I have to admit I’ve avoided writing this for a long time. Not because I didn’t want to write about it and not because I don’t love the topic – as a long-time meditator, longer-time Jew, Jewish Meditation Center Board member and sit leader in my local community, I’m pretty involved. It’s just that when it comes to my own process as a Jew, and (eek) writing as a Jew? Let’s say I’m pretty ambivalent.

But I’m also a mom and a birth doula, and when I was asked to write about Jewish meditation and birth, too many of my identities were wrapped up too neatly for me to say no.

So, why the ambivalence?  I’d trace it back to my beginnings; as the eldest daughter of a first generation New York Jew and a converted Presbyterian from the Midwest, identity was always a bit fuzzy for me.  My mother’s mother is a lifelong church-goer and card-carrying member of the Daughters of the American Revolution; my father’s mother is a Modern Orthodox Holocaust survivor.  We took the Christmas tree down and up at least three times one winter when both sets of grandparents happened to be visiting at the same time.  It’s not an unusual story these days.

When Jewishness is both of you and not of you, claiming it, speaking for it, is a strange process.  I began a meditation practice as a teenager, but have never felt as at home in it as I do in Jewish meditation sits.  Yet, even today as I lead JMC-style sits in my home town of Beacon, I don’t have a particularly great response to the persistent question: “So, what makes this meditation Jewish?”  Sylvia Boorstein has the best answer I’ve heard yet; at a retreat I attended she said folks would ask her, “Why Jewish meditation?  Why not just meditate?  Why complicate it with Jewishness?”  Her answer:  “Because I am complicated with Jewishness.”

So, I am complicated with Jewishness.  Complicated  being the operative word.  Jewishness, it seems, has that affect on many of us.

And what does this all have to do with birth?  Nothing?  Everything?  These are not rhetorical questions.  Some more thoughts:

When you’re as obsessed with birth as a person needs to be to work with laboring women, birth metaphors are everywhere.  And in many ways, the process of pregnancy, labor, and delivery are the ultimate metaphor, combining so many of humanity’s deepest tropes – the endless patience, sacrifice, and waiting of gestation, the utter lack of control and surrender of it all, the deep adventure into the unknown, the vulnerability.  The endurance, strength, power, and struggle of labor and the breakthrough of delivery.  The profound transformation of the woman as she becomes a mother, as her body, heart, and mind are changed forever, and the profound transformation of nothingness into everythingness: a new human life.

Because the Jewish calendar operates with the moon, many of our most important holidays fall on the full moon.  Many pregnant women also go into labor on the full moon.  At 37 weeks, I felt what I thought were my first labor pains on the second night of Passover.  As I drove to our community seder, I called my doula to let her know.  “Maybe I’ll name my child Moses,” I thought, as I sat through the seder, pretending nothing was happening.  I sat with the story of the final plague – the slaying of the first born – in a different way that night, and I giggled as we talked about freedom from mitzrayim: the narrow passage.

As it turned out, my daughter – who is not named Moses – waited for the NEXT full moon, and after a short labor and a long two hours pushing through our own little mitzrayim, she was born on the 31^st day of the Omer: Tiferet in Hod.  The simple translation of that day would be the inner balance in beauty and multiplicity.  Sound familiar?

And what does that have to do with meditation?  Nothing?  Everything?

At the last meditation sit I led, a participant asked, “What’s the goal here?”  We talked about the goals each of us bring to our practice, and I closed by reminding us that some meditation teachers would be horrified by the idea of having a goal at all.  I’m all about goals for pretty much everything, but it is incredibly important to have the right kind of goal.  This is the same advice I give to clients who are preparing for birth.  Don’t set yourself up for disappointment with a goal you very well might not achieve, whether it be enlightenment, forgiving a difficult person, or an epic vaginal delivery where all you feel is love in your heart.  One of the greatest lessons birth has taught me is that we are not in control of anything but the lens we use to see the world.  And one of the greatest lessons meditation has taught me is how to know and use that lens. I’ve always liked the idea of Passover as a birthing story: we labored, the water parted, we passed through, and were born as a people.

May we use this Passover as an invitation to bring the lens of birth and rebirth to the journey from mitzrayim and find liberation.

Traditionally, Parsha Tzav (“command”) is read the Shabbat before Passover. Like much of Leviticus, Tzav, which comes from the sixth through eighth books, it can seem a bit arcane. It consists of the instructions for ritual sacrifice to be carried out by Aaron and the priestly class at the ancient Temple. But even rituals that we haven’t practiced for two thousand years can speak to our practice and the thoughts we observe every time we sit.

There are four sacrifices: the burnt offering, olah; the meal offering, mincha; the sin offering,  chattat; and the guilt offering, asham. The olah is the only one that is to be completely consumed by the fire, fat and all, and not eaten even by one of the high priests. The passage indicates that the fire burning the olah shall not be allowed to go out; the “kohen shall kindle wood upon it every morning, and upon it, he shall arrange the burnt offering and cause the fats of the peace offerings to go up in smoke upon it.”

What is so special about the olah? Why must all trace of it disappear? The Jerusalem Talmud points to a surprising answer: the olah is for “expiation for thoughts of the heart”. This is surprising because so much of Jewish law covers actions, and not thoughts; only the last of the Ten Commandments (Thou Shalt Not Covet), concerns one’s feelings, and even then, many have interpreted that commandment as proscribing the actions that flow from covetousness more than the desire itself.

So why do unhealthful thoughts require their own sacrifice, the only one from which humans can’t be nourished?  The Talmud suggests that controlling emotions and thoughts of sin is “kashe”—more difficult—than controlling sinful actions themselves (Yoma 29a).  Rashi added, “Sexual passion is more difficult to contain than the act itself; In accordance with the difficulty is the reward.”

As a meditator, I know this difficulty well: every time I sit, an endless stream of thoughts passes through my head; sometimes, the same handful of thoughts sticks around stubbornly.  Either way, I’m constantly reminded that there’s no such thing as an empty mind, and I can count on experiencing thoughts and desires I wish I didn’t have (of course, I’ll also experience pleasant and exciting thoughts as I sit). Gradually, I’m learning to adopt a more compassionate approach to those distractions: label the thought, make peace with it, and simply return to my breath and the experience of being.

The main benefit I’ve received from my meditation practice is in gradually becoming more compassionate with myself when I find myself distracted. I allow the distractions to come and go as they will, and I’ve internalized, at least a bit, that fighting them off—or trying to burn them to metaphorical ashes—is unrealistic and unnecessary. So I struggle with a parsha such as Tzav, and with its suggestion that our “impure” thoughts can be so easily eliminated. I’m not sure I would want my thoughts, even the most shameful ones, to disappear completely, if that was possible. Rather, through meditation I seek the self-control to make space for those thoughts without allowing them to consume me.

Perhaps there’s a lesson to be learned in the annual repetition of the olah sacrifice, or the annual reckoning with our transgressions on Yom Kippur: we exalt in the feeling of being cleansed, but predictably, we’ll be back next year to burn the animal fat or beat our chests during the Viddui.  What is the tradition telling us, then, about the effectiveness of such drastic measures and self-flagellation?

As we prepare to sit, let us consider how we grapple with our thoughts when they feel difficult, or even immoral.  Do we need to eliminate any space for the “bad” in order to keep ourselves whole and “good”? My kavannah, or intention, for this week is that when we experience thoughts that we’d rather not have, instead of trying to sweep them away, we explore what it feels like to simply make room for them.

This Shabbat, we begin the book of Leviticus, the center of the Torah. I love the idea that the first book, Genesis, is the story of beginnings and ends with enslavement in the narrow passages (mitzrayim, or Egypt). Next comes Exodus, the second book, the story of liberation. Exodus ends with the building of the mishkan, the holy traveling sanctuary, the dwelling space for divinity. We can understand the community’s elaborate process in creating the mishkan as an evolution of our connection with sacredness. Leviticus picks up here and gives a whole lot of rules about maintaining this connection… including sacrificing animals as worship.

Over time, our practices evolved and changed, and we now offer prayer instead of sacrifices. In fact, many of our prayer rituals are based on the rules of the burnt offerings. Parsha Vayikra, “and He called,” begins with G-d calling to Moses and going on and on about all of the rules associated with sacrificing animals, including different sacrifices to atone for different kinds of missteps. On first read, it’s difficult to see how these details could possibly be relevant to our lives… but that’s the beauty of Torah, right? When I started getting curious about this parsha, I learned something kind of exciting.

The Hebrew word for sacrifice is korban. The root of korban means “to draw near.” When I think of the idea of sacrifice, I think of giving something up, and there’s a tension in the giving up or giving away. Korban flips that connotation and offers the idea of an act that allows us to approach G-d or holiness or whatever you want to call the ineffable. When I re-read the parsha with this concept in mind, something changed—maybe it was me.

In Leviticus, the very center, the heart, all of Torah radiates out from this central idea of what we do to get closer. In my meditation practice, I start each day with an intention. I go through phases, and my intentions shift and evolve, but for many years, I’ve watched them circle around the same three desires: an open heart, to be of service, and to be kind. It seems to me that the only way to have an open heart is to open my heart. The only way to be of service is to serve, and the way to be kind is to practice kindness at every opportunity. These actions, whether internal or external, can be seen as offerings, and as korban, drawing nearer and nearer.

My kavanah, or intention, for this week is to see our seats as our altars and to offer our whole selves up as korban. Practice sitting and breathing and feeling pulled closer and closer to something larger than ourselves and also nearer and nearer to our own hearts.

This parsha deals with the detailed instructions G-d has established for the construction of the Tabernacle. G-d instructs Moses to gather the specific materials and intones, “They shall make a Sanctuary for me—so that I may dwell among them…Exactly as I show you, so shall you make it.”

The parsha is divided into three sections. The first outlines the materials and the measurements to construct the ark; the second describes the materials and measurements for the Tabernacle; and the third describes the materials and measurements for the altar and the enclosure of the Tabernacle.

Typically, the enclosure for a building is designed and erected first, and the interior items designed and installed last; this parsha reverses the standard order for design. As an architect named Bezalel, I find this order compelling to contemplate. (Bezalel is the chief artisan of the Tabernacle; he appears in Exodus 31:1and the name means “in the shadow of G-d”).

Another interesting aspect of the parsha is that it states that the Israelites “shall make a sanctuary so that I may dwell among them” rather than dwell in it—I take this to mean that G-d is dwelling within every person, not the Tabernacle itself, nor is G-d tied to a particular place. Therefore, G-d has set an example for us to create a sacred space and it is our responsibility to develop a personal set of instructions for the sacred space of our own lives, beginning from within.

Think of a time when you were truly at peace, when you were relaxed, refreshed and felt G-d dwelling within you. Building from that, what elements were most present that you can learn from to reinforce that space for yourself?

My kavannah for this week is to imagine how easy it might be to create a set of instructions and materials required for your inner sacred space. At times when we are feeling overwhelmed, overworked or underappreciated, we can remind ourselves how to put this ‘place’ together for ourselves. This contemplation could serve as a reminder that this sacred space is within reach and that each of us can be a “living tabernacle.”

As the moon arcs its cycle from new moon to full moon, we can notice our own cycles of darkness and light.  The moon has guided our ancestors in the planting, sowing and reaping of their crops and we can be inspired to observe and honor the same cycles which connect us to the natural ebb and flow of life energy.

During the period of a new moon, the sky is dark and we can meditate on emptiness and the fertile ground in which seeds take root; focus on new plans and write them down.  What seeds can you plant to begin the process of moving toward light?  We anticipate the coming of the full moon to see our seeds grow and blossom.  Full moons symbolize completion and fulfillment, the realization of the seed, and they are times of celebration.

The story of the Maccabee’s entering the destroyed Temple in Jerusalem and finding only one cruse of specially prepared olive oil, which would only burn for one day, was not long enough for the seven days required to make the weekly batch of purified oil.  Eager to rededicate (the word chanukah means “dedicate”) the Temple by lighting the menorah, they lighted the one cruse of oil and miraculously, the oil burnt for seven days, the necessary time to make more oil for keeping the menorah lighted.  We begin the holiday by lighting one candle and add an additional candle each night until we have eight candles glowing in the dark; this process is reminiscent of the cycles of the moon as it moves from new to full.  Each day of the holiday, strengthens us to have more light and clarity; similar to the ‘miracle’ of one cruse of oil lasting for seven days until a weeks worth of oil could be prepared,

Often, we believe that when confronted with darkness, we don’t have the resources to persevere through the darkness and reach light.  What darkness are we holding that prevents us from moving toward the light?  Write what you believe to be your obstacles to reaching the light you seek.  Just as the Maccabee’s were certain that the prepared oil would not last, begin to recognize that your ‘certainty’ that you may not have the resources to move through the ‘darkness’ toward the light may be your lack of faith in your abilities.  Similar to the moon moving from new to full, we can take the time of darkness to plant the seeds of commitment and change that we desire and know that as a new moon is followed by a full moon, we may discover that we do have the resources to move toward the light.

One of the beauties of light is that it unfolds to push the darkness away.  Through meditation we can cultivate our light to bring more to the world.  What light will you share with the world?

This week’s parsha, Chayei Sarah, begins with the death of Sarah, at age 127. Abraham, her husband, purchases a burial property for her, and later marries another woman, Keturah,  who bears him six more children. He also sends his most senior servant to his birth land to find a wife for his son Isaac, and most of the parsha details this servant’s journey and discovery of Isaac’s bride, Rebecca.

The servant travels to the city of Nachor and begins his search for a wife for Isaac among the women gathering water from the well. Feeling unsure of how he will recognize the right woman, he prays to G-d for help, saying, “If I say to a girl, ‘Tip over your jug and let me have a drink,’ and she  replies, ‘Drink, and I will also water your camels,’ she will be the one whom You have designated for Your servant Isaac.” The first woman he approaches is Rebecca; when she offers him and his camels a drink, he knows he has found Isaac’s bride.

In the servant’s journey and his prayer to G-d, I saw a reflection of something I often think about: when we’re searching for something – be it a romantic partner, a new job, a new house, a new community – we can put ourselves out there and look, but at the end of the day, there is a lot of luck involved in us finding what we’re seeking. Accepting this reality can often be a struggle for me, and at times I grow discouraged and think, If so much of life is random and out of my control, why bother trying? I risk shutting down and shutting myself off from new connections and new opportunities.

There was a second part of the parsha that seemed to offer some inspiration for this struggle: as the servant is bringing Rebecca to meet Isaac, the Torah reads that he “went out to meditate in the field toward evening. He raised his eyes, and  saw camels approaching.” With the camels came Rebecca, who he not only wed but loved. I love this image, of Isaac sitting still in a lush field as, unbeknownst to him, his bride and future love is riding toward him. In this picture I see what meditation does for me: it stills the fear inside of me – of being hurt and disappointed, of things being out of my control – and helps me live with the fact that much of life is uncertain, and see that sometimes uncertainty can lead to positive outcomes.

So my kavanah (or intention) for this week is the following: let our meditation practice help us open our eyes to whatever life is bringing our way, and let us recognize that sometimes those things might be just what we’ve been looking for.

Parsha Vayera describes perhaps one of the most renowned narratives in the Torah – the “Akedah,” the binding of Isaac by his father Abraham, as its conclusion. Vayera also contains many important and valuable stories – the birth of Isaac, the casting out of Hagar and Ishmael, Abraham attempting to convince G-d not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the saving of Lot and his family. While preparing this kavanah, I decided to focus on the Akedah.  I came across a poem by Rabbi Steven Pik-Nathan that spoke me, and I want to share some of its perspective on this story. Drawing from this poem, I was inspired to focus my kavanah on the journey that meditation provides and how my practice brings more joy to the world and myself.

Isaac’s name, in Hebrew, is a verb – he shall laugh, a cruel thought when I think that Isaac was to be sacrificed by his father, Abraham. While his name expresses action, Isaac chooses inaction and consents to his father sacrificing his life for G-d.

When Isaac acceded not to act, this was in fact, action, and he faced his own mortality. The poem linked above suggests that with this decision, he truly became a verb, realized that he must use his time on this earth to make a difference, and live fully without knowledge of how long his life in this world will last. Isaac learns that he must seek joy for himself and the world by doing good with his life and therefore. Because of this experience, he shall express the beauty of life with joy which he can express through laughter, his namesake.

Fundamentally, Isaac realized that life is tenuous and uncertain and he must begin his journey, on his own, without the guidance of his father and not knowing where it will lead him and how long it will be, to value each moment for what it is. I see this awakening as the paramount emphasis of the journey, not a destination. My practice of meditation is mindful of the journey, as I will never know where it will take me nor how it will end. This knowledge frees me to appreciate each step I take, because it is where I am meant to be. Each thought that appears is the place I am delivered to in that moment; one thought leads to another, the end of one is the beginning of another, and I need to simply observe the process. The opportunity to bind myself to G-d and others is present within each place I am delivered. This is the essence of the sacrifice of the journey of being alive: not knowing where I will be led nor when and how it will end, but simply, to savor the moment.

How does your contemplative practice allow you to appreciate the journey, devoid of a destination, to be one with this moment and each moment daily?

This week’s parsha (Torah chapter) is from the first book of the Torah, Genesis or Bereishit which is usually translated as, “In the Beginning.” It involves the famous story of Noah’s Ark. The story says that Noah was the only righteous man in a corrupted world. He is told by G-d to make an ark because there will be a flood that is going to destroy everything on earth except Noah and his family. Noah is then commanded to bring two members of each animal species (a male and female) into the ark.

After 365 days, a year of living on the ark, the water subsides and Noah is commanded to go onto dry land, G-d establishes a covenant with every living creature that there will never again be a flood to destroy the earth. A sign was sent to symbolize this covenant: “and it shall come to pass, when a cloud is brought over the earth…the rainbow shall be in the cloud.”

I’d like to take a moment to reflect on that idea, because there is a very special message here that resonated for me: the power of finding the beauty within the storm. Sometimes you may feel like the world as you know it is ending, or everything that you have been working towards is suddenly destroyed right before your eyes. For example, a career path or a personal relationship that you’ve been working towards suddenly crashes and burns. But instead of allowing that destruction to overcome you, the message here is to find the beauty within the storm. Meaning to use the storm as a real opportunity to check in with yourself and maybe find new direction.

I know for me, I often feel devastated when things don’t go my way. The example that comes up for me is when all of my efforts towards living and surfing in LA while studying to become an attorney were destroyed after I failed the California bar exam. However, after being devastated, I realized that it really wasn’t the direction I wanted to be going in, and I was free to pursue something else that I was passionate about like teaching yoga.

The Hebrew word for ark is tevah, also means “word.”  According to the Baal Shem Tov, G-d’s commandment to Noah to build and enter the ark can also be interpreted as “enter within the words of prayer and Torah study. Here you will find a sanctuary of wisdom, meaning and holiness amidst the raging floodwaters of life.”

Another rabbi describes the flood as a cleansing process where the waters spiritually cleanse the waste that tends to accumulate throughout our life’s endeavors. Here with the flood, the world received a spiritual cleansing or redirection. In all adversity there is both opportunity and positivity. It may not always be apparent – even when we look for it. But it is there.

Every moment is a doorway for entry; a chance to let go of things that are no longer serving us, to release stagnant energy, to stop and just breathe. When we find ourselves confused by feelings or overwhelmed by a “flood” of negative thoughts, perhaps we can shift our perspective and instead use the frustration or storminess as an opportunity to “enter our own ark” and let the turbulent waters of everyday life settle so that we can see with more clarity and feel calmer moving forward.

This is what the practice of meditation is all about for me – creating a sacred space to just feel whatever it is I am feeling without any judgment or criticism. Noticing what the quality of my breath is, not trying so hard to fight it or change it all the time but just observe the breath, listen to the flow of the breath – dive into that ocean that exists inside of us and practice being fully present in the moment. It is such a gift to give yourself the space to just be and breathe into whatever it is that you are feeling in the moment and know that it is okay.

This week, in honor of the story of Noah, take some time to explore what it might mean to you to “enter your ark.” What is standing in your way of creating that space for yourself? What do you need to make it happen?

Passover starts next week… Click below to get in the mood for the Passover holiday:

JMC’s 2011 Passover Haggadah Insert is here!
Download it, print it, and use it at your seder. Please share it with your friends and family!
Click here for instructions and download (and you can access last year’s insert, too)