V’zot HaBerachah | Between the In-breath and the Out-breath

 

וְזֹאת הַבְּרָכָה אֲשֶׁר בֵּרַךְ מֹשֶׁה אִישׁ הָאֱלֹהִים אֶת־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לִפְנֵי מוֹתוֹ׃ 

And this is the blessing from Moses, Man of the Eternal 
Manifesting through all of Them, to the Israelites, as he faced dying.

Deuteronomy 33:1

 

Moses stands facing death in the fullness of physical vigor and soulfulness. He knows the exact time and place of his death and faces it with his superpower to lead, to bless, to speak his awakening into the fire of words. He has completed his journey in this form, a journey to find and fully embody his voice. These are his first words in this last portion of the Torah:

The Religion that Came From Fire

וַיֹּאמַר יְהֹוָה מִסִּינַי בָּא וְזָרַח מִשֵּׂעִיר לָמוֹ הוֹפִיעַ מֵהַר פָּארָן וְאָתָה מֵרִבְבֹת קֹדֶשׁ מִימִינוֹ אֵשׁ דָּת לָמוֹ׃ 

All-Knowing came from Sinai;
Shining upon them from Seir;
Appearing from Mount Paran,
Approaching from Ribeboth-kodesh,
The religion that came from Fire
From what is stronger than us

Deuteronomy 33:2

 

The Religion That Came From Fire, the Fire of Knowledge, is first revealed to Moses as a wandering shepherd at the burning bush. He sees a fire that speaks to him from a bush rather than consumes it. The voice from the fire awakens Moses to his destiny to lead people to freedom. This knowledge is a fire that burns and permeates, illuminates, yet doesn't destroy. It is all-inclusive so all-knowing. This fire of knowledge is so strong it pierces the shells of form that cover the inner lives and essences of who and what we are. It  illuminates the shadows. Yet does not consume form or  shadows. It is a fire of wisdom, embracing and offering all knowledge and understanding.

Moses' greatness evolves to his transmitting Torah as a fire of knowing that we can make our own. In Medieval France Rashi wrote in his commentary that Torah appeared before God as words written in fire. Moses hands this transmission to us with the responsibility of making it our own:

תּוֹרָה צִוָּה־לָנוּ מֹשֶׁה מוֹרָשָׁה קְהִלַּת יַעֲקֹב׃ 

When Moses charged us with the Teaching
As a betrothal of the community  of Jacob.

Deuteronomy 33:4

The book Sefat Emet, from Rabbi Aryeh Leib Alter of Gur (late 18th c.), a classic of the Hasidic tradition, explains:

 The light of Torah is interpreted and illuminated in accordance with the capacity of each generation.

The Torah passed on through Moses is a fire that burns in the hearts of every generation to understand the world we are living in now. Recognizing Torah as an ancestral inheritance supports healing our inherited ancestral, historic and cultural traumas. And at the same time, as the Sefat Emet points out, if we only see Torah as an inheritance, we risk fossilizing it , making it a false deadened idol, stuck in the past. Our encounter is deadened.

It is only as the person prepares themselves that the light of Torah is renewed for them.

This is what was revealed to Moses at the burning bush,The fire of awareness includes and embraces the world that we have inherited, the world as we know it. This fire of wisdom empowers us to call in all the exiled parts of ourselves and to move towards self acceptance. We now can move through the world encountering wisdom and each other from a place of wholeness.

This is what it means that Torah ends and then begins again after we have sat in the temporary and permanent shelters called sukkot. For seven days we stoked the fires of wisdom in the sukkah by calling in all the exiled parts of ourselves. We welcomed strangers as guests, our spiritual and blood ancestors, estranged parts of ourselves and the world. Inspired by the openness of the sukkot to the skies and elements, we called in and hosted all of the multitudes of nations, called the seventy nations in Torah.

The aliveness of Torah, the relevance of any spiritual path or religion is in the healing, grace and compassion it brings to the world of now.

As the poet Rumi wrote:

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

“The Guest House,” from SELECTED POEMS by Rumi, Translated by Coleman Barks (Penguin Classics, 2004).

The Blessing of Knowing and Accepting Yourself

Moses' final words are ha brachah, the blessings to the people. The series of blessings to each of the different tribes include limitations and superpowers. The Sefat Emet explains that Moses is passing on to the people his greatest power — the power of Torah itself to illuminate and enliven. "This is the power that Moses left to the entirety of God-Wrestlers, to all generations..."

Our power arises from self-awareness and self-acceptance. This is why the mixed blessings are indeed blessings. When we recognize ourselves with our shadows, we know ourselves more fully. We develop self knowledge and understanding.  From this the fullness of compassion can arise.

We fear self acceptance because we fear it means condoning or encouraging actions and aspects of ourselves that we aren't comfortable with.

This discomfort is our ally. The discomfort, like all feelings that arise in us, carry wisdom and important information. Discomfort about ourselves is telling us there are places we want to grow. There are regrets we want to express. The more we can accept ourselves, the more we can grow. It seems contradictory.

Does growth come from acknowledging and accepting the aspects of ourselves that we have exiled, either to protect ourselves or because we fear them? How can we acknowledge and accept those parts that break our vows to be different? These exiled parts of ourselves often carry feelings of anger, despair and hurt. We fear that embracing them will mean encouraging or condoning what we want to leave behind.

We fear that if we accept our feelings we will be breaking vows we have made. These might be vows to parent or teach differently from how we were parented or taught. These might be vows to uphold our ancestors' struggles. Or vows to never betray ourselves.

Moses is not blessing the tribes to encourage their weaknesses. He is blessing them with the empowerment of awareness. The journey of transformation starts with self awareness, proceeds through self acceptance and then to discernment. Discernment is the fire of knowledge that burns without consuming. We can learn to accept our full range of feelings and history without being consumed by them.

In the architecture of the world as we know it, humans are gifted with the huge responsibility of choice. This comes from the power of אשדת, the fire of knowledge. Whether you source this power in Torah, science, or other spiritual realms, through this power, we become active participants with and in the fire of the universe. It is incumbent upon us to heal and learn to act in ways that bring about greater health for us as individuals and for the collective.

When we really take in that each of us is a piece of the cosmos and that our healing is completely tied and integral to the healing of the global community, we are inspired to work on our own healing. We are no longer afraid that working on our own healing and our own ancestral healing will let others off the hook. Rather, we see that acting in ways that bring about more awareness and healing will contribute to greater peace and understanding and health in the world.

This is the blessing Moses leaves us with.

Gathered to Your Kin

וּמֻת בָּהָר אֲשֶׁר אַתָּה עֹלֶה שָׁמָּה וְהֵאָסֵף אֶל־עַמֶּיךָ כַּאֲשֶׁר־מֵת אַהֲרֹן אָחִיךָ בְּהֹר הָהָר וַיֵּאָסֶף אֶל־עַמָּיו׃ 

You shall die on the mountain that you are about to ascend, and shall be gathered to your kin, as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his kin;

Deuteronomy 32:50 (from Parshah Ha’azinu)

וַיָּמׇת שָׁם מֹשֶׁה עֶבֶד־יְהֹוָה בְּאֶרֶץ מוֹאָב עַל־פִּי יְהֹוָה׃

So Moses the servant of Eternally Present  died there, in the land of Moab, at the mouth of Eternally Present

Deuteronomy 34:5

וְלֹא־קָם נָבִיא עוֹד בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל כְּמֹשֶׁה אֲשֶׁר יְדָעוֹ יְהֹוָה פָּנִים אֶל־פָּנִים׃ 

Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses who knew Eternally Present face to face.

Deuteronomy 34:

Moses is gathered to his ancestors. He is, and was never, separated from his people. Not in death outside the Promised Land. Not as a baby, when his mother put him in a word on the Nile to save him. He is the teaching and embodiment of individual, ancestral and cultural resilience. Until the end, through his burial, he stood face to face with Eternal Wisdom, connected to his truth and purpose.

When we have healed trauma enough in our lifetimes to integrate our ancestors we become a channel for life flowing from one generation to the next. Trauma, frozen life in the individual or collective body, is a disconnection between past, present and future. When we heal, we feel more integrated and present in our own lives. We can envision the possibility of a peaceful, safe and healthy future.

Torah ends gathering Moses to his kin and to us. The Torah cycle ends on the eighth day of or after we have gathered to our kin and all the elements in the sukkah. The Svat Emet teaches:

 ...on the eighth day [after Sukkot, the day of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah], there shall be an assembly for you. Numbers 29:35.  “For you” because the gates of teshuvah are open to all.

The Shem MiShmuel explains that this month of Tishrei in the Hebrew calendar:

Marks the most intense opportunity for spiritual development of the Jewish year. Rosh HaShanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Shemini Atzeres are all within a few days of each other. It is only after all of these observances and experiences that we are at our most receptive to the divine blessing.

Torah ends with an exhale.

And begins again with the breath of Creating Presence hovering over the unformed.

With an inhale.

Then another exhale, breathing life into Human.

All Torah is Godding’s long breath…following the breath, from the inhale thru the nose, journeying through the body, circuitous journey….to the exhale…

It is said, all of Torah takes place in one full breath of Godding. With the next breath, we begin again.

Closing Practices

Each of us has a Torah portion that corresponds to our birth date in the Hebrew calendar. For example, my birth certificate from Brooklyn, New York, shows that I was born after sunset on September 14, 1952. Using this chart, my Hebrew birthday is 25 Elul. The Torah portion of the week of 25 Elul was Ha’azinu.

The fire of Ha'azinu, like the family and astrological constellations and other measurements and forms of energies of the time and place of my birth provide spiritual sustenance for me to work with.

Guided Meditation with Your Birth Parsha

Pick one verse in your birth parsha.
Sit quietly.
Visualize being in a sukkah of peace, feel the energy of relaxation all around you, holding you
Listen to the sounds around you, arising and falling
You are held in the same atmosphere as the sounds
Feel your breath arising and falling
Feel the flow of aliveness in your body
Know that you are connecting to the movement and aliveness, of life that wants to live in you
Feel your aliveness
Feel aliveness in you, beyond your own body
to your parents
Grandparents
tribes unknown
to the whole web of aliveness

Hear sounds without naming them
Just hearing
Breathe in smells without naming them
Just smelling
Feel sensations on the skin
Allow and feel any responses in the body to the sensations
As thoughts arise, feel their effects in the body

Keep your attention on how the body responds to any thoughts that arise
Keep returning to sensations in the body
Notice how the breath returns CO2 into the air
Notice how your breathing exchanges O2 for CO2
You are breathing, exchanging with the trees around you
receive the O2 from the trees
Notice again how your body responds to sounds, smells, sensations
Continue noticing
Continuing feeling the responsive sensations
Notice how your nervous system, in the making for millions of years,
responds to every stimulus

You may want to journal, paint, dance, write a poem or a song to bring what arises into form.

 

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The Journey
Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice —
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do —
determined to save
the only life you could save.

— Mary Oliver

 

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Guided Meditation

No coming
no going
no after no before
I hold you close to me
I release you to be so free
because I am in you
and your are in me

— Plum Village song/meditation