Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 16 Av, 5783

Good morning – I hope our day yesterday was filled with light and love!  It is now time to turn our intents for the next 45 days towards the spiritual new year. It’s not that we are intended to “coast” the next 45 days – it’s that our goal and purpose is to take stock of the things we love about ourselves, and those things we want to set an intent on doing more work in the next year.  Rosh Hashanah (and then Yom Kippur) is a time for us to really reflect on ourselves and the changes we made this past year that created joy and a deeper connection to ourselves AND discovering those things still within us we need to be liberated from!

Let’s dig in. Today’s portion is all about being in awe and soulful.  We have been on quite the journey.  We are about to enter the promised land.  Moses is seemingly stopping time for us – to just reflect.

We starts with Hashem.  Just reflect on everything.  The mistakes we’ve made. The marks we’ve missed. AND. Hashem still loves us.  He doesn’t DEMAND anything. He just asks us to be in AWE. To FOLLOW. To LOVE. To SERVE.

Awe.

Follow.

Love.

Serve.

How? With our hearts and souls.

Why? To reap a reward.

And I reflect on this.  How much do we engage with awe? I was listening to a meditation this morning, and the teacher was talking about just being in awe of bubbles. Meditating on that from a chemical reaction, something perfectly round, fragile and iridescent can be created.  How many times do we do the dishes with soap bubbles and just completely MISS this awe?  We have the power within us to CHOOSE Awe. But we don’t.  Do we? I mean – most moments I don’t.

This spiritual liberation has to begin with a sense of awe. We need to manifest awe within us.  Without Awe? We won’t follow. We won’t want to connect with Hashem. Or others.

And because we won’t connect and follow Hashem; we won’t be able to love Hashem.  Or others.

And because we won’t love, we won’t serve. At least not from our hearts and souls.

It all starts with awe.

How much time do we spend focusing on the awe of who we are. How we got to this moment? To reflect on what it took for us to exist. To just be.

And a key to this is in the Torah portion, isn’t it? How many ancestors had to get together in the perfect moment to create the next DNA to create the NEXT DNA, and then the next….to create….us?  That should inspire awe within.  But let’s be real. Most moments? I don’t consider that.

Awe. That is the souls longing.  How are you choosing awe?  Let me know!

Here is my commentary from a year ago:

Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 21 Av, 5782

Good morning friends! Excited to dig into the Torah today! Let’s jump in;

Moses is continuing to talk to the people before they enter the promised land. This is Moses’ last lecture.

He starts today’s portion saying – even though you sinned, what does God demand (expect?) of us? Because God has compassion on us and He still loves us. He asks us only to be in Awe of God, to follow His ways, to love Him, to serve Him, with all our hearts and all our souls. To keep the mitzvahs and the ones we don’t even understand- because this is for OUR benefit – because we will receive a reward.

This next passage is REALLY interesting and I want to quote it verbatim;

“God, your God, (has the choice of everything) in the lower and upper skies, the earth and all that is on it. “ But God desired only to love your forefathers, and He chose their descendants after them –(i.e.) you -out of all nations, (a choice which) remains until today.”

Let’s unpack this. What is “lower and upper skies?” Could this refer to “realms?” Like there are lower realms and upper realms of consciousness? Or spiritual levels and earthly levels?

And given this choice, God chose us. Out of love for our great great great…….great grandparents. He chose their descendants- us.

Ok. Back to the portion. The next part Moses talks about “circumcising” the “foreskin” of our hearts. This foreskin on our hearts blocks us from serving God. It keeps us stiff necked.

I’ve struggled to understand what this means for a LONG time to be honest. Even within Christianity, my friends share that God asks us to “circumcise” our hearts.

But if we consider the idea of moving from slavery to freedom, and we consider whether we are a body with a soul within us, or a soul with a body wrapped around us, it would make sense that detaching our soul from our body (circumcising the foreskin of our hearts) in our head would lead to more connection with Hashem, and in turn would inspire us to serve Hashem more, right?

I’m just sitting with this. Detaching our soul from our body in our mind and seeing these as separated – it kind of changes things. How we look at God. How we look at each other (how do I connect my soul with your soul? Can I do that without considering our bodies are in proximity?). How we look at ourselves? (Does our external reality impact our body AND soul? Or does it impact our body only?). And what role does the mind play? (Is it purely our body? Is it the bridge between our body and our soul?) so many questions. I don’t have answers. I’d be curious to know what you think!

Kabbalah has more on the soul here:

Did you know that even your soul itself has a soul?

The soul is, in a way, selfish, having its own more subtle sort of “ego” problems. Of course, the soul loves God, and it hates all those worldly pleasures that pull you away from God; but, ultimately, the soul’s yearnings are coming from its own instincts. It loves God, it wants you to worship Him. So life is still not really about God; it’s about how you love God.

Your soul, therefore, needs its own soul, something to remind it that we are here to serve God’s needs, and not the other way around. Your soul’s soul is called the yehidah—the “singularity.” The yehidah understands that nothing exists outside God’s orbit, that there is only one “singular” existence: God. He is the only thing that matters, not us. We only matter because we serve His needs.

The yehidah is the spark of the Messiah in all of us. As you awaken to your yehidah, you will participate in the great collective process of enlightened understanding that will soon redirect the world from its destructive course. (End quote)

This gives me goosebumps. We have the ability to manifest the opportunity to redirect the world from its destructive course.

I don’t know about you, but it certainly FEELS like the world is on a destructive course. I often think I feel helpless and maybe afraid (if I’m honest) that I can’t do anything about it.

But our souls can. If we can learn to “detach” our souls from our bodies? We can work together to “redirect the world from its destructive course.”

Wow.

Lets keep going because there is something else here. He says “He loves the convert and gives him bread and clothing.”

Often time we as Jews can become self-righteous (which Moses warned us about earlier in the week). We can think we are “better” than those who converted. But as we detach our souls from our bodies, wouldn’t it make sense that even the convert has a Jewish soul?

We are then given some commands here:

1. You should love the convert – because we were aliens in the land of Egypt.
2. You must fear God (be in awe of Him is a better translation in my opinion).
3. You must serve God
4. You must cleave to Him.
5. If you do all the above, then you may swear by His name.

Now. Let me give you a “key” to unlock some of this. Especially those of you who identify as Christian. Remember. God is love. I believe this, even as someone who identifies as a Jew. So, if we rewrite the above five things, this is what it looks like:

1. You should love the convert – because we were aliens in the land of Egypt.
2. You must fear Love (be in awe of Love is a better translation in my opinion).
3. You must serve Love.
4. You must cleave to Love.
5. If you do all the above, then you may swear by The name of Love.

How does that sound? Amazing, If you ask me.

Moses then tells us “Your forefathers went down to Egypt with seventy souls, and now God has made you as numerous as the stars of the skies.”

This isn’t about our bodies, friends. It’s about our souls. Our souls connecting with each others’ souls. Touch is a piece of it (I’m currently learning a LOT about the importance of human touch and hugs and the connection it plays within our souls). But the focus is our soul.

How are you engaging your soul? Is it a part of your body? Have you detached it internally? What do you think about that?

The portion today closes with miracles. Which is interesting given what we have just talked about. In our journey from slavery to liberation, if detaching our soul from our body is a step, it’s almost as if Moses is telling us what will happen:

Those souls that entered Egypt. Those 70 souls. They saw miracles their children didn’t experience first hand. And yet, the children got to see miracles as well. Those souls have witnessed Hashem’s mighty force – the mighty Power of Love (shout out to Huey Lewis).

Moses concludes todays portion with this:

“But your eyes did see all the great acts of God, which He performed. Therefore, you should keep all the commandments that I am commanding you today, so that:

1. You will be strong to come and take possession of the land, that you are crossing over to acquire.
2. And in order that you may prolong your days on the land that God swore to give to your forefathers–to them and to their descendants-a land flowing with milk and honey.

What if this land is in the upper realms? That if we detach our souls, we can connect in spaces beyond the physical?

What if that is the liberation we are all seeking? From the slavery of the prison that is our bodies? Like Yosef trapped in Potiphar’s prison, he was free spiritually, and he was happy and satisfied. He was given gifts of the interpretation of dreams. What if THIS is our journey to liberation? And each year we reread this until we “get it?”

Something to chew on. Something to reflect on.

What are your thoughts.

If you would rather discuss this privately, just know I’m open. Some of these questions or thoughts may be tough to want to explore in a public space. If you want to connect, please feel free to reach out.

Sending all of this With love….from my soul.