Manna Energy

BS"D

Fellow Blogger Tzipporah recently bemoaned her status as overworked volunteer extraordinaire in her community (Interpretive paraphrasing, of course). Here's my advice to her, I think we all could use a dose of it:

Perspective? Look to the name of your blog! (Midianite Manna) You are "manna" for your community. As such, the community needs to respect how much of your energy and efforts is healthful to take, and take no more. This is the principle of manna-- you get exactly what you need, what is healthful, and no more. Anything that is horded for future use becomes wormy and inedible. So too with your energy. Once the community starts hording your energy beyond what is healthful for you, then your efforts become wormy and of not constructive use to the community. This may sound like a big leap, but if you think about it it will make sense. Better for some things not to get done, than let the hording of your manna energy burn you out. Honest.

Overdue

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Holy Reb Maggid Yitzhak, I haven't found the words yet to thank you for your mentorship and your smicha. You are a great awesome holy teacher who guided me with strength and compassion. Blessings to you Reb Maggid, my thanks are coming.


Spiritual Artist Shoshonnah Brombacher, please support her work

Speaking of Epihanal Moments

BS"D

Wow. I had a great breakthrough a few months ago.

I was having real problems reconciling my hasidic spiritual life with the structure of my everyday world. I needed the structure of my life to be in alignment with my spiritual path. In Brooklyn, this would be easy, I'd just immerse myself in community, and that would take care of it. In Eugene, it's not so easy. And if you're a maggid working in liberal communities, it's even harder.

It can be done though. Reb (Yitzhak H.H.) gave me the breakthrough I needed. We were discussing what a good daily schedule would look like for me. I recalled reading an anecdote in Reb Maggid Yitzhak Buxbaum's book on the Holy Baal Shem Tov, about the Besct's daily schedule and decided to apply it. I told Reb, "I need to daven and study and teach." And then we laid out a schedule to that end, including saving most of the morning to daven and study. I really have to give him credit. Most people would have looked at that schedule and told me to go out and get a job. Seriously. But Reb looked at my schedule and made sure I included time to eat, and daven maariv, and have social time. Such a great moment of validation. Since then I've been implementing "the schedule" piece by piece (and contrary to it's ominous sounding name, the schedule actually has huge amounts of flexibility in it--anarchist, remember?) So far it's working out great. My daily meditations are coming back online. The cycles of my cycles of my cycles are all turning in the way that they should, or getting there.

So that was the breakthrough: The structure of my life and my spiritual path need to be in alignment. Sounds simple, eh? Try it!

Practice makes Epiphany

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Yesterday while playing the guitar I discovered a new way to play an F. It was so totally excellent a moment, you have no idea. I've never really been able to play an F with consistency-- my rinky dink pinkies just don't cooperate on that one. So to finally work out that F was a moment of real joy for me. Once I got humming along, working it in to the other chord progressions-- suddenly all of those broken chords with missing F's became whole. Bits and pieces I'd been working on for years suddenly made sense and in one moment my musical skills took a giant leap forward.

Beautiful.

My prayer life is like this. Sometimes I will struggle and struggle with something, seemingly to no end and then all of a sudden I get it and everything falls into place. Often when I'm in a struggling place I try to remind myself that it's the daily practice, the daily to and fro, the wrestling that brings about those moments of epiphany.

Practice Works.

I've decided to apply to Aleph's Rabbinic Program. I figure six years of wrestling with rabbinical school should be fertile ground for epiphanal moments. So again, to all my friends and supporters who have been pushing and prodding-- okay, okay, I get it. I get it. I really do, I get it.

Patience and Faith.

Thanks to Bar Mitzvah Eli Siegle for his great d'var torah presentation in which he stated that holy space is a place which cultivates in us patience and faith. In his case the holy space in question was Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox. In my case the holy space is in my heart. Same thing, eh?

Holy of Holies.

I have a lot of work to do this year in my inner holy of holies, the inside of my inside of my inside. I'm concentrating my inner work for a while on forgiveness, because that's where I think it's at. I just finished telling a class that we're constantly working on overlapping meditations on forgiveness. That forgiveness is central to our Jewish being. But you know, it's not so simple. Who are we forgiving? Ourselves? G-d? Others? It's quite complicated, actually. Somehow though, I think it's not complicated at all, that it's really quite simple, if only we'd see. And now I do see, and it is simple after all.

For Now.

I was reading in a commentary on the haftarot about Elijah and the prophetical schools. Prophetical Schools? Why did this not ever leap out at me before? It's so astonishing a concept, prophetical schools. Apparently there were so many prophetical students, they had to split them up into smaller bands of fifty for reasons of safety. Since when is fifty a small number of prophets? Wow! It really makes you think, eh?

Red and Gold.

What is the significance of the juxtaposition of the golden calf and the red hefer? Especially when Shabbat Parah and Ki Tisa fall on the same Shabbos? I know someone out there has the answer to this one. There has to be something, it's too tempting a topic for exploration for there not to be.

Again.

I taught a class last week on the siddur and I loved it. I had such a great time, I can't wait to do it again. Given the opportunity to teach with regularity, I think I could really develop a fluid style for this kind of class. Thanks to my friends in Eugene for bringing me along. Let's do it again sometime.

Blessings to you all!

Back into Blogging

BS"D


Shalom Shalom!!

Here I am back in the world of blogging-- hopefully to stay! My introduction to blogging back in the fall was a little rough around the edges... My first blog conversation ever necessitated a public defense of my character! Not to mention being labled an anarchist!! (okay, so maybe I am just a wee bit anarchistic-- good call Yoel)

Three things, though, did bother me about blogging and it's for these reasons that I've not been around online since then. Here they are:

1) Anonymous slander. I know the internet is a free universe, but in the world of Jewish Blogging, I expect people to refrain from making anonymous abusive postings. It was so very hurtful to have friends, family, and students "google" me only to have the first three listings that showed up be abusive accusations against me. How was I supposed to defend myself against anonymity? Like the words we speak from our lips, our internet words exist in the universe forever in a way that we cannot take back and so require an extra measure of surety before we lash out ranting into the blogosphere.

2) Nouns verses Verbs. Kuddos to you, Reb David Cooper for G-d being a verb! I live my life IN PROCESS. A position I take today may be a point of humbling tomorrow-- and I'm just fine with that! Unfortunately, people read blogs and figure what you say today is ALWAYS where you're at. So I'm loathe to speak deep thoughts into the blogosphere for fear that comments will be isolated out of context and process and used to slander me (see comment 1 above)

3) Branding of Blog Signatures. It started to become a concern of mine that my blog signature "maggidsarah" was becoming a true signature or "brand" name. I'm not sure exactly why that bothered me, or where I sit with it now, but it's something I've been struggling with for months, to no end.

Having said all of that, I'm jumping back into the blog world anyway. Thanks to all of my friends who have been patiently waiting and prodding since October!!

Blessings to you all for a beautiful Spring.

Friend Ben

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Friend Ben-- here's a link to his music at myspace.com:
Ben's Music

Trees for Tibor Eichenbaum Z'l

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Maggiding the Interfaith Service

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Smicha

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