I did a significant thing (for me). I was asked to lead a 5-minute centering at the start of a workshop on “Bearing the Burden of Another’s Wronging You” for The Mussar Institute’s Elul program. Elul is the Hebrew month we are currently in, and it leads to the High Holy Days, the important 10-day period of renewal and repentance. Thus, Elul is all about inner searching, reviewing our wrongs and finding ways to do better. If we have veered off-course, we can correct the path back toward where we want to be.
First of all, I am not very good at leading centerings or meditations. The purpose is to create a separation between whatever you were doing before the class begins and the sacred space we enter into together. It is a guided meditation toward setting aside your regular life and entering into a communal safe space of growth and learning. They often start with “close your eyes and take some deep breaths” and sometimes include poetry, music, or imagery. I don’t even like participating in them and I usually have my co-facilitator take over that part. I think of them as unhelpful and hokey.
Second, I prefer to exist behind the scenes; if I contribute something, it might be a comment toward the end of a teaching or, better yet, a written piece. Rarely am I comfortable speaking in front of others. I have gotten better over the past couple of years of facilitating Mussar groups, but still I am uncomfortable having all eyes and ears on me. My previous goal of being a professor would have been so scary for me! I have even been focusing on trying to have my voice sound serious and less child-like.
Finally, I know that the purpose of inviting me specifically was to introduce me to the broader community of members in a more serious context. I’m flattered and honored by that. The hidden purpose of asking me to do this was to help me grow into and through my discomfort, to realize that I can do something like this without forgetting to breathe.
And so I had to accept the challenge if I am serious about improving my leadership skills and growing in the TMI community. Besides doing it, I decided to write something that I would actually like to participate in. So it is a centering with a teaching as its main point. I’m including it below in case you’d like to read it.
The comments in the chat after I was finished were very encouraging: beautiful… i would love a copy of that beautiful meditation…. that was lovely… beautiful meditation… beautiful and meaningful… beautifully done… healing… Beautiful words and delivery!… your words brought a smile to my face – they were wonderful thanks for the offering!
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I am honored to be with you today. To be honest, it is a big challenge for me, but as I look at all of your shining faces now, I see many many people who I love deeply and who have touched my life in transformational ways – at a kallah or in a class and definitely on our Israel trip.
I invite you now to close your eyes as we create our sacred shared space. Take a deep breath in and imagine you are breathing in divine light. Let it fill you with optimism and peacefulness. Exhale and relax. Breathe in Menuchat haNefesh, a tranquility of the soul. And exhale. Take another breath, this time of savlanut, of patience; and as you exhale, release any judgment or expectation. Let yourself just be.
Envision this divine light inside you and outside of you, everywhere, beyond time and space. It is unnamable and unknowable and infinite. This light can transform into the divine consciousness that breathes within us and can manifest itself into all the forces in our universe. This sacred light will expand and contract and will be there always. This light and you are one.
These days of Elul grant us the time for turning inward, turning and examining our actions and vowing to work harder at reaching our potential. It means recognizing that we have the ability to change. To grow.
Bring to mind a picture of yourself as you were a year ago. How different you were! Over the last year, your body has changed. Your important relationships have evolved. You have grown in wisdom, gained new knowledge and perspective. Even when you lost your way or you thought you might be moving backwards, you were still moving forward. Life rarely moves in a straight line, and we need to patiently wait to see how a challenge transforms into a blessing.
Everyone’s abilities are limited. Sometimes results are beyond our reach. And yet there is this divine light and love that flows through us and understands each aspect of us and accepts us just as we are. Much of the yamim nora’im is about judgement. But God practices righteous judgment, balancing judgment with Rachamim, knowing our potential and wanting us to reach it, but understanding our limitations.
God generously gives this light to us, yet we exist not just to inhabit it but to let it pass effortlessly from us to others.
Keep picturing this light within you, but now imagine many other people with that same light within them. And imagine your light flowing outward to others as their light does the same. Create in your mind an interconnected web of divine light.
In the course of a year, you encounter an unknowable number of other people, mostly people you interact with only briefly, at a checkout counter or in passing at an airport. Each person is on his own path of growth and limitations. Each has her own story of growing up within a family and all its dynamics, of opportunities taken or lost, and of challenges that hinder or must be overcome. Each person is an entire universe unto himself.
We read in Leviticus, “V’ahavta l’reacha kamocha, Love your fellow as yourself.” The Mishna also tells us not to judge someone until we are standing in their place… which means that we have to judge the whole person, not just what we can see. And who among us can claim that they fully know themselves, let alone another person???
When we move through the world quickly, we are most likely operating from our ego selves and seeing others as hindrances to our own agenda. In this state, we are disconnected from the divine light and we start to make assumptions. We forget that the other person is also a holy soul, a separate being filled with his own light, her own journey toward her potential, his own trials and hopes and goals. How could we possibly know or judge them?
When we can slow down and realize the opportunity we have countless times each and every day to connect with this divine spark within us and to notice it within each human being, we are remembering to imitate God in righteous judgment. Each of us is on a personal journey, but it is our connections with others that shape us.
These days of Elul, may each of us open ourselves to this process of inward searching and of slow, sustainable change.
May we notice and release the impulse to seek fault in others.
May we live with greater wisdom and deeper love.
May God revive us and turn us toward each other. Amen.
