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When thinking about the messages I wanted to share on the financial picture of the JMC, I was constantly drawn back to how well this conversation fits with the Jewish calendar. We are in the counting of the Omer, the liminal space between Passover and Shavuot. Our tradition for this time was an agrarian ritual – a 49-day countdown from the 2^nd day of Passover until the first barley crop was harvested. In today’s world, the traditions and teaching associated with counting the Omer are often focused on the theme of transformation. This includes both personal transformation through introspection, and yes, meditating, but also communal transformation and a focus on tikkun (rebalancing or repair) of the community which surrounds us. I think both of these approaches to understanding the Omer have resonance here for us at this moment. In particular I want to talk about three themes: preparing for harvest, counting every day, and transformation.

Harvest: You have heard the story of how the JMC came into being. I have been lucky to be involved from the very beginning. I remember when Alison was meditating in her apartment with her co-founder and shared with me their idea to build the grassroots Brooklyn-based community they were so desperately seeking. And I remember when they gathered a small group of us as a “board” in their living room on a fall day in 2009 to put our heads together on how this idea could become a reality. The seeds that were planted then are being harvested now. The idea became reality! You are the community they envisioned! The harvest of this seed gives us the opportunity to be thankful for the community we have created together. The JMC community sustains me as it sustains many of you, whether this is your primary connection to Jewish life or a complement to your Jewish spiritual practices. The next step is to make our “harvest” sustainable so we can all reap the rewards we get from this community going forward.

Every day counts: As we move through the Omer, another important message is that every day counts. We spend this time accounting, counting, and preparing for revelation on Shavuot. And that is so true of the JMC in this moment. I’ve told you that we are accounting for our financial picture and counting what we need to sustain the JMC Brooklyn. The board and Alison has been taking stock and reflecting on what we need to do to ensure stability not just for this fiscal year ending in June but beyond. Our immediate goal is to raise $5,000 by June 30 2012 to meet our budgetary needs. Every day from now until then counts and we need to make the most of it to reach our goal.

Transformation: To that point, the Omer is a fertile period for transformation, both personal and community. It has been said that “Passover is the time of liberation, and only on Shavuot are we given the tools to reach the destination.” As we share with you our vision for what sustainability could look like, take a moment to look at your relationship with the JMC. What can you do to help the community transform and build capacity to ensure sustainability? What are you going to do differently to take a stake in the future of the JMC? I’m not talking only about dollars and cents (although if you’d like to give a donation now, click here!) I’m also talking about your ideas, your input, how you plan to step up, and how you think about your commitments to the community.   We are on a journey to find the tools we need. Your ideas, your participation, and your contributions in this transformational moment are necessary in order to make it to our destination – a financially sustainable Brooklyn community.

The harvest is now. Today counts. I encourage you to use the remaining days of the Omer as a time to reflect on your role in this communal transformation and how you personally will strengthen the JMC community.

Make for me a holy place that I might dwell within you,
that I might dwell among you. 
shemot 25:8

Chanukah — A time to for us to remember ourselves as the Mishkan, the dwelling place of the Divine Presence. To remember that all of us are sacred vessels, formed and shaped as we are so our unique light can shine through into the world.

Over the course of the year our vessels become clogged, cracked, torn, and on Chanukah we dedicate ourselves to purifying, cleansing these vessels. The cleansing is not about searching for perfection.  It is about peering into the darkness and seeing what is. Lighting small lights that help us see our vulnerabilities, our fears, our strengths, our joys, our love, our beauty and our pain. Letting the light illuminate whatever is present with gentleness and compassion. The noticing of whatever is the work of purification. We remind ourselves our vessels are whole in their brokenness. And it is the cracks that allow the light to shine through.

We dedicate ourselves to this holy work not just for ourselves but for the sake of the world. We purify our vessels so we are better able to make our lives our offerings— so the work of our hands and the expressions of our hearts can bring forth blessing, healing and love.
Each night and day of Chanukah can offer its own practice. Ideally these practices are done as we sit with the lit candles.

Day 1.  Opening to the mystery. Beyond anything I can know or understand is the mystery of all being. At the heart of all is oneness. 
Sit in silence with the first light. Close your eyes and breath into the light, feel it within your body, reach it with your breath. As the mind wanders we bring our attention gently back to the sensation of light in our body. Nourished by each breath this light fills us and the world.
 
Day 2. Spirit coming into form. The One entering into the many.
Creation. Distinction. Relationship. 
Creating the spaciousness inside ourselves to hold contradiction and paradox with compassion. Sit and aligned with the breath offer the prayer: “I take refuge in the unfolding.”
 
Day 3. The (gesher) bridge that reaches across differences. The way to connection and relationship is  gemilut hasadim, acts of loving kindness. Blessing practice: Sit with the candles and pray for peace, love well being for yourself and 9 other people creating a minyan of blessing.

Day 4. The door of possibilities: Standing on the threshold—looking out, noticing the possibilities, noticing what is opening. Listening for the calls that beckon us forward. Sit with the image of an open door.  Notice what arises on the threshold. Notice the emotions, the thoughts, the images that pass through. Be with the open door.
 
Day 5. The breath, taking in and letting go. Constant change.
Being awake to the moment. Being awake to the movement. Opening to all that passes through, to all that changes from moment to moment.
Sit with the lights and notice your breath. Be present to the movement with each breath, the movement from moment to moment. Let the attention rest gently on each breath, notice the receiving and letting go. The 5th light calls us forward with discernment and patience. Take a breath and consider, what are wise and compassionate choices that I can make?  
 
Day 6. Rosh Hodesh: Connection. Joining. Alignment. Standing as a connective channel between heaven and earth. While the candles are lit do a silent standing meditation. Feet together-arms facing out by our sides. Feel our feet connected to the depths of the earth, our crown open to the heavens. Imagine the light coming through you.  Radiant, warm, glowing light coming through your crown down into your feet. Radiant, warm, glowing light coming up from your feet, filling your body. Light radiating out from your hands and breath into the world.
 
Day 7. Rosh Hodesh: Zeman. Time. The holiest moment is now.
Wonder with gentleness, compassion and curiosity: What do I do with my time? What do I give my hours, days and weeks to? How can I use my time for good? How can I use my time to bring forth well being and joy? Take some time for a practice that opens you to joy and beauty.

Day 8. Chanukah- Rededication: On the eighth night we gaze at the brilliance of the flames and ask ourselves how can I best be of service? What are my gifts, my blessings, my challenges, my passions? And how can I best offer myself for the benefit and well being of all? 

We practice listening, noticing with curiosity and wonder. Sit with the candles and feel yourself in all your glory—in your brokenness, fragility and absolute beauty. With gentleness and love keep bringing you attention back to the breath moving through and within the sacred vessel of your body. We close the sit by giving thanks.
 
Each of us is a dwelling for the sacred. We ask that we recognize the sacred in ourselves and each other and do our best to act from this place of knowing the holiness in ourselves and all creation.  

“Help me make my life a sanctuary in which God dwells with ease and from which my light shines forth for good and blessing for all beings.”

The views expressed by guestbloggers do not necessarily reflect the Jewish Meditation Center of Brooklyn’s positions, interests, strategies or opinions. But that’s what keeps it interesting.

keep it short and sweet (aim for 500 words)

I’m no big deal writer or anything, but listening to Norman Fischer and Charles Bernstein at last night’s “Radical Poetics and Judaism” event talking about how Judaism informs (or doesn’t) writing, I began to consider where religion touches my work. Is my writing Jewish just because I am? What if I never write about Judaism ever, is it still Jewish then? What’s the difference between being an American writer of Jewish origin and a Jewish-American writer? Norman and Charles were fascinating to listen to, but part of me recalled this feeling of being post-everything — that is to say, I don’t really like the idea of boxes, and I’d prefer not to be in any of them, thank you very much. Even though I liked the talk a lot, I wondered if the very idea is outmoded. If young people are actually creating a post-everything world, how does the question, “what makes culture Jewish?” apply? And how would I answer that question, as a person who is immersed in one type of Jewish culture almost by mistake (I live in Washington Heights, in a “religious building”) and as a person who practices almost exclusively through visiting the Jewish Meditation Center.

Neither of my parents have been in a temple in at least a decade, yet both certainly identify as Jewish. My dad worships at Katz’s Deli and my mom tells me that she prays — that when things are hard for her, she thinks about god. My dad doesn’t believe in god, but he does love the Marx brothers and world war two movies. Obviously, they’re divorced. Both of them were incredulous when I told them about my building, my street, my neighborhood. I pointed out the Shul, the Yeshiva, the Jewish Community Center. I pointed out the Jewish ambulance and the mezuzah on every door. I reminded them how hard it is to park on Shabbat and that if my dad was going to help me put the bed together, I’d have to buy screws on Friday — the hardware store around the corner is Jewish. This is insularity, of a sort, and it’s a sort of insularity to which I belong by accident. Across the airshaft, in my mirror image apartment, Yeshiva University boys share a couple of rooms and I watch them daven, tefillen and all. I watch them and wonder about what it must feel like to live Judaism like that every day. Is it stifling, reading scripture on the subway instead of novels? Is it inspiring? Is it like walking around with a secret wrapped up in leather binding?

Every day I am reminded that my post world does not actually exist yet, that there are actually boxes all around me, and that I put other people into boxes the same way everyone else does. Which brings me back to the question of how a cultural heritage I never knew much about touches my work. Somebody, and I can’t remember who it was, said last night that we are most Jewish when we are not around other Jews (and then immediately countered his own thought with the question of whether the opposite were true — perhaps we are actually most Jewish when we are only around other Jews?) and this has certainly been true for me. In New York, it can feel like everyone is Jewish, like you are just a drop of secular typicality in the bucket. But when you live in rural Vermont, you’re probably pretty much alone. And at the times when I’ve lived in the middle of nowhere, being Jewish suddenly became a real part of my identity, so much at times that I became active in congregations, something I’d never done as a child or when I’ve lived in a city.

Being present to recognize where I fit, or don’t, is so much at the heart of this exercise that I am reminded of something else that was discussed last night — that the process is the point, and that moving through each idea, each question, leaves us with more thoughts, different ones, and different ways of looking at the same thing. I love this idea, that I have the option to think about something without having to answer to it. And I think that the JMC is asking its members to do this. To be willing to sit with the person next to you, talk about your ideas, and form new ones, and question what seems immutable, and then change the world together, by finding similarity where we have been told it does not exist.

For many people who work in social change, myself included, it can be a struggle to balance the self confidence that can drive us to work for change in the world and to put forward big and bold ideas, with the danger of having achievement and ambition become ends in and of themselves. We act for the greater good, we hope—not solely for recognition. This struggle for balance can present an area for spiritual and personal growth. We seek lessons and wisdom for how to allow a healthy dose of ego to drive us, without it overtaking us.

We’re now in the period of the Omer, during which we count the 49 days from Passover to the holiday of Shavuot. In reflecting on this period, we can draw out some wisdom in response to these questions.

Passover, according to many traditions, is a time to let go of spiritual chametz (leavened products) as well as physical chametz.  We refrain from eating bread that is puffed up to remind ourselves of the values of modesty and humility.  We physically eliminate the bread of pride and arrogance from our diet for seven days, also attempting to purge these qualities from our minds and hearts.

But if chametz represents ego and arrogance, how do we explain its role in our Shabbat and Holiday celebrations, in the form of challah? More puzzling is its centrality in the Shavuot offering to God: In describing the Bikkurim (first fruits offering brought on Shavuot), the Torah specifically demands two loaves of “chametz” (Leviticus 23:17), emphasizing the use of leavened bread for this holy purpose.

How can we resolve these two conflicting understandings of chametz?

In its pure essence, chametz is not prideful.  It is the element of ego that drives our ambition, the self-confidence that leads us to act and transform ourselves and our communities. Without chametz, there is no motivation, no risk taking, and thus, no accomplishment.

Pesach reminds us of how self-confidence can become dangerous in the extreme. When chametz becomes all there is, ambition becomes bloated, expanding into arrogance, into accomplishment solely for the sake of accolades.  This is the prideful aspect that we strive to eliminate in our pre-Pesach soul searching and our distance from chametz during the holiday.

The Omer helps us refocus our ambition, bringing us back to the recognition of chametz as the driver that leads us to do great things for their own sake. Ultimately, the Omer is a period for self-reflection, for examining the motivation and kavanot, intentions, that underlie our desires and decisions.

This perspective helps explain why we count up during the Omer, from 1 to 49 days, as opposed to counting down. After attempting to scrape ourselves clean on Pesach from all chametz, we begin to bring back its positive attributes, taking care that each addition is genuinely motivated.

As we count each day of the Omer, we symbolically add to our ambition and our drive, slowly reinserting chametz into our lives, until the 49^th day, when, hopefully, we stand with purity of intention, ready to move forward in our holy work.

This year, my reflections on Pesach took me back to some learning I did last year, with Rabbi David Silber at the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education. A piece of his analysis of the biblical text inspired me to prepare a class on this topic last Shavuot; over the course of the past year, the themes and ideas have been particularly live for me as I transitioned to a new home, a new relationship, and new learning and growth in the mountains of North Carolina, far away from my usual spiritual contexts. I’ve been thinking a lot about what it is that inspires us to change our lives for the better, to pursue paths of spiritual growth, to work for our own personal redemption from challenging periods in our lives.

A close reading of the Exodus narrative generates insights into the psychology of redemption. Reading the text attentive to the particularities of language, we find that the redemptive process does not begin until three specific words appear: inui (suffering), avdut (servitude), and gerut (alienation). This language parallels that which God uses when foretelling the destiny that awaits Abraham’s descendents in Egypt (Genesis 15:13-14). Strikingly, the language of inui and avdut appears multiple times early in the first two chapters of Exodus; the language of gerut appears only once (Exodus 2:22). Yet it is the appearance of gerut that marks the turning point in the narrative: only at this moment does God hear the cries of the Israelites, recall the covenant with the patriarchs, and then reveal Godself to Moshe—finally setting the redemption in motion.

Thus the Torah sees gerut—alienation—as central to our experience in Egypt, and as a necessary precondition for leaving Egypt. The question is why? Why does God originally specify, in Genesis, that the people will experience gerut? And in Exodus, why do we need to see this term appear in the text before God steps in to begin the process of redemption? What role does gerut play?

To explain its necessity, Rabbi Silber suggests that while avdut and inui can be objectively identified by an outside observer, gerut is a subjective condition, requiring a degree of self-awareness. It is only when B’nai Yisrael become aware of their relationship to their environment, and feel alienated from it, that they are ready to change their reality; indeed, they cry out to God only after the language of gerut appears. Thus the mental discomfort of alienation signals a psychological readiness for change and redemption, for freedom from their oppressive condition of slavery.

What does this mean for our own lives? To my mind, this reading is a profound statement on those periods in our lives when we experience alienation and confinement. It means that these painful experiences signal a more highly evolved state of self-awareness and consciousness—one that is ready for change. In this way, our anxiety and uneasiness in our environment can be a catalyst for spiritual growth and personal redemption. Feeling alienated, we can look at our surroundings and ask the hard questions of what we need to do to change, where we need to go, what we need to aspire to in order to become redeemed. Then, if we are ready to respond to that experience of gerut, we cry out, taking the initial steps forward to partner with God in redemption, becoming agents in our own spiritual destinies.

May this Passover be one of personal, national and global awakening, where we use moments of pain to spur our steps forward in our own evolution, and towards a redeemed world.

It is the morning before Passover and I stand in the rain watching so much go up in smoke. The time for chametz is over and the time for matzah slowly approaches, I am somewhere in between. We are about to celebrate the Jewish festival of freedom, our springtime celebration of renewal and rebirth. We will commemorate the Israelites embarking on their exodus from Egypt towards their new life in the Promised Land. We will celebrate their release from bondage and their long walk to freedom. Most importantly we will re-enact the process that they went through of leaving Egypt behind and embracing the hopefulness and optimism of a future with endless possibilities.

In Judaism it is rare to find celebration without accompanying ritual acts or mitzvot. Through the mitzvot the Torah helps to inform us how to celebrate and more importantly what we are really celebrating. At the Seder we re-enact the story of the exodus to draw parallels from our ancestors’ experiences to our own lives. In the exodus narrative the Israelites could only leave Egypt when Pharaoh finally released them from bondage. As we recreate the process of redemption when approaching the Seder night we need to do the same.

On Passover all leaven (chametz) must be searched out very meticulously and then eradicated (usually burned). Even the things that we can’t find have to be nullified from our ownership.  It is not a mere physical act rather it is a mitzvah in its deepest sense. I equate our release from bondage as essentially the removal of the chametz from our possession.  Removal of chametz is intended to be a mental & emotional cleaning house, an elimination of the shell around our hearts and the doubts and hindrances in the recesses of our souls. The chametz is a physical representation of the psychological or emotional enslavement that we all have to one thing or another. Through the act of searching for and destroying it from our possession, we have an avenue to explore the possibilities of freedom.

Once we have been released from bondage we can participate in the joyous feast of the Seder where freedom is explored through physical acts that are meant to make us feel like a liberated people. We drink four cups of wine, each relating to a different stage in redemption. We recline during the meal; we dip foods, sing songs and most importantly eat matzah (bread devoid of chametz, essentially the bread of someone free from enslavement). It’s important to think about and meditate on the meaning of the mitzvot we do during the Seder. This should help us internalize how to be free from the things that enslave us.

I spent Sunday cleaning out my chametz. I know there are crumbs left behind that lie in the dark corners of my home and the deep recesses of my soul. You just can’t reach everything at once. Maybe I’ll find them next year or the year after that. But as I watch my chametz go up in smoke the peaceful rain reminds me of the stillness I find in my practice. And I think eventually I’ll clean those things out too.

It can be hard to realize what space each of us takes up. We live in finite spaces, grow accustomed to the shape of our clothes on our bodies, the way we fill a chair, how we sleep (with a cat curled into the side of my face, and one arm under the pillow, fingers clutching at the covers), and the way we move through familiar spaces day after day. This is my kitchen, this is my office, this is my city. There is not much mindfulness here, when you mutter at someone who knocks you on the shoulder by accident, trying to get by, when a wet umbrella that does not belong to you brushes against your thin tights. But then there are moments when our space catches up with us, and we feel especially big or small. In a tai chi workshop a few weeks ago, pushed into the center of a circle, I felt like I was moving wrongly and blushing furiously. In these moments, my space seems too small for me, or more than what I thought I possessed.

Even harder for me to realize is the way I take up space in a conversation. How my opinions fly from my mouth and before I know it, I’ve said something that might be construed as offensive, rude, wrong to have said. Or worse, I don’t realize it at all, and wonder afterward, sometimes much later, if I’d said something hurtful, if my own words, carelessly chosen in a conversation, are as dangerous as the ones I choose so painstakingly when I write. More than once, I’ve wanted to throw a hand over my mouth, hold it there. Speak through it, feel the muffled nothing vibrating against my hand. Realize that speaking is more than it feels like, more than it seemed a moment ago, before I said that.

When I’m talking, it’s easy to get flummoxed, to have to start over, to say, “you know what I mean?” When I don’t know at all what I mean anyway. Recently, I’ve forced myself to stop talking at these moments, simply to regroup, think my thoughts, and then speak. Contemplative speaking - maybe an unconscious result of my meditation practice, maybe its own meditation practice, maybe both. And yet, although it is not natural for me, when I take the time, the results are so gratifying. “Think before you speak,” but really, really think. It’s not easy, not at all, especially in a place where everything moves so fast. To slow myself down in the flesh, to realize the space I fill, is a demanding task, but seeing it through feels like that first moment in spring when you feel the warmth of the sun after a long absence.

Some time ago, I posted a review of Rodger Kamenetz’s The Jew in the Lotus on Amazon. The book, a favorite among Jewish meditators, is partly about a Jewish delegation’s visit to the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India. The delegation traveled there to share the strategies that Jews have used to survive as a people during our nearly 2000 years in exile.

After reading the book, I remember thinking that the most important lesson we should have shared with the Tibetans was about the very positive value of attachment.

Why is attachment something we should share? In my opinion, attachments are the keys to Jewish survival. For example, God promised Abraham that his descendants would inherit the land of Israel. If we had not been spiritually attached to the land as a result of God’s promise, we never would have had the desire to survive and return. This attachment, a great yearning, has had great value.

In Hebrew there are a few different words for attachment. Each expresses a different sense of what attachment means.

One is hit-dahb-koot, which means “to cause oneself to cling to” or “to cause oneself to adhere to.” It’s a deep and serious attachment, in love and in awe/fear. It’s rooted in the word d’veikoot (or d’veikoos), and implies a constant awareness and mindfulness that we are always in God’s presence.  Being there, our desire to do God’s will, which values compassion, justice and surrender, completely supersedes the self-centered desires of our own egos. With perfect d’veikoos we will not, even for a moment, lose our connection to God. This kind of attachment can be very positive.

Another word for attachment is hit-kash-root. It means “causing oneself to be connected to” or “causing oneself to be tied to.” Jewish mysticism teaches that each of us is a soul consisting of many parts. One part is attached to its root in the highest spiritual world, a spark of God’s “light.” It also attaches us to each other.  We want that attachment.

A third word for attachment is hit-khab-root, which could be translated as “drawing oneself into a very close relationship.” Its root means “friend” or “joined together.” It’s God’s relationship with the world that allows the infinite light of existence to enter, which is what allows for tikoon, repair. Without that relationship, the world would revert to chaos in an instant.

All three of these kinds of attachment can connect us to the everlasting, infinite One.

The same word d’veikoos is also used in the Torah for when two people get married.  It describes how they “cling to each other and become one flesh.” Jewish mystical teachings say that our entire reason for being is to elevate the physical via the spiritual, especially in our relationships. Instead of offering a celibate, monastic life to reach the pinnacle of spirit as some religions do, Judaism asserts that some of the highest levels of spirituality are found in the attached state of marriage.  The relationship between God and Israel is even likened to a marriage, and the giving of the Torah at Sinai, a wedding.

It’s clear that Judaism considers some kinds of attachment, including the very deeply attached relationship of marriage, to be very positive.

But not all attachments are positive. Some attachments are negative. Judaism’s Mussar movement is about cultivating mindfulness to become aware of and then change our bad habits and negative character traits.

What does attachment have to do with Jewish meditation? We usually think about meditation as a way to free ourselves from attachments; but, in Jewish meditation, attachment is a goal. Almost all of the classic Jewish meditation texts teach that meditation is about attaching ourselves to God. The practical forms of Jewish meditation foster that attachment. It may take the form of cultivating inner silence or compassion or equanimity. It may require us to work on mindfulness and self improvement, as in the Mussar approach. It may be in the form of prayer or visualizations. Or it may require social action.

Silence, compassion, equanimity, prayer, visualizations and social action are important, but according to traditional sources, we have to make sure that we don’t mistake (to use a Zen metaphor) the finger pointing at the moon for the moon, or the road for the destination. In the end, the reality is attachment to God.

keep it short and sweet (or bitter. but not too bitter.)

I believed that I was new to meditation when I attended the JMC beginner sit in January. I’d never concentrated on my breath, never sat with a group, never worked to quiet my mind. But the more I think about meditation, how easy it felt, how natural, the more I realize that I’m meditating every time I put words on a page. Writing – a meditation I practice most mindfully when I press the backspace key. When I write, I am thinking, at best, exclusively, about each word on the page. Letting background noises fall away from me, there is the clicking of my fingertips, the way the words appear on the screen, the way two phrases sound together, then with other sentences, the spaces I write in, and the ones that come when I have to allow my brain to catch up, to think.

Meditation feels to me like a catch-all word. I recognize and enjoy the specificity that it holds in a community of sitting, and I recognize and enjoy the vagueness that allows it to function as a word in our everyday reality: I am writing a meditation on meditation, right? How meta. In a city and a time where so much of my life requires movement, rushing, cutting myself off, I take enormous pleasure in the moments that I allow myself in front of the computer. This is the time I allow myself for slow and careful thought, for savoring my choice of words, for working through an issue, until it lifts like a knot from my back. This is one way that I understand mindfulness, to go deeply enough into a word to see how its letters inform it, how it fits in a sentence and how commanding the very sense of it can seem.

I prefer meditation, no capitals, because of the close asymmetry of the m and n. I like the peaks in the middle, which bring me back to the JMC, remembering: my breath! A peak, like a reminder, to move away from straying thoughts. Meditation, capital M, feels a little too forceful for its audience, doesn’t it? When we meditate, the verb, minus tion, we move away from the action, the process, the surroundings of meditate. We are alone with our breath, with our words on the page. Thinking through each word, allowing it to come, to become, to live and move through our bodies, our brains, our hands, and onto a palate that makes our purpose more clear to ourselves, and to those around us. This is why I write, why I sit, and the way that I work to understand the world and the people that surround me every day.

The views expressed by guestbloggers do not necessarily reflect the Jewish Meditation Center of Brooklyn’s positions, interests, strategies or opinions. But that’s what keeps it interesting.

New Year’s Eve has always been an overwhelming occasion for me. The emphasis, it seems, is on the exact moment of transition. We sit glued to the television, watching the ball drop in Times Square, counting 10, 9, 8… Those last few seconds are both eternal and all too short. Will the ball make it all the way down to the bottom this year? Will we pass across the threshold? Or will this be the year we get stuck? Will the world disappear at the stroke of midnight?

So much rests on that tiny moment, that instant when one year ends and another begins. Many spiritual traditions have practices like this, “rehearsal for death” practices, so to speak. In fact, I think that New Year’s Eve, as we practice it in the US, is very similar to Yom Kippur, to Ne’ilah specifically. There is the moment, the closing of the gates… we build up to it, we anticipate it, we fear it — and then ready or not, it passes. Sometimes I despise this type of practice. So much pressure! I hate the feeling of having only one chance, and then blowing it. In a way, this type of ritual is entirely counter to the practice of meditation. Meditation is all about flow, about moving through an infinity of moments and watching as things come and go. It’s not about placing expectations on one specific moment that has been designated as “the” important moment.

On the other hand, I think “rehearsal for death” practices are the very essence of meditation. Yes, it is easy to go into a frenzy of anticipation, and then regret, when focusing on one inevitable, irrevocable moment. However, this type of practice teaches us that none of that anxiety helps. No matter how hard we “try” to get the moment right, we can never hold onto it forever — it passes, no matter what we do. I always return to the title of Alan Lew’s (z”l) book about the Days of Awe: This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared. That is the nature of the present moment — it is impossible to be prepared for it, because it is always passing. To “prepare” is to look toward the future, or in other words, to fail to be present. Once this is understood, it becomes possible to enter into a kind of surrender. “Bring it on,” we say. “I’m here waiting, just as I am.”

That is the teaching of New Year’s Eve, I think, and of other “rehearsal for death” practices. They remind us, sometimes infuriatingly, that we can never be ready for the present moment. As the adage goes, “Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans.” If we don’t stop trying to get ready for the moment, and start living in the moment, we will miss all the moments we have. New Year’s Eve is about watching the seconds tick by, and remembering how precious every one of those seconds is — no matter how imperfect, how messy, how broken.

Also, I think New Year’s Eve is a reminder of the paradoxical nature of cycles. Meditation reminds us that nothing lasts. Every ending is a beginning, and every beginning, an ending. But for there to be cycles, there must be moments of transition, of impossible passage from a state to its opposite and vice versa. For me this year, the transition felt illogical. It was December, I was finishing up my year, I was feeling the weight of completion. (One year since college graduation. One year since moving to New York.) And yet, one infinitely brief moment passed, and suddenly I was in January, looking ahead at a fresh year, light and empty with promise. How could I be expected to go from end to beginning, from heavy to light in the space of an instant? Maybe the transition would have been easier had I attended or created a New Year’s ritual. However, I think that there is a lesson in that naked moment between opposites. Like the moment when an exhale turns into an inhale, there is a moment where opposites both exist simultaneously — or where nothing exists at all. Nothing but the present moment, shining, absolute.

The views expressed by guestbloggers do not necessarily reflect the Jewish Meditation Center of Brooklyn’s positions, interests, strategies or opinions. But that’s what keeps it interesting.