The Torah rolls, the two trees moving from side to side in parallel, their spool of parchment unrolling from one side and rolling up on the other. There's a rhythm to rolling a Torah: stretch and pull and glide, stretch and pull and glide. I am standing in front of the scroll, though the text is upside-down to me. Opposite me is the Torah reader who is rolling. Stretch and pull and glide.

I've been watching as others came up to Torah to blindly choose a verse and receive a customized blessing. At first when people said I should go up too, I demurred. I'm a visitor in this synagogue, it's not my place to seek blessing now! They wouldn't take no for an answer. So here I am, eyes closed. I breathe, and after a while I say, "There." I point the yad at the scroll.

The rolling stops. I open my eyes.

Though I don't know it in the moment, I've landed in parashat Terumah. The yad is pointing at a verse about the dimensions of the enclosure around the mishkan, the portable sanctuary our ancestors were instructed to build and to carry with them in the wilderness. It's Simchat Torah and I've just chosen the words that will become my blessing for the new year.  I feel a pang.

I've landed at the start of the building of the mishkan, among endless weeks of measurements and dimensions. What if there is no blessing for me in these words? But I should've known better than that. The blessing that I receive is exactly the blessing I most need, rooted precisely in the phrase where my yad fell: 100 cubits. It's a blessing for taking up enough space in the world.

Life teaches many of us, in so many ways, not to take up space. Not to be loud. Not to be visible. Not to shine too brightly, lest our light provoke jealousy. If we're flowers, we'd best not grow too tall, lest the lawnmower chop us down. Women in particular learn this lesson in insidious ways about our bodies (only desirable if they are small in appropriate ways) as well as our souls.

Anavah, humility, is sometimes rendered as "no more than my place, no less than my space." I understand the spiritual value of making sure I'm not taking up all the air in the room. But the value of making sure I'm not shrinking too far? Making sure I'm not hiding my light? Making sure I'm able and ready to take up space in the world? The thought is literally breathtaking.

I don't remember the words of the blessing. I do remember the room receding, the whole world seeming to shrink for a moment to the intimate space of encounter: the giver of blessing, the scroll between us, and me. I remember wondering what it would feel like to truly take up the 100 cubits to which I am entitled. I remember laughing, joyously, with tears of gratitude in my eyes.

With gratitude to the giver of blessing, and to the Giver of Blessing, and to my spiritual director for evoking this memory this week.