Monday, July 28, 2008

Three Paragraphs

I wrote about preparing. And I wonder. Am I truly preparing or merely preparing to be preparing? Or worse yet, pretending to be preparing.

I have to ask, because I feel a certain approach avoidance pulling me further away from my goals rather than nearer, at least of late. I wonder if a very old friend of mine--fear of success--is riding with me on this mission.

Among the things I am preparing for in this Season of Preparing is the Davening Leadership Training Institute (DLTI) in which I am enrolled and will commence classes in a few weeks. There will be four one week sessions separated by six months. DLTI is separate and somehow connected to the Jewish Renewal smicha (ordination) program. I am taking it, at least in part, because I found such great joy in leading our congregation in worship at my B'nai Mitzvah and Sixtieth Birthday celebrations last year, to enhance the skills I employ leading the residents at Lytton Gardens Senior Communities in Shabbat prayer each month, and to prepare me to bring a different ruach (spirit) to services at my shul.

One text I am reading to prepare for the class is The Path of Blessing by Rabbi Marcia Prager. It is a beautiful conversation about the deepest meaning of the six words common to virtually every Jewish prayer--"Barukh Ata Adonay, Eloheynu Melekh Ha'Olam"--commonly translated as "Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe." I will not do Reb Marcia the injustice of attempting to paraphrase her work in a few sentences. Suffice it to say that she infuses each word and each letter of each word with meaning that allows one to transcend the limits of our common understanding of the phrase. She unlock the prayer in a way that provides an opening to a deeply spiritual experience .

Why else would I be tapping the keys at 3:34 a.m.?

I read a few pages of her book before I turned the light off for the night. As it sometimes happens I awoke in the middle of the night and lay there wondering about the big issues in my life. It may come as no surprise that in the middle of the night I find everything to be a big issue. This night/morning I was drawn back to a few of Reb Marcia's words as a possible explanation of the resistance I am feeling in my preparation for the Israel Ride.

In the context of opening the word melekh to a richer interpretation than merely "King" she expands its meaning to: "movement of divine creative power through its pathway to fill the receptive soul." The specific words I reflected on when I awoke are these:

... We must be willing to let go of our attachment to negative habits of mind and body, to purify our desires and clarify our intentions. So many of us live with minds and hearts clogged with resentments, old angers and fears. We cling to old habits of thinking and being until those habits begin to define who we are. Yet we fear that without them we would lose ourselves.

Aspects of this statement are familiar to me from several other sources going back to the self-improvement best seller of the sixties--Psycho-Cybernetics by Dr. Maxwell Maltz. He was a cosmetic surgeon who wondered why people still saw themselves the way they were before the physical transformation his surgery provided. It is very hard to develop a new self-image despite evidence of profound change. In my case, I lose a few pounds, even as I gain some muscle, going increasing distances on my bicycle and not only harbor negative thoughts about my ability to perform my stated goal, I find my exercise and dietary habits lapsing almost as if to prove my worst fears.

Perhaps Reb Marcia's words call out to me now because they address not only the mental and physical realm, but a critical spiritual aspect as well. She continues...

The irony is, of course, that only when we let go of what is old is there room to receive the new. We are born to be whole, to be free, to be loved and filled by the presence of God. When we give up the obsessive clutter, we make room to be filled by God. Then we rise out of our petty mochin d'katnut, our small-mindedness, and receive in fullness the mochin d'gadlut, expanded mind.

With heart, soul, and mind open and receptive, we surrender control and ask only to be filled with God. We let go of expectations and find profound insight. We release our judgments and are filled with radiant divine light. We relinquish our attachment to external goals and discover true purpose. We exchange self-satisfied cleverness for the beginnings of wisdom.


Whew! I could sit with those three paragraphs for a very long time. Just three paragraphs out of an entire chapter devoted to the word barukh! Such a huge task to capture the essence of six words--and what it would mean in terms of personal transformation, spiritual growth, mental and physical well being to grok those six words even once when I recite them!

I often talk of the journey I am taking searching for Yeshaya. What would it take for me to live my life at a level of what I like to call my Yeshaya-consciousness. I wonder if this season of preparing or the actual Israel ride will bring me closer. I wonder if DLTI will move me further along. And then I coach myself as I would a friend and suggest that all of these are external events, enriching as they may be, and that I already possess everything required to engage in Yeshaya-consciousness. And then the little Boo Birds on my shoulder say, "Or do I?"

Shoo, Boo Birds!
Barukh Ata Adonay, Eloheynu Melekh Ha'Olam....


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