Sonoma County, CA * (415) 779-4914 * Irwin@irwinkeller.com
The journey that we are on itself is a Divine Name. Each stop on it is a letter. This journey through stations of sorrow and hope, outrage and love, grief and fear and fatigue and coziness too. Each stop, each encampment wants to be noticed and counted, lest in retrospect it become a blur.
Reflections on Parashat Mas'ei during COVID times.
We are in many overlapping periods of time – the 22-day "narrow place" as well as the enduring shelter-in-place. Some thoughts on the flow of Jewish time, and on the musical traditions that we employ to accompany us on the journey.
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God, you have made the human slightly less than angels. Which is, I'm sure, meant as a compliment. But just under the angels is a bummer of a spot to be in. Not high enough to really get the big picture we need and want. And not rooted in the earth enough to have the ways of knowing that other animals do, who do not have to try to figure out what is motivating them.
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It's Pride Season. And even though this is a difficult time, we must become adept at holding successes at the same time that we hold struggle. And so a little piece of celebration called "Gifts of the Queers" – a chance to recognize the role that LGBTQI people have played in our culture, including our Jewish culture, that we don't so often identify and name. Audio here.
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It is harder to leave the Wilderness than it looks. We are peeking across a border into a Paradise right now, where we could be bigger than we are now; our spirits enormous as giants. But it is easier to stay grasshoppers, shrunken, constricted, hard-shelled, afraid of being trampled.
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Miriam was struck with the disease, but until Aharon witnessed it, until she was witnessed, it wasn't quite real. How powerful is the act of witnessing – the way it draws something into manifestation! Torah this week is saying: witness. Make it real. You can't work with it until you see it. Miriam didn't have a prayer of being healed until her unexpected – and blessedly temporary – whiteness was witnessed.
Read moreOur European ancestors tossed their tefillin overboard along with their languages, rituals and personal histories. They sacrificed their particularity so that we could be Americans. By which we now understand – so we could be White.
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After we emerge from our houses back into the sunlight; after we are all driving and working and buying – we will look around and we will be disappointed. Others will seem not to have shared our visions, or agreed to our mitzvot. Our Revelation will not have turned into Transformation. Yet. So let us make sure that one verse of our Torah is: "Disappointment is to be expected. Disappointment is not an obstacle but fuel for the journey.”
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Maybe the most salient difference between a Wilderness and a Garden is the fact of being witnessed. And the speech waiting for us in the Wilderness? Maybe it’s not chatter and not the earth-shaking thrum of God at Sinai. But the loving voice of a gardener.
It was easy and heroic to maintain this seclusion for a while, when it was new, when we were constantly problem-solving. When our confinement was itself movement into the unknown. But at this point, I have depleted my internal resources.
Can I let go of my need for every moment of this terrible time to be productive or meaningful or insight-giving? What will it be like to let this time be: let it be its frustrating, tedious, anxious and sad self, without the pressure of having to be the source of global transformation or personal enlightenment?
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Where is God in all of this? The answer is, maybe, everywhere. And why isn’t God intervening? Of course God is intervening. In fact we are doing so every day.
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There are pieces of this isolation I want to remember and bring with me when we are finally able to move freely about the cabin. But I also know that this isolation, no matter how pleasant parts of it may be, is something we will all need to reckon with over time. Because there is injury in going so long not touching and not being touched! Noticing and having to ignore the skin’s desire to feel skin, our bones’ desire to be pressed in an embrace.
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The doe sauntered away, leaving me wondering how we got here. Our glorious, sorry species. How did we end up living this way? So far removed from the rest of Creation that is just outside our door? How did we end up seeing this Earth so imperfectly, as if through carnival glass?
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Talmud says a dream uninterpreted is like a letter left unread. What does this if-only-it-were-a-dream time have to say to us?
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Anxiety is of no use. It takes up space and disrupts work and relationships. But what if it’s squatting in your house, refusing to leave?
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Torah tells us that we are meant to be a nation of priests. It is our calling and our destiny. And now the call is even broader. Because right now we are being called to be a Planet of Priests. Each of us tending the altar of our relationships with God and Earth and each other. Offering up our guilt over the profit-driven, Earth-consuming culture we have allowed to take root. And offering up like fragrant incense our gratitude for the simple and intimate gifts of connection and food and shelter.
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In this moment of unfolding epidemic, I am called to honor the complexity of the Creation we live in. This Creation in which uncountable species compete for space and survival, including the tiniest ones, who can sometimes, without malice, take down the mightiest among us.
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A song drawn from Jacob’s farewell blessing of his grandchildren.
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Lying on the floor of an airport, unable to move, one learns lessons about prayer, angelic protection, and being one with the Universe. Not always the lessons one would have wanted to learn.
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