This week we witnessed an event we had been praying for over 5 years:  Gilad Shalit was released alive by Hamas and he is with his family again.  As we know, the price was huge – Israel agreed to release 1000+ Palestinian prisoners, some who are known terrorists and murderers.   Nevertheless, I acknowledge, that just as Noam and Aviva were joyous to have their son returned, so, too, Palestinian families were overjoyed to have their loved ones returned to them.

I, like so many others are both celebrating and deeply worried at the same time.   Once again, my heart expands to hold paradox, to acknowledge and feel the pain of Israelis and Palestinians, of all humanity.  I have no glib solution and neither have I heard any good ones in the many emails I have received and op-eds I have read.

Last night at Simhat Torah, we received the blessing of never-ending beginnings as Creation – all of us – is continually re-created day after day.  We are not free to desist from our work to repair the world even though it seems endless – and we are aided in this by the Divine Plan for Creation, which is ongoing renewal. 

As we move deeper into the B’reisheit story, as the history of the First Family unfolds, our humanity becomes immediately more complex.  Adam and Havah – Earth and Life – eat of the forbidden fruit, manifesting that their thirst for knowledge and self-determination is more compelling than their fear of death.  Their progeny – Kayin (Cain) and Hevel (Abel), become the prototypes of our spiritual struggles.   Hevel’s name connotes vapor, vanity, impermanence – that quality of being able to be in the Now with utter gratitude; this word permeates Wisdom Book of Ecclesiastes.   Kayin’s name comes from the root of acquisition – that quality of being attached to the material world; his is a way of being that admits jealousy and competiveness with a potentially-violent outcome.   Acquisitiveness killed Impermanence, just at the Fear of Death could not subdue the Desire for Knowledge and Free Will.

How can this all be integrated, especially 5000+ years later, as we continue to live out this drama of the Original Family?  Our very humanity, our will for self-determination, our jealousy and anger are both our core motivators and our core weaknesses.  The very balance between Adam and Havah – between Earth and Life is at stake. 

I believe that there is no solution other than, simply, our hearts must turn toward each other.  When asked by the Divine what happened to Abel, Cain replied, “Am I my Brother’s keeper   הֲשֹׁמֵר אָחִי אָנֹכִי  ?”

The Holy One answered:  “דְּמֵי אָחִיךָ צֹעֲקִים אֵלַי מִן-הָאֲדָמָה – the blood of your brother shouts out from the Earth”.  There is no action that does not have its record and consequence.  We must all be each other’s keepers and we must all hear the blood of our brother and sisters shouting from the earth. 

I am the parent of Gilad Shalit.  And, I am the parent of all those Palestinians being released from Israeli jails.  I am the parent of the approximately 1% of our population – millions of sons and daughters – who are incarcerated in the U.S. prison system.  Do I love my child less because he or she has harmed another?   [I am reminded of the mind-twist that happened to me as I watched the OZ series and found myself wanting to know more and finding a place of empathy with the minds and souls of the very bad people imprisoned at the OZ penitentiary.]  I am the parent of terrorists and I am the parent of those killed by terrorists.  

I am Adam and Eve:  I am the parent of innocent victims of violence; I am the parent of those perpetrating violence.  Imagine the emotional torment of Havah and Adam – could they still love Kayin after he killed Hevel? And what about their grandchildren?  Will it really take 3 or 4 generations for the hurt to be resolved with all the generational wounding that will happen in the meantime? 

I rejoice with the Shalit families and the families of the other released prisoners at the homecoming.  And yet I understand the bitterness and anger of those who still wish for revenge.  The families of victims of violence often desire punishment, and not freedom, for those who harmed their beloveds.  And, still, while feeling their hurt and loss, I believe, it is time for all of us to move past this retributive attitude.  We have no choice.  The future of the bond between Earth and Life – Adam and Havah – is at stake. 

This is the forgiveness we have spoken about and prayed for over these holydays.  To be willing to let go of the pain of hurt and give the other a second chance while still hearing the blood crying out from the earth.   To reengage in a relationship that has been breached.

The very last words of all the prophets in the Hebrew Bible, are those of Malakhi who ends his book by telling us that when Eliahu haHavi (Elijah) arrives to announce the Messianic era,  
   וְהֵשִׁיב לֵב-אָבוֹת עַל-בָּנִים וְלֵב בָּנִים עַל-אֲבוֹתָם פֶּן-אָבוֹא וְהִכֵּיתִי אֶת-הָאָרֶץ חֵרֶם
“then the hearts of the parents will be turned to their children and the hearts of the children to their parents,  lest The Divine come and strike the earth with dire consequences.”

I think that the lesson of this week is that all of our hearts must turn toward each other in forgiveness and mutual responsibility, lest the cosmic delete button will be pressed.

So, let’s pray that the hearts of the captors will be turned to the captives and the hearts of the captives turned toward the captors.  Let us all acknowledge our mutual hurts, hear all the blood calling out from the earth – and, with all this, agree to move on and engage in deep, respectful relationship with each other, to truly live out the forgiveness that we prayed for during this entire month.

Rabbi SaraLeya Schley

Add Comment
 
 
What a joy to celebrate and pray with you over the High Holy Days 5773!    Having received the gift of cleansing and release on Yom Kippur, the next 4 days are preparation for a new Joy, the simhah of Sukkot. The spiritual work of the Days of Awe is to fashion a new lens to refract the light of the Infinite in to our World of Tangibility. We have built a new Divine Name that we pray will bring a year of deep structural healing.

During these next 4 days this new name of the Divine is realized: a letter each day – yod, hey, vav, hey –Sunday Monday Tuesday, Wednesday. With the full moon of Sukkot we rest, along with all our Supernal Guests, in the Shade of Faith of our temporary dwellings offering gratitude for the earth and her bounty. With hopes and prayers for a blessed year as we are guided by our wisdom-of-heart,

 Rabbi SaraLeya

11 Tishrei 5773 |  October 9, 2011

Add Comment
 
 
This week we come together to celebrate Rosh HaShannah and bless each other with a year of sweetness and aliveness.  As a community, we take on our holy mission for 5772 to continue to grow into a vital network of support, comfort and inspiration.  We inspire each other to be rededicated to tikkun olam – repairing the universe, and tikkun ha-nefesh – furthering our essential soul-work. Together, our prayer, meditation, song and dance open the channels for the flow of Divine Bounty to bring blessing and abundance to us and into the world.  We each have an essential role in this holy intention.

During this season, we are enjoined by our Tradition to immerse in the practice of Teshuvah – a process of turning and returning, of self-examination and re-connecting with our Divine center. 

And… inevitably there may be moments when we feel separate from the communal celebration, overwhelmed by our own pain and inadequate to this task of Teshuvah. At such moments, when we might feel tempted to retreat and give up, Rebbe Nahman of Breslov reminds us to connect with our nekudah tovah, the point of divinity and essential goodness that resides deep in each of us.  He insists that we must dig deeply to recognize at least one good thing we have done this year – a smile, a song, a helping hand, a good choice.  Although the first point is always the hardest to find, he promises that the next will flow more easily. For Rebbe Nahman, this acknowledgement cannot help but to bring us to the beginning of joy and, thus, to teshuvah, to a reconnection with our soul’s essence.

In community, we are able to help each other to find and see these places of wholeness. We can be mirrors for each other, reflecting back to one another the truths of our lives and, most importantly, the certainty that our vital soul-essence is worthy of love and honor.

Together we raise up these points of goodness to create the niggun of our collective soul, a communal song of healing, transformation and love. 

I so look forward to sharing these Days of Awe with you all.

With soul-blessing and heart-wisdom,
Rabbi SaraLeya  
28 Elul 5771
September 27, 2011

4 Comments
 
 
Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8, 6th Shabbat of Consolation

Rosh HaShannah is in only two weeks and we bask in the full moon of the month of Elul. This month is an “eit ratzon – a time of desire, a time of transparency to the Divine.  The resonance between the inner point of Divinity inside each of us and the Essence of which this point is a part is ever more finely tuned.  The shofar is sounded each morning just before we chant Psalm 27[1]:  “The one thing I ask is to dwell with You, here in Your earthly abode…Direct your hope and aspirations to the Mystery with your strong and courageous heart.” (27:4,14) 

10 years ago, this season was forever changed for us.  9/11/2001 shattered our illusions of separateness from the rest of the world.   Each year, since, as we prepare for the Days of Awe, we again know, sense and feel our vulnerability.   We must call upon the courage and strength of heart with which Psalm 27 concludes.

Our parashah for this week begins with Moses admonition to the Israelites, as they are on the verge of crossing the Jordon to enter the Land, not to forget to bring the first fruit offering to the Holy One.  Elsewhere (Leviticus 25:19) we are assured that the land will provide us with fruits that will satisfy us and that we will dwell on the land in security.  As we expand beyond the simple meaning of the text going deeper than the level of collective myth, we discern what this story means for our spiritual quests. What does “the Land” symbolize for us? Why are first fruit offerings so important?  How are fruits related to a sense of personal trust, safety and security?

Rabbi Moshe Aharon Krassen mystically interprets the first verse of this parashah: “There is great joy when you come to that Land of Unlimited Beginning, where Be-ing who G-ds you connects you to the Stream of Divine Be-ing, and there you can channel its flow while resting within its source.” (Devarim 26:1)

The Land is place of potential, the container for the ripening of our gifts and highest potentials as human beings.  A place where our actions resonate with the earth, She – the Land, the Divine Feminine principle, actively participates in the unfolding of our purposes – individual and collective. There is no certainty other than in the knowing that we try our best and yet are imperfect.  Security is the awareness that we are resting in Source, that Sh’khinah surrounds us.  “Kaveh el Hashem”(Ps 27:14)- we place our hopes and trust in this knowledge.  Vulnerability is real when we believe in the mythos of the possibility of physical security.

So, our first fruits – our choicest talents and aspirations, our most worthy projects and creations – are offered as gifts up back to the Source in acknowledgement that our lives are our choicest gift.   “O, that I could rely on my capacity to always see the Goodness-of-Source in the Land-of- Aliveness” (Ps 27:13) . 

May our spiritual practice ever strengthen our ability to feel the safe in unsafety through the practice of ever deeper gratitude.

With blessing as our hearts’ wisdom, courage and strength become more revealed and clear,

Rabbi SaraLeya
15 Elul 5769

September 14, 2011

[1] Psalm 27 is chanted daily beginning with the 1st of Elul until the end of Sukkot.  This entire period is the annual period of Teshuvah – of self-accounting (heshbon ha-nefesh) and turning toward the Unity.

Add Comment
 
 
"You shall appoint shoftim, judges and shotrim, officers, at all your gates (D’varim16:18).”

"Ani L’dodi, V’dodi Li - I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine (Song of Songs 6:3)”. The name of this Hebrew month, Elul, is spelled Aleph-Lamed-Vav-Lamed, which are the initial letters of this phrase.

Our weekly parashah begins with the directive to create judicial systems including the often-cited dictum: “Justice, justice you shall pursue (D’varim 16:20).”  In the manner of mystical commentators, one looks beyond the system of laws and courts to a psycho-spiritual interpretation.  

What are the gates of the soul and what would it mean to place judges and enforcers at these gates?  The classic esoteric gloss is to consider the gates of the soul as the senses.  We are asked to monitor the interfaces between ourselves and the outside world to know what information is coming toward our eyes, ears, nose, mouth, skin.  The process of judging is to use our facility for discernment (hitbonnenut) as our Observer Self watches how we react to what comes in and how we modulate what goes out. The Kabbalistic and Hasidic masters were practitioners of mindfulness.  The process of enforcement involves setting limits for ourselves, creating boundaries with appropriate gateways.

Further, the esoteric seekers ask what other gateways are part of our experience?  Clearly, the new moon is one of the gates in time.  And Rosh Hodesh Elul is an especially propitious time that begins the 40-day annual cycle of T’shuvah, of retuning and returning. [On the 1st of Elul, tradition tells us that Moses ascended the Mountain to receive the second set of Tablets; On Yom Kippur, he descended.] 

According to the Netivot Shalom, Rabbi Sholom Noach Berezovsky, what is unique about the T’shuvah of Elul is that there is a level beyond the daily self-examination that is focused on our less than flawless attributes and behaviors.  During this season, we are also approaching the Beloved as She is waiting for us in the field.  The T’shuvah of this season is not just about analyzing how we have fallen off the path, but it is a return to cleaving, attachment, love – d’veikut.  We confront our imperfections and consciously acknowledge all the situations where we have much to improve upon.  Then, we bring our imperfect selves to the Beloved and we are greeted with an embrace of acceptance:  “I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine”.

So, at all of our gates – e.g., the gateways of personal experience and the gateways of time – we place judges and officers.  In order to be the best children, servants and lovers of the Divine, we must bring discernment to our lives.  We can begin the practice of t’shuvah with mindful observation of our responses to the input to our senses:  noticing the bombarding array of sights, sounds, fragrances, touches and thoughts, discerning which ones to attend to, and consciously choosing our reactions.  We offer ourselves to sacred practice, certain of the Reciprocity waiting for us.

With blessing for continued wise-hearted discernment, and for joyous cleaving to to the Divine Beloved,  
Rabbi SaraLeya
29 Av 5771 – 1st day Rosh Hodesh Elul
August 29, 2011

Add Comment
 
 
Our Torah portion begins with the statement:  “eikev tishm’un eit ha-mishpatim ha-eila u-sh’martem v’asitem otam…the consequence of your listening to and fulfilling these laws will be the ongoing covenantal love relationship between you and your God.  You will be loved and blessed - you and your land will be fruitful.” (D’varim 7:12-13).  Soon thereafter, however, our text continues with a painful recounting of the destruction to be wrought by the Israelites on the Canaanite tribes.  We are reminded how deeply the worldview of Self and Other is seared into our communal psyche.

Isaiah, in the haftara selection from the prophets we chant week, promises that Zion will never be forgotten by the Holy One, that she is engraved on the palms of the Divine hands….and that the children she thought she had lost will be returned (49:14-22).  Let this be a promise we make to every child.  Let each child receive the assurance of a brit – covenant that we will not rest until each is loved, accepted, honored and celebrated as an essential and unique incarnation of Divinity.

The idea of covenant is deeply enmeshed with the word which is the name of our parashah:  “eikev- consequence”: if… then.  Our parashah, thus, brings to our discernment a core tenant of the theology of Deuteronomy that our world is structured so that our actions have consequences and significance.  If you heed the Divine laws by guarding them and doing them, then the Holy One will guard the brit –the covenant -- and the hesed – the abundant loving-kindness … and you will be loved and blessed…’ (7:12-13).  Observe all the commandments -- ways of connecting to Me -- so that you may really be alive; know that the 40 years of wilderness travel tested you so you will know that only your heart can decide how to engage with this path (8:1-2).  

How is the heart able to guide us to make the life-affirming choices of which Deuteronomy speaks?   “u-moltem et orlat l’vavkhem – you will circumcise that which binds your heart” (10:16)  We are enjoined to cut away the tough, fibrous covering – the heart’s foreskin – so that the heart can beat freely.  Metaphorically, circumcising the heart is consciously stripping off the hardness and tension that surrounds our hearts, the barriers that separate us from Connection with The One and with each other. Our uncircumcised hearts are tender and vulnerable.

I pray that by being aware of the barriers we place over our hearts, these obstacles can be stripped away so that we can love more freely and that the open and un-defended heart will become the basis for relationship in our world.  All children will thus feel held by the Divine Hand. We can inherit our land and share it with its other inhabitants. Let this be the eikev, the consequence of our intentions and actions and not enmity or divisiveness.

With blessing that hokhmat ha lev – wise-heartedness – always guide us.
Rabbi SaraLeya
18 Av 5771
August 18, 2011

Add Comment
 
 
This Shabbat is named after the first words of the book of Isaiah:  hazon Yeshayahu - the prophet’s vision of how Israel would go astray and lose their connection to the Divine, leading to the destruction of  the temple the people’s intense suffering.   The late Slonimer rebbe teaches us that the destruction of the temple did not happen only in the past:  he asks us to expand our vision to see the ways in which our actions and intentions continue to destroy the locus of Connection between humankind and Source. 

So, we ask to be shown visions of how we ourselves create the conditions in our own lives that block Shekhinah’s dwelling in the Jerusalem of our hearts.  Let us see unflinchingly how our anger and negativity or failures of generosity or lack of joy block our godly connection.  Instead of blaming god or others, we ask for self-honesty and truth-visions to see the issues that are “up” for us this season as we prepare for our annual cycle of teshuvah – self-examination and returning for this year 5771.

Let us intend for a vision of Oneness with the planting of seeds of unity (messianic) consciousness.  Let us image dreams for the fulfillment of our highest individual potentials.  To paraphrase Leonard Cohen, we must allow a crack to open in our heart-minds so the light can begin to seep in.

Rabbi SaraLeya
4 Av 5771
August 2, 2011

1 Comment
 
 
This week we finish the yearly reading of Numbers that concludes the saga of the Israelites’ 40 years of wandering in wilderness – the rebellions, the disappointments, the anger, the tragedy, the deaths – as well as the moments of sublime Connectedness.  

The Hasidic rebbes teach us that at each of the 42 stops on the Journey-from-Egypt-to-the-Promised Land, holy sparks were released that were specific to exactly that time and place and to the specific people involved.  So, too, on our lives’ journeys, at every stop on the way, if we bring consciousness to our intentions and actions, there is a repair – a tikkun- that is ours uniquely to make. 

And so with this coming month of Av.  During this season, we are asked by Jewish tradition to allow ourselves to plunge into the depths of spiritual questioning, fully experiencing the abandonment by the Divine we feel when disaster or pain or illness befalls us.  We receive the reproach of the prophet Jeremiah, for falling off the path of intentional Connection.  We fast on the 9th of Av (August 8-9), in mourning for our historical and psychic losses.  But, when the full moon of Av – T’u b’Av – arrives, we dance in the fields with the daughters of Jerusalem, dressed in white awaiting our beloveds. We begin to allow the Beloved’s comfort – nehama – into our fragile hearts.

The liturgy for blessing the coming month invites us all to be spiritual friends – haverim kol yisra-El .  Let all of us who together strive with finding a relationship to the Divine be blessed with receiving our hearts desires.  Let us each know that we are exactly in the place we must be for our souls’ work, for our own unique tikkun, as we prepare to move toward he next phases of our life-journeys. 

May the month of Av bless us with a centered confrontation with Reality that prepares us for the grace and transformation of the High Holyday season. .

Rabbi SaraLeya
27 Tammuz 5771
July 27, 2011

Add Comment
 
 
This week we honored the fast day of the 17th of Tammuz – the day when we commemorate the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem and the day when we remember Moses’ smashing of the first set of the Tablets of the 10 Commandments.   In three weeks we will mourn the destructions of the Jerusalem Temples on the 9th of Av. 

What is the spiritual meaning of the Holy Temple to us today?  Using the (paraphrased) words of Rabbi Marcia Prager:  the Temple, when it still stood, was the local residence of  Sh’khinah, the Indwelling (feminine) Divine Presence.  And in the Holy of Holies, the sacred work of the priests was to hold open the portal between the material world and the Divine realms beyond time and space.  Thus, the shefa, the divine flow of abundance and blessing, could flow into and vivify our world.

Today, we mourn the loss of this particular place of direct contact with the Divine, but we acknowledge that now it is our holy Divine service to create new loci of connection between heaven and earth.  Sometimes I experience this during our prayer in our Chochmat HaLev sanctuary when music and community create a field of connection and blessing which is an aspect of Sh’khinah herself.  So, too, our hearts can become the local abode of Sh’khinah, the Temple itself by our right intention, right action and right speech.

Our weekly Torah portion speaks to the aspect of right speech.  Words can either contribute to making our lives a temple, or destroy the connection we feel with each other and with the One. The beginning of Parashat Mattot stresses the importance of words, specifically of vows and oaths.  Despite the gender bias of the text, we can contemplate the nature of such declarations and pledges.  When we make a promise, our words affect not just ourselves, but those closest to us and the larger community.  Our text tells us that we bear responsibility for the "vows we make to YHVH". Our words have reality and are to be taken with utmost seriousness.  Our words have the power to bind us to each other and the Greater Reality. We must be careful to promise only that which we can truly fulfill.

Mattot, however, does not stop here.  Jewish leap years are especially challenging since the reading of Numbers is stretched out and the stories that are often combined, hang on, seemingly interminably.  We sit this week with a story of the darkness and the destruction that remains embedded in our world: the genocide of the Midianites.  This is not the only time such killing happens in Torah, but its graphic depiction is the central story in this week’s reading. 

Midian must be destroyed as Moshe’s last act of leadership before he died, and before the Children of Israel can cross over into the Promised Land.  So we can ask the personal question:  what must be uprooted and completely destroyed in myself so that I can move on, so that I can cross over into a place where the Oneness is always fully present?  My teacher Rabbi Moshe Aharon Krassen teaches that the place of the Promised Land is one where your connection to the Divine is always present, a place where you are always watched over.

I can thus perhaps ask, what is obstructing me from coming into closer relationship with Divinity and from embodying the Holy Temple?  How challenging to find a spiritual lesson in a text like this! 

During these Three Weeks between 17th of Tamuz and 9th of Av, as we read the final chapters of the book of Numbers, we must look into the depths of our individual and collective psyches to uproot the paradigm of us-versus-them and to clear our speech of intentions that do not serve our soul-work. 

With a blessing that we are called to renewed activism in all four worlds – spiritual, mental, emotional and physical,
Rabbi SaraLeya
18 Tamuz 5771
July 20, 2011

2 Comments
 
 
What does it mean to receive a covenant of wholeness - a brit shalom - after using violence to quell a rift in the Fabric of Reality?  This is a core question asked by our parashah this week as we read the story of Aaron’s grandson Pinhas who killed a Midianite priestess and a prince of Israel as they were engaging in intimate relations at the Tabernacle, in full view of the people.  This symbolic spearing stopped a raging plague that was the manifestation of Divine anger at the idolatrous practices into which the Midianites and Moabites had enticed the Israelites.

Pinhas, the hero of our story, resonated with the Divine characteristic called kina, often translated as jealousy.  The YHVH of this part of the Torah, admittedly. is self-identified in Exodus as El Kina - a God Who demands exclusivity. (If one studies the unfolding of the Divine Character throughout the books of the Hebrew Bible,  one might consider this to be an earlier, tribal, less mature aspect of the Divine character - not the God of forgiveness and love which shines through elsewhere.)

Kina also is translated as zealotry, is the same word that was applied to both Pinhas and God.  What is the line between being jealous and zealous?  When is it right and appropriate to be jealous for God, to be an advocate for what we believe to be True and Whole?  When does this become an zealousness that leads to intolerance and hatred of the Other?  These are questions so very relevant to our contemporary lives.

The poignant drama of Pinhas brings us to contemplate the inner life of the zealot.  In our story, Pinhas did exactly what his experience of Divine kina told him had to be done.  He killed.  He stopped the plague.   He had made the brit, the covenant, shaleim, whole again.  For this was given a covenant of peace, the brit shalom, and the covenant of eternal priesthood, k’hunat olam.  We might question this apparent reward; nevertheless, like all warriors,  his soul was affected by the act of violence and needed healing.  Perhaps he received what he needed - this is the untold part of the story that is for us to write.

We pray for the end of this paradigm, in which violence is lauded as a means for some worshipers of the One God to try to bend others’ wills to a particular way of worshiping the One.   

With a blessing for true and lasting shalom - peace and wholeness,

Rabbi SaraLeya
11 Tamuz 5771    
July 13, 2011

Add Comment