Dear TBZ Community,
I am still feeling the excitement of last night’s fundraiser, a celebration of TBZ with the wonderful music of Rabbi Micah Shapiro together with Rabbi Deborah Sacks Mintz, Molly Bajgot, and Danny Shapiro; and with the celebration of our dear honorees, Rabbi Sam and Jenni Seicol. As someone said to me this morning, “it was a TBZ love fest.” We came together to celebrate this unique and special community, our TBZ.
Jenni summed it all up for me when she quoted her friend’s sage advice: “Our job in this incarnation is to show up with love every day.” After saying that twice, Jenni added that this is what she and Sam, and all of us at TBZ, are going to keep on trying to do. What a powerful statement.
This is what we came to do in the world, this is what we do as a community, this is what we do for each other:
We show up,
with love,
every day.
I want to especially lift up these words today, as we begin Pride Month. A month of celebrating love, while also fighting for our LGBTQ+ friends and family. A month of finding joy, while also remembering that the Pride movement started as a rebellion, a series of riots in the name of equality. A month of building community, while also recognizing that a large swatch of this country is actively decimating civil rights and persecuting our LGBTQ+ neighbors and loved ones.
And because we live in a time when so many are trying to restrict and actively harm the LGBTQ+ communities, including 491 anti-LGBTQ+ hateful bills across America (with two here in Massachusetts!), we must remember to show up, with love (and actions, and petitions, and calls to our legislators) every day. In the words of Idit Klein, CEO of Keshet and TBZ member, in an email she sent today in honor of Pride month:
Right-wing politicians are trying to silence and dehumanize us. But if there is one thing our community knows how to do –this month and all year long– it is to celebrate with the spirit of resistance. We are the inheritors of strength, brilliance, and resilience, and we will not allow others to define who we are or take away our dignity.
Love is an act of resistance. Love is an act of hope. Yesterday, at our TBZ love fest, I was reminded how blessed we are to be in a community where these words mean so much: we love and we show up with love, every day. Joyfully and in community.
Rev. Dr Jaqui Lewis, in her stunning book, Fierce Love, writes:
To cultivate and claim joy is itself an act of resistance. It’s worthwhile daily spiritual practice. Joy will keep your heart pumping with love, your mind cooking with ideas, and your body jazzed with resilience for this journey called life.
So that is what I feel we are here to do, that is what we do at TBZ. We continue to cultivate joy, so our hearts can pump with love, so we can show up every day with love.
This week’s parasha (Torah portion), Nasso, includes the priestly blessings. The Torah commands Aaron and the priest to bless the people of Israel. This very same blessing is traditionally recited by parents over their children at the Shabbat table; at TBZ we end many of our Shabbat services by putting a tallit (prayer shawl) over all our TBZ children and blessing them. We also make sure to bless each other, no matter what our age.
Before the blessing itself we read:
These are the words of the blessings in our parasha:
וַיְדַבֵּר יְהֹוָה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה לֵּאמֹר
Adonai spoke to Moses:
דַּבֵּר אֶל־אַהֲרֹן וְאֶל־בָּנָיו לֵאמֹר כֹּה תְבָרְכוּ אֶת־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אָמוֹר לָהֶם
Speak to Aaron and his sons:
Thus shall you bless the people of Israel. Say to them
Rashi explains these words: Say to them…so that all of them should hear the blessing
אמור להם. שֶׁיִּהְיוּ כֻלָּם שׁוֹמְעִים
The act of reciting the blessing does not suffice without them being there to hear the blessing. The blessing must be recited in their presence.
Rashi goes on to say:
אמור. מָלֵא — לֹא תְבָרְכֵם בְּחִפָּזוֹן וּבַהֲלוּת, אֶלָּא בְכַוָּנָה וּבְלֵב שָׁלֵם
אמור Emor is written plene (with ו after the מ) thus indicating: you shall not bless them hurriedly and hastily, but devoutly and with a whole heart.
Interestingly, the words used by Rashi, בְּחִפָּזוֹן וּבַהֲלוּת “hurriedly and hastily,” are the words used to describe how the people of Israel left Egypt – in a hurry.
This teaching and interpretation says something very profound about blessing and about relationships: We may have a blessing, a good intention directed to someone, yet if that someone is not there to receive it, if we don’t communicate that which we want to pass on to the other person, it is as if we haven’t done it at all. And even if that someone is there, but we offer a blessing hurriedly and hastily, it is also a sign of not being fully in relationship with the other.
Kavanah (intention), which we often think about in the framework of prayer or religious life, is also a value for relationships and for the ways we show up in the world. How do we speak to someone else? Do we make sure they are present and ready to hear what we want to share? Do we say it in words that can be heard? We must bring kavanah to our personal relationships, as well as to our community building.
Living intentionally, cultivating joy, and showing up with love – they go hand in hand. It’s what we are here to do, in this incarnation, and is what we will continue to do. Luckily we don’t get to do that alone, we do it in community. I can’t think of anything more needed in the brokenness of our world, and as we witness so much suffering and injustice around us, than to hold blessing, to pass blessing, to receive blessing – not hastily, and not alone, but with others and with intention.
Yesterday we offered the following blessing to Jenni and Rabbi Sam and now I extend that blessing to all of us:
May you be open to receive love in all the ways you give love;
May you be open to torah in all the ways you teach torah;
May you continue to be surrounded by community that cares about you,
and who learns from you how to care for them;
May you continue to share stories and teach children the power of stories;
May you continue to write and share poetry, and receive that which is shared with you;
May you be healthy and find joy in all your endeavors;
We love you.
Followed by the priestly blessing that we read this Shabbat:
יְבָרֶכְךָ יְהֹוָה וְיִשְׁמְרֶךָ
May Adonai bless you and protect you
יָאֵר יְהֹוָה פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ וִיחֻנֶּךָּ
May Adonai deal kindly and graciously with you
יִשָּׂא יְהֹוָה פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ וְיָשֵׂם לְךָ שָׁלוֹם
May Adonai bestow God’s favor upon you and grant you peace
Ken yehi ratzon – may this be your will.
May this Shabbat bring renewal and blessings to all of you and your loved ones.
May we find strength, courage, and patience, and open our hearts with generosity.
May all those who are ill find healing. And may we have a joyful, sweet, and peaceful Shabbat.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rav Claudia