Beit Yichud

Malchut sheba Hod
Here it is, day 35 of the Omer, Malchut sheba Hod. I have been really sick this entire week so my daily meditations have been kind of Sefirot lite, mostly contemplating my propensity for gratitude and humility and where it is lacking. But Shabbat morning as we were counting the Omer in the Aquarian Minyan, Rabbi Yonatan said something that moved me. He said something like “most people now name Hod as Humility and Gratitude, but he always referred to Hod as Glory” and he waived his hands above his head. That stayed with me, so I went to my dictionary and looked up Hod and sure enough, Hod is defined as Glory, Splendor, Emanence as well as derivations of Hoda-ah, Gratitude, Humility and Submission.
And I remembered the parsha where Leah gives birth to her fourth son and she says “This time I will praise Yah and I will name him Yehudah.” So Leah finally shows some humility, acknowledges and praises the Devine and names her son Yehudah; the shoresh of Yehudah is Hod. Judah, all of us Jehudim, have Hod as our root. So what is that Hod? The Sefirot of Hod, of divine eminence, is the propensity to BE THE LIGHT. To be Light in our living. Not just our thinking. Just being the light, with humility and gratitude.
Maybe that is why Lag B’Omer is important. Hod sheba Hod. The essence of Judah. The essence of each of us as Hod. At least in potential.
And how does it work with Yessod sheba Hod? Am I able to be the light in my relationships, in my desire to bond with others? With Humility and Gratitude to BE in relationship?
And Malchut sheba Hod. Can I be the Light with Dignity? … Grounded? To BE who I am… with gratitude and Humility?
There is a lot of work yet to do.
Maggid Avi J

Tiferet 2024

The third week of the Omer focuses on the Sefira of Tiferet, the Balance point between Chesed and Gevurah, the heart center, the seat of compassion, truth and beauty.

Today is the third day of Tiferet and I am having a very difficult time with the meditation practice this week because it is making me very uncomfortable as I try to meditate on my own Compassion.

This is really hard to write.

Chesed sheba Tiferet
The 15th Day of the Omer, Chesed sheba Tiferet. Lovingkindness in compassion. today begins the week of reflection on Tiferet, the balance point between expansiveness and restriction, the heart center, our propensity for compassion.

I ask myself, does my propensity for compassion contain Chesed, unconditional love. I am stuck right here. My first thought is realization that I am not really a compassionate person. I may often “think” I am compassionate when I see others in distress or when I donate to charities, organizations, GoFundMe’s, etc. In my head I think I am compassionate, but in my heart? I don’t know that I feel it emotionally. How can I articulate the Chesed of my compassion, If I am not even compassionate?

For a long term I have realized that I do not have a strong emotional intelligence, meaning i do not recognize, acknowledge, articulate or express what I am feeling. I generally suppress my emotions or sometimes, just act them out without paying attention to them. For most of my life, I have considered emotions to be like farts, they arise and pass. Just let them go. As I age, I am realizing that by not paying attention to my own emotions, I am also not paying attention to other’s emotions. Too much surface relationship and not enough depth.

I have a hard time actually showing compassion, seeing, acknowledging, expressing and identifying with the emotional physical distress that others are experiencing. I find it difficult to express and show compassion one on one with friends, family and acquaintances who are going thru some s**t … and then there are strangers. Ah yes, the stranger, the person I encounter on the street, the panhandler…. 25 years ago, when I first began making daily trips to do work at Morse & Glenwood, I would cary a box of power bars in my car and have a few in my pocket, so when I would encounter people on the street with their hand out, I would be able to give these folks something to eat and feel that I was doing a good deed. One day, a regular waived me off and said “Look at my teeth”, (there were only a few in his mouth), “I can’t eat these.” I don’t remember what I felt, but I don’t think it was compassion. Today, I often don’t even have dollars in my pocket, so it is a special effort to get change in the store to give to someone on the way out. I feel it more of a duty, a mitzvah, to give….. I think it, but I am not feeling compassionate.

Ten or fifteen years later, I vividly remember walking down Glenwood with my friend Vince and when we passed a person asking for money, Vince talked to him, asked how he was doing, gave him a hug and a few bucks. It was real. It was a human interaction. Maybe one day, I can cultivate the compassion of Vince.

The 16th Day of the Omer, Gevurah sheba Tiferet.
As I meditate today on whether my Tiferet contains Gevurah, I am still stuck on my lack of feeling compassion and I realize that I most likely have too much Gevurah with respect to compassion. Gevurah derives from the word Yirah which means fear and awe. What am I afraid of that causes me to create a boundary between me and others and blocks an emotional connection with others. Am I afraid of saying the wrong thing? Fear of the reactions from others? Just fear of physical confrontation? Fear of having to come up with something to say/ Fear of exposing my self? I don’t know. I have to do some work on this. I can’t see the divine spark of others and they cannot see me if i am hiding my own self.

The 17th Day of the Omer, Tiferet sheba Tiferet.
As I think about my propensity for truth and compassion, I am realizing that I need to acknowledge the truth of my own lack of emotional identity with others, and have some compassion for my self. I am sitting and owning my truth of what I lack and begin to feel and express from my heart, not just from my head. Maybe I will be able to feel the heart, the truth, the beauty and the pain of others.

Counting the Omer. Day 14. Malchut sheba Gevura. For the sake of the unification of the Holy Blessed One and the Shechina, to unite the Yud Hey and the Vav Hey, the Holy Masculine and the Holy Feminine, to unite the Hidden and the Revealed, the Upper Waters and the Lower Waters, here I am, ready to perform the Mitzvah of Sefirat Ha Omer.

Today is 14 Days of the Omer, Malchut sheba Gevura.

Does my Gevura, my strength, my propensity for discipline, judgement, for creating boundaries contain the element of Malchut… am I grounded? When I am judgmental and critical, am I able to express that with dignity?

Does my Gevura, which stems from my fear and awe and I need to protect my self, my space, does my response contain all of the other sefitot? Is my disciplne open and giving with Chesed, am I transparent with my critique? Does my discipline have strength? Is my judgement balanced and have compassion - Tiferet? Does my judgement see the big picture, can it march thru the desert - Netzach? When I am critical and judgmental, do I have humility and gratitude - Hod? When I create separation and boundaries, am I able to maintain a desire for relationship - Yesod? When I can, I can ground myself with dignity - Malchut / soverighnty.

My meditation is telling me that I need to acknowledge and express my underlying emotions of fear and uncertainty when s**t happens, surprise situations of life, when my credibility is challenged. I need to take a breath and be with the underlying emotion before reacting…… easier said than done ….. which, for me, is the work coming out of the 14th day of the Omer.

https://youtu.be/S8hCiPI1tMQ?si=h9xVZQAHAkviBB6x

CREATING THE CONSCIOUSNESS TO FOSTER PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

I write this, I pray that Hamas will accept the Cease Fire offer that is on the table. Lives will be saved.

I am deeply disturbed, saddened, angry and confused by the current state of war and conflict in Israel, the Palestinian Territories and the Middle East. I am distressed and angry at all of the misinformation and ignorance of the history of this conflict and of the anti-semitism that is cloaked in anti-war sentiment. Too many people are dying, too many lives are being shattered, too many government leaders are hostile to making peace. I support the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state with the right to defend itself from attacks. At the same time, I do not support Bibi Netanayahu, his right wing policies nor the settlers and their actions in the West Bank. I do support the nebulous Two State Solution. Something has to change. Israel has taken the bait and has been ensnared in the trap set by Hamas.

To say this is a vicious cycle may be true, but when can it end? Governments are stuck in their policies, people are stuck in their fears and resentments. How do people and their leaders get to a state of consciousness where they can talk to each other, see each other as human beings and create a path towards peace?

While there are many individuals and NGOs that work to foster cooperation and healthy relationships between Israeli and the Palestinian people, it is not enough. There is such an extreme level of distrust and hatred between Israeli and Palestinian officials, many Israeli people, Hamas, the PA and many Palestinians, that something dramatic and cathartic needs to happen to change the consciousness of the people on the ground.

On the surface level, what we see happening on a day to day basis is tragic. Palestinians believe that they are the victims of long term Israeli policies, IDF bombings in Gaza, Settler policies and rampages in the West Bank and more. Israelis believe that they are the victims of Hamas terrorism, rockets from Gaza and Lebanon, Arab and Iranian support for terrorism, and years of Intifada and of terrorist bombings inside Israel. The feelings are real. These things are happening and each experiences the pain. Both Israelis and Palestinians feel justified in their responses and the pain continues.

From my perspective, this is a surface level understanding. As long as the world, the Israelis and the Palestinians continue to consider this a conflict between Israel and Palestine, a lasting solution is increasingly difficult to achieve. Years of misinformation and propaganda have fueled this conflict as binary.

In my opinion, a deeper reality is that BOTH the Palestinian and Israeli people are victims of the larger group of Arab nations and the policies that they have implemented for the past 75+ years. Yes, both the Palestinians and Israelis are victims of the Arab nations.

In 1948, when the United Nations created the state of Israel and an Arab State out of the “Palestinian Territories”, the Arab nations, including Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia , Qatar, UAR and Yemen attacked Israel and encouraged the Palestinian people to vacate their homes with the promise that they would return after Israel was destroyed. Israel was not defeated. The Arab nations rejected the creation of an Arab / Palestinian State along side Israel. The Nakba was the catastrophic choice the Arabs made to vacate their homes. Those who stayed are now citizens, members of Knesset, the supreme court and are doctors, lawyers and professors. The Arab nations tried again in 1967 and 1973, continuing to promise the Palestinian refugees that they would be able to return to vacated homes in Israel. These people are still in those refugee camps 75 years later, with no effort to resettle these refugees like most other refugees in the world get resettled. This unfulfilled promise is still kept alive today in the consciousness of the Arab and Palestinian people. Past Peace Plans have been rejected because they would require recognizing the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state, resulting in Intifadas, bombings and terrorism. At the same time Israeli policies have become harsher and more restrictive with Settler policies creating many serious problems for West Bank Palestinians.

The past and present Arab nation policies have created the consciousness of Victimization and is a primary cause of status of the Palestine refugees. And then there is Iran, which is not an Arab state, competing with the other Arab states to determine which sect of Islam will control the region. They too are using and victimizing the Palestine people.

I say this not to justify any actions by Israel, Hamas or the Palestine Authority. They are each stuck in the consciousness of being victims of each other.

In order to escape Victim Consciousness to a path of Peace Consciousness, in my opinion, the Arab nations will have to acknowledge their complicity in victimizing both the Israeli and the Palestinian Peoples. They need to acknowledge that the 1948 War Against Israel was a mistake; the call for the Palestine Arabs to vacate their homes with the promise of returning was a mistake; keeping the promise alive for 75 years was a mistake. This will be very difficult for current day Arab leaders to say.

And they must repair the damage by being financially and politically responsible and fund the repair and rebuilding of Gaza and the West Bank.

Egypt and Jordan have come part way by recognizing Israel, but the entire group of Arab nations needs to own the fact that they are responsible for the present fate of the Palestinians. And the Abraham Accords by itself would not be enough; only by the Arab Nations taking full responsibility for the current state of affairs, communicating this to the Palestinians and the world, and committing to rebuilding Gaza could there possibly be a true peace.

May it be so and may we see peace in our time.

SHIVITI DRUM CIRCLE, Sunday, Jan. 15 -

SHIVITI DRUM CIRCLE, Sunday, Jan. 15

Jewish Music Events at Beit Yichud - https://mailchi.mp/57dfb717e884/jewish-music-events-at-beit-yichud-15101309