Devarim: A Guest Post by Judith Sarah Schmidt

Moses, the stutterer, speaks at the Jordan, the river he will not cross.  Standing there, he can see to where he will not reach.  He tells his descendants about the long winding journey their parents took through the desert, the story of their triumphs and defeats.  He stands at the Jordan feeling sorrow. He will not cross the river with them to enter home at last.  We look at Moses and understand how we too come to our Mt Nebo, to look out at but not to step upon the land of our dreams. 
 
As Moses pleads to G-d to be allowed to enter the promised- land, G-d says to him: “rav lakh,”“Enough! Never speak to me of this matter again! What you already have is enough for you!” Rabbi Bortz tells us that the feminine form of rav lakh is used, meaning that Moses is pregnant with, gestating and delivering his people (9).  Moses is completing his fortieth year in the desert.  The number forty represents fullness, completion.  A full term pregnancy lasts for forty weeks.

As I stand at my Mt. Nebo, at my River Jordan, I can hear two messages wrapped in ‘rav lakh.’ “Judith, enough with the wanting, desiring, clinging to where you thought your life would get to. Enough!”

And then, wrapped in rav lakh, comes a softer, compassionate, embracing voice: “Judith, be pregnant with all that you are gestating. You have so much, such fullness of being. Be pregnant with all that you are, with the essence of your journey here on this earth”.

At my Mt. Nebo, more and more often I am filled with tears of poignancy, as I look at the face of a new being or of an old person, as I stop while walking my dog, astonished by a sprig of queen ann’s lace at the side of the road. How fragile and beautiful and strong, like lace, life is. My heart opens wide. How fragile life, my life, every life is, every living thing.  What precious and sacred moments of passing life we each are. How beautiful the journey is. And how hard.

I place my hand upon Moses as he stands at his Mt. Nebo, thank him and comfort him. After carrying the burden of his tribe through the desert for so long, he is finally simply human. On Mt. Nebo, I sense his heart open wide.  I see him look with eyes of blessing upon the young around him, recalling and missing those who are no longer there. I sense him watching the fleeting shadows of dusk crossing the desert sands, as fleeting as our lives.

Perhaps he is searching himself for the davarim, for the words. For the legacy of memory he wants those who are going on into the promised- land to carry with them. These memories, like the bones of Joseph, to be carried along within the mishkan, placed in the holy of holies of each person’s heart.

I have heard that the whole journey through the desert could have taken only eleven years rather than forty.

I think: my journey could probably have taken less than eleven years:
Born, shaped in the crucible of my family. Click clack.
Big early loves, marry and divorce once, marry and divorce twice. Click clack.
Leslie is born.  Four years later, Leslie dies. Click clack.
Leslie’s death opens spiritual awakening. Click clack.
Doctoral work.  Post doctoral learning of body and waking dream and trauma work.  Click clack
Founding the Center for Intentional living.  Blessing of teaching with Alexis. Loving learning with and from my students.  Click clack.
Writing poems. Click clack.
Oldest friends die. Old country gone. Sorrow. Rav Lach. Click clack
New friends. New home. New country. Rav Lach. Click clack
Father dies. Mother dies. Click clack.
I am old. I live. I die. Click clack

The whole journey could have been compressed into less than eleven years. Bare boned facts of a life.  But oh, the spaces between the bare bones.
The spaces in which to know tears and smiles.
To journey through the desert with those who choose the long about path.
Dear friends and lovers along the way with whom and in whom to take refuge, with whom to share the journey.

The spaces in between, time to break open my stone turned heart.
Time in the desert: to let go of old worn attachments, to cherish moments of grace.
The spaces in which to stagger, fall down, be raised up again, to dance.
Time to be touched by the dark, light, dark, light.
To find the seed of faith in light coming again and again into the darkness, rising out of the invisible Source of Life.
Time in the desert to come to accept the rhythms of living, the comings and goings, the arisings and the fallings away.
Time and space on the desert journey for the breathing of life,
for coming to cherish all that arises out of the hidden mystery of Ayin.
To come to say Rav Lakh and Ma Tovu. Thank You, Source of Life. For so much, so much!

I recall when, at my fiftieth birthday party, someone asked me: “how do you want to spend your next fifty years?”  I had not prepared any speech and could only hear myself say: “I want to become simpler and simpler and simpler, until….”.
I could not finish the thought when I was fifty. Now, more than thirty five years later, I can say, “until I can stand with Moses and the others at Mt. Nebo and say
Rav Lakh. Rav Lakh. I will not enter the Land. And yet, so much, so much. Ma Tovu.

I ask myself: what are the davarim I want to release and what are those I want to pass on to my family, my friends, my god children, my students and even my dog?  Where do I want to place my mind, my soul?
And where my heart?  I ask the Source of Life: where do you want me to place my heart?  All the rest is rav lakh, is enough already!

It is a hard practice, this letting go of how I think it should be. This rav lakh, this breathing my way to the gratitude for the so-muchness I have. The rav lakh of “do not ask for more, you already have so much, enough already.” Back and forth until I stand longer and longer on the solid compassionate ground of my heart, on Mt Nebo, knowing I will not enter the promised place and yet, so much, so much.

I imagine that the Hebrews, even after having reached the River Jordan, still carried within them some of the old inner map of their Egypt, their enslavements and their wounds.  My old maps, my Egypt still enslaves me. As I look at my own life, as I look out toward where my generations stand at the river Jordan, I wonder:
does anyone of us ever stand at the threshold of a new land totally simplified of our old selves, our old stories?

Perhaps the best we can do is stand at the river and witness where we have come from, say to ourselves “rav lakh” and put our arms and hearts around one another as fellow journeyers. Here we are, standing at the river, without shame, knowing that our journey together forms an alchemical vessel devoted to turn our trials into our gold of hard earned rachamim.

This morning, the light out my window is changing. Summer is half gone. There is no holding back its ending. Impermanence is the law of the land. Moses tells his story, his davarim.  Soon he will go up the mountain and lament not entering the promised land. Then before he dies, he will find acceptance.  He will be at peace that he has journeyed and that he has left his people a good legacy to carry with them.

At the river Jordan, standing with Moses, after the long journey, there is nothing left but to birth kindness. Rav lakh.  In the fading morning light of summer, I ask myself: Judith, what do you want to leave of yourself, your davarim with those who will go ahead without you?

I want to leave my quiet gratitude for life. I want gratitude to breathe on the lines of my face.  I want to be made simple.  May I gestate gratitude, and the chesed of loving kindness, may I taste the great love, Ahavah Rabbah.  To feel in my heart and soul that there may be those, perhaps one or two, who will carry my davarim into the promised land fills me with more than I could ever dream of.

A note from Roberta: I'm so grateful to Judith for agreeing to share her writing on Torah at the Intersection. In her 89th circle around the sun, Judith is Co-director Center for Intentional Living, a writer, meditator, lover of Torah and the spiritual practice of the Jewish cycle of the year. She is the author of A Year in the Garden of Love and Loss. Join Judith and Torah at the Intersection in the upcoming four week series on Forgiveness as a Door to Liberation:  https://torahattheintersection.com/opening-forgiveness-preparing-ourselves-new-season-of-renewal/