Recalling the Sound of the Shofar

We gather on Rosh Hashanah, a day that the Torah describes as Zichron T’ruah, a remembrance of shofar blasts, a rest day, a day of Holy Assembly. On this day of remembrance, we are specifically asked to remember the shofar blasts we heard at Sinai. The passage in the book of Exodus is frightening, even spooky. It says: “There was thunder and lightning and a heavy cloud on the mountain, and the sound of the shofar was very powerful; the entire people that was in the camp shuddered. Moses brought the people forth from the camp toward God and they stood at the bottom of the mountain. All of Mt. Sinai was smoking because God had descended upon it in the fire. Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the entire mountain shuddered exceedingly. The sound of the shofar grew continually much stronger. Moses would speak, and God would respond to him with a voice.” Just after that, God spoke the 10 Commandments to the entire nation.

This is not the Rosh Hashanah we usually celebrate: the New Year, the beginning of a new season, a time to stir ourselves out of our summer pleasures, and return to a more active mode of working and living, a time of celebration: good food enjoyed with family and friends, a time of renewal. Of course, it’s also a time to begin the process of introspection, correcting our faults, leading up to Yom Kippur, but also a time for remembering our links to our families and to our tradition. The Torah asks something more from us – a response to the act of remembering. What did we learn at Sinai when we heard the sound of the shofar, getting louder and louder? What was aroused in us? Can we even put into words the content of that experience? Perhaps we can try.

There is hint after the giving of the 10 Commandments. At that time the people begged Moses to listen to God on their behalf, for the experience of God speaking to them was much too terrifying. Moses reassured them, that the frightening sounds and appearances were indeed to keep them away from sin and transgression. But surely the experience contained was much more that that. The sages say that a unification occurred that day – a special kind of connection that was unknown in human experience before this singular event. The Chassidic master, Rabbi Elimelech of Lisenzk said, “when a person draws God into the world, this is called unification.” We, through our partial physicality and our partial Divinity have the unique mission to live in both the physical and spiritual worlds, having the possibility of unifying earth and heaven.

Rabbi Zalman Shacter Shelomi in his book, Wrapped in a Holy Flame quotes Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach interpreting a Chassidic teaching from the 19th Century Rabbi Zakok HaKohen, who said, Some say the “world is getting less and less religious. On the contrary, the souls are becoming more and more refined.” Rabbi Carlebach taught that it looks like many people are breaking away from God…meaning formal religion, but on the inside, they are becoming increasingly holy.” This is happening in our society, to each of us, across religious lines, in a very broad way, as human consciousness evolves, through the death of one generation and the birth of the next. This is why although we have much to teach to the young, they also have much to teach to us. As we are changing, due to this evolution and also out of our own efforts to change ourselves from the inside, there is a great hunger for a reconnection to our spiritual selves; there is a compulsion not only to seek out spirituality, but also to express the expansion of our souls and the changed people we have already become. This is not to say that we have arrived at a state of holiness. Not at all! We are all still becoming. We are all, as I like to say, "Not Yet." But we are inwardly different from our parents, and our Judaism reflects that as well. This is one message of Rosh Hashanah: the possibility of living just a little more in the spiritual realm, a realm of great blessing beyond what we can even imagine. It is the realm of our potential.

In Judaism, the traditional view of humankind is that we are engaged in a struggle between the yetzer hatov, the impulse to do good, and the yetzer hara, the impulse to do the wrong thing. And it’s a useful view, up to a point. An additional perspective is that the struggle is always a battle between the old and the new: the people we have been and the people we can become, or will become. We see this also on a global scale. The Older understanding struggles against the Newer Understanding. The psalmist said, “you are children of the most high, all of you.” And we long for this special connection to the Divine. It can be achieved in many different ways, but most importantly by changing our inner dialogue. If we change ourselves from the inside, our lives will change and the world around us will change for the better. If we believe that the goodness of life, the goodness of the ultimate Divine can be and is expressed through us, then we can realize the spirituality that is our gift and birthright. We will live up to our potential. We will see great blessing from our growth, even miracles. We only have to make a commitment to the intention to express our holiness.

And this is not to suggest that we should go through life feeling spiritual. Rabbi Rami Shapiro, a teacher of meditation and mindfulness, has a great teaching about this. Once a woman said to him, I have no need of spiritual practices. I feel spiritual all the time…He said, the next time you have a spiritual feeling, take a cold shower. Then dry off and do something kind for someone else.”

Perhaps what we are called to remember today is who we really are and who we were created to be. The sage Ben Sira, quoted in the S’Fat Emet, said, there was one who found a glowing ember and blew on it, lighting up a flame. There was another who found a glowing ember and spat on it and the flame was extinguished. The S’fat Emet said, the ember is to be found everywhere, and I might add, in everyone. And the Apter Rebbe, Abraham Joshua Heschl of Apt said, there is only the ever present of God knowing and understanding God’s self. We are part of that self. We house the ember that can become a flame. I invite you to be inspired by this day, when we are asked to remember why we are here, why we heard the shofar and what is our mission of unification in this world. I invite you to be inspired by who your really are and by who you can be. Then shall it truly be a New Year.

Entering Into Our Perfectability

This week we read two Torah portions: Acharei Mot, which means After the deaths, referring to the deaths of Aaron’s two sons, and Kedoshim, meaning holiness. Acharei Mont contains the atonement rituals for Yom Kippur, performed by the High Priest, laws that request that all meat to be eaten first be presented as an offering to God, and a list of forbidden marriages. Kedoshim, also known as the Holiness Code, is one of the most important sections to know about in the Torah. It begins, “You shall be holy, for I, the Eternal Your God am Holy.”

What follows is a guide for living a life of holiness, including a repetition of most of the Ten Commandments, but also laws that are impossible or nearly impossible to fulfill, such as: You shall not lie to one another. Don’t Gossip; do not seek revenge and do not bear a grudge; you shall not hate anyone in your heart; and the most impossible commandment in the Torah, Love your neighbor as yourself. Given that these laws are nearly impossible to live up to, how shall we regard them and the process of becoming holy? Clearly these laws are goals and not strict commandments like do not kill and do not steal. However they are also not merely an ideal or utopian vision.

Rabbi Tarfon taught in Pirkei Avot (2:21), It is not up to you to complete the work, but neither are you at liberty to desist from it.” In his book Paradigm Shift, Rabbi Zalman Schacter Shalomi spoke about God as a process, and the book God is a Verb by Rabbi David Cooper uses this understanding as a theme. We can regard holiness in this same light, not as a state of being, but as process. The willingness to enter into our own perfectability, then, is where holiness resides. And notice that most of the impossible or at least very difficult commandments have a large inner component: don’t lie, don’t run to gossip, don’t seek revenge or bear a grudge, don’t hate, love your neighbor as yourself.

We are being asked to turn the negative thoughts and impulses that we all have into positives: to always strive to speak the truth, to not talk about others, to love, to extend compassion and understanding concerning the mistakes of others; to regard others as extensions of ourselves and not separate from ourselves, to be generous and giving, to accept rather that reject and to extend ourselves rather than only protect ourselves.

Hearing these laws is especially meaningful in the period between Passover and Shavuot when we count the Omer and attempt to purify ourselves so that we can metaphorically be worthy to stand at Sinai once more and receive the Ten Commandments. Abraham Joshua Heschl wrote: “We have learned from Jewish History that if a person is not more than human, then he is less than human. Judaism is an attempt to prove that in order to be a person , you have to be more than a person; that in order to be a people we have to be more than a people. Israel was made to be a holy people “ (God in Search of Man).

This holiness code is spoken of in the Torah is in the plural: addressed to the entire Israelite community. We can look at Israel at 65 and see that attitudes are slowly evolving there, as this still very young country is finding its way toward balancing protection of its citizens and openness, taking care of its people and managing a strong economy, being respectful to each group and religious entity.

The commandment to be holy is unequivocal. God expects us not only to understand the laws but to sincerely try to fulfill them. An additional way to understand this commandment is as prophecy: I, God, am leading you to holiness, slowly, perhaps over a very long time, evolutionary time, but surely. And you shall become holy. The Kotzker Rebbe said, “You shall be holy,” means that we should always be ready to accept holiness, “for I am Holy,” means, for I am always ready to help you attain it. May we know that the Eternal is there, rooting for us to take upon ourselves the holiness that we can realize, and may we, with God’s help, make beautiful, loving, holy choices.

The Ultimate Mantra

This week’s Torah portion is Tzav, which means, command. God asked Moses to instruct the Priests about how to perform sacrifices. The fire on the altar was never to go out. In the mornings, the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest, cleared the ashes. In this portion there are rules for the elevation, meal, sin, guilt, and feast-peace offerings. The rules tell what should be burned and who should eat the meat and flour offerings. Fat and blood were not to be eaten. Then, at the end of this portion, the priests were sanctified for seven days and consecrated to begin their service for God and the people.

Three times in the beginning of this portion it says, “The fire on the altar shall remain aflame on it.” Twice the Torah adds, “it shall not be extinguished.” This can also be translated as, the fire on the altar shall remain aflame in him, meaning in each person. The Baal Shem Tov said, “Our heart is the altar” (Soul of the Torah, P. 196). This section of Tzav is the passage that is quoted at the beginning of Sephardic and Chassidic services, to inspire those at prayer to greater efforts toward love and sincerity.

There is an interesting statement in this portion concerning the meal offering. Part of it is called a memorial portion for God. The rest was consumed by the Priests. We might think that God would desire the largest part of the offering, giving the priest a small salary or meal to eat. But the reverse is true. God only requests a very small portion, just enough for us to remember God: to remember to thank and bless the Holy One. The greater portion is for us, for those who work in God’s service and help one another. Also, the meal offering was to be unleavened. God is satisfied with the minimum, with the ordinary, the everyday. Not the grandest offering; not a cake or loaf risen to great heights, but the most basic, real, down to earth offering, our very selves.

Also, the letter mem in the word flame is written smaller than the other letters. Perhaps this encourages us not to be showy with our dedication to God’s service; and not to be intermittent in our spiritual passion: one minute with our hearts aflame, the next indifferent. Rather, we are asked to have a small steady flame burning in our hearts, one that should never go out. The S’Fat Emet relates this to the V’ahavta prayer, that we should speak of our love for the Divine Essence inwardly, “when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up.” In other word: always. It is our hearts and minds that is important to God.

The Zohar comments on a verse from Job (1:5), “And when the days of the feast would come to their end, Job would send and sanctify them, and he would rise early in the morning, and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all; for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.” The Zohar (II:239b) says: “this… refers to the Community of Israel, and the term ha'olah (that which ascends), to the evil thought that rises up in our minds to turn us aside from the way of truth. The verse thus continues: ‘on its fire-wood upon the altar all night’, signifying that the evil thought has to be consumed in fire so as not to allow it to grow.”

Thus the Zohar speaks about the burnt offering as an atonement for evil thoughts. This is about the ultimate mantra: a stream of consciousness that consumes our negativity, our less than worthy inner chatter, replacing them with holy words and holy thoughts. The flame of love purifies us inwardly. This Shabbat is Shabbat HaGadol, the great Sabbath before Pesach; the Shabbat, as the Apter Rebbe taught, in which the hidden is about to be revealed. The S’fat Emet said, “In the soul of every person there lies a hidden point that is aflame with love of God, a fire that cannot be put out.” When that hidden flame burns quietly and steadily in our hearts, then our transformation will be revealed in the light shining on our faces and the faces of those whose lives we touch. May we nurture and feed the inner flame of our love with the fuel of our intention, the desire to help and be of service, the desire to love and be loved, and may we with Divine guidance and blessing be purified, sanctified, and transformed.

The Vessels of God's Love

This week’s Torah portions are Vayakhel, which means and he assembled, and refers to Moses assembling the people, and Pekudei, which means reckonings. Moses called together the people to remind them that no work on the Tabernacle may be done on Shabbat. He tells them that they may being free will donations of all the materials needed to build the Tabernacle, to God; and that the work to build it will soon commence. The people brought more than enough and had to be asked to stop donating. The Tabernacle and its furniture is completed in this portion, overseen by Bezalel and Oholiab, who God endowed with the knowledge, insight, and skill to do it. The second portion contains an accounting of the free will offerings that were brought, the completion of the priests’ garments, the setting up of the Tabernacle. God’s approval was shown to the people by the miracle of the Cloud of God’s Presence filling the Tabernacle.

There is an interesting idea expressed three times in this portion. The text says, “Every person whose heart inspired him came and everyone whose spirit was willing brought the portion of God for the work of the Tent of Meeting.” Later it says, “All the women whose hearts inspired them with wisdom.” And the third example is: “Moses called for every wise hearted person, everyone whose heart inspired him to approach the work to do it.” The word, inspired, is not really the true translation, in the Hebrew. The Hebrew word, nasa, is literally carried or lifted. The verses really say, everyone whose heart carried them, all whose hearts lifted them came forward, to donate their possessions, their time, and their skill.

One thing this teaches us is to lead with our hearts. In other words, in our lives, let your heart do the heavy lifting. Judaism teaches that God guides the world with justice tempered by mercy. We pray that God’s mercy will prevail over strict justice. Our sages taught that the world could not survive without mercy. Rashi wrote, about the first verse in Genesis, that “the world could not last” with the attribute of strict judgment, so God “gave precedence to the Attribute of Mercy and joined it to the Attribute of strict judgment.” This applies to us slightly differently. We are not asked to judge others. God is the judge. In fact, the less we judge others, the better off we are. Rather, we are asked to use our reason to make determinations. But reason without compassion, logic without love would be the human version of justice without mercy.

Rebbe Aaron of Karlin said, “Wisdom of the mind alone without wisdom of the heart is worthless.” We need the teaching about leading with our hearts because God has structured the world in such a counter-intuitive way. The way the world truly works is not logical. The more we give, the more we receive. The more we keep, the less we will have. More for me means less for all. More for you means more for all. We don’t always understand it, but it appears to be true, and this is what the Torah tries to teach us. As I like to say: love is the spiritual currency of the world. Reality works on the same principle as love: the more we give the more we receive.

The S’fat Emet quotes the Song of Songs: “Vast floods cannot quench love nor rivers drown it” He comments,….”The love and attachment to God that Israel received at Mt. Sinai remain alive in them forever, even when sin prevents them from bringing this hidden love out into the open…By the act of giving they brought forth their own inner generosity, their longing, and attachment so that they were able to draw the Shechina into their midst.” Here the S’fat Emet equates a closed heart with wrongdoing and says that giving brings God’s presence into our midst.

There is an interesting detail in this portion. It says, “They brought to Moses additional free willed gifts every morning” (36:3). This tells us that letting go of our judgment and selfishness is a process, perhaps it is a life-long process, but one that brings contentment, well being, peace, blessing and great reward. The Apter Rebbe said, God’s love needs vessels, and he asks, where are the vessels for the blessings that God want to give us? The Apter answers, “The main resting place is in the human being.” May we be the vessels of God’s love. May we allow our hearts of carry us and to lift us, acting with compassion and generosity, being the givers who help each other and enrich all of life.

Finding Our Inner Nobility

This week’s Torah portion is Tetzaveh, which means, Command. It contains the instructions for the Eternal light, the Ner Tamid, to be continually kindled in the menorah at night. God describes the design for the Priests’ Vestments, for glory and splendor. The specifications for an incense altar are given, as is the commandment not to offer any alien incense.

The costume of the High Priest contained red, blue, and purple wool, fine white linen, and real gold thread. On the priest’s woven breastplate were 12 precious stones, one for each of the 12 Tribes of Israel. The priest also wore a turban and a golden plate on his forehead which said, Holy to God. Moses was to inaugurate the priests during a seven day consecration ceremony. First they had to immerse themselves in water. Our custom of the Mikveh comes from this. We know that washing or bathing: water purification ceremonies, must be as old as humanity itself. It is almost certain that Baptism, the Christian ritual comes originally from this commandment in Tetzaveh. Of course, all the people who originally engaged in baptism were Jews, and any river is known to be a kosher mikveh. Then the priests would be dressed in their vestments. Only the High priest had the golden and jeweled garments. The other priests were dressed more simply. The priests confessed their sins and offered three sacrifices for each of seven days: a sin offering sacrifice, an elevation offering sacrifice, to draw closer to God, and a fulfillment or perfection sacrifice, the last one of which was eaten.

If we think of Aaron, Moses’ brother: he was a slave like anyone else. The Israelites were an assemblage of slaves: a sea of nobodies who had been beaten: beaten down, degraded, and forced to suffer. How was even one of them to be transformed into a glorious priest, a leader of the people? The holy garments can be understood as serving to convince Aaron, as well as convincing the other priests, and ultimately convincing the people of their own innate holiness. Rabbi Elimelech wrote, “When God said, Let there be light, a new light was brought into existence…from there the light was drawn down here below, but that light still remains rooted up above. This is the case with all things. Each thing was created by God so that its root remains above and so everything that happens here below is a result of our actions, which shake the roots above, so that those things can be drawn down here below.” This quotation is an attempt to explain the mechanism by which we are attached to our Root: attached to God. Since we are of God, of God’s light, and of God’s holiness, theoretically we can attain amazingly great things. The Psalmist said, “You are Gods, all of you, children of the most High (Ps 82:6).” Our reality is so different from this.

Our inner nobility is not what we often experience. As slaves in the wilderness, the priests were even farther away from nobility than we are. The S’fat Emet wrote, “Moses was called a man of God. All of Israel were supposed to attain that state.” The only thing that stood in the way of Aaron and the priests becoming holy were their own thoughts and opinions about themselves. How did they become holy? Water purification, dressing in a fine costume that elevated them and made them feel special; also following a set of instructions, given by God, and confessing their sins, which helped them to try to do better. Probably meditating on their actions was part of the 7 day inauguration ceremony, since they were prohibited from leaving the sacred area for that whole period of time. These are the same things that can help us to feel holy: being elevated through our dress; confessing sins, performing deeds of generosity and kindness, deepening our relationship to our own divinity through prayer and meditation.

Perhaps then, there is very little that stands between us and holiness: our lack of self esteem and lack of belief in ourselves being the most important one. Like Dorothy and her companions in Baum’s Wizard of Oz, who learned that they possessed all they needed to achieve what they desired, we too have within us all of the perfection of our higher selves. May we be drawn to express our inner holiness in every human interaction we have, through knowing that nobility, goodness, and a loving, giving nature is who we really are.

From the Physical to the Spiritual

This week’s Torah portion is Terumah, which means a portion, gift, or contribution. God spoke to Moses and asked the Israelites to make a freewill offering of all the materials that would be needed to build a portable place of worship in the wilderness, as the text says, “so that I may dwell among them. (Ex. 25:8)” God then gives precise instructions for the design of the Tabernacle and its furniture, including a golden ark to house the tablets of the Ten Commandments, a golden menorah as tall as a person, a gold clad table that looked like a baker’s rack, to hold 12 special loaves of bread; and a copper altar for sacrifice, and many other items. We had been slaves in Egypt, possibly as long as 400 years.

We had built cities for the Pharaoh; but now, as pointed out by Rabbi Denise Eger in the Women’s Torah Commentary, we were being asked to embark on a different kind of building. As we constructed the Mishkan, the dwelling or the Sanctuary, we would be using the freewill gifts, ordinary building materials, and transmuting them into something holy. As Rabbi “Tarphon points out in the Talmud (Avot de Rabbi Natan 11, The Torah Revealed by AY Finkel), “You can see how highly regarded labor is, for God did not cause the Shechinah to rest upon Israel before they did work. Of course, we were building community as we were building the Tabernacle. We were building the traditions of Judaism itself, and we were taking the mundane that with our pure intentions and labor we were able to sanctify it. The Lubavitcher Rabbi, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Shneerson, wrote that, ”Man’s task is to incorporate material existence into God’s dwelling”. Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk wrote about the difference between God’s creative process our ours. He explained that God created something from nothing, which he expressed by the Kabbalistic terms Yesh, something, from Ayin, nothing. Our work is the reverse of God’s: we take yesh, the material and turn it into the spiritual. How is this done?

There is a famous commentary on Terumah by the sage Malbin, Rabbi Meir Lev ben Yeshiel Michael, from 19th Century Russia. Malbin wrote, “It says Let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among or in them. Each person is to build God a Tabernacle in their own heart, for God to dwell in.” We are meant to create holiness from both of these directions, from the material to the spiritual and also the spiritual to the material. Finding what some have called the God within is discovering our moral compass, our inner holiness, and a reverence for what we can create. Taking that inner guidance and applying it to the physical world completes the work. Rabbi Arthur Green has written, “God’s presence in this world depends upon the depth and sincerity of human desire.”

It is up to us to bring God’s Presence into our world. Only we can create the conditions for God to be manifested in the material world, in human life. We can work from within: from the inner to the outer, and from without: from the outer to the inner. Ideally we should work from both directions: realizing God’s Divinity within ourselves and making all our work, our words, and deeds, into a tabernacle of peace, justice and goodness. As we sang at the Song of the Sea, “This is my God and I will enshrine the Eternal. (Ex. 15:2)” When there is a Tabernacle in our hearts and in our outer lives, God can truly dwell among us.

Speaking of Holiness

This week’s Torah portion is Mishpatim, which means, ordinances, or laws, or judgments. It immediately follows the Ten Commandments but is very different in content, laying out laws for a just civil society. There are laws about slavery, negligence, the giving of charity, just compensation, and dispensing justice. Over 50 laws are given in this portion. Mishpatim ends with commandments to celebrate the holidays and a transporting vision given to Moses and the elders. Tonight I’d like to focus on the topic of speech. As you might expect, there are a number of commandments here that include prohibitions against saying things that are untrue. The Torah also prohibits agreeing with an untrue statement made by another person. One verse in the Artscroll translation reads, “Do not accept a false report.” The Etyz Chaim translation says, You must not carry false rumors. And continuing in the previous translation, the Torah says, Do not extend your hand with the wicked to be a venal witness. Do not be a follower of the majority for evil. Distance yourself from a false word. We can look at these laws in light of our speech.

Judaism has guidelines for speech that can help us to know what is expected of us. The lowest level required is not to say anything false. Of course there are times when we are permitted to say something we know is not true. We can say something untrue to avoid hurting someone’s feelings, and to avoid gossiping. The next highest level of speech is about Lashon Hara, literally, bad speech. The Talmud says: “What constitutes evil speech? … Whatsoever is said in the presence of the person concerned is not considered evil speech. …… He answered: I hold with R. Jose, for R. Jose said: I have never said a word and looked behind my back (Arachin 15b).” At this level we are asked not to say anything negative about a person even if it is true, to someone who has no need to know. Maimonides said, “Even if the statements are true, they bring about the destruction of the world (Mishneh Torah).” Our Sages said: "There are three sins for which retribution is exacted from a person in this world and, [for which] he is denied a portion in the world to come: idol worship, forbidden sexual relations, and murder. Lashon horah is equivalent to all of them." In addition, they said: "Lashon horah kills three [people], the one who speaks it, the one who listens to it, and the one about whom it is spoken. The one who listens to it [suffers] more than the one who speaks it.”

There is yet one more level of speech, the highest level. This is harder. We are asked not to say anything positive or negative about anyone to someone who has no need to know. This guideline is meant to circumscribe our conversations. It asks us to think before we speak about another: to say less than we may be used to saying, so that we do not get ourselves into trouble. This level of speech precludes most recreational speech. The Talmud also says, “What shall be one’s remedy so that he may not come to [utter] evil speech? If the person be a scholar, let him engage in the Torah, and if the person be ignorant, let him humble himself, as it is said: ‘But perverseness is a wound to the spirit.’” We are being led here into another commandment found in Mishpatim: “You shall not wrong a stranger and you shall not oppress him, for you were strangers in the Land of Egypt. You shall not persecute an orphan or widow.” These commandments seem to be not only about harming a person with less power in the society, but also about denigrating another. If we take these commandments symbolically, we can say that we are all strangers to each other. We all have a tendency to need to bolster our self esteem, but that we should not do it at the expense of others because in reality, we are part of them and they are part of us. And just because we may think, everyone is doing it, it’s an area in which most of us can find spiritual growth.

In this portion it says, “People of holiness shall you be to me.” And perhaps this is a fourth level of speech: that we use our words to create holiness. We can do so much good with our speech: bringing smiles to others, sharing our love, comforting each other, understanding one another’s needs, helping, and bringing kindness by sharing the gift of ourselves. Rabbi Gelberman wrote: “If we speak inwardly to ourselves of the joy of living of the oneness of people of our individual security and our emotional maturity our words will come forth with wisdom.” Our words reveal so much about the kind of people we are: about the quality of our intentions and our inner dialogue. If we are striving to keep our hearts open, our words will bring healing to the world. May speak truthfully and lovingly to others, speaking a little less perhaps than we have been accustomed to, but speaking with the knowledge that satisfying, rewarding relationships and also the world’s healing depends upon us.