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!”

Judy-ism to Hava Nagila

We have a whole religion called Judaism. But who was Judy? We want to know!! I wrote these parody lyrics and performed them at The Actors' Temple on May 20, 2024. Here is a link: https://youtu.be/yDO0e0Q8ezc Judy, we love you, Judy we need you, Judy you are a heck of a gal. Judy, we love you, Judy we need you, Judy, you are Hebrew's best pal. You have been who knows where, Judy we really care. Judy come back to us into the light. We're looking everywhere, Judy we’re in despair. We need you back again right here tonight. Judy, Judy, Judy, Who are you? We’d like to know it. Who are you? Come on and show it. Where you’ve been, we can’t discover. Who you are, we would uncover. Who are you? Who are you? Solve this mystery!

The Four Worlds and the Mishkan in Terumah

The Four Worlds of the mystics of Spanish Kabbalah in the 13th Century, including Azriel of Gerona, then Moses de Leon, Isaac b. Samuel of Acre, and later Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (first half of 18th Cent. from Padua), in The Way of God, derived the concept of the Four Worlds from Isaiah (43:7) which is also in the haftarah for B’reisheet כֹּ֚ל הַנִּקְרָ֣א בִשְׁמִ֔י וְלִכְבוֹדִ֖י בְּרָאתִ֑יו יְצַרְתִּ֖יו אַף־עֲשִׂיתִֽיו׃ “All that is called by my name for my glory (Atzilut) I have created it (Beriyah) I have formed it (Yetzirah) and I have made it (Assiyah)." The four worlds also describe the primal elements of the natural world: Action or earth; Emotion or water; Intellect or air; Essence or Spirit or the energy of fire. Assiyah is the physical world: the material universe in which we live and perform actions and deeds. Yetzirah is the world of angels or energies: of emotion, creativity, and expression; Beriyah is the world of the soul forces that receive guidance and of thought and intellect; Atzilut is the eternal unchanging Divine world of God’s emanations and influences. The Tabernacle or Mishkan, from the word, Shakan, meaning dwell, consists of a courtyard outlined by lace hangings, and a Tent of Meeting, divided into two sections, containing holy golden objects. The outer courtyard of the Mishkan represents the world of Assiyah, doing, where sacrifice is offered, washing is done, and confession and prayers are offered. The outer half of the tent with the golden menorah giving light for the eyes, the Incense altar with its hypnotic scent and smokey, almost tangible cloud, the table or shulchan with sweet tasting bread, and the sound of tinkling bells from the High priest's robe, represents the world of Yetzirah: the emotions created by engaging all the senses creating feelings of uplift, wonder, and reveling in all the magnificent beauty of the gleaming golden furniture. The inner half of the tent represents Beriyah, the Holy Aron or ark, the place of the words on the tablets of the Ten Declarations, which require intellect, thought, and choice, the command center of the human being from which all emotions and actions flow. The world of Atzilut is represented by the space between and above the wings of the angels on the ark, from where God's voice could be heard. The Mishkan was a physical representation of how human beings create and live in this world. All the spiritual teachers say that thought and choice produce emotion, and lead to deeds, all of which create our world. The design of the Mishkan imparts this knowledge and deep wisdom, showing us that, similar to the teachings of the Chassidic masters and to Buddhism: right thought leads to joyous and uplifting emotions, which lead to blessed action and happy lives. Choosing to think of and care about the Divine and each other, which the 10 Commandments help us to do, and appreciating the Divine and the beauty, goodness, and uplift we receive through our senses, lead us to enjoy our lives and express our joy though an active, expansive, and good life. The design of the Mishkan can speak this to us: be guided by your intellect. Choose the good and beautiful. Choose joy. Enjoy everything that comes to you through your senses, and act, living life fully and joyously.

Links to Rabbi Jill Hausman's Published Articles on the Web

https://www.tikkun.org/hiding-in-plain-sight/ (Vayakhel) 2023 Tikkun Magazine online; https://www.jta.org/2011/10/18/ny/the-gift-for-eating-forbidden-fruit (B’Reisheet) 2011 NY Jewish Week, Times of Israel; https://www.jta.org/2012/10/16/ny/in-the-wake-of-the-flood (Noach) 2012 NY Jewish Week, Times of Israel; https://www.jta.org/2019/11/05/ny/the-quest-for-perfection (Lech Lecha) 2019 NY Jewish Week, Times of Israel; https://www.jta.org/2014/10/28/ny/the-road-to-jerusalem (Lech Lecha) 2014 NY Jewish Week, Times of Israel; https://www.jta.org/2021/10/21/ny/abraham-had-faith-but-not-blind-faith (Vayera) 2021 NY Jewish Week, Times of Israel; https://www.jta.org/2015/11/10/ny/the-good-parent (Toldot) 2015 NY Jewish Week, Times of Israel; https://www.jta.org/2020/12/10/ny/the-blessing-of-a-forthright-confession (Vayeshev) 2020 NY Jewish Week, Times of Israel; https://www.jta.org/2017/12/26/ny/a-deeper-level-of-forgiveness (Vayechi) 2017 NY Jewish Week, Times of Israel; https://www.jta.org/2018/12/24/ny/the-promise-of-the-unknown (Shemot) 2018 NY Jewish Week, Times of Israel; https://www.jta.org/2014/02/04/ny/the-essence-of-jewish-royalty (Tetzavah) 2014 NY Jewish Week, Times of Israel; https://www.jta.org/2018/02/27/ny/the-lesson-of-the-golden-calf (Ki Tissa) 2018 NY Jewish Week, Times of Israel; https://www.jta.org/2020/04/21/ny/the-holy-ties-that-bond (Tazria) 2020 NY Jewish Week, Times of Israel; https://www.jta.org/2015/07/08/ny/the-violent-passion-of-pinchas (Pinchas) 2015 NY Jewish Week, Times of Israel; https://www.jta.org/2018/08/08/ny/the-circles-of-giving (Re’eh) 2018 NY Jewish Week, Times of Israel; https://truah.org/resources/the-paradigm-of-a-perfect-world/ Chukat 2015 T'ruah.org;

If There Were No Chanukah, There Would Be No Christmas

If there were no Chanukah, there would be no Christmas. Why is that so? Toward the end of the Greek Empire, the Greeks were feeling tremendous pressure from the new power in the world, the Roman Empire, which was threatening to engulf them. We are familiar with the Nazis trying to exterminate all the Jews and so many others, Catholics among them, during the Second World War. In the 2nd Century BCE, a similar thing was happening, only the Greeks were not attempting to kill the Jewish people, although many were murdered; they were trying to destroy the Jewish religion. The Seleucid ruler, Antiochus IV’s idea was to resist Rome by making his Syrian Greek Empire thoroughly Greek. Only Greek Gods could be worshipped, only Greek culture could exist. The Jewish religion must be wiped out. A band of Jewish rebels resisted swearing allegiance to the Greek Gods and to the worship of Antiochus IV himself as a God. Jews were forced to eat pork, prohibited from observing the Sabbath and from circumcising their children. A band of them, later called the Maccabees, ran into the hills to train as a guerilla army. The Greeks sent larger and larger forces against them, even elephants, the “tanks” of the day. Then “a great miracle happened there,” (symbolized by the letters on the dreidel): the few defeated the many; the weak overcame the strong. When the Jews returned to Jerusalem, they cleaned and rededicated the great Temple. There is a legend that a small amount of holy oil burned for the eight days of the re-dedication celebration. However, most importantly, Judaism survived, and Jesus, also known as Rabbi Joshua, could be born, about a hundred and fifty years later. There is a growing acknowledgement from Christians that Jesus really lived as a Jew and died as a Jew. And there is a small but growing acknowledgement from within Judaism that Jesus’ teachings are fully Jewish, and that he was an important prophet, in the tradition of the prophets Elijah and Elisha. So if the Jews had not defeated the Greeks, there would have been no Rabbi Joshua, to become Jesus, the great teacher to Christendom. As we celebrate this holiday season, may we appreciate our common roots, accept and love each other, and know that we are much more interdependent than we realize. Happy Chanukah! Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! This article was previously published by Times Square Chronicles online, Tuesday, December 16, 2014. Jill Hausman is the Rabbi and Cantor of the historic Actors’ Temple in NYC.

My Solution to World Peace

My solution to world peace is that everyone should move to Queens (NY). Then we would all take the subway together: the #7 Train and the E and the F trains. We would all get along, and then after having lived in Queens, if people want to go back to their countries, they can. Living together in Queens would definitely create world peace, but NY City might have to build a few more home and subway lines.

A Prayer for All People

A PRAYER FOR ALL PEOPLE By Rabbi Jill Hausman: Eternal Source, as you are The One who gives life to all, We pray for all our brothers and sisters, Of every race, religion, nation, and neighborhood. Help us to see you in every human face; To feel you in the warmth of every human heart. Teach us to love and to heal each other; To make peace and to respond to each others’ needs. As we inhabit one Earth, we are one human family, With one Divine Parent. As you send blessings to us, Please bless all of our brothers and sisters, With good health, prosperity, insight, wisdom, and joy, And help us to be a blessing. If we have a vision of a time of peace and harmony, Surely we and You, Eternal One, Have dreamed it together.

An Out of Body Experience - V'Zot HaBeracha

On Simchat Torah we read the very spare account of the Death of Moses (Deut. 34:5). At the beginning of the Chapter, The Holy One shows Moses the Promised land: north from Jerico to Gilead, east of the Jordan River, and even farther north to the territory of Dan. Moses sees southward to Jerusalem and continuing south, all the way to the Negev in the very south of Israel, and all the way west to the Mediterranean Sea. The sages point out that this is a physical impossibility. No one on earth, even on a mountaintop, could possibly see all that standing in one place. I suggest that this is a description of an out-of-body experience, one in which Moses traveled outside his physical body to see the entire land. Then in verse 5, the Torah tells us that "Moses died there," "by the mouth of God." Rabbis have suggested he died by a Divine Kiss. Perhaps he never re-entered his body, and became wholly that non-physical energy which we experience on earth as Soul. He left the physical and never returned to that incarnation, easily, it seems, and hopefully, with great joy, having seen what he journeyed to see for forty years, fulfilled and blessed.

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.

It's About Self-Expression

In the Torah Portion Ki Tetze in Deuteronomy, Chapter 22:5 states, "A man’s apparel shall not be on a woman, nor shall a man wear woman’s clothing; for whoever does these things is abhorrent to God." This verse follows the commandment not to hide oneself, (mentioned in verses 22:1,3, and 4). This is a vital clue telling us that it is not the cross-dressing or the apparel itself that is prohibited, but the hiding that is forbidden. In our time, cross-dressing is the very opposite of hiding: it is done for self-expression: to express the deepest parts of ourselves without apology, shame, or embarrassment. It is not done to hide at all, therefore our society has superseded this commandment, especially since wearing pants by women is now a normal and accepted part of feminine dress, and society has agreed that pants are not exclusively a male item of apparel. The justification for this commandment no longer exists. We have evolved beyond it.

Vayakel 2023 Hiding in Plain Sight - Equality in the Wilderness By Rabbi Jill Hausman Last year, as I was reading the Torah portion Vayakel, toward the end of the book of Exodus, I realized that it is a feminist portion. The commandment to kindle no fire on Shabbat meant that women had a cessation of labor on Shabbat and didn’t have to cook. What a wonderful gift! But it wasn't until I came across a bit of commentary on the subject of property that a truly amazing realization came to me: that the wilderness experience was an egalitarian one for women. The puzzle came together piece by piece. The Talmud (Ketubot 47b) states that "a husband is obligated to provide his wife with sustenance, redemption from captivity, and burial. The Sages taught in a Baraita (a teaching outside the Mishna or Oral Law): The Rabbis instituted that a husband must provide his wife with her sustenance in exchange for his rights to her earnings." In other words, a husband must support a wife. As we know, manna descended each day, except on Shabbat, to everyone equally, during the forty years of the wilderness experience. Husbands were not supporting wives in the wilderness. Wives had their own food. Moreover, women in the wilderness had their own property. Exodus (3:22) tells us that each Israelite woman in Egypt was to "borrow from her neighbor and the lodger in her house objects of silver and gold, and clothing." Also, God told Moses to "Tell the people to borrow, each man from his neighbor and each woman from hers, objects of silver and gold (11:2).” Thus women possessed their own gold, silver, and garments after their departure from Egypt, and they donated these objects for the building of the Tabernacle, the portable place of worship in the wilderness. In fact, the Torah relates that women were the leaders in these donations: "the men came along with the women, all who were willing of heart brought brooches, earrings, rings, and pendants: gold objects of all kinds (35:22). The famous 13th Century Spanish Torah commentator Nachmanides agreed, saying, "the women came first and the men followed." The women also donated one other important item for the Tabernacle. Exodus 38:8 states that the women donated their copper mirrors for the laver and its stand, which was positioned just outside the Tent of Meeting that housed the great Menorah, the Table for Showbread, the Incense Altar, and the Holy Ark, containing the Tablets of the Ten Commandments. The laver was a large copper bowl which held water for washing, and was used by the priests. We know that in the ancient world, obtaining water was a woman's task. Abraham's servant Eliezer went to a well to find a wife for Isaac, and that Rebecca drew water for him and for his camels. Jacob met Rachel at a well, where she came to water her father Laban’s flock of sheep; and Moses met Zipporah, his future wife, and her sisters at a well in Midian, where they were watering their father's sheep. In the book of Samuel, Saul encountered young women on their way to draw water (9:11). This tradition has persisted even now, in places where running water in homes does not exist. While working at an internship in the US State Department one summer, I heard a story about this. Several decades ago, aid workers had gone to a location in Africa where plumbing was primitive or non-existent. The aid workers set about bringing indoor plumbing and running water to homes in a rural village. Rather than being thrilled with this new system, the women were devastated. Going to the well was their social time with other women. It was their chance to talk to each other, exchange information, and be with their friends. The convenience of running water took away their social life This social life of women is just what the Torah describes. The Laver and its stand were made, "from the mirrors of the women who congregated at the entrance of the tent of meeting (38:8)." We now have a total picture of true equality in the wilderness. Women received their own food from Heaven. They were not only responsible for donating much of the material used to build the Tabernacle, and incidentally, also spun the colored yarns and goat hair with which the fabrics of the Tabernacle were made; they were employed in drawing water for the priests each day, meeting at the laver outside the centrally located Tent of Meeting, not only to "visit" their former mirrors but also to be with other women. They were as independent as the society and mores of their time would allow, having property, occupation, and status in the society. This egalitarian experience in the wilderness was hiding in the Torah in plain sight. It just took a bit of vision, and putting together the pieces of the puzzle, to see it.

The Secret of Atonement, Yom Kippur 2020

Before Yom Kippur, a student of the Chassidic Master Rabbi Elimelech came to him to ask him how to atone. The Rabbi said, I cannot help you, but the innkeeper in the next town will teach you. He sent him to there to observe the innkeeper. When the student arrived, he was taken aback by the innkeeper’s appearance. He assumed that his Rebbe had sent him to a pious scholar, but the innkeeper was an uncouth, ignorant person who was serving drinks to his customers and indulging in idle gossip with them. Perhaps this man is one of the Hidden Tzaddikim, masquerading as a simple innkeeper, the student thought. He waited to discover the answer to his question. At night when the inn closed, the innkeeper asked his wife to hand him a huge ledger. He opened the book and began to read all the transgressions he had committed during the past year. From time to time he would pause, heave a sign of distress, shake his head in remorse, and go on with his heavy list. The ledger contained all the misdeeds and transgressions the innkeeper had committed in the course of the year – the date, time and circumstance of each scrupulously noted. His “sins” were quite benign — a word of gossip one day, oversleeping the time for prayer on another, neglecting to give his daily coin to charity on a third — but by the time he had read through the first few pages, his face was bathed in tears. For more than an hour he read and wept, until the last page had been turned. He then opened the second ledger. This, too, was a diary — of all the troubles and misfortunes that had befallen him in the course of the year. On this day the innkeeper was beaten by a gang of peasants, on that day his child fell ill; once, in the dead of winter, the family had frozen for several nights for lack of firewood; another time their cow had died, and there was no milk until enough pennies had been saved to buy another. When he had finished reading the second notebook, the tavernkeeper lifted his eyes heavenward and said: “Listen Ribono shel olam, Great One in Heaven, I know I have not done right by You and have sinned against You. Last year I repented and promised to fulfill Your commandments, but I repeatedly succumbed to my evil inclination. But on the other hand, last year I also prayed and begged You for a year of good health and prosperity, and I trusted in You that it would indeed be this way. You have really not done right by me either. Since we are approaching the day of atonement, let us make an even exchange. I will forgive You, You will forgive me, and we will begin the New Year with a clean slate. The student then understood. Yom Kippur is called the Day Atonement because William Tyndale, an English Christian chose the word Atonement for his translation of the Torah in the 1530’s. Later, the King James translation of the Torah in 1611 kept Tyndale’s word and we have adopted it. It’s a very good word for what we strive for on Yom Kippur: being forgiven and feeling that we are at peace. In today’s Torah reading, the Kohain Gadol, the High Priest, makes several confessions and atonements, one for himself, one for his household, one for the sanctuary, and one for all the House of Israel. Rabbi Israel Meir, known as the Chaftz Chayim, spoke about our Ashamnu prayer of confession listing our human sins, during which it is the custom to beat one’s heart. He said, God does not forgive the sins of one who smites his heart, but pardons those whose hearts smite them for their sins.” (YK Anthology P. 119) Which leads us to the word, Sin, a fraught word in English. You’ve heard me say that the word cheit or sin is derived from archery and means missing the mark. That tells us that the Torah has a very positive view of us humans. The Torah seems to say that God knows that we try to do the right thing; that we are aiming for the center of the target, but that we sometimes miss, getting the arrow a little too low or too high, to the right or to the left of center. Cheit also means void or empty, teaching us that when we make a negative choice or if you like, commit a sin, there is nothing of value in it. There is nothing to be gained from that choice. The Liturgy of the Holy Days is full of the message of Judgement – that God is judging us. However, the idea of judgement is actually missing in Torah. Or perhaps I should say that it’s added almost at the end of the last book of Deuteronomy, kind of as an afterthought, speaking more about judging the nations that are our foes than judging us. In fact, the word, judgment is only used in Torah to describe a human court determining if a person has committed involuntary or premeditated murder, which is found in the laws for Cities of Refuge; and these cities were abolished during the Second Temple period, in Roman times. Judgment of us by God is not found in Torah. What a shocking discovery! And yet the prayers in our prayerbooks are full of Judgment. In the Torah reading for Rosh Hashanah, the section referring to Ishmael, it says that “God heard the voice of the lad where he was.” The Talmud’s comments on that verse and also Rashi, our most famous Torah interpreter who lived in 11th Century France, agrees with Talmud, that the verse teaches us that we are judged, if at all, according to present deeds. We are only judged for right now. This is a true revelation. Am I saying that God does not punish us for past deeds. That’s right! God does not punish us for past deeds. In Torah, God only forgives and cleanses, which is told to us in the 13 Attributes, the account of Moses’ intimate encounter with God in which God describes the Divine personality. However, God does say that we are not cleansed completely, so that we will be able to take responsibility for our actions and learn and grow from them. Actions simply have consequences, and we know that. So all the beating ourselves up for what we did in the past, carrying all that guilt around year after year is the true cheit, the truly empty thing with no profit or gain in it. Many of you have heard that I discovered that if someone sins against you, they can’t look you in the eye. It should be the opposite. If someone wrongs me, I should be mad at them and not be able to look them in the eye. But that’s not the way it works – they can’t look me in the eye because deep down, at some level, they know the truth – that they have wronged me. This also applies to our relationship with God, and that’s what the sacrificial service was about: providing a mechanism for us to forgive ourselves and reconnect with God: re-establishing the feeling that we have been forgiven. And that’s why we are here today – to forgive: to forgive others, which I spoke about 4 years ago, in a sermon about forgiveness. Forgiving others has emotional and also health benefits. We are also here to forgive ourselves and feel forgiven. All the Chassidic masters taught that we should stop thinking about the past and make a new start. One said, very graphically, if you stir filth this way and that way, it’s still filth. Stirring it, or in other words, talking about our problems, rehashing them, remembering them, and re-living them, does not change our lives. It does not heal us. The teaching about making a new start comes from the Psalm 34 (:15) by David, “Turn from evil and do good.” My teacher of blessed memory, Rabbi Joseph Gelberman also wrote in his book Spiritual Truths: “We should use (our) energy for new ongoing goals… rather than punish ourselves. Regret without regressing. Regret instead with blessing. Start again.” We are asked at this season to turn, shuv, and return, practicing teshuvah. How can this be done so that we make a new start and feel forgiven? One way is to imitate God, removing judgement of ourselves, not judging others, and forgiving them, which is a process that takes intention and commitment. The classic teaching in Judaism about this comes from Pirkei Avot, Chapters of the Ancestors, which asks: “what is the way a person should go? One should have…A good eye, be a good friend, a good neighbor, one who considers consequences, and have a good heart, which contains them all (2:13).” We should all strive to see the best in everyone, speak the best about everyone, and if we judge them at all, judge them to be wonderful, good, and kind, send them love, and they will rise to the occasion. And if they cannot, have compassion for their suffering. Atonement, Kiper, literally means covering, that we cover the sins of others as if we can’t see them anymore, just as God covers our sins and does not see them any longer, only seeing us in the present. But atonement also means At-One-Ment, being at One with God. We all yearn for the Divine Presence to be manifest in our lives, to feel that God’s guidance and love is with us. Judaism sees this as the point, Pintele Yid, or flame, which burns in every soul. That yearning for Divine union is part of what makes us human. The deeper I go into my own spiritual path, the more I have realized that to see God you have to Be God. If you want to be close to the Divine, you have to walk closer to Divinity by being more patient, less judgmental, more caring, more generous, and of course, more loving. I recently learned how to be more loving through giving charity. Giving charity taught me about loving. Many years ago I was not so generous. I would evaluate the person asking me for a donation to try to determine if they were worthy or if they really needed it. I learned through being a rabbi that if a person comes to me, that my task is to give to them and not to judge. How do I know who is truly in need? I don’t and I never will; and if I’m asked, I know that person needs what they ask for more than I need it. It becomes my mitzvah: a gift to me and an opportunity at that moment, to heal and help. I learned that this is precisely the way God loves us and how I should love others –not withholding my love, but giving it freely to all those around me. It’s not my role to judge them, but only to give love. Everyone is worthy of receiving love. So, if I want to be close to God, I have to love like God and manage my emotions, not becoming angry or even hurt when others are living their lives as they want to; not trying to control anyone, just loving them from a place of security and trust. In this way we free ourselves of the need to manipulate. Our relationship with God becomes clear, healed, and whole. We are At-One-Ment, at peace, and not separated from God, as Isaiah said, (It is) your sins which have separated you from your God.” We are here to feel the release of forgiveness, the joy of closeness with God and the new start the New Year brings. May we go through this process that Yom Kippur gives us, also as a gift, release our judgement as God does for us, and love each other freely as God does for us, accepting ourselves, appreciating the promise of the New Year and all the opportunities and choices that will present themselves. Forgiveness is the gift we give to ourselves. Forgiveness on Yom Kippur is the gift God gives to us so that we can feel at one with God and ourselves. We have already been forgiven. Let us be grateful for the contentment of At-One-Ment and keep our hearts open throughout the New Year!

The Meaning of Shofar This Year, Rosh Hashanah 2020

Living is a contact sport. We are social animals and we crave interaction. Yet for six months we have been more isolated than at any time in our life’s experience. However, through this time we have been jostled and prodded in a sense, by forces which have contacted us, mostly non-physically: rather intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. From Black Lives Matter to the environment to economic injustice and to immigration, these have all touched us. We know we are experiencing a shift – a major shift. What meaning people in the future will assign to this shift, we do not know. It is happening to us and because of that, what it means to us and what we are learning from it is much more important than what historians will say about it in the future. Rosh Hashanah is the holiday when we come together to eat well with family and friends. But no one knows what it’s really about. There is only one commandment in Torah concerning Rosh Hashanah, other than we are to do no work on our holiday. Rosh Hashana’s only commandment is to hear the sound of the shofar. That’s it. And no one knows what that’s about either. Perhaps we can explore what Rosh Hashanah and what the sound of the shofar can mean to us this year. Maimonides famously taught that the sound of the shofar means, Sleepers Awake! Scrutinize your deeds and return to God in repentance. However, this year is different. We have become different. We need a different meaning. The word T’ruah actually comes from the root R-UT, which means affection. It means friendship, neighbor, and even wife. This year God is calling to us – through events and through our gathering together to hear the sound of the Shofar. It’s sound says, I am calling to you in love. I am calling to you insistently: through events and through your seclusion, like the time of your wandering in the empty wilderness when you received the Torah, away from civilization, in a place of less distraction, a quiet, wild, and uncertain place. I am calling to you on an inner level to remember who you really are. You are me – me on earth, and I am you. Who you really are can be recalled from my intimate encounter with Moses which you call the 13 Attributes of God – a description of my personality – when I said, I am all Being. I am compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abundant in kindness an truth, forgiving and cleansing. Further, I am justice, I am caring – Eyl Kana - A God who cares passionately, I am loving, as I loved you into life, sustain, guide you, and teach you with my love, and I am within each of you – in your heart and in your mouth, as it says in Deuteronomy. God has come during these six months, to heal us and we are being called to grow. What’s interesting about the Holy Days is that we are commanded, not only to participate in our growth, by simply showing up for the holiday, but also to lead it: to lead and direct our own growth. The prophet Jeremiah taught that the wound is the cure. God said, “For I will restore health to you and heal your wounds. (Jer 30:17) and the midrash explains: The ways of God are unlike those of humans. For a person inflicts a wound with a knife and heals with a bandage, but God heals with the very things with which God wounds. (Ex Rabba 50:3) WE have come to life and to this time in our lives to HEAL – to heal ourselves and our society. In the midrash, a commentary on the Torah there is a classic teaching that each blade of grass has its very own angel urging it to Grow, grow! (Midrash Rabba, Bereshit 10:6) If every blade of grass has an angel, we certainly have angels, or energies from the Divine, urging us to grow. And during this time the angels, like the sound of the Shofar, are even more insistent. A quote from Norman Mailer echoes in my mind: There was that law of life so cruel and so just which demanded that one must grow or else pay more for remaining the same. (Barbary Shore Chapter 26) Something is being asked of us. But exactly what is it? Albert Einstein famously said “We cannot solve the problems with the same thinking that created them.” We are being taken to an entirely new level of human functioning: much more interior - centered and much less exterior centered – more virtual and less physical, more energetic and less physically tangible. These urgent demands on us are changing us quickly. We think that the events of our lives are uncharted territory; however it’s really WE who are the uncharted territory. The Torah laid out the ethical bare minimum of moral deeds and integrity of speech and action. It is a floor and not a ceiling. The gems of Torah: Love your neighbor as yourself, and the very love-centered later book of Deuteronomy, asks us to love Being, Love life, Love Existence, Love goodness and love God with all our heart and all our souls and all our might. These gems of Torah point the way toward which we actually find ourselves now travelling. It is prophecy, not only commandment. You Shall love our neighbor as yourself! It will happen. You shall love Being, Life, Existence, Goodness, and God with all your heart, soul, and might. These teachings foretell the shift of the moment and point the way toward a manner of thinking: believing that it’s all possible, which can enlarge our metaphoric tent to include everyone, help us care for and care about each other, preserve and care for the earth, and even know energetically and perceptually when another is hurting – when there is a world situation that needs our attention, and even when someone is thinking of us and is about to call our cellphone. Moses achieved this. Abraham Joshua Heschl said, When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people. Once Moses merged with the mind and being of God, Moses could merge with and have empathy for everyone. I think there is a reason why we are called the Children of Israel. To God we are all still children, still a long way from the growth that being human hurries us to attain. As Moses merged with God, we can merge with the heart of God, becoming God on earth; not just God’s hands and feet, but God’s love, compassion, healing, blessing and generosity. One way to do a spiritual check is to ask yourself how big your tent really is. Who would you let into your circle of caring? Who would you let into your country? Into your community? Into your circle of friends, into your apartment, into your family, into your place of employment? Into your heart? Where do you stop? Each of us has a place where we pause or stop. Perhaps we can make our tent just a little bit larger, and perhaps events of these past six months have helped us to do that. All the spiritual teachers of today and many of the past speak about raising our energy or vibrating on a higher level. The Chassidic masters achieved this through joy, love, and ecstasy. With a change in energy comes not only expanded spiritual gifts but also reassurance, safety, protection, lack of fear, more love for ourselves and for others, more happiness, and much more joy. We can only find these gifts through seclusion, as we did in the ancient wilderness when we were so close to God. Henry David Thoreau wrote: “What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.” The shofar this year calls us to remember the possibilities that live within us, just waiting for us to realize them. The shofar calls to us, I love you! I respect you. Remember the magnificence within you and bring it forth. There is within you a fierce love and a passionate caring - I know because I put it there. You are about to manifest a greatness only before achieved by the few: by prophets and great teachers. It is now available to you, to ordinary people, and it is your birthright. Sleepers, awake! Awake to a new reality of a deeper healing, a deeper love, a deeper caring than you have ever known. Become inspired to a greater expression of your own humanity, a level of holiness you are only now capable of. The events of this year have nudged us in this direction. Rosh Hashanah is our opportunity to celebrate our ability to become, to be drawn to our yet unimagined growth, and to realize that we are truly on the path of our becoming.

The Evolution of Human Consciousness

One of my favorite metaphors is this: I am standing on the beach at the water’s edge, gazing out at the horizon. Those born after me, the young ones, are standing further out, well into the water. They see a farther horizon than I can see. Those who were born before me: the sages of the past, are standing way behind me, up on the dune. They cannot see as far a horizon as I can see. I am speaking about the evolution of human consciousness. This metaphor allows me to understand that those born after me are more spiritually evolved than I was when I was born. If I am fortunate and blessed, I will take a few more steps out into the water during my lifetime, and see a slightly farther horizon. It also allows me to know that the commentators of the past, the revered sages in Judaism, could not see as far a horizon as I can see. That does not make their commentaries wrong, or mine right, it means that all of the commentaries can exist together, enriching our understanding of Torah and bringing it into the 21st Century.

New Perspectives about the Garden of Eden

About two years ago, I looked at the translation of the Garden of Eden story, and discovered something which to me, was amazing. For reference, in 2011 The Jewish Week newspaper published my interpretation of the Garden of Eden story, in which Eve is the Heroine, being smart, brave, and intuitive. Here is the link: https://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/the-gift-for-eating-forbidden-fruit/. Recently I translated this section. Here is my translation of the beginning of Chapter 3 in Genesis: 1. And the serpent was more awake than all the wildlife of the field that BEING GOD had made, and it said to the woman, “Did GOD even say you shall not eat from any tree of the garden?” 2. And the woman said to the serpent, “Of the fruits of any tree of the garden we may eat. 3. And from the fruits of the tree in the midst of the garden, GOD said, you shall not eat and you shall not touch them, lest you die.” 4. And the serpent said to the woman, “Die! you shall not die. 5. For GOD knows that on the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like GOD, knowing good and bad.” Usually, the serpent is said to be more cunning than any other animal. I saw that this line can be translated as: “ Now the serpent was more awake,” from the root, AR ער to be awake. The snake is a universal mystical symbol of transformation in many cultures. This translation bears out my interpretation that the serpent represents our intuition, and that the story teaches, among other things, that we should trust our intuition. I have translated God’s name, yud, hei, vav, hei, as BEING, a conjugation of the verb, to be. God’s name, Elohim, I have translated as God. Another more recent discovery, made during my Wednesday night Torah Study group, comes at the end of the Garden of Eden story. Here is my translation of Genesis 3:21: And BEING God made for Adam and his wife tunics of skin and clothed them. 22. And BEING God said, “Behold, the human has become as one among us, to know good and bad, and now lest he send forth his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat and live forever!” 23. And BEING God sent them out from the Garden of Eden to work the soil he had been taken from. What caught my eye was the Hebrew of “…to work the soil.” The word used is not ha’aretz, the land, but adamah, soil. Adamah might also be telling us to work on our ADAM, ourselves, our own humanity, and specifically, the feminine, intuitive or spiritual parts of ourselves. It might be telling us to serve - la’avod - humanity, or to work on our moral sense: the knowing of good from bad, which is one of the major points in the story and themes of the Torah.

Understanding The Ritual of the Red Cow in Chukat

As I was conducting a Friday evening Shabbat Service during the week of Korach and speaking about the portion, I said that every time the Israelites stray or exhibit a moral downfall, there is a ritual section allowing them to reconnect with God. After the sin of the Golden Calf (Parashat Ki Tissa), the section allowing us to reconnect is a moral section, known as the Thirteen Attributes of God. After the Sotah instructions in Naso, where there may be adultery on the part of a wife or there may be causeless jealousy on the part of a husband, the ritual section is about the Nazirite, a temporary nun or monk. When the Scouts return from scouting out the land of Canaan and give a negative report in Shelach Lecha, demoralizing the people who then refuse to enter and possess it, there are three ritual sections: libations to accompany offerings, a fire offering of a small piece of dough, known as Challah, which is one of the last remaining fire offerings that is still done today, and the commandment of Tzitzis, wearing fringes to help us remember who we really are and what we are capable of. In Korach, I said that there is Pidyon Haben, the redemption of the Firstborn.

When I said Pidyon Haben in that service, I was immediately dissatisfied with it. This was not a new ritual, it having been mentioned in Exodus 13:13, when the Israelites were leaving Egypt and again in Exodus 34:20, after the Golden Calf. So where was the ritual section for Korah, I asked myself? And the answer came immediately: it is the Ritual of the Red Cow in Chukat, the portion which directly follows Korach.

The ritual of the Red Cow is notorious for being difficult to interpret. Even King Solomon was to have said (Numbers Rabbah 19:3, commentary on Ecclesiastes 7:23) that it was beyond him. The chok, decree, of the Red Cow is the ritual section we expect after all the deaths in the portion of Korach. Now, all of a sudden, this ritual makes perfect sense because it deals so much with death. In Parashat Korach, he, Datan, Abiram, and also 250 leaders die. As reported in Torah, 14,700 more people die in a plague, bringing the total to almost 15,000 people. In this time of Coronavirus, so many people have died. We are mostly shielded from all this death, as the majority of people have died in hospitals. We don’t see corpses lying in our streets or on our sidewalks, but the Israelites did see the almost 15,000 corpses.

The people say to Moses and Aaron, “You have killed the people of God,” (Num. 17:6) and then, “Behold we perish, we are lost, all of us are lost. Everyone who approaches closer to the Tabernacle of God will die. Are we doomed to perish?” (Num.17:27-28) This wail of fear is reminiscent of the cry of the Egyptians in Bo (Ex. 12:33) of “We are all dying!” The Israelites have been traumatized by all the death around them. They need a way to reconnect with God and feel cleansed.

When someone wrongs us, they cannot look us in the eye. It seems as if that should be reversed – that if someone wrongs me, I should be angry at them and should not be able to look them in the eye. But what actually happens is that the person who wrongs another knows, at some level, that they have done wrong and cannot look the person they have wronged in the eye. The Israelites could not, figuratively speaking, look God in the eye, knowing they had done wrong. They needed a way to forgive themselves, to feel forgiven, cleansed, and renewed. They had been defiled on an inner level, by the horror of death, with no way to recover their inner goodness and feel blessed again by God.

The Ritual of the Red Cow directly addresses the effects of death on the living, and there are three instances in Chukat where people must be purified: 1. Anyone who touches a corpse (19:11) 2. A person in the tent or entering the tent of someone who has died (19:14) and 3. Anyone who touches a slain person, a bone, or grave (19:16). These are the people who have seen death and who need the Holy Water, the Water of Sprinkling.

The ashes of the Red Cow dissolved in spring (or living) water are sprinkled on the person who has come in contact with death, which purifies by calling forth our intrinsic ability to rise to a higher self. The Jewish Path to holiness is a setting apart something to make it special or Holy, and we, ourselves, are the ones who create the holiness. One who has touched ashes of the red cow is impure, and one who sprinkles is impure, because of all the contact with the ashes. This is not inconsistent if seen as a ritual to call forth the person’s holiness. The ashes themselves are from a dead body, which causes impurity.

In Chukat being sprinkled is very different from touching. The ritual has its own logic, which is that ashes from death cause impurity, but holy water set apart for purification and designated as holy, even containing some ash, perhaps something like activated charcoal, causes a person to FEEL cleansed and released from the death all around. This ritual changes death, which is something AW-Ful to a connection to the Divine, which is AWE-Some. In Torah, God always gives us a means to find our way back when we are lost, despairing, or have fallen down. We are given tools to continue to grow and choose inner goodness, connecting to our inner holiness. Torah sets out many pathways to reconnect with God. The ritual of the Red Cow is one of them.(July 2020)

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.

Manifesting Through Love

Well, it’s been quite a year, but not in the way you think. The political situation aside, through several authors and teachers I have learned some amazing facts. I say, facts, because initially this learning has come from a book called, The Field, by Lynn McTaggart, a science writer. No please stay with me, because this is important and it relates to you. How many of you have ever heard of the Uncertainty Principle in quantum physics? The scientists Max Planck, Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg made discoveries in the early 20th Century which informed us that you can’t predict where an electron is in an atom. Einstein proved that matter and energy can be converted into each other. Another way to express Einstein’s discovery is that waves of light become particles in our physical world and particles can become energy, or waves of light. Consider the following experiment. A scientist named Robert Jahn, educated at Princeton, who also taught there, made something called an REG machine or Random Event Generator. He and his colleagues collected reams of data from many human studies concerning our ability to influence this machine. Then a French scientist named Rene Peoc’h took one of Jahn’s machines and imprinted baby chicks on it as if the machine were their mother. The machine was set to wander around a room randomly. He found that the desire of the chicks to be near their mother changed the path of the machine so that it approached them more often than randomly. This has been called the Observer Effect: that our minds and hearts have the power to change reality.

What was going on here and how does this relate to us? McTaggart’s book documents hundreds of double blind peer reviewed experiments, the gold standard in science, which taken together show two things: #1) the model of classical physics, Newtonian physics is wrong or perhaps in complete. And #2) The Uncertainty principle of the atomic world operates not just on the atomic level, but in our bodies and our physical world. There is now scientific proof that we live in a field of energy which apparently has intelligence and heart or feeling, and further, that we have the power to influence that field. In reading about this research, one can even go so far to see in it a scientific proof for the existence of God. To me, this is all amazing to know, but how does it affect us? In investigating healing techniques for my husband Hal, who has mental and physical challenges from cardiac arrest a number of years ago, I was gradually led to some contemporary scientists whose work I’ve read or whom I’ve listened to on the internet. The scientists include Bruce Lipton, author of The Biology of Belief, Joe Dispenza, author of You are the Placebo, and Gregg Braden, author of The Divine Matrix. These authors have rediscovered the principles of affecting the Field in a purposeful way, for healing and for peace. I’ve been teaching about some of these principles for years. I’ve said that Love is the spiritual currency of the Universe; that we are all One, that we are meant to live both in the physical Universe AND the spiritual universe; that God appears to every person according to their experience and belief, and that the coming age will produce a synthesis of science and spirituality. However, it was not until recently, through the work of these and other contemporary teachers, that I’ve grasped the missing pieces in my understanding.

We can find the missing pieces in Torah, if we know what we are looking for. In Deuteronomy, what I call the Love Book, because there is an emphasis on Loving God. Love is mentioned 15X in Deuteronomy and heart is mentioned 48X. It says (if) you will seek God your God and you will find God if you search with all your heart and all your soul (4:29). The same portion, Va Etchanan contains the Shema, the prayer of the Oneness of all being and also V’ahavta, begging us to love. These verses show us the key that unlocks heaven’s doors: emotion, love, feeling, and compassion. The second paragraph of the Shema in the next Torah portion clearly tells us that through love and service we can influence physical reality. Where am I going with this? The energy field is influenced through thought; we know that. What we don’t realize is that the thought has to be powered by the emotion. It is the unity of thought and emotion that produces a result. Love, gratitude, and joy supply the current which allows us to communicate with the Field; to communicate effectively with God, if you will. The current is both electrical and magnetic. Studies have shown that the brain sends out weak electrical and magnetic waves. Heart energy is 100x more powerful electrically and 5,000X more powerful magnetically than the brain’s energy. This is why love energy paired with thought is so important. King David said this too. We affirm it in the Ashrei prayer: God is near to all those who call upon God, to all who call upon God in truth. The Eternal will fulfil the desire of those who fear him; he also will hear their cry, and will save them. God preserves all those who love him…. Zechariah said: not by might nor by power but by my spirit, says the Holy One. And there’s more to understand: We’ve been taught that biology is our destiny, that genes determine our health and much more. However the science now shows that belief and expectation direct gene expression. It sounds like magic, but it has been proven to be true. This is also the Observer effect – what we expect to see is what manifests in our lives. Change our perspective, change our expectations, and supply the power of emotion and we change ourselves and change the nature of our reality.

The Kabbalistic masters of the past understood many of these principles without being able to quote the science behind them. There are kabbalistic writings from Roman times among the Essenes, a sect of Judaism which is no more, writings from the 16th Century rabbis of Safed, the circle of Rabbi Isaac Luria, and also most importantly and readily available, the 18th & 19th Century teachings of the Baal Shem Tov and the many Chasidic rebbes who taught and extended his wisdom. The Baal Shem Tov taught us to live joyously. He taught that everything is God. And he taught about the power of emotion: One Teaching: A student of The Baal Shem Tov became distraught over losing the kavanot, the secret meditations before the blowing of the shofar on RH and burst in tears. The Baal Shem said: There are many halls in the King’s palace and intricate keys open the doors, but the axe is stronger than all of these and no bolt can withstand it. Pure emotion unlocks heaven’s doors. The Chassidic masters could change the nature of reality, averting severe decrees against individuals and communities and in the case of the Baal Shem Tov, arrive at a distant location several days journey away by coach, overnight, even taking his students with him in the coach. A slightly later master, Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhenk was troubled by his ability to alter the physical universe and wrote about it a number of times in his work, Noam Elimelech. He said, God…created the Tzaddik who can nullify and annul God’s decrees. How can he annul decrees that have already been determined and decided in the higher worlds? Now you may say that the stories of the Chassidic masters cannot be proven, and yet, like God speaking to the prophets, there are too many instances of what some may call miracles to discount them all. Also, the contemporary scientists have proof that alterations in our physical reality can be accomplished by ordinary people. Think about the chicks: If chicks can change the nature of reality, one researcher said, just think what human beings can do.

Meditative states amplify our ability to remain in an elevated emotional state, in our subconscious, where change can more effectively occur. Repetition is also a way to build a new habit of being, into our lives. There are projects in place to heal people and also bring more peace and harmony into the world through group intention and elevated emotions. Negative emotions and fixed expectations limit us, and make us feel that we are victims and not creators of our reality. God has shown us the way to a true renewal – through morality, integrity, love, joy, gratitude, and an unlimited imagination. As I have taught, we have a vision of peace and harmony that we and God have dreamed of together. How will we get there? It is not the world that will change. WE will change – change our beliefs, our thoughts, and our emotions and the world will change. Rabbi Gelberman taught that LIFE means to be loving unconditionally, to be inspiring unconditionally, to be forgiving unconditionally and to be excited unconditionally; and he was a Satmar, the inheritor of the Chassidic tradition. If we are open minded and open hearted we can be God’s partners in creating a marvelous future. God as created the world this way. A new reality is already upon us and now we have the understanding to be creators in it. Isn’t life grand?