This past Tuesday, a wonderful and exciting new group gathered together for our new monthly Darshei Ohr/Light Seekers Group where seekers came together to talk and learn, meditate and reflect, seeking to decolonize hasidic teachings and consider real life practical applications of ancient spiritual and traditional practices. This new monthly spirituality group will meet every second Tuesday of the month, from 6PM-7PM Atlantic Time. Please email me for the link for our next one!
And today, we prepare to rest, on this 24th day of the Counting of the Omer, as we seek to integrate the Divine qualities of the sefirot (the way that the Holy One flows through the Universe and can be found inside each of us). Don’t forget to join me tonight, Friday, May 17th, 6:45 PM Atlantic (5:45PM Eastern/7:15 PM NFLD) I look forward to greeting Shabbat (the Sabbath) with each of you as part of our monthly service of music and meditation. Please register for the link: https://urj.tfaforms.net/1491
Sabbat rest does not happen by accident or just because the sun sets on Friday night. Our colonized world does not make rest easy. Most of us feel guilty unless we are busy or doing something… why? who taught us that? and who taught them that? why? why do we feel like rest is something that must be earned? One of the most heartbreaking things I have ever witnessed, and I have seen it so many times it makes me cry with rage at our colonial injustices: visiting people in nursing homes who are confined to their bed and wish they could die because they believe that they have no value because they can’t “do” what they used to do. Our world believes that our worth is wrapped up in what we do, instead of who we are. I have often tried explaining how much they contribute to the world, simply by being… how much I look forward to visiting them or how they can brighten someone else’s day simply by being kind to them when they enter their room. Sometimes it works, but often there is deep pain that must be healed before they can believe that they have value. Colonization measures value based upon productivity: faith recognizes value as intrinsic. We are all born with G!d’s Light inside of us… every living being has infinite value. We all contain Sparks of the Divine.
And so, living in our upside down world, we need to prepare for Shabbat rest. Just because the sun sets, or we light candles, does not mean that we automatically rest. We might even go to synagogue, but that does not mean we are resting. Often synagogues are not restful: in our colonial world, many of us might go to synagogue and feel measured or valued based upon what we wear or how much Hebrew we know or what kind of car we drive or all sorts of stupid colonial constructs that try to distract us from the Truth: we are all equally Sacred, not because of what we do or who we know, but because we are each created in the Divine Image. Rest is not something to be earned, but a Divine right. The message in the story of Genesis about G!d resting on the seventh day is that rest is essential to creativity. It is soulful and sacred. If even G!d rests, who are we to push ourselves, let alone punish ourselves? One day a week, can we detach from this world’s stress? Can we give ourselves permission to stop doom scrolling social media and do only things that are lifegiving? Can we choose rest, healing, joy and play?
Like everything in Judaism, we are not supposed to understand things literally. Our entire planet is interpreting the wrong things literally: let’s try focusing on loving our neighbor as ourselves and then worry if someone is using electricity on Shabbat (ps: electricity did not even exist in biblical days: decolonizing Judaism means to question the assumptions of what we were told is “religious”!). The literal laws are portals to deeper spiritual Truths that we must internalize (click here for my article on why we should not read things literally). The traditional laws of Sabbath observance (click here) are meant as guidelines or organizing principles. We have to do something different from what we did during the week and it has to be lifegiving: however we define it… Something that helps us rest and heal and taste Joy and connect with That Which is Enduring. All week long we are slaves to colonial time and its demands upon us: but rest is sacred resistance and Shabbat liberates us by giving us a taste of Eternity… we step outside of our daily concerns and focus on what matters.
So rest is not something that comes easily to us in our world. Especially since October 7th. Each of us, depending upon our own intersectional positionality and life experience has different interpretations of that day. I have mine, but during services, I try not to talk about it because I understand that the point of prayer is to try to recharge from this world so we can go back and revisit our understanding with a healthier lens. Judaism teaches that all learning requires “chevruta” which is to say, the ability to see beyond our own perspective, and instead begin to see through the eyes of others. The rabbis teach that messianic redemption (peace and healing) will only happen when we can understand “elu v’elu divrei elohim chayim” (=these and these are both words of the Living G!d). The goal in any spiritual journey is to recognize that our perspective is inherently limited by our own human and finite limitations and that we should honor the fact that others have their own Truths. The capacity to do this requires spiritual equilibrium. If we are traumatized and exhausted, we will likely become traumatizing and exhausting to others. Fundamentally, underneath our adult exteriors, every human has an inner kid that is wounded and ready to tantrum. When we can stop pointing fingers and focus on healing ourselves, we can begin to relate to one another in ways that are more lifegiving and holy.
Shabbat (Sabbath) is a weekly spiritual practice that can help us to rewire our brains from the trauma of this world so we can rest. We live in an upside down world where there is so much grief and pain that we might feel guilty resting: this is upside down colonial logic. Shabbat serves as a reminder that rest is restorative and that it is through resting that we can heal ourselves and become healing vessels for G!d’s Love to flow through us and into this world. To prepare for rest, today, on the 24th day of the Omer Counting, we begin the spiritual healing process of integrating within ourselves the Sefirot (Divine qualities) of Tiferet (balance, beauty and compassion) with Netzach (endurance, victory and eternity). How are these qualities related? In what ways does compassion require balance? How does beauty connect to Eternity? How can we reimagine “victory” to be compassionate and balancing? How does this ensure true endurance: the kind where we thrive rather than merely survive? How can rest restore us?
Our world focuses on productivity rather than being as a measure of our value. G!d’s Name in Hebrew is the verb “to be”. We cannot be true to our essence when we are exhausted and burbed out. Sabbath rest is a form of protest: we are more than what we “do”. We are holy because Ruach/the Sacred Breath of Life flows through us. Our world has made it hard to even breathe, but today, let us recalibrate and find our equilibrium. Let us immerse ourselves in the waters of Sabbath Rest and Restoration…. As I have done since October 7th, I will be praying backwards to help us find our way out of this upside down “olam hafuch” world. Instead of starting with candles and joyful song, and ending with the prayers for our grief, we will begin with the grief because that is the world we live in and try to find our way to Light and Shabbat rest. We will begin with Kaddish (the prayer for the dead) because until we make space for our grief, it will continue to explode into the violence and repressed emotions that are everywhere. And then, through Torah and prayer and meditation and song, we will begin to reconnect with those deepest parts of self/Self… and hopefully by the end of the service, we will feel ready to try to rest and heal from the week that has passed…
Hoping to see you all soon! If life is complex and you can’t join us live, by popular request, I will record and post it to the video section of my blog. But if you can, whether you are streaming it to a room of folks gathered for a Shabbat potluck, or sitting on your sofa in your pajamas with a cup of tea or a glass of wine or you are walking on the beach or sitting on your balcony… I look forward to sharing this evolving practice: how can we decolonize ourselves and heal? How can we trace our way backwards, from the stress of this world to the spiritual practice of kindling Light and shining brightly into this dark and exhausted/exhausting, traumatized/traumatizing world? How can we become vessels for healing and liberation? Together we can begin to figure this out…
Emerging Torah as Rabbi Nachshon emerges 