



Apartment and Skyscraper in Manhattan: Photo by Shai Gluskin. August 12, 2008 at 7:54:32 PM, somewhere in Manhattan.Tonight begins the 9th Day of the Omer (Arpil 27-28, 2011).
May that part of me that is broken in Gevurah in Gevurah be healed on this day.
One of the meanings of Gevurah is limitation. It's one of the forces that blocks our way back to the Garden of Eden. Gevurah sets the ultimate limit, our mortality. It also supports boundaries of all kinds, including the beginning and ending of Shabbat and the distinctions between permissible behavior as against transgression.
Gevurah works diligently against all of our delusions of grandeur. It exposes the falseness of our optimistic forecasts regarding when we will arrive and when that assignment will be completed.
Gevurah sometimes laughs, sometimes moans, but always knows our folly as we reiterate, "All I need is 26 hours a day."
You know you have healed what is broken in Gevurah in Gevurah when you begin this day having efficiently returned your Passover items to their proper storage, labeling each box and taking notes for next year's provisioning -- with joy.
Embracing Gevurah in Gevurah affirms that it is the small, ordered, sometimes tedious, steps in our plan that have the best shot at getting us to our professed goals.
Gevurah also means bravery. It is heroic to meet our limitations and embrace them.
Check the to-do list
Do what needs to be done first
Spring flowers add hope
Click here to read what I wrote on this day 9 in 2008.
See the blessings on Mishkan Shalom's Omer Counting pages.
Read Rabbi Yael Levy's teaching for today at the Mishkan Shalom web site.
I welcome comments of all kinds. Can you make a connection between the photo and this teaching?
Comments
5 comments postedBut it's a major reorientation for me. I was surprised -- even frightened a bit -- by how I took to Judah this time instead of Joseph as the novella's "hero." (And even Judah had a scary role model -- Tamar, a woman, who cared more about the lineage than about her reputation.)
A lovely and searching post.
Peter, blogging again is worth it alone to evoke your comments!
We are definitely in mid-life. Last year I saw Romeo and Juliet and was not moved. A few weeks ago, on the other hand, I saw The Merchant of Venice and was deeply affected.
The deepest irony of this post is that by writing it at all, I'm defying its teaching. Blogging is ultimately an expansive, thoroughly creative, act which strives to push the boundaries back.
And blogging is expansive! It has caused me to grow intellectually, and that may lead to spiritual growth, but it essentially fights against the acknowledgements and ascetic impulses that also cause growth. Our lungs expand and contract, and they're no worse for it, I guess. (I tend to fixate on one thing. Thank God for my wife, who helps me keep it real, or at least keep it more real.)
I'll keep my eyes open for a Merchant of Venice production this summer!
And, yeah, any thoughtful putting away, any routine matter, is often a surrender for me, and in that sense a kind of worship. God knows I usually hate to be orderly. It's all about the inherent limitation in it.
I like the idea of something so simple being an act of worship. And maybe the rote prayer that I can so easily criticize is truly a deep form of prayer.