I live my life in widening circles by Ranier Maria Rilke

translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy

I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I’ve been circling for thousands of years
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?

Tu B’Shvat is coming… get ready with some of our favorite links across the world wide internets:

From the JMC Blog Archives:

Shana Tova Trees! by Alison Laichter

From around the web:

Tu B’Shvat: A Beginner’s Guide
Judiasm 101 de-mystifies the “Jewish Arbor Day”

A Tu B’Shvat Haggadah
By Hazon.org

G-dcast does Tu B’Shvat!

Rebirthing the Tree/s of Life: Four Teachings for the Four Worlds of Tu B’Shvat
The Shalom Center offers a kabbalistic discourse on Tu B’Shvat

The Four Worlds of Tu B’Shvat
A freaking mindblowing chart that associates different kavanah with different foods and elements

Aish’s Tu B’Shvat Seder
With four cups of wine + meditation, your soul can’t afford not to do this.

Eating a Fruit on Tu B’Shvat
Why do we eat fruits on Tu B’Shvat? MyJewishLearning.com answers your questions.

Four Types of Tu B’Shvat
Ari Elon argues that there are not one, but four, Tu B’Shvats. Count ‘em! Four!

Reminisce with a photo album of last year’s JMC / Brooklyn Jews Tu B’Shvat Seder

Acquainted with the Night by Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right
I have been one acquainted with the night.

Surely You Remember by Dahlia Ravikovitch

translated by Chana Bloch and Ariel Bloch

After they all leave,
I remain alone with the poems,
some poems of mine, some of others,
I prefer poems that others have written.
I remain quiet, and slowly
the knot in my throat dissolves.
I remain.

Sometimes I wish everyone would go away.
Maybe it’s nice, after all, to write poems.
You sit in your room and the walls grow taller.
Colors deepen.
A blue kerchief becomes a deep well.

You wish everyone would go away.
You don’t know what’s the matter with you.
Perhaps you’ll think of something.
Then it all passes, and you are pure crystal.

After that, love.
Narcissus was so much in love with himself.
Only a fool doesn’t understand
he loved the river, too.

You sit alone.
Your heart aches, but
it won’t break.
The faded images wash away one by one.
Then the defects.
A sun sets at midnight. You remember
the dark flowers too.

You wish you were dead or alive or
somebody else.
Isn’t there a country you love? A word?
Surely you remember.

Only a fool lets the sun set when it likes.
It always drifts off too early
westward to the islands.

Sun and moon, winter and summer
will come to you,
infinite treasures.

This week’s parsha, or weekly Torah portion, Va’era, is the second parsha in Exodus, the book detailing the Israelites’ exodus from slavery under Pharaoh to freedom. “Va’era” means “I appeared” or “I let Myself be seen.”  God says “Va’era” to Moses, as in, “I let Myself be seen by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” and by this, God means something along the lines of: “I revealed Myself to them so they know I am the real deal.” God explains that the distress of the Israelites who are living in bondage under Pharaoh led God to remember the covenant God had made with the patriarchs to give their descendants the land of Canaan.  According to God, it is now also time for the Israelites to fully understand the limitlessness of God’s power.

God tells Moses, the recently-appointed leader of the Israelites (who has a speech impediment), that he and his brother Aaron, who has been speaking to the Israelites on Moses’s and therefore God’s behalf, should get ready for a hard fight with Pharaoh regarding the Israelites’ freedom.  God also decides to “harden Pharaoh’s heart” so that God will get to have several opportunities to show off divine strength and power.  God decides that if Pharaoh doesn’t relent, the best plan of action will be plagues that afflict the Egyptians and not the Israelites.  Of course, Pharaoh puts up a fight, and the plagues of the Passover story begin.  Then Pharaoh tells Moses that the Israelites can at the very least go on a brief journey to sacrifice to God, but quickly changes his mind.  More plagues to come next week.

So much happens in this parsha, and I felt overwhelmed as I read it.  But ultimately I found myself coming back to the age-old question of why not just select Aaron instead of Moses?  Why this game of telephone?  What could be the benefit of a leader with a speech impediment?

Thinking about this reminded me of completely losing my voice.  This would not have been such a problem except that I am a high school teacher, and 99% of my job, or so I thought, involves talking.  At school, all I could was whisper. I whispered my instructions to a student who would repeat them to the class.  “Please take out your homework,” translated to “Yo!  Homework out now or Ms. Cohen won’t be happy.”  I did my best to say as few words as possible, and this meant that I had to keep instructions clear and to the point.  Minor infractions had to be ignored or handled using the infamous teacher look. I had to pick my words, and battles, carefully, because someone else was going to repeat them and I didn’t want to be misinterpreted, and because I had a limited capacity for speech and needed to conserve energy.  Amazingly, my classes ran smoothly.

According to one commentator, Moses’ “slow tongue” was his strength. Because speaking was a challenge, he would mindfully select his words, and what Aaron was told to repeat to the Israelites would be the true essence of what God wanted conveyed.

What would it mean if we could only say one-fourth or one-fifth of the words we say daily? What would we decide was superfluous?  Would we become better listeners?  How often have I thought to myself, I wish I had not said that, right after speaking quickly and mindlessly?  In an era of fast-talking and multi-tasking, how would our interactions change if we said less and, in doing so, said more?

Though I was thrilled to get my voice back, I realized that losing it had been a kind of blessing.  If you had no choice but to cut out a chunk of your daily words, phrases, or communication, what would you select to let go of and why?  These could be words you say to yourself or to others.  On the other hand, which speech would you come to view as essential? My kavanah, or intention, for this week is to ask ourselves how mindful awareness of our speech can help us improve the quality of our lives and the lives of others.

Conversation by Dan Pagis

translated by Stephen Mitchell

Four talked about the pine tree. One defined it by genus, species, and variety. One assessed its disadvantages for the lumber industry. One quoted poems about pine trees in many languages. One took root, stretched out branches, and rustled.

This week’s parsha, Shemot (“Names”), might be a familiar one, as it’s the beginning not only of the book of Exodus but of the story we tell every year at Passover. A lot happens in this parsha; the Israelites are enslaved in Egypt by a fearful Pharaoh who orders all newborn Hebrew boys thrown into the Nile. One mother, defying these orders, instead sets her son adrift in a papyrus box on the river; he’s discovered and later raised by the Pharaoh’s own daughter. This boy, once grown, sees an Egyptian slavemaster kill an Israelite and, in anger, kills the slavemaster. He then flees to the land of Midian, where he marries, has a son, and becomes a shepherd. One day, while tending his flock, he comes upon a bush that burns without burning up, through which G-d speaks to him and instructs him to return to Egypt and bring the Israelites, G-d’s people, out of Egypt.

This man is Moses, who is one of the most revered figures in Jewish history. Since most of this parsha is about him, I assumed that’s who I’d base my kavanah (or intention) on. But the more I thought about it, the more I noticed how fascinated I was by a completely different person: the Pharaoh.

The Torah says, “[The Pharaoh] announced to his people, ‘The Israelites are becoming too numerous and strong for us. We must deal wisely with them. Otherwise, they may increase so much, that if there is war, they will join our enemies and fight against us, driving us from the land.’ ”

What leapt out at me when I read this passage was the line: We must deal wisely with them, because it strikes me that, if you want to instill loyalty in a group of people, turning them into slaves is perhaps not the wisest way to achieve that goal.

But the Pharaoh was afraid. Afraid there were too many Israelites, afraid they’d turn against him. He was so afraid he couldn’t see any future aside from the one he feared. And this fear led him to treat the Israelites harshly, to oppress and control them. But they continued to flourish nonetheless – and eventually the misery he inflicted caused them to call out for relief from G-d, who heeded their cries and sent Moses to free them. So the Pharaoh lost his control over them all the same.

And so I wondered, what if the Pharaoh had been less afraid? What if that absence of fear had allowed him to treat these people with kindness and compassion instead? Could it have been possible that, instead of giving them the power to overthrow him, as the Pharaoh feared, he would have instilled in them a sense of gratitude and, in turn, loyalty – thereby giving him what he’d been seeking in the first place?

For me, it’s much easier to envision negative outcomes to situations than positive ones, because fear and self-doubt can create such loud and convincing voices within me sometimes. But I know that meditation can help me quiet those voices, so that I can picture positive outcomes instead. And sometimes that makes all the difference in terms of the decisions I make and the ways I interact with others: I’m more open, kinder, and friendlier, and I believe that I can actually make my life more the way I want it to be.

So my kavanah is that we use our meditation practice to help drive out our own fears and self-doubt, so that we have more space for kindness and compassion, both for others and for ourselves.

Morning Coffee by Gyorgy Petri

translated by Clive Wilmer and George Gömöri

I like the cold rooms of autumn, sitting
early in the morning at an open window,
or on the roof, dressing-gown drawn close,
the valley and the morning coffee glowing—
this cooling, that warming.

Red and yellow multiply, but the green
wanes, and into the mud the leaves
fall—fall in heaps,
the devalued currency of summer:
so much of it! so worthless!

Gradually the sky’s
downy grey turns blue, the slight
chill dies down. The tide
of day comes rolling in—
in waves, gigantic, patient, barreling.

I can start to carry on. I give myself up
to an impersonal imperative.

Ripples on the Surface by Gary Snyder

“Ripples on the surface of water
were silver salmon passing under—different
from the sorts of ripples caused by breezes”

A scudding plume on the wave—
a humpback whale is
breaking out in air up
gulping herring
—Nature not a book, but a performance, a
high old culture.

Ever-fresh events
scraped out, rubbed out, and used, used, again—
the braided channels of the rivers
hidden under fields of grass—

The vast wild
the house, alone.
the little house in the wild,
the wild in the house.

both forgotten.

No nature.

Both together, one big empty house.

In this week’s Torah portion, Vayigash (“and he approached”), the dramatic story of Joseph comes to its conclusion when he reveals himself to his brothers after accusing Benjamin of stealing from him and demanding he stay as Joseph’s slave.

In this parsha, Joseph says to his ashamed brothers that while they intended to do evil to him, what happened ended up being for good since now he can help them persevere an impending fast that will ravage the land:  “G-d has sent me ahead of you to ensure that you survive…” (Genesis 45:7)

Despite all of the harm his brothers did to him, despite being taken to a foreign land and sold as a slave, despite being falsely accused and jailed, in the end, Joseph recognized that these tribulations brought him to a beneficial outcome. Therefore, he did not hold on to the pain of these experiences and was able to see the larger picture of life’s unfolding.

As we learn later in the Torah, this “success” of Joseph coming to power and bringing his family to Egypt eventually leads to the enslavement of the Jewish nation for hundreds of years. Following that enslavement, comes the Exile from Egypt and the receiving of the Torah, two major events that have defined our religious identities and history for thousands of years. Bad things can lead to good things that can lead to terrible things that can lead to great things… and on and on… . While we set goals and timelines for ourselves, life carries on throughout all of our plans.

So often, we can get stuck in those points in our life when things appear to be going wrong or when we experience great pain or disappointment. Occasionally, we can step back and take a wider perspective to see that even the challenges in our life may offer us growth or a much needed opportunity for change. When we can come to a place where we can both honor the hardships of our journey along with recognizing the possibilities hidden within its mysterious unfolding, we open our hearts and minds to all aspects of life and our selves.

For this week, my kavanah (intention) is to consider how your meditation practice can support holding open the space for all things to unfold, and to let each breath carry us forward through the ebb and flow of life’s journey.