Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 7 Tevet, 5785

Good morning! As we are now one week from the full moon of Tevet, where chaos will bring opportunities to repair our hearts, last years thoughts on today’s Torah portion seem significantly apropos.  The portion is about a conflict between Israel(Jacob) and Joseph. Israel was blessing the children in the “wrong order” according to Joseph.   Joseph’s expectations were different than Israel’s reality.

I spent some time last year focused on Mark’s Nepo’s passage from the “Book of awakening” and discuss the idea of our hearts.

Is our heart in any given moment agitated or at peace?  Are we actively aware of the peace or agitation, or is it running as a background tab in our minds?

Is our mind distracting, numbing, or comforting us with our agitated heart?

This gets back to yesterday’s passage on soothing. Soothing an agitated heart. Mark Nepo wrote this:

“Our crucial task when in pain or despair is not to let the sour feelings spill into everything, so that we stain our sense of the world. Yet we must also take care not to so contain our feelings that they fester and infect our sense of ourselves. Somewhere between these two extremes waits the life of healthy expression, not personalizing everything and not painting the world with our troubles.”

“Our inner work is often most demanding when we are sad and afraid, for we can so easily be overwhelmed by the power of these emotions that we can start to believe the world less possible or ourselves diminished. Once feeling less than, we stop feeling the truth of what is genuine and start losing touch with the Great Winds of life.”

Agitation and anger can mask sadness and fear for sure. We start to contract our worlds in on themselves and believe the world less possible.

Soothing allows us to find a way to re-open a door to the possibilities in front of us. Reflecting and acknowledging the reality of our sadness and fear, our anger and embarrassment (our guilt and shame) – allows us the possibility to be reminded that those FEELINGS are safe. They are by design. Expressing these feelings in the same way we express joy, excitement, and other feelings that society and culture has convinced us are somehow the “good” feelings brings about freedom and liberation.

And? We know, expressing hurt, anger, sadness, fear, and embarrassment? Is not always safe.  It can trigger others into defensiveness and then we need to manage someone else’s feelings when all we wanted was a safe space to express our own.

So we learn.

To keep it in. Saying “you hurt me” is more difficult to deal with than telling ourselves internally – “suck it up buttercup” because saying “you hurt me” requires someone ELSE to either see us, and hold space for us – OR reject us and turn it around on us to explain how us telling them is the greater offense than the initial (unintentional) hurt.

And that is it.

Active vs passive.

We know – when someone hurt us – early on in a relationship – we can recognize it was UNINTENTIONAL. It was passive.  And? When we tell them it hurt? They perceive that as an INTENTIONAL hurt.

So we learn to suck it up. And then, the other person keeps hurting us. And. We haven’t really told them it hurt us – we just sucked it up.

So we learn.

“You make me happy” = GOOD

“You hurt me” = Bad.

If our relationships only allow space for “you make me happy” and never a safe space for “you hurt me” – we are not in a healthy relationship (in my opinion).

Thoughts?

Here are my thoughts from last year:

Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 14 Tevet, 5784
Parsha Va-Yehi (Genesis 47:28 – 50:26)
Third Portion: Genesis 48:17 – 48:22

Good morning!  Today is the fullness of the moon of Tevet. The full light of repair within the midst of chaos is being shown to us!  This morning has been an incredible time of insights for me personally. I read something in Mark Nepo’s book of awakening –

“Our crucial task when in pain or despair is not to let the sour feelings spill into everything, so that we stain our sense of the world. Yet we must also take care not to so contain our feelings that they fester and infect our sense of ourselves. Somewhere between these two extremes waits the life of healthy expression, not personalizing everything and not painting the world with our troubles.”

“Our inner work is often most demanding when we are sad and afraid, for we can so easily be overwhelmed by the power of these emotions that we can start to believe the world less possible or ourselves diminished. Once feeling less than, we stop feeling the truth of what is genuine and start losing touch with the Great Winds of life.”

This inspired me this morning to reflect and take what I learned from Mark Nepo.  I believe I co-created with Mark Nepo and a friend something crucial for us on this journey to spiritual liberation and freedom:

“The journey of the divine masculine is to move from an agitated heart to a peaceful heart in each moment we come to.”

“The journey of the divine feminine is to move from a passive heart to an active heart in each moment we come to.”

Within us – this is harmony and balance. An active peaceful heart vs an agitated passive heart.

This is beautiful. This is love.

As we live in this light today, where do we see ourselves on the matrix?

• Active Peaceful Heart?
• Active Agitated Heart?
• Passive Peaceful Heart?
• Passive Agitated Heart?

To know ourselves in this moment of chaos and repair gives us a foundation to live the next moment. And the next.

With this spirit, let’s dig into today’s portion (of “And He Lived”). Let’s remember our lesson and how we left off yesterday.  We discussed realities and perspectives. How we live in a multiverse of realities. Israel saw Joseph’s perspective and validated it. He placed his hands on the children according to Joseph’s perspective. Let’s go:

17And Joseph saw that his father was placing his right hand on Ephraim’s head, and it displeased him. So he held up his father’s hand to remove it from upon Ephraim’s head [to place it] on Manasseh’s head.

18And Joseph said to his father, “Not so, Father, for this one is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head.”

Oh hello, Joseph! Active Agitated Heart?

Now remember. The Torah uses “Israel” here in this part on blessing.  Israel is in his divinity. I think that is important.  Israel was validating Joseph’s perspective – and it agitated him.  He could have kept quiet – but he didn’t.  He reacted. Joseph knew the firstborn was supposed to receive the right hand. Which is interesting, considering Israel himself was NOT the first born, and received the blessing from the Miracle child Isaac.

How does Israel react?

19But his father refused, and he said, “I know, my son, I know; he too will become a people, and he too will be great. But his younger brother will be greater than he, and his children[‘s fame] will fill the nations.”

20So he blessed them on that day, saying, “With you, Israel will bless, saying, ‘May God make you like Ephraim and like Manasseh,’ ” and he placed Ephraim before Manasseh.

Israel maintained a peaceful active heart.  He affirms Joseph. “I know, my son, I know.” He does not ARGUE with Joseph. He does not get agitated. He affirms Joseph’s accuracy. And. He affirms Joseph’s reality – because Joseph placed the younger (Ephraim) on HIS OWN right, and placed the older (Menasseh) on HIS OWN left.

Now I am reflecting on this.  I wonder – did Joseph do this because he didn’t think Israel could see?  Joseph wanted to make it easier on his father to bless the children correctly? Did Joseph try to make the decision FOR Israel on who to bless on which side?  I can see a reality for Jospeh where internally he was thinking (subconsciously?) “I will seat them on my lap according to Israel’s reality because I can’t trust he will get it right.” 

And here is my takeaway…

For us? How often do we make decisions for others to make their lives “easier?”  To navigate their reality FOR them? And we care about them right?  We do this because we care. 

And. When they get agitated about it? We get into an argument. Over our intentions vs the impact of our actions. Do we stop and get curious about WHY we did what we did with our intentions?

Israel looked beyond this.  He accepted Joseph’s reality. He affirmed Joseph’s reality. And it BUGGED Joseph.  How often does this happen to us? Our reality is affirmed and it BUGS us?

Israel then finishes blessing the children and provides a special moment for Joseph – almost as if to say “look – I know this is tough – but you are special to me:”

21And Israel said to Joseph, “Behold, I am going to die, and God will be with you, and He will return you to the land of your forefathers.

22And I have given you one portion over your brothers, which I took from the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow.”

Israel provides a double blessing for Joseph in the promised land.  This is curious – because the oldest is supposed to get the double portion.  Joseph gets it instead. So that, Menasseh and Ephraim get full portions instead of half portions.  So they don’t feel “less than” but feel whole.

Which seems to affirm this reality:

“Our inner work is often most demanding when we are sad and afraid, for we can so easily be overwhelmed by the power of these emotions that we can start to believe the world less possible or ourselves diminished. Once feeling less than, we stop feeling the truth of what is genuine and start losing touch with the Great Winds of life.”

Israel wants us to feel the truth of what is genuine so that we do NOT lose touch with the “Great Winds” (read Hashem) of life.

Those are my thoughts – what are yours?