Apr 14, 2014 | Email Newsletter Full Article, Meditation
By Rabbi Toba Spitzer
Passover is ultimately about freedom and new beginnings. The exodus from Egypt is a birth story – the birth of the Israelite people, and of a new kind of society, covenanted in love and justice. Passover is also a spring holiday, celebrating the first harvest and the new birth of the flocks. So part of the practice of clearing out hametz is linked to this sense of beginning, of new possibilities – clearing out the old, to make room for the new.
In many Hasidic interpretations, hametz is understood as internal obstacles and negativity, and we take this week of Passover to clear out as much of this as we can. So another possible focus is some kind of intentional “clearing out” of those internal tendencies – selfishness; greed; excessive pride; negativity towards self or others – that are getting in the way of our own liberation.
Rabbi Shefa Gold teaches:
“I’ve been experiencing “Matzah” as the essence that we must return to, must re-discover in order to grow in purity and awareness toward our liberation. The “hametz” is the sourness, often unconscious, the residue from suffering, disappointment. When hametz is left to its own, it causes inflation which is the process whereby layers of false-self build up to protect the essential core. The trouble is that through this process we also lose access to that essence. Before Pesach the challenge it seems to me is to release those layers of false self and then to discern the sourness that gave rise to that layering, then to re-experience the essence which is the unique spark at your core…”
For our sit, we’ll do an internal “bedikat hametz,” checking for internal hametz. When this is done traditionally, it’s playful – done with a candle and a feather. A gentle process, knowing full well that we’re going to find something – and appreciating it when we do find it, just like it’s fun to find the hametz that’s been stashed around the house for the evening inspection.
BEGIN SIT – settle in to seat, into physical sensation, breath.
Begin to notice the small the bits of “hametz” in our experience – that which keeps us from being present in this moment. It might be desire – wanting something to be happening outside of this actual moment of experience.
Or it might be aversion – pushing away some part of our experience that is unpleasant, that we wish wasn’t happening.
There might be judgment that arises – judgment of self, judgment of others.
There might be distraction – the mind seeking something more interesting than paying attention to what is.
Whatever arises, whatever obstacle you find to just being present – imagine you have a feather, and you gently, playfully, whisk it away. And then come back to the present moment of experience.
A desire arises – whisk!
Aversion arises – whisk!
Judgment arises – whisk!
And we do this with compassion, with an openness of heart. With each flick of the feather, a space opens up; there is a small movement towards freedom.
SIT
CLOSING: Noting the types of hametz that tend to arise, and setting a kavvanah, an intention, for this Pesach, to let go and release it. Not forcing, just setting an intention. The prohibition during Pesach is on owning any hametz – so let go of ownership. Understand that these inner obstacles are not you, do not belong to you, and you don’t belong to them.
Mar 27, 2014 | Email Newsletter Full Article
By Lisa Zbar
Up until recently, my runs haven’t been mindful, although they have been full of my mind.
They’ve taken one of two forms. Either I have been filled with innumerable, maybe even hundreds, of thoughts and feelings, in a full-body experience, without any observation or even curiosity—one might call it a running commentary. Or, I’ve gone into a vortex of near obsession about a situation or person.
Pleasant, don’t you think?
Here’s a glimpse of the stream of thoughts and observations from the first form:
I feel like lead
I want to turn around
I feel so loose!
That driver is a jerk
The sun on my face is a blessing
I’m underdressed
Now I’m overdressed
I wish I could run like she does
Bike riders scare me
I feel alive
The other form has asserted itself when I’ve felt wronged or seriously misunderstood. In these situations I’m like a child’s top. The thoughts are the string, controlling how I spin, whether I have control, and how fast I turn.
A recent, dramatic event led to a clear view of these two workings of mind.
I was hit by a Suburban last summer and couldn’t run as various body parts needed to heal. I didn’t plan it this way, but I started to focus on my meditation practice. I’m grateful to be able to report that it has deepened and expanded, something I do every morning for 20 minutes, preceded by a few minutes of reading. I read Buddhist sources, commentaries on the psalms, basic texts on mindfulness and meditation practice, and Jewish texts in spirituality. (I struggle to avoid “skimming” the New York Times.)
Just in the past month or two I’ve started to run again and my relationship to my mind is different. I am more mindful, it seems.
A couple of weeks ago I was in the park and got to thinking about a person whose words and behavior had hurt my feelings. I was really going at it, developing a miserable, laser-like focus on this situation.
After a half mile of this, I asked myself, “What is going on here?” Just that moment of stepping back showed me that I was sad, and scared that the situation wouldn’t change. I entered the fear and sadness, started to cry, and found some compassion for both of us.
As for the version of mind that is a running commentary, I now feel less that I am that litany of I hate this-I’m too hot-I’m too cold. I have distance, even a little humor, and can say to myself, “Look at all these reactions.” Mindfulness practice provides space between my thoughts and me, so that I am not what I think, even the glorious thoughts and sensations, that I wish would go on and on.
Mar 27, 2014 | Email Newsletter Full Article
By Rabbi Nathan Martin
Over the last few years I have turned my attention to growing summer vegetables. This project often starts in April with my attempts to cultivate early sprouts in the seed trays in our dining room (with dirt spills and all), and continues until the cool November frosts lay to bed the last of my tomato plants.
I take great pleasure in announcing, with fanfare, the elements of the summer’s dinner provided that day from one of my three garden plots. It is a great feeling to be feeding those I love with food that I have grown, harvested, and prepared. The process allows me to better understand the phrase from Psalm 90, “establish for us the work of our hands”
But there is an additional dimension of gardening that is deeply connected to my mindfulness practice. In my weekly sit on the cushion (I’m still working towards a daily practice) it doesn’t take long after settling in for me to become aware of the symphony of activity in my mind. I see myself working out numerous variations of conversations I plan to have later that day. I hear threads of music replaying themselves in a loop. And each time, I try as lovingly as I can to direct my attention back to the simple in and out of my breath. But gardening is different.
Sometimes, when my hands are working their way through the dirt, the stories and the music stop. I can spend long chunks of time simply digging, sifting, clearing with my mind relaxed and focused. It’s those moments when I realize that gardening can simply be another form of practice “off the mat.” It can be a chance for me to notice my breath, the warmth of the sun on my back, the feel of the dirt, the color and texture of the weeds, and ultimately the presence of that moment. After a particularly joyful weeding session I’ll even remember to thank the plants (out loud) for their generosity.
And then, like all forms of practice, this too passes, and I go back to worrying about whether the pepper plant will get enough sun, when I should be clearing out a patch of dirt for the next planting, and what I should be doing right now outside the garden.
But gardening has given me a glimpse of what it could be like to be present to each moment. Knowing that I’ve been able to experience a pure focus with the weeding, even for a few minutes, gives me hope that with continued practice I’ll be able to extend that kind of attention elsewhere to my relationships, reaching for more and more time in the present. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to this coming season’s engagement with dirt, pleasure, and hopefully quiet mind.
Jun 20, 2013 | Email Newsletter Full Article
Myriam Klotz
6/20/2013
Just as the moon has cycles of growing fuller and then empty, so too our bodies move through cycles of filling and emptying. This Saturday and Sunday (June 22-23), the moon is at its fullest, and closer to the earth, than it will be at any other time of the year. Some commentators use the Hebrew word keseh to refer to the full moon. Keseh echoes the word kos, which means “cup”. The full moon is like a cup filled with abundance.
Here’s a movement practice you can enjoy outdoors this weekend as you bathe in this full moon’s brimming light:
Stand comfortably outdoors and if possible with bare feet on the earth. Feel the sensations of the earth against your feet.
Take your arms out to the sides of your body and send all ten fingers spread wide apart.
Root your feet into the earth, and take a deep full breath in through your nose.
As you inhale, stretch your arms out to the sides and let them extend wide, creating a circle as the hands meet above your head, fingers stretching up towards the big full moon. Lift your heart up towards the sky and lengthen through your neck.
Next, tilt your head up and lift your eyes to gaze at this full moon, this keseh. As you exhale, keep your arms extending up to the moon and your eyes gazing there as your focal point.
On your next inhale, draw the moon’s light down through your fingers and arms and into your body and let it fill you fully with its warm lunar glow. Slowly release your arms back out wide to the sides as you exhale and lower them slowly, mirroring the shape of this full moon.
You can repeat this simple movement several times, and you might recite the following blessing:
Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu melekh ha olam, oseh maaseh bereshit.
Blessed are You, Eternal One, Sovereign of the Universe, who makes the work of creation.
Feb 26, 2013 | Email Newsletter Full Article
When I was in rabbinical school, our mentors would tell us that we each had one sermon to give, and that we would have to figure out how to give that sermon in various ways throughout our lives. At the time, I found the instruction comforting, for I understood it to mean that our essential work was to be true to our own souls and our unique insight, and labor creatively to share that teaching over and again through our Torah.
What our mentors didn’t tell us is that we might find one, single verse through which we would strive to give that message in new ways, over and over again. I would have found that instruction to be frighteningly limiting, overwhelmingly challenging, and confusing. How could one verse yield new aspects of my one teaching, endlessly?
And yet, that is exactly what I am learning this year through my study and teaching* of the Birkat Avraham, Rabbi Avraham Weinberg (the third), as part of the Institute’s “Torah Study for the Soul,” created by Rabbi Jonathan Slater. Through his own study, Rabbi Slater discovered that every week, likely during the Seudah Shleesheet (the third meal on Shabbat afternoon – a special, tender time for study and prayer), Rabbi Weinberg would give a drash on the coming week’s sedra (Torah portion), through the lens of one particular verse: Psalm 69:14. “Va’ani tefilati Adonai et ratzon; Elohim b’rov hasdechah aneini b’emet yisheicha. As for me, may my prayer come to You, O YHVH, at a favorable moment; Elohim, in your abundant love, answer me with Your sure deliverance.” Psalm 69, verse 14 was for the Birkat Avraham a never-ending fountain of inspiration, truth and delight.
So what is the message, endlessly given, through a reading of these twelve words, turned over again and again, deconstructed, reimagined and variously emphasized, to yield an ever new presentation of the central insight at the core of Rabbi Weinberg’s soul?
Well, in truth there are a few core teachings that Rabbi Weinberg shares through the lens of this verse, but one of them is this: We have the power to work with our minds in such a way as to see God unfolding through all events that happen to us. We pray for the entrance into that awareness. Any time our prayer reveals to us the fundamental and overriding reality of hesed (love) is indeed, a favorable moment; and it is this that delivers us from suffering and delusion.
Now, this is not likely to be a message one hears once and “gets,” even through the brilliant investigation and serious Torah play of Rabbi Weinberg. Rather, it is a message one might hear and perhaps be inspired to try embodying through contemplative, devotional practice. But then, inevitably, the clarity of the teaching will slip away, and one will need to hear it yet again from the mouth of one whose life embodies it. Such reinforcement, such refinement is necessary for the constant deconditioning and reconditioning of our habits of perception. Which may be one reason Rabbi Weinberg, in his wisdom, comes back to share this teaching in so many different ways.
I am grateful for Rabbi Slater’s inspired translation and commentary of the Birkat Avraham, and am delighted to hear the echoes of Rabbi Slater’s one sermon through this Torah, as well. Curious? Subscribe! (email [email protected]).
* I, like others in the Institute network, am teaching Birkat Avraham this year every week. That nearly twenty people show up every Tuesday morning at 8 am from far and wide, even through a New England winter, tells me that this year’s “Torah Study for the Soul” is truly inspired.
– Nancy Flam
Email newsletter February 2013
Feb 26, 2013 | Email Newsletter Full Article
If you were to ask the Jewish person in the street if Jews prayed, you would likely be told that we do. If pressed further about what Jews do, you would likely be told that Jews recite the words of the siddur, or that they say blessings.
If you pressed further, to ask if Jews pray directly to God, with their own words, outside of the synagogue or recognized ritual moment, you would likely get a negative response. “We don’t do that! That’s how ‘they’ pray”. But, there is a long history of Jewish personal prayer, expressed directly to God. These are prayers of joy and thanksgiving, of sorrow and hopelessness, of need and anticipation. Some of these prayers include petitions – “please help me” – but some are simply a statement of the truth – “this is how I feel. Are You there?” Despite this history, Jewish personal prayer as spiritual practice is hardly known, and even less engaged in (or at least unreported!).
The absence of such prayer in Jewish life undermines the potential for communal and liturgical prayer to be meaningful. It is very hard to bring up the energy to pray – even if using someone else’s words – if one has no experience in prayer. Its absence also drains much of Jewish religious life of its vital energy. We may mouth words of prayer, but they will have no direction, no expectation of being received, no sense that they mean anything beyond a connection to tradition.
The Institute – under Rabbi Nancy Flams’s leadership – has begun an ambitious project: to make prayer a recognized, accepted and popular Jewish practice within our community in the next ten years (ambitious indeed!). One step toward that goal is to identify practices – Jewish practices – of personal prayer that we believe might be accessible and meaningful for contemporary Jews. Another step is to work together, practicing in community, experimenting with the traditional liturgy, to plumb its potential as a transformative prayer practice. A small group of participants in the project (all leaders in the field of personal and communal prayer and prayer-leadership) is now taking on those practices to “test drive” them, to learn about them. Our goal is to map out a number of prayer practices – traditional and contemporary, liturgical and personal – in the hopes of making it easier to teach them and to support individuals as they seek to deepen their experience in making prayer a spiritual practice.
In mapping these prayer practices, we are investigating first our own experiences: what was it like; what happened; what did it feel like; what happened afterward; what impediments to engaging in the practice did I experience, and what facilitated it, what was the impact on my life in the world, my relationships with others, my awareness of the needs of others, etc. Slowly, over time and practice, we expect to be able to formulate clearly what the practice is, why one might engage in this practice, what might be an expected outcome, and how to work with the practice over time.
Each prayer practice may have a different goal: one might be to draw closer to God, another to expand consciousness, another to open the heart to suffering and inspire compassion and action, yet another for liturgical prayer to be a transformative, contemplative experience. And, all of the practices may include all of the different elements. We are just beginning to look, to investigate and map the practices.
What is clear, at least so far, is that in deepening our own personal prayer-lives in these ways, we are becoming even more deeply connected to the tradition, awake to its potential and inspired in our spiritual lives. Making prayer a practice that is regular, focused, with goals against which one can clarify one’s intention and sense inner growth, can revive the spiritual life of the Jewish people. That is surely something worth praying for.
– Jonathan Slater
February 2013 email newsletter
