Archive for the ‘The Commit: Parasha’ Category

All Of It

And it shall come to pass
because [ekev] you listen to these ordinances [Ibn Ezra: if you listen]
and keep and do them
God will keep the covenant and the mercy
the mercy
sworn to your ancestors. [Deut. 7:12]

Ekev
Because
the mystery of the uncommon conjunction
something a preposition might admire
ekev also connotes heel
referring to those acts
we might not be attentive to [Midrash Tanhuma 1]
those that are thrown under our heels [so to speak]
Rashi calls them the light ones
the ones that might not attract our attention
the unglamorous deeds.

There are no unglamorous deeds.
Even the conjunctions of the mitzvah world –
their lovely low-li-ness.

Every generation is a heel generation
every person a heel person
everything previous rests on us
every act every word every gesture
contributes inscrutably
to now –
this day.

We are the heel on which everything rests –
everything counts in some ultimate way
as hidden as the heel that supports
the weight of our bodies.

Everything turns on the lowly conjunction ekev
be a conjunction for a while
be a preposition
an article.

What you did and what you didn’t do
what you remembered and what you forgot
what you honored and what you desecrated
it all rests on the heel of your generation
maybe on you yourself
and one day it may be clear that everything
every single thing
preceding
was necessary
everything contributes
the big the small the good the bad
the beautiful the lowly the lofty
the intentions
the mistakes

all of it.

jsg

O holy Shabbes Inspiration Ekev
Maqam Sigah trichord: E half-flat F G

Every Shabbat is associated with a musical figure, a maqam,
Arabic cognate to the Hebrew for “place.”

O holy

Listen up Israel

God is one
God alone
God the one and only
God integrated and unified
the seamless embrace of Existence
O holy God –

Know it and know it
Eid – can I be a witness
I climb up that large ayin
slide down the big dalet
I’ll be a witness to the seamlessness –
I turn it around in dyslexia
plow the language like a palindrome
Da’ – know!

I climb up the Hebrew running right to left
jump it back left to right
let all directions fold into the ascent of the letters
into knowing
Da’ – let me know
God is one
God alone
only God
lonely God.

O lonely God
I am recovering from the sadness too
three weeks I sat in sadness
seven weeks I am taking to recover.

God recovering too –
listen O Israel
everything is going to be better now.
Everything.
Slowly slowly
we are into the ascent.

I ask God in my prayers to lose that loneliness
we are witnessing
at least along for the ride
trying to know something
when knowing is not
everything.

O holy God –
we are trying to do something
right
after all.

jsg, usa

Maqam Hoseini
D E-flat F G
Maqam is a musical figure, cognate to Hebrew Maqom signifying Place. Each Shabbat is associated with a maqam.

O holy Shabbes Chukkat
Maqam Hoseini
D E flat F G

Every portion has a musical figure,
A maqam
Arabic cognate to maqom
Place.

We were discussing the mystery rule of Torah
the mystery mitzvah as it were if it were understood
we might understand
it all

the chok of the little red cow –
how what purifies can corrupt
what corrupts might purify.

We came to rest in a place none of us imagined before
we began with a sense of redemption through learning
through guidebook Torah I suppose in a way suggested by
the Sefas Emes that applied to us more
than to the text itself.

Every soul has a portion
in the Torah
a dot
or a point
that is
incorruptable.

At that moment we had become a letter of the guidebook
a dot a vowel even a period a mark on the page
we became a letter of the text
we arrived at a-symmetry.

We came to the death of Miryam
how she died –
by the kiss of God
God sucked up her soul so to speak
Moses and Miryam both
with a kiss.

In God’s world they died sensually
they got inhaled into God’s breath through the Divine kiss
n’shikat Hashem
from God’s perspective they were taken into the heart like
a sweetheart.

What can we make now of the frustrations of their lives
or our lives for that matter?
How frustrating at the end to have been
loved into death this way –

God breathed life into Adam [Gen.2:7]
God inhaled Miryam’s soul.

What’s not integrated, what’s left undone in the story now
from God’s perspective
how could they have passed with more intimacy and gentleness
than with this holy kiss
through which they returned to one being with God?

With the death of Miryam following on the heels
of the mystery rule of the guidebook
the mystery paradox of the ritual of purification
the very preparation defiles
followed by the death of Miryam
the removal of the well that followed us
forty years Wilderness wandering
with the death of Miryam as she was inhaled into the mouth of God
do we mourn the absence of sustenance now?
The water that followed us the well that accompanied us
And the Wilderness the Wilderness?

The well gone
we are moving over the threshold without sustenance
the a-symmetry of the various stories that settled
not into harmony, not logical these stories
not entirely mysteries either
a-symmetrical, they do not converge
we will not figure them
they will not unlock the secrets of the guidebook for us.

They are the category of recoverable wisdom
gone for a moment
undeciphered for now
but known in night vision
a future
at night you understand them you do
at night you know what it is
not to penetrate this secret
it will not unravel
it is not entirely mysterious either.

We are always waiting
for that recoverable wisdom
the elders all of them
may return to us someday
to carry that sacred load throughout our lives
so we remember them
the bearers of recoverable wisdom –

Sustaining like Miryam’s well of water
Like the water
Like Miryam herself.

jsg, usa

Build for me a Mikdash [KDSh]
And I will dwell [ShKhN]
Within them. Exodus 25:8

Two roots in that verse, one signifying outwardliness [KDSh] and one signifying inwardliness [ShKhN]. The terrible twos are integrated in our holy place in this the first objectification of the spirit. Why do we need a place at all for our prayers? My teacher asked. Don’t be deceived, he answered, into thinking it’s about place. It’s always about heart. Build Me a Mikdash but I will dwell within them.

We usually read the root of the word TeRUMah, out of which we will build the Sanctuary, as a root signifying “lift.” If we build it, we will be lifted by the building. But the Zohar reads the word out of an Aramaic root [TRY] signifying “two.” That changes everything.

All the terrible twos will be integrated in our holy place. Imagine inner and outer rather than upper and lower, or masculine and feminine. God said, build it and I will dwell within them. The work of the holy place is inner work. In the inner space, in the heart, that’s where integration happens, that’s where the terrible twos are one. Within them — I will come to rest, reads the verse. The game of the spirit is always an inside job. I want you heart, God said, I’m after your soul.

I asked Bezalel to draw it for me. He drew a blueprint of the architecture, and it looked like the diagrams I have seen of the human heart.

O holy Shabbes Mishpatim
Maqam Saba
D E half-flat F G flat

A maqam is a musical figure.
Each Shabbat is associated with a particular maqam in Arabic,
cognate to the Hebrew Maqom,
signifying place.

The Philosopher Avicenna (d. 1037)
Identified 12 principal modes
Or maqamat
Singular maqam
From “place” (Arabic) Hebrew cognate Maqom.

Ethical and cosmological implications
Planets
Signs of zodiac
Times of day and night
Elements
Poetry
Poetic meter
Healings and treatments,

Each week a musical figure –
a mood

Maqam.

The last line
And Moses came into the cloud
and went up the mountain
and Moses was up on the mountain
forty days and forty nights. [Ex.24:18]

We want to know
what happened up the mountain?
What did he see?
Moses ascends
wearing the garment of colors
draped over his shoulders by the rainbow,

he saw what he saw
he enjoyed it –
All
up to that place. [Zohar]

What place.

What place is it where language meets its
limit
beyond which
the most that can be said
about something
is nothing.

It’s like this
and like this
like this
– an old man like me
doesn’t offer a single version
a word rattling around in an empty bottle –

first: the obvious
then the less obvious
then the secret
to arrive where we began
the plain sense
the surfaces having released their opacity –

transparent
revealing
everything.

We know this
every now and again
don’t we?

jsg, usa

Saba, from Arabic signifying baby boy,
Maqam Saba is used for Brit/covenant
All covenants.

O Yitro

We listened to Yitro
Yitro listened to us.

Moses stuttered
Yitro [Jethro] spoke another language entirely
Yitro began by listening
he had heard all that happened
– God and Israel and Egypt
Yitro listened to the whole story
and it moved him.

He brought Tzipporah
the wife of Moses and their two sons
to Israel’s camp.

When did he come? [Talmud, Zevachim 116a]
Did he come after he heard about the attack of Amalek
did he come when he heard about the splitting off the Sea
did he come when he heard about the Ten Commandments?

Did he come because of the opposition
did he come because of miracles
did he come because of wisdom –

he knew why he came.

Thus is the giving of the Torah in this parashah
yet the portion is entitled Yitro,

as if we could not receive the holy Torah
until Yitro had joined us [Zohar]

with all his ambiguity
intact.

jsg, usa

O holy Shabbes Inspiration Yitro
Maqam Hoseini, Phrygian mode on the note A

A B flat C D
D E flat F G

Every Shabbat is associated with a musical figure called a *maqam,
Arabic cognate to Hebrew maqom, Place.

The Philosopher Avicenna (d. 1037)
Identified 12 principal modes
Or maqamat
Singular maqam
From “place” (Arabic) Hebrew cognate Maqom.

Ethical and cosmological implications
Planets
Signs of zodiac
Times of day and night
Elements
Poetry
Poetic meter
Healings and treatments,

Each Torah portion is associated with a musical figure –

Maqam.

How we received Yitro is an us-and-them problem
he gave us something additional
something unexpected
his name was Yeter [additional]
he brought additional wisdom
something from outside.

Once we integrated his wisdom
he became YitrO
he earned a vuv
a direct connection with the Holy One
straight up and down
the Or Yashar
the direct light.

His wisdom was from the outside
what is additional is what he taught Moses
how to bring down the wisdom from the outside
in its applications
the implications and inferences
what we would draw for ourselves.

Outside becomes inside.

From the outsider Amalek we received only grief
from the outsider Yitro –

wisdom beyond measure.

jsg, usa

O holy Shabbes Inspiration Beshallach
Maqam Ajam (B flat C D E flat)

Every Shabbat is associated with a musical figure called a *maqam,
Arabic cognate to Hebrew maqom, Place.

The Philosopher Avicenna (d. 1037)
Identified 12 principal modes
Or maqamat
Singular maqam
From “place” (Arabic) Hebrew cognate Maqom.

Ethical and cosmological implications
Planets
Signs of zodiac
Times of day and night
Elements
Poetry
Poetic meter
Healings and treatments,

Each Torah portion is associated with a musical figure –

Maqam.

After the Sea of Reeds
for the first time in a long time
the Egyptians are no longer a threat.
Ahead of us, the Wilderness,
many hurdles to cross
and on the way to the mountain
four more crises.

Three days into the wilderness of Shur
no water. [15:22 ff.]
We came to Marah, cannot drink the water, bitter.
Mah Nishteh — what do we drink?
Moses turned around and cried out
God showed him a piece of wood
it is a tree of life to those who hold fast to it
Moses threw the piece of wood into the water
and the water turned sweet.
God reminded us
I am Hashem, your healer,
drink me.

Six weeks after leaving Egypt
no food. [16:3 ff.]
If only we had died in Egypt
fleshpots and bread, so good.
Hashem provides, we don’t have to ask
bread — each day just enough
on the sixth day a double portion
quail
manna.

Manna, fine and flaky,
as fine as frost on the ground. [16:14]
What is this stuff?
It’s from God, Moses said,
you will always gather just what you need.

Third problem –
we camped at Rephidim, no water. [17:1 ff.]
quarreling with Moses.
We are close now,
this the last stop.
Why did you bring us out from there, to die here?
We couldn’t die there?
Massah and Meribah,
we quarreled and we rebelled,
Is Hashem here among us, or –
nothing.

Last problem: Amalek. [17:8 ff.]
Different kind of enemy
our problems are both inner and outer.
The first — the Egyptians
the last — Amalek.
We will come to wish all our problems were so outer.

In the interior is ourselves
– the water, the food, attitude –
we have met the inner enemy, it is us.

Our problems are lucky to have us
our devotion to them is endless.

jsg, usa

On Torah Ki Teitzei
Published in Light Wednesday, August 26, 2009

What It Is

Here’s a tough one — what about stoning a rebellious kid?

When a man has a son who is stubborn and a rebel one who does not listen to
the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and they discipline him and he still does not listen to them, then his father and his mother are to grab him
and drag him to the town elders, in the gates of his place, and they are to say to the town elders our son is stubborn and a rebel, he does not listen to our voice
he is a glutton and a drunkard, then all the men of the town are to pelt him with stones, so that he dies [what?!] so shall you burn the evil out of your midst [oh – my – God] and all Israel will hear and be awed. [Deut 21:18 ff.]

I don’t believe this for a minute. This is like threatening your kid with Reform School in my day or detention — who actually got sent to Reform School?
[well, I know someone but I may have made that up to scare my kids].

The Rabbis said: the stoning of a son who is stubborn and a rebel
never happened and never will happen. Why then was this law written in the Torah? It was put in the Torah so we can study it and receive reward for our study (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 71a). Meaning — we should talk about it
because there may have been a time. there may be a time to come, when you want to strangle your kid. You gotta pause. Lousy good-for-nothing kid, so-and-so ungrateful no-count lowlife kid — talk it through, think it through, let the heat dissipate.

Your reward — find your quiet, make your peace — it may not even involve your kid, it’s something you had to do. There’s your reward: doing your work independently of that good-for-nothing lowlife kid of yours.

The Talmud continues (Sanhedrin 71a): Rabbi Yonatan said, you are wrong.
It did happen. I saw one [a kid who was stoned to death] and sat on his grave.

If we thought we were out of this story with our enlightened set of parenting strategies intact, consider this picture of Rabbi Yonatan sitting on a grave — back to the verse, the end specifically. All Israel will hear and be awed.

Rabbi Yonatan is saying, Look — I don’t know whose grave I was sitting on
but the point is when my kid hears about it — he and all Israel will be awed, moved — look I’m trying to run a household here.

We don’t really act this way but we do resort to lesser strategies once in a while.
We get frustrated. Our kids aren’t behaving the way we would have them behave. Parenting is not the set of neat and clever responses the books recommend. Family peace? HEY IT’S NOT HAPPENING THE WAY IT WAS SUPPOSED TO.

What we are reaching for is a way to return – ah — Ki Teitzei – to sanity. The name of the portion, it means: when you leave, when we leave our expectations over the great messes that our lives have become, when we cease to compare the what-it-is to the what-we-wanted or the-way-it-was-supposed-to-be. When we leave — Ki Teitzei – when we leave behind all the supposed-to’s of our existence, get free of them – then our kids — supposed to behave this way, our husbands our wives — supposed to act this way, ourselves — supposed to enjoy our lives this way — when we ki teitze/when we leave, if we leave, our expectations where they belong in a shoebox under the bed then we are free to deal with life, with reality, with our children, our families, the way they are, not the way they are supposed to be.

The way they are: the great what-it-is. We have ki teitzei’d — we have left the condition of supposed-to-be and have entered the holy condition of what-it-is. Now we are free to be alive to life in its complexity, its messiness, independent of our effort to manage, cajole, contain, we are alive to life as it presents itself to us not as we would have designed it but the way-it-is. We are now truly co-creators with God in the full catastrophe of existence and we are free.

O God, forgive us our lofty expectations and less lofty strategies, we are all learning, studying the world so we may receive the merits of knowledge and understanding.

We’re doing — the best — we can. Amen.

Coming down the mountain
Like a river on wheels
Our teaching inscribed
mi-zeh u-mi-zeh [Ex.32:15]

this way And this way.

The And –
So unlike either/or.

This and also this
Me and you
You and God
And all the others –

This and this.

[Sometimes I feel so
Separate.]

Radically And –
We know this mostly –

This and this
No that

No that at all.

jsg, usa