jewish people. The State of Israel has been described as a phoenix, risen from the flames of the Holocaust. But not only is it a country that has risen from the flames, it is a country that thrives amidst the flames of continuing fires of attack from her neighbors. It is a country ensconced in conflict, yet somehow, at its best and highest, remains untouched. 

And so too with Jerusalem. Never before has a metropolis weathered such unending quarrels. And yet, amidst the conflagration, she endures as a city of peace, issuing a message of godliness and the promise of salvation. 

It is said that the burning bush was nothing extraordinary to most who looked upon it. A dozen others walked right past it. What proved Moses’ greatness is that he saw the miracle within it. He turned aside and wondered at it. He heard God’s voice in it. He removed his shoes. 
Sometimes that is how I experience Jerusalem. Usually it is just the mundane domain where I shop and shlep my bags and pay my bills. But sometimes, at the best of times, I turn aside from the mundane drone of my day and see the astounding miracle that is being worked beneath my very feet. 

This Yom Yerushalayim is an invitation to stop and acknowledge the utter miracle of this city. An invitation to hear the voice of God issuing from each alley, each corner store, each traffic jam. This Yom Yerushalayim, may we, and the whole world, see Yerushalayim as a city which sits serene and enduring, offering peace, even amidst the flames. 

The Burning Bush 

Jerusalem, my burning bush
A city so inflamed, 
and yet, endurance is your name.

Here roam my heart & mind
Where, walk me soft, 
and put my shoes aside

and let me admire more 
this site
which burns 
with no less bark
and no less branch
Eternal spark
within its stance

And blaze
My days with hers 
And let no less than all of her endure

And may she brighter burn 
that I may longer gaze and learn –
this mystery of Yours.

Why are there so many 4’s in the seder? 

First, dimensionality. You take a point, it has no dimension to it. You add another point and you have a line, the dimension of length. You add a 3rd point and you get length and height. But it’s not until you add that 4th point that you length, height, and finally width. 3 dimensions! And that is the world we live in. It’s not a flat world. Only with that 4th point do we get space as we know it. A vessel to receive. 

So on our most basic level – we have a Place to exist, breathe, walk around, because of 4ness. That’s why it’s called the 4 corners of the earth. 

Another reason I think were drawn to 4’s: stability. We all know you can’t make a table with 2 legs. 3 legs will make a table of sorts, yet 4 legs will make a much sturdier structure. 4 has more bulk, heaviness, plantedness. So 4s adds to our sense of safety, groundedness. 

A square is organized, orderly. And that is the power of the seder, really. Seder literally means order. It touches on our deep deep need for order and stability in this world. 

In the seder ritual, the 4s really are poured on thick. The 4 questions, 4 sons, 4 cups of wine. Not only do we see a plethora of 4s, but then, so many of the sources draw parallels and correspondences between the different groups of 4. The 4 cups correspond to the 4 mentions of redemption and to the 4 exiles and the 4 worlds, etc…

So not only do we have this question of why 4’s…but also a question of ‘Why so many correspondences’? Drawing parallels gives us a sense of cognitive Order. It makes sense of an otherwise senseless world. Correspondences create SEDER. 

Sarah Yehudit Schneider shares a teaching from Rav Ginsburg who says that Kabbalah is the “science of correspondences”. Kabbalah is usually understood to mean ‘to receive’. But this meaning only appears in later prophets/biblical writings. In the Torah itself, its 3 letter root means “to parallel or correspond.” It refers to the corresponding loops on the Tabernacle’s curtains. (Exodus 26.5) 

 

Kabbalah is all about making correspondences. Making deep sense of all that is. 
So the fours that fill the seder create a wonderful experience of: 

Dimensionality

Place

Stability

Sense 

All of these elements create a structure, the paradoxical structure that allows us to feel free. 

4s usher in our freedom. 

This week is Shabbat Shira – the Sabbath of song, of poetry. It is thus named because the weekly Torah reading contains Shirat Hayam, the song sung in exultation after the miraculous parting of the Sea of Reeds. In truth, though, there are two songs sung. One by Moses and the other by Miriam. 

The 18th century Hassidic writer the Meor V'Shemesh shares a powerful paradigm-shifting commentary that contrasts these two songs. 

He bases his writings on the Kabbalistic principles of linear verses circular consciousness. According to Kabbalah, line consciousness is essentially masculine. It is hierarchical, progress-oriented, future-directed, competitive; the epitome of the world's current state of affairs. Line consciousness correlates with Moses' song, rendered in the future tense of the opening lines to the song, “Az Yashir – I will sing”. 

Circle consciousness, on the other hand, is egalitarian, rooted in the present, supportive, non-hierarchical. It is a feminine paradigm. And more than that, it epitomizes Messianic consciousness, the glowing state of affairs towards which our world evolves. Miriam's song, in keeping with good circle consciousness, is thus sung in the present tense with women dancing - embodied - in circular form. Each woman stands equidistant from the center, all with equal access to God. In the circle everyone is holy and wholly rooted in their own source of wisdom. These circle-enacting women, according to the Meor V'shemesh, were able to access a higher revelation than Moses, history's greatest prophet. 

We live in promising times where fundamentals of circle consciousness are at the core of the work that so many of us are engaged in today. I have the honor of leading weekly women's circles here in Jerusalem. Our meetings are based on a model of group work culled directly from what I call, “The Miriam Code” - the enigmatic 2 verses of Miriam's song and dance from this week's parsha. We strive to create a safe and sacred environment for growth by using the circle principles of full embodiment, presence, inclusivity, creativity and a pervasive sense of equality. It is deep and powerful work. (To read more about the Miriam Code please go to:http://www.havayah.com/tools.html)

I bless us all that we may each in our own way taste the fruits of circle consciousness flooding into and rounding out the angles of our all-too-linear world.

The Circle

Women raise your voices 
in rightful raucous!

Beat drum, sing song
and stun anyone
who ever called 
you too timid
to sing.

For the Spirit alone
instructs your lips and 
limbs as to the allowance
of their bend
and propriety is defined by 
the prophetess
who abides within.

It is she who launches 
her loudest campaign
for you to stand and dance majestic 
on your life's well-sanded stage.

Sisters, this is why we wear our drums 
ready on our shoulder blades.
Ready to up and utter unabashed 
riffs of praise.

Here we are held 
responsible to sing
of the God-drenched things 
that we have seen.


For we handmaids 
have a mandate to hand-make
our own music, 
to move muscles 
and meet quotas 
of creative output
through inspiration 
and through struggle
to sway on sand-dunes 
undone by a tune
to be emboldened
in our God-given right 
to self-expression.

So let us ignite each other's 
dormant scorch of dreams. 

For ours is a choreography 
of equality
inclusivity
of bringing all-of-me
into this welcoming crucible of 
communal commitment 
known as a circle.   

Here we offer limbs to reach beyond 
the limitations 
of a linear world gone wrong.

Embodying ideas 
and idealizing emotion
invoking insight
at the lips of the ocean.

Holding up mirrors
like the windows of waves
-reflecting each other
face to effervescent face.

And so it was, is and will be
in one graceful gesture
at the parting sea. 

That the women set out with clapping feet
to circle in a consciousness 
of present tense 
and equality.

In this week's parsha we read that Isaac prayed for his barren wife Rebecca. It is notable that the term used here is “lanochach eshto”, which can be read literally as he prayed “standing before”, or “opposite” his wife. Midrash Rabbah picks up on this curious phrase and paints a picture of Isaac and Rebecca standing together, facing each other in shared prayer.1 It's a poignant image of a couple working together in a striking face-to-face pose; an admirable Biblical model for partnership. 

So one might ask, if this is such a partnership, why is it that it is Isaac's prayer alone that is recorded & answered by God.2 Rashi explains that his prayers were heard because he was the son of a saint, whereas Rebecca is the daughter of an evil man.3 The poem I'm about to share attempts to take that answer one step further. 

But first, let's look briefly at a little of what we know about Isaac's psychological makeup. Later in the parsha we read that Isaac's eyes grew dim in his old age. The Midrash explicitly links Isaac's blindness to his experience of being bound upon the altar beneath his father's sacrificial blade. It records that angels witnessing the binding wept tears that dropped into Isaac's eyes. Those very tears were taken as the cause of his blindness later in life.4 

Aviva Zornberg likens Isaac's blindness to a type of psychological vertigo. She notes a remarkable phenomena where people who suffer traumatic experiences earlier in life can often, in later years, suffer from serious vision impairment.5 It is as if their compromised vision in old age is an expression of years of repressed emotion. Their blindness manifests a psychosomatic drive to un-see all the horrors that they had witness so long ago. 

According to these findings, blindness can be an indicator of unprocessed trauma. As the text itself says, “Isaac's eyes became dimmed from seeing.” His eyes were dimmed from the impact of all that he had seen. And so we return to the scene of Rivka and Isaac's prayer for children with this in mind. 

Yes, God hears Isaac's prayers because he was the son of a saint; a man so saintly that he was willing to sacrifice his beloved son! We must ask ourselves what psychological impact did that near-sacrifice have on Isaac? And, most pointedly, what sort of an impact did it have on Isaac's stance towards begetting and parenting his own children. 

In keeping with their model of an honest face-to-face relationship, Rebecca in this poem urges her husband to do the laborious work of processing his past. She, in her own desire for children, begs him to confront whatever resistances he may have to generating his future generations. 

It is striking that the opening & title of the parsha, “Toldot Yitzchak”, means the Generations of Isaac. Such a title could thus be seen as a testimony to his successfully stepping up to the task of continuity and child-rearing in the face of his own complex childhood. 

Standing Opposite Isaac

You were broken 
like 
porcelain.

Dashed against a desert.
Shattered neath a father's 
dagger. 

And a flinty mirror streaked 
with tears
dripped
not blood
but blindness
into your grey hairs.

Your pieces plastered 
back together 
hold me tender
a fragile tendon
- tiptoed to the next generation.

You, the quiet casualty 
of your father’s spiritual 
ambitions.

Perhaps you fear
that G-d demand 
you do the same
if you were to father 
your own ambitions.

- Would you? 
Or would you rather 
pray?
Pray for me.

Here6 - 
where you were 
born up 
on that unforgiving rock,
beneath an angel's eye
and ram’s horn
fortuitously caught.

Would you pray a future
to fill this vacant womb?

Would you pray for continuity?
Would you 
– continue? 

And tell me, husband dear, 
can you eye your own
resistance
and defy your very fears?

Forgo the blindness 
that has plagued you
and face your own
descendants 
with a faith 
that here
is holy 
and life 
is weighty 
and no more waiting 
for safety
but rather brave the gaze
of a world that is 
crazy
beautiful
and full of grace.

And shun the blade
that bids you to 
accuse your father
or mourn your mother
or resent your God
or blame anyone other 
than yourself 
for your own debilitating
fears?

For the hand that 
you are dealt
is but yours to 
commandeer. 

So let's move on 
to making our own 
glaring 
parenting 
mistakes.

To risking inflicting
some untold & unending 
trauma onto our children.

And with a 
well-intentioned will, 
sacred and sincere,
let us lift our prayers 
to God's awaiting ears.

With the knowledge
that beyond old traumas
and emotions on the mend
there is meaning 
to the riddle 
of Moriah
though our tongues 
are twisted
and our eyes are dimmed.

Come, husband 
to this field 
with me
and hunt down 
one good prayer.

For the fixing of your childhood
is through fathering your children.

• if you dare.
  
  
  
  

1. "Yitzhak prayed to God, opposite his wife." (Genesis 25:21)

"Opposite his wife”: This teaches that Yitzhak and Rivka prayed facing each other, and Yitzhak said: “Almighty, all the children that you give me, let them be from this righteous woman…” (Midrash - Breishit Rabba, 63:5) This is cited by Rashi.
2. This is precisely what Rashi asks, “Why is it that God answers Isaac, but not Rebecca, as indicated by the usage in the text of the pronoun "lo," him, to the exclusion of "lah," her, or most fairly "lahem," them?" 


3. RASHI answers, following the Talmud in Masechet Yevamot 64a, "that the prayer of a righteous person (Yitzchak), born of a righteous person (Avraham), 'gains the ear' of HaShem, so to speak, more readily than the prayer of a righteous person (Rivkah) born of a wicked person (Bethuel)." 


4This midrash is cited by Rashi in his commentary on the verse “When Isaac was old and his eyes were too dim to see.” (27:1) Bereshit Rabbah 65:5. “Isaac's eyes became dimmed from seeing”. The translation of the word me-re'ot, means literally that his eyes became dim from the impact of that vision. For when Abraham bound his son on the altar, the ministering angels cried...And tears dropped from their eyes into his eyes, and were imprinted into his eyes. And when he became old, his eyes became dimmed, from seeing.”


5The full quote from Zornberg: “One example is the phenomenon of blindness afflicting women survivors of the Cambodian massacres. A considerable time after the Khmer Rouge horrors, and after they had found refuge in the United States, women began to complain of eyesight problems. No organic disorder was diagnosed...What the women had seen, years earlier, had made it necessary to suppress vision, to repress emotional response.” (Aviva Zornberg, “The Beginnings of Desire”, pg. 159.)


6. Pirke De R'Eliezer (c. 32) shares that after 20 years of infertility Isaac took Rivka up to Mt. Moriah, to the very place where he was bound, in order to pray together there. This seems to support idea that there is an essential connection between Isaac's experience upon Moriah and the issue of their infertility. Thus, Moriah is the natural setting for this face-to-face discussion between them.

  

This week's parsha – entitled 'The Life of Sara' – ironically opens with the news of her death. And yet there is no explicit mention of why she died. 


The commentators jump to fill in the blank. Rashi himself notes that the proximity of her demise to the binding of Isaac gives a hint as to the cause of her death. Midrashim further elaborate by sharing stories of how Sara splits with her soul (parcha nishmata) in shocked reaction to the happenings on Mount Moriah.

The Aish Kodesh, writing so poignantly from the Warsaw Ghetto – takes these Midrashim even further. He, sitting in the fast-accumulating ashes of the Holocaust, portrays Sara's death as a protest. A protest against a God who would call for such a horrific sacrifice. Though Avraham is classically seen as the archetype of one who questions God, Sara here not only questions God but rebukes and defies God through her death, her act of self-sacrifice. 

The Aish Kodesh's commentary on Sara's morbid defiance becomes his own fist-shaking protest to God in the face of the Holocaust. This poem is born from the stirring words of the Aish Kodesh, may his memory be for a blessing, along with all those who have died for the sake of higher righteousness. 


Sara's Stand

Sara sat 
by the stream
of events
which words would 
later write as history.

Which took husband/son
some morning 
on a G-d appointed journey.

Left her all alone 
and buried
neath the dunams 
of her rage.

Mumbling with the voice 
of a silent woman 
in a wordy book.

Who gestured mute
and shook 
the page 
that sentenced
sons away.

But how to wail 
a protest
with no mouthpiece
and no speech?

How to scribe a message 
with white fire 
but no ink? 

This became her solemn study,
how to make her silence speak.

While the horror of Moriah 
boiled blindness to her eyes
her hands lost grip in helplessness 
and cripple caught her thighs.

Her spirit split and circled 
in the fire between the lines.

And from her lips there bled 
rebuke to God on high.

A higher calling in her triumphed
- led her to her mountain's ledge
bound her on an altar of defiance 
'neath a dagger's glaring edge.

And no angel held her hand back
and no thicket caught a ram
the text did not enshrine her 
with compassionate command
but rather
held her tongue 
and shroud her 
for her morbid 
final stand.

A fury blatant 
in complaint
a protest ripe with rage.


She'd contest, 
with all her strength and breath
beneath the bloody blade .

For written in the empty space
between her husband's deeds
Sara screamed in deft defiance
of divine decree:

“How dare a righteous G-d command
Or a father thus comply
Or the very son - whom I have mothered -
Upon an altar
Lie?”

Sara stood -
a broken spirit stronger
a protest pressing bone

“I will not sit
to sorrow”
stepped to fire 
and was gone.

She would not sit
to sorrow
stepped to fire 
and was gone.

I never had the schutof meeting Shlomo. But I did get one encounter-at-a-distance. It was sort of like smelling the bakery without really tasting the challah...though that shmek sure did open up my neshama. 

It was the summer of 1994. I had just finished my freshman year in college and I spent the summer in Israel. Those were my first days of falling in love with Torah, truly one of the most magical chapters of my life. On one of those honeymoon nights, I was walking with friends from the center of town to the Old City. Apparently there was some big concert happening in Safra Square. It was right there in front of the Municipality where I now make my regular treks to register my kids for school and pay my city taxes. But in those days it was just the site of a concert I didn't have the money to get in to. 

My friends and I loitered around at the entrance, listening wistfully. The music was upbeat, engaging, and the folks entering seemed to be of kindred spirits. We were not alone in our loitering. Apparently there were lots of other young Jewish hipsters who, like ourselves, didn't have the spare change to buy a ticket. We were the party of the “can't-pays”, getting a contact-high from the vibes that wafted over the gates. We were on the outside, but making the most of it. 

Suddenly, though, the music stop. We heard the mysterious singer call out to the powers-that-be – “Hey, you guys at the gate. Forget about the money. Just let everybody in!” Was it a joke?! Was he talking about us?! Sure enough, they opened up the gates and we all started gleefully streaming in. It was the first and only time I have ever been suddenly let in to a concert for free! – And, of course, it was Shlomo. 

We flooded in to find a world of hundreds of circle-dancing, Hebrew singing, funky and FRUM members of the tribe. I recall being shocked that there was a split between men and women, a phenomena I could have never imagined at a concert. It was so pure, yet wild. It was fresh and new and yet old-world, old-style. 

I looked around and knew I had found my home in the homeland. 

I had no idea who Shlomo was. Little did I know that he was about to change my life, even from a distance. I would later learn that this was the last concert that Shlomo did in Jerusalem before his untimely death a few short months later. 

It was not long after that concert that I ended up formally falling in love with the Shlomo-hevra. I became a devoted groupie of Ein Safek, and one of the many who made the Moshav my home for the holidays. I lived in the Old City and had the enormous merit of davening under the arbors of song that was the Dovid-Hertzburg-led-Shlomo-minyan at the Kotel. Manna from heaven! Actually, it was feeling like a part of the Shlomo-hevra that enabled me to eventually move to Israel after college and make aliya a year after that. The Shlomo-hevra gave me an invaluable anchor of community. For once, I had family, in Israel. 

As I think back to that magical night at the concert, the thing that most stands out from my singular slice of “meeting Shlomo” was the moment the gates were opened; the moment that we realized that we were being let in. It was a totally unexpected, seemingly unearned, gift. I was filled with a sense of, “Yes, the universe is friendly. Yes I am welcome. Yes, I have value beyond the cash in my pocket. Yes, I belong here in this city, with this people.” After all, as a baalat-teshuva, I sometimes have this creeping fear that I just got too shmutzed up in my life to ever really be an authentic frum Jew. I couldn't possibly ever really deserve to be let in the front gates of this palace of God. But then it happened. I was on the outside and making the most of it. But then, Shlomo let me in. It was nothing short of Messianic.

That was the gift that Shlomo blessed us all with. That sense that we are all invited in....and we don't have to pay admission when we're coming home. He gave us a sense, a knowing, that we do belong to this Jewish millenial dance-party. And, in fact, it really isn't much of a party without us. 

So I owe enormous thanks to Shlomo and to the holy brothers, sisters, shleppers who have been my surrogatefamily of gate-openers to the Holy Land. 

The poem below tries to capture that “ecstacy of entrance”, that sense of being newly-turned on to Torah, and that sense of the wonder that comes with being invited to enter into the gates of Jerusalem. 

The Live Tree

So this is what it means to be a Jew --
Who knew?! 

Who knew that Torah was 
ancient and yet progressive
mystical, intellectual and impressive
grounded yet elevating 
paradoxical and penetrating.

Suddenly I am plumbing depths and thumbing through texts
that have been thumbed and plumbed
for generations past and more to come.

Here in these courtyards of holy Yerushalayim
filled with Torah wisdom and higher vision.
Living the return of Judah’s long lost children
- so far gone, so far hidden.
Now come home to the old books
of OUR OWN venerable tradition!

Here in the study halls of Rehov Beer Sheva
in hutzot Yerushalayim
in Nachlaot, in Bat Ayin
crawling on berkayim
just to kiss these stones - and make a home
in Yerushalayim’s now-revived old bones.

We Jewish children are coming home
coming streaming like four cornered gleanings
clamoring with higher calling
cleaving to deeper meaning
shining with persistence
and a 3000 year-old commitment

Commitment to the Torah, to something more
than the mores & norms of the Western world
with her hordes of the immoral and the impure.
 
Committed to something more than a Manhattan latte
and a pumped-up paycheck to “provide for the family”
that may smile wide for the cameras
but weeps inside, for their bankrupt neshamas.
Famished for a richer truth
than the loose change of material gain
famished for the fresh fruit of the living tree
stamped with God’s name!

And so I pace myself with the stealth
of a leopard on the chase of the truth
which darts like a gazelle
through these hills of Yehuda
and tomes of Gemara
I will come to know so well.

With a fire hotter than a 1000 degrees
from the cool Ivy League.
My ivy climbs the Western Wall
- a beanstalk tall to which I cleave.

For its a living tree of Torah, Ketuvim, Neviim.
I'm a member of the band belting songs of the Leviim!

We have returned to these streets
to breathe these books
to dream these dreams.

If Torah is a tree of life 
then I will change my life, 
that I may sit amongst her leaves and read...

10/25/2012


Abraham's journey is the supreme example of divine calling. His story models for us our own journeys of setting out on unmapped spiritual paths.  It is a compass for our own travels and travails.

The parsha opens, “Lech Lecha, go from your land (artzecha), your birth-place (moladatecha), your father's house (beit avicha), to a land that I will show you.” In Likutei Halachot, Rav Noson writes that this refers to 3 things that every spiritual journeyer must turn their back on in order to advance in his/her own path of calling. These are the inevitable impurities and falsities that come with each of the following: the cultural mores of society, the traumas involved with our very birth process, and the patterns and complexities of our family of origin. He teaches that these negative aspects must be brought to consciousness and left behind. He says, literally, 'turn your back on them'. He adds that when we are able to do this then we are on the path to attaining our true 'tachlit netzchi' – our eternal purpose. 

When we remove these negative aspects then what are we left with? We are left with our essential self, our truth, the soul that lies underneath. And thus our work is to remove the dross to reveal the gold of our soul. It is no wonder that the text spells out this formula so clearly in the parsha's first line, “Lech lecha”. Though it is commonly translated as, “You shall go”, that translation utterly flattens out the poetry and potency of the literal Hebrew. For this terse 2-word mantra Lech Lecha is read literally by the Kabbalists as - “Go to yourself!” And hence the biggest hint for all of us on our spiritual journeys. How to hear and follow God's command? How to extricate ourselves from the inevitable impurities of our past? By pursuing our own deepest self! That is the secret gift of the parsha. It persistently calls us – Lech – Go! Actively move in the direction of your deepest self. Leave behind family and familiarity and MOVE...to you. 

The poem below is Abraham's letter, attempting to explain why he must leave behind his beloved "father's house". 

Taking Leave

Father, I leave you a letter
about leaving you
as sure as an out-breath
escapes the chest 
that heaves the next inhale
- for we all have to breathe.

For I have heard two terse words
that disperse even the sturdiest soils
of my place of birth.

They hold for me
an undeniable truth
ineffable 
yet indelible
impossible to prove or tell or yell
or weigh its value 
on a merchant's scale.

With pain and precision I have made this decision - to listen.

As if listening were an art
a compulsion
to record Divine diction 
with all the weight of my earthly limbs.

Your voice 
is so concrete, 
so clear and level, so rational.
While this voice 
- well, its fluid & fanciful
and yet demanding. 
Unpredictable, 
poetic, astounding.

Pounding proof into sounds

which make no sound 

and yet deafen the ears of all around

who listen well to their own 

silence.

A still small voice with an unsettling lisp. 
A voice that to be heard, it must be lived. 

If belief is knowing that there stands a wall 
then faith is leaning on it -
- And so I fall.

I lunge in to this journey to an unknown land
God-shown unsewn  
rock-strewn and sand-duned 
so foreign from everything I ever knew.
And so 
unbearably 
and yet necessarily 
far from you. 

Faith is a wall 
and so I lean.

God is a journey
and so I leave.

“Vayeshev, And Jacob sat in the land of his father’s sojournings…”

Ah, Jacob sat. Or as most translate, Jacob dwelt. But for the meditative among us, this opening line can be read as a lovely little hint to sitting in meditation. Jacob is finally winding down years of frenzied activity and is ready to taste some much-earned introspection and tranquility. 

Just contrast this parsha title with the last two: Vayeitze and Vayishlach - “Jacob went out” and “Jacob sent over”. Both of these active verbs punctuate his dramatic tale of a murderous brother, greedy Uncle,  nuptial dupings, and on and on. Finally, it seems that Jacob has returned to his homeland to enjoy some serenity.  

Yes, that serenity will be shattered a few short paragraphs away with the “death” of his beloved Joseph. But for now, for this moment, Jacob sits. Jacob seeks serenity. And, who knows, maybe it was this one-verse worth of retreat from activity that will help him respond to the traumas to come. Maybe it is this sitting which will help him better endure whatever will come to be.  

    Floored

Finally found the serenity of
A forgiving  
floor 
furled out beneath me, 
terra ferma, nothing fancy, 
but a marble carpet of quiet
in this once-livid living room.

All frenzy finally quelled 
as a book of braille
that will not be read aloud today.

I am too busy
Breathing.

I am too busy 
being 
floored.