Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 12 Elul, 5783

As I read today’s portion, I am reflecting on the moment.  Where am I right now. In this moment? If I can get here – I see; I am safe. I am at peace. I have ease.  This is a choice.   Because the moment I jump into the future – where is my rent money going to come from? My brakes are grinding and I need to replace them, how I am I going to pay for that? Will that friendship I am struggling with turn out ok? Will my kids be ok?  I lose it.  I lose the moment.  And I feel less ease. Less peace. Less Shalom.

And as I come back to the moment – and choose the moment. I am safe once again.  Hashem has chosen me.  I have chosen Him.  As long as I am connected to Him in this moment? I am good.  But the moment I jump ahead of the timeline? I get myself into trouble.

The moment rarely has problems that need to be solved. The future brings problems for us to solve in a moment. As someone who identifies with “fixing” problems? I like jumping ahead to solve problems in a moment.  But that isn’t how we are designed.  We are designed to be.  Be in a moment.

What are your thoughts as we come to the light of the full moon in a few days?

Here is my commentary from a year ago:

Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 17 Elul, 5782

Good morning! Today we are concluding Moses “last lecture” (sort of). Here is the text from Deuteronomy 26:16-19 :

(It should always appear in your eyes that) today God, your God, is commanding you to fulfil these suprarational commands and rational commands (for the first time). Be careful to observe them, with all your heart and all your soul.

(It should always appear in your eyes that) today you have selected God (from all the foreign gods), to be your God (for the first time)-to go in His ways, and to observe His suprarational commands, His (other) commandments and His rational commands, and to listen to His voice.

And (it should always appear in your eyes that) today God has selected you (from all the nations of the earth) to be His treasured people (for the first time)- as He told you–and to observe all His commandments, ” and to make you elite above all the nations that He made, in acclaim, renown and splendor, being that you are a holy people to God, your God, as He said.”

So a few things I notice here.

First the idea of “it should always appear in your eyes that today…”

Rashi points out the idea that every day should be new in our eyes – as though these connection points to Hashem were commanded and created today. The closing from Moses is to remember to live in the moment.

We’ve discussed this before. If you really sit with it; the past ONLY exists as data inside our brains in the current moment. How we tell the story of the past; how it’s stored in our brains; all of that we can change. We may not have a time machine to go back and fix the past, and at the same time, we do have the ability to rewrite the code today as to how that memory gets stored. Is it stored as a word document? Pdf? Gif? How do we store the past in our heads? Is the story a story of power and redemption for us? Is it a story of weakness and fear? We have the ability to rewrite the core. That each day we can begin anew and focus on the current moment.

For me personally, heading to my childhood home and getting a hug from a stranger in the present moment began a process of rewriting the code of how my past from ages 5-15 was rewritten.

When I went to my high school reunion in May, and the trip back in July and then again last weekend began to rewrite the code from ages 15-18. We can rewrite the code. We can’t change the behaviors or action of the past. That’s an important lesson here (in my opinion).

Ok – one more thing. This idea of “selecting” God and God “selecting” us. Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra wrote the following:

There is no conclusive proof in Scripture as to what the Hebrew terms “he’emarta” and “he’emirekha” mean, and it appears to me that they mean “separation” and “distinction.” The meaning here is: You have separated God for yourself from all the foreign gods to be your God, and He distinguished you for Himself from all the nations on earth to be His treasured people.

Alternatively these words could be understood as being similar to the term for “glory” (tif’eret) as in the verse “all workers of violence glorify themselves (yit’ammeru)” (Psalms 94:4 Rashi, 11′ century).  He’emarta means “exalted.” Rabbi Judah Halevi understood it as meaning “speech”: “Today,  you have caused God to say that He is your God… And today God has caused you to say that you are His treasured people” (end quote)

There is an element here bringing us back to free will choice. That we have a CHOICE to choose Hashem and that Hashem has a CHOICE to choose us. This is not a love of OBLIGATION. This is a love of co-creation. That we get to create WITH Hashem – Hashem gets to create WITH us. That is a powerful relationship and not one we are used to seeing.

In any partnership or relationship, human power dynamics tend to put one person in the place of being obligated to lead, and the other person obligated to follow. In a sense; one person creates the relationship and is the artist, and the other one is the canvas.

In healthy relationships we are both artist AND canvas. Knowing that we put our canvas next to someone else’s and we (together) paint our pictures – both easily separated (when we are apart) and easily brought together (when we are together). Our canvas becomes both beautiful regardless to the proximity of the other canvas, and in fact might look nice next to others’ canvas’ as well (like when we are with friends, or with social groups, etc).

This all starts with choosing our happiness and power in our connection with Hashem. With our souls. Do we choose to see ourselves as a soul, with a body wrapped around us? Or are we a body with a soul buried inside? This fundamental question has life changing consequences – because our bodies are frail, our souls are not. And Hashem has given us our soul- we didn’t choose to be our soul. Our soul chose us (in a sense).

I can alter my body; I can do things to my body that don’t alter at the core of who I am; but instead reflect better (or worse) the reality of my soul. I can put on different clothes based on my soul’s mood. But what I can’t do (in my opinion) is alter my soul. That is the core and essence of who I am.

The only decision I have to make with my soul is to choose whether to connect with its source (Hashem) or disconnect from source (Hashem). That decision will drive our realities in ways we can only begin to understand.

What a closing to Hashem’s last lecture!!!

What are your thoughts?