Without Sorrow

I used to listen to the radio a lot, usually on the bus taking me to school.  Some of my first recognized remazim were songs that came on that I felt had particular relevance to my life.  I no longer listen to the radio and I am completely off the music scene; my only means to discovering new music is videos posted to Facebook, or stuff my husband downloads on iTunes.  Not very easy access for the Sender of Musical Messages.  But as we all know, He has His ways...

My two-year-old son is obsessed with "Lechu N'ranena" ("Let Us Sing Joyously"), the opening song of Yerachmiel ("Rocky") Zeigler's album "Raza D'Shabbat" ("Secrets of Sabbath").  He calls it "Hashem" ("the Lord"...) and demands to hear it over... and over... and over.  (Could be worse, right?)  When we put it on, he immediately starts dancing, slowly turning around in circles (his steps completely on beat!) and waving his arms around.  This is still beyond adorable, 13,563,984 gazillion times later.

So thanks to him, we have had ample opportunity to thoroughly memorize this album.  But sometimes, you only really "hear" a song for the first time when you really need it.  Such was the case with "Bli Etzev" ("Without Sorrow") yesterday.  I wanted to share it with you.

The lyrics are from a prayer most of us don't even know exists between singing "Shalom Aleichem" and "Eishet Chayil" at the dinner table on Sabbath eve.

ושיויתי ה' לקראתי

שתרחמני עוד בגלותי

לגאלני, ולעורר ליבי

לעורר ליבי

לאהבתך

 

ואז אשמור פיקודך

פיקודיך וחוקך

בלי עצב

בלי עצב

בלי עצב, טאטע, אוי אוי

And I set God facing me

That You should show me mercy as I am still in my exile

To redeem me, and to awaken my heart

To Your love

And then I shall observe your commands

Your commands and your decrees

Without sorrow

Without sorrow

Without sorrow, Father, oh oh

Something I find very moving about these simple lines is the word לקראתי, which I translated as "facing me".  It's a twist on שיויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד, "I have set God before me always", from Psalms 15:5.  The word "לנגדי" can be most closely translated as "opposite me"; נגד meaning "against".  The word לקראת has the opposite connotation; of something coming towards something else.  לבוא לקראת, "to come towards", is a modern Hebrew expression which means to compromise or accommodate someone else and act with sensitivity and compassion for his or her needs. It embodies the chesed (lovingkindness, or yin, if you will) spirit of this poignant little prayer, which is all about God's love and our love for Him, as opposed to the din (judgement, or yang) spirit of the word "לנגדי".

"As I am still in my exile," as opposed to just "exile", is clearly not just talking about the Diaspora.

"Your love" has the double meaning of being awakened to both His love for me, and my love for Him.

חוקים, "decrees", are commonly understood by the Sages as being those commandments that the Torah does not explain, such as the laws of kashrut.  We are expected to follow these laws even though we do not understand them, just as we fulfill the wishes of those we truly love even when we do not understand.  This is what being in a mutual relationship is about.  But sometimes this can lead to frustration and despair, both in relationships between people, and in our relationship with God.  We are only human and we strive to understand, especially when those decrees seem unreasonable or cause us discomfort or pain.  This is a heartfelt prayer for God to help us to let go of our indignation, our arrogance, and our struggle to be right and all-knowing.  These things only give us despair.  It is a prayer to embrace Him in His love and trust Him that He knows what He is doing.

May we all be blessed to be awakened to His love and to observe His decrees without sorrow.

Making Peace with Pain

My sister lives very, very far away.

She moved away about six years ago.  Back then, I was still in high school, she had a few college credits to her name and she was taking off to join the man of her dreams and begin a very long period of schooling.

It is not just physical distance that separates us, either.  I am an observant, right-wing settler Israeli, a rebbetzin even, a 23-year-old mother of two who left her unsatisfying college and is only just deciding "what to be when she grows up" other than her #1 dream: being a mother.  My sister is a 26-year-old secular American, with just another two years before finishing her Ph.D in Audiology, living happily with her boyfriend and pet dog.

But sisters are sisters, and she is second only to my husband in the position of "best friend".

Still, we hardly ever see each other, and hardly ever speak.  All phone calls are initiated by her, except when I have something very important to tell her.  She's on my family "update" list, but personal e-mails are scant.  I'm terrible at buying presents in general, but I always feel bad about her in particular, because she always seems to find little things to let me know she is thinking about me.  Is it that I don't think about her?

I was at Rachel's Tomb last week, and something about the heightened emotion in the chamber... or maybe the spirit of woman buried miles from her older sister... opened this Pandora's box in my heart.  I prayed for my sister and found myself flooded with such longing for her in my life that I didn't know what to do with it.  The pain of our separation was deep and profound.  I wanted her to come back, and I wanted it now.  I was tired of walking around pretending I didn't have a sister and feeling a dull ache in my heart whenever other friends mentioned their sisters.

This spurred an e-mail outpouring of hearts between us.  And my sister, so different from me, eventually expressed exactly what the problem was.  We are both afraid of facing and accepting the reality of the pain of separation.  I had been either ignoring it or living in a bubble of hope that it would end someday; she had been mostly ignoring it, bulldozing through life as she is wont to do.  Every time we saw each other all we did was think about the pain of that separation instead of truly enjoying the time we did have together.  And in so doing, we made the separation that much more total.

While I was still upset in the midst of this conversation I bitterly said to my husband that I don't understand why bakasha (request) prayer is supposed to be good for you if all it does is open up this chasm of suppressed pain and false hope.

...Turns out that's exactly why it's good for you.  To take out that dirty laundry, shake it out, scrub it and let it dry in the sun.  Maybe learn something.  And maybe heal a wound you had never allowed yourself to treat for fear of the pain it would cause.

I hope that the result of that painful prayer session will be a better, healthier and more open relationship with my sister and a true acceptance of our situation.  I wrote to her that it is like the contractions of childbirth: the more you fight and try to suppress it, the worse the pain is.  If you accept it, you are able to see it as the blessing it is, and even if it is uncomfortable and not what you wanted, realize that there is a reason it is this way and it is for the ultimate good--maybe for the person involved, and maybe for the world in general.

It's All About Gratitude

I have a confession.

In Judaism we identify three types of prayer.  Praise (shevach), request (bakasha) and thanksgiving (hoda'a).  And the first two of those have confused and perplexed me for years.

I know this is very strange coming from me.  I'm very Breslov-y in my approach to spirituality, and spontaneous, heartfelt prayer is a big part of Rebbe Nachman's philosophy.  But my overly logical brain is in a constant struggle with it.

For me, thanksgiving is easy.  I have a wonderful life.  I have an amazing husband and two beautiful sons who give me lots of joy.  I have been blessed with so many things.  And when I take a moment to be grateful, it only increases my happiness.  It's just a huge cycle of gratitude-joy that makes my life sweeter than honey.  I can connect deeply to the Almighty on this level.  He has given me so much.  He loves me unconditionally and sorts out events so I will learn just what I need to learn without getting burned.  And then--thanksgiving turns into praise.  I have a hard time differentiating the two.  Because I can't praise Someone I know nothing about; I can't praise Him for attributes I will never understand.  "Great, Powerful, Omniscient..." These mean nothing to me, especially in the context of God, because they can't even begin to capture what He is.  Nothing can capture what He is.  What I can praise is what I know, and what I know is how He touches my life; and when He touches my life, I express my gratitude.  So to me, thanksgiving and praise are one and the same.

I think it's important to be engaged in a constant dialogue with Him, and I will turn to Him for simple things like finding a pen or letting the light turn green.  But it's the big, global requests that get me.

When I was in high school, I prayed with fervor.  I prayed for rain.  I prayed for the Messiah.  I prayed for the violence to stop, for the world to get better.  I prayed and I begged and I cried with everything I had.  But the world didn't change, and all that happened to me was that I got burned out.  Frustrated.  What's the point of investing all this emotional energy if nothing seems to come from it?  Why should I be focusing so sharply on these things that are missing from my world and will probably not be given to me anytime soon?  And then I get angry.  If You are doing this [insert bad thing] to inspire us to change our ways, how are we supposed to know what we're doing wrong if You never tell us clearly?  Sure, we all think we're doing the right thing and following the Torah, but we're all doing it in different ways and all of us think we're right!  So how is that not serving You properly?  How can You punish us for not doing what we don't know?

My frustration and anger did nothing but push me away from Him.  And that's not what prayer is supposed to do at all.

I spoke to my husband about it this morning in the context of the very clear skies we have been having.  I want to pray for rain, but my frustration has left me apathetic.  There are so many other factors involved, what is my little prayer going to do?  Why work myself into despair over it when Daddy says no?  Sure, they always say, it's like another little drop of water whittling away at the stone... but water doesn't have the hindsight to be jaded and understand that it's not really that drop that made the real difference, but the millions that came before and after...

He pointed out that maybe I should try to frame it differently.  "Hashem sends us things to pray about because He wants us to talk to Him," he said.  "If it's easier for you to focus on hoda'a, maybe you can thank Him for reaching out to you and giving you this opportunity to speak to Him, and to bring the Nation of Israel together in prayer."

This made me think of how I have been learning to reframe my life in gratitude.  Focusing on the moments of joy and telling myself that that's really what life is, and when things are stressful, they will soon change back into joy.  It's an incredibly powerful and empowering tool.  So why not universal issues as well?  Maybe I can't see the benefit from the horrible things that are happening, but I can focus on the good things and I can believe that even the bad things are taking us someplace good.  And I can thank the Almighty for all of that, rather than plead with Him to change it and despair when he doesn't.  On the way, I can reminisce about the glorious miracle of rain He has sent us in the past, and tell Him I can't wait to feel His presence again the way I do when He sends us rain.

May gentle rains wash away all our fears and irrigate our Land with prosperity, health and abundance.

Sometimes You Do Everything Right

My father is a very healthy man.  He eats right, exercises regularly, and keeps close tabs on his blood pressure and cholesterol.  Partly because he is a physician and knows the consequences of neglecting one's body, and partly because of his family history of heart problems that put him at high risk.  He does everything in the book to take care of himself.  He told me very recently that he had a few routine checkups; everything looked good, including his cholesterol levels.

And yet he still suffered a heart attack yesterday.

Thank God, he caught it early and was treated before the muscle was permanently damaged.  He is feeling good and will spend the next few days in the hospital for monitoring before being released and assuming his regular lifestyle.  Modern medicine is amazing.  I often stop to think about how dramatically different life would be without it.  My husband wouldn't have survived childhood.  My dad would be gone.  My son would be blind.  My husband said yesterday there should be a blessing for living in such times of wealth and health as the world has never seen before.

I remember people saying that they were afraid to come to Israel because of the risk of being caught in a terror attack.  I guess having every attack blasted across the news manages to drown out the minor fact that even in the worst days of the Intifada, one was at a significantly higher risk of dying from an accident in the comfort of their own cars.  In any case, I think my father's story comes as one example of the fact that we are not in charge.  We can--and should!--do everything in our power to keep ourselves safe, but things can still happen.  Part of the problem with the control attitude is that we tend to blame ourselves--and others--when things go wrong.  We need to remember that sometimes things just happen.  God is in charge and He knows what He's doing, even if we don't.  We have to keep our faith that it's for the best, even if we can't see how.




posted in prayer for the full recovery of my father, לרפואת אבי ומורי ר' זהבי יהודה לייב בן ברכה שיחיה

Oranges.

Did you ever notice how oranges come pre-sliced?

That is, if you have the patience to peel them.

When I was a little girl I thought they were manufactured that way.

I guess they were.  Just not by people.

If you take the time to examine the fruit, it really is a beautiful and intricate thing.  Hundreds of tiny membrane sacs containing the juice, packed together in separate pieces, also separated by membranes, each with a few scattered seeds.  All packaged nicely in a sphere of spongy rind, smooth and aromatic.

Quite an exquisite design.

Blessed are You, God, our Lord, King of the Universe, who creates the fruit of the tree.

How Does One Begin a Blog Like This?

I suppose very simply: with the story of its conception.

It's been long in the works.  I would trace it back to around eight years ago when I was still a dreamy high school student who first started experiencing and acknowledging remazim.  (I called them "signs".)  I thought then of writing a collection of beautiful stories of Divine serendipity, but my own experiences were just not grand enough for a book.  How can you really make a reader understand the significance of a gentle breeze fingering one's hair, or the sunflower painting in the emergency room's radiology office?  It was a little embarrassing to even talk about.  I'm not sure why.  Was I worried that my experiences were too personal?  Was I afraid that people would judge me as being falsely spiritual, or just fanciful, reading too much into mundane occurrences?  Or even sinful, simplifying Divinity and almost putting words in God's mouth?  Even in the religious world from which I came, speaking about God as a close personal friend was... kind of weird.  Awkward.

Unfortunately I felt I have lost that simple connection, and I am now dealing with finding the joy and connection in a more mature and complex relationship with the Almighty.  This blog will hopefully be part of that journey.

Yesterday I visited the Museum of Psalms for the first time.  It's a little exhibit tucked in the alleyways of downtown Jerusalem, technically part of the Rabbi Kook House.  On display are many of the 150 paintings by Moshe Zvi Berger that depict the 150 chapters of Psalms.  I was deeply inspired by his work, especially after having read his explanations of his use of symbolism: the different Hebrew letters, the seven colors representing the Divine Attributes, and the various motifs and shapes.  I decided that my favorite painting was this one:

It depicts Psalm 107, and specifically verses 8-9:  "Let them thank the Lord for His lovingkindness, for the wonders He does for man.  For He has quenched the thirsty soul, and filled the hungry soul with goodness."

Above the birds, you can see the four letters of the Tetragrammaton, the name of God, arranged in a reflection of the bird nourishing her young ones.  The Vav is the arm, symbolizing connection between God and man; the first Heh is the Divine hand, giving the Yud, the ultimate and infinite essence of Divinity, to the receiving Heh, which is the hand of man.  Below the letters are the birds in the nest, the mother bird feeding the Yud to her hungry young, who are cradled in a nest of mercy (blue), beauty (green) and purple (wisdom).

So simple.  So beautiful.  So meaningful.

The painting reminded me of remazim and made me feel like expressing and sharing them.

So here we are.  I hope this blog will help me increase my own awareness and draw me closer to the Romez (the Hinter); and maybe, on the way... you as well.