Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 24 Iyar, 5783

39 Days of the Omer

Today’s Omer theme is “Netzach of Yesod” or the “Endurance of Bonding”

From Chabad:

An essential component of bonding is its endurance. Its ability to withstand challenges and setbacks. Without endurance there is no chance to develop true bonding.

Am I totally committed to the one I bond with? How much will I endure and how ready am I to fight to maintain this bond? Is the person I bond with aware of my devotion?

Exercise for the day: Demonstrate the endurance level of your bonding by confronting a challenge that obstructs the bond.

When it comes to the idea of love – we often think it’s not “supposed to be” hard.  What we endure – withstanding challenges and setbacks often helps bonding to develop.  If we only connect though happy joyful moments, our bond will not be strong.  It is the hard times that strengthen that bonding.

But instead of focusing externally – let’s take it within.  Are we enduring hard things internally? Withstanding challenges and setbacks? Or are we working to distract ourselves from navigating these challenges by looking externally for comfort instead of loving ourselves through these moments – with compassion and kindness?  How is our internal bond?

When we enter into relationships with other human beings – and we go for a period of time – there comes a moment where things get challenging – and that is generally when we distract ourselves.  Instead of focusing on the relationship, we try and do “something different” so we don’t have to navigate or deal with the real issue at hand.

How often do we do this within?  Whether it’s food, video games, reading fiction, watching movies, TV, alcohol, sex, drugs; are we distracting ourselves from the hard thing?

This is NOT to say these other things are “bad.”  We need to look with CURIOSTY and NOT judgment.  We tend to judge ourselves – which brings us to shame, guilt, abandonment, or even worse: we treat ourselves maliciously.

Instead, let’s turn within and explore what is making these moments so difficult that we need to distract ourselves?  Is it purely out of boredom? Or is it that when we have these moments of time with “nothing to do” and we can practice some internal reflection to “work out” our emotional or spiritual muscles we instead pick up something for comfort to navigate the pain.

A few days ago I think I posted this, but I keep coming back to it – from Mark Nepo in the “Book of Awakening” –

“Beneath every anger is a wound to be healed, and beneath every sadness is the fear that there will not be enough time.”

We have wounds. We have time. What are we doing with this to create (or co-create) moments of healing?

Those are my thoughts today.  Related to the portion – they are the bridge between the finite and the infinite.  Because in eternity – we have all the time in the world to heal.  In the finite moment we live in? We need to make these moments count.

What are your thoughts?

Here is my commentary from a year ago:

Second Parsha:

The second portion (the one we read today) is the results of the census. Here’s the results:

Rueben: 46,500

Simeon: 59,300

Gad: 45,650

Judah: 74,600

Issachar: 54,400

Zebulun: 57,400

Joseph:

Ephraim: 40,500

Manasseh: 32,200

Total: 72,700

Benjamin: 35,400

Dan: 62,700

Asher: 41,500

Naphtali: 53,400

Total: 603,550

The Levites were NOT counted. Keep that thought.

So 70 members of Joseph’s family arrived in Egypt and multiplied to 603,550. That is incredible if you think about it.

Now; why were the Levites counted separately?

Rashi gives us two possibilities:

1. The Kings legion deserves to be counted separately
2. Later on, God foresaw there would be a decree against those counted in the desert condemning them to die in the desert (the story of the Spies). Hashem said “Let these Levites not be included! They are mine, for they did not err with the Golden calf!”

So it was that blessing with the Golden calf that saved them from dying in the desert. Rabbi Schneerson points out to us that the Levites job was to study Torah, while for the rest of us, our spiritual path is dominated by the practical observance of the commandments. The mitzvahs were finite – 613 mitzvahs. The Torah itself is infinite. The Levites were infinite here because of their role; Torah. The rest of us were finite.

Wow. A lot to chew on today! What are your thoughts?