Okay, that title probably has your attention. This week I'm giving everyone access to the weekly teaching on the Torah portion, 2+ hours. The Torah portion Nitzavim falls close to the Feast of Trumpets every year, no coincidence. This week's portion teaches the difference between the English idea of "repentance" versus the Hebrew meaning of
teshuvah. Oddly, repentance can be egocentric and joyless.
Teshuvah holds the essential element, a return to Adonai so that He can heal our egocentricity and impart His joy to our journey home.
Live classes are held online each Monday night 9:00 - 10:00 pm EST or Tuesday afternoons at 12:30 - 1:30 pm EST. You can join live on Zoom for the one hour teaching and after-class discussion. Each class teaching is recorded, and students receive a link to download the recording to both classes, not just their own class. After-class discussions are not recorded so that we may speak freely, although I have to say some of the best discussions are after the class!
Cost is $20 per month for the live class, and t
he $20 cost is per student email login. For students who happen to be away from their computers, it is possible to login in to the class with an iPad or iPhone.
Name
Email address for class login
Class preference (Monday night or Tuesday afternoon)
If your schedule is not a good fit for live classes, you may sign up to receive only the recordings for $10 per month. Just indicate this in your email. You can withdraw at any time.
Once I enter your email into Zoom, they will send you an invitation to register (no cost). Once you're, registered, you can access the audio and video links each week on the Zoom cloud. If you choose to download them instead of just listen or view, they will stay on your computer until you remove them. The invitation and recording links are sent each week via Constant Contact email. If you're receiving this newsletter, then no further confirmation for Constant Contact is required.
We will be studying the Torah portions and haftarot along with the material from manuscripts in progress.
If you'd like to try it out for a few weeks first, just let me know whenever you decide you don't want to continue. A payment reminder comes once per month along with instructions for Paypal or snail mail.
Due to travel for speaking engagements or classes falling on a feast day, classes occasionally are rescheduled on a different day.
I hope we'll see you in class soon!
The Things We Give Away
A Rosh HaShanah Devotional
I've been watching sunrises this summer. It's not because I'm an early riser or that romantic. My gym coach showed me some research on how many knobs, levers, buttons, and clocks embedded in our brains are programmed to the sun's early rays, and as it turns out, fifteen minutes of morning sun is one of the healthiest, and certainly the cheapest, medicine available since before we were created. It's also a great time to read the Torah portion...or even poetry...and pray. Think. Be quiet and analyze the things that need to be straightened in my life.
It's also a remembering time. I think of people I know and have known. I think of the animals that have been so much comfort in a childless life. There are dogs, cats, horses, and even a bird buried all over this property. Yom Teruah approaches, the day of the awakening blast, but it's also a "feast of remembrance." Here lately, I've been remembering. Sometimes I wonder what life would have been like if I'd not taken the Torah path back in the 90s.
When we became serious about keeping Shabbat back then, I was deep into showing horses. The problem was that horse shows are on Friday and Saturday nights. The surprising thing is that even though I couldn't imagine life without horses, when we made the commitment, I never once was sad. Gradually, we sold off or gave away the horses. I kept my show horse as a pet, my special one born on our anniversary. She gave me the ride of my life. She was magnificent, my Goldilocks. The softest velvet lips and kindest eyes. You would have liked her.
She died on the first day of Sukkot several years ago. And we buried her, flew to a Sukkot gathering, and celebrated the feast.
And then there was Prince Pablo, our miniature donkey. Mean little cuss, but he was a great security system. If someone came on the property, he'd bray so loud that they could hear him half a mile away. Yeah, it was that loud. Scared the UPS man half to death. Pablo liked his back scratched.
We gave him away, too. I was gone so frequently to speak or record, and when I was home, I was writing, so it was really unfair to keep him. Donkeys like attention, and he needed a friend. One day a man and his son stopped and asked if the donkey was for sale. The son wanted him as a pet. My husband gave them Pablo, and since then, his little pasture has been empty. I've joked about turning it into a cemetery. I miss that crazy jackass every time I look across the street to the empty pasture.
So many dead things. So many things we've put in the rear-view mirror to walk this walk. Some things I miss, and some I don't. But I wonder what life would have been like.
And that's the thing. When I sat down to read the Torah portion at sunrise one day, I heard Pablo bray. Clear as day. I'd know that bray anywhere. I know the cadence; I know the pitch; it's unmistakeable. And it was close.
I hear that bray every morning. Pablo. Seriously. It's not as spiritual as hearing a shofar in the distance, but it meant something. It made me smile. Finally, I asked my husband, "Where did those people live who took Pablo?"
"Just across there," he gestured, pointing to the country road parallel to ours, across the "holler." And that's just what Pablo does. He hollers at me every morning like he used to.
The things we give up are not that far away.
The Kingdom is so close to us, and we think it's far away, after we die, but it isn't. It's so close we can hear its sound and feel the Presence every sunrise. Our physical bodies are programmed to respond to sunlight, but our spirits and souls are programmed to the Light from above. We hold it in our hands each time we read the Word. Anything we give up to pray or study the Word is not really that far away. It's just an empty place of sadn
ess for a brief moment called time. Those people or critters will one day be grateful that we knew what they didn't know...yet.
If we listen closely, we'll hear them say that it's okay. What we need to do to prepare for the Kingdom is of greater importance. They'll understand, but they'll miss you, too. When the Kingdom is in place, when the resurrection comes, the mighty power of life can restore any good thing
we thought we gave up for the Kingdom. Probably much of it we won't want to see or do again anyway.
I do want to see Prince Pablo in the Kingdom. With a name like that, surely he's Kingdom material.
Crazy jackass.
