Last spring, I told you in vivid detail about my precarious and determined hike of the Salkantay Trail in the Peruvian Andes. Back then, looking ahead, I feared it would be a hard struggle – when in fact it turned out to be a hard struggle. The climb, the altitude, the difficulty of breath. All of these were challenges unlike any I had experienced in many years.
But as I told you back then, I was not unequipped for the trek. I had hiking boots that I loved (and still love) to wear – light, soft-soled and waterproof. They made me nimble, or feel nimble. I had a waterproof rainjacket. I had walking sticks. I had a light backpack, filled with special snacks to sustain me in hard circumstances, including candies made from the local coca leaf to help ease the breath, since sometimes the medicine lives in the very place that delivers the challenge.
Not only was I equipped with gear, but with community. I had a team of beloved companions with me and a trusted guide with whom we could consult at every new peril. I had also practiced in anticipation, marching up and down Sonoma Mountain, so that when the rougher trek was at hand, I was not caught without skills.
I’m remembering this now, on January 6. Since the election, I have been recovering from the shock; from feeling defeated and vulnerable. I have retreated from painful politics; I’ve read the news only lightly. I’ve burrowed into this lull (ah, so much privilege in being able to experience this as a lull) between the election itself and the broader, harder reality it will usher in. But now, with the new year, and on the anniversary of the attack on the Capitol, it is at last time to gear up. We have some hard struggle ahead. Not clearly a partisan struggle, but a struggle to nurture and protect a body politic in which the experience and wellbeing of all the people of this country – the ones I typically seek to protect and also the ones I typically flee from – are held with some compassion.
So maybe, like me, you’ve also felt naked and afraid. But here’s the thing. We are not barefoot. We are not unequipped. We have gear. We have tools and skills, and can robe ourselves in middot, in personal and spiritual qualities that can sustain us on the path. We are not starting from nothing. We have lifetimes of experience. We have the weight of history. We have the support of the ancestors. We can ready ourselves – each of us in our rainjackets and hiking shoes, each of us carrying a light backpack with some of what we need.
We do not each need to have every possible skill or expertise. On the mountain trek, the walking poles I leaned on did not belong to me. They were lent by someone more experienced than I. On this journey ahead, we will, I hope, all bring our own best gifts to offer. But we will also rely on our beloveds to offer us theirs. None of us needs to carry everything; that is too much to bear. But between us, as a collective, we will have – we already have – so much of what we need.
At a Shabbat service last week, the first Shabbat of 2025, I organized the evening around middot we might wish to invite in, with an invitation to stow them in our backpacks, or wear them as the garb that will protect and empower us. There are infinite qualities that could be of use. We see them in the people and nature around us; we perceive them in our best relationships and in our conversations with the Divine. We take them for granted; I do at least. But explicitly remembering the access we have to them is, for me, deeply fortifying.
The middot that we leaned into through song and prayer included:
Kindness. We held the presence and possibility of kindness as we sang Hodu lashem ki tov, ki l’olam chasdo. The Divine flow of kindness pervades all time and space. Listen here.
Wonder. We held the possibility of the Universe working through us in powerful and mysterious ways as we sang Kol beru’ei ma’lah u-matah. Listen here.
Love. Love is in us and all around us. It is our weakness and our strength. It fuels the best that is in us. “All your heart; all your soul – and you shall love.” Listen here.
Strength. We sang out asking for strength and wholeness, and in the process noticed the strength and wholeness we already have. Adonai oz l’amo yiten; Adonai y’varekh et amo vashalom. Listen here.
Curiosity and Service. A beautiful phrase in the Book of Exodus says, Lo neda mah na’avod et Yah ad bo’enu shamah. “We do not know how we will serve Yah until we get there.” Rabbi Shefa Gold calls her musical setting of this phrase “The Power of Not Knowing.” So often when we don’t know what will happen, the initial and exclusive response is fear. But we have the ability to replace – or at least temper – the dread with curiosity. Many things could unfold, and some of those will be encouraging and inspiring. So maybe I don’t need to import my own sense of direness and doom. There will be plenty of rough without my imagining more, and there will be good too that I didn’t foresee.
The other element of this short text is service. I hear my own brain spinning: “What do I do? What do I do?” I think service is the answer to this question. To stay within the realm of what I can do, what I can make better, whom I can serve. It keeps me grounded, and anchored to the real needs of real people. So with this chant, I ask that my dread give way to curiosity and my helplessness be replaced by service. Listen here.
Joy. And under no circumstance should we neglect joy. It is, like grief, like fear, an emotion endemic to our humanity. There is no shame in invoking joy, even in difficult times. It is a gift we can give to each other, and is in itself a partial and fitting answer to fear. Ya’aloz sadai v’khol asher bo. “Let the fields and all that is in them rejoice!” Listen here.
So there you have it. Choose your own gear. Put in your backpack whatever feels important on the journey. Any of these or any other values, longings or commitments that are important to you. Keep in your pockets what you want handiest. Be ready to share what’s in your pack with your beloveds. And whatever we didn’t foresee to bring, we will use our precious, hard-earned engineering skills to fashion along the way.
Gear up people, and let’s go.