From Coptic Orthodox Egyptian:
6:08 PM (32 minutes ago)Egyptian Synaxarium Toot 16from Coptic Orthodox by Coptic OrthodoxEgyptian Synaxarium Toot 16
THE FIRST MONTH
Toot (Tute, Tut, Thout, Thuout) 16 Martyr – Coptic Calendar – Martyr Calendar
26 September
1. The Commemoration of the Consecration of the Sanctuaries of the church of Resurrection in Jerusalem
Today we celebrate the consecration of the sanctuaries of the church of Resurrection in Jerusalem in the year 326 A.D. In the twentieth year of the reign of Emperor Constantine and after the meeting of the Holy Council at Nicea, the saint Queen Helena told her son Constantine that she had vowed to go to Jerusalem to receive the blessings of the holy places and to search for the wood of the life-giving Cross. He rejoiced at this, gave her much money, and sent her in the company of a large number of soldiers.
When she arrived there and received the blessings of the holy places, she searched for the wood of the Cross and found it after much toil. She praised it with great veneration and paid to it much reverence and honor. She commanded the building of the sanctuaries of the Resurrection, the Golgotha, Bethlehem and the manger, the upper room of Zion, Gethsemane and other sanctuaries, and that they be inlaid with pearl and covered with gold and silver.
There was in Jerusalem a saintly bishop who advised her not to do that, saying, "After a while foreign people will come and seize this place and destroy it and take the precious stones and the silver and the gold. But it is preferable to construct the buildings well and give the remainder of the money to the poor and the needy." She accepted his advice, gave him the money and set him in charge of the work.
When she returned to her son and told him what she had done, he rejoiced, and sent large sums of money and commanded to pay the workers their wages in full so they would not complain. When the building of the holy places was finished in the thirtieth year of the reign of Emperor Constantine, he sent vessels and precious vestments for the altars. He sent word to the Archbishop of Constantinople and to St. Athanasius, Pope of Alexandria, to take their bishops and to go to Jerusalem where they would meet the Archbishop of Antioch and the Bishop of Jerusalem, to consecrate these sanctuaries.
They tarried there until the sixteenth of the month of Tute, when they consecrated all the altars that had been built. On the seventeenth day they marched with the Honorable Cross around all the holy places where they worshipped God, offered the offerings, and venerated the Cross and honored it. Then they returned to their chairs.
Their prayers be with us to the last breath. Amen.
2. The Translocation of the Relics of St. John Chrysostom (of the Golden Mouth).
On this day also the church commemorates the transfer of the relics of St. John Chrysostom (of the Golden Mouth) from the city of Komanah, where he departed in exile, to Constantinople, 30 years after his departure. That was in the year 437 A.D. during the reign of Emperor Theodosius II.
His intercession be with us, and Glory be to our God, forever. Amen.
Toot (Tute, Tut, Thout, Thuout) = Meskerem (Mäskäräm, Maskarram, Maskaram)
Toot (Tute, Tut, Thout, Thuout) 16 Martyr – Coptic Calendar – Egyptian Calendar = 16 Meskerem - Geez (Ge'ez) Calendar – Ethiopian Calendar
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Thoughts About The Israeli And Palestinian Homes On Sukkot
From Tikkun:
Sukkot Thoughts-Rededicating Ourselves To Those Who Have No Homes, Or Whose Homes Are Endangered
Rabbi Arik Ascherman
Executive Director, Rabbis for Human Rights in Israel
Today was quite a day. Shots rang out in Silwan at 3:30 am and a young Palestinian man is dead. One witness says he saw a jeep with private settler security guards far from any of the houses taken over by various Jewish groups in the East Jerusalem neighborhood. A guard claims his life was in danger. I was the first Israeli human rights activist to arrive on the scene. We didn't know at that point how many people were injured or killed, and we were trying to help the residents get information from Magen David Adom and the hospitals. Internet news sites asked for permission to use a picture I took of the bloodstained spot where the man fell. Later Silwan erupted with stone throwing and tear gas. When the terrible truth came out, things got worse. One Israeli was stabbed, cars and busses damaged, rioting on the Temple Mount, arrests.
Meanwhile, we had planned for the Ghawi family to put up a Sukkah. We hoped that the police would not tear it down as they tore down their various tents opposite their now taken over home in Shekh Jarakh, since the eviction in August 2009. We thought that maybe Jewish and Palestinian children decorating together might soften their hearts. The Sukkah was torn down and destroyed.
However, none of this is what I had wanted to write about:
On Sunday I finally had an opportunity to meet with representatives of the 40 families in Beit Sha'an who have received eviction notices from their Amidar homes (Public housing). I was floored. Even in the Occupied Territories, I have rarely seen such terrible housing conditions. One family was crowded into a poorly built and probably dangerous roos, with a makeshift outhouse without a roof. Sukkot always raises my consciousness about housing. As I tell my children, living in a rickety and fragile structure in to which the rain penetrates should sensitize us to those who live in such conditions all year long, or who have been thrown out of their homes, or whose homes have been demolished. I therefore hope that all of you will make the effort this Sukkot to participate in at least one of our holidaty activities in El-Arakib or Sheikh Jarakh. (And sign up for the olive harvest.) As Beit Sha'an demonstrates, those we must be thinking of, praying for, and committing to act on behalf of are not just residents of East Jerusalem or unrecognized villages. We are also approaching the 10th anniversary of the bloody events of October 2000. We should remember the as yet unheeded recommendations of the Orr Commission, and their determination that discriminatory land policies implemented by all Israeli governments towards Israeli Arabs leads to home demolitions and potentially explosive anger.
Although I met the families in Beit Sha'an for the first time this week, dedicated activists have been working with them for months. Many of the activists are the same activists to be found in Sheikh Jarakh, giving lie to the canard that they are concerned only about non-Jews. More amazingly, some of the Beit Sha'an residents have come to Sheikh Jarakh. Just as common oppression has led to amazing partnership between Jewish participants (now former participants) in the Israeli Wisconsin Plan from Hadera and Arab participants from Wadi Ara, we can gain some comfort from the fact that oppression sometimes helps people see beyond their own situation to grasp a wider picture. I wish it would happen otherwise. Sukkot was also the holiday that in the Temple we offered sacrifices for all the nations of the world and prayed for rain for all, perhaps understanding that there are certain blessings that all enjoy, or none enjoy. If we can build on our universal consciousness, the fragility of life we recall on Sukkot can re-motivate us to activism that could really make Sukkot the "Season of Our Joy" we are told that it should be.
Khag Sameakh (For A Joyous Holiday of Activism),
Arik
==================================================================================================
Making Space in the Sukkah: Social Justice and Joy
Making Space in the Sukka: Social Justice and Joy
The period of time in the Hebrew calendar reaching from Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur is thought of generally as one unit, in English commonly referred to as the High Holidays, whereas Sukkot, the festival which follows four days after Yom Kippur, is generally thought of as a festive holiday, one of the three biblical Temple festivals (Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot), entirely distinct from the Days of Awe which happen to precede it. The mystics, however, view the period from Rosh Hashana until the end of Sukkot as one long arc, not as distinct notes on the page but as one continuous unfolding melody reaching its crescendo not at Yom Kippur, as we might guess, but at Hoshana Rabba (the last day of Sukkot prior to the final festival of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah). As this tradition is unfamiliar to most people, we may have an easier time in resacralizing it in a way that would be meaningful for our contemporary situation.
The first step would be to depart from our usual hierarchy regarding seriousness over joy. Mardi Gras is always first, followed by Lent; one parties first and then when that is done, one can graduate to solemnity. However, the difference to be emphasized here is that the apogee of repentance and life transformation comes not at Yom Kippur, during the 'serious' service, but at Sukkot, the holiday described biblically as 'the time of our rejoicing'. Rather than attempt to summarize the roots of this concept, I will quote R. Pinchas of Koretz, one of the earliest Hassidic thinkers, who was contemporary with the Baal Shem Tov, and whose analogy is quite memorable:
'the time of our rejoicing': Sukkah is the unification of HVYH and ADNY (the male and female names of Gd- numerically Sukka=91=the two names of Gd combined). This unification brings about Da'at (which is the Kabbalistic term for the interface between the two highest male/female names of Gd, and literally means Understanding. For context, Moshe, who brings the Torah from Sinai, represents Da'at), and when there is knowledge, there is joy.
The proof (for the superiority of joy over sadness, sukkot over the high holy days) is, that if one observes a newborn, who has very little understanding- already at birth he is capable of crying. It is only much later, when their understanding grows- that a baby can smile'
Thus, there is a greater spiritual and cognitive message implicit in the joy of the Sukkah experience than in all the crying meant to occur during the High Holidays! Any baby can cry, but it takes deeper understanding to smile. Perhaps we can this more than a cute metaphor when we recognize the reasoning behind this: that the repentance and spiritual growth seen in the High Holidays is a personal, individual one, whereas the joy of Sukkot reflects an interpersonal, social level (the analogy to the newborn is even more apt using modern pediatric developmental terminology- this facial expression which the baby achieves as a significant milestone of development is referred to as the 'social smile').
There is support for the social nature of Sukkot back at the source; for example, the Torah tells us that the people were meant to gather with the king in the event known as 'hakhel' ('congregate') every seven years specifically on Sukkot. A global perspective is taken by the Talmud, as the seventy sacrificial cows brought on Sukkot during the Temple period were read as being offered for the sake of all the nations of the world. The Sukka itself, as an image, suggesting a remembrance of the plight of the refugee, can certainly be read in this way, as does the Midrash and the medieval thinkers, and as did Rabbi Arthur Waskow in a recent issue of The Nation. Rav Tzadok Hacohen of Lublin, in fact, explains that Sukkot follows the High Holiday period as a penitential exercise, that is, should we have been found guilty of sins requiring exile, we are, as it were, paying the price.
However, when one keeps in mind the emphasis on this being a time of joy, it seems more in tune with joy to read into the Sukka a "positive" value, that is, whereas the refugee imagery stresses the Sukka as symbolic of a "negative" value, a lack, a deficiency, (as per Hanna Arendt's concept of the refugee being morally superior, given the lack of ability to oppress anyone, etc), clearly, to the mystics, a symbol associated with the highest Divine Union must contain within itself also a postive spiritual sense. Interestingly, even when using the "negative" reading of the Sukka, there is an implied positive undercurrent. Thus, for example, the Bat Ayin, who spins the negative transient quality of Sukka living into a positive, for creating a permanent dwelling would impede the continuous ascent that we make; he reads the verse in Kohelet 7:23, which is read on the Sabbath of Sukkot- "I thought I would be wise (echkimah), but she is ever further from me", as suggesting that the ideal is not reaching (or inhabiting) a fixed goal, but rather a more fluid, never-ending attainment of higher and higher divine states.
If not only a negative space, then what is the positive element signified by the Sukka? Geographically, as it were, the Sukka is viewed as encompassing a novel, even privileged spiritual space- 'I love Sukkot because it is the one commandment which I can be immersed in with my boots on' goes the line attributed to R. Shmelkie of Nicholsburg. This viewing of the material substance as reflecting a divine containment (the Hida points out that the word Sukka itself in Hebrew, contains the two names of Gd not only in its total numerical value, but in the form whereby the outside two letters, S-H, equal the male term, and the inner letters, V-K equal the female name) is that seized upon by the Tiferet Shlomo. In the biblical proof text instructing the people to sit in the Sukka, the verse which reads 'In Sukkot teshvu (shall you sit) seven days, in order that your generations shall know'', he adds another possible reading of the word teshvu as being derived not only from lashevet, to sit, but from the word teshuva, return, repentance, and thus the knowledge, the da'at, the level of relationship with Gd that was vivdly experienced by the generation liberated from Egypt, can be recreated by the act of teshuva, repentance, specific to the Sukka. But what is that element that is specific to the Sukka that brings about this unique and high level of spiritual attainment? For this the Tiferet Shlomo cites another verse with a word similar to Sukka (more specifically, to the Halachically critical aspect of the Sukka- it is not the walls of the Sukka that are central, but rather the Sechach, the ecologically signifying roof, which must be made of organic substances only). The word sechach used as a verb is found in the verse regarding the Cherubim, the sculpture which adorned the ark which was meant to contain the Tablets upon which were inscribed the original ten commandments. These Cherubim were described as creating a canopy with their wings (sochichim b'kanfeihem) the covering of the ark (the kaporet, which is itself similar to the word kapara, atonement). In other words, according to the Tiferest Shlomo, Sukkot is the highest possibility of repentance, of world transformation (his exact phrase is 'Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are the hakdama, the prologue to Sukkot'), and the specific defining feature of the superiority of Sukkot is found in the continuation of the verse about the Cherubim- who are described as being situated 'with their faces one to another'. Thus, the possibility for change for the better is highest on Sukkot, because in the Sukka, at the table, one is contained within the same space as another, face to face as it were, and thus the emphasis must be one's responsibility for the Other.
This concept, of Sukkot being primarily about the encounter with others, and not simply the spiritual growth of the Self, is seen in the well known, but not fully understood, tradition of the Ushpizin, the supernal visitors (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc) who are welcomed into the Sukka each night. This tradition, which has become very widely accepted, is of late origin and is first found in the Zohar (III:103b). What is less well known is that this passage in the Zohar is meant to encourage the invitation of the needy to the festival table. The Ushpizin come to partake not of the Sukka per se but of the meals placed for the poor, and as the Zohar states- 'woe is he to whom a portion for the poor is not placed!'.
This theme of inclusiveness as the central motif of the Sukkot experience is emphasized in the readings of the other unique symbol of this holiday, the four species which are bound together and waved originally as part of the Temple service, now during the synagogue prayers. There are a series of midrashim attempting to explain this odd agricultural service, but the one that concerns us likens the four species to differing types of people within the community: the etrog (citron), which is fragrant and tasty, represents those who are both well versed and act for the common good, the lulav (palm frond), produces edible fruit but has no fragrance, is like those who are well versed but don't act for the common good, the hadassim (myrtle branches) are fragrant but produce no fruit, symbolizing those who do good but haven't studies, whereas the aravah (willow branch), has neither fruit nor fragrance, and stands in for those members of the community who neither know nor volunteer. The midrash continues that together, they will atone one for another. It is not to be assumed, however, that the midrash means that the three more worthy types will atone for the 'arava', for that is not the language used, particularly in a parallel teaching in the Talmud (BT Menahot 27.) which stresses that Israel does not achieve appeasement until all four are bound as one unity. The arava can't be depreciated, even in the Midrashic reading, for in other Midrashim, brought in conjunction with this one, the arava is symbolic of any of the following highly positive references: the lips, Joseph, the matriarch Rachel, the court scribes, the name of Gd. Furthermore, on the final day of Sukkot, on the day which according to the Mishna the divine allotment of water for the whole world is decreed, the day on which (as a result of this Mishnaic view) according to the mystics, the absolutely final judgement on each individual is sealed (a view already found as early as Ramban), on this momentous day it is precisely the arava alone that is paraded around the altar, from Temple times to this very day.
So what, then, do the 'aravot', the unschooled, inactive people bring to the communal table? According to the Sefat Emet, they represent the ability to transcend the given situation of an individual, through prayer (hence the midrash comparing the arava to lips). Similarly, according to the Pri Ha'aretz, the arava symbolized pure emunah, pure faith, transcendent of the fragrance and flavor of either intellect or praxis. At any rate, we see that it is the total community, with its strengths and weaknesses, that are bound together in a mutually compensatory relationship (In fact, according to the Tiferet Shlomo, the obscure custom of hitting the arava on the ground on Hoshana Rabba, a custom so obscure that it is labeled 'of prophetic origin', is meant to demonstrate that any segment of the people that breaks away from concern for all, that travels its own solitary way without regard for the others, as does the arava on its solo circuit around the altar on Hoshana Rabba, is doomed to a bad end).
So perhaps we are not veering too far from the original message of Sukkot by suggesting that Hoshanna Rabba become synonymous with community-wide efforts to combat poverty. Perhaps that is a day when trans-denominational efforts to deal with local poverty, world-wide hunger, an end to war, can be institutionalized and inscribed into the calendar, and celebrated as a holiday, perhaps the way it was originally intended. True joy is in the negation of suffering, it is the overcoming of sadness and grief we must celebrate.
(If anyone wants to seriously put this thought into action, I would be glad to be of assistance, contact me via email at mkirschb@yahoo.com)
Mark H. Kirschbaum, MD
=============================================================================================
Uri Avnery
September 25, 2010
Gandhi's Wisdom
SURFING THE television channels, I came across an interview with the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi on an American network (Fox - would you believe it).
"My grandfather told us to love the enemy even while fighting him," he said, "he fought against the British resolutely, but loved the British." (I quote from memory.)
My immediate reaction was baloney, the pious wish of do-gooders! But then I suddenly remembered that in my youth I had felt exactly the same, when I joined the Irgun at the age of 15. I liked the English (as we called all the British), the English language and English culture, and I was ready to put my life on the line in order to drive the English out of our country. When I said so to the Irgun's recruitment committee, while sitting with a bright light shining in my eyes, I was almost rejected.
But the grandson's words set me to thinking more seriously. Can one make peace with an opponent while hating him? Is peace possible at all without a positive attitude towards the other side?
ON THE face of it, the answer is "yes". Self-styled "realists" and "pragmatists" will say that peace is a matter of political interests, that feelings should not be involved. (Such "realists" are people who cannot imagine another reality, and such "pragmatists" are people who cannot think in the longer term.)
As is well-know, one makes peace with enemies. One makes peace in order to stop a war. War is the realm of hate, it dehumanizes the foe. In every war, the enemy is portrayed as sub-human, evil and cruel by nature.
Peace is supposed to terminate the war, but does not promise to change the attitude towards yesterday's enemy. We stop killing him, but that does not mean that we start loving him. When we reach the conclusion that it is in our interest to stop the war rather than to go on with it, this does not mean that our attitude towards the enemy has changed.
We have here an inbuilt paradox: the thought of peace arises while the war is still going on. It follows that peace is planned by those who are still at war, who are still in the grip of the war mentality. That can twist their thinking.
The result can be a monster, like the infamous Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I. It trampled on the vanquished Germany, robbed her and, worst of all, humiliated her. Many historians believe that this treaty bears much of the blame for the outbreak of World War II, which was even more devastating. (As a child I grew up in Germany under the dark shadow of the Versailles treaty, so I know what I am talking about.)
MAHATMA GANDHI understood this. He was not only a very moral person, but also a very wise one (if there really is any difference). I did not agree with his opposition to resisting Nazi Germany by force, but I always admired his genius as the leader of Indian liberation. He realized that the main task of a liberation leader is to shape the mentality of the people he wishes to liberate. When hundreds of millions of Indians were confronting a few tens of thousands of Britons, the main problem was not to defeat the British, but to get the Indians themselves to want liberation and a life in freedom and harmony. To make peace without hatred, without a longing for revenge, with an open heart, ready to be reconciled with yesterday's enemy.
Gandhi himself was only partially successful in this. But his wisdom illuminated the path of many. It shaped people like Nelson Mandela, who established peace without hatred and without revenge, and Martin Luther King, who called for reconciliation between black and white. We, too, have much to learn from this wisdom.
THIS WEEK, an expert on the analysis of public opinion polls appeared on an Israeli TV talk show. Prof. Tamar Harman did not analyze one or another of the polls, but the totality of the polls over decades.
Prof. Harman confirmed statistically what we all feel in our daily lives: that there is a continuous, long-term movement in Israel from the concepts of the Right to the concepts of the Left. The two-state solution is now accepted by a large majority. The great majority also accept that the border must be based on the Green Line, with swaps of territory that will leave the large settlement blocs in Israel. The public accepts that the other settlements must be evacuated. It even accepts that the Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem must be part of the future Palestinian state. The expert's conclusion: this is an on-going, dynamic process. Public opinion is continuing to move in this direction.
I remember far-away days in the early 1950s, when we first brought up this solution. In Israel and the whole world there were not a hundred people who supported this idea. (The 1947 UN resolution, which proposed exactly that, had been wiped from the public consciousness by the war, after which Palestine was divided between Israel, Jordan and Egypt.) As late as 1970 I wandered through the corridors of power in Washington DC, from the White House to the State Department, searching in vain for even one important statesman who would support it. The Israeli public opposed it almost unanimously, and so did the PLO, which even published a special book under the title "Uri Avnery and neo-Zionism".
Now this plan is supported by a world-wide consensus, which includes all the member states of the Arab League. And, according to the professor, the Israeli consensus too. Our extreme Right is now accusing Binyamin Netanyahu, in speech and writing, of executing what they call the "Avnery design".
So I should have been very satisfied, happy to view the news programs which speak about "two states for two peoples" as self-evident truth.
So why am I not satisfied? Am I a professional grumbler?
I examined myself, and I believe that I have identified the source of my dissatisfaction.
WHEN THEY speak today about "two states for two peoples", it is almost always bound up with the idea of "separation". As Ehud Barak put it, in his unique style: "We shall be here and they shall be there." It connects with his image of Israel as "a villa in the jungle". All around us are wild beasts, eager to devour us, and we in the villa must put up an iron wall to protect ourselves.
That's the way this idea is being sold to the masses. It gathers popularity because it promises a final and total separation. Let them get out of our sight. Let them have a state, for God's sake, and leave us alone. The "two-state solution" will be realized, we shall live in the "Nation-Sate of the Jewish People" which will be a part of the West, and "they" will live in a state which will be part of the Arab world. Between us there will be a high wall, part of the wall between the two civilizations.
Somehow it all reminds me of the words Theodor Herzl wrote 114 years ago in his book "The Jewish State": "In Palestine…we shall be for Europe a part of the wall against Asia, we shall serve as a vanguard of civilization against barbarism."
THAT WAS not the idea in the minds of the handful of people who advocated the two-state solution from the beginning. They were animated by two interconnected tendencies: the love of the country (meaning all the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan) and the desire for reconciliation between its two peoples.
I know that many will be shocked by the words "love of the country". Like many other things, they have been highjacked and taken hostage by the extreme Right. We have let them.
My generation, which crisscrossed the country well before the state came into being, did not treat Jericho, Hebron and Nablus as abroad. We loved them. We were excited by them. I still love them today. With some, like the late leftist writer Amos Kenan, this love had become almost an obsession.
The settlers, who endlessly declaim their love for the country, love it the way a rapist loves his victim. They violate the country and want to dominate it by force. This is visibly expressed in the architecture of their fortresses on the tops of the hills, fortified neighborhoods with Swiss tile-covered roofs. They don't love the real country, the villages with their minarets, the stone houses with their arched windows nestling on the hillsides and merging with the landscape, the terraces cultivated to the last centimeter, the wadis and the olive groves. They dream about another land and want to build it on the ruins of the beloved country. Kenan put it simply: "The State of Israel is destroying the Land of Israel".
Beyond romanticism, which has its own validity, we wanted to reunite the torn country in the only way possible: through the partnership of the two peoples that love it. These two national entities, with all their similarity, are different in culture, religion, traditions, language, script, ways of life, social structure, economic development. Our life experience, and the experience of the entire world, in this generation more than in any other, has shown that such different peoples cannot live in one state. (The Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Cyprus, and perhaps also Belgium, Canada, Iraq.) Therefore, the necessity arises to live in two states, side by side (with the possibility of a future federation).
When we reached this conclusion at the end of the 1948 war, we shaped the two-state solution not as a plan for separation, but on the contrary, as a plan for unity. For decades we talked about two states with an open border between them, a joint economy and free movement of people and goods.
These were the central motifs in all the plans for the "two-state solution". Until the so-called "realists" arrived and took the body without the soul, reducing the living plan to a heap of dry bones. On the left, too, many were ready to adopt the separation agenda, in the belief that this pseudo-pragmatist approach would be easier to sell to the masses. But in the moment of truth, this approach failed. The "peace talks" collapsed.
I propose to return to Gandhi's wisdom. It is impossible to move masses of people without a vision. Peace is not just an absence of hostilities, not the product of a labyrinth of walls and fences. Neither is it a utopia of "the wolf dwelling with the lamb". It is a real state of reconciliation, of partnership between peoples and between human beings, who respect each other, who are ready to satisfy each other's interests, to trade with each other, to create social relationships and - who knows - here and there even to like each other.
In essence: two states, one common future.
Sukkot Thoughts-Rededicating Ourselves To Those Who Have No Homes, Or Whose Homes Are Endangered
Rabbi Arik Ascherman
Executive Director, Rabbis for Human Rights in Israel
Today was quite a day. Shots rang out in Silwan at 3:30 am and a young Palestinian man is dead. One witness says he saw a jeep with private settler security guards far from any of the houses taken over by various Jewish groups in the East Jerusalem neighborhood. A guard claims his life was in danger. I was the first Israeli human rights activist to arrive on the scene. We didn't know at that point how many people were injured or killed, and we were trying to help the residents get information from Magen David Adom and the hospitals. Internet news sites asked for permission to use a picture I took of the bloodstained spot where the man fell. Later Silwan erupted with stone throwing and tear gas. When the terrible truth came out, things got worse. One Israeli was stabbed, cars and busses damaged, rioting on the Temple Mount, arrests.
Meanwhile, we had planned for the Ghawi family to put up a Sukkah. We hoped that the police would not tear it down as they tore down their various tents opposite their now taken over home in Shekh Jarakh, since the eviction in August 2009. We thought that maybe Jewish and Palestinian children decorating together might soften their hearts. The Sukkah was torn down and destroyed.
However, none of this is what I had wanted to write about:
On Sunday I finally had an opportunity to meet with representatives of the 40 families in Beit Sha'an who have received eviction notices from their Amidar homes (Public housing). I was floored. Even in the Occupied Territories, I have rarely seen such terrible housing conditions. One family was crowded into a poorly built and probably dangerous roos, with a makeshift outhouse without a roof. Sukkot always raises my consciousness about housing. As I tell my children, living in a rickety and fragile structure in to which the rain penetrates should sensitize us to those who live in such conditions all year long, or who have been thrown out of their homes, or whose homes have been demolished. I therefore hope that all of you will make the effort this Sukkot to participate in at least one of our holidaty activities in El-Arakib or Sheikh Jarakh. (And sign up for the olive harvest.) As Beit Sha'an demonstrates, those we must be thinking of, praying for, and committing to act on behalf of are not just residents of East Jerusalem or unrecognized villages. We are also approaching the 10th anniversary of the bloody events of October 2000. We should remember the as yet unheeded recommendations of the Orr Commission, and their determination that discriminatory land policies implemented by all Israeli governments towards Israeli Arabs leads to home demolitions and potentially explosive anger.
Although I met the families in Beit Sha'an for the first time this week, dedicated activists have been working with them for months. Many of the activists are the same activists to be found in Sheikh Jarakh, giving lie to the canard that they are concerned only about non-Jews. More amazingly, some of the Beit Sha'an residents have come to Sheikh Jarakh. Just as common oppression has led to amazing partnership between Jewish participants (now former participants) in the Israeli Wisconsin Plan from Hadera and Arab participants from Wadi Ara, we can gain some comfort from the fact that oppression sometimes helps people see beyond their own situation to grasp a wider picture. I wish it would happen otherwise. Sukkot was also the holiday that in the Temple we offered sacrifices for all the nations of the world and prayed for rain for all, perhaps understanding that there are certain blessings that all enjoy, or none enjoy. If we can build on our universal consciousness, the fragility of life we recall on Sukkot can re-motivate us to activism that could really make Sukkot the "Season of Our Joy" we are told that it should be.
Khag Sameakh (For A Joyous Holiday of Activism),
Arik
==================================================================================================
Making Space in the Sukkah: Social Justice and Joy
Making Space in the Sukka: Social Justice and Joy
The period of time in the Hebrew calendar reaching from Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur is thought of generally as one unit, in English commonly referred to as the High Holidays, whereas Sukkot, the festival which follows four days after Yom Kippur, is generally thought of as a festive holiday, one of the three biblical Temple festivals (Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot), entirely distinct from the Days of Awe which happen to precede it. The mystics, however, view the period from Rosh Hashana until the end of Sukkot as one long arc, not as distinct notes on the page but as one continuous unfolding melody reaching its crescendo not at Yom Kippur, as we might guess, but at Hoshana Rabba (the last day of Sukkot prior to the final festival of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah). As this tradition is unfamiliar to most people, we may have an easier time in resacralizing it in a way that would be meaningful for our contemporary situation.
The first step would be to depart from our usual hierarchy regarding seriousness over joy. Mardi Gras is always first, followed by Lent; one parties first and then when that is done, one can graduate to solemnity. However, the difference to be emphasized here is that the apogee of repentance and life transformation comes not at Yom Kippur, during the 'serious' service, but at Sukkot, the holiday described biblically as 'the time of our rejoicing'. Rather than attempt to summarize the roots of this concept, I will quote R. Pinchas of Koretz, one of the earliest Hassidic thinkers, who was contemporary with the Baal Shem Tov, and whose analogy is quite memorable:
'the time of our rejoicing': Sukkah is the unification of HVYH and ADNY (the male and female names of Gd- numerically Sukka=91=the two names of Gd combined). This unification brings about Da'at (which is the Kabbalistic term for the interface between the two highest male/female names of Gd, and literally means Understanding. For context, Moshe, who brings the Torah from Sinai, represents Da'at), and when there is knowledge, there is joy.
The proof (for the superiority of joy over sadness, sukkot over the high holy days) is, that if one observes a newborn, who has very little understanding- already at birth he is capable of crying. It is only much later, when their understanding grows- that a baby can smile'
Thus, there is a greater spiritual and cognitive message implicit in the joy of the Sukkah experience than in all the crying meant to occur during the High Holidays! Any baby can cry, but it takes deeper understanding to smile. Perhaps we can this more than a cute metaphor when we recognize the reasoning behind this: that the repentance and spiritual growth seen in the High Holidays is a personal, individual one, whereas the joy of Sukkot reflects an interpersonal, social level (the analogy to the newborn is even more apt using modern pediatric developmental terminology- this facial expression which the baby achieves as a significant milestone of development is referred to as the 'social smile').
There is support for the social nature of Sukkot back at the source; for example, the Torah tells us that the people were meant to gather with the king in the event known as 'hakhel' ('congregate') every seven years specifically on Sukkot. A global perspective is taken by the Talmud, as the seventy sacrificial cows brought on Sukkot during the Temple period were read as being offered for the sake of all the nations of the world. The Sukka itself, as an image, suggesting a remembrance of the plight of the refugee, can certainly be read in this way, as does the Midrash and the medieval thinkers, and as did Rabbi Arthur Waskow in a recent issue of The Nation. Rav Tzadok Hacohen of Lublin, in fact, explains that Sukkot follows the High Holiday period as a penitential exercise, that is, should we have been found guilty of sins requiring exile, we are, as it were, paying the price.
However, when one keeps in mind the emphasis on this being a time of joy, it seems more in tune with joy to read into the Sukka a "positive" value, that is, whereas the refugee imagery stresses the Sukka as symbolic of a "negative" value, a lack, a deficiency, (as per Hanna Arendt's concept of the refugee being morally superior, given the lack of ability to oppress anyone, etc), clearly, to the mystics, a symbol associated with the highest Divine Union must contain within itself also a postive spiritual sense. Interestingly, even when using the "negative" reading of the Sukka, there is an implied positive undercurrent. Thus, for example, the Bat Ayin, who spins the negative transient quality of Sukka living into a positive, for creating a permanent dwelling would impede the continuous ascent that we make; he reads the verse in Kohelet 7:23, which is read on the Sabbath of Sukkot- "I thought I would be wise (echkimah), but she is ever further from me", as suggesting that the ideal is not reaching (or inhabiting) a fixed goal, but rather a more fluid, never-ending attainment of higher and higher divine states.
If not only a negative space, then what is the positive element signified by the Sukka? Geographically, as it were, the Sukka is viewed as encompassing a novel, even privileged spiritual space- 'I love Sukkot because it is the one commandment which I can be immersed in with my boots on' goes the line attributed to R. Shmelkie of Nicholsburg. This viewing of the material substance as reflecting a divine containment (the Hida points out that the word Sukka itself in Hebrew, contains the two names of Gd not only in its total numerical value, but in the form whereby the outside two letters, S-H, equal the male term, and the inner letters, V-K equal the female name) is that seized upon by the Tiferet Shlomo. In the biblical proof text instructing the people to sit in the Sukka, the verse which reads 'In Sukkot teshvu (shall you sit) seven days, in order that your generations shall know'', he adds another possible reading of the word teshvu as being derived not only from lashevet, to sit, but from the word teshuva, return, repentance, and thus the knowledge, the da'at, the level of relationship with Gd that was vivdly experienced by the generation liberated from Egypt, can be recreated by the act of teshuva, repentance, specific to the Sukka. But what is that element that is specific to the Sukka that brings about this unique and high level of spiritual attainment? For this the Tiferet Shlomo cites another verse with a word similar to Sukka (more specifically, to the Halachically critical aspect of the Sukka- it is not the walls of the Sukka that are central, but rather the Sechach, the ecologically signifying roof, which must be made of organic substances only). The word sechach used as a verb is found in the verse regarding the Cherubim, the sculpture which adorned the ark which was meant to contain the Tablets upon which were inscribed the original ten commandments. These Cherubim were described as creating a canopy with their wings (sochichim b'kanfeihem) the covering of the ark (the kaporet, which is itself similar to the word kapara, atonement). In other words, according to the Tiferest Shlomo, Sukkot is the highest possibility of repentance, of world transformation (his exact phrase is 'Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are the hakdama, the prologue to Sukkot'), and the specific defining feature of the superiority of Sukkot is found in the continuation of the verse about the Cherubim- who are described as being situated 'with their faces one to another'. Thus, the possibility for change for the better is highest on Sukkot, because in the Sukka, at the table, one is contained within the same space as another, face to face as it were, and thus the emphasis must be one's responsibility for the Other.
This concept, of Sukkot being primarily about the encounter with others, and not simply the spiritual growth of the Self, is seen in the well known, but not fully understood, tradition of the Ushpizin, the supernal visitors (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc) who are welcomed into the Sukka each night. This tradition, which has become very widely accepted, is of late origin and is first found in the Zohar (III:103b). What is less well known is that this passage in the Zohar is meant to encourage the invitation of the needy to the festival table. The Ushpizin come to partake not of the Sukka per se but of the meals placed for the poor, and as the Zohar states- 'woe is he to whom a portion for the poor is not placed!'.
This theme of inclusiveness as the central motif of the Sukkot experience is emphasized in the readings of the other unique symbol of this holiday, the four species which are bound together and waved originally as part of the Temple service, now during the synagogue prayers. There are a series of midrashim attempting to explain this odd agricultural service, but the one that concerns us likens the four species to differing types of people within the community: the etrog (citron), which is fragrant and tasty, represents those who are both well versed and act for the common good, the lulav (palm frond), produces edible fruit but has no fragrance, is like those who are well versed but don't act for the common good, the hadassim (myrtle branches) are fragrant but produce no fruit, symbolizing those who do good but haven't studies, whereas the aravah (willow branch), has neither fruit nor fragrance, and stands in for those members of the community who neither know nor volunteer. The midrash continues that together, they will atone one for another. It is not to be assumed, however, that the midrash means that the three more worthy types will atone for the 'arava', for that is not the language used, particularly in a parallel teaching in the Talmud (BT Menahot 27.) which stresses that Israel does not achieve appeasement until all four are bound as one unity. The arava can't be depreciated, even in the Midrashic reading, for in other Midrashim, brought in conjunction with this one, the arava is symbolic of any of the following highly positive references: the lips, Joseph, the matriarch Rachel, the court scribes, the name of Gd. Furthermore, on the final day of Sukkot, on the day which according to the Mishna the divine allotment of water for the whole world is decreed, the day on which (as a result of this Mishnaic view) according to the mystics, the absolutely final judgement on each individual is sealed (a view already found as early as Ramban), on this momentous day it is precisely the arava alone that is paraded around the altar, from Temple times to this very day.
So what, then, do the 'aravot', the unschooled, inactive people bring to the communal table? According to the Sefat Emet, they represent the ability to transcend the given situation of an individual, through prayer (hence the midrash comparing the arava to lips). Similarly, according to the Pri Ha'aretz, the arava symbolized pure emunah, pure faith, transcendent of the fragrance and flavor of either intellect or praxis. At any rate, we see that it is the total community, with its strengths and weaknesses, that are bound together in a mutually compensatory relationship (In fact, according to the Tiferet Shlomo, the obscure custom of hitting the arava on the ground on Hoshana Rabba, a custom so obscure that it is labeled 'of prophetic origin', is meant to demonstrate that any segment of the people that breaks away from concern for all, that travels its own solitary way without regard for the others, as does the arava on its solo circuit around the altar on Hoshana Rabba, is doomed to a bad end).
So perhaps we are not veering too far from the original message of Sukkot by suggesting that Hoshanna Rabba become synonymous with community-wide efforts to combat poverty. Perhaps that is a day when trans-denominational efforts to deal with local poverty, world-wide hunger, an end to war, can be institutionalized and inscribed into the calendar, and celebrated as a holiday, perhaps the way it was originally intended. True joy is in the negation of suffering, it is the overcoming of sadness and grief we must celebrate.
(If anyone wants to seriously put this thought into action, I would be glad to be of assistance, contact me via email at mkirschb@yahoo.com)
Mark H. Kirschbaum, MD
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Uri Avnery
September 25, 2010
Gandhi's Wisdom
SURFING THE television channels, I came across an interview with the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi on an American network (Fox - would you believe it).
"My grandfather told us to love the enemy even while fighting him," he said, "he fought against the British resolutely, but loved the British." (I quote from memory.)
My immediate reaction was baloney, the pious wish of do-gooders! But then I suddenly remembered that in my youth I had felt exactly the same, when I joined the Irgun at the age of 15. I liked the English (as we called all the British), the English language and English culture, and I was ready to put my life on the line in order to drive the English out of our country. When I said so to the Irgun's recruitment committee, while sitting with a bright light shining in my eyes, I was almost rejected.
But the grandson's words set me to thinking more seriously. Can one make peace with an opponent while hating him? Is peace possible at all without a positive attitude towards the other side?
ON THE face of it, the answer is "yes". Self-styled "realists" and "pragmatists" will say that peace is a matter of political interests, that feelings should not be involved. (Such "realists" are people who cannot imagine another reality, and such "pragmatists" are people who cannot think in the longer term.)
As is well-know, one makes peace with enemies. One makes peace in order to stop a war. War is the realm of hate, it dehumanizes the foe. In every war, the enemy is portrayed as sub-human, evil and cruel by nature.
Peace is supposed to terminate the war, but does not promise to change the attitude towards yesterday's enemy. We stop killing him, but that does not mean that we start loving him. When we reach the conclusion that it is in our interest to stop the war rather than to go on with it, this does not mean that our attitude towards the enemy has changed.
We have here an inbuilt paradox: the thought of peace arises while the war is still going on. It follows that peace is planned by those who are still at war, who are still in the grip of the war mentality. That can twist their thinking.
The result can be a monster, like the infamous Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I. It trampled on the vanquished Germany, robbed her and, worst of all, humiliated her. Many historians believe that this treaty bears much of the blame for the outbreak of World War II, which was even more devastating. (As a child I grew up in Germany under the dark shadow of the Versailles treaty, so I know what I am talking about.)
MAHATMA GANDHI understood this. He was not only a very moral person, but also a very wise one (if there really is any difference). I did not agree with his opposition to resisting Nazi Germany by force, but I always admired his genius as the leader of Indian liberation. He realized that the main task of a liberation leader is to shape the mentality of the people he wishes to liberate. When hundreds of millions of Indians were confronting a few tens of thousands of Britons, the main problem was not to defeat the British, but to get the Indians themselves to want liberation and a life in freedom and harmony. To make peace without hatred, without a longing for revenge, with an open heart, ready to be reconciled with yesterday's enemy.
Gandhi himself was only partially successful in this. But his wisdom illuminated the path of many. It shaped people like Nelson Mandela, who established peace without hatred and without revenge, and Martin Luther King, who called for reconciliation between black and white. We, too, have much to learn from this wisdom.
THIS WEEK, an expert on the analysis of public opinion polls appeared on an Israeli TV talk show. Prof. Tamar Harman did not analyze one or another of the polls, but the totality of the polls over decades.
Prof. Harman confirmed statistically what we all feel in our daily lives: that there is a continuous, long-term movement in Israel from the concepts of the Right to the concepts of the Left. The two-state solution is now accepted by a large majority. The great majority also accept that the border must be based on the Green Line, with swaps of territory that will leave the large settlement blocs in Israel. The public accepts that the other settlements must be evacuated. It even accepts that the Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem must be part of the future Palestinian state. The expert's conclusion: this is an on-going, dynamic process. Public opinion is continuing to move in this direction.
I remember far-away days in the early 1950s, when we first brought up this solution. In Israel and the whole world there were not a hundred people who supported this idea. (The 1947 UN resolution, which proposed exactly that, had been wiped from the public consciousness by the war, after which Palestine was divided between Israel, Jordan and Egypt.) As late as 1970 I wandered through the corridors of power in Washington DC, from the White House to the State Department, searching in vain for even one important statesman who would support it. The Israeli public opposed it almost unanimously, and so did the PLO, which even published a special book under the title "Uri Avnery and neo-Zionism".
Now this plan is supported by a world-wide consensus, which includes all the member states of the Arab League. And, according to the professor, the Israeli consensus too. Our extreme Right is now accusing Binyamin Netanyahu, in speech and writing, of executing what they call the "Avnery design".
So I should have been very satisfied, happy to view the news programs which speak about "two states for two peoples" as self-evident truth.
So why am I not satisfied? Am I a professional grumbler?
I examined myself, and I believe that I have identified the source of my dissatisfaction.
WHEN THEY speak today about "two states for two peoples", it is almost always bound up with the idea of "separation". As Ehud Barak put it, in his unique style: "We shall be here and they shall be there." It connects with his image of Israel as "a villa in the jungle". All around us are wild beasts, eager to devour us, and we in the villa must put up an iron wall to protect ourselves.
That's the way this idea is being sold to the masses. It gathers popularity because it promises a final and total separation. Let them get out of our sight. Let them have a state, for God's sake, and leave us alone. The "two-state solution" will be realized, we shall live in the "Nation-Sate of the Jewish People" which will be a part of the West, and "they" will live in a state which will be part of the Arab world. Between us there will be a high wall, part of the wall between the two civilizations.
Somehow it all reminds me of the words Theodor Herzl wrote 114 years ago in his book "The Jewish State": "In Palestine…we shall be for Europe a part of the wall against Asia, we shall serve as a vanguard of civilization against barbarism."
THAT WAS not the idea in the minds of the handful of people who advocated the two-state solution from the beginning. They were animated by two interconnected tendencies: the love of the country (meaning all the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan) and the desire for reconciliation between its two peoples.
I know that many will be shocked by the words "love of the country". Like many other things, they have been highjacked and taken hostage by the extreme Right. We have let them.
My generation, which crisscrossed the country well before the state came into being, did not treat Jericho, Hebron and Nablus as abroad. We loved them. We were excited by them. I still love them today. With some, like the late leftist writer Amos Kenan, this love had become almost an obsession.
The settlers, who endlessly declaim their love for the country, love it the way a rapist loves his victim. They violate the country and want to dominate it by force. This is visibly expressed in the architecture of their fortresses on the tops of the hills, fortified neighborhoods with Swiss tile-covered roofs. They don't love the real country, the villages with their minarets, the stone houses with their arched windows nestling on the hillsides and merging with the landscape, the terraces cultivated to the last centimeter, the wadis and the olive groves. They dream about another land and want to build it on the ruins of the beloved country. Kenan put it simply: "The State of Israel is destroying the Land of Israel".
Beyond romanticism, which has its own validity, we wanted to reunite the torn country in the only way possible: through the partnership of the two peoples that love it. These two national entities, with all their similarity, are different in culture, religion, traditions, language, script, ways of life, social structure, economic development. Our life experience, and the experience of the entire world, in this generation more than in any other, has shown that such different peoples cannot live in one state. (The Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Cyprus, and perhaps also Belgium, Canada, Iraq.) Therefore, the necessity arises to live in two states, side by side (with the possibility of a future federation).
When we reached this conclusion at the end of the 1948 war, we shaped the two-state solution not as a plan for separation, but on the contrary, as a plan for unity. For decades we talked about two states with an open border between them, a joint economy and free movement of people and goods.
These were the central motifs in all the plans for the "two-state solution". Until the so-called "realists" arrived and took the body without the soul, reducing the living plan to a heap of dry bones. On the left, too, many were ready to adopt the separation agenda, in the belief that this pseudo-pragmatist approach would be easier to sell to the masses. But in the moment of truth, this approach failed. The "peace talks" collapsed.
I propose to return to Gandhi's wisdom. It is impossible to move masses of people without a vision. Peace is not just an absence of hostilities, not the product of a labyrinth of walls and fences. Neither is it a utopia of "the wolf dwelling with the lamb". It is a real state of reconciliation, of partnership between peoples and between human beings, who respect each other, who are ready to satisfy each other's interests, to trade with each other, to create social relationships and - who knows - here and there even to like each other.
In essence: two states, one common future.
A Teaching On Anger
FromTricycle:
Taming a Crank
Revered Sri Lankan monk Bhante Gunaratana (affectionately known as “Bhante G.”) offers wisdom on anger in his recent autobiography, Journey to Mindfulness.
By Bhante Henepola Gunaratana
Anger is one of the most difficult defilements to overcome; I know this from firsthand experience. When I was a young monk in Ceylon, I gave many sermons on anger and how to control it, even as my own anger caused me to lose my temper repeatedly. I’m calling it “my” anger, but that isn’t quite right. Anger would invade my mind and overwhelm me, and I let it do that, despite the fact that inevitably it made me feel miserable. When I was angry, I felt pain in my chest and burning in my stomach. My eyesight blurred, my reasoning was unclear, and ugly, harsh words came out of my mouth.
After I calmed down, always feeling ashamed and foolish, I would reflect on the Buddha’s words about anger: “One should give up anger, renounce pride, and overcome all fetters. Suffering never befalls him who clings not to mind and body and is detached. One who checks rising anger as a charioteer checks a rolling chariot, him I call a true charioteer.” There’s also a well-known story from the Buddhist canon that illustrates the Buddha’s skill at dealing with anger. One day, a Brahmin, a person of high rank and authority, came to see the Buddha. This Brahmin had a foul temper and quarreled frequently with everyone. He would even get mad if someone else was wronged and that person didn’t get angry in response. So, when he heard that the Buddha never got angry, he decided to test him.
The Brahmin went to the Buddha and showered him with insults. The Buddha listened patiently and quietly. When the Brahmin finally stopped, and was waiting for the Buddha’s reaction, the Buddha calmly asked him, “Do you have any family or friends?”
“Of course,” answered the Brahmin. “Why?”
“Do you take gifts to them when you visit?”
“Of course I do!” the Brahmin snarled.
“What if they didn’t want to accept one of your gifts?” the Buddha asked. “What would you do with it?”
“I’d take it home and enjoy it with my family,” the Brahmin said.
“Well, then,” said the Buddha, “Friend, you brought me a gift of your angry insults. I don’t wish to accept it. I give it back to you. Take it home to enjoy with your family.”
If only I could have lived the wisdom of those words, as a young man.
From Journey to Mindfulness: The Autobiography of Bhante G., © 2003 by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana. Reprinted with permission of Wisdom Publications, www.wisdompubs.org.
Taming a Crank
Revered Sri Lankan monk Bhante Gunaratana (affectionately known as “Bhante G.”) offers wisdom on anger in his recent autobiography, Journey to Mindfulness.
By Bhante Henepola Gunaratana
Anger is one of the most difficult defilements to overcome; I know this from firsthand experience. When I was a young monk in Ceylon, I gave many sermons on anger and how to control it, even as my own anger caused me to lose my temper repeatedly. I’m calling it “my” anger, but that isn’t quite right. Anger would invade my mind and overwhelm me, and I let it do that, despite the fact that inevitably it made me feel miserable. When I was angry, I felt pain in my chest and burning in my stomach. My eyesight blurred, my reasoning was unclear, and ugly, harsh words came out of my mouth.
After I calmed down, always feeling ashamed and foolish, I would reflect on the Buddha’s words about anger: “One should give up anger, renounce pride, and overcome all fetters. Suffering never befalls him who clings not to mind and body and is detached. One who checks rising anger as a charioteer checks a rolling chariot, him I call a true charioteer.” There’s also a well-known story from the Buddhist canon that illustrates the Buddha’s skill at dealing with anger. One day, a Brahmin, a person of high rank and authority, came to see the Buddha. This Brahmin had a foul temper and quarreled frequently with everyone. He would even get mad if someone else was wronged and that person didn’t get angry in response. So, when he heard that the Buddha never got angry, he decided to test him.
The Brahmin went to the Buddha and showered him with insults. The Buddha listened patiently and quietly. When the Brahmin finally stopped, and was waiting for the Buddha’s reaction, the Buddha calmly asked him, “Do you have any family or friends?”
“Of course,” answered the Brahmin. “Why?”
“Do you take gifts to them when you visit?”
“Of course I do!” the Brahmin snarled.
“What if they didn’t want to accept one of your gifts?” the Buddha asked. “What would you do with it?”
“I’d take it home and enjoy it with my family,” the Brahmin said.
“Well, then,” said the Buddha, “Friend, you brought me a gift of your angry insults. I don’t wish to accept it. I give it back to you. Take it home to enjoy with your family.”
If only I could have lived the wisdom of those words, as a young man.
From Journey to Mindfulness: The Autobiography of Bhante G., © 2003 by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana. Reprinted with permission of Wisdom Publications, www.wisdompubs.org.
Friday, September 24, 2010
From The Canon: Thirst
From Tricycle:
From the Canon: Thirst
By Acharya Buddharakkhita
The craving of one given to heedless living grows like a creeper. Like the monkey seeking fruits in the forest, he leaps from life to life (tasting the fruit of his kamma).
Whoever is overcome by this wretched and sticky craving, his sorrows grow like grass after the rains.
But whoever overcomes this wretched craving, so difficult to overcome, from him sorrows fall away like water from a lotus leaf.
This I say to you: Good luck to all assembled here! Dig up the root of craving, like one in search of the fragrant root of the birana grass. Let not Mara crush you again and again, as a flood crushes a reed.
Just as a tree, though cut down, sprouts up again if its roots remain uncut and firm, even so, until the craving that lies dormant is rooted out, suffering springs up again and again.
The misguided man in whom the thirty-six currents of craving strongly rush toward pleasurable objects, is swept away by the flood of his passionate thoughts.
Everywhere these currents flow, and the creeper (of craving) sprouts and grows. Seeing that the creeper has sprung up, cut off its root with wisdom.
—The Buddha
The Dhammapada, verses 334-340, trans. from the Pali by Acharya Buddharakkhita; full text available at accesstoinsight.org
From the Canon: Thirst
By Acharya Buddharakkhita
The craving of one given to heedless living grows like a creeper. Like the monkey seeking fruits in the forest, he leaps from life to life (tasting the fruit of his kamma).
Whoever is overcome by this wretched and sticky craving, his sorrows grow like grass after the rains.
But whoever overcomes this wretched craving, so difficult to overcome, from him sorrows fall away like water from a lotus leaf.
This I say to you: Good luck to all assembled here! Dig up the root of craving, like one in search of the fragrant root of the birana grass. Let not Mara crush you again and again, as a flood crushes a reed.
Just as a tree, though cut down, sprouts up again if its roots remain uncut and firm, even so, until the craving that lies dormant is rooted out, suffering springs up again and again.
The misguided man in whom the thirty-six currents of craving strongly rush toward pleasurable objects, is swept away by the flood of his passionate thoughts.
Everywhere these currents flow, and the creeper (of craving) sprouts and grows. Seeing that the creeper has sprung up, cut off its root with wisdom.
—The Buddha
The Dhammapada, verses 334-340, trans. from the Pali by Acharya Buddharakkhita; full text available at accesstoinsight.org
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Covenanting With God
From The Christian Reader:
Covenanting with God
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The Son offereth to be thy Saviour, to justify thee by his blood and grace, and teach thee, and govern thee as thy Head, in order to thy everlasting happiness. The Holy Spirit offereth to be thy Sanctifier, Comforter, and Guide, to overcome all the enmity of the devil, the world, and the flesh, in order to the full accomplishment of thy salvation; nothing is expected of thee, in order to thy title to the benefits of this covenant, but deliberately, unfeignedly, entirely to consent to it, and to continue that consent, and perform what thou consentest to perform, and that by the help of the grace which will be given thee. See, therefore, that thou well deliberate of the matter, but without delay; and count what thou shouldst gain or lose by it. And if thou find that thou art like to be a loser in the end, and knowest of any better way, even take it, and boast of it, when thou hast tried the end; but if thou art past doubt, that there is no way but this, dispatch it resolutely and seriously.
And take heed of one thing, lest thou say, “Why, this is no more than every body knoweth, and than I have done a hundred times, to give up myself in covenant to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” Dost thou know it, and yet hast thou not done it? Or hast thou done it with thy lips, and not unfeignedly with thy heart? Lament it as one of thy greatest sins, that thou hast thus provokingly dallied with God; and admire his mercy, that he will yet vouchsafe to enter into covenant with one, that hath hypocritically profaned his covenant. If thou hadst ever seriously thus covenanted and given up thyself to God, thou wouldst not, have neglected him by an ungodly life, nor lived after to the devil, the world, and the flesh, which were renounced. I tell you, the making of this Christian vow and covenant with God in Christ, is the act of greatest consequence of any in all thy life, and to be done with the greatest judgment, and reverence, and sincerity, and foresight, and firm resolution; of any thing that ever thou dost. And if it were done sincerely, by all that do it ignorantly, for fashion, only with the lips, then all professed Christians would be saved; whereas now, the abusers of that holy name and covenant will have the deepest place in hell. Write it out on thy heart, and put thy heart and hand to it resolvedly, and stand to thy consent, and all is thine own: conversion is wrought when this is done.
by Richard Baxter, from A Christian Directory
Covenanting with God
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The Son offereth to be thy Saviour, to justify thee by his blood and grace, and teach thee, and govern thee as thy Head, in order to thy everlasting happiness. The Holy Spirit offereth to be thy Sanctifier, Comforter, and Guide, to overcome all the enmity of the devil, the world, and the flesh, in order to the full accomplishment of thy salvation; nothing is expected of thee, in order to thy title to the benefits of this covenant, but deliberately, unfeignedly, entirely to consent to it, and to continue that consent, and perform what thou consentest to perform, and that by the help of the grace which will be given thee. See, therefore, that thou well deliberate of the matter, but without delay; and count what thou shouldst gain or lose by it. And if thou find that thou art like to be a loser in the end, and knowest of any better way, even take it, and boast of it, when thou hast tried the end; but if thou art past doubt, that there is no way but this, dispatch it resolutely and seriously.
And take heed of one thing, lest thou say, “Why, this is no more than every body knoweth, and than I have done a hundred times, to give up myself in covenant to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” Dost thou know it, and yet hast thou not done it? Or hast thou done it with thy lips, and not unfeignedly with thy heart? Lament it as one of thy greatest sins, that thou hast thus provokingly dallied with God; and admire his mercy, that he will yet vouchsafe to enter into covenant with one, that hath hypocritically profaned his covenant. If thou hadst ever seriously thus covenanted and given up thyself to God, thou wouldst not, have neglected him by an ungodly life, nor lived after to the devil, the world, and the flesh, which were renounced. I tell you, the making of this Christian vow and covenant with God in Christ, is the act of greatest consequence of any in all thy life, and to be done with the greatest judgment, and reverence, and sincerity, and foresight, and firm resolution; of any thing that ever thou dost. And if it were done sincerely, by all that do it ignorantly, for fashion, only with the lips, then all professed Christians would be saved; whereas now, the abusers of that holy name and covenant will have the deepest place in hell. Write it out on thy heart, and put thy heart and hand to it resolvedly, and stand to thy consent, and all is thine own: conversion is wrought when this is done.
by Richard Baxter, from A Christian Directory
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Make The Joy Of Sukkot A Daily Part Of Your Life
From aish.com:
Make the joy of Sukkot a daily part of your life.
by Judy Gruen It's ironic that of all the Jewish holidays, only Sukkot is singled out as the "season of our happiness." Why not Passover, when we were finally freed from Egyptian bondage? Why not Purim, when Haman's genocidal plot against us was foiled? How can we be commanded to be happy on this holiday, especially when we are told to leave our comfortable homes and dwell in our sukkahs?
In fact, Sukkot reveals that we will never find true happiness in even the sturdiest material possessions, such as our homes. And we know from painful, tumultuous economic events how quickly material wealth can also disappear. During Sukkot, we celebrate the only "wealth" that is permanent: our spiritual connection and God and His abiding love for the Jewish people. It brings home the idea that happiness isn't about having; it's about our attitudes.
During Sukkot, the Almighty's Clouds of Glory protected the Jews during 40 long years of desert wanderings. These Clouds of Glory, and the manna that fed us, were tangible proof of God's care and protection. That up-close and personal connection between the Jewish people and God is the source of real, transcendent happiness, and we have a special opportunity to tap into it, even when sitting in a flimsy sukkah.
Is it possible to hold on to the happiness of Sukkot and make it part of our lives all year-round? Tal Ben-Shahar, Ph.D., a happiness expert who teaches positive psychology and education at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzilya, Israel, believes we can.
As an undergraduate at Harvard, Ben-Shahar excelled academically, athletically, and socially. Still, he wasn't happy. Given everything he had going for him, "it didn't make sense," he recalls. "I should have been happy, and I was baffled. I realized something was missing, and decided to look closely at my life." As part of his search for answers, Ben-Shahar switched majors from computer science to philosophy and psychology. In the process, he found not only the keys to happiness, but a career in helping others find it as well.
Ben-Shahar went on to earn a Ph.D. in organizational behavior from Harvard, and for four years taught one of the university's most popular elective courses, on positive psychology. As a professor at Harvard, Ben-Shahar found that today's students shared the same struggles he once did, and that being affluent and smart enough to attend one of the world's most prestigious universities was no guarantee of happiness.
"Happiness and unhappiness do not discriminate," he explains. "They are distributed evenly across society, age and economic sectors. But the United States leads the pack in terms of the pressure that is put on students to get high grades, to always think about the future. Adults in the work world face similar pressure. But with all this emphasis on the future, many people end up missing the present."
In addition to his courses, Ben-Shahar is the author, most recently, of The Pursuit of Perfect. Through his books and lectures, he shares what he has learned attaining the often elusive goal of happiness. Much of his advice runs counter to the vaunted values of American society, such as material success.
"Additional pay and professional accolades don't make us happier. More quality time off to savor the joy we already have does.""Working more hours may make us more money, but we'll pay the 'ultimate currency' if we do," he explains. "The fact is, additional pay and professional accolades don't make us happier. More quality time off to savor the joy we already have does. We all feel more time pressures today, and part of it is economic, but part of it involves the choices we make about how we spend our time."
Numerous studies on happiness have consistently confirmed many of the same happiness boosters, and Ben-Shahar notes that all of these are built in to the fabric of Jewish life. One of them is a day of rest. "We know that people who take a day of rest are happier and more productive than those who don't, because we have to 'recreate' if we want to create. This is not only a value but also a tool to success."
A second one is gratitude. "Research shows that people who express hakarat hatov, gratitude for what they have, are happier people and more generous as well," he observes. And from the moment a Jew wakes up, he or she has unlimited opportunities to express gratitude, from saying "modeh ani" upon arising from bed, to making a blessing after going to the bathroom for a healthy body, to blessings for food, and innumerable others included in daily prayers, even for "small" things such as being able to see and stand up straight.
Practicing rituals and having a sense of spirituality also make people happier, Ben-Shahar notes. "Going to a synagogue is valuable, as is spending time with family around the dinner table. Rituals are part of most happy people's lives."
Some philosophers in earlier generations wrongly predicted that science and technological innovation would become the new god. While it brought wealth, it didn't bring happiness for those who bought into the philosophy. "Viktor Frankel called living without God an 'existential vacuum,'" Ben-Shahar says, adding that secularists who like to point to Nietzsche's famous quote that "God is dead" completely misunderstand his meaning. "Nietzsche didn't say this with satisfaction, but with pathos. He realized that a life without God meant a deep existential emptiness for many." Rabbi Nachum Braverman, Executive Director of Jerusalem Partners and the author of The Bible for the Clueless but Curious -- A Guide to Jewish Wisdom for Real People, observes that these undisputed ingredients for happiness: gratitude, community, observing a day of rest, and a spiritual basis, are all built on a framework for living that transcends the self. "Living only for yourself and about yourself is a cramped and diminished way to life," he explains. "That's why happiness is not a goal, it's a byproduct of living well. When it becomes a goal, it's just another form of egotism: it's all about me, and if that's the case, you can never find it. Jewish values and practice keep people focused on something broader than their own egos, and from living as impetuously as their emotions might dictate. Living in a community that gives context and offers meaningful relationships with people with shared values is a surer path to happiness."
A happy life is not a pain-free life. But a happy life is not a pain-free life, both teachers agree. "The only people who don't experience painful emotions are either dead or psychopaths," Ben-Shahar explains. "A full life has sadness, anger, envy, fear, and disappointment. If we don't give ourselves permission to experience painful emotions, they intensify, become toxic and they stick. When we let them flow through us, they weaken and dissipate."
Still, the experience of happiness is very subjective, in part because we choose how to respond to pain and disappointment. "I believe that people can make the best of things that do happen," Ben-Shahar notes. "Resilient people look for and create growth from difficult situations. You can choose to be devastated by events, or you can derive benefit from them."
Ultimately, Ben-Shahar says, happiness results from the innumerable choices we make, including choosing to feel gratitude even during hard times: "Do I focus on the fact I have my health and food on the table, or do I focus on the fact that I have to sell my Ferrari? Focus on the yesh versus the ain (what I have versus what I do not have)." There are few better opportunities for this kind of focus than during Sukkot, when we eat, and possibly even sleep, in little booths that are built for contemplation, not construction awards.
Rabbi Braverman adds that living a meaningful life helps us to cope with loss, even incomprehensible loss. "When the Mishna asks the famous question, 'Aizeh hu ashier?' (Who is wealthy?) it means that we have all been dealt a different portion in life, with individual tests and opportunities. When you stop fighting against your portion, you can realize it for the opportunity it is."
If you want to ensure that the joy of Sukkot lasts longer than your sukkah decorations, try some of Ben-Shahar's tools for happiness: start a gratitude journal, exercise, meditate, learn therapeutic cognitive techniques, simplify your life, set goals, identify your strengths and find your passion. Not enough? Here are more from his web site:
1.Give yourself permission to be human. Accepting emotions -- such as fear, sadness, or anxiety -- as natural, we are more likely to overcome them. Rejecting our emotions leads to frustration and unhappiness.
2.Happiness lies at the intersection between pleasure and meaning. Whether at work or at home, the goal is to engage in activities that are both personally significant and enjoyable. Make sure you have happiness boosters throughout the week that provide you with both pleasure and meaning.
3.Happiness is mostly dependent on our state of mind, not on our financial or social status. Our well being is determined by how we choose to interpret external events. For example, do we view failure as catastrophic, or do we see it as a learning opportunity?
4.Simplify! We are trying to squeeze in more and more activities into less and less time. We compromise on our happiness by trying to do too much.
5.Remember the mind-body connection. Regular exercise, adequate sleep, and healthy eating habits lead to both physical and mental health.
6.Express gratitude, whenever possible. We too often take our lives for granted. Learn to appreciate and savor the wonderful things in life, from people to food, from nature to a smile.
Make the joy of Sukkot a daily part of your life.
by Judy Gruen It's ironic that of all the Jewish holidays, only Sukkot is singled out as the "season of our happiness." Why not Passover, when we were finally freed from Egyptian bondage? Why not Purim, when Haman's genocidal plot against us was foiled? How can we be commanded to be happy on this holiday, especially when we are told to leave our comfortable homes and dwell in our sukkahs?
In fact, Sukkot reveals that we will never find true happiness in even the sturdiest material possessions, such as our homes. And we know from painful, tumultuous economic events how quickly material wealth can also disappear. During Sukkot, we celebrate the only "wealth" that is permanent: our spiritual connection and God and His abiding love for the Jewish people. It brings home the idea that happiness isn't about having; it's about our attitudes.
During Sukkot, the Almighty's Clouds of Glory protected the Jews during 40 long years of desert wanderings. These Clouds of Glory, and the manna that fed us, were tangible proof of God's care and protection. That up-close and personal connection between the Jewish people and God is the source of real, transcendent happiness, and we have a special opportunity to tap into it, even when sitting in a flimsy sukkah.
Is it possible to hold on to the happiness of Sukkot and make it part of our lives all year-round? Tal Ben-Shahar, Ph.D., a happiness expert who teaches positive psychology and education at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzilya, Israel, believes we can.
As an undergraduate at Harvard, Ben-Shahar excelled academically, athletically, and socially. Still, he wasn't happy. Given everything he had going for him, "it didn't make sense," he recalls. "I should have been happy, and I was baffled. I realized something was missing, and decided to look closely at my life." As part of his search for answers, Ben-Shahar switched majors from computer science to philosophy and psychology. In the process, he found not only the keys to happiness, but a career in helping others find it as well.
Ben-Shahar went on to earn a Ph.D. in organizational behavior from Harvard, and for four years taught one of the university's most popular elective courses, on positive psychology. As a professor at Harvard, Ben-Shahar found that today's students shared the same struggles he once did, and that being affluent and smart enough to attend one of the world's most prestigious universities was no guarantee of happiness.
"Happiness and unhappiness do not discriminate," he explains. "They are distributed evenly across society, age and economic sectors. But the United States leads the pack in terms of the pressure that is put on students to get high grades, to always think about the future. Adults in the work world face similar pressure. But with all this emphasis on the future, many people end up missing the present."
In addition to his courses, Ben-Shahar is the author, most recently, of The Pursuit of Perfect. Through his books and lectures, he shares what he has learned attaining the often elusive goal of happiness. Much of his advice runs counter to the vaunted values of American society, such as material success.
"Additional pay and professional accolades don't make us happier. More quality time off to savor the joy we already have does.""Working more hours may make us more money, but we'll pay the 'ultimate currency' if we do," he explains. "The fact is, additional pay and professional accolades don't make us happier. More quality time off to savor the joy we already have does. We all feel more time pressures today, and part of it is economic, but part of it involves the choices we make about how we spend our time."
Numerous studies on happiness have consistently confirmed many of the same happiness boosters, and Ben-Shahar notes that all of these are built in to the fabric of Jewish life. One of them is a day of rest. "We know that people who take a day of rest are happier and more productive than those who don't, because we have to 'recreate' if we want to create. This is not only a value but also a tool to success."
A second one is gratitude. "Research shows that people who express hakarat hatov, gratitude for what they have, are happier people and more generous as well," he observes. And from the moment a Jew wakes up, he or she has unlimited opportunities to express gratitude, from saying "modeh ani" upon arising from bed, to making a blessing after going to the bathroom for a healthy body, to blessings for food, and innumerable others included in daily prayers, even for "small" things such as being able to see and stand up straight.
Practicing rituals and having a sense of spirituality also make people happier, Ben-Shahar notes. "Going to a synagogue is valuable, as is spending time with family around the dinner table. Rituals are part of most happy people's lives."
Some philosophers in earlier generations wrongly predicted that science and technological innovation would become the new god. While it brought wealth, it didn't bring happiness for those who bought into the philosophy. "Viktor Frankel called living without God an 'existential vacuum,'" Ben-Shahar says, adding that secularists who like to point to Nietzsche's famous quote that "God is dead" completely misunderstand his meaning. "Nietzsche didn't say this with satisfaction, but with pathos. He realized that a life without God meant a deep existential emptiness for many." Rabbi Nachum Braverman, Executive Director of Jerusalem Partners and the author of The Bible for the Clueless but Curious -- A Guide to Jewish Wisdom for Real People, observes that these undisputed ingredients for happiness: gratitude, community, observing a day of rest, and a spiritual basis, are all built on a framework for living that transcends the self. "Living only for yourself and about yourself is a cramped and diminished way to life," he explains. "That's why happiness is not a goal, it's a byproduct of living well. When it becomes a goal, it's just another form of egotism: it's all about me, and if that's the case, you can never find it. Jewish values and practice keep people focused on something broader than their own egos, and from living as impetuously as their emotions might dictate. Living in a community that gives context and offers meaningful relationships with people with shared values is a surer path to happiness."
A happy life is not a pain-free life. But a happy life is not a pain-free life, both teachers agree. "The only people who don't experience painful emotions are either dead or psychopaths," Ben-Shahar explains. "A full life has sadness, anger, envy, fear, and disappointment. If we don't give ourselves permission to experience painful emotions, they intensify, become toxic and they stick. When we let them flow through us, they weaken and dissipate."
Still, the experience of happiness is very subjective, in part because we choose how to respond to pain and disappointment. "I believe that people can make the best of things that do happen," Ben-Shahar notes. "Resilient people look for and create growth from difficult situations. You can choose to be devastated by events, or you can derive benefit from them."
Ultimately, Ben-Shahar says, happiness results from the innumerable choices we make, including choosing to feel gratitude even during hard times: "Do I focus on the fact I have my health and food on the table, or do I focus on the fact that I have to sell my Ferrari? Focus on the yesh versus the ain (what I have versus what I do not have)." There are few better opportunities for this kind of focus than during Sukkot, when we eat, and possibly even sleep, in little booths that are built for contemplation, not construction awards.
Rabbi Braverman adds that living a meaningful life helps us to cope with loss, even incomprehensible loss. "When the Mishna asks the famous question, 'Aizeh hu ashier?' (Who is wealthy?) it means that we have all been dealt a different portion in life, with individual tests and opportunities. When you stop fighting against your portion, you can realize it for the opportunity it is."
If you want to ensure that the joy of Sukkot lasts longer than your sukkah decorations, try some of Ben-Shahar's tools for happiness: start a gratitude journal, exercise, meditate, learn therapeutic cognitive techniques, simplify your life, set goals, identify your strengths and find your passion. Not enough? Here are more from his web site:
1.Give yourself permission to be human. Accepting emotions -- such as fear, sadness, or anxiety -- as natural, we are more likely to overcome them. Rejecting our emotions leads to frustration and unhappiness.
2.Happiness lies at the intersection between pleasure and meaning. Whether at work or at home, the goal is to engage in activities that are both personally significant and enjoyable. Make sure you have happiness boosters throughout the week that provide you with both pleasure and meaning.
3.Happiness is mostly dependent on our state of mind, not on our financial or social status. Our well being is determined by how we choose to interpret external events. For example, do we view failure as catastrophic, or do we see it as a learning opportunity?
4.Simplify! We are trying to squeeze in more and more activities into less and less time. We compromise on our happiness by trying to do too much.
5.Remember the mind-body connection. Regular exercise, adequate sleep, and healthy eating habits lead to both physical and mental health.
6.Express gratitude, whenever possible. We too often take our lives for granted. Learn to appreciate and savor the wonderful things in life, from people to food, from nature to a smile.
Mabon Meditations
From Patheos--Pantheon:
Mabon Meditations
September 22, 2010 by Galina Krasskova
I adore this time of year. There’s a crispness in the air, the herald of colder, darker things to come. The leaves are just beginning to change into what, in my region of the US, will soon become a riotous panoply of color. I live in the belly of the mountains, in the Hudson River Valley and fall is something to be celebrated here for its beauty alone. It’s as if the lines of varied color show, for a few brief weeks, the very and varied musculature of the mountains, rippling, stretching and preparing for the long sleep of winter. It’s an awe-inspiring sight.
Of course I would celebrate Autumn anyway. I’ve never been a summer person and I greet the cooling days with immense joy. They bring me vitality, a renewed sense of purpose, and the feeling of an immense burden being lifted (i.e. the paralyzing heat of the summer!). Fall provides a feast for the senses: the smell of burning leaves, the sweet chill of cooling nights, the spice of Thanksgiving-time sweets, the rich tapestry of color inherent in the trees and harvest vegetables, and above all the transformation of nature’s green into the reds, golds, oranges, siennas, and browns of autumn. What a glorious relief! What a joyous sight! Moreover, these seasonal changes remind me that we’re rapidly passing out of the time of Harvest and moving instead into the time of internal reflection and quiet that can, ideally, be part of Winter. That is no small thing to honor.
With the feast of Mabon, the fall Equinox, we acknowledge the balance of light and dark, life and death, growth and rot. We honor all those things that enable our world to grow and restore itself. On this holy tide, we hail the hunter and the hunted, the predator and the prey, the plough and the scythe, the blessings of growth and of decay. We honor our resources, and the frugality and careful planning of every ancestor whose careful household management got their families safely through the cold constraints of winter. Mabon is a time of remembrance and of culling away, of honoring what we have, what we need, but also what we can provide to others. It is a time to look clearly at where we are weak in spirit, where we are strong, and where we stand somewhere in between, a time to take stock of our portion of gratitude and blessings for the coming season.
This is the season of the Hunter, who takes the old, the weak, the infirm. It is a season preceding those dark nights before Yule when the Wild Hunt is said to ride. It reminds us that the holy walks hand in hand with terror. The message of Mabon, when the land begins to wither, to hoard its resources, to slow the rhythms of its growth down, is that we too must, at some point in our lives slow down, cast off those things that are brittle, withered, and weary; we too much look within, because for us also, physically, spiritually, emotionally there are cycles that we have no choice but to obey and within those cycles may lie both terror and beauty, gain and loss. Within those cycles, we prepare ourselves for both the holy and the terror that lies within.
Contemplation on the rhythms of the seasons, the turning of summer into fall, shows us that just as the earth has its temporary fallow periods, so too we may sometimes enter into periods where our faith seems to lie fallow; but if we do the necessary work, if we engage mindfully in right action, if we do not let loss and pain, or joy and celebration pull us too far astray, if we work hard to maintain — to the best of our ability– right relationships with ourselves, our ancestors, the Holy Powers, and the world at large, such fallowness can blossom into a rich and worthy harvest.
Tilling the hard and rocky soil of one’s own soul, ploughing deep furrows into which one can plant the seeds of faith, nurturing that faith, waiting out those painful fallow periods for those carefully planted seeds to grow is the hardest thing we will ever do. So many of us have been taught that faith is its own self-contained sphere, that it is for Sundays, or ritual days, or those times when we specifically set out to say a prayer and make an offering, that anything else is for mystics and those not really connected to the regular, mundane world. In reality, faith is very much an every day thing. It’s an awareness, a way of being in the world, of relating to the Holy Powers (Gods, ancestors, vaettir all), our friends and families in a very specific and very mindful way. It’s the lens through which we interact with the world and most of all with ourselves and everything that we are striving to create and build for ourselves and our future. Sometimes we have to work very hard to keep that lens in focus because faith isn’t just for the occasional ritual, or holy tide; it’s an every day, every moment thing even in the midst of the most tumultuous change or wrenching emotions. Life is challenging after all, and faith all the more so.
One of the most painful but also the most necessary ways of keeping faith vital, vibrant, and strong is going into our own darkness, dancing with our own shadow, fighting with our own demons. Through the blessings of the Hunter and His prey, we are invited to engage in the powerful process of self-evaluation and exploration. We are offered a key, a way to walk through that most terrifying of doorways. We are offered a knife, a cleansing, flensing blade whereby we may look within and slowly, painfully cut away those brittle masks, external distractions, and false sentimentalities that prevent us from engaging in any truly meaningful way not only with our Gods but with ourselves and each other as well. We are offered a chance to put aside the self-absorption and pride that so often keeps us from developing as whole beings. We must be for ourselves both predator and prey. We are charged to seek these things out within the complex labyrinths of our souls so that there will be room for the grace of awareness to flow. This is the sacred Hunt with which we can all engage.
What are the skills necessary to a good Hunter? The hunt demands patience, keen vision, and solitude. So too, does faith, at least sometimes. It demands efficient preparation and skill hard won through much practice. So too, does faith. In the end, a good hunter brings his or her bounty back to share with community and kin. That’s what faith is about too. Let the good Hunter be our model as the wyrd of our lives unfolds before us. Let His skills, become ours.
What about the prey? Efficient prey is fleet of foot, it knows it must traverse dangerous ground swiftly and well to sustain its life. It knows it cannot stop until, or if, by the power of the predator it is brought down. Then, and only then, does it yield and cease its flight. So too must we seek out the integrity of our souls with the fierce survival instinct of an animal engaged in this primal dance. So too should we yield ourselves only to the final blow of our own divinely inspired hunt for from that submission, the grace of spiritual power grows.
Mabon marks a time of transition. The potential hunger of winter lurks just around the corner, if we are not careful, if we are not lucky, if we do not do the necessary work. The grace inherent in the harvest is that we’re given the opportunity to evaluate and prepare for that hunger, and the same holds true for the hungers of our hearts and souls. Hail to the Hunter and Hail to the Prey. Hail to the terror and hail to the season’s rejoicing. Hail to the coming darkness of Winter: the winter without, and all the little winters within, because Mabon tells us that from the darkness new blessings can flow
Mabon Meditations
September 22, 2010 by Galina Krasskova
I adore this time of year. There’s a crispness in the air, the herald of colder, darker things to come. The leaves are just beginning to change into what, in my region of the US, will soon become a riotous panoply of color. I live in the belly of the mountains, in the Hudson River Valley and fall is something to be celebrated here for its beauty alone. It’s as if the lines of varied color show, for a few brief weeks, the very and varied musculature of the mountains, rippling, stretching and preparing for the long sleep of winter. It’s an awe-inspiring sight.
Of course I would celebrate Autumn anyway. I’ve never been a summer person and I greet the cooling days with immense joy. They bring me vitality, a renewed sense of purpose, and the feeling of an immense burden being lifted (i.e. the paralyzing heat of the summer!). Fall provides a feast for the senses: the smell of burning leaves, the sweet chill of cooling nights, the spice of Thanksgiving-time sweets, the rich tapestry of color inherent in the trees and harvest vegetables, and above all the transformation of nature’s green into the reds, golds, oranges, siennas, and browns of autumn. What a glorious relief! What a joyous sight! Moreover, these seasonal changes remind me that we’re rapidly passing out of the time of Harvest and moving instead into the time of internal reflection and quiet that can, ideally, be part of Winter. That is no small thing to honor.
With the feast of Mabon, the fall Equinox, we acknowledge the balance of light and dark, life and death, growth and rot. We honor all those things that enable our world to grow and restore itself. On this holy tide, we hail the hunter and the hunted, the predator and the prey, the plough and the scythe, the blessings of growth and of decay. We honor our resources, and the frugality and careful planning of every ancestor whose careful household management got their families safely through the cold constraints of winter. Mabon is a time of remembrance and of culling away, of honoring what we have, what we need, but also what we can provide to others. It is a time to look clearly at where we are weak in spirit, where we are strong, and where we stand somewhere in between, a time to take stock of our portion of gratitude and blessings for the coming season.
This is the season of the Hunter, who takes the old, the weak, the infirm. It is a season preceding those dark nights before Yule when the Wild Hunt is said to ride. It reminds us that the holy walks hand in hand with terror. The message of Mabon, when the land begins to wither, to hoard its resources, to slow the rhythms of its growth down, is that we too must, at some point in our lives slow down, cast off those things that are brittle, withered, and weary; we too much look within, because for us also, physically, spiritually, emotionally there are cycles that we have no choice but to obey and within those cycles may lie both terror and beauty, gain and loss. Within those cycles, we prepare ourselves for both the holy and the terror that lies within.
Contemplation on the rhythms of the seasons, the turning of summer into fall, shows us that just as the earth has its temporary fallow periods, so too we may sometimes enter into periods where our faith seems to lie fallow; but if we do the necessary work, if we engage mindfully in right action, if we do not let loss and pain, or joy and celebration pull us too far astray, if we work hard to maintain — to the best of our ability– right relationships with ourselves, our ancestors, the Holy Powers, and the world at large, such fallowness can blossom into a rich and worthy harvest.
Tilling the hard and rocky soil of one’s own soul, ploughing deep furrows into which one can plant the seeds of faith, nurturing that faith, waiting out those painful fallow periods for those carefully planted seeds to grow is the hardest thing we will ever do. So many of us have been taught that faith is its own self-contained sphere, that it is for Sundays, or ritual days, or those times when we specifically set out to say a prayer and make an offering, that anything else is for mystics and those not really connected to the regular, mundane world. In reality, faith is very much an every day thing. It’s an awareness, a way of being in the world, of relating to the Holy Powers (Gods, ancestors, vaettir all), our friends and families in a very specific and very mindful way. It’s the lens through which we interact with the world and most of all with ourselves and everything that we are striving to create and build for ourselves and our future. Sometimes we have to work very hard to keep that lens in focus because faith isn’t just for the occasional ritual, or holy tide; it’s an every day, every moment thing even in the midst of the most tumultuous change or wrenching emotions. Life is challenging after all, and faith all the more so.
One of the most painful but also the most necessary ways of keeping faith vital, vibrant, and strong is going into our own darkness, dancing with our own shadow, fighting with our own demons. Through the blessings of the Hunter and His prey, we are invited to engage in the powerful process of self-evaluation and exploration. We are offered a key, a way to walk through that most terrifying of doorways. We are offered a knife, a cleansing, flensing blade whereby we may look within and slowly, painfully cut away those brittle masks, external distractions, and false sentimentalities that prevent us from engaging in any truly meaningful way not only with our Gods but with ourselves and each other as well. We are offered a chance to put aside the self-absorption and pride that so often keeps us from developing as whole beings. We must be for ourselves both predator and prey. We are charged to seek these things out within the complex labyrinths of our souls so that there will be room for the grace of awareness to flow. This is the sacred Hunt with which we can all engage.
What are the skills necessary to a good Hunter? The hunt demands patience, keen vision, and solitude. So too, does faith, at least sometimes. It demands efficient preparation and skill hard won through much practice. So too, does faith. In the end, a good hunter brings his or her bounty back to share with community and kin. That’s what faith is about too. Let the good Hunter be our model as the wyrd of our lives unfolds before us. Let His skills, become ours.
What about the prey? Efficient prey is fleet of foot, it knows it must traverse dangerous ground swiftly and well to sustain its life. It knows it cannot stop until, or if, by the power of the predator it is brought down. Then, and only then, does it yield and cease its flight. So too must we seek out the integrity of our souls with the fierce survival instinct of an animal engaged in this primal dance. So too should we yield ourselves only to the final blow of our own divinely inspired hunt for from that submission, the grace of spiritual power grows.
Mabon marks a time of transition. The potential hunger of winter lurks just around the corner, if we are not careful, if we are not lucky, if we do not do the necessary work. The grace inherent in the harvest is that we’re given the opportunity to evaluate and prepare for that hunger, and the same holds true for the hungers of our hearts and souls. Hail to the Hunter and Hail to the Prey. Hail to the terror and hail to the season’s rejoicing. Hail to the coming darkness of Winter: the winter without, and all the little winters within, because Mabon tells us that from the darkness new blessings can flow
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