Read Rabbi Cytryns column from the Hashaliach here. ----------------------------------------------------------------- “Tell me - what is it that you plan to do With your one wild and precious life?” Mary Oliver What do you do when the air-raid sirens go off? Honestly, you fear for your life and pray that this is all some big mistake. Theoretically, you weigh your options. One option is prayer; another is prayer plus ducking and seeking cover behind a car, or low stone wall; while another includes prayer, ducking and covering, and catching the next bus to a safer environment. This past summer, as in the past, the Israeli people, our brothers and sisters in arms, chose an additional option: pray, duck, cover, move if you can to a safer area, and fight back so the air-raid sirens will be stopped because there will be no more attacks on your people. It seems that the Cytryns’ story of visits to Israel have a trope common with many other people. Our version of “may you live in interesting times” is “may you visit when history is being made.” From my family’s first visit to Israel for my Bar Mitzvah celebration in 1965 through this past summer’s visit, historic events have taken place during our stay. We are not alone in this, but it seems that the phrase, “may you live in interesting times,” which might have originated as a curse, is actually a blessing. Does anyone want to live in boring times? Don’t you want to be somewhere when history is being made? Living during remarkable times is a blessing, isn’t it? Clearly, not for everyone. When the air-raid sirens sounded it meant that Israel’s Defense Forces would respond, fighting back to try and stop the missile attacks. The sense of security which the Iron Dome anti-missile defense system affords is temporary, because it is not perfect and it is possible to run out of the anti-missile missiles. When Israeli soldiers and civilians die, we mourn their deaths with deep, deep sorrow, and we remember them by name, as we remember members of our American armed services who die in Afghanistan each week. And, when Palestinian civilians are killed in Israeli retaliatory strikes, we must remember God’s admonition to the angels in one of the Rabbinic commentaries about the Song of the Sea. The Rabbis imagine that when the angels saw the Israelites free on the eastern shore of the sea while the Egyptian charioteers drowned in their armor, they sought to sing and celebrate as the Israelites did. But God told them to stop because in order to free one family of his creation another family had to suffer the loss of their lives. This pained God, who the Rabbis imagine rebuking his angels with, “my creatures are drowning and you’re singing my praises?!!” If we are truly to be blessed with peace in this new year which is about to begin, we must pray for peace for all of God’s creation; not peace imposed by power but one which is reached through understanding. The first is merely temporary; the second can be forever. Thus the Hannukah haftarah reminds us, “not by might and not by power but by My Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts.” As we pray for the blessing of peace to be close at hand, we realize how many other blessings we have to celebrate. We are blessed in so many ways, with so many gifts, too countless and significant to measure and perhaps too overwhelming to appreciate. A brief list: family; friends; community; health; natural resources in a beautiful commonwealth in a spectacularly diverse and beautiful country; a rich religious heritage we are free to study, observe, and teach in a democratic, diversely pluralistic society unknown anywhere else on earth. Our tradition reminds us that we should show our gratitude to our creator for these many gifts. One tradition teaches us to thank God with 100 blessings each day. What does this mean in today’s world? Some live their lives literally counting their blessings – at least 100 moments each day. This path of enlightenment is not as difficult to achieve as you might think. If you pray the traditional prayers three times each day you’ve recited almost 75 blessings; add blessings before and after eating your three meals and you’re up to nearly 90. It can’t be too difficult to find 10 additional brachot, can it? Others would rather take a few moments out of every hour of wakefulness and thank God, not with formal “Baruch Ata” but just by taking note, or being mindful in silence of the blessings of which they are conscious. Since I’ve been saying Kaddish for my mother this year I have borrowed a beautiful spiritual practice from Anne Dillard, who spends an hour each morning reading poetry. In addition to the prayers in the service, (which are all written in poetic form originally, most obviously the Psalms, but also the formal morning and evening prayers), I read Israeli, American, and Canadian poetry, including the poem found quoted at the beginning of this essay and fully available at its conclusion. Mary Oliver is a poet whose deep faith and mindfulness illuminate every page and help me through the day. Leonard Cohen, Yehuda Amicha, Rivka Miriam, Yonatan Gefen, John Ashbury, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Zelda and Wallace Stevens are some of my favorites as I go through my morning ritual. I try to take an hour out of every day to appreciate the world around me by reading spiritual writing in addition to our morning prayers. This puts me in a great mood to meet with the members of the Beth El Temple congregation and many others in the community and speak coherently with them about issues that are important to you and issues that are important to me. I feel God’s presence in the room when we’re in dialogue, and I am grateful to God for these opportunities we’ve had to share our joys and sorrows, our successes and our frustrations, our gains and our losses, our love and our anger, our tranquility and our restlessness. It is through these conversations that I learn about God’s presence in our community and how we can harness that divine energy for the tough road which lies before us. It’s coming on Rosh Hashannah, which is the perfect time for our annual check-in with each other as a community (the local “gathering of the tribes”) and the personal check-in with the God who challenges us to take Mary Oliver’s question personally: “Tell me - what is it that you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” What will you tell God when you’re asked? I challenge you this Rosh Hashannah to consider a spiritual exercise you can accomplish every day that will enhance your appreciation of life and God’s presence in your world. Say one prayer a day if a service is too daunting; read one new poem every day, and when you find one that speaks to your soul, read that one every day and add another; meditate silently; chant the Sh’ma verse for five minutes with your eyes closed; recite hamotzi before you eat a meal; go for a walk without earphones and listen to the world; go for a walk with earphones and listen to music that touches you. Add a spiritual practice to your life and draw closer to Godliness. Add a spiritual practice to your life and make a difference in this world. May we live in remarkable times when the world becomes full of God’s presence and so peaceful that the Messiah doesn’t even have to show up. Our prayers for a sweet, blessed and good year 5775 to everyone from Amy and Eric Cytryn and our children and grandchildren.
Posted on: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 00:36:11 +0000
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