Category Archives: Bereavement

Yom Kippur, Yom Ha-Din, Yom-Ha-Difficulty

Bereavement, Jewish Holy Days, News, Practice, Support, Teachings, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Erev Yom Kippur at my cabin in Ireland, getting ready for a day alone of fasting and prayers, by setting the space with beauty and white for purity of intention and space
Erev Yom Kippur;  getting ready for 26 hours of fasting and prayers alone. This photo is from my window-seat. I set my intention/kavannah and space with beauty and white flowers and decor to enhance and imbue my prayers with purity and clarity.

This was the hardest Yom Kippur that I can remember.

My beloved Rabbi Naomi Steinberg says, we should never compare Holy events. She remarks, “this Shabbat was in the top 500,” rather than saying this Shabbat was “the best.” I appreciate this teaching and try to incorporate it into my life, especially around Shabbat observance. It’s a very good reminder to not judge joyful occasions and a great encouragement to be fully present in the moment. The human tendency to compare and contrast and look at something from one celebration and measure it against another celebration can be a way to not honor the people you are together with and it can be decisive.  Not doing this requires tremendous conscious effort. I consistently have to remind myself about this “top 500” idea. Nevertheless, sometimes making a comparison is what needs doing.  Marking the boundaries of this Yom Kippur and defining them feels important because what transpired for me was so intense and significant.

I knew it would be hard to fast and do all the prayers without the support and help of a community of folks, all working together. Those who observe the full fast refrain from eating and drinking from sunset of the holiday, called Erev/Evening until the concluding service called Ne’ila which happens when three stars are visible in the sky of the following day. It was about 25 hours long this year.

On Yom Kippur, congregations around the world, come together and share in the heavy load of prayers. We pray for all people in the world and ask for forgiveness, stating all the wrongs a person can possibly do, we name each act of ugliness and violation that humans do to each other and our planet. We recite these prayers and confessions and supplicate for mercy and look deeply for hours and hours. We rise and we tremble before the Holy One as one giant body of beings, we sway and sing and chant and hope that our sincere presence and effort will help mend the suffering in this world. We support each other with our combined efforts and are all humbled by the process. Doing this all by myself turned out to be very, very hard.

I felt closer to death by 8:00 pm right before the end of the fast than I’ve ever felt in my life. After 25 hours without water or food I was weak and beyond weak, stumbling and dizzy when I tried to stand or walk. It was acutely intense and I was afraid, I wasn’t sure I would ever feel alive again.

My head ached, my limbs were heavy and hard to move, I felt awful, wrung out and completely DONE. I roused myself, in the dark, because my Holiday candle, which had been burning for 25 hours, had just sputtered out. I stood up to say the final three prayers and blow the shofar to mark the end of Yom Kippur. I made it to the end of Yom Kippur and as I chanted the final words of the service, my tears flowed, as they had been doing all throughout this never-ending day. I was dehydrated already from not drinking and because I’d cried so much as well. My water-reserves were at an all time low.

There is an element of Yom Kippur that is about death and getting close to it in a ritual, supported and honest way. We are not exactly trying to emulate the feeling of death, but rather to attend fully to our souls and their life within our bodies. This awareness perhaps will help us be a more alive in the here and now and also gives us a taste of what it might be like when the Holy One takes our souls back to journey among the stars.

I find myself weaving in and out of Holy Time and Connection when I pray, so there is timelessness to all my supplications and praying, and a loosening of the boundaries between space and time. The difference on Yom Kippur is that you can see everyone moving towards their angelic selves and it helps you get through the day when you feel bereft of vigor. We wear white, and in the most traditional communities folks actually wear their burial kittel (part of the Jewish shroud, but also worn for Pesach/Passover). This garment is always white and simple, but modeled after the garment that the High Priest wears. Indeed the Torah portion we read on Yom Kippur from Leviticus 16 describes these garments that the High Priest Aaron is to don in order to come close to the Divine:

He shall be dressed in a sacral linen tunic, with linen breeches over his body; with a linen sash shall he gird himself, and with a linen turban shall he be crowned. These are sacral garments and so he shall bathe himself in water before dressing in them. ~ Leviticus 16:4

These simple sacred garments are what we bury all people in. We are all clothed as the High Priest, rich or poor, we all get the same shrouds, made out of linen preferably or cotton, with no fuss, finery or pockets (who needs a pocket in Heaven?). This equalization in death, that does not happen in life, is an essential teaching. We are all bodies, we are all dust and ashes, in the end and will return to dust, our bodies that is. Our souls are another matter entirely. So, when we loosen our connection to our bodies and focus on our souls that process reminds us to attend fully to being in a body. It’s a funny twist of human nature, that we feel things more in contrast to their opposite. We feel most alive after a long illness, as if we have never ever had it so good. We feel most grateful for everything usually in direct relationship to how long or far away from it we are.

So, I miss my husband extremely now and when I see him again my joy will be beyond measure. I love him the same amount when we are seeing each other every day, but being away from him makes me appreciate and notice his presence and his absence even more.

If we are lucky or we work for it, sometimes all of us, in moments of deepest connecting, we can cross the boundaries of our habitual patterns and conventionality and then we can and do reach that deep place without having to be separated. But we do have to SEPARATE ourselves from the idea that we are individuals or that we are just bodies, in order to have that oceanic, intense, beautiful eye to eye, heart to heart, soul to soul feeling. We can have this feeling  alone in prayer or contemplation, or with friends, with strangers, with beloveds, whenever we get over ourselves, literally.

GET OVER YOURSELF, and move into the person or the tree or flower across from you or near you.

Or, in the case of the Divine, we have to let go of our sense of being alone or thinking that we are only just a body without a soul. We have to get over our tired old story, or our fear, or all the mess and walls that we construct between all that is good and available for us. Yom Kippur is the perfect prescription for doing this.

Mireia, a new friend, and I, getting over ourselves and connecting from a deep place, in Barcelona, April of 2013
Mireia, a new friend, and I, getting over ourselves, in front of a wall, and connecting from a deep place, in Barcelona, April of 2013

So, I am SUPER glad to be in a body today!

The sun is shining and I will go outside and work on creating a Sukkah, since the next Jewish Holiday, my favorite, very embodied holiday (NO FASTING, LOTS OF FEASTING), is in four days. OOPS, I just made a comparison between Holy Events. It sure is hard to avoid doing that. And, I do really enjoy Sukkot a whole bunch. I’m not sure how I will observe it alone, but like all the other adventures I’m having here, I’m sure it will work out beautifully! We do invite in our Holy Ancestors, so I won’t actually ever be alone, and the faeries are always happy to play and dine with me.

What enabled me to actually get through to this moment of aliveness and joy was the NOT BEING ALONE part of my being alone. Let me explain. I was able to connect with my Temple Beth El community, thanks to modern technology and the kindness of some Temple Beth El members who made it possible for there to be a live-stream of their entire Yom Kippur services, all of them.

So, when I was losing it, or too weak to continue my praying I could sometimes manage to log-on to their livestream and see my friends praying. They even said hello to me from the bima and for the Kol Nidre service I could hear my son Ethan’s voice, which made me immensely joyful. I think it was Rabbi Naomi’s husband Saul, who took the camera and turned it at the end of Tuesday night’s services, so that I could see my boychik in the flesh. There he was, clapping and singing  and I got a glimpse of him for one joyous moment before the livestream went offline. I cannot even begin to express the joy I felt. It was beyond expression! It was 5:45 a.m. for me and I’d been tuning in and out to their prayers since 2:45 a.m.

At Temple Beth El, they were eight hours “behind” where I was in my prayer cycle, but finding them wherever they were throughout the 25 hours of my process made all the difference for me. Here’s a link to one of the services, so you can see for yourself these magnificent humans in their white angelic garments and in their angelic personifications and expressions:

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/73977780

A friend also turned me on to a wonderful streaming of services. I could watch this community when I wasn’t able to connect with the Temple Beth El community. It is a new experimental community based in New York City and is called Lab/Shul.  Here’s their definition of self-hood from their website: “Welcome to LAB/SHUL, an artist-driven, everybody-friendly experimental community for sacred Jewish gatherings based in NYC and reaching the world.” They have a musical line-up and people singing straight from their hearts and souls and their services were AMAZING.

They chant a line or two from one of our traditional long prayers and dispense with the volumes of words that accompany the usual liturgy. Their knowledge of the Hebrew and the prayers was deep, deep enough that they could fly out to the stars with their roots grounded but able to fly straight up towards the Heavens. It was pretty extraordinary when I could catch them. Amichai Lau-Lavie, their Spiritual Leader, also gave a great teaching, in between the chanting, music and praying. I was transported when I could catch up with them. He mentioned Pope Francis and his Encyclical. I’m  in the land of Catholics and Pope Francis and his teachings are a common feature of discussion here. I’m not sure how many Jewish folks were talking about Pope Francis this Yom Kippur, but it was pretty perfect for me, considering where I am.

And, here at my hermitage, three other hermits came and spent a brief amount of time with me in prayer. They did this out of the kindness of their hearts and because, even though this week is a silence and solitude week, they wanted to support me in my Jewish practice. So, two Catholic nuns and one Catholic contemplative came to sit with me and pray with me late in the afternoon of Yom Kippur, This is usually one of the hardest times of the day, when I was feeling pretty gray and not interested in continuing to pray or even be much in a body. Their presence uplifted me. It was lovely to pray with folks across the boundary of religion. It made no difference what specific faith tradition we identified with. We were able to be as one in our GETTING OVER OURSELVES. That’s my new mantra, I hope I can carry it through beyond this moment.

My “getting over myself” Yom Kippur crossed several time-zones. I started before all my community, eight hours earlier than the Californians, five hours before the East Coasters, two hours later than the Israelis, but somehow all of us were joined in a completely other place, a Holy time. After all, Divine time is nothing like human time. So, I crossed lots of boundaries and went a little too close to that feeling of weakness and torpor that comes from the body not having enough nourishment. I almost always observe the complete fast, no water or food, so this year’s feeling closer to death was unexpected. It gave me tremendous compassion and more appreciation for those who are actually approaching death of their bodies, friends who are in hospice care right now, friends who have been and are struggling with long debilitating illnesses and/or cancers that come and go, folks who are starving, literally because they are poor or because they are being tortured.

Why would anyone willingly choose to feel these things?

Doing so, even once a year, renews my commitment to serving the Divine in all my parts, with all my organs, senses and abilities. Until the world is a place of wholeness, kindness and equality, like what we pray and hope for, we all have to dedicate ourselves and look at ourselves deeply so that we can attune to Justice and to Goodness. This day is also called Yom Ha-Din which means the Day of Judgment or Trial. We are on trial for not doing enough for those who are suffering and for whatever we do that increases suffering on this planet.

Now, the good news is; that many, many, more people are doing this good work and are engaged in lessening suffering and violence, than the newspapers, news agencies and stories you hear in the mainstream media, would make you think. We are the majority. Those of us working, praying, living for Goodness, Justice and Mercy are in numbers beyond measure. We will make and are making a difference and every time one of us reaches deeper and longer and connects it makes a change in the flow and fabric of time and in the flow of events on this beautiful and wild spinning orb we call home. We are all b’tselem Elohim (in an image of Holiness). This means we are POWERFUL and CAPABLE of doing miraculous things!

To end my fast, before I began it, being the Virgo, Alpha female that I still am, even alone, I had made my brother Paul’s Dahl. I did indeed have a little bowl of it, which was more than I could actually finish, at the end of my ordeal. I was still a little too close to the other side and felt sick and weak. I ate because I knew I needed to, not because I felt hungry. I was beyond hunger when the three stars in the sky had emerged to announce the END of the fast. So, after my three glasses of water and my small bowl of soup, I slept for a few hours.

My usual sleep pattern is, if I’m lucky, four hours, than maybe another two if I get really lucky. So, at my usual time, which was around 2 a.m., I got up. I was hungry then and I opened my tiny fridge and decided to have a small bowl of yogurt.  This was yogurt that the nuns had gotten for me.  I had asked for organic plain whole yogurt. I am endeavoring to not eat sugar or gluten currently. But, somehow, they and I, missed the blueberries on the label. Those small blue berries were tiny in the picture at the bottom of the container. In fact, the plain yogurt and the blueberry yogurt look very similar, but guess what, they aren’t similar at all.

I was so HAPPY, you have no idea, with that blueberry surprise. That marvelous “mistake,” that the Holy One surely orchestrated for me, of blueberries and just a drop of sugar in a perfect blend of Irish whole milk yogurt, ummmmm, yummmmm. I cannot even begin to tell you how fabulous that bowl of yogurt at 2 a.m. in the morning was. I only hope, wherever you are, in whatever timezone, or faith tradition, or state of wellness or illness you are currently experiencing, you stop and take a moment to breathe and appreciate this moment of your being alive, in a body. Hopefully you can find a moment and are able to say with all your being Todah Rabah/Immense and Great Thanks! If not, have somebody go get you some blueberry yogurt!

I’m closing with a photo of my lunch today, which was at 3 p.m.; this seems to be when I want to eat lunch here. I basically don’t eat dinner, just a snack, or piece of fruit. But, my appetite has returned and so this was my lovely large luncheon. The carrot salad was a new invention and I’ll put up that recipe sometime soon. The Dahl, yogurt raita and lightly cooked kale are all recipes you can discover here, should you want to recreate this meal. The lamb chops are from a local butcher with lamb from a nearby field. The kale and carrots and cucumber (in the raita) are all from the garden here. It’s nice to feel alive again and have this kind of feast for my tummy as well as for my eyes and heart.

Food for my Body and Soul
Food for my Body and Soul
Detail of the Holy Feast!
Detail of the Holy Feast!

Aligning and Attuning on the First Yahrzeit of Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi’s Passing

Bereavement, Jubilee, Practice, , , , , , , , , , , ,

zalman

2:22 am, June 23, 2015. Sleep not happening, at least not much, right now. I’m vibrating at a pretty intense frequency. Full of feeling and energy. On this journey from my home and life out to a new solo adventure, I’ve found myself moving backwards across the landscape of my life and across the geology of it as well. I left California on June 14th, nine days ago. I planned for some time here, in Colorado, where I am now. I lived off and on in Boulder from the time I was six months old until I was twenty-two. I’m headed to Paris in thirteen days, where I was born over fifty years ago. Going backwards in time and space and encountering myself in all these places is quite a voyage.

On Sunday evening, June 21st, as the long day of Solstice wound down, I joined with Holy community here in remembering our beloved Rebbe Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. The fifth of Tammuz, which this year corresponded to the 21st of June, marked the one year anniversary of his death. In the Jewish world, this is called a Yahrzeit. We remember our beloveds on the day they left the earth in various ways, with prayer, with candle-lighting, with stories and gathering together. We say their names out loud in our congregations and stand to say the Mourner’s Kaddish, while the community supports us. We never forget those we love.

When a great teacher dies it is a huge parting and loss for the whole world. A great teacher hopefully leaves behind a legacy of teachings, works, and folks who can carry on the Light and Wisdom that this individual teacher managed to shine on all around them. Our Rebbe, was one of these kinds of teachers. He left behind and empowered huge numbers of people to carry on the work, and still, there was no one like him and he is and always will be missed.

So, we gathered in Boulder at Nevei Kodesh, with Rabbi Tirzah Firestone and Rabbi Mark Soloway for a Zikr in honor of our teacher, Reb Zalman. Zikr/Dhikr is an Arabic word similar to the Hebrew word Zahor, for remember. In a Sufi Zikr practice you chant the name of the Divine and move in simple steps. This practice is a physical way of connecting ecstatically to the Divine. Rabbi Mark shared a teaching about sunflowers and their aligning/turning towards the sun. He spoke about how our teacher was someone whose love-affair with the Divine was so great that it made him shine. This was so true. Rabbi Mark also talked about a Zalman teaching about how all of us are like sunflowers turning towards the light of the Divine in our hearts and souls. Some folks forget this or they do not realize that their purpose is to grow like a sunflower, towards goodness, towards Light, towards nourishing all we encounter.

Rabbi Tirzah, along with a gifted group of musicians, led us so sweetly and beautifully in several hours of chanting and movement to lift up our spirits on this sad day of remembrance, but also to align ourselves with Holy purpose, prayer and connection to the soul of our teacher as he joined and became a luminous link on his ancestral lineal chain. Lineage is something, in the United States and the modern world, we don’t talk about so much. There is a kind of bias here against having a lineage, as if being a free agent without adherence or obligation to our ancestors or the past is some kind of blessing.

Lineage, in a religious realm, is very significant and it isn’t just about your blood or ancestral line. I am now aligned with Reb Zalman’s lineage because he was my teacher, he is my teacher still, even across the territory of death. And, his ancestral and spiritual lineage has merit and meaning. Who he aligned with and learned from, who his parents were and who their parents were back to the beginning is present in him and in his teaching. This is true for all of us and becomes real for us when we remember to engage with lineage and with the meaning of Zahor.

Zachor #44 by Mordechai Rosenstein
Zachor #44 by Mordechai Rosenstein
When I visit and share with child-prisoners in the penal juvenile “justice” system, I often talk to them about the fact that they are the product of thousands of successful heroic ancestral survivors making it across the ravages of time. Most often these children think of themselves as failures and since many of them have been brutalized by their families of origin in one form or another, trying to get them to see or find merit in who they are, at their core, is important. One of the ways I try to do this is to remind them that they are already miracles, just by virtue of being alive.

If you are awake and present on the planet now, no matter where you are, your ancestors survived plagues, wars, ice-ages, volcanoes, tidal waves, epic catastrophes and all kinds of crazy stuff to make it to this moment. It’s extraordinary that any of us are here. If we are here, it’s significant and not something to be wasted or ignored.

We don’t have to reproduce physically to create lineage, we only have to align with goodness and great teaching and embody those things. You can’t help being part of a lineage that you were born from, you can choose which lineage you want to align with as you move through your life. This choosing is a fundamental step in making connection to Holiness. You might be lucky enough to come from an ancestral lineage that is full of great teachers that you know about and have ready connection to.

You might be adopted and not have any idea who your grandparents or great-greats were, but no matter what, you have lineage and you can connect and adhere to the lineage of those you love, those you find home with emotionally, intellectually and spiritually.

As we chanted and moved in our Zikr for Reb Zalman, Rabbi Tirzah invited us to concentrate on the world we wished to see and to find a specific prayer to offer up along with our bodies and voices. The merit inherent in this communal practice connected to the Aliyah (rising up) of our teacher’s soul would add ummph and power to our prayers. This was palpable. So, while we all moved and swayed, we also were praying. We were praying for peace on this earth, for healing of the planet, for tikkun olam, for personal well-being or personal familial reconciliations. We were praying with our bodies, breath, hearts, minds and feet. No matter what our individual internal prayers were, we attuned with Heaven in our joining together in honor of our teacher. This practice will help all of us and the world move through our wounding towards healing.

After our movements and singing we said Kaddish for Reb Zalman and then we were invited to visit his gravesite where his headstone was now in place. We were asked to do this after his family had their own smaller private ceremony in the morning. So, throughout the day, various folks gathered at the grave of our teacher. We brought stones and stories, tears and songs, silence and sitting still to listen. There were birds and a bunny that kept hopping by, I saw dragon-flies and so many kinds of birds wheeling about. The fellowship and communion continued for us as we sat on the ground surrounding the body of our beloved teacher. 

 My tears and my prayers continue to flow and I hope align with the millions and billions of others on this spinning orb dedicated to tikkun olam, to mending and working to repair what has been destroyed and what is wounded. I feel so un-alone, so completely held within the lineage of my teacher, the communities I belong to, the family I was born from, the friends I cherish, the people I encounter and all the angels in my life who continue to give me hope and help.

As I move backwards through my life and towards being alone and truly not surrounded by physical community, I am awed, once again, by the Great Mystery of Life, the Ein Sof, who placed me here, in Boulder at this moment of connection so that I could carry this feeling and this reminder with me.

I am not alone, I have never been alone, I will never be alone.

I am and always have been surrounded by the luminous beings whose presence lives in my blood and body and also by all the words and teachings and songs which dance through my heart and mind.

May you find your lineage and connect to it with passion and may if uplift and support you in all the work you do. May you remember how uniquely and magically and wondrously created and beauteous a being you are and may you find a way to know in your bones how truly un-alone you are.

nicole_logo3-400

from http://www.newkabbalah.com/images/ein.jpg
from http://www.newkabbalah.com/images/ein.jpg

Shalom Aleichem, So Long, and Fare Ye Well

Bereavement, Jubilee, Teachings, , , , , , ,
My soon to be new home
My soon to be new home

I’m off to play with the wild things!

In less than two months I will leave Arcata for my great big adventure. my solo sabbatical. I’m headed to the green hills of ancient Tara, to Ireland. I’ll be staying in a hermitage cabin by myself that is part of a community dedicated to solitude, silence and communion with nature and the Divine in contemplation. They allow folks of all faiths or no specific faith to spend time in their hermitage cabins, after determining if the person applying is someone who will work for them and their process, and this wild and wacky crazy Jewish woman, somehow made the grade. The fey folk and I go way back.

So, now I am moving through the hundreds of things that have to get done before I depart for this time away. There will be no phone and no internet in my small stone cottage. I will have a bed, a desk, a wood stove, a small cooking space, a bathroom and electricity to work my computer. I’ll be cooking my own meals with food provided for me from the gardens of the land I’ll be on. I’ll be sitting quietly on moss, swimming in cold rivers or lochs, walking to the beach and exploring the green, misted and very mellow and unpopulated countryside. I’ll be praying and writing and sleeping, resting, studying Torah, meditating, playing with watercolors and sleeping more!

My soon to be view from the desk, where I will be writing, writing, writing!
My soon to be view from the desk, where I will be writing, writing, writing!

The last many years of my life, over thirty actively parenting children and years before that taking care of other people’s children and all the community work I’ve done, wherever I’ve lived, has taken a toll. I need a lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng break. My tradition encourages us to attend to the Sabbath, every week, every year and every seven cycles of seven. Those of you who have followed my meanderings on these pages and perhaps also on my website/blog www.ohohands.com, know that I am in my Jubilee year. It’s time for me to get away and survive on the fruits of the last fifty years of my living and serving on this planet.

All leave-takings have an aura, a whisper of forever in them…

I am lingering in my hugs with folks. I’m weeping often. Here, at my desk, thinking about being away from my most beloved husband it is hard. As I prepare to go away from my lovely home, incredible and magnificent husband (yes, I’m repeating myself, because I am over the moon about this man, still, after 26 years) my children, community, and family, I am feeling the pain of loss. One never knows what will transpire when one goes on a sojourn away from family, community and friends. Who I am is always unfolding and changing, as it should be for all of us. I am not running away from all those I love with glee, I am clearly and consciously taking my leave of them for a time. It’s not easy or simple.

In March, in the pouring rain off of Lanphere road, as we all shivered and cried along with the sky, I led a memorial service for a local man who died suddenly in the arms of his beloved. He was in good health, had just started a new business and gotten a clean bill of health from his doctors. His children, friends, former partners and wives all were in a state of devastation and shock. There is no way to prepare for someone’s leaving in this kind of way.

As a friend of mine, who is a cardiologist, said to me upon hearing this story: “Sometimes the first sign of a problem is called sudden death.” Sudden death, is not something we get to come back from. I’m not planning on a “sudden death,” none of us are, but it can and does happen at the drop of a hat, at any moment.

In Pirkei Avot (Sayings/Teachings of the Elders) a book that compiles the wisdom of the elders of the Great Assembly, which contains sayings attributed to sages from (200 BCE) to shortly after (200 CE), it says: “Repent one day before you die.” This is a flawed English translation of very complex Hebrew. Teshuvah, which I’ve written about extensively in the past, doesn’t translate exactly as repent or repentance. Returning or reconnecting, or mending are more accurate and enriched meanings

Repentance, in and of itself, is a word with very strong connotations. I’m not opposed to the idea of repentance because it has much more meaning in Hebrew and it is an amalgam of the ideas mentioned already. Most folks in the groovy-new-age-be-mellow universe of non-adherence to responsibility or to strong ethical guidelines take issue with this idea. I’m not in that category. I believe in making amends and wrestling with wrong-doing and working hard to fix what I’ve broken or trying to get clear with someone I’ve hurt. So, I don’t mind the word repentance, but it triggers lots of people who are not religiously inclined and makes them reject, out of hand, a very important teaching.

How do any of us know which day is the day before we die?

We don’t.

Therefore, every day is the day to return to the path of goodness, wholeness, engagement with the Divine. Every day is the day to mend what we’ve broken, what we have destroyed or harmed. Every day is the day to reconnect with those we are fighting with or are distanced from. Every day is the day to say “I love you, you are precious to me.” There is no guarantee of tomorrow, there is only this moment and these hours and this opportunity for healing, connection, engagement and growth.

When we live our lives this way, we find grace and more importantly we create it.

As I say my farewells, I am endeavoring to be gracious and careful. But unfortunately I’ve messed up and been less than kind with friends, or not been as present or clear as I should have. Part of me is already gone. The Pirkei Avot teachings are the pillars in my life that make all the difference. They encourage me every day to be kind, clear and honest. So, even if I am erring, I am also continuously self-evaluating and working diligently to make things better.

Some troubles and issues are way too big or complex to fix or mend in one day.

I’ve been working on hard territory with people I love very much for long years. Teshuvah is a process, and even this longer-term kind of Teshuvah process will now have to move to another level, one that lives in my heart. All my work will be taking place beyond the mists, in a liminal, shrouded internal other place.

Part of my going away is about actively being free to engage with a completely different way of being, one that isn’t always tangible. I engage in prayer and practice every day for all those I love. It is my always practice to surround folks with light or see them laughing in joy or cuddling with a wished for companion, or resting in the wings of the healing angel Raphael. This will still be going on when I am away, but in a wholly deeper way.

Will those I love and who love me hear my prayers or know that they are being loved and cared for, even when they do not HEAR from me via email, letter, phone, or in person? If I’m not sending a care package, making soup for you or calling you to check in on you, does it mean I am no longer loving you? Of course not!

Being off the grid is something that I long for at this point. I’m crossing the ocean, and communication in physical form, will be on hold. Interactions that are coming from other realms will be ongoing and continuous for and from me. Will you hear me, when I say “I love you?” Will you feel the light, the healing and the hope curling around you? I hope so with all of my heart.

No longer engaged in giving birth or caring for children, no longer having the physical stamina to offer continuously as I have, what and how should I give to this planet, to those I love, to those in need. What is my offering as I go “over the hill?” Am I going to teach, pursue a Master’s degree in Religious Studies, or Judaism? Should I pursue becoming a rabbi? Should I open my own office of healing arts and “how to” lessons about connecting with the Divine within or “how to love” lessons? Am I supposed to write multiple books or continue to just do things as I have in the past with some modifications based on my physical reality? What really is the best way for me to serve going into the future?

I am dedicated, bound, completely and for all eternity to serving.

This is cellular for me and soul-deep. There is no reality I can imagine or want to be in where I won’t be endeavoring to find a way to serve. The question, as I age, is how to do that best? This is something I don’t have an answer for yet—and it is the ultimate reason I am venturing away from my life as it has been.

I am committed to having NO AGENDA or PLAN for my time away. I’m so done with both of those things, no “to do” lists and no forcing of myself into a space or time based on someone else’s needs. I am actively taking this brief moment of time between child-rearing and caring for elders in the coming years.

This time away is not just for me, even though it is a solitary time. This is hard for some folks to understand. My time away is about rest, yes and time away from doing, but it is also about finding out how the Holy One wants me to serve for the rest of my time on this earth.

I hope to find some of these answers in the moss, from the cool breezes, from my dreams in the ancient stone built cottage where I will be alone with just myself and the Divine. The body of my prayers in Hebrew and English and my tears, all my tears, these will be the Mishkan (sacred dwelling place created in the wilderness while the Jewish people ventured from Mitzrayim to the Holy Land). I will be creating and dwelling in this Mishkan built of my prayers, my years of working to make this happen, my kavannah (intention) and my desire. This Mishkan will also inform my process, being alone with just the Creator and the beauty of the creation around me will water the orchard in my soul. The hearth flames, the birds singing, the rolling green hills, the sound of the sea not too far off, these will be my companions and guides. I will wrap myself in my blue prayer shawl and call out to Ha-Shem and beg with all of my being for healing for this planet, for all those I love and know and for all those suffering on this spinning orb. May you feel the love for you that is in every dew drop, ray of sun, mossy knoll, and all of creation offering itself to you in every moment.

Byline is below from where this piece was originally published in the local paper where Nicole currently lives; The Mad River Union in two parts, on April 29, 2015 and May 6, 2015

~~~~~~~~~~~~~Nicole writes her last column, for a time, from her Bayside desk. She will continue to write and may post updates on her blog www.ohohands.com.  No matter where she is physically located, she sends Love, Prayers for a Refuah Shelemah (a complete healing) and lots of wishes for Shalom/Salaam/Peace your way.

Remembering Rabbi Aryeh Hirschfield, zt”l, of blessed memory, Crying a River of Tears

Bereavement, News, Practice, Relationships, Teachings, , , , , , , , ,
My sweet and wonderful teacher, Rabbi Aryeh Hirschfield. Copyright 2010 The Rabbi Aryeh Hirschfield Legacy Trust
My sweet and wonderful teacher, Rabbi Aryeh Hirschfield. Copyright 2010 The Rabbi Aryeh Hirschfield Legacy Trust

The Source of Beauty

(Story told by Rabbi Aryeh Hirschfield as he remembered it from his teacher Reb Zalman Shachter-Shalomi zt”l, of blessed memory, retold by Nicole with permission from Rabbi Aryeh)

Once there was a man. He was one of those loose people that hang around street corners gabbing all day. One day, he was walking in the forest and there was a glen with a pond in it. The princess was just coming out from bathing in the pond. He saw her and she was very beautiful. He fell in love with her and so he hung around the palace waiting for her to come out again. Next time she went for a ride he stopped the wagon and said: “Hey, I love you. When will we be able to be together?” The princess took one look at him and said: “In the cemetery.”

He was a simple man, so he went to the cemetery to wait for her. “It’s not so easy for a princess to get away whenever she wants,” he figured to himself. “I guess whenever the coming is good she’ll be here.” He was waiting there one day, two days, getting along by a little begging, just hanging out in the cemetery. After a while he goes around looking at the gravestones and sees; this man lived to be very old, this lady died young, this one had a family, this one didn’t have a family, this one died in an accident. He started to ponder what things are all about. Every once in a while he would sit down and visualize what the princess looked like, so he wouldn’t forget why he was there.

Days go by. They bring people to the cemetery to bury them and he always watches, hangs around and eats. Nothing else is happening at the cemetery, so he watches the people who come to visit the graves. He sees people crying and hears people saying things like, “She was so pretty when she was young,” or “He was such a handsome man,” and all the other things people would say.

Weeks go by. One day he starts asking himself the question, “What is it that I have fallen in love with in the princess? If it is her physical beauty, that is very nice, but it keeps changing.” He realized that the beauty of outer forms is only one phase of beauty. There was nothing else to do in the cemetery but hang around and think and think. He was thinking about what beauty is all about, and he realized that beauty comes in so many ways that somewhere there must be the source of beauty. What could the source of beauty be? So, he kept on thinking.

Months go by. He realizes that the source of beauty must be The Holy One. Then he starts to think how beautiful The Holy One must be. All the visions of beauty he had ever seen passed before his mind’s eye. He realized how many forms beauty has. Then he started to ponder: “Maybe there is beauty without form.”

People saw this guy hanging around the cemetery sitting and thinking, so they started bringing him food so he wouldn’t have to go begging in the city. Word got out that there was a holy man sitting in the cemetery. He was still waiting for the princess but the people didn’t know that. They thought that if he’s sitting in the cemetery he must be a holy man. What else would he be doing there? People start to come and talk to him saying, “You know, I’ve got such and such troubles. What do you advise?” He would give his opinion or say, “I’ll think about it, come back some other day.” He started giving people blessings and the blessings worked.

Meanwhile the princess had gotten married, but she didn’t have any children. She tried doctors and this and that and nothing worked. One day someone said, “Listen, that holy man in the cemetery is doing great things.” She goes to the cemetery and asks the holy man for his blessing to have children.

One look at her and he recognizes the princess. “I want to thank you,” he says. “It was your beauty and your guidance that sent me to the cemetery in the first place, and since I’ve been here I’ve gotten to know many great things. If there is any merit in anything I’ve done I want that merit to be transformed into a child for you.” That’s how he blessed her.

A little while later, people saw he was sitting in very deep meditation, so they didn’t want to bother him. A few days went by and he didn’t come out of his meditation and all the food they brought was still there. The food started rotting and the flies started eating it, and soon the people saw that the flies were eating the man’s eyes too. He had died while he was contemplating the source of beauty without form.

The Raishit Chochma said that you can see from this story that one can learn from loving a woman or a man to come to the love of The Divine.

“Raising an Awareness of Awe”

“….Given that ‘the beginning of wisdom is the fear of heaven’ (Psalms: 111:10), and fear of heaven results from humility, we might expect the paradigm to begin with humility and end with wisdom. Yet Maharal is adamant that we consider a different paradigm, in which humility, and the dveykut attendant upon it, constitute the ultimate goal. Interpreting ‘Raishit Chochma Yirat Hashem’, he equates raishit with that which is primary,[1] so that fear of heaven is above wisdom both spiritually and ontologically. On the mishnah in Avot discussing the mutual interdependence of these values, Maharal further delineates the supremacy of Yirat Shamayim over Chochmah” ~ Yael Wieselberg from his paper: The Place of Yirat Shamayim in Moral Development: The Pedagogical Approach of the Maharal of Prague By Yael Wieselberg

[1] Netiv Yirat Hashem’, Chapter 1, pages 54-55.

This story was originally published in the Temple Beth El newsletter in April of 2000. It was submitted by me after asking Rabbi Aryeh, of blessed memory, if my version worked for him and was close enough to his telling.

Jubilee Part Five: Encountering Death Consciously

Bereavement, Jubilee, Relationships, Teachings, , , , , , , , , ,
Singing the Bones by Helen Redman, 1993
Singing the Bones by Helen Redman, 1993

When it is my time, the Holy One will take me. I’d like the folks left behind here to know that I am not gone when that happens. In my tradition there is a teaching that the only thing you can take with you to the other side are your mitzvot. I use the translation of this word here as deeds of loving kindness or rightness. So, if my deeds of goodness follow me and come with me, I should do a lot of them! It’s not a reason to engage with mitzvot, but rather a consequence of living my life as if I was already in Heaven, a place where kindness and beauty reign. There is plenty of Hell here on this planet. I have never been afraid of going to such a realm, I just want the suffering on this planet to be done. So, I orient towards Heaven on earth, bringing beauty, goodness, love, warmth, comfort and delight into this time and place. My need to walk this particular path is coded in my core. I feel pulled and guided by that force constantly.

Taking a retreat from engagement with the folks I love and who I just know and encounter on a daily basis is a radical step. I am interested in a specific kind of departure from the norm. I want to explore leaving this world consciously. If I dip into the absence/death-well, while I am still living, I get to practice to navigate territory that is very uncomfortable for all of us. This choice, on my part, about why I need to do this is so complex. I am not talking about taking my life. I have never felt inclined to do so and I doubt I ever will. Looking at death in depth and consciously, is different from venerating it or reaching towards it.

If I were Hindu, I would just say I was going to spend some time with the Goddess Kali and that would make sense to folks who were steeped in that tradition. Buddhist practitioners engage in years of contemplation and “practice” around death. There are complex meditations that involve envisioning your death, the death of those you love and death in general. In the modern secular world, we have a fascination with vampires, zombies and ghosts. But engaging with those ideas as entertainment or story-line is very different than looking at the reality of death head on.

I’ve been looking at it literally with my head on (using my mind and body to be present around death) all of my life. Over fifteen years ago, when a dear friend became ill with cancer, her final wish was that our community endeavor to bury her according to Jewish tradition. This meant engaging in study around traditional Jewish practices and creating a Hevra Kadisha locally. Hevra Kadisha translates literally as Sacred or Holy Community/Society, most folks think of it as the Jewish Burial Society.

The service of a Hevra Kadisha is done anonymously and involves preparing a person for burial according to ancient beautiful Jewish practices from Torah. In my 49 years on this planet I’ve gone from fishing for gravestones in a stream (see Jubilee Part Four) to gently preparing those who have died to enter the earth.

We enter a river of blessings in this process as well as doing the heavy lifting, purifying and cleaning. I do this work with four or five other people mostly in silence with only specific prayers recited as we engage in the various tasks. We bathe and cleanse and lovingly robe folks in simple linen garments modeled along the lines of the High Priest from the Torah. We wrap them tight in a shroud, like a cocoon and place them in plain wooden boxes. We place broken shards of pottery over their eyes and mouth to signify that their soul has broken free of its physical vessel. We lovingly praise and honor their physical bodies as the homes of their souls and we ask forgiveness if anything we do while preparing them wasn’t done properly. This service is considered a mitzvah/commandment/obligation that is of the highest order. In my community, we do this for free. In all Jewish communities, if you do this work, you are actually doing it for the person who has died, and they cannot thank you or pay you, which is why it is considered to be a very special mitzvah.

My service with the Hevra Kadisha has brought me in contact with death in real time and with real humans whose bodies I have engaged with. I have also had the privilege of being present with folks as they were dying and on their journey across the “River Jordan.”

The Other Side of Birth by Helen Redman, 1994
The Other Side of Birth by Helen Redman, 1994

Intrinsic to my need to go on retreat is a concept called L’Shem Shamayim: for the sake/name of Heaven. Underneath my desire for stillness is a strong and always flowing current of connection with the Divine. I need to see what it is that the next phase of my life is supposed to be oriented around and towards. I need to find out what I can do for or in the name of L’Shem Shamayim and for the world to come/Olam Ha-Ba. This idea of a world to come can be interpreted to mean tomorrow or the world we create, not just the world on the other side of life, but that is also part of its meaning. So, taking time away to explore through prayer, through meditation, through engagement with solitude and nature and through active study are all ways for me to connect to Olam Ha-Ba.

In this world, which we call, Olam Ha-Zeh, I am also taking time away to get still and see what unfolds in a place that is less stimulating and full of others and their needs. I am often seen as the “spiritual” one in my family, in a group or gathering. I do not like this, when it separates me from others and makes me seem or look different. While I am happy to be seen as a woman engaged with Torah, with Holiness, I do not want to be the placeholder for Holiness in other peoples’ lives. I want everyone to engage and have relationship with what is Kadosh/Sacred/Holy to them.

I also don’t want connection to a spiritual reality to be seen as something that can only be done in a big way. Folks who are quieter or less obvious and vocal are just as capable of connection with the Divine as I am. There is no singular or right way to connect or be engaged with spiritual practice. Although there are tried and true and well-researched and practiced spiritual technologies and teachers that can improve our ability to connect and experience Holiness or Deep Mystery.

“The root k-d-sh occurs nineteen times in Parashat BeHukotai, the last reading from the book of Leviticus, in which there are altogether 152 occurrences of this root. The Torah nowhere defines the concept of kedushah, what we might call in English “holiness” or “sanctity.” Nevertheless, the use of this root has developed extensively, so that today we speak of making kiddush on the wine, or of reciting the kaddish and the kedushah in the synagogue service, or of marrying a woman through kiddushin (the ring ceremony), and we behave as if we understand the concept of being kadosh (holy) which is present in each of these actions. We tend to forget that holy is a divine (transcendental) concept, and therefore, like the concept of G-d, is above human comprehension.”-Dov Landau

As a Jewish woman, as a mother, as a wife, as a sister, as a grandmother, as a friend, and as a daughter, taking a year off from my family and friends is a very intense thing to do. It will be a death of sorts. This is time of absence and death-like being away from those I love is a risk I am willing and need to take. I do so knowing that while it will be hard for those who love me and who I love, it can also be a blessing and an opportunity. Getting up close to and intimate with absence and death or separation is a very hard thing for most of us to do. Taking this path consciously, for me, and hopefully for those who will miss me, is a way to flow into and explore THE RIVER of space and time, beyond our physical bodies and all their coverings and ways and means. I’m looking intently towards and across that mysterious “River Jordon.” I have no desire to cross over yet—but I am very curious about the territory.

to be continued…..

~byline from the original piece published in the Mad River Union on August 13, 2014:

Nicole peeks across and around all kinds of corners, rivers and edges wherever she abides and she endeavors to speak of this as she walks along the way. Sometimes, she can be found in her home in Bayside, but you are just as likely to encounter her swimming at Big Lagoon or meandering along the aisles of your local health-food store.