“This life’s journey is like crossing a very narrow bridge; the main thing is not to give in to fear.” Rabbi Nachman of Breslov The bridge in that well-known hasidic song is not a wooden stucture mounted on a trestle a few inches above the ground, a plank from which any fall would be gentle and uneventful. It is more like a catwalk suspended precariously high over a windy abyss, whose distant depths are occasionally visible but more often shrouded…
There are those who choose to linger in prayer, to break free from the pacing of public liturgy with its many chants and hymns. They will remain with a single blessing, phrase, word, or even a solitary syllable, embracing it, caressing it with tongue, clinging with soul to its inner lights, merging with it in joyous, silent song. These may prolong the ba- of barukh till the end of the last Amen. Concerning these the Pious one said: “People do…
וּמֵחָכְמָתְךָ, אֵל עֶלְיוֹן, תַּאֲצִיל עָלַי, וּמִבִּינָתְךָ תְּבִינֵֽנִי, וּבְחַסְדְּךָ תַּגְדִּיל עָלַי, וּבִגְבוּרָתְךָ תַּצְמִית אוֹיְבַי וְקָמַי “Shine your Mind into my mind, H’ Most High, imbue me with your Wisdom, invest me with your Virtue, provision me with your Power.” (free translation of an intention on donning phylacteries) Before mind is filled with self, may we be empty vessels for your Light. Before tongue begins to explain, may we be empty vessels for your Truth. Before right arm flexes in zeal,…
May this Passover mark a season in which we not only leave behind our slavery but actively strive to forget it, shed its scars, erase memories of wounds real and imaginary, let us tell no stories of personal griefs or tribal nightmares, let us greet this day unencumbered by past burdens and future plans, remembering only: This very day did Yah create, rejoice in it! and let us eradicate from our Haggadah the passage, “In every generation they rise up…
That I may be able to face the challenges of aging with curiosity, ingenuity and grace. That my quest to know and to be known by the One will never lead me to turn away from the cries of the wretched of the earth. That my future decisions be informed by both moral courage and prudence. That I shall have the strength to continue to honor my obligations to others.
Many correspondents reported difficulties receiving the broadcast of “The Mystical Experience,” a panel discussion on the nature of mysticism in which I participate together with Brother David Steindl-Rast and Maata Lynn Barron. It can now be viewed online. If you do not have time or patience to spend an hour looking at the whole program, here are some interesting clips: Illusory God; Questioning the Mystical Experience; and The Mystical Experience & the Sacred Use of Drugs. After viewing, you are…
My grandson Daniel has just concluded his final weeks in the IDF, sweltering in a bunker on the Golan Heights during this summer’s heatwave. He remarked, in a posting on his Face Book page “I’m witnessing a Syrian fox making aliyah… Welcome to Israel… You’re in a mine-field…” I can easily visualize the scene. Fifty-four years ago, at the end of October 1956, during the Suez campaign, I was lying in a shallow dugout at the perimeter of our position…
1. A few days after returning from a vacation in the Yosemite National Park, I dreamt that I was sitting by a large window in a train traveling through mountainous, alpine terrain. The landscape outside was blanketed with snow, flat and white, featureless except for two receding parallel ribbons of black, the railroad tracks. A moment of terror: did this vision presage the blank mind of plaque and tangled neurons? Then gradually forms emerged: the faint shining disk of the…
August 26: Prayer before going to sleep בְּיָדוֹ אַפְקִיד רוּחִי, בְּעֵת אִישַׁן וְאָעִֽירָה. וְעִם רוּחִי גְּוִיָּתִי, יְיָ לִי וְלֹא אִירָא. The Sh’ma al ha-Mittah (the Jewish bed-time prayer service) demands of us that we not slip mindlessly into slumber, but rather make conscious the transition from the active, daytime world, of business, of relationship, in which we have relative control over our lives, to the realm of sleep, in which we have none, are powerless. It opens with a dramatic…