Dear TBZ Community,
“You are listening live to the impeachment trial” played on the radio and I found myself agitated and almost forgetting to breathe. I took a long slow breath and felt myself slow down and the agitation in my body relax just a bit.
I have been more aware of my breathing this past week having just returned from a four-day retreat for clergy at the
Institute of Jewish Spirituality.
We
davenned
, mediated, studied Torah and breathed together. Those 4 days were a gift and a privilege and I am working to keep the experience with me back in this world of agitation, anxiety and what can seem like a bleak and almost hopeless moment in our political and moral lives.
In this week's parsha,
Parshat Vaera,
, Moshe approaches the People of Israel to let them know that he will take them out of Egypt. The text tells us that the People of Israel, are not ready.. In
Chapter 6 verse 9
, we read:
וַיְדַבֵּ֥ר מֹשֶׁ֛ה כֵּ֖ן אֶל־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל וְלֹ֤א שָֽׁמְעוּ֙ אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֔ה מִקֹּ֣צֶר ר֔וּחַ וּמֵעֲבֹדָ֖ה קָשָֽׁה׃
But when Moses told this to the Israelites, they would not listen to Moses, their spirits crushed by cruel bondage.
The Medieval commentator
Rashi
explains the words
Kotzer Ruach
- Crushed Spirit or literally
shortness
of spirit - in the following way:
מקצר רוח.
כָּל מִי שֶׁהוּא מֵצֵר, רוּחוֹ וּנְשִׁימָתוֹ קְצָרָה, וְאֵינוֹ יָכוֹל לְהַאֲרִיךְ בִּנְשִׁימָתוֹ
Through Anguish (lit. shortness) of Spirit— If one is in anguish his breath comes in short gasps and he cannot draw long breaths.
In this moment of anguish and desperation, the Israelites can’t breath and when they can’t breath they can’t hope or believe that Moshe will take them out of Egypt. In that moment all seems bleak, and the possibility of a better future is not in sight.
Eventually they hear the call and they follow Moshe and God into the wilderness in search of redemption. We know from the story that the whole journey will be a struggle -- they will want to believe there is a promised land waiting for them, but they will not always trust, not always believe, not always hold on to hope and many times they will despair.
And that is what we do -- we stop breathing. We stop believing and stop hoping when we are in a narrow place.
“Hope is not naive, and hope is not an opiate. Hope may be the single greatest act of defiance against a politics of pessimism and against a culture of despair. Because what hope does for us is it lifts us out of the container that holds us and constrains us from the outside, and says, "You can dream and think expansively again. That they cannot control in you."
Eventually, the people of Israel will enter the Promised Land for that is our story. It is not an easy journey; it is heartbreaking at times, but we continue. We will leave Egypt, we will walk through wilderness and we will enter the Promised Land - a land that holds in it the potential for a life of wholeness.
We struggle, but we don’t give up hope.
At moments, we take short breaths, and we are agitated, but we can remember to breath and to fill inside of us the aliveness of the Creator and the hope that guides our commitment to a path of wholeness.
May this Shabbat bring renewal and blessings to all of you and your loved ones.
May we all remember to breath and find the hope within ourselves to bring healing to this broken world.
May we have a joyful Shabbat!
Shabbat Shalom,
