Velveteen Rabbi

The bonfire of the expansive heart

I ought to be lighting a bonfire tonight, since we've entered the 33rd day of the Counting of the Omer. In Hebrew, the number 33 is spelled lamed-gimel; the two letters together are pronounced Lag, and the 33rd day of the Omer is called Lag b'Omer. And on Lag b'Omer, people light bonfires. Why? Well, it depends on who you ask.

One interpretation of the chronology in Torah holds that on this date, manna first began to fall from the heavens for the Israelites in the desert. Lag B'Omer (celebrated with picnics and rejoicing) can be understood as a commemoration of that happy miracle.

Another story (found in the Talmud) holds that 24,000 of the students of the great sage Rabbi Akiva died from a plague during the counting of the Omer because they failed to give one another proper respect (or, in Reb Zalman's interpretation, they failed to see the chen, divine grace, in one another.) Many traditional Jews observe limited mourning customs during the first 32 days of the Omer, in remembrance of that plague; Lag b'Omer marks the day when the plague came to its end, and hence, we celebrate.

An alternate interpretation holds that the students died as part of the Bar Kokhba revolt against Rome. We spend the first 32 days of the Omer mourning their deaths...until the 33rd day of the Omer, when we rejoice that the massacre finally ended. (The killing may have come to an end, but the outcome of the war was pretty bleak; the name Judea was erased from Roman maps, the study of Torah was prohibited, and Jews were barred from entering Jerusalem. Oy.) Fearing of reprisal from Roman authorities, the sages of the Talmud didn't want to mention the failed rebellion by name, so spoke of a "plague" instead.

Some Jews celebrate the yarzheit (death-anniversary) of the sage Shimon bar Yochai on this day; he was a student of Rabbi Akiva's, and it is to him that the Zohar -- germinal work of Jewish mysticism -- is traditionally attributed. In this understanding, we light bonfires to symbolize the way his teachings illuminated the night.

It interests me that these are the stories we tell about this minor holiday. Today is a day for remembering how important it is that we see the grace in one another, and honor one another's learning. It's a day to remember the dangers of following messianic figures into violent rebellion. And it's a day for celebrating illumination: not just the literal illumination of burning sticks and logs, but the metaphysical and spiritual illumination embodied in the wisdom of Torah and the Jewish mystical tradition.

In honor of that tradition, I want to offer a Hasidic teaching which relates to Lag B'Omer. It has nothing to do with the plague, or the rebellion, or anyone's yarzheit, but it's my favorite teaching about the holiday, hands down. This comes from a Hasidic rabbi called the B'nei Yisaschar (R' Zvi Elimelech of Dinov.) (You can find a version of it in this post The illumination of a good heart; I've learned it from my teacher Reb Elliot.) It's about the importance of having a good heart.

Our mouths are the crucible for refining Torah

"God's words are pure words, silver refined in a crucible on the earth." (Psalm 12, verse 7.) Midrash tells us that in the days of David, even babies knew how to expound on the 49 facets of taharah and tum'ah, purity and impurity. The midrash explains how to find purity: through the power of divine speech. All things that are created are drawn forth through 10 utterances; the purity associated with divine speech is therefore found within them.

This is the Sefat Emet, from his commentary on parashat Emor, which we've been studying in my Moadim L'Simcha ("Seasons of Our Rejoicing") class on the Hasidic sacred year. The text is dense and allusive, but bear with me: this passage is going to go somewhere really gorgeous.

In the Hasidic understanding, 49 is the number of "gates" or "facets" of impurity (I blogged about that during the lead-up to Purim -- teasing out another Sefat Emet text, actually.) One interpretation of this puzzling midrash about babies suggests that someone who's really attuned can render the divine word into 49 different levels of purity or impurity, and in the days of King David, everyone was so steeped in Torah that even babies could spin interpretations to knock your socks off. Though the word tinok, a baby, literally means one who is suckling. Maybe the midrash is speaking metaphorically about one who is nourished by the Torah.

The 49 gates or facets of purity and impurity can also be read as the 49 days of the Omer, the days we count between Pesach and Shavuot, between liberation and revelation. (I've blogged about counting the Omer in years past; here's Rabbi Shai Gluskin's excellent explanation.) And the 10 utterances? Kabbalistically, these are the 10 sefirot, the ten facets or aspects of God. During sefirat ha-Omer (the counting of the Omer) we move through the prism of seven of those sefirot. God speaks the world into being through ten utterances, but the highest three are like a dog whistle -- they resonate on a level we can't perceive. Our experience is mediated through the lower seven sefirot, and those are what we move through as we count the Omer: a week of chesed/lovingkindness, a week of gevurah/boundaries, etc. These are our 49 gates.

All things are created by means of these 10 utterances. And we draw from them, and find purity in them. It's humanity's obligation to awaken that purity. This is what "silver smelted in a crucible on the earth" means. Through living in corporeality, on the earth, one can clarify this silver. The mouth of a person is a kiln for refining the letters of Torah.

That's the line that really knocks me out: a person's mouth is a kiln for refining the letters of Torah.

Seven weeks

Going away for seven weeks requires a lot of work. Between Ethan's surgery (he's recovering well, thanks for asking) and my trip to Texas, I lost a month in there somehow. When I returned to my desk, it became clear how imminent my travels really are. Three weeks from this morning I'll be stepping dazedly off a plane.

New items sprout on my pre-trip to-do list almost as fast as I can cross them off: enroll in emergency medevac insurance (done), research Israeli cell phones (still in-progress), figure out how to get from the Tel Aviv airport to my apartment in Jerusalem after arriving at five in the morning on a Tuesday (any suggestions?)

I make mental lists of things I want to get at the pharmacy before I go. I wake up early and listen to the birdsong pouring forth from our woods -- red-winged blackbirds and the liquid call of thrushes and so many others I don't know how to name -- and wonder what sounds I will hear in my Jerusalem apartment at dawn. Probably cars, and the voice of the five-year-old in the room beside mine.

The practical preparations are taking up so much of my energy that I haven't had much time to engage with the emotional preparations, the intellectual preparations, the spiritual preparations. How I feel about the prospect of being away from home for almost two months, and also how I feel about the specific place where I am going. The things I'm excited to learn. The things that scare me.

It's a strange experience, getting ready for a trip like this. I used to do this kind of thing every summer when I was a kid -- not travel to Jerusalem, naturally, but other adventures. A homestay in rural France the summer I was fifteen. Six weeks in the rainforest the year after that. In hindsight now it seems to me that those trips were training runs for college, ways of stretching my wings and figuring out what it might feel like to go far away from home.

Doing this as an adult is a whole different ball of wax. We'll celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary before I go, reaffirming some of the roots that keep me steady and happy, and then we'll... email often, I guess. Make phone calls over Skype. Ethan posted a few years ago about traveling 150 days a year; he reminded me yesterday that I'm talking about 49 days, which is -- comparatively speaking -- not such a long time. I'm just not accustomed to being the one who goes away.

As we mark the last few days of the Counting of the Omer, the forty-nine days between Pesach and Shavuot, I'm thinking about what a journey 49 days can be. How I hope to emerge from this journey, and from that one, strengthened in my sense of where I fit and who I hope to be.

Technorati tags: religion, Judaism, Israel, travel, Omer.

Day 26 of the Omer: humility in endurance

Image by Pauline Frankenberg, from her series of 49 images for Counting the Omer.

Well, I broke my streak. I blogged about the counting of the Omer on the first day of the first week, the day of lovingkindness within the week of lovingkindness. During week two, I blogged on day two, the day of strength/boundary squared. During week three, I blogged on day three, compassion/harmony squared. To keep the pattern going, I should have blogged about the Omer earlier today, which was day four of week four, the day of netzach (endurance, fortitude, ambition) during the week of netzach.

Instead, here I am on the 26th day of the Omer, the day of hod she'b'netzach: humility in endurance.

"Buildings and bridges are made to bend in the wind / to withstand the world, that's what it takes," sings Ani di Franco. (I've probably just dated myself with that quote, eh? I hadn't listened to Out of Range in years, though I'm adding it to my iTunes library now...) She's on to something. We're deep in the week of netzach, endurance: inner strength, the ability to stand firm despite whatever winds of emotion or fortune may be blowing. But what really endures is what stands firm and humble at the same time.

Hod of netzach is the humble recognition and acknowledgment that the capacity to endure and prevail comes from the soul that G-d gave each person. This humility does not compromise the drive of endurance; on the contrary, it intensifies it, because human endurance can only go so far and endure only so much, whereas endurance that comes from the Divine soul is limitless.

That's Rabbi Simon Jacobson in היום יום אחד: A Spiritual Guide to the Counting of the Omer, which I've been unfolding like the world's slowest flip book over the weeks of the Omer count so far. I like the way he understands the unique combination of qualities that permeate this day.

And what he describes resonates strongly with me as Ethan continues the work of recovery. Endurance is definitely required; we learned yesterday from his doctors that they simply do not know when he'll have vision in that eye again. It may be a matter of weeks, it may be a matter of months -- they can't tell us.

But endurance alone won't cut it. This isn't something one can just tough out. We need the humility of recognizing that this isn't within our control. All we can do is face what arises, knowing that the healing will happen in its own time.

 

 

Technorati tags: religion, Judaism, netzach, Omer.

Tiferet squared

Image by Pauline Frankenberg, from her series of 49 images for Counting the Omer.

I have endless respect for folks who are able to blog the counting of the Omer in a sustained way. To offer insights on a daily basis, tracking the practical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual resonances of the shifting grid of sefirot (divine qualities in which we as humans also partake), is a major undertaking. Each day is a unique intersection of the qualities of its week and the qualities of its place within the week, and as the seven weeks of the Omer pass we move through every possible point on the spectrum.

So far I've managed a single post each week of the Omer. Not, perhaps, the same degree of discipline as daily Omer-blogging, but it's working well for me. It's a commitment, but one that coexists nicely with the many other commitments in my life. There's a nice balance to doing it this way.

"Balance" is one way of translating tiferet, the dominant quality of this third week in the counting of the Omer -- and also the dominant quality of this third day of the week. Today is the seventeenth day of the Omer, a day of tiferet she'b'tiferet -- tiferet squared.

"Harmony" is another way to render tiferet in English. Where the first week of the Omer was all about lovingkindness, and the second week was all about boundaries, this third week of the Omer is resonant with the impulse to harmonize those two things. It's the triad that makes the chord, the synthesis that turns both thesis and antithesis into something new.

Two more translations for tiferet are "compassion" and "integration." Today -- the seventeenth day of the Omer -- is a day to aim for compassion and integration, balance and harmony, in their purest and fullest form.

In the wake of Ethan's surgery yesterday, I'm trying to figure out the appropriate balance between offering help, and hovering too much. Today may I, and we, begin the work of integrating the experiences we had yesterday, harmonizing it with our ordinary life, and balancing it appropriately and compassionately in the days of recovery to come.

 

 

Technorati tags: religion, Judaism, akedah, Omer.

Day 9 of the Omer: gevurah within gevurah

Image by Pauline Frankenberg, from her series of 49 images for Counting the Omer.

Today is the second day of the second week of the counting of the Omer. According to the kabbalistic framework many of us use to give added meaning to the process, today is gevurah she'b'gevurah -- the day of boundary & discipline within the week of boundary & discipline.

The connotations of gevurah include strength, bravery, limitation, boundary, judgment. Last week was the week of chesed, overflowing lovingkindness. Gevurah is a kind of corrective to that overflowing. It's the sefirah of boundary.

During this morning's tele-davenen, I told a story that's part of the traditional morning service, but which isn't typically a part of our practice: the story of the akedah, the binding of Isaac.

Abraham is associated with the sefirah of chesed, the overflowing love and light that the tradition tells us was the first impulse of creation. Isaac is associated with gevurah, strength and boundary. The akedah is, I think, the perfect illustration of Isaac's gevurah.

You probably know the story. How God called to Abraham, and Abraham said, "hineini," here I am. How God instructed Abraham to take his son, his only one, whom he loved, up to the place where God would show him. How Abraham and Isaac and two servants went forth, and after three days Abraham saw the mountain, and he told the servants to stay put. He tied the wood to Isaac, and carried the fire and knife in his own hand.

And they went up the mountain, and Isaac asked about the lamb for the sacrifice, and Abraham said that God would see to the lamb. And then on top of the mountain Abraham bound Isaac to the altar. This is the quintessence of gevurah, boundary and discipline: Isaac allowed himself to be bound.

And Abraham raised the knife and an angel called out, "Abraham! Abraham!" And Abraham said, again, hineini. And the angel said, don't stretch out your hand against the boy. Look up and see what's right in front of you. And Abraham looked up and saw the ram caught in the thicket, and he sacrificed the ram instead of his son. And he named the mountain Adonai Yir'eh: God Will See. 

When Isaac asks about the lamb for the sacrifice, Abraham says "God will see to the lamb, my son." Same word, yir'eh. So maybe this story is about trusting that God will see to what's needed, that God will provide. And maybe this story is about learning to see the solutions that are right in front of us. And maybe this story is about submitting ourselves to the boundaries we inhabit, trusting that even if things seem constraining, expansive possibility will appear when we need it most.

Today is the day of strength within strength, boundary squared. 

May the part of us that is broken in gevurah she'b'gevurah be healed today.

 

Technorati tags: religion, Judaism, akedah, Omer.

Release

Blessed are You, Eternal our God, sovereign of all worlds, who releases the bound.

An object at rest tends to stay at rest, and it takes all of my willpower just to overcome my yetzer ha-ra and climb out of bed this morning. I make it to North Street, where it takes another act of will to drag myself out of the car and across the street and into the yoga studio.

The instructor invites us to close our eyes, to be aware of what it's like to inhabit this body right now, and realization washes over me: being present is the only thing that's called for. Whatever practice I'm capable of is exactly the practice I need to do today. The hard part is overcoming the voice that says I won't be able to do it so I might as well not try. The part of me that hangs back at the edge of the sea, afraid to take the first step.

Source of Mercy! With loving strength, untie my tangles.

I'm tense and knotted, God. It's force of habit. I'm braced against my own mistakes. And I'm a woman in America in the twenty-first century, which means I've spent a lifetime internalizing messages about what kind of body I should have. Those messages turn my psyche into macramé. It's so easy to feel like I'm too this and not enough that and next thing I know my body is a straitjacket. Help me lower my shoulders, God. Help me open my heart.

From the straits I called to You; You answered me with expansiveness.

From the physical straits of tension and tightness. From the emotional straits of anxiety and uncertainty. From the intellectual straits of habitual thinking. From everything in me that's been coiled and yearns now to expand.

You answer me with liberation. With openings. What was cosy in the fall is starting to feel too snug; what have I outgrown? The change in light is calling me to relinquish these too-tight places and begin to unfurl. I don't know what's been germinating, what the remnants of last year have nourished in me, but You're calling me to find out.

Today is the fourth day of the Omer: netzach within chesed, endurance within lovingkindness. A day to explore the light and love, openness and generosity, that endure.

---

"Who releases the bound" is one of the fifteen morning blessings said daily.

"Untie my tangles" is from Ana b'Koach, part of the morning liturgy; also recited after Counting the Omer.

"From the straits" is a line from Psalm 118, part of Hallel, recited daily during Pesach.

Technorati tags: religion, Judaism, prayer.

The first day of the Omer

Image by Pauline Frankenberg, from her series of 49 images for Counting the Omer.

I love counting the Omer, taking note of each day between Pesach and Shavuot, between liberation and revelation. I love the kabbalistic framework which associates each of the seven weeks, and each of the days within each week, with one of the sefirot, manifestations or aspects of God.

Each evening one is meant to make the bracha for counting and then count the new day that's beginning. If one forgets a single day, one can pick up counting again, but can't make the blessing; the blessing inheres in the experience of daily mindfulness, in not dropping the thread.

I've found it surprisingly difficult to remain aware of the counting all the way through seven weeks. If you'd like help remembering to count this year, there's a great Omer resources page at NeoHasid.org, including a widget (for download or to place on a webpage; it's in the sidebar of this blog now) to remind one to count.

There are other lovely resources on that page, including recordings of different tunes for Ana b'Koach. I first encountered the prayer as part of Jewish Renewal Friday night liturgy; it's also recited during shacharit (weekday morning prayer.) Turns out it's also traditionally recited after making the blessing for counting the Omer. The prayer has seven lines, one for each day of the week and/or for each week of the Omer journey. (You can learn more about it here.)

So: today is the first day of the Omer. The first week is associated with the quality of chesed, lovingkindness; the first day of each week is associated with that same quality, so today is a day of chesed squared.

Chesed is associated with the patriarch Abraham, legendary for his hospitality (his tent was open to all comers), with the light of the first day of creation, and with boundless, flowing love. Counting the Omer calls us to embody our Abrahamic qualities today, to open our tents and our hearts, to let ourselves overflow.

Technorati tags: religion, Judaism, Omer.

Plagues? Rebellions? May Day? Lag b'Omer.

Okay, show of hands, folks: how many of you have any idea what Lag b'Omer is (without clicking on that convenient link)? Those who grew up with the holiday don't get to answer; what I'm curious about is, how many of us who didn't grow up observing Lag b'Omer have any idea what the holiday means?

If you're having that slightly squirmy feeling of having forgotten something you're sure you knew when you were twelve, here's the explanation I offered my mother this afternoon:

Literally, the name means "the 33rd day of the Omer." -- remember, "counting the Omer" means counting the 49 days between Pesach and Shavuot. Once upon a time, we counted the days between spring planting and spring harvest. More recently, we think in terms of counting the days between liberation and revelation, because we understand freedom not only as freedom-from but also freedom-toward.

In traditional Judaism, the counting of the Omer is a kind of semi-mourning period, and Lag b'Omer marks either an end to, or a pause in, the mourning. Some say we're mourning for the students of Rabbi Akiva, who were killed by a plague because they didn't treat one another with respect; the plague ended on the 33rd day of the Omer. Today, children observe Lag b'Omer by playing with bows and arrows, a way of remembering the students who fought amongst themselves.

Some say that what it's really about is, Rabbi Akiva supported the Bar Kokhba revolt against Roman occupation. Many of his students followed him in supporting that revolt, and were killed. The so-called "plague" which ended on Lag b'Omer is a euphemism for the ill-fated rebellion. (In that case, kids play with bows and arrows as a symbolic re-enactment of the fight against Roman oppression.)

Still other people say we celebrate because Lag b'Omer marks the yarzheit of Rabbi Simeon bar Yochai, one of Rabbi Akiva's students who did survive the plague, or the revolt, or whatever --he was the ostensible author of The Zohar. And still other people say that the manna which fell from heaven during the Israelites' wanderings in the desert began to fall on the 18th of Iyar, which is the 33rd day of the Omer, so we're celebrating that.

Oh, and in case you've lost track of the days of the Omer, today is the 30th day, which means Lag b'Omer is this Sunday. One way or another, there's apparently no consensus on what the holiday means. My handy copy of Michael Strassfeld's The Jewish Holidays (have I recommended that book lately?) offers all kinds of conflicting opinions on the nature and duration of the mourning period, and hence on the nature of Lag b'Omer as a break in the mourning. And, of course, in liberal Judaism the days of the Omer aren't observed as a mourning period at all, which makes Lag b'Omer a different kind of holiday altogether.

Here's another interpretation -- one I quite like: Lag b'Omer can be understood as a kind of Jewish May Day. "There's an old German and English custom of shooting bows and arrows at demons on May Day," Strassfeld points out, which does seem strangely kin to the bow-and-arrow theme of Lag b'Omer as it's traditionally celebrated. And Rabbi Everett Gendler -- one of the rabbis whose commentary flows down the side margins of The Jewish Holidays -- offers the following:

For more than a decade, we (my wife, our daughters, and I) have held an annual May Day - Lag b'Omer celebration up in our small hayfield. Selecting a Sunday more or less near both dates -- with, of course, allowance for New England's inclement spring weather -- we've invited friends and neighbors to join us for a variety of outdoor activities. Most distinctive is a ritual procession around the periphery of the field, each person carrying some freshly cut winter rye, while at the head of the procession is carried a recently-cut, eighteen-foot-high tree with eighteen ribbons stapled to it near the top (the chai motif.) Also at the head of the procession is carried a keter -- a crown for the May/Omer pole -- constructed earlier in the week from freshly cut branches. Attatched to it are brightly-colored pieces of fabric inscribed with appropriate verses from the Bible, from Chaucer, or from e.e. cummings, or whatever choices our fantasy may dictate that particular year...

I love the idea of celebrating May Day and Lag b'Omer together. Both festivals are often observed with bonfires, picnics, and outdoor merriment (the First Jewish Catalogue calls Lag b'Omer "a day of outings and midnight bonfires," which sounds pretty consonant with May Day celebrations, to me.) Certainly in this season, at this latitude, we're all eager to find a reason to savor the great outdoors. It's been a few years since we and our local circle of friends last celebrated May Day, but I think next year we might just have to establish a Lag b'Omer / May Day tradition...

Technorati tags: religion, Judaism, LagBOmer.

Through a stereoscope, darkly

As a kid, I had what we called a lazy eye: one eye wandered, without volition. Eventually a pair of surgeries were required to correct it. As a result, I spent a lot of time at opthamologists' offices with an opaque plastic circle over first one eye, then the other, trying to explain and understand what I saw. My eyes offer different pictures of the world even now -- color tones vary slightly from one eye to the next. (When I'm using both eyes in concert, the dominant eye chooses the color palette.)

That turns out to be a good metaphor for how I'm relating to the ongoing investigation of my health. Through one eye, I see a reality in which the strokes suggest something sinister, and merit continuing exploration with every tool at our disposal. Through the other eye, I see a reality in which the strokes arose out of a combination of hormones, hypertension, and medication, which means they were a one-time thing (okay, a three-time thing), and now that we've addressed those factors they suggest no reason for continuing concern.

Perhaps not surprisingly, it's difficult to reconcile those two views of the world. It's like looking through a stereoscope at two pictures that don't actually match. Trying to focus my eyes on both at once gives me a metaphorical headache. Among other things, this has a fascinating effect on my prayer life. Sometimes it's difficult for me to pray with kavanah because I'm not sure where I'm praying from. (Maybe that's why I resonated so strongly with the Hasidic teachings about equanimity that I blogged about a few months ago.)

We'll be visiting a new specialist in a few weeks, but as the days of the Omer stack up I'm beginning to grapple with the likelihood that these strokes may always be cryptogenic. That answers simply may not exist to be found. In theory I came to terms with that kind of uncertainty last year while working as a hospital chaplain. But learning it internally, applied to my own body and my own life, proves to be its own challenge.

Counting the Omer takes on particular poignancy this year because my appointment with the new specialist falls on the 7th of Sivan. (Following Reform practice I don't observe a second day of Shavuot, but the timing still strikes me.) As we commemorate the ongoing revelation of Torah at Sinai, I'll be hoping for a different kind of revelation -- even as I remind myself that I can't guarantee the revelation that I seek. And neither could our ancestors; who knows what the Israelites thought they were going to get from the Holy Blessed One at Sinai? My task is to be open to revelation in whatever form it takes.

And isn't that always true? On some level we want concrete answers and instructions, simple ones we can understand. Real revelation is messier than that. That's something I value about our holy texts -- that they speak in a variety of voices, that they offer new insights when seen through different lenses. I need to learn to see my body in the same way, to become at least a little bit more comfortable with mystery.

Technorati tags: religion, Judaism, health.