Day 43 of the Omer

43
Chesed b’Malkhut
Lovingkindness within Sovereignty

We’re entering the final week of the counting of the Omer: the week of malkhut. Malkhut means something like kingship or kingdom — in a gender-neutral term, sovereignty. This is the week of divine kingdom.

The term “kingdom of God” may be more comfortable for Christians than for liberal Jews. When we hear it, many of us think of The Lord’s Prayer — “for Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory” — and these don’t feel like Jewish ideas to most of us.

But they are Jewish ideas! We use these words in our liturgy every day (though in Hebrew, so they don’t push the same buttons for us which may be pushed by the English terms of Christian liturgy.) And these weeks of the Omer have been a journey through these facets of God. Glory — that’s tiferet, week three. Power — that’s gevurah, week two. And kingdom is malkhut, the week we’re beginning now.

Malkhut is deeply associated with the Shekhinah, the immanent indwelling divine Presence of God which is understood as feminine.

And today is the day of chesed, lovingkindness, within the week when we meditate on God’s sovereignty. Can we experience God as a king (or queen) of lovingkindness in our lives?

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As I count the Omer, let my counting create a tikkun, a healing, between transcendence and immanence, God far above and God deep within.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵינוּ רוּחַ הַעולָם, אָשֶר קִדשָנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָנוּ אַל סְפִירַת הַעמֶר.

Baruch atah, Adonai, eloheinu ruach ha’olam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al sfirat ha-omer.

Blessed are You, Adonai our God, breath of life, who makes us holy with mitzvot and gives us this opportunity to count the Omer.

 

Today is forty-three days, which are six weeks and one day, of the Omer!

Day 42 of the Omer

42
Malkhut b’Yesod
Nobility within Foundation / Connection

Tonight (Friday night) we begin the day of nobility, kingship and queenship, holy Shekhinah, within the week of connection and foundation.

What is noble in our connections with our roots? In our connections with one another?

How can we nobly connect, and bond, with one another? How can we find Shekhinah — find God — in our bonds with one another? Where is God in our relationships today? How might we be able to make God (whatever we understand that term to mean) more present, or more palpable, in our interactions?

How might this Shabbat be a chance for us to steep in the qualities of Shekhinah (the immanent, indwelling presence of God) and connection, foundation, whatever roots us in our family, our life, our community, our world?

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As I count the Omer, let my counting create a tikkun, a healing, between transcendence and immanence, God far above and God deep within.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵינוּ רוּחַ הַעולָם, אָשֶר קִדשָנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָנוּ אַל סְפִירַת הַעמֶר.

Baruch atah, Adonai, eloheinu ruach ha’olam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al sfirat ha-omer.

Blessed are You, Adonai our God, breath of life, who makes us holy with mitzvot and gives us this opportunity to count the Omer.

Today is forty-two days, which are six weeks, of the Omer!

Day 41 of the Omer

41
Gate 41
Yesod b’Yesod / Connection within connection

Tonight (Thursday night) we begin the day of yesod squared: the day of connection within the week of connection.

Yesod is associated with the figure of the tzaddik, the righteous person; in Proverbs 10:25 we read that “the tzaddik is the foundation (yesod) of the world.” I find resonance in the Hasidic understanding that very few people are wholly tzaddikim (righteous ones) or rasha’im (wicked ones) — most of us are beynonim, “in-betweens,” struggling to balance our good impulses with our wicked ones — but this week I ask, how are my actions building the world in which I want to live? What foundation am I establishing with my actions and my behavior? Will that foundation support the structures I yearn to create?

Here’s another poem from Shifrah Tobacman’s Omer/Teshuvah:

OMER
WEEK SIX, DAY SIX

We use the tools at our disposal
to put the pieces back together.

Once the thread broke on a page of Torah
when the scroll was being lifted
to display to the congregation.

Some people were distraught,
some barely noticed,
some were distraught
that others didn’t notice.

The lessons from the reading
had been trying that day.

The teacher said,
“let’s fix the Torah.”

So after lunch
we collected our tools,
a sewing needle,
a magnifying glass,
and a roll of dental floss.

What lightweight items
do you carry when you travel,
and how might they be used
when things you depend on
begin to unravel?

Tuck them away safely
within easy reach, you can always
take them out later, after you cross through
the 41st gate.

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As I count the Omer, let my counting create a tikkun, a healing, between transcendence and immanence, God far above and God deep within.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵינוּ רוּחַ הַעולָם, אָשֶר קִדשָנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָנוּ אַל סְפִירַת הַעמֶר.

Baruch atah, Adonai, eloheinu ruach ha’olam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al sfirat ha-omer.

Blessed are You, Adonai our God, breath of life, who makes us holy with mitzvot and gives us this opportunity to count the Omer.

Today is forty-one days, which are five weeks and six days, of the Omer!

D’var Torah for Behar: a Shabbat for the earth

Here’s the d’var Torah I’ll offer this Shabbat morning; if you’re joining us for Shabbat morning services (which I’ll be co-leading with two dear rabbinic school friends, Rhonda Shapiro-Rieser and David Curiel) you might want to skip this post so you can hear the d’var fresh!

When I teach this Torah portion, the exhortation to let the land lie fallow every seventh year (the shmittah year) and then to let it lie fallow again in the 50th year, the yovel (usually translated as Jubilee), someone always asks: was this ever really done?

Short answer: I don’t know. Some say yes. Some say no. Some point to the rabbinic argument that these laws are meant to be followed only under very specific circumstances, e.g. when the majority of the world’s Jews once again live in the land of Israel.

But I think the question misses the point. When it comes to Torah, I’m just not that interested in whether or not these stories “ever happened.” Instead, I want to ask: what can this text teach us about our people’s core values, about our ongoing struggle to lead righteous and meaningful lives?

The Torah tells us, quite clearly, that the earth deserves a Shabbat just as we do. Just as we do all our work for six days, and take the seventh day as a Shabbat to Adonai, a “sanctuary in time,” a space of holiness in which we assert that there is something more meaningful than the bottom line — the earth, too, lives by these same cycles.

Day 40 of the Omer

40

Hod b’Yesod
Splendor and Humility within Connection

Tonight (Wednesday night) we begin the day of splendor and humility within connection and foundation.

How are our connections with our roots humble, and how are they splendid? How can we live out this quality of humble splendor in our connections with one another today?

This is the 40th step on our journey toward Sinai, toward revelation, toward Shavuot.

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As I count the Omer, let my counting create a tikkun, a healing, between transcendence and immanence, God far above and God deep within.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵינוּ רוּחַ הַעולָם, אָשֶר קִדשָנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָנוּ אַל סְפִירַת הַעמֶר.

Baruch atah, Adonai, eloheinu ruach ha’olam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al sfirat ha-omer.

Blessed are You, Adonai our God, breath of life, who makes us holy with mitzvot and gives us this opportunity to count the Omer.

Today is forty days, which are five weeks and five days, of the Omer!

Day 39 of the Omer

39
Netzach b’Yesod
Endurance within Foundation

Tonight (Tuesday night) we begin the day of endurance within foundation and connection. As the Omer count draws ever nearer to its close, we need endurance; we need perseverance to connect us with our foundation, with our history, with our roots.

This moment on the Omer count invites us to reflect on how we might create an enduring foundation, an enduring sense of connection: with the earth, with our ancestors, with the Torah, with God, with our highest and deepest selves.

In her Omer book, Rabbi Min Kantrowitz writes:

In contemporary culture that prizes reward and quick action, conscientious industry can seem odd or peculiar. The pace of the snail is ridiculed when one is focused on quarterly earnings and fifteen second sound bites. Goals that require slow, steady growth may seem unattainable, impractical, or inane. Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapiro, organizing a spiritual community in the Warsaw Ghetto, addressed this issue: “Our goal is to gradually rise above the noise and tumult of the world, by steady incremental steps…. Our bodies and souls are currently quite unevolved, but our potential for holiness is very great.”

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As I count the Omer, let my counting create a tikkun, a healing, between transcendence and immanence, God far above and God deep within.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵינוּ רוּחַ הַעולָם, אָשֶר קִדשָנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָנוּ אַל סְפִירַת הַעמֶר.

Baruch atah, Adonai, eloheinu ruach ha’olam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al sfirat ha-omer.

Blessed are You, Adonai our God, breath of life, who makes us holy with mitzvot and gives us this opportunity to count the Omer.

Today is thirty-nine days, which are five weeks and four days, of the Omer!

Save a tree: upcoming changes in CBI’s newsletter delivery

Dear Congregation Beth Israel members and friends,

Think, for a moment, about the volume of paper mail you receive — and about the life-giving trees which are harvested and milled into paper in order to generate that mail.

We at CBI would like to take better care of the earth’s resources, including its beautiful trees. We’re exploring options for sharing our newsletter online, instead of in print. The May-June newsletter will still come to your mailbox in print — but we very much hope that the August-September newsletter will be shared digitally.

Our hope is to move this summer to a system in which we upload the newsletter to our website, and then email a link to each of you. You will be able to download the newsletter as a beautifully-formatted PDF file (easily readable on a Mac or a PC) and read it at your leisure. Many congregations have already adopted this policy, and my colleagues praise its convenience as well as its environmental impact.

I know that some of our members don’t have email, and others may strongly prefer to continue receiving paper newsletters. We will still print some paper newsletters, though our hope is to print far fewer of them! If you would prefer to continue to receive the newsletter on paper via US Post, please let Jack know (office at cbiweb dot org). We’ll make a list of those who prefer paper, and will continue to send the paper newsletter to the people on the list. (Those for whom we don’t have email addresses will be on that list by default.)

Otherwise, stay tuned, and we’ll keep you posted as this process unfolds! Our sages compared Torah to a tree (“It is a tree of life to them who hold fast to it”), the human being to a tree (“Man is a tree of the field”) and even God to a tree (the kabbalists use the metaphor of the cosmic tree to understand how God’s nourishment and blessing flows into creation.) Thanks for helping CBI make choices which are good not only for our community but for our trees.

Blessings,

Reb Rachel

Day 38 of the Omer

38
Tiferet b’Yesod
Compassion, Balance, Harmony within Foundation

Tonight (Monday night) we begin the day of perfect balance and harmony within the week of foundation.

Some associate yesod with the moon, since in the kabbalistic understanding, this is the sefirah (aspect of God) which reflects the light of the other sefirot into malkhut, the final sefirah (about which we’ll learn more next week.) This week I ask, how can I reflect the light of those who inspire me? How can I perfectly balance my roots and my wings?

The poet Rumi writes:

The sky was lit by the splendor of the moon,
so powerful I fell to the ground.
Your love has made me sure
I am ready to forsake this worldly life
and surrender to the magnificence of your being.

Have you ever been so moved by the moon? Can you imagine being that moved again?

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As I count the Omer, let my counting create a tikkun, a healing, between transcendence and immanence, God far above and God deep within.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵינוּ רוּחַ הַעולָם, אָשֶר קִדשָנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָנוּ אַל סְפִירַת הַעמֶר.

Baruch atah, Adonai, eloheinu ruach ha’olam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al sfirat ha-omer.

Blessed are You, Adonai our God, breath of life, who makes us holy with mitzvot and gives us this opportunity to count the Omer.

Today is thirty-eight days, which are five weeks and three days, of the Omer!

Day 37 of the Omer

37
Gevurah b’Yesod
Boundaried Strength within Foundation / Connection

Tonight (Sunday night) we begin the day of boundaries and strength within the week of foundation and connection.

Yesod can be understood as a bridge: between our thoughts and the world in which we enact those thoughts, between one person and the next. This week I ask, am I doing everything I can to be a bridge between people, between different understandings of the world, between one community and another?

Today I ask, how are my good boundaries helping me to be a bridge?

This is the thirty-seventh step toward Shavuot and Sinai.

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As I count the Omer, let my counting create a tikkun, a healing, between transcendence and immanence, God far above and God deep within.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵינוּ רוּחַ הַעולָם, אָשֶר קִדשָנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָנוּ אַל סְפִירַת הַעמֶר.

Baruch atah, Adonai, eloheinu ruach ha’olam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al sfirat ha-omer.

Blessed are You, Adonai our God, breath of life, who makes us holy with mitzvot and gives us this opportunity to count the Omer.

Today is thirty-seven days, which are five weeks and two days, of the Omer!

Day 36 of the Omer

Gate 36
Chesed b’Yesod
Loving-Kindness within Foundation / Connection

Tonight (Saturday night) we begin the day of lovingkindness within the week of connection and foundation. Today we ask: how is lovingkindness foundational to my being, and how does it connect me with others?

Here’s another poem from Shifrah Tobacman’s Omer/Teshuvah book:

OMER
WEEK SIX, DAY ONE

Interlacing fingers,
overlapping hands,
arms linked in friendship,
lovers’ legs entwined

a colleague’s kind acknowledgement,
a stranger’s hand reaching
to catch the falling groceries.

With chesed we bind ourselves to what’s holy
by binding ourselves to each other.

How are you bound
to love today
here at the 36th gate?

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As I count the Omer, let my counting create a tikkun, a healing, between transcendence and immanence, God far above and God deep within.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵינוּ רוּחַ הַעולָם, אָשֶר קִדשָנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָנוּ אַל סְפִירַת הַעמֶר.

Baruch atah, Adonai, eloheinu ruach ha’olam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al sfirat ha-omer.

Blessed are You, Adonai our God, breath of life, who makes us holy with mitzvot and gives us this opportunity to count the Omer.

Today is thirty-six days, which are five weeks and one day, of the Omer!

Day 35 of the Omer

35
Malkhut b’Hod
Sovereignty within Splendor/Humility

Tonight (Friday night) at sundown we begin the day of malkhut, sovereignty and nobility, within splendor and humility.

The greatest rulers are those who are both noble and humble. Paradoxically, their very humility is part of what makes them great: as presidents or kings or queens or simply people in charge.

Today is a day to ask yourself: how can I be noble, queenly or kingly, in my humility? How can I reach deep into humility to find noble splendor?

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As I count the Omer, let my counting create a tikkun, a healing, between transcendence and immanence, God far above and God deep within.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵינוּ רוּחַ הַעולָם, אָשֶר קִדשָנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָנוּ אַל סְפִירַת הַעמֶר.

Baruch atah, Adonai, eloheinu melech ha’olam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al sfirat ha-omer.

Blessed are You, Adonai our God, source of all being, who makes us holy with mitzvot and gives us this opportunity to count the Omer.

Today is thirty-five days, which are five weeks, of the Omer!

Late-night learning, cheesecake, and joy: Shavuot is on its way

Dear Congregation Beth Israel members and friends,

This year we will again celebrate Shavuot at the Williams College Jewish Religious Center, along with our friends from Congregation Beth-El in Bennington, on May 26, a Saturday night — two weeks from tomorrow! We’ll begin at 9pm with a short-and-sweet festival ma’ariv (evening) service, and then we’ll segue into an evening of studying and noshing.

It’s traditional to study Torah all night on Shavuot, so that we don’t replicate the behavior of our ancestors at Sinai (who, midrash tells us, slept in and almost missed the revelation.) We rarely last all night long, but we’ll learn together for at least a few hours. In recent years, the last stalwarts have finished our learning with a sweet little ritual around 2am, but there’s no need to commit to staying all night — come for whatever amount of time you can.

This year’s theme will be the book of Ruth, which is the book customarily read on Shavuot. It’s a beautiful novella, and is well worth rereading. If you would like to offer a teaching, please let me know! To whet your appetite and entice you to join us, here’s a sneak preview of some of the evening’s line-up:

• Chaim Bronstein – What Would Ruth Do: social justice teachings from the Book of Ruth
• R’ Pam Wax - The gerut of Ruth, Jethro and Rahab: including a look at the “ger tzedek” (righteous stranger/convert) and the “ger toshav” (stranger/convert who lives among us)
• R’ Joshua Boettiger – Hijacking the Stranger: A look at Jethro and Tzipporah
• R’ Rachel Barenblat – Poems of Ruth: Together we’ll read several poems (classical and contemporary) arising out of the Book of Ruth, and discuss how the book’s themes, characters, and teachings are reflected and refracted through these new lenses.

I know we’ll also be savoring teachings from R’ Vanessa Boettiger and Cantor Bob Scherr… as well as tasty dairy treats, since it’s customary to eat dairy at Shavuot. (See the cheesecake illustration, above.)

Shavuot is a wonderful holiday. This year it’s also our last chance to study, sing, and rejoice with the Boettigers, who are leaving Vermont for the west coast.

I hope you’ll join us for this evening of joy, celebration, and the opportunity to receive whatever Torah we most need revealed to us this year at this moment in our lives.

(And, of course, don’t forget that on Shavuot morning — Sunday May 27 — Rabbi Pam Wax invites all of us to celebrate a wedding: with God as one partner, and us as the other!)

Here’s to a sweet and meaningful Shavuot.

Reb Rachel

Day 34 of the Omer

34
Yesod b’Hod
Foundation within Splendor / Humility

Tonight (Thursday night) at sundown we begin the day of foundation and connection within the week of splendor and humility.

How do your foundations connect you with both your own humility, and your own splendor? Can you feel both splendid and humble (at the same time!) about your roots?

The Persian poet Rumi wrote:

I am so small I can barely be seen.
How can this great love be inside me?
Look at your eyes, they are small but they
see enormous things.

– Rumi

Let the “great love” inside you be your foundation as you look at the world and see the “enormous things,” signs of splendor everywhere.

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As I count the Omer, let my counting create a tikkun, a healing, between transcendence and immanence, God far above and God deep within.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵינוּ רוּחַ הַעולָם, אָשֶר קִדשָנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָנוּ אַל סְפִירַת הַעמֶר.

Baruch atah, Adonai, eloheinu ruach ha’olam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al sfirat ha-omer.

Blessed are You, Adonai our God, breath of life, who makes us holy with mitzvot and gives us this opportunity to count the Omer.

Today is thirty-four days, which are four weeks and six days, of the Omer!

Day 33 of the Omer — Lag b’Omer!

33
Hod b’Hod
Splendid Humility within Splendid Humility

Tonight (Wednesday night) at sundown, we begin the day of hod squared: humble splendor refracted through its own self. This is the day when the divine quality of hod is most concentrated and potent.

Hod can relate to hoda’ah: for what are you grateful today?

Take a moment to say “todah,” thank you: to the people around you — to a loved one — to a stranger — to the grocery store clerk — to God.

How does it feel to engage in a practice of conscious gratitude? How does gratitude shape your sense of humility? How does it shape your sense of splendor?

Today is known as Lag B’Omer. (“Lag” is how one pronounces the Hebrew number 33, spelled lamed-gimel.) On this day, tradition tells us, the plague which had been sent against the students of Rabbi Akiva (because they were not kind and respectful toward one another) ceased.

Today is a minor holiday, often celebrated with archery, with merriment, and with bonfires. Even if you don’t light a literal fire, can you fan the flames of your heart today to leap in joy?

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As I count the Omer, let my counting create a tikkun, a healing, between transcendence and immanence, God far above and God deep within.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵינוּ רוּחַ הַעולָם, אָשֶר קִדשָנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָנוּ אַל סְפִירַת הַעמֶר.

Baruch atah, Adonai, eloheinu ruach ha’olam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al sfirat ha-omer.

Blessed are You, Adonai our God, breath of life, who makes us holy with mitzvot and gives us this opportunity to count the Omer.

Today is thirty-three days, which are four weeks and five days, of the Omer!

Day 32 of the Omer

32
Netzach b’Hod
Endurance within Splendor/Humility

Tonight (Tuesday night) at sundown, we begin the day of endurance within splendid humility / humble splendor.

In classical kabbalah, netzach and hod are considered to be deeply linked. They’re often referred to as “two halves of a single body.” When the sefirot are mapped onto a diagram of the human body, netzach and hod represent the right and left legs — each powerful, each needing the other in order to propel us forward.

How are endurance and humility (or endurance and splendor) balanced in your life?

In her Omer book, Rabbi Min Kantrowitz writes:

Netzach she b’Hod reminds us to use the enduring energy of Netzach to overcome obstacles. W pair determination with organizational clarity, balancing diligence with categorization and order. When we allow perseverance to influence outcomes, we can produce splendid variety. Think of the botanist developing a disease-resistant type of tomato plant; consider the zoologist working to save an endangered species by developing a careful breeding program; and reflect on the architect, drawing sketch after sketch when designing a building.

She also adds:

Remember that seed you planted on the first day of counting the Omer. Since you have been tending it carefully, continuously since then, with Netzach energy of persistence, pause now and examine the changes that have occurred since you planted it. Netzach has been influencing its development into whatever kind of splendor it now exhibits!

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As I count the Omer, let my counting create a tikkun, a healing, between transcendence and immanence, God far above and God deep within.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵינוּ רוּחַ הַעולָם, אָשֶר קִדשָנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָנוּ אַל סְפִירַת הַעמֶר.

Baruch atah, Adonai, eloheinu ruach ha’olam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al sfirat ha-omer.

Blessed are You, Adonai our God, breath of life, who makes us holy with mitzvot and gives us this opportunity to count the Omer.

Today is thirty-two days, which are four weeks and four days, of the Omer!