SHABBAT SHALOM -- NOACH -- LEARNING TO SWIM This week our Torah drops us on deck of Noahs Ark, as we witness the flood along with Noah and his family, and seek to cultivate hope borne out of its tidal wave of terror and destruction. Here God is seemingly experimenting with the future of this world, discovering the limits and the potentials of human response to these woeful events, in the process. In these recent High Holy Days, we have looked for guidance and support in our tradition -- which claims that our prayers reverse the attributes of Divine Judgment and shift the Evil Decree to Attributes of Divine Mercy. We are now a month past Rosh Hashanah and we check in with ourselves to see what inspirations from the New Year are still present. Perhaps a lesson that we can glean from Noah, is that saving his family and the resident species on his ark demanded his full attention. He no longer practiced his connection to God only in his discretionary time -- or in the precious few holy moments of reserved worship. We cannot will away the various floods that threaten our world by merely hoping that their threats will suddenly subside. We cannot insulate ourselves in the supposed safety of our own shelters, thinking that we will ride out the storm. If we find ourselves floating in an ark amid a raging sea, it is too late. Our tradition is asking us, in all of our imperfections, to cultivate a practice of attention to the needs and the shortcomings of this world -- and to passionately call our injustice as we see it -- serving as beacons of hope and lucidity. Our lives themselves, serving as prayers, to illumine the darkness around us, with confidence, trust, and constant refining hard work. As we prepare for this Shabbat, as a meditation, I offer the work of the jazz composer/trumpeter Terence Blanchard, performing his song, The Water (2007), written as a commentary/poetic response after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, in 2005 -- https://youtube/watch?v=J8i1dOAydqM Shabbat Shalom.
Posted on: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 15:06:42 +0000
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