Meditation Jan 28

This week, we read about the tale of two brothers, Jacob and Esau.  Esau is the physical, strong hunter while Jacob is the mild mannered, gentler son.  The two brothers fight even in the womb over who will be the stronger brother. The struggle between these brothers in many ways mirrors the internal emotional struggles we often face.  In today's meditation, I encourage you to explore different parts of your personality, to feel the tension between them and to work towards reconciliation. 

In this week's Torah reading, Vayishlach, we are reminded that sometimes in life, we face struggles.  Jacob has a physical struggle with an angel and from out of this exchange he is given the name Israel, one who struggles with God.  Jacob is also struggling emotionally with how to repair his damaged relationship with his brother, Esau.  The two had not spoken since Jacob’s deception in tricking their father and stealing his brothers blessing.  Jacob is afraid to approach his brother, but he is able to face that fear and the two reconcile.  Jacob’s physical struggle with the angel is perhaps a metaphor, an outward representation of the emotional struggle going on inside.  This physical, tangible image of complicated emotion can be helpful to us in sorting out our emotions and facing our challenges.  Today I would like to invite you to go on a journey with me, one where we visualize facing a difficult situation and how we can out of challenges healthier and stronger.

The theme of this week's meditation is on finding role models and accessing our capacity for leadership. 

Each month we celebrate the arrival of the new moon and a new Jewish month.  In today's meditation we explore the theme of the new moon and the blessings it can bring to us at the beginning of each new month. 

Each year, we begin reading the Torah anew from the very beginning.   Many of us are familiar with the creation narrative that appears at the beginning of the Torah.  In the beginning God created light and darkness, which is how it is commonly explained.  But if we look closely at the Torah, we see that, like many things in our world, there is a little more nuance to the story.  According to the Torah, in the beginning there was chaos, long before God came into the story.  God did not do away with the darkness, but instead found some light within the dark and separated the two so that we could distinguish between darkness and light.  There will always be things in the world that we cannot understand or explain.  To us, they appear to be chaos.  This meditation will focus not on eliminating darkness and disorder from life, but rather on finding the light within.

Many of us will find ourselves attending services virtually from home this year in response to the delta variant of the COVID-19 virus.  This meditation will help us to build an image of our holy space, our personal mikdash.  Wherever we may find ourselves physically this year, this meditation will give us the tools needed to make any space a holy space for prayer.

At the start of each new year, we do the deep spiritual work of forgiveness, forgiving others for harm they have done to us, seeking forgiveness from others for harms we have done to them and seeking forgiveness from ourselves for self inflicted wounds.  In this meditation, we visualize those we have wronged, those who have wronged us and finally ourselves - seeking and granting forgiveness from each person. 

In this week's Torah reading we encounter several scenarios that initially appear unconnected - the soldier at war, the beautiful captive, and stubborn and rebellious son.  We later see that rather than being unconnected, these incidents bring to light societal issues that connect us.  One family's struggles are society's struggles just as we can share personal joy with others.  This meditation encourages us to cultivate joy, not just for ourselves, but to share it even with people who challenge us. 

In parashat Ekev, we are reminded that we are all connected to the web of life. Today we will explore what it means to be connected to each other, and to the world around us.