As Pesach (Passover) approaches so many thoughts pass through my mind about love, family, loss and misunderstanding. All I know is that I have been experiencing a death in my dreams and in this awaken state that is giving me a new life. It is in this life that I confront all my fears, hopes, desires, and disappointments. At this moment as we celebrate Pesach, the Jewish people, Hebrews, strangers in our midst, walk together leaving behind the tragedy and difficulty of a life gone astray in the forgetting of who we are as a people. Together as a nation we travel this road less map out of the desert with only our names in tack. A mixed bag of feelings currently passes through my being. The temptations that surrounds me, living in the most amazing place on earth, is a lesson and a warning conveyed on a mountain top to Moses. Do not forget the responsibility to oneself and to the nation to rise to the highest in us and take our place among our brothers and sisters in the brightest and the darkest of times. Together we heard the horrific rumblings from with in and we trembled as if we were going to die on the spot. It is that place where Moses stood, full of the light and mystery that enters us when we are blessed. That blessing is Love. Love for ourselves, and most importantly the fragments that make us most uncomfortable. That part of us that takes our breath away. Moses appears to have received it and lit up at that moment. And yet on the way down from that experience he loses it and shows his anger at the rest of us for succumbing to our fears. There we were/are dancing, whoring, and drinking ourselves into a stupor out of our fear of death. It takes much courage to live life fully. The braveness and daring of living a life full of compassion for oneself and extending that feeling to all around us. A place called HOME. I look around and realize how blessed I am to have a wife, children and friends that love me. As I travel in the desert with my people walking on the sand that leaves no footprint my memories of the past are burned into a new reality. Together, I pray that in the promised land where we now reside we do not forget to rise up from our slumber living like all the rest of the nations and remember at this time to relinquish our tight grip on the mundane and let the spirit of the time bring us just a little closer to ourselves and each other. We are destined for greatness. I feel it my bones. They rattle in my death and my life that transforms willingly and lovingly to honor all that is me, you, it, and them. We are all part of this journey and G-d only knows how much more. I pray for peace and the generosity to help those that still suffer from economic, physical, and spiritual difficulty in this sometimes unforgiving world. It is our duty to transform that hell into Heaven on earth. It is these sparks of life that we raise every time we sit together remembering and re-experiencing in our journey from slavery to freedom. Next year in Jerusalem!!
