Tag Archives: love

Counting the Omer: Chesed

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ChesedUnconditional love is something we all long for but rarely experience. From our pets perhaps, or young children. As adults we get momentary rushes, but they tend to be a little more specialized: gratitude, appreciation, joy, relief, new love. But in our 24/7/365 worlds too often we equivocate, hold back, or keep a quid-pro-quo relationship with our heart via-a-vis the hearts of others, even those we hold close and dear. Best to keep a little something in reserve in case the world surprises you and you need it later. Like carrying around a psychic water bottle.

It’s not for want of caring. But too many of us have been bruised and wounded in ways that leave us cautious about being too (let alone totally) vulnerable. But as we go through the world with veils of emotional protection, we’ve also limited our heart’s ability to feel. Unintended consequence or not, it happens.

We don’t advertise these shortcomings and barriers. In fact we’re pretty creative about our disguises, volunteering, putting on band-aids, and helping out, embracing altruism and compassion in our rhetoric and actions. To other we may seem completely loving and caring. But how close to the core do we let them get?

Chesed is about love with a capital L. Divine love. Unconditional love. Love that comes from the heart not from head or need or expected or hoped-for reciprocity. Love without questions asked or answered. Deep and abiding and open. Love eternal. Loving-kindness and grace. Unlimited benevolence. It’s about generosity, about reaching past the boundaries of ego and self.

Chesed is associated with the principle of expansion. About things growing. Not that unlimited growth is always for their best or highest benefit. That’s why its counterpart is Gevurah, the principle of restraint and boundaries. (Next week, stay tuned).

Chesed is the first of the seven lower sephirot on the Tree of Life. Sephirot represent the qualities that organize how we live as incarnated souls. Higher soul levels breathe through chesed. You can feel them in very special times, birthings and dyings and fallings in love.

Chesed’s about being open, kind, full of goodness and grace. It ties to tzeddakah, generosity–a right action in Judaism–sharing that benefits both receiver and giver.

Chesed’s about saying Yes. It is about optimism, willingness, receptivity, even curiosity. It’s about the absence of limits.

What prompts this in you and what makes you run from the idea? (Ask sincerely, and don’t grip your pen too tightly.)

It’s hard to imagine being heavy and dark when you’re filled with chesed. But pay good attention if anywhere in you feels looser or tighter when you think about people/situations in your life where your chesed feels either extra strong, strained, or out of balance, past or current. Are there patterns and similarities? What brings out the best in you? And what tips it past the balance where the giving remains good for both you and others.

As much as you can this week, meditate on that kind of openness and caring. It’s the beginning of this process, and the more open you can become, the more you will receive.

Till Death Do Us Part: TorahCycle Chayei Sarah

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Chayei Sarah 2013People with relationship issues tend to fall into one of two categories: How do I find and keep a good one? How do I change or dump a bad one? There are auxiliary questions of romance relating to finding/losing/mourning one’s true love. And a zillion issues related to communications, money, messiness, honesty, household chores, and bloopers.

I do know a handful of remarkable relationships. The sort we were weaned to believe in. The decades-long partnerships where both halves have grown and evolved in love and support of one another. Sure, they argue and disagree on matters great and small, but the testing anneals the bond rather than breaking it. It’s admirable and enviable.

Why don’t the rest of us have it? Why’s it so hard to find and nurture the connections that challenge, nourish, and enhance our bodies and souls in equal measure?

I wish I had easy answers.

Every single person who’s looking for a relationship has their own version of “the list.” Qualities that Mr. or Ms. Unknown will have as basic part of their core DNA, lifestyle, and character. The pretty much standard ones (in an order reflecting any given moment) are sensuality, integrity, intelligence, spirituality, communications, financial stability, and senses of humor, honor, curiosity, and common sense. A friend one told me one of hers was “forthright,” which I interpret in part as an absence of passive aggressive or whiny tendencies. The ability to disagree and not hold a grudge or desire to prove one’s point.

My own summary is Someone who appreciates my best qualities and tolerates my worst ones with patience and humor. (And hopefully agree on which is which.

Because let’s face it, we have gnarly places. Ways we respond when life doesn’t go our way. Attitudes and behaviors that make us and/or our loved ones crazy. I’m not talking about serious maladies like substance abuse, or petty annoyances like knuckle-cracking. More retreating to a gloomy corner or the frustrating ward-off of cheerful denial. The kinds of traits that make you feel a loved one is either remote or clueless.

This week’s reading has a servant sent on a mission to choose Isaac’s wife. What seals the deal is her compassion. That’s setting the bar at the right place. Because when the hot sensuality is less frequent and times are tough, what you want, or should, is someone who has the grace to approach life (and you) with equanimity and a sense of caring.

For your sake I hope you’ve had at least one great love. The kind that shakes your soul to the core. A red-hot, zappy, can’t keep your hands off one another that lasts until the end. A love you so much my heart hurts kind of romance.

But I also hope you’ve met the person who satisfies your list. The one you want standing by you in the daylight, both when life seems hard and you can’t make it through alone, and in times when you’re happy and excited about the possibilities life is offering.

Partners like that should be well-loved. I hope you are one and appreciate or find yours.

What Do You Bring to This Party?: TorahCycle Naso

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Naso 2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You know what it’s like at a potluck where everyone’s brought the same thing. Cheese/crackers or dessert have a time and place, but sequencing and variety are more interesting, nourishing, and tastier.

In this week’s reading each of the tribes bring offerings to inaugurate the altar on different days. Each is described individually but they are the very same gift. What’s this trying to tell us?

Our DNA tints our hair, skin, and eyes. The circumstances of birth impact our material comfort. But each of us is here working out very individualized karma. We create families and friend networks, communities and tribes, each to help us solve and reveal a little more of the mystery.

Our lessons interact with one another in a splendid and intricate dance. It’s staggeringly complex, a little scary, and very beautiful. The word for this is awe, which in Hebrew is y’ira, a word that intertwines jaw-dropping gratitude with healthy doses of Yikes!

Only in brief moments do we even get brief insights into how the whole system works. Unless of course we get enlightened, and then, I’m told, there are no more questions. Just deep/broad wisdom and understanding. Plus lots of cheerful smiling, if the Dalai Lama is a good example. For the rest of us, regular karmic homework. More or less in any given moment. But minute by minute, passage by passage, Spirit invites us to grow.

This happens to us as individuals and as part of the collective. We do our work dancing with and tripping over one another. Friend and foe. Ally and nemesis. Lover and enemy. We have more in common than we sometimes remember when we dispute politics or religion. But each action, each thought, each prayer is another heartbeat in our being-ness and evolution.

There was a great FaceBook post the other day (apologies for length): Dear Human: You’ve got it all wrong. You didn’t come here to master unconditional love. That is where you came from and where you’ll return. You came here to learn personal love. Universal love. Messy love. Sweaty love. Crazy love. Broken love. Whole love. Infused with divinity. Lived through the grace of stumbling. Demonstrated through the beauty of… messing up. Often. You didn’t come here to be perfect. You already are. You came here to be gorgeously human. Flawed and fabulous. And then to rise again into remembering. But unconditional love? Stop telling that story. Love, in truth, doesn’t need ANY other adjectives. It doesn’t require modifiers. It doesn’t require the condition of perfection. It only asks that you show up. And do your best. That you stay present and feel fully. That you shine and fly and laugh and cry and hurt and heal and fall and get back up and play and work and live and die as YOU. It’s enough. It’s Plenty.

This it our party and, like in the classic went-to-school-naked dream, we’ve all shown up in our karmic birthday suits. We can bring all the offerings we want. But they won’t buy us a pass on any of the terror, thrills, tragedies, and blessings of being here.

No RSVP required. You’re here. Let’s dance.

 

 

Let’s Talk Relationships: TorahCycle Chayei Sarah

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Chayei Sarah 2013

When people kvetch or dream, the topic of their soul mate, true love, partner, or the absence of same is often high on their list of joys or laments. There are people who are well-loved and happy in their romantic life. Mazel tov. Other folks who are single and looking, hoping, and praying for love. Yet others partnered, but feel uncertain, taking  inventory and weighing possibilities.

There’s a great Hebrew song, Dodi Li, with the refrain, I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine. It’s sung about a relationship with the Divine, but it’s also about earthly love. Ditto the Song of Songs, evocative prose about passion, for one’s beloved and God.

Being loved matters. It’s embedded in our psyches. We yearn for its bountiful blessings. It’s about sensuality (where it often begins). It’s also about creating friendship, family, and ultimately about caring and support. A depth and duration of witnessing.

That’s the basis of this week’s reading: the death of a mother and the finding of a bride. In both cases the women are wise, compassionate, enduring, and loving. Not the first four words in most match.com ads.

Some folks genuinely prefer to be single. Others can’t endure a month alone before coupling again. And a rare few met their life love early and stayed together. Most of us, however, have bounced unevenly through dating and relationships, and have a history of base hits, maybe even a home run, but also lots of swings and misses.

Is it because we’re looking for the wrong things?

The complex algorithms of cyber-dating notwithstanding, creating a good, strong, long-lasting relationship is work. Fact: I also write an advice column. Most people’s relationship questions boil down to two: How do I find and keep a good one? How do I dump or change a bad one?

My answer: look within. Look within yourself and look within your partner, prospective or actual. Look for a depth of heart and soul that makes you want to share your deepest truths. That makes you feel seen, accepted, and loved, as well as passionately alive.

Most folks go partner shopping with “lists.” Requirements and deal breakers. Everything from financial security to table manners, looks to profession. But nothing substitutes for chemistry. That sense of recognition you feel when you realize someone’s gong to be important in your life, whether it’s a teacher or a colleague, let alone someone to date.

Because we’re here to do that for one another. To inspire, to help, to teach, to excite, to listen, to share, to share laughter and adventures, and to say what needs to be said. To witness one another’s highest aspirations and deepest pain. To be there in triumph and in despair. As needed, without being asked. I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.

This week think about what you most value in your relationships. I’m talking family of choice and of origin. What do you care about most in the people you love? What do those who love you love most about you?

Try to be more of all those qualities, towards yourself and others. The practice will change you, in good and lasting ways.