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 Torah portion, Tazria, explains that during specific periods in a person’s life,
she or he must spend time in physical seclusion, truly alone, in order to return physically and
spiritually to a balanced state of being; once a person returns to this place of balance, she is
then ready to return to the welcoming arms of the community. Tazria begins with a discussion
of the seclusion and purification period that women were required to go through after giving
birth. Yet the majority of the portion discusses the mandated period of isolation that had to be
undertaken by a person stricken with tzara’at, a disease usually translated as leprosy. People
who developed physical symptoms associated with this disease, such as patches of white hair and
scaly discolored skin, had to report to the Priest, Aaron, or to one of his sons, and if the diagnosis
of tzara’at was confirmed, the prescribed treatment was immediate isolation. Yet interestingly,
according to many commentators, tzara’at was not leprosy at all, but actually a kind of spiritual
disorder or confusion, and one of the ways in which this spiritual disordering manifested was as
physical symptoms.

When I first started reading Tazria, I initially felt disappointed- what did leprosy have to do
with my life in 2011 and the lives of the people I know? But the commentaries, in describing
tzara’at in spiritual terms, provided me with an entry point, a way to connect. Commentary after
commentary discussed spiritual affliction and the ways in which seclusion, silence, time alone,
can and do provide an essential part of the answer to healing oneself and one’s soul. I started
to think, what helps me when I feel confused, conflicted, in a state of imbalance? In our day-to-
day lives, we speak and interact constantly, and often, in auto-pilot mode, I immediately turn to
friends and family when I am in need of support. But then, at some point, I realize that it is time
once again to turn to myself for answers, or at least for more specific questions. Basically, it is
time to sit again, to do the inner work that only I can do for myself.

And why do I do it? When something is not quite right internally and I am not tending to
myself, I find that my interactions are often not quite right as well. Maybe this is why the Torah
mandated such periods of seclusion. A state of spiritual confusion that goes undiagnosed and
untended often harms more than just the afflicted person; members of the community may suffer
as well, a kind of spiritual second-hand smoke. So I attempt to return to my breath and see what
arises, because sitting here is about much more than I initially understood: it is about offering up
my own attempts at inner healing in an effort to bring more balance to my interactions and to the
lives with which my own life is intertwined.

Those afflicted with tzara’at were required to seclude themselves in order to heal themselves,
but those who meditate are, admirably, choosing to do so through meditation. When you are
about to meditate or during a meditation session, you might consider why have you chosen the
silence and internal seclusion of meditation at and in that moment. How does the seclusion heal
you or re-balance you?

The parsha deals with the offerings and sacrifices that G-d has deemed necessary for Aaron and his sons to become holy and prove their worth as priests to the Israelites.

Moses receives and delivers the message of G-d, an intermediary.  When Moses was born and cast into the Nile, he was retrieved by Pharaoh’s daughter and presented to Pharaoh.  He was given a test to see if he was of royal blood; two trays were placed before him, one with hot coals and another with gleaming jewels.  The test was to observe which objects Moses reached for; he began to move his hand to the jewels  – a sign of royal blood -and an angel thwarted his reach by pushing his hand to the hot coals.  Upon touching the hot coals, he burnt his hand and immediately placed his hot hand in his mouth thus causing his palate to be burnt and therefore disfiguring him and causing him difficulty in speaking clearly.

Aaron, Moses’s brother, became an eloquent speaker and assisted Moses in communicating verbally.  This situation, the division of thought and speech, begs the question of how thought and speech are so fundamentally interrelated.  Aaron Copeland, the great C20 composer, wrote an opera in three acts, Moses und Aaron, interestingly enough, the opera has only two acts and it has been a source of speculation whether Copeland intended the last act to be silent or he never completed the full opera.

Today, I read an obituary in The New York Times for Moacyr Scliar, the Brazilian writer who wrote of his identity as a Jew living in the Diaspora and found this quote appropriate: “I owe to my Jewish origins, the permanent feeling of wonderment that is inherent to the immigrant and the cruel, bitter and sad humor that through the centuries has served to protect the Jews against despair, it is the level of language, however, that these impulses are able to produce their effects.  It is in language that I have faith, as a vehicle for aesthetic expression and also – and above all else – as an insturment for changing the world in which we live.”

Prayer and meditation are similar practices in that they both offer us a connection to the divine, but they differ significantly.  I see prayer as using language to express our innermost thoughts and feelings to a higher power.  Sometimes, we plumb the depths within ourselves and allow whatever comes to the surface to flow out in our prayer; we often pray to words that were written by someone else but express what we want to say.  To me, prayer is reaching out to the universe with questions, gratitude and praise and often, pleas for help.

Meditation has a silent quality that honors the art of receptivity.  When I meditate, I cease movement and allow the activity of my mind and hearts to go on without control. Eventually, in meditation, we fall into a deep stillness that underlies all the noise and fray of our daily existence and it becomes possible for us to hear the universe as it speaks for itself, responds to our questions or allows us to sit with us silently.

Both prayer and meditation are indispensable tools for navigating our relationship with the universe and ourselves; they are natural complements to one another.  One makes way for the other just as the crest of a wave gives way to its hollow.  When we do only one, we may find that we are out of balance and we might benefit from exploring the missing form of communication.

There are times when we need to reach out and express ourselves, fully exorcising our inner thoughts and times when we are empty, ready to rest in quiet receiving.  When we allow ourselves to do both, we begin to have a true conversation with the universe.

This weeks Torah portion, Beshalach, conveys some wonderful insights into the contemplative practices that we have been exploring together at the JMC.

The story opens as the Israelites have embarked on the exodus from Egypt following a long and painful process of liberation. The text tells us that Pharaoh expressed regret for allowing the nation to flee and spearheaded a military effort to re-enslave the nation. As Israel is encamped along the sea of reeds they turn their gaze and behold the Egyptian armies chasing after them. The people go into a panic, they are afraid and many start crying out to God for assistance. Some even begin to accuse Moses of wrongdoing: “Are there not graves in Egypt that you had to bring us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by taking us out from the land of Egypt.” Reinforcing their earlier argument when Moses first came to speak on Israel’s behalf they said, “this is exactly what we told you in the beginning. It would better for us to work in Egypt than to die in the desert!”

Moses answered the people: “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance God will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today, you will never see again. God will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

Moses basically tells the people, “you’re all over the place! You’re afraid, you’re crying, you’re praying, you’re accusing, and you’re complaining. How can you forget all that has happened until this point? We have been enslaved for over 200 years. We have almost completely lost our identity in that place, and you want to go back!?  Right now we are here, and we are about to embark on a life-altering journey. Stand firm. Be aware of the change that is taking place. These Egyptians that you see before you – you won’t see them ever again, that part of your life is over.“

The Israelites are standing on a precipice, they are blinded by their inability to be aware of the events that have been unfolding before their eyes. The Torah says that they turned their gaze and saw the Egyptian armies approaching. With the turning of their gaze, it’s as if they had allowed themselves to be distracted from the true reality of the transformative experience at hand.

Moses had to remind them to be still.

Through the stillness of contemplation and meditation we can allow ourselves to be present with the events of our lives. It ensures that we can be there for the unfolding of our journey. In moments that we may feel lost or confused, we can envision a path that opens for us amidst the mighty waters of our lives. However, our practice has to be about more than our own personal journeys.

The sea was opened for Israel in order to bring them to Sinai- to bring them into a covenantal relationship with the Divine and to bring awareness to humanity of our responsibility to the universe. We will not see these Egyptians again. We will no longer allow the existence of a world that can have enslavement in it. After our experience of injustice in Egypt, we cannot afford to let that happen again. It is through being still that we can learn to be present in all of our relationships. This is the way to heal our world through acts of goodness and loving-kindness.

In response to the events in Tucson last week, President Obama conveyed these beautiful words that reflect the ideas of contemplation and gaining perspective on the unfolding of our lives:

“We are reminded that in the fleeting time we have on this earth what matters is not wealth, or status, or power or fame, but how well we have loved, and what small part we have played in making the lives of other people better.”

Let us never turn our gaze away from the task at hand, and may our community create a space that will be for the betterment of the lives of others throughout the world.

Shabbat Shalom.

Here we are in the Days of Awe, between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. The books of life and death are open. This is the time, we’re told, that the gates to heaven are open. Teshuvah (returning/realigning/repenting) is most possible now. It’s a good time to meditate, I think. We can watch our own shifts and resistances and desires. We can take some time to reflect on what we love and what’s difficult for us, to see where we are in our worlds. 

I’ve been thinking about how we read the story of Jonah on Yom Kippur. In reading a lot of interpretations and drashes on Jonah, I keep coming back to one thought: Jonah is super unlikeable. And, Jonah is just like us.

In the story, Jonah’s prophesy is unwanted and resisted. God tells Jonah to go to Ninevah (probably to tell them to repent), and Jonah says no. He’s not interested in being a prophet. He doesn’t want people to think he’s crazy, and also, he’s scared. Of all outcomes. So he purposefully goes in the wrong direction: he goes west when God tells him to go east. When there’s a storm, sent by God, to sink the ship he’s tried to escape on, he goes to sleep in the ship’s hold [Can't we all relate to that? We're in the midst of a storm in our lives and all we want to do is crawl under the covers.], then asks to be tossed off the ship and is swallowed by the fish.

After praying and getting released from the fish, Jonah reluctantly goes to Ninevah, tells the people to repent… and they do! They totally listen and the city is saved by God, and Jonah is not happy. There’s more, but it’s the same thing. Then it ends. It’s a mysterious story. There’s no real change in Jonah’s unlikeability. He doesn’t seem to have redeemable qualities, just familiar ones.

Aviva Zornberg’s theory about Jonah resonated with me. She asks what exactly Jonah is resisting, and finds that he’s completely uncomfortable sitting between life and death. Jonah can’t acknowledge that no one has any security, that life is uncertain. Zornberg says that it’s unbearable for Jonah to recognize that we’re not firmly in life or death; we’re somewhere in between. She says that Jonah is “deeply allergic” to standing in uncertainty, and it’s actually an unbearable position for any human being. Except that this is exactly what life is, standing before God, in between life and death, always.

In the story, we find that Jonah would rather die, and asks for it, than stay in this in-between, of life. When Ninevah is saved, after he fulfills his prophecy, he is disturbed because this is also uncertain. His perspective might be that God is showing that nothing is for sure. Jonah thought the people would ignore his prophesy and be punished, but instead they all repented and saved their lives. This doesn’t make any sense. It’s frustrating. In a logical world, where Jonah, and probably all of us, would feel more comfortable and safe, evil people would be punished, good people rewarded. But this is not the world.  

This sounds a lot like the kabbalistic concept that the world is broken, and the path is messy.

On Yom Kippur we pray the al chet- the prayer with all the sins, it’s usually translated as sin, but it really means missing the target. So teshuvah is returning to the target, returning to the path. It’s also what we’re doing in meditation. We have a target in mind: focusing on the breath, a prayer, sitting in awareness, awaking our hearts and minds to compassion and kindness. And then we misstep, we miss the target and we return again and again and again. We distract ourselves often because we, like Jonah, feel completely uncomfortable with our human-ness, with standing before God, sitting between life and death, and when we run away from that reality, we misstep. We make mistakes, and we hurt ourselves and others.

We can use our meditation practice, especially in this time of the Days of Awe, as an invitation to sit in that in-between. We can recognize our uncertainty and be gentle with it. Here’s an opportunity to not approach this intellectually and not think about it, but to feel what it’s like to return, to practice teshuvah, to allow our practice of returning be a reminder of what it feels like to sit in uncertainty, to feel what Jonah felt, but not to run away.

Somehow Jonah’s story is a little bit inspiring in that “what not to do” way. We learn that resisting and running away may lead to our worse case scenario, and sitting with the way things are often changes our perspectives and strengthens our capacity to practice teshuvah, returning and realigning with our true and best selves.

May we all have meaningful and sweet new years.

A few weeks ago, I was at the Garrison Institute for the Awakened Heart Project and Institute for Jewish Spirituality Jewish Mindfulness Teacher Training Program’s first retreat. After a week of teachings, practice, and silence, we were going to have a “talking breakfast.” We were told that another group was beginning a conference at the retreat center, not a meditation retreat, and we would all be in the dining hall together. It made sense that we would break our silence beforehand and not require the other group to have a silent breakfast.

I should tell you that during this retreat, one of the themes that kept popping up for me was integration. And, more specifically, how am I integrating all aspects of my life. Now, through Joshua Venture Group, I will be supported in directing the JMC, but I also will continue to work part-part-time as an urban planner. This career juxtaposition was on my mind, because I love my urban planning job, I want to finish my projects, and leading the JMC (and being supported financially to do so) is a total dream come true. How to do both and not burn out?

Back to breakfast. We all entered the dining hall. The other group was already there, talking, loudly. After a silent retreat, I always have a little bit of a hard time adjusting to not being in silence. My energy level spikes, and I feel kind of shaky. It’s a hard transition. Anyways, that happens. I take a few seconds to just notice it, and then a friend starts talking to me. I notice over his shoulder someone from the other group, sitting, eating breakfast. I recognize this person. I try not to ignore my friend, but I quickly realize that sitting before me is one of my urban planning heroes. I quoted him extensively in my Masters Thesis, cited his work constantly, and loved his recent book. Van Jones. Totally out of context. He was at the Garrison Institute for a conference on the “Green Economy.”

I looked back at my friend, and told him the situation. “Go talk to him!” And so I did. I walked over, interrupted his oatmeal, and said “Hi. You’re Van Jones!” He looked up and nodded. Said hello, politely, cautiously. “I’m Alison. I’m actually here for the meditation retreat, but I’m also an urban planner.” Now he smiled, got up, shook my hand. “I wanted to come over and say hello, because I’ve been so inspired by your work. Thank you.” He hugged me, we talked, and he said “Thank you. Thank you for going on meditation retreats. Thank you for taking care of your spiritual self so that you can do good work in the world.”

This seems to be the lesson I come back to over and over again. To me, it doesn’t matter if you’re a “good” meditator, or spiritual practitioner. Your practice on the cushion is going well- awesome, but that’s not that exciting to me. What interests me is how we take our practice into the world. How do you treat other people- strangers and loved ones and not-so-loved ones? How are we working to help others? Integrating our practices and our lives can be difficult, but when strange coincidences that open your heart and blow your mind start happening, I like thinking that means I’m going in the right direction. After talking with Van Jones, I floated back to my table and smiled over my oatmeal.

For the past fifteen years, I have sat in meditation daily (with a few days off for various flus and whatnot). I have been davening with talit and tefillin for much longer than that but soon after a dear friend taught me to meditate under an Israeli berry tree, I added the intentional I sit to my practice. I do so for several reasons.

1. Sitting in meditation is the only answer I have found to remedy my human forgetfulness that there is nothing other than God (“ain od milvado” in traditional Hebrew; “leit atar panui mineh” in the Aramaic, etc.). God consciousness is my responsibility as a Jew, and as I am a bit of a slacker and sometimes forget God for minutes or even hours at a time in my daily life, having a practice of a closed-eye sitting meditation, I am able to remedy that forgetfulness.

2. Sometimes I think that the world is a movie with me at the center – my emotions are large, my judgments are deep, my attention span narrow but still all about me. Sitting in meditation reconfigures my sense of the screen. It might still be all about me, but me (in there) is so vast that it includes everything else. I configure myself as part of the Divine creation, and there is relief in that.

3. Meditating is the only place I am free. Free to be angry, to be pithy, to be sappy, to be glorious, to be selfish. And as those me’s flit across the screen, I am reminded daily that me is truly freer than I thought before I sat.

4. At times, in the day, my vision sometimes narrows and I fail to see options in relationships, in work, in anything. Sitting offers vastness. Vastness offers more options than I was ever able to find when I still narrow visioned.

5. I sit because I choose identify and participate with those in my tradition that did this before me. The “first righteous ones would pause for an hour before prayer” (“Hasidim rishonim hayu shohim sha’a ahat lifnei hatefilla” – Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Brakhot). In echo and continuation of their elongated pause as preparation to be present, I do so too.

6. I have a meditation practice because like many humans, I am a creature of habit (“sanskaars” in Sanskrit). And I am working to access good habits. And like one who has entered a bakery and tasted its most delicious product, only to return daily to that place, I return to my daily sitting practice because it is simply that delicious.

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.

All these years I’ve meditated and been committed to a truly noble path, supported by extraordinary teachers and spiritual community, I kept waiting to calm down. Not to get so worked up– to have my big emotions and wild mind gently subside. I think I’ve finally stopped expecting that to happen, and started believing in what I’ve read and been taught over and over– that I’m fine just as I am.

Why now? The other night around 1am, after a stressful grant application process, I read a poorly composed email and got really angry. However, while quite expertly pitching a fit, with audience, at the surface, the rest of me rested in a sort of calm clarity that wasn’t reacting, or judging. Awareness prevailed, emotion subsided, and I was shocked.

We’ve all heard the cute admonishment, “You are what you eat.” From a meditation standpoint, “You are what you think” is a sound statement that after a few years of steady meditation, interlaced with bouts of mood-itation, I believe in from experience. Change how you think, check your motivation and amp up your positive aspirations, and you begin to change who and what you are at a very deep level.

“You are what you feel:” is this as true a statement? In the tradition that guides my life, Tibetan Buddhism, the Tibetan word for feelings or emotions often translates as afflictive emotions, while the word for thoughts, or concepts, usually translates as discursive thoughts. So am I afflicted by my emotions, or afflicting others, and merely led astray or burdened with non-essential stuff (one definition of discursive) in terms of my thoughts? One thing I’m sure of: stringing thoughts together like a train, constantly anticipating the future and retracing the past, only leads to more confusion, because I cannot be certain that every thought I have is altruistic and mindful. And even if I was, having tasted the open space that really is available when thinking subsides, when thoughts are just allowed to dissolve like the wispy, insubstantial things they are, I wouldn’t trade that glimpse into the non-dual expanse for a truck-load of shiny, happy, thoughts that still involve me taking myself seriously.

As for emotions, letting oneself be run by emotions is both exhausting and potentially dangerous. (Sometimes I read the news to remind myself of this.) Emotions are regarded differently than thoughts though. Of course, emotional responses, however grandiose or subtle, fuel thoughts and then actions, if things go that far. But within emotional reaction is a unique opportunity to watch on mind, as one of my teachers advises. And within big emotions–strong reactions and assertions of “how I feel”–is a unique opportunity to maintain awareness and even equanimity, while experiencing genuine and natural emotions. The tricky things is that these opportunities arise and dissolve in a heartbeat.

And for so long, I’ve slept through that heartbeat. I’ve thrown my fit, had my emotional response, and come through the other end feeling bashful and utterly lacking in awareness and grace. How many times have I heard or read from reliable sources that emotions don’t go away, and they don’t need to. Whatever our emotional constitution may be-angry, jealous, full of desire, inclined to dullness, proud as a rooster–are the tools we have to work with on and off the cushion to foster awareness and truly awaken to our in-dwelling divinity. Every moment on the cushion does inform our whole existence. It’s these moments when clarity and awareness prevail in a tough situation that affirms this. More practice needed? Definitely. Can I accept myself for what I am and have confidence within that? Now, I think so.

I also really like Jeff Roth’s explanation of what makes his meditation practice Jewish: “One thing that defines my practice as Jewish is that my object of focus is always God, in one form or another…”

I think that this intention or aspiration is important. Some people use meditation as a tool to find relaxation and stress relief, and I think that will happen regardless of what sort of meditation practice you use or subscribe to, just breathing deeply and paying attention will bring relaxation, stillness, and calm. My goal is personal transformation, leading to community and global transformation.

What makes my meditation practice Jewish is that I’m cultivating Tikkun Olam- from the inside out.