Many years ago, a video went viral on YouTube.
It was a home movie following a small girl named Kayden who sees rain for the first time. As she totters back and forth between her mother on the porch and the rain falling on the driveway, the expression on her face is one of pure wonder, delight, and awe. Her little hands reach out to catch the raindrops. Watching her, we see raw life meeting life.
How long has it been since you have experienced that sense of unadulterated wonder? When did you last come face-to-face with the miracle that is life? And if it’s been a while (as it has been for me), what is getting in the way?
In this week’s parsha (Torah portion), Moses has some ideas.
I. Circumcise the Foreskin of Your Heart
Moses reminds the people over and over again of the miracles, the wonders, and the incredible things that the Divine has done for them over and over again. He begs them to remember this – not just in their minds, but in their hearts, in their actions, and in the core of their beings:
16 You shall circumcise the foreskin of your heart, therefore, and be no more stiff necked.
21 [The One] is your praise and it is your God, Who did these great and awesome things for you, which your eyes have seen.
- Chapter 10:16, 21
Rashi says that the “foreskin” of the heart is the blockage or the covering of the heart. It is what keeps us separated from wonder. It is the protective covering we think we need to screen out the pain of life, but which also manages to keep us buffered from the authentic, raw experience of God and of being alive. Moses tells us that it is up to us to keep circumcising our hearts, over and over again, and to truly show up for awe.
II. Examining the Foreskin
What is the blockage that Moses and Rashi speak about?
Blockage 1: Too Many Concepts
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel writes that the primary obstacles to awe and wonder are our preconceived notions and our desire to anticipate and control the outcomes of our life.
The greatest hindrance to knowledge is our adjustment to conventional notions, to mental clichés. Wonder or radical amazement, the state of maladjustment to words and notions, is, therefore, a prerequisite for an authentic awareness of that which is.
– Man is Not Alone, 11
Little Kayden experienced radical amazement at the rain because she didn’t yet have the complex naming and categorizing systems in place to separate her from the idea – the “mental cliché” of rain. She could meet the phenomenon unadulterated.
There is a Buddhist saying: “the painting of a rice cake does not satisfy hunger.”
Walking through our lives paying attention only to the mental chatter of our minds is like expecting the painting of a rice cake to fill us up. Living in a world of concepts and ideas only moves us farther away from that which nourishes us and allows us to truly feel our aliveness.
Blockage 2: Self-Centering
One of the easiest traps we fall into as humans – and one of the most dangerous – is losing sight of awe because of the distracting delusion that we are in control of our lives. Our successes and our failures our ours in a mappable and predictable world. Moses is on to us here. “Beware!” he warns:
12 Lest you eat and be sated, and build good houses and dwell therein,
13 and your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold increase, and all that you have increases,
14 and your heart grows haughty, and you forget the Mystery, your God, Who has brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage…
17 and you will say to yourself, "My strength and the might of my hand that has accumulated this wealth for me. "
- Chapter 8: 12-14, 17
This small-minded thinking is the source of so much suffering in my life. When we believe we are “self-made” people, we immediately become alienated from grandeur. We endlessly strive for more success, and are crushed when the world takes “our” gains away from us.
The truth is, nobody has ever done anything alone, and never will. We are all indebted to God, to one another, to everything for all we have and do. We are all composite creatures of everything else that ever was and is. God obligates us to remember this over and over again. We are obligated to pay attention to the mystery – to love it, to cleave to it, to commit to it – in all our waking hours, so that we can “live and flourish (Devarim: 8:1). “
This is how we feel the rain, and taste the rice cake. There is no other way.
Practice Guidance:
The roadmap to awe and radical amazement begins with gratitude: 10 And you will eat and be sated, and you shall bless the Ineffable, your God, for the good land it has given you.
- Devarim 7:10
Gratitude opens up our eyes to the miracles that exist around and inside of us at every moment of every day. Gratitude cuts beneath self-centering and sheds light on all the elements of life we take for granted. Heschel says “The pious man knows that he has a perpetual gift from God, for in all that comes to him he feels the love of God. In all the thousand and one experiences that make up a day, he is conscious of that love intervening in his life.” (291).
In your practice this week, take your cue from Moses’s instructions to remember God when we speak to our children, when we sit in our houses, when we walk on the path, when we lie down and when we rise. At each of these touchpoints in your day, open up to your gratitude for one thing at that moment. It doesn’t matter how small or how large. See what it feels like to shroud your day in gratitude. See what else you notice when you orient yourself toward giving thanks.
The Institute for Jewish Spirituality’s mission is to develop and teach Jewish spiritual practices so that individuals and communities may experience greater awareness, purpose, and interconnection.
Learn more: jewishspirituality.org
Inspired by ancient Jewish wisdom, OneTable is a national non-profit that empowers folks (21-39ish) to find, share, and enjoy Shabbat dinners, making the most of their Friday nights.
Our social dining platform makes it easy for you to become the producer of your own experiences, and for Shabbat dinner to become a platform for community building.
We provide simple DIY tools so hosts can get right to welcoming people to a Shabbat dinner in their home, so guests can savor a Friday meal, and for all to experience unique events for Shabbat dinners right in their neighborhood. We do this because we believe good food and good conversation with great people is simply good for you.
Led by our core values of joy, welcoming, and elevation, we envision a whole generation of young people slowing down, getting together, unplugging from the week, creating intention in their lives, and building meaningful communities.
Find Your Friday
onetable.org
