Musings - the stone in the park

There is a park on Windsor Road in Teaneck, New Jersey that I pass every summer morning as I drive my daughter to summer camp.  It is a large swath of green grass and dry summer trees.  It may not even be an official "park" that belongs to the city of Teaneck or to Bergen County. 

In this park, the only feature that catches my attention as I drive by everyday is a large stone that sits awkwardly on this green suburban space.  It does not nearly approach the size of the town rock, called pamachapura (stone from heaven) in my town of Glen Rock.  It may be a stone that rises five to six feet high.  It is a stone of light brown color as sand. 

The stone catches my attention every time I drive by.  I, figuratively, ask it, "What is your place here?"  I wonder how it came to this spot, or, conversely, how people came to this area and built up train tracks on one side and a road on the other.  Two modes of high speed travel run on either side of the park area and contrast with the immobility and silence of the stone.  I think about whether--no, I think about how many children have climbed the stone and sat upon it, and how some children who sat on it are now adults with their own children who look at, and even climb the stone as well. 

As human beings, we are attracted to what is different, what is unique.  A cactus in a desert is undeserving of notice but a cactus on top of a house catches widespread attention.  What is different and unique also causes us to look, to think, to feel and, hopefully, to discover new meaning and truth.

Perhaps what is most amazing to me is that the stone, despite the fact that we drive by it twice a day, has not become mundane over time.  Often, what is 'special' can become mundane after we grow accustomed to it.  Here, there are more opportunities for reflection, and the word reflection is appropriate for it is likely that we see ourselves reflected in what captures our attention.


 

Parshat Pinchas - "Losing it"

Losing It

Pinchas 2011/5771

©Rabbi Neil A. Tow

She shakes a pillow and all the feathers inside scatter over the ground.

He throws a pitch and watches, stomach tightening, as it flies straight and easy to the sweet spot on the bat.

The child yells and says something terrible to her parents.

What do all these three events have in common?

We say or do something and what we’ve said or done blasts away from us like a rocket from the earth.  They are moments that we cannot retrieve, and most often we end up feeling sad or upset for what we did or what we said. 

The one who shakes the pillow feathers out feels bad because she was illustrating a point using the pillow but now the feathers are stuck in the ground and blowing in the breeze.

The pitcher was trying his best to throw a strike and end the game.

The child felt he was right and that his parents weren’t listening and so he raised his voice since he did not know any other way to express what he was feeling.

Pinchas, the title character of this week’s parsha, is a person who acts in a similar way to all three of these cases.  He acts in a very strong way in the moment and in the opening words of the Torah portion God blesses him and rewards him. 

It seems strange that God would reward Pinchas for acting impulsively, for seeking a revenge of sorts on people who were misbehaving.  God steps in to bring Pinchas back.

It seems strange to us since we know that we (usually) cannot retrieve what we put out into the world.  We can try to soften it, try to change it, try to ask forgiveness for it, but we cannot alter the fact that in the given moment we lost it—we lost control.

Pinchas seems to have received rewards and praises for doing something that would only earn us shame, embarrassment, and a longing to apologize (if the other person allows us to apologize).

How can we make sure to not be in the situation of Pinchas, in a situation in which the only option we have left seems to be to act with great force?

The classic wisdom of thinking carefully before we speak is still good advice. 

But we sometimes speak without thinking first, or we think that what we say will mean one thing and the listener hears something else.  We have to be willing to apologize, and also to be flexible. 

We also need to try again, to be creative and find the strength within ourselves to admit where we went wrong and make a different type of effort the next time.

Even though Pinchas may have acted in a very strong way, he did show courage.  We need courage, too.  We need courage to let go of the way we hope the world will turn and to confront the world as it exists and flows through our thoughts and actions.

And that’s where synagogue Chinese food dinners come in…

The stronger the community in which we live, that is, the stronger the friendships we make, the stronger the support we provide to one another, the better our ability to build bonds of trust and willingness to forgive each other, and also to celebrate one another.

Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz taught that the Pinchas in our parsha acted in a strong way.  But he acted within the community of Israel.  He did not separate himself and build an altar to himself.

The Rabbi of Koretz judges Pinchas positively by arguing that he was still part of the people, in other words, in his mind and among the people he was one of them.

We do our best to express ourselves as individuals and also to find ways to live together as a community.

May the power and beauty of our individual voices and actions come together into a web of community and meaningful relationships that will reaffirm that each of us is among the people of Israel, the people of the Eternal God of the Universe.  Then we will be better able to avoid "losing it", and if we do, we will have many people around us to gently push us back on the path.  Amen.

Angels in front of us

Balak 2011

Getting stuck along the way

Rabbi Neil A. Tow 2011©

It is easy to get caught while we are on the way…

We’re driving and we stop along the road to rest, to eat.  The 20 minute break turns into 40 minutes.

We’re getting ready to leave the house and then the phone rings, or we cannot find a wallet or cell phone.

There is a limitless array of potential obstacles between us and our daily objectives.  The same is true for the long range view of our lives.

The Bal Shem Tov tells of what happens when a person is on her way to synagogue or to do another mitzvah.  Along the way, she stops to chat with people.  This is a sin because she did not journey with urgency to complete the mitzvah, to pray with a community.  And so, in a case like this, God would cause her to have to cross a river on a very narrow bridge, a bridge that would motivate someone to run and cross it as quickly as possible, a scary prospect!  In that moment on the bridge, God would send an angel to block the person from crossing the bridge.  This angel was the same angel that was created when the person thought to do the mitzvah in the first place—for in the moment when she committed to do a mitzvah, any mitzvah, the angel’s soul was created, but without the completion of the mitzvah  - the angel’s body remains incomplete.  Since she delayed in the mitzvah by chatting with others along the way, the angel comes to the bridge to prevent her from crossing.(Besht, Amud HaTefillah, 33)

This teaching from the Bal Shem Tov echoes with an overtone of this week’s parsha, Balak, as we follow the magician Balaam on his way to the Kingdom of Balak.  While there is some controversy about Balaam’s true intentions, Balaam already agreed with God to only bless the Israelites.  Balaam was on his way to do a mitzvah and God sent an angel to stand in his way. 

The delays and distractions, according to the Bal Shem Tov, have an impact on the world of the divine.  The expansion of the universe of God that was set to happen with the formation of a new angel seemed poised not to continue.

We recognize the difficulty of the angels that stand in our way.  We recognize that they can be completely unexpected and undeserved.  They appear like a brick wall in the course of our days and in the course of our years, our projects, our plans and we stand before them wondering what to do.

While some of these angel obstacles may yield us knowledge and precious experience of life-whether easy or hard-others are opaque, stubborn, and painful.  The angel in the story of the Bal Shem Tov is there to be a guide, a reminder, “so that a person will not run away and be troubled and scared.”  The angel standing in front of Balaam seeks justice, and holds up a sword and provides a firm rebuke and new instructions.

How will we respond when the angel steps into our path?  Will we get upset at ourselves and succumb to the moment?  Will we find ways to learn something about ourselves?  Will we be thankful to the Eternal One for granting us a new level of awareness?  (Or a combination of all)

Yesterday as we witnessed the launch of Atlantis, the final shuttle flight to space – I was thinking about the end of the shuttle program as a type of angel in the roadway, compelling us to think again about our plans for space flight, motivating us to recapture the dream that took us to space in the first place. 

In all our journeys, both on and off the planet, may each moment of delay when we face the angel who sees us in our time of distraction and interruption, help us to get back on the path so that we may continue to pursue our tasks, our goals, our dreams, and so we may walk in the way of the wisdom of the Holy One who sends the angels, reflections of the Divine, to shape and guide our lives.  Shalom Aleychem malachey El—yon, we welcome you in our lives, angels of the Most High.