וַיִּתְרֹֽצֲצוּ הַבָּנִים בְּקִרְבָּהּ וַתֹּאמֶר אִם־כֵּן לָמָּה זֶּה אָנֹכִי וַתֵּלֶךְ לִדְרשׁ אֶת־יְהוָֹֽה
The children pressed against each other inside her. She thought: “If this is so, why do I exist?” So she went to inquire of God.
Genesis 25:22
The twins, Jacob and Isaac, are struggling in Rebecca’s womb and she cries out to God, “Why? Why do I exist if this is life?” God replies to her that this struggle is necessary and will continue. It will not be fair or just or understandable. One nation will rule over the other, this is their karma.
Jacob and Esau, the two boys, come into the world with the karma and trauma of struggle in their bodies and very being. Jacob grasps his brother’s heel as they go through the birth canal together, perhaps crying in his heart to heal the separation. Later, Esau cries to their father Isaac, “Please, father, bless me too! Isn’t there space for both of us to be blessed?”
This is the question for our time, for all time. Isn’t there room for all of us to be blessed? Isn’t there a way to heal the trauma of violence and separation that we all have been born into and that gets passed on and re-lived through the narratives, cultures, and systems of domination?
I thought about this today as I stood in vigil in support of Black Lives Matter. I have stood with others in my town for more than 5 months at the base of one of Asheville’s monuments to the former slave-owning class.
I am a white-bodied person, holding a sign that says, post election, “Stay Involved Because Black and Brown Lives Matter.” Every now and then, a passing driver shouts at me, “All lives matter.”
I give them a thumbs up because I agree, all lives matter. I can embrace what I imagine is fear and confusion in the shouters when they interpret "black and brown lives matter" as meaning, you don’t matter.
And still, I hold my stand in support of Black Lives Matter because I don’t want to ignore the historical and present truth that we live in a system here that has prospered by devaluing and committing violence against black and brown lives.
How do we live our lives without choosing sides and still not ignoring what seems true about our own history and experiences? This is the nonduality of being, neither attached nor ignoring.
In a Zen Buddhist teaching story the teacher holds up a stick of bamboo to his student and asks, “What is this?” If you say it’s bamboo you’re attached. If you say it isn’t bamboo, you are ignoring.
Let us make space for everyone to be blessed, each according to the blessing they choose.
____________________________-
Toldot/Generations: Avraham’s Teshuvah
This is the story of Yitzchak, son of Avraham.
Avraham begot Yitzchak.
Genesis Toldot 25:19
Long after
Avraham begot Yitzchak
he haggled over land
to bury a wife
whose last moments
were a shofar blast of
three unbearable wails -
He could never
get it out of his body
or his mind even with
the busyness of
finding a wife
for a son who like God
would never come face to
face with him again.
Where does wisdom
and forgiveness live?
Everywhere and nowhere,
in Ur, Haran and the valleys
and roads of Canaan, in that
inner concealed geography
from which he was always
arriving and departing,
a wanderer till the end.
Elana Klugman
edit. 11-4-21
____________________
My Son the Man
Suddenly his shoulders get a lot wider,
the way Houdini would expand his body
while people were putting him in chains. It seems
no time since I would help him to put on his sleeper,
guide his calves into the gold interior,
zip him up and toss him up and
catch his weight. I cannot imagine him
no longer a child, and I know I must get ready,
get over my fear of men now my son
is going to be one. This was not
what I had in mind when he pressed up through me like a
sealed trunk through the ice of the Hudson,
snapped the padlock, unsnaked the chains,
and appeared in my arms. Now he looks at me
the way Houdini studied a box
to learn the way out, then smiled and let himself be manacled.
Sharon Olds, 1996
Thank you so much for your teachings, Roberta!
Wow, thank you, Judy, for a lifetime of incredible contribution towards a world we want to leave for the generations. https://judithkayeconsulting.com/judys-bio
Thank you, Roberta
I am loving your Torah at the intersection offerings, the many opportunities to pause and reflect on the way we see things and act on them in our lives. I appreciate your standing up for Black Lives Matter and for Brown Lives. Hearing the driver shout ALL Lives Matter got me wondering how important to all humans it must be to feel like they matter and belong. It seems that our systems regularly fail to meet that beautiful need/longing. We could add Native, Americans, Latinos, Asian, Sexual Identity Groups., Women, Seniors, Persons of Different Abilities…
Instead groups end up competing with each other for limited funds, limited access to resources and more which often create enemy images and a lack of empathy for each other’s needs for dignity, respect, safety, survival, thriving, equality, freedom and fill in the blank which blank ______________________, which we all need and yearn for and deserve in our relationships and in life.
Both Systems and Individuals would benefit more with a new way of thinking and acting, the knowing that there is an abundance of Blessing, Love, Funds, Kindness, Creativity, Wisdom, and Infinite Possibilities of Sharing Resources for turning around the divisiveness and greed, the fear of the other to Harmony, Inclusiveness, Mutual Respect and Interdependence.
An example of this new paradigm shift is seeing the deeper Beauty in all Creations and living in Harmony with all of Life.
The Navajo Prayer/Song Blessing the Way which I heard twice this past week in two of my Community Groups, one NW Native American Women’s Medicine Circle led by SiSwin Klae and in a Jewish Weekly Chanting Group led by Rabbi Shefa Gold beautiful expresses this new story that May we all tell, live and sing!
One translation Of this Navajo Prayer/Song:
I Walk in Beauty
Beauty in front of me, Beauty behind me,
Beauty Above me, Beauty below me,
Beauty all around me,
I walk in Beauty…..
In the house of long life, there I wander.
In the house of happiness, there I wander.
Beauty before me,
Beauty behind me,
Beauty above me ,
Beauty below me,
Beauty all around me,
In old age traveling, with it I wander.
On the beautiful trail I am, with it I wander.
In beauty, it is begun,
In beauty, it is finished.
Imagine what the World would be like when we choose “To walk in Harmony with all creation.”
Shabbat Shalom!
Sarah Joy
Dear Sarah Joy, thank you so much for this beautiful sharing. The spirituality of the Navajo as you share it, the teaching of seeing the deeper Beauty in all Creations and living in Harmony with all of Life, uplifts and is also sobering. Toledot means generations. Are we leaving a world where future generations will thrive in joy and beauty?