This week’s parsha, from the book of Exodus, is Yitro, or Jethro, so named for Moses’ father-in-law. In this reading, Jethro visits Moses in the desert near Mount Sinai, where he now lives with the Israelites. Upon arriving, he discovers that Moses spends all day surrounded by the Israelites, who come to him morning and night so that he can judge their problems. Says the Torah, “Moses tells Jethro, ‘Whenever they have a problem, they come to me. I judge between man and his neighbor, and I teach G-d’s decrees and laws.’ ”

Jethro responds, “ ‘What you are doing is not good. You are going to wear yourself out, along with this nation that is with you. Your responsibility is too great. You cannot do it all alone.’ ” And so he helps Moses appoint a system of judges who can deal with the Israelites’ lesser problems, freeing Moses to solve only the most difficult cases.

This parsha resonated with me since I’ve recently been thinking a lot about delegating — and how it’s so easy not to, for a variety of reasons. It’s easier just to do it myself, I think. I don’t want to hurt his feelings by pointing out what he did wrong, so I’ll just fix it myself. I can do this better than anyone else so there’s no point in asking for help.

At work, I’ve been on both ends of the delegation spectrum. I know I have a tendency to micromanage when I get stressed, thinking it’s faster or easier if I just do the task myself. I know it also gives me a false sense of control over a situation very much out of my control (and it’s usually this feeling of being out of control that makes me stressed in the first place). And sometimes I micromanage simply because I feel bad about asking someone to do something I think I should be doing myself.

When I catch myself taking over someone else’s work, I remember how I feel when someone does that to me — and also how I feel when they give me autonomy over my own tasks. I realize that when I feel someone is constantly looking over my shoulder, double-checking my work or telling me how to do it, I start to feel resentful and often make more mistakes. But when someone steps back and gives me responsibility over my own work, I rise to the occasion and usually do a better job.

So these days, when I’m stressed and catch myself micromanaging, I take a few deep breaths and remind myself that by asking someone to do something instead of doing it myself, I’m not slacking or burdening someone else. Instead, I’m giving them the gift of trust — that they too are smart and and capable of doing a good job.

So my kavanah, or intention, for this week is that we ask ourselves: Are there times when we could ask someone to do something for us but don’t, simply because we’re afraid to ask? What would it feel like if we did ask, both for ourselves and for the person we’re asking?

A few people who attended our Kickoff Party (Beer, Jews, and Enlightenment) have asked for a copy of the drinking meditation that we offered, so here it is. If it’s too early for you, you can practice with coffee or tea.

Let’s start by taking a few breaths and quieting and slowing ourselves down. Feel your inhalation start at your nostrils and guide your breath deep down into your belly. Feel your exhalation rise up from your belly and out through your nose. Let’s take a few breaths here and pay attention to the moment that each inhale transforms into an exhale.

Now, hold your drink mindfully in your hands. Feel the weight of the container in your hand. Feel the temperature of your drink on your skin. Feel the ground or seat beneath you. Physically, situate yourself. Now, go back to your breath. Again, pay attention to your in-breath and out-breath.

Notice your glass in your hand. Really look at it. Pay attention to what colors you see, the initial color that strikes you and also the more subtle colors that will present themselves as you pay attention. Smell the drink. Identify what smells you notice, again, what comes up right away, andwhat is more subtle right behind those. Look at the glass in your hand, look deeply at what your hand looks like, holding the drink. Look, in your mind’s eye, at what and who brought you and your drink together to this moment- the bartender, the farmer, the sun and sky, your life.

Feel gratitude for all of that. Baruch atah adonay eloheynu melekh ha’olam shehakol nih’yeh bidvaro: a fountain of blessings are you the eternal breath of life beyond and within, divinity in our world, through whose word everything exists.

Breathe in and breathe out.

Gently bring your drink to your lips. Don’t drink yet, though. Feel the sensation of the moment right before you drink. Savor that moment of expectation and desire. Fully feel it. Now allow yourself to take a sip. Slowly. Taste your drink in a way that you haven’t before. With full attention and mindfulness, take a drink. Is that not the most delicious drink you’ve ever had? Feel the liquid in your mouth, on your tongue, feel it go down your throat. Take another slow drink, and fully feel the experience.

Now go back to your breath. Again, breathe deeply, paying attention. Breathing in, focusing on your experience of drinking. Breathing out, releasing any regrets of what has come before this moment. Breathing in, relaxing with your drink, and breathing out, letting go of any anxiety of what’s to come. Breathing in, and breathing out.

What does it mean to love or find love as part of your spiritual path? I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, mostly about my extreme aversion to approaching love in any sort of rational way. What makes sense to me is that if you live your life in a contemplative way, if you have a spiritual practice, your faith and trust in yourself and your world expands and includes love. I was thinking the other day about how I feel some sort of new freedom to be honest with myself and others, to not be so hung up on how I’m received, and to trust that everything will work out- that it is working out perfectly, and I don’t need to worry so much. Or, at all. That feeling was all about my career, money, etc, and decidedly not about finding someone to partner with, but now I’m seeing it in this place, too.

I’m finding that when you truly sit with yourself and you train yourself to love (let’s call it metta or g’milut chasidim or just plain love), self-love happens and it’s sort of hard to contain, to keep all to yourself. This process of really opening your heart, being receptive to and generous with love, is a leap of faith. Feeling like God (however you want to define or not define the concept) has your back, that it’s all going to be okay- that makes sense to me. Applying logic to love makes me short-circuit, and it’s just not the kind of life I want to live. Honestly, I know I’m treading some sort of hippie line here. And part of me can’t even believe I’m writing (or feeling this), but I think it’s true.

Meditation seems like good training wheels for unconditionally loving. To love someone means to see, respect and accept all of them fully, their faults and their amazingness, their potential and their past, and most importantly their present reality- and to love all of it. A meditation practice teaches you to do this with yourself- what a great experiment! Here you have this subject that you can observe from the inside-out, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Learning to be gentle with yourself, to hear all of the negativity and judgments and hatred that we all have somewhere inside and to softly move it forward, past fear and into understanding, this is the great human experience.

It’s been an important part of my meditation practice- to deeply listen to myself, to feel compassion, and to believe that I am capable and have the capacity to grow and learn and change. Because of that, I also believe that others are capable of the same thing. And, here’s where faith comes crashing in- cultivating an open heart is difficult, I feel vulnerable, I feel sort of forced to be brave, but on the other side of that, I also feel less afraid of all of those maybe ridiculous worst-case scenarios that pop up in single-life (“I’ll never find anyone,” “I might be alone forever,” etc). I don’t want to minimize these fears. They’re real, but they don’t have to move in and set up shop. Just like in meditation, it’s possible to have these fears but not attach to them, to let them come up and let them fall away. I’m learning to have faith that love sort of works like my breath, and I’m working on noticing those subtle moments when an inhale becomes an exhale and paying attention to the way it feels when my breath leaves my body completely and then comes back without me running after it.

You don’t need to leave your room.

Remain sitting at your table and listen.

Don’t even listen, simply wait.

Don’t even wait.

Be quite still and solitary.

The world will freely offer itself to you.

To be unmasked, it has no choice.

It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

–Franz Kafka