The Nature of God & Jonah

Today is Shabbat, a joyful holiday, and it is also Yom Kippur, at the end of which we are to feel forgiven. A two years ago I gave a talk about guilt and how we are already forgiven: that Yom Kippur is a special day not for us to beg for forgiveness, but to stop feeling guilty and feel forgiven, because we already are. So today we can feel forgiven and joyful. But the question I'd like to explore today, is, Who are we asking forgiveness of? What is the nature of God? In this afternoon's Haftarah reading, the prophet Jonah asks that question. God instructs him to go to the Non-Israelite city of Nineveh, now in Iraq, and declare to the people their imminent destruction. He heads in the opposite direction, fleeing the assignment, is swallowed by a great fish, and survives only to have to go to Nineveh, after which he sulks in the desert, when the people of Nineveh repent and are saved, because he says, "I knew that you are a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in kindness, relenting from evil." This is a quotation from Jonah who is quoting the part of Exodus, known as the 13 Attributes of God, which we say in our Torah services during the Holy Days. Abraham, who lived before the 13 Attributes were given, asked the same question, about the nature of God: If there are 50, or even 10 righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah, will you still destroy the entire city? Abraham finds out that God is compassionate and not destructive. Moses asked this question twice: once when he offered to sacrifice himself if God will forgive the people for worshipping the Golden Calf, and once to probe the essential essence of God. Moses asks, "Show me your ways, that I may know you" (Ex. 33:13), which results in his hearing the 13 Attributes where God affirms the Divine Nature: Being, Existence, God, Compassionate, slow to anger, abundant in kindness and truth, forgiving and cleansing, but allowing us to experience the results of our choices and learn from our mistakes. We all know that the Torah also presents a God who is not always that forgiving. There are contradictory messages in Torah, so how are we to know for sure which messages to believe? We might want to think that God is kind and loving, but as humans, we also believe in justice, believing God to be an arbiter of justice. We have an innate sense of justice. Children at a very young age will shout, That's not fair! So they know inside that fairness is to be expected in this physical life. In the first chapter of Genesis we are told that we are made in God's image. God says,“Let us make humans in our image, as our likeness, and they shall rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the heavens and over the animal and over all the earth, and over all crawlers that creep on the earth. And GOD created the human in (God’s) image, in GOD’s likeness created him; male and female created them.”(Gen. 1: 26-7) In the story of Noah we are told, "in the image of God the human was made (Gen. 9:6)." So we are like God, not on the outside, but on the inside; however, we know that we need to satisfy our need for justice and fairness with our equal and opposite desire to punish wrong-doers. We want the world to be better and sometimes blame others that it doesn't measure up to our standards. In addition, we want to have good opinions of ourselves, and sometimes hold onto grudges in a self-righteous way, thinking we are right and others are wrong. Rabbi David Katz pointed out that Anger makes us feel powerful, and we humans would rather feel something than feel nothing, so we settle for indulging ourselves by feeling anger instead of striving to actually be like God: loving and forgiving. We have made God in OUR image rather than acting as if we are made in God's image. It is we who want punitive justice, not God. And I think that we see this in the student protests of the past year, and in so many people who see the situation in the Middle East as more black and white than in shades of gray. Many would like a better world, but as Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction"(Strength to Love1963). And Ghandi, another great leader said, "It is my firm conviction, that nothing enduring can be built upon violence." Understood energetically, for those who heard my talk on Rosh Hashanah: negative energy cannot result in positive energy. Only positive energy can bring about positive energy. This also provides a perspective about one reason why Oct. 7^th happened. If we think back to the great discord in Israel over judicial reform: the protests and disruption it caused, it may not be a coincidence that a terrible, negative result came about from that negative energy. I am not saying that one caused the other. I am just saying that negative energy was perpetuated, and is being perpetuated by many people who are in the midst of the conflict and also those who are very far from the conflict, not understanding the situation energetically. The Torah clearly states that we are co-creators with God. We sometimes act as if we think we are all alone, and other times we act as if God has all the power. The Torah teaches a different way to think about life: that the power comes from God, which is exactly what we say in our blessings: Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu: Blessed are you, BEING, our POWER, with the root word, EL meaning power.  Power does come from God but we are the ones with our hand on the tiller, directing the rudder, the course of the energy flow. Once we understand this, it opens up a new way of looking at life and effecting change in our own lives. We know we have free will, and we can use that will for good: for envisioning a better life for ourselves and a better world for everyone, sending out our positive energy. We can be forgiving like God, merging with God's power of goodness and love, directing the goodness of that creative energy to cause wonderful things. Every thought carries energy. As one spiritual teacher affirmed, we can say to ourselves, it's only a thought and a thought can be changed. We know when our thoughts are neutral, when they are positive and when they are negative. Rabbi Gelberman's quotation about this urges us to choose our thoughts consciously and not unconsciously. He wrote: "If we allow rampant domination of negative thinking we are defeated by a foe with no more power except that which we thoughtfully grant to it. With Love and Wisdom we are capable of control over what enters and leaves our mind. Love thoughts push out hate thoughts. Honest thoughts push out fraud thoughts which trick us into self-righteousness and emotional immaturity for temporary satisfaction and false release. We alone are the hosts who must answer to thoughts: “Invited or Uninvited.” So it is with whom we serve: the God of Joy or the God of despair. If we choose a positive attitude based on faith, the goodness of life, and an ethical value system based on emotionally mature attitudes, we are masters of our choices, not slaves of our whims." In this time we are ready to choose our thoughts with more expertise. We are ready to choose them by looking at their energies, using our expertise to create happier lives. We are ready to become more compassionate and forgiving, slower to anger, abundant in kindness and truth; for coming closer to acting in the image of God and experiencing the joy that it brings. The prophet Jeremiah predicted this. He said, "No longer will they teach each to their neighbor or each to their brother and say, “know GOD”; for all of them will know Me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares GOD. For I will forgive their iniquities, and their sins I will not remember any more"(Jer. 31:33). Had Jonah only known then what we know now: that we have so much power to put more positive energy into the world, for ourselves and others, being the kind of people we can admire, taking full responsibility for what we experience, and being that source of goodness we were always meant to be. Who is God? God is who you want God to be, who YOU choose to be, as the Torah says, You are gods, all of you. The Torah teaches, it is up to each of us, as Moses said, I have placed before you life and death, good and bad, and you shall choose life. Be good to yourself as God is good to us. Love yourself as God loves us. Love others, as God loves all life. Choose Life, choose good, choose happiness.

An Energetic, Vibrational Understanding of Judaism

It was a freezing winter night in Karlin, now part of Belarus, in the middle of the 19th Cent. Everyone in the city was home, shivering in their dark, cold apartments, as no one dared break the curfew. The Russian authorities were not known for their compassion to anyone who broke the law. However, one devout chassid, Reb Feitel, found the curfew impossible to observe. His heart was aflame with a desire to see his rebbe, Rav Aaron of Karlin, and do service to God. Clutching a book of Tehillim, Psalms, wearing only a thin overcoat, he hurried through the streets. Suddenly, a Russian police officer towered above him, blocking his path. The policemen leered at the hapless chassid, who quickly slipped the Psalms into his pocket. “Spy! Counter-revolutionary!” the policeman shouted. “You’re going to regret this nighttime excursion,” as he trussed the man’s hands and marched him off to jail at gunpoint. The jail cell, a dank pit in the cellar of the city hall, reeked with mold and grime. It was inhabited by half dozen vagabonds. Feitel was thrown inside and the door was locked from the outside. Dazed and stunned, all he could do was stand in a corner and try to make sense of his surroundings. His hands had not been tied well, and he tugged at the rope until it was slack. Now that his hands were free, he reached for the Psalms in his pocket. “It wasn’t bashert for me to see my rebbe tonight, but at least I have my Psalms,” he mused. Feitel opened to the first chapter and began to chant with tremendous fervor. The criminals around him watched, open-mouthed, as this strange man communed with his G-d. His dismal surroundings melted away, and all that remained was a Jew and his Psalms. Suddenly, the jail cell swung open, and a rough pair of hands grabbed the Psalms from him. Now Reb Feitel stood, alone and bereft. A small kernel of despair wormed its way inside his heart. But only for a moment. Suddenly he caught himself. A Jew never gives up hope. “They took me away from my rebbe, and they snatched away my Psalms,” he murmured. “Still, I am a Jew, and they can’t take that away from me!” He was suddenly suffused by a tremendous wave of joy and gratitude that he was from the Chosen People, God’s beloved. Reb Feitel, trapped in a Soviet prison with the dregs of humanity, lifted his feet, raised his arms in the air, and began to dance. As he danced, he hummed a merry niggun, “Ya da da da dada di da da.” He kicked up a storm as he twirled to the tune in his head. Once again, the door to the jail cell burst open, and the prison guard stood there, eyes bulging in shock. “Get out of here, imbecile!” he shouted. “This prison has no room for crazy people. You belong in a mental institution!” As the other prisoners watched, the guard shoved him out of jail, up the stairs, and into the freezing night. As soon as he was freed, Feitel ran through the darkened streets until he arrived at the home of his rebbe. “Nu, the rebbe said with a smile, so now you know that with simcha, joy, one can break his chains of captivity!”

It's All About Perspective (Yom Kippur 2023)

I'm going to tell you 3 stories, and then ask you what they might have in common or what they illustrate. The Baal Shem Tov told this story: Once, a musician of great but unknown talent. came to town. He stood on a street corner and began to play. Those who stopped to listen could not tear themselves away, and soon a large crowd stood, enthralled by the glorious music whose equal they had never heard. Before long they were moving to its rhythm, and the entire street was transformed into a dancing mass of humanity. A deaf man walking by wondered: Has the world gone mad? Why are the townspeople jumping up and down, waving their arms and turning in circles in the middle of the street? "Chassidim," concluded the Baal Shem Tov, "are moved by the melody that issues forth from every creature in G d's creation. If this makes them appear mad to those with less sensitive ears, should they therefore cease to dance?" A second Story: R. Aryeh Levin, originally from Eastern Europe, who immigrated to Israel in 1905 and died there in 1969 has been called a Tzaddik In Our Time, the name of the book one of his students wrote about him (P. 339, 413). He lived in Israel during very difficult economic when there was much poverty, which included Rabbi Levin himself, and difficult political times, times in which the British jailed and executed many Jewish patriots living in the territory of the Palestine Mandate. Rabbi Levin's friend the eminent scholar R. Chayim Berlin, made a vow with one of his friends, R. Yitzchak Blaser, that whichever of the two died first, the other would visit in a dream and tell him about the world beyond. Indeed, after his death, Rabbi Blaser appeared to R. Berlin. One of the things he related was, The Profundity of the Divine judgement is immeasurable." Perhaps on the basis of that information, R. Levin taught that Rabbi Akiva used to say, whatever the merciful God does, is done for the good. And Nachum of Gamzu used to say, This too is for good. Rabbi Levin explained that while R. Akiva's approach is that whatever happens, some good will come out of it, Gamzu taught that whatever happens is goodness itself right now, even though we may not perceive it. In other words, from God's perspective, it is all good. A third story, based on the metaphor of one spiritual teacher:* There was an apartment building with many floors. The people who lived on the first floor would look out their windows and see garbage, crime, dirt, homeless people sleeping on the street, and hear loud noises. The people on the middle floors would look out their windows and see a park with trees, grass, and hear birds singing in the trees. And the people on the top floor would look out their windows and see beyond the park, a beach with palm trees and an ocean. When someone from the middle floor met someone who lived on the first floor and remarked how beautiful the park was at that season, the person on the first floor exclaimed, oh no! There is no park here, there is only dirt, crime, and deprivation. And when a person from the upper floor remarked to the people on the first floor and the middle floor, isn't it wonderful to live in a place where we can see the beach and the ocean? The people on the lower floors said, there is no beach, there is no ocean here. You are mistaken. What do these stories have in common? What are they saying to us? I would like to suggest that these three stories tell us that the difference in how we see life is more about us than about life itself. The author Ken Keyes wrote: "we see things not as they are but as we are." We can see that this is true in our conception of God through the ages. The God of Torah is, as the 13 attributes of Exodus tells us, compassionate, gracious slow to anger, great in kindness and truth, forgiving and cleansing (34:6-7). But also God is portrayed as angry, jealous, and whose destructiveness is to be feared (Ex 20: 5 and elsewhere). The people who lived at the time when the Torah was written lived in a time of more hand-to-hand combat, destruction, and fear. We can also see this in the human conception of the Greek Gods, who were seen as having the human traits of capriciousness, jealousy, unpredictability, and taking revenge. As we have changed and evolved, our conception of God has changed. The Torah says, that God made us in God's image (Gen. 1:27); but truly we make God in our image. Perhaps a quotation by the quantum physicist Max Planck will clarify this point further. He said, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” A corollary to that is, when we change, the things we see will change. It's as if we are each living in our separate alternative universes. They are parallel universes, but your universe is completely or almost completely different from mine. I have spoken and written about one of the Chassidic masters in 19th Century eastern Europe, Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk. In his commentary on the Torah portion Behar in Leviticus, he enlarges on an image his brother, Rabbi Zusha of Hanipol, described: a pipeline of blessings from above. Rabbi Elimelech wrote: "When the holy One created the world in goodness, God created pipelines that carry Shefa, an abundance of blessings to fulfill humankind's needs. The blessings are ceaseless, but when we fall from our spiritual level and lack trust in our creator, a true provider who supports and sustains everything in never ending abundance, one causes a stoppage, a disruption of the Shefa, with impure thoughts and lack of faith and trust. A person needs to trust completely. Trust in God with all your heart, and the abundance of blessings will run interrupted always then you shall never lack for anything." So what stops the flow? My teacher, Rabbi Joseph Gelberman z'l of blessed memory wrote about this in his little book, Spiritual Truths. He suggests that persistent negative thinking is the culprit (P. 23). He was from the Chassidic lineage of the Baal Shem Tov and Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. These Chassidim found the keys to the kingdom, so to speak, in advocating joy always as their main value. They saw the results of choosing joy in their own lives. Rabbi Gelberman used to say, I am not always happy but I am always joyful. He also stressed that joy is a decision and a choice. Our task then, is to move from the bottom floor of the apartment building, where what we see is unpleasant and unpredictable, to the middle floor and hopefully move to one of the top floors where we see beauty and appreciate being alive. The Torah tells us in Bechukotai, a portion at the end of Leviticus, that it all comes from us. We think that events are coming at us, but really, the Torah says, "the same will be done to you" (Levit. 26:16). In other words, the world is actually mirroring us, not acting upon us. What we experience is a reflection of our own thoughts, words, deeds and emotions. It doesn't seem that way, but everything in Torah is testable. We don’t have to take the teachings of Torah on faith. My grandmother used to say, "try it, you'll like it." And that's what I'm suggesting here. All change begins with the person and shows up in our experiences. As I said on Rosh Hashanah, everything is energy and energy can be changed. Thoughts produced that energy and thoughts can be changed. You all remember the Broadway production of Peter Pan, which was shown on television in 1955 and has been available on video for decades. It starred Mary Martin and I think it was shown each year for many years. In the script, one of the children asks Peter Pan, "Can you really fly?" Pan answers, "I’ll teach you how to jump on the wind's back and away we'll go! How do you do it? You just think lovely, wonderful thoughts – and up you go! Now, think lovely thoughts." The children suggest: Fishing, hopscotch, candy, picnics, summer, sailing, flowers, Christmas! And they all rise up into the air. There is more wisdom here than we know. Some of you know that I insulate myself from TV news because it doesn't increase my happiness, and can pull anyone down. We can preferentially look at the good and have a vision of ourselves as happy, living the lives we want to live. We can open our hearts. Albert Einstein once said, "there are two ways to live your life – as if nothing is a miracle or as if everything is a miracle." This view, appreciating and enjoying everything about our lives, helps us to rise up to a higher floor and live there. We are each in our own alternative universes depending upon what we are willing to think about. The power rests with us, and as I said in my talk on Rosh Hashanah, I have taken the word impossible out of my vocabulary, as God asked Moses in the Book of Numbers, is God limited (11:23)? The flow of the shefa, of blessings, is unlimited. It is limited only by what we are willing to think about, to choose, and to become. There is no price to be paid for happiness. It is its own blessing and we can start to live that blessing today. Let us free ourselves from persistent negative thinking, from fear, from a limited perspective, and rise to see the beach, the palm trees, and the beautiful ocean of blessings that can flow to us. Eloheinu means our power. May we use our power, the power to join with the Divine, for good for ourselves, for each other, and ultimately for the Oneness of all. May you have a blessed year of happiness and joy. *Caroline Myss

Seeing The Possible (Rosh Hashanah 2023)

There is a famous midrash that every blade of grass has a constellation of Angels urging it to Grow! Grow! (Midrash Rabba 10:6). Actually the real story is that every herb has forces or angels that strike it so that it will grow. And so it is with us: growth is a physical, emotional, and spiritual imperative that we may not always like, but cannot ignore. One of my favorite quotes about this is by Norman Mailer: "There was that law of life, so cruel and so just, that one must grow or else pay more for remaining the same" (The Deer Park). Perhaps that is why we read: Fortunate are the people who know the sound of the Shofar – who get an opportunity for a reset each year (Holy Days Siddur). As you all know, there are only two commandments concerning Rosh Hashanah: to do no laborious work and to hear the sound of the Shofar. That's it. It's a wonderful thing about Judaism that we have an actual date scheduled each year to grow. Not that we don't grow every day: our bodies change over time, our perspectives change, our relationship to the Divine changes, and our urges and desires change. In Judaism, however, we make an appointment to consider ourselves and the trajectory of growth that we would like to see in the coming year. It is as if God has said to us: I will give you 4 great gifts: intelligence, creativity, choice, and Holidays to have time to contemplate and use your creativity and choice to the fullest. This day is our opportunity to do what God commanded the Kohen Gadol, Aaron, the high priest, and later, the High Priest Joshua during the time of Zechariah: "Remove your dirty garments." (Levit. 16:23, Zech. 3:4) In other words: see what's really there, underneath the outer shell of your clothing, the pure light and pure love of you, all your possibilities. Love is our natural state. How do we know that? Because it feels so good when we love. We are going with life when we love. In Prov. 5:15-18 we read, "Drink water from your own cistern, Running water from your own well. Your wellsprings will gush forth In streams outside. They will be yours alone, … Let your fountain be blessed," This can mean, Bring yourself from outside yourself to your true nature. See the majesty that's really there. There is a wonderful quote I recently heard about: a nun, Macrina Wiederkehr, who was a spiritual teacher in a monastic community in Arkansas wrote: "O God, help me to believe the truth about myself no matter how beautiful it is!" We are here to feel loved, supported, nurtured, and to learn the inner truth about ourselves. R. Jonathan Sacks commented on the section of the prayer, Unetane Tokef, which means, the power of this day: "the great shofar is sounded and a still small voice is heard. It is the still small voice of our intuition, of God whispering to us. We intuit that we are truly great, but can't prove it, mostly to ourselves." There is a question asked in Judaism: When will God appear, today, if you listen to God's voice – the still small voice. This voice can guide us and each of us can hear it if we listen. The Chassidic masters said, everything is God. This means, in a certain sense, we are God too. The scientists, the quantum physicists, and all the spiritual teachers say, Everything is energy. Which is it? It, of course is both – everything is energy, God energy, and we are energy, God energy. If everything is energy, it's easy to see that energy can be changed. It's possible to change our energy. When we need to confide, to be comforted, to cry out, we relate to God as a personality, as contemporary theologian Elliot Dorff has written (Contemporary Jewish Theology P. 113), but at other times, we can relate to God as creative energetic force, as life itself, as Love, as Goodness itself. Not that there is no physical reality, but that there is an opportunity to make more changes to our state, our inner and outer states, than we have been taught. Much more is actually possible than we think. Here is an amazing fact to consider: Each year, each of our bodies create billions of cells: About 330 billion cells are replaced daily, equivalent to about 1 percent of all our cells. In 80 to 100 days, 30 trillion will have replenished—the equivalent of a new you. That means that we are all made of new cells – our cells are young! This creates much more opportunity for us to use the gift of intuition and creativity to make the life we want. I recently read about two studies from the Mayo Clinic that concluded that optimists live an average of 7 years longer than pessimists and live in better health. This tells us that by our mental and emotional states, that which we think and feel, we make actual physical changes in our bodies. Rabbi Joseph Gelberman, z'l, my teacher of blessed memory taught that each of us should be a possibilist. Here's a story from another research paper I read about. A group of men volunteered to participate in a study in which they went to a summer camp location for a week. They were given cues from their youth: the same music, sports, cultural references, in order to have them relive their lives of years ago and trigger them into believing they were young again. The men arrived with bodies that were typical of their ages - 60's and 70's - and somewhat creaky: They were measured, weighed, and their vitals were taken. At the end of the week, they were playing softball and other sports as if they were over 40 years younger. Their physical bodies had actually changed in measurable ways. I've spoken in previous years about taking the word hate out of my vocabulary. This year I've taken the word impossible out of my vocabulary and so can you. Had Sarah and Abraham not believed that having a child in their old age was possible, we would have no Judaism, and perhaps, no monotheism. If the Israelites had not believed Moses that they would have a miraculous deliverance from Pharoah's pursing army, there would be no Torah. In Rabbi & Author Rami Shapiro's first year at Hebrew Union college, he was told that he could either be a prophet or a clerk. Prophets tend to be unpopular. Rabbinic Clerks are accepted and respected. It's no fun being a clerk; it's exciting being a prophet, especially being a prophet to oneself: a leader of the self in marvelous directions. The prophet Jeremiah (15:19) gave us guidance for this. He wrote, "Assuredly, thus said The Eternal: If you turn back, I shall take you back, and you shall stand before Me, If you Extract the noble, or the precious, from the base, or the worthless." That's our task – to find the treasure of the possible within ourselves. The quantum physicist Max Planck wrote: All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind." So what does God think about life? That it is good. "Ki Tov," God said in Genesis (1:4). In our Holy days Machzor, our prayerbook which speaks about God as object outside ourselves, when we read, "God is exalted," it doesn't touch us unless we realize that there is no separation: the God in us is exalted, we are exalted. How can we exalt ourselves, extracting the precious from the worthless and fusing our energy with Divine energy? One way is to follow the wisdom of someone who spent her life extracting the best from the worst. I've adapted a quotation from her. Perhaps you can guess who said this: “People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies. Succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you. Be honest and frank anyway. If you speak with respect dignity and care, you may not be respected. Be respectful anyway. What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight. Build anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway. The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow. Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway. You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your Divine Self. It was never between you and them anyway.” It's a quotation from Mother Theresa. She says that all struggles, conflicts, and challenges are really inner, with the self. As another teacher said, there's no one out there (Werner Erhard, EST Training). Another way to extract the precious from the worthless is by being a possibilist. By believing in goodness, in the miraculous, in the power of love, the power of optimism, the power of thought, the magic of the life force of the Divine within us; the possibility of our own exaltation in living as our best and highest self. If everything is actually energy, God energy, then anything is possible. Energy can be changed. We just have to begin to see the possibilities.

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.

Lessons of Hurricane Sandy

At this time of great difficulty for so many in NY, NJ, and CT, we look at the Torah with different eyes, trying to find light in the darkness, whether your darkness is physical or metaphoric, hoping to find warmth in the cold, and praying for heat and hot water in all your apartments. One lesson in this week’s portion comes from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. An obvious thing to take from it is that there was a reason for the destruction. People were choosing the wrong things, from a moral standpoint.

For us, we know that our choices, environmentally speaking, haven’t always been great, but they haven’t been terrible either. Humans began by burning wood for warmth. Then we moved on to coal, then oil and gas. Possibly our worst choice is bio-fuels, in which not only oil and gas, in the form of farm machinery & pesticides, but also good farmland is used to produce grain, which, by using even more oil and gas, is turned into ethanol, which is then burned. Hurricane Sandy sent a message to the seat of financial power. The climate is changing because we have changed it. Our choices weren’t bad. Perhaps we have been a little self-indulgent, energy-wise. Our choices weren’t necessarily wrong: we had to heat our homes and, for those who live outside a large city, drive to a place of employment. Admittedly, we have taken the lazy way out. Some have become used to making the easy money. We have not planned for the future or supported research and development leading to new forms of energy. We can now see that the old choices are no longer good ones. They don’t work anymore. God, or if you like, the Universe, is asking us to move on. This happens to us in every aspect of life. We are asked to choose a new way. The new way we must choose is very simple to state, but will be challenging to implement. We have to let the sun power our world. We can’t burn things anymore. The sun’s energy powers the wind and the waves. We can use wind and wave power, solar power, and renewable hydroelectric power if we decide to put our minds to it. We’ll figure out the storage issues. We may even figure out nuclear fusion (fission is too dangerous and too radioactively polluting). We could even use the millions of feet walking along New York City’s sidewalks for part of our power needs.

There is one more lesson from Vayera that I’d like to address. It’s about caring. The Torah says, referring to Abraham, And he lifted his eyes and looked, and three men stood by him; and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed to the ground, And said, My Lord, if now I have found favor in your sight, pass not away, from your servant; Let a little water, be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree; And I will fetch a morsel of bread, to comfort your hearts; after that you shall pass on; seeing that you have come to your servant. And they said, do so, as you have said. And Abraham hurried to the tent to Sarah, and said, Hurry, three measures of fine meal, knead, and make cakes. And Abraham ran to the herd, and fetched a calf tender and good, and gave it to a young man; who hurried to prepare it. And he took cream and milk, and the calf which he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood over them by the tree, and they ate.(18:2-8)

Abraham truly cared about the three travelers who appeared at his door. He hurried to help them, to feed them, to show them courtesy and respect, and to give them his very best. He didn’t know they were angels until later. The phrase, “He stood over them,” is interesting and quite telling. Angels receive their orders from God. One understanding of angels is that they are simply energies, in any form, sent to accomplish certain acts. When a caring, generous impulse comes from us, and when we act upon it, we stand above the angels. That’s the gift that dwells within free will. Abraham honored the Godliness in the angels before he knew them to be Divine. He tried to help them and care for them simply because he thought they were human. May all the love and generosity we show to each other during these trying times be noticed and blessed. May we be even more sincerely caring than we have been before. The Chassidic masters taught: the path to God leads through men. May we help each other in our time of need, acting as angels for each other, and being even higher than that: people who care, standing heads and shoulders above the angels.