CyberTorah

Exercise: Take a long cleansing breath. Notice the deepest part of the self, the place from which our intentions arise. Notice its clarity, its wholeness. Imagine that you possess a life point of perfect purity and awareness, a place as it were connected to the Divine. Note the way that fears, insecurities, and separation cloud and interfere with your connection to that sacred hidden inner place.

Take another breath. Imagine that you can breathe into the fear, into the frustrations and anger that cloud intention and purpose and keep you away from that hidden, delightful inner core. Imagine that your breath is piercing the clouds, clearing them away with compassion and love.

Take a third breath. Imagine that there is a power, a divinity in the Universe, that wants you to connect with that deep and hidden place of whole intentionality and purpose. Even as you breathe to restore that connection, something beyond / inside the self is aiding you, strengthening you, desiring your return back to that place of wholeness.

Barukh Atah Adona, HaRotze B’Teshuvah. Praised are You, God, who desires our return.

Background: There is an old joke of a person praying to God. The person says, “Thank you God for strengthening me today. I have not hurt anyone, I have stayed true to my intentions, I have not been angry. But now I am really going to need your help because it’s time to get out of bed…”

The joke notices the difficulty in holding onto our intention to be good and compassionate people. The day begins and our experiences and the scripts we carry from the past awaken our fears. We worry that if we don’t go negative, we will lose something important. We fear separation and awaken anger. The day clouds us from that inner core, the place that knows who we want to be.

Teshuvah, repentance, is a belief that we can change. It instructs that the scripts of separation and anger and fear are illusions that we can rewrite into scripts of love, compassion, and healing. Further, this blessing asserts that we have a partner in this work of change. It may be beyond my limited capacity to change my responses. Yet nothing is too marvelous for God. There is an energy in the Universe that wants to aid and strengthen me in this work. (Or, if you prefer, imagining that such an energy exists is a tool that enables me to unlock inner resources otherwise inaccessible in my journey of change and growth.)

The prayer invites that energy to help me and in so doing restore a match between my thoughts, intentions, and deeds. When that occurs, I suddenly become master of my own life and destiny.

Structure: This prayer flows naturally from da’at, discernment. We need first to recognize an ability to make distinctions, to see when we have fallen away from our intentions and most sacred self before the desire to change can even awaken. Further, we need the grace of da’at, of intelligence, to examine the scripts and fears that subvert our intention. Yet without the possibility of change and return, discernment would be a harsh prison. It would only let me see my failings without any ability to change them. This blessing recovers the gift of grace that is discernment because I can both understand in a deep way the work that is in front of me and, with God’s help, do it.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi David Booth