Archive for the ‘The Thirty Six Are Hidden: Uncommon Stories’ Category

Some years ago
I took on a
Commitment
To listen for a different
Message
Each night of Hanukkah.

I took the question from the Talmud
Mai Hanukkah? [what is Hanukkah]
I asked
To the sky the sand
To the wind.

I received a different tale
Each night

And the great surprise –
I received
A message

On the ninth night.

I enclose the
First and then
The most recent

Of the ninth
Night tales.

The earliest of the ninth night tales:

On the ninth night
an angel came to me in the form of the dope man.
He told a story about a score who came to buy –
the dope man wouldn’t let him in.

He makes me nervous,
said the discerning dope man.

Why are you telling us this story
and why on the ninth night? I asked.

You thought there were eight nights,
said the dope man.
This year you will light for nine.
You assumed ten energies
there are eleven.
You learned four ways of reading —
there are five
– four levels of the soul
there’s a fifth.

What kind of dope are you selling
dope man?

The kind you live for, he said –
everything that issues from the mouth of God

– the kind you can’t do without.

And this the most recent:

On the ninth night
An angel stopped me by the
Bus stop:

Light, the angel said
The blessing in singular
Ner—candle

We are all of us
Radically plural
Singular and
Plural
This is your aspiration too –

I want you
And I want
To be wanted by you

I am you
And I want you
To be
Me

jsg, usa

The Last Discovered Diary Entry of Josef K

It’s kind of like Yom Kippur for me every day, actually, I am certainly guilty (that I know). Guilty of what, I can’t say. But I awaken with the thought: I am guilty. Perhaps on this Yom Kippur, I can apologize because I have learned there is a difference between asking for forgiveness from other people, and asking for forgiveness from G-d.

For aveirot — unfinished business, between human being and human being, Yom Kippur does not atone. That means I have to go to that person myself, and ask for forgiveness face to face.

For unfinished business between human beings and G-d, Yom Kippur does indeed atone. These are purely private matters, between G-d and myself, best taken care of with quiet, personal moments of prayer.

Now, let me go and find as many people as I can and say this to them:
“If I have done or said anything in the past year that has hurt you, that has offended you in any way, I am sorry. I am truly sorry.”

After I say that, perhaps I should stand and wait for a second with a look of expectation on my face. Oh, I am so hoping that the person will say, “yes, yes! I forgive you.”

However, they might say, “well, you’ve done nothing, nothing at all to me.” I’ll take that as a sign of forgiveness. That might be unsatisfying (for me anyway) since I am sure I have done something though what it is I cannot say. I don’t know.

Or they might say: you can’t hurt me, actually, I am not renting you
space in my life to do that.

I will keep a tally, yes I will jot down a little chart, those who have forgiven me, those who have not forgiven me, those who don’t know what I am talking about, those who think I am nuts. Then I will take it back to my desk, and make a forgiveness chart.

Then I will spend some time in quiet prayer with G-d and ask for forgiveness for all the things that Yom Kippur does indeed atone for.

I will also make atonement to myself, for renting space in my life to those who I think may have offended me.

Yours truly,

Franz Kafka

I forgive you
I don’t forgive you
I don’t know what you’re talking about
I think you’re nuts

Making a Living: Hope
March 4

I showed up at 6:15. Hope is located across from a University Medical Center. It is not on the priority list of Medical Center resources.

I found my way to the room. There were about twenty individuals around two long tables placed lengthwise, some sitting and chatting, many sleeping or nodding, there was talk about medication and the joint and some other small talk about who didn’t show up that week.

“Here’s your speaker for this week.” That was my introduction.

I explained to them who I was.

“Are you a Jewish rabbi?” someone asked.

“Yes, I am a Jewish rabbi.”

The only woman at the table looked at me and with great solemnity and respect asked me:

“Do you read the Torah?”

“Yes,” I said with equal seriousness, “I read the Torah.”

So it began. I looked around the room and made a spot decision: I could give a lecture about spiritual health, my subject, or I could go for the center, the heart of the matter. What the heck, I thought.

I looked at the group and I began to explain the connection between breath and soul as found in the Hebrew Bible, Genesis chapter 2, verse 7 particularly. I stared at them and told them we are going to dive into the notion of soul, the deep sense of self that is Divine, the same in me as it is in you, and that nothing loftier than our breath is going to take us there. When you enter the realm of soul, I told them, nothing can hurt you.

“Now close your eyes,” I heard myself saying, and everyone closed their eyes and for the next ten to fifteen minutes I taught them how to enter the deep inner resource we call soul through our own breath, the breath that God breathed into us, and turned us all into living souls.

When we had finished, I sung a little and asked them gently to return to the room. Everyone had made the journey with me and the room was inhaling and exhaling in unison.

“Now—“ I said (I was improvising like crazy), “I am going to bless you,” and I blessed them with the words of the holy priests of the Temple in Jerusalem, I blessed them with physical and spiritual sustenance, then I translated, and a hush fell over the room when I finished. No one moved.

“Can you do that again?” one of the people cocked an eye open and asked.

“Yes,” I said. And I did it twice more.

jsg, usa

Night Nine

Why are you telling me a story
and why on the ninth night? I asked.

You thought there were eight nights,
This year you will light for nine.
You assumed ten energies
there are eleven.
You learned four ways of reading —
there are five
– four levels of the soul
there’s a fifth.

What kind of wisdom
Are you pushing?

The kind you live for, he said –
everything that issues from the mouth of God

– the kind you can’t do without.

Night Eight********

I made a deal, the angel said to me,
If I lived, I’d give my life over to God.

And if you would have died?

I’d have given my life over to God,
He said.

On the fifth night
Rebbe Nachman appeared as an angel
I fashioned my menorah entirely out of defects, he said.

I made the menorah out of flaws.
Now I will begin its repair.

Anyone who finds a flaw –
finds his own flaw.

I went into exile
with spice merchants
smelling sweet all the way down,

when I saw my brothers –
I blessed them.
I said, it was not you who sent me here

but God.
How do you know? they asked,
I smelled it, I said,

and they thought
I was
crazy,

– Joseph.

Eight Angels Came to Me On Eight Nights
Each one told a story***

On the third night
an angel came to me in the form of a Chasid
he opened with
Darkness IS Light –

God separated the light from darkness
called light day
and the darkness night
And it was evening and it was morning
day one.

In the beginning, darkness and light one
a single seamless sourced good
then the challenge
subdue the dark
illumine the good
– the fearful dialectic.

Temple menorah lit by day to illumine the night
Hanukkah menorah
lit by night to reclaim dark
light from darkness itself
the source of light.

Light from the luminous essence of darkness –
this the Hanukkah light.

The Temple lights seven
Hanukkah eight
seven the spiritual cycle
the seven sefirot emanated from God
all natural cycles given in seven.

Eight –
surrounding the seven
the extra measure laid around nature
the eighth lamp
light from darkness itself
darkness as an aspect of light.

Now stare into a candle
see the flame
see the darkness around the wick
see the dark candle

it’s all light
all over.

Eight Angels Came to Me On Eight Nights
Each one told a story**

The second night
the Chernobler Rebbe came
dressed as an angel in Japanese embroidered silk.

Are you a man or a lady? I asked him –
there are so many more possibilities
said the Chernobler laughing.

The Chernobler Rebbe pushed on,
oil is wisdom
poured over the head
of the Priest King Messiah
overflowing like precious oil on the head
running down the beard of Aaron.
The pure finely-beaten, most excellent of the olive oil –
the olive that releases its finest product when pressed.

Smell this, said the Chernobler Rebbe,
pressing his wrist to my nose
another quality of oil
the capacity to absorb.
I smelled yasmina
jasmine,

When I make perfume the scent is absorbed into the oil –
then distilled. Wisdom
is absorbed from the world this way
– both its beauty and its contaminants.

Now, said the Chernobler Rebbe,
one small vial of pure oil
when fired up lights everything.
Wisdom when it is tended burns pure
burns long burns sure.

We are all in the game –
attaching to the pure
resisting the contaminants lurking
everywhere around us within us.

O God — a heart of purity create in me
bind me to the purifications
separate me from the contaminants –

Begin now.

Eight Angels came to me
on eight nights
each one told a story.

On the first night*

We call it
festival of lights,

the kind of light
that burns.