Elul 5 Returning to what matters

Gabi, my 9 year old wanted to make sure I was going to sing her 7 year old brother his bedtime prayers tonight even though his twin sister was at a sleepover.  I said "yes" and then she quietly asked me if I was going to sing to her prayers tonight.  I didn't miss a beat and said "yes, of course." How precious that she should ask.  What a blessing to be able to hear this gentle question from a child~'will you sing me my bedtime prayers?

The kids love their bedtime ritual and miss it when it doesn't happen.  I sometimes forget that.  There are plenty of nights when bedtime is complete chaos and we can't wait to finish up with them and say a lila tov--a goodnight.  Even tonight, actually, I sent a text to a friend saying it will be nice to put the kids to sleep and have a bit of quiet time.

And now I find myself thinking our bedtime ritual of books~n~prayers provides a great measure of comfort, safety and blessing to the kids.  I am filled with gratitude for being present enough to hear Gabi's quiet, sweet request tonight.  

Shavua Tov~May this be a good week of returning to what really matters!

Elul 4 Turkey-Prince

Many years ago while living in Jerusalem, my friend and teacher Ozer Bergman gave me the book Under the Table and How to Get Up: Jewish Pathways of Spiritual Growth by Avraham Greenbaum.  It begins with the following story which I will offer tonight at our worship service to help us prepare for the Holy Days.

The Story of the Turkey-Prince
Once the king's son went mad.  He thought he was a turkey.  he felt compelled to sit under the table without any clothes on, pulling at bits of bread and bones like a turkey.  None of the doctors could do anything to help him or cure him, and they gave up in despair.  The king was very sad...
Until a wise Man came and said, "I can cure him."  What did the Wise Man do?  He took off all his clothes, and sat down under the table next to the king's son, and also pulled at crumbs and bones.  The Prince asked him, "Who are you and what are you doing here?"
"And what are you doing here?" he replied.
"I am a turkey," said the Prince,
"Well I'm also a turkey," said the Wise Man.
The two of them sat there together like this for some time, until they were used to one another.
Then the Wise Man gave a sign, and they threw them shirts.  The Wise Man-Turkey said to the king's son,
"Do you think a turkey can't wear a shirt? You can wear a shirt and still be a turkey."  The two of them put on shirts.
After a while he gave another sign and they threw them some trousers.  Again the Wise Man said, "Do you think if you wear trousers you can't be a turkey?"  They put on the trousers.
One by one they put on the rest of their clothes in the same way.
Afterwards, the Wise Man gave a sign and they put down human food from the table.  The Wise Man said to the Prince, "Do you think if you eat good food you can't be a turkey any more?  You can eat this food and still be a turkey."  They ate.
Then he said to him, "Do you think a turkey has to sit under the table? You can be a turkey and sit up at the table."
This was how the Wise Man dealt with the Prince, until in the end he cured him completely.
(Rebbe Nachman of Bratslov)

Avraham Greenbaum concludes:
"The moral of the tale of the Turkey-Prince is that you can succeed, and the story shows you how.
All of us have two sides to us--the Prince or Princess and the turkey.  The Prince is the higher self, or soul--the child of God, which we all are.  The Prince is the potential self, the person we can be if we learn the right way to nurture ourselves and grow....The Turkey is the lower self, the side that is averse to sacrifice, hard work and effort....The Turkey side makes it harder to be the Prince or Princess we should be--and the reward for succeeding is therefore greater."  (pg 1)

We all live in both realities--our true self and the self that covers up our true inner-beauty.  In this period of soul-searching and returning, May we turn inward and notice both God-given realities, may the prince and princess within us shine brightly and allow us to stand tall, with courage and strength so that we might indeed get up from under the table.

May this Shabbos of Elul bring joy, peace and an additional measure of wholeness to us, Israel and all the world.  
Shabbat Shalom.

Elul Day 3 The Soul is Always Praying

Rabbi Bunam, a Hasidic rebbe  who lived over a century ago, taught his followers:  “Our great transgression is not that we commit sins:  Temptation is strong and our strength is weak.  No, our transgression is that at every instant we can turn to God—and yet we do not turn.”   

We always have the chance to turn to God:  To God--the Eternal Power of the universe, to God-that small still voice,  to God-the light buried deep within us waiting to shine forth out into the world.  Elul begs us to quiet down for even just a moment and turn towards The Light.  To quiet the fears, to stop the mind from racing with the to-dos, the struggles, the Thinking!  Turning can come automatically when we quiet down and give ourselves a time-out from it all.  Knowing that the opportunity to Turn is always available to us, reminds me of a teaching of Rabbi Kook's that I learned from my teachers Rabbi Myriam Klotz and Diane Bloomfield.  Rabbi Kook taught  that "the soul is always praying." He wrote: h

Perpetual Prayer of the Soul:

We can only pray the way prayer is supposed to be when we recognize that in fact the soul is always praying.
Without stop, the soul soars and yearns for its Beloved. It is at the time of outward prayer, that the perpetual prayer of the soul reveals itself in the realm of action.
This is prayer's pleasure and joy, its glory and beauty. It is like a rose, opening its elegant petals towards the dew, facing the rays of the sun as they shine over it with the sun's light.
Olat Re'iyah vol.1, p. 11

The "soul is always praying."  When all the chatter stops and we gently quiet ourselves down we can become aware of our breath and of our own blessed existence.  When we are still enough, we can hear our soul-prayers, no matter how soft her voice.  The soul sings of her yearnings, joys, loves, and desires.  She sings out her fears and and shares her hopes and dreams.  She longs to be heard by the One who matters most.  Her prayer-song may even fill us with grace, if we let it.  When we are present enough to remember that our soul is praying, we might catch a glimpse of its--of our-- blessed existence.  When we feel her praying, we are in connection with the divine. We are doing teshuva.  

Elul 2

Day 2 into the teshuva/returning process offered me a keen reminder that teshuva is not about making resolutions.  It is not about telling myself that I will change my ways and not make the same mistake again.  It is not about telling myself that "tomorrow I will do better."   Certainly that's the goal, but to start the process this way--with these (secular) New Year type resolutions is a huge set up for failure. It is taking the easy way out.  I stopped making resolutions like this years ago and still (!) this morning, when thinking about this past year I began to list all the things that I will do better in the coming year.  I began to make those 'I'll-start-my diet-on-Monday' type promises.  Oy.  Thankfully, it didn't take long to realize that I was in 'fixing mode'.   The very purpose of this reflection and repentance period is to become aware of our failings and sit with them--take 'em all in and seek forgiveness from ourselves, others and God.   Eventually, we know that our teshuva is working in our lives when we change our ways and not make the same mistakes over and over,  but like anything worthy of lasting a lifetime, change takes work and practice and there really is no quick-fix.  Even though I wish there was.
Here's to the continued practice of staying with the teshuva process.  One day at a time.

Elul Day 1

I walked into Lifetime Fitness  today after a 7 month hiatus.  I had no plan for what I was going to do there, had no real time-frame in mind, wasn't even all that sure that I would actually get there, but I did. While on the treadmill I asked the question often reserved for the seder table....  'why is this day different then all the other days?  How is it that I ended up on the treadmill THIS morning?  It has everything to do with the first day of Elul, and Teshuva.  It is difficult to engage in reflection when not Fully Present--in mind and body--to my life.  Although  most of the time when I want to be fully present, I practice yoga, today,  I must have intuitively known that I needed to enter  into the process of reflection and presence slowly and with ease. 

While on my walk to nowhere I listened to Neshama Carlbach's Return Again. It is a melody that we sing at our congregation's High Holy Day Worship services and durning the month of Elul.  The words are:

Return Again, Return Again, Return to the Land of your Soul.  Return to who you are, return to what you are, return to where you are born and reborn again..  

I wondered... is it possible to re-turn to who we are if we have  never actualized our truest-self?   Re-Turning assumes that we have at some point been so aware of the light and potential of our soul  that we were able to embody such grace and divinity.  Returning to our soul infers that we once did  live fully connected to the Source, ourselves and others....  There are other interpretations of Return Again for sure, but this is what I am thinking about today.   I wonder how many of us feel we live up to our soul-potential?  I know I don't.  Turning and returning to the one I am meant to be is an awesome task for a lifetime of work.  Grateful to be on the Journey towards the Light one day at at a time. 

Pre-Elul Post

Elul officially begins tomorrow.  This Hebrew month brings up much anticipation for me....The High Holy Days are coming up... and sermon writing needs to begin, worship has to be planned, organized, rehearsed, etc.. Elul brings on a sense of urgency.  I worry about all the shul-work that I have to do and I worry about all the soul-work that I have to do too! Both are equally important, both take great effort.  It is important that I engage in my own Teshuva process--examining my life, my truths, my experiences and what they have meant to me. Elul calls us to search deep within and to find the dark places that need light, and that takes time and is never easy.   It is difficult to remember losses, pain, hardship and faults.  It is sometimes unbearable to remember that which we should have said but didn't and also to remember which we did say and we wish we hadn’t.  There is so much (!) and yet I have to remind myself that it is important to take it slowly, that I do not have to have the Perfect Teshuva....  In fact, I take comfort in knowing that I am not supposed to ‘return’ to perfection, rather I am to return to being perfectly imperfect--a child of God created in the image of the divine striving to uncover the goodness within.

Teshuva is not about judging  actions, feelings, thoughts & desires. It is about being aware of them and then offering ourselves up to the process of striving to be the best that we can be.  Teshuva can lead us to a life filled with more wholeness--with shalom.  It can bring us to an awareness of our own humanity and allow us to breathe deeply knowing that we are loved by a Great Love.  When we engage in Teshuva, we are better equipped to help repair our broken world.  

Elul is a month filled with both fear and awe and I enter into this month with gratitude for my life--for the light and the dark, for the successes and the challenges.                                      May the light of our souls be illumined through the holy work of Tesuhva/returning moment by moment.