A Life of Possibilities

YK 2019 (to be sung:)How do you like to go up in a swing, Up in the air so blue? Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing Ever a child can do! Up in the air and over the wall, Till I can see so wide, Rivers and trees and cattle and all Over the countryside— Till I look down on the garden green, Down on the roof so brown—Up in the air I go flying again, Up in the air and down! These words were written by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) {A Child’s Garden Of Verses}// When we were young we loved the swings. The feeling of freedom, of flying, of going fast, beyond the physical constraints of walking on the earth. And when we were a little older, some of us loved roller coasters and the thrill of amusement park rides. Still later, some yearned for extreme sports like bungee jumping, skydiving, or even just driving a car very fast. I think music and dance can often contact that same part of us. There is something in us which loves transcending the physical. And this is partly what Yom Kippur is about. For one day, we abandon eating and drinking to become more like the angels, more spiritual than physical.

In our Torah portion for today Aaron, the high priest or Kohen Gadol, receives instructions. He must wash himself, and Yom Kippur can be seen as our spiritual mikveh, a chance to purify and refine ourselves, and even to be reborn. Then he was to clothe himself all in white, in a sacred linen tunic, linen breeches, a linen sash and a linen turban: in sacred vestments. There is a famous midrash about clothing written by an ancient, First Century scribe, Rabbi Meir. When Rabbi Meir was writing a Torah, he came to the section in Genesis, in B’reisheet (3:21), the first Torah portion, where we are told the story of the Garden of Eden. When Rabbi Meir got to the verse, And God made for Adam and his wife garments of skin and God clothed them, Rabbi Meir didn’t write the word skin, He changed one letter – an ayin – into an aleph, which are the two silent letters in the Hebrew Alphabet. By changing an ayin into an aleph, Rabbi Meir wrote, Garments of Light. God made for the man and woman garments of light and God clothed them. There is more truth to this midrash than we often understand. We are beings of light. There is another story about this, one that Rabbi Gelberman told, which is that the original light of the first day of creation was to dazzling for human beings, so God hid that light. And where did God hide the light? God hid it where no one would think to look – inside of us. We are the light, or rather, the light is part of us. This is more than metaphor. The scientist Fritz Albert Popp has shown that every cell in our body emits light in addition to electrical and magnetic energy. (The Field, McTaggart). There are some people who can see auras, the electromagnetic field around each living thing. Now, before you think that this is getting too weird for you, here is a way of view this topic. Most of us have or have had a TV set. We know that a TV set can show different programs depending on how it’s tuned. The TV is the hardware. We also know that the TV programs are not IN the TV. They are broadcast from outside the set and the TV is merely the receiver. If our TV breaks down, we can buy a new one. Our bodies are like the TV set and our electromagnetic energy, which is not merely inside of us, but is also surrounding us, is like the TV programing, allowing us to think and feel, and live. A Dr. Bruce Lipton wrote in his book, The Biology of Belief, describing his spiritual epiphany, he discovered about his body, I’m not in there! I am not my body, I’m not really even inside of my body. I’m both in it and outside of it. In other words, My body isn’t me.

Abraham Joshua Heschl, in his book, Man Is Not Alone, wrote: What we are, we cannot say: what we become, we cannot grasp. The self is something transcendent in disguise. We are energetic beings: being of light. This is the true self. This is what the Torah refers to when it says about the death of Rachel: her soul departed, for she died. The true self is other than our bodies. The true self is the energetic field around our bodies. And we are experts at interpreting each other’s fields. Do you get what some call a good vibe around children or someone who is happy? Can you sense when someone is angry or sad, before they say anything, just by being close to them? When you enter a room, can you read the emotions of the people in it? Do you know how people feel about you? If a person says they like you and they smile buy they really don’t like you, how do you know that? Scientists now know that atoms are mostly empty space, filled with energy fields. We are energetic beings living in a world of energy and our energy extends into each other. In our scientific, analytical time, we have given up the awareness of our true energetic nature for the compromise of a solid physical universe, as that verse in the Morning Blessings says, that God: Rokah ha-aretz al ha-mayim, spread the earth over the waters, giving us a firm place to stand. This morning blessing tells us that our physical realty is overlaid upon the deeper energetic reality. So what difference does this make? And how should we live in the world with this understanding? At the very least, this knowledge expands our ideas about who we are. It is only our beliefs and emotions which hold us back from our becoming. Those beliefs and emotions, as I have said before, are the walls we construct for ourselves which help us feel secure, but which may not ultimately be serving our growth and expansion. A greater conception of who we are elevates and liberates us. When we feel that elevation, we are more loving and caring about others. We are able to live so as to not disappoint ourselves, honoring ourselves, able to honor others, and honor life. To take one spiritual baby step,

I have a challenge for you. The challenge is, to change one belief about yourself. It can be any belief, like – I’m not a good sleeper, or I need certain types of food at certain times, or any self-limiting belief like, I’m clumsy. I challenge you to change one belief. That change can open the door into giving up the entirely logical life for a life of possibilities. Emily Dickinson wrote a poem that I love: I dwell in Possibility – A fairer House than Prose – More numerous of Windows – Superior – for Doors – Of Chambers as the Cedars – Impregnable of eye – And for an everlasting Roof, The Gambrels of the Sky – Of Visitors – the fairest – For Occupation – This – The spreading wide my narrow Hands To gather Paradise. Living a life of possibilities means that we let God and life show us the way to go. We don’t force things or people, but allow our lives and ourselves to unfold, with faith and trust that we are being led toward goodness, flowing with that guidance and not fighting against it. Rabbi Elimelech of Lizenhsk, said, all things move toward goodness. We can make a commitment with ourselves to affirm once a day our non-physical, energetic nature, perhaps doing this by sensing the energy around you, being in tune with its higher, non-physical frequency, and allowing you to walk a little taller as you stroll down the sidewalk. This knowledge helps us to appreciate the great gifts of the physical life and to know that the physical life is only an accommodation and not the entire reality. This knowledge allows us to do what the 20th Century Jewish philosopher Martin Buber suggested was our purpose on earth: to Hallow life – to make life holy. This leads us to ask and be interactive with all the strangeness and wonder of a non-physical existence, locating our true self and appreciating that self, and how magnificent are the gifts of life and growth and understanding, reveling in an awareness of how wondrous life is.

When we are assembled here on Yom Kippur like the angels, less physical beings and more spiritual beings, we have a unique opportunity: the ability to align with our energetic nature and become more of who we really are, knowing that our personalities are like garments of skin that we wear. Our true realities are our garments of light: transcendent and miraculous, and as Rabbi Heschel said, waiting to bloom and flourish. What life are you wearing as your garment? Who would you be if you could be anyone? Who would you be if you really knew the nobility of who you actually are and the great power and wisdom that has been hidden within us? The swings, the amusement park rides, extreme sports are a memory of existing as a purely energetic being. The researchers Brymer and Schweitzer, after interviewing athletes who engage in extreme sports reported that “extreme sports helped participants feel closer to nature, more self-aware, at peace and even transcendent. There’s an ineffable aspect people find very difficult to describe,” Brymer says, “a feeling of coming home.” Our tradition says this too: Ner Adonai nishmat adam, the lamp of God is the soul of man, and a part of the Kol Nidre liturgy: Or zarua la-tzaddik, light is sown for the righteous. (Prov. 20:27 & Psalm 97:11). Now you know more fully who you are, the person who you always suspected you might be. May this knowing be the beginning of a change in your relationship to yourself, to those you know, and to those who share this wondrous world with us. There was a Daoist sage whose handprint can still be seen in a solid rock. We live in a world of light, of Divine energy, and of possibilities. It is how we look upon ourselves and the world which either limit or expand those possibilities. We are being of light. May your world expand in marvelous ways in this New Year.

Flowing in the Zone - Rosh Hashanah 2015

In the book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Claremont University Graduate School psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wrote about a phenomenon many athletes describe as being "in the Zone." This has been written about for more than 30 years. He described this “flow” as a state in which people “are completely absorbed in an activity, especially one which involves creativity. During this peak time they feel “strong, alert, in effortless control, un-selfconscious, and at the height of their abilities.” They often “lose track of time and external concerns or stimuli, feel connected to something greater than themselves, and report having their ability and attention challenged but not overwhelmed in the completion of a task.” He studied flow because he was curious about what makes people happy, and his research suggests that being in the Zone applies across cultures and activities. You may be thinking, what has this to do with Judaism?

The Torah begins, B’reisheet bara Elohim, which is translated, in the beginning of God’s creating. In these first 3 words of Torah there is motion. The undifferentiated God essence is already creating, even before we come into the story, before we have contact with or knowledge of the Divine. God whose name is the verb, 'being or existence' may not only be a thing, but may be understood as process, and even more, as a creating process. Rabbi Zalman Shacter Selomi, who passed away this year, said in his book Paradigm Shift, “God is a verb. He went on to say: “Our current understanding of process requires that we create an interactive, not passive or active form of verb. The flag does not wave in the wind the wind does not wave the flag. The flag and wind are inter-waving.” One of his protegees, Rabbi David Cooper, wrote a book with the title, God is a Verb.

The movement of creation is very familiar to us. We live it. We know there is motion all around us: the earth turns, the wind blows, the air vibrates, our hearts beat, and we breathe. We never stop moving and creating, thinking and feeling. God and the Universe are all about motion and flow. This may seem obvious, however the constant creative movement of God and all life has something important to teach us. My favorite sage, the 19th Century S’fat Emet taught that we have to prepare ourselves to be a vessel in which God’s essence, which he speaks of as Torah light, can be contained” This wonderful teaching from about 100 years ago still instructs and delights; yet it feels a little static 100 years later. If God is process and not thing, then surely we have to be a different kind of vessel, a vessel for flow, allowing God Goodness to be expressed through us; a prism allowing God’s light energy to shine through us.

The Talmud speaks about this motion, saying “Mercy is a wheel that turns” (Betza 16a). On Shabbat, in the Lecha Dodi prayer from the 16th Century, we sing “ki hi makor ha-b’racha,” that Shabbat is a flowing spring of blessings; and a famous Chassidic kabbalist of the mid 18th Century Rabbi Elimelech of Lizensk, wrote about pipelines of blessings, or Shefa, which is flow. He said, “when we fall from our spiritual level lacking trust in our Creator, who is the true provider…we cause a blemish in the higher worlds…this disrupts the shefa. God then has to re-command or reconnect the flow of blessings anew, so that it can flow again" (Noam Elimelech, P. 201). This teaching is a slightly more modern approach, but perhaps we can go farther still.

Here is another understanding. Someone once said, people have been making money for thousands of years. Where did it all go? This quip tells us that having things and holding on to things is not the ideal state. Of course we need a place to live, we need food each day, loving friends and other relationships, a plan to provide for our elder years. However beyond the basic necessities, all else, such as: kindness, love, compassion, even money and possessions, are supposed to pass through us. Holding on to too much can stop the flow that is the natural order of things: life as it was meant to be. Looked at from a slightly different perspective, flow can also be about our ability to change and grow. It is easy for us to get stuck in who we think we are. The God-state of flow tells us that movement, becoming – is where we should always be. If we stop the flow of God’s goodness as it is expressed through our becoming, we prevent that goodness from being expressed in the world. Making a stoppage actually creates a lack of some kind. Anger and hatred, selfishness, hoarding, revenge, grudges, all the negative things mentioned in Kedoshim, the Holiness Code, Leviticus, Chapter 19, are a stopping of the flow, the God-ing to use a word that Rabbi Shacter Sheomi said. We are supposed to be agents of flow, allowing and helping all things to come through us as we ourselves are going forward in the flow. In this way we can be of help to each other and the whole world.

In the story of the Akedah, the binding of Isaac, which will be read on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, what is often missed is the amount of reassurance and help God gave to Abraham going into his test. God promised him numerous times that he would have many descendants, God told him twice that these descendants would come through Isaac. When Abraham asked if Sodom and Gomorrah would be destroyed if there were 10 righteous people there, God reassured him that God cares about and protects the righteous. And God kept every promise of prosperity, protection and offspring to Abraham. Going into the test, Abraham held the paradox, Isaac will have many descendants, on the one hand, and Kill Isaac on the other hand. They could not both be true. By giving Abraham this paradox, the Torah teaches us that God helps us with every choice, arranging the circumstances and guiding us so we can choose correctly, so that we keep moving forward, and keep growing in goodness.

How does one get to the zone? Of course it takes preparation. Athletes train for years to experience it occasionally. And it can be experienced spiritually too, but that also takes effort and much preparation, and patience. In a sense, living in the zone, sometimes, is our birthright. It is an unfathomable gift from the Divine. On the second day of creation God separated the physical universe from the spiritual universe. This is also what Maimonides taught. The Zone is not ordinarily accessible all the time, but by dint of our own energy and commitment, if one longs for a better way, we can live in the flow by being part of the flow, by living in consonance with its structure, by expressing it. Just like love, the spiritual currency of the universe, when we begin the flow of love, we have the possibility of experiencing its gifts. In this New Year, may we be agents of flow, clear prisms allowing God light to shine through us and helping us to move forward. May we be giving of ourselves, which is ultimately to ourselves. May we use our Energy not to withhold, but to keep it flowing, that goodness will flow to all those we touch and also out into the world.