Posted on October 21, 2024
Hineh mah tov u-mah nayim shevet achim gam yachad. It is so good to be together. For me, this is an experience of reunion with so many of you, relationships stretching back close to 40 years. We shared so many joys, sad moments. We dreamed of building a Jewish community. Our hope has been realized.
Shir Tikva’s founders dreamed that it would be a place to raise our children as Jews and for them to take their places in this community or find other Jewish addresses for themselves and their children. The dream has materialized before our eyes.
The presence of news face, new families, new leaders, new generations of children among us testifies to the strength of that vision years ago.
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A profound darkness pervades these Yamim noraim – We like to call them Days of Awe. This year, Days of Sadness and Fear may be a better translation. We come here in search of sanctuary from the palpable fear of what might yet happen to Amcha our brothers and sisters in Israel. We don’t want to think about the specter of an even greater conflagration. We bring our awakened anxiety about our safety in this country, our worry about our children’s vulnerability in school room and university halls. We bring here the fear that our country’s most cherished principles of freedom and equality will collapse. We sense an impending thick darkness and chaos. Here we seek a bright light to guide our way.
I will not attempt a solution to the myriad of concerns we carry. But I want to share with you a teaching that I find helpful at this time, an attitude that has become the foundation stone of my perspective on life, the core of my spiritual journey and a path for negotiating the darkness. It may be familiar to some, but poignant to hear again for this moment.
It begins with a mystical interpretation of the first words of Torah, the creation of our universe. In the beginning there was tohu v’vohu chaos and empty vessels with which the universe was to be formed. God’s intention was to pour Divine Essence, kedushah holiness into these vessels, creating a world infused with the Divine spirit, with holiness.
The notion of a bright light represented that holiness, that Divine spirit. Not light as we know it, but an approximation of a power, an illumination beyond description. In the Hasidic imagination that Light was too powerful and the vessels meant to contain it to form the universe broke, shattered. Sparks of the Divine were scattered, embedded in fragments of the vessels that became the substance of our world. Every particle in our physical universe, every structure, every living being, every plant, every tree contains a hidden fragment of that holiness. We were born into a broken universe, a world in need of repair.
Humankind’s task, the rabbis taught, is Tikun, to search for those hidden sparks of holiness, free them from their shells and repair our broken world. Each of us, every soul, must do so.
I believe that I, with every human being is tasked to uncover the fragments of goodness, of light, of holiness. For me, this is the best I can do to push back the chaos and darkness that threatens.
Our world is cluttered with behaviors and values and ego laden preoccupations that hide that holiness. All of us behave in ways that ignore the goodness and the beauty that is at the core of our universe. Some deny the brightness altogether.
The antidote? We must engage in Tikun Olam, uncovering the n’tzah-zot, uncovering the Divine brightness to complete the work of creation.
Our lives grow in meaning and purpose when we discover and release that Light. Doing so is the essence of our life purpose.
Tikun Olam has become a popular term to describe acts of social justice. (I have seen it on bumper stickers. It may have crept into the presidential campaign) It has become synonymous with any casual act of social good or civic responsibility. But as an imperative at the core of our spiritual existence, it is so much more.
This day, central to our Chesbon Hanefesh, our soul searching, our self-examination, this Day and every day rests the question , “On which path we wish to live our lives?”
It is a matter of intention. Beyond the roles that occupy our lives at every moment, the tasks of growing, living, learning, parenting, care giving; beyond socializing, creating, enjoyment what should we seek to be in the decades of our lives?
Or perhaps rephrase the question: As we negotiate each of these life tasks, each moment in our lives, can we search for the hidden sparks of holiness embedded in each day, every encounter with an “other” and raise ourselves closer to that which is lasting and brings light in to the world?
Where will we find such light? Everywhere. If only we open our eyes and our hearts…
To perform acts of kindness, in confronting unfairness and injustice, in seeking the humanity – the spark of holiness – in people with whom we differ, those we don’t understand, people who are strange and different in language or color or sexual orientation or political beliefs. Open our heart to their hearts. Fragments of kedushah are hidden there. Perhaps we will find them and in doing so both dispel our fear and release Light from into our world.
We will experience the brightness when our smile to a stranger evokes his pleasantness; in responding to a friend’s sadness with our presence without words, in acts of giving and lovingkindness, in learning from others and nurturing a friendship. in letting go of ego, in affirming our children as they are.
Uncover the kedushah embedded in those we love, those who we meet along the way — the cashier at the supermarket, the burly tattoo laden delivery person, the bank teller. Move beyond the transactional moment – service and reward with nameless ”others.” With a word, with a smile allow the Divine light within us to touch the kedushah within them.
Fragments of the Divine light are present: in the petal of a flower, in the leaf of a tree, in the stormy sea and the gentle brook, in the smallest insect and the strongest beast. For one instant see the world around us as God’s world, to be revered, not conquered; Stand before it in awe and humility, with what Abraham Heschel called “Radical Amazement’
There is kedushah in acts of Loving- kindness, word of compassion, in demands for Justice, In Wisdom, Beauty, Understanding, Mercy.
Evoke a sense of profound gratitude to those on whose spiritual shoulders we stand: our ancestral family and the unbroken chain of Jewish life they handed us together with their hopes and struggles, their sacred values.
Where will find these hidden sparks? Wherever we seek them. Whenever we pause in the relentless race of life, the total preoccupation with the world of things and objects to contemplate what we see with a curious eye, what we hear with a willing ear.
Look with wonder at: a tree blazing with blossoms/ a seed that emerged from a flower/ The soil in which it grew/ the sun and water that festered its growth/ the farmer that plucked it/the trucker who brought it to market and the store keeper who set it out for our pleasure.
Can this spiritual exercise make a difference? Can the Brightness we uncover dispel the darkest hour? For us as individuals, yes! Without doubt! And perhaps our effort joined to the search of like-minded souls – millions upon millions in the family of humankind in countless generations– will change the universe to be more whole and secure. For the woman or the man whose heart experiences the Light there is no choice, no alternative.
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A few months ago, I celebrated my 89th birthday. I can count the probable span of my life with ten fingers. I spend more time these days trying to answer to the question:
“How will I be remembered? Has my life added anything to the uncovering of sparks, to making the universe more whole, more holy.?
Was I just along for the ride or did I make a difference, even one hardly visible measure?”
The question comes naturally to this aging soul. I pray for the whispered answer, Yes.
And I pray that it may be so for all of us, for all of humankind.
Herman J Blumberg, Rabbi Emeritus
Temple Shir Tikva, Wayland, Massachusetts