By Steve Ornstein. I have thought numerous times about what to say about the New Year. Truth be told it has been a year of great transformation. New and challenging ways to relate to my adult children has taken the forefront of my awareness. No longer children themselves and all of them pursuing their passions in life. Raising families of their own I am struck by the clarity and conscious way all of my kids are so involved in life.
It has taken me a while to adjust and fully enjoy these changes in our relationship. It is an amazing experience to spend time with my kids. They all have their opinions on life and the world around them. They ask for our advice and at times freely share theirs.
I remember the days I longed for a parent to talk to about life and the need for support. But none of my parents were emotionally available.
I look back at the 40 years of practicing meditation in various forms and realize that life is very messy. My thoughts and emotions come and go until they cease to exist. Thoughts and emotions stopped in its tracks: NO-Thing but the beauty of life itself. Hershel called it “radical amazement”. How deep does this awareness go and where does it come from?
SILENCE once again and an expanse so deep and so vast that only “tears” seem to be able to express the amazement of our lives and the total connectedness we ALL share.
These experiences are always here for us but as one “Guru” said on a youtube video sent to me by a very dear friend: In the end it is all Grace! I have had and continue to have wonderful teachers. One such teacher Norman Fischer suggested that there are no guarantees about what one may or may not experience or realize. No matter how “hard” one pursues a spiritual discipline.
I found Judaism with all of its complexities and avenues of expression. We Jews share a path in life that is uniquely particular in its vision: communal, individual, socially conscious and our ability to wrestle with G-d.
This path of being Jewish and sharing fully in the social awareness of the needs of all and respect for the individual and the community is the basis for being in Israel.
I love this country. It is a work in progress that often tries the patience of the best of us. But here is where I can give back in a meaningful way. Just being here and living here is enough. Participating in this great experiment of the
Jewish people is in itself rewarding. There are so many stories of kindness and goodness that happens here that far outweighs all the anti-Israel propaganda that has permeated an entire world media.
We are like any other people, complex and yet passionately curious. In Israel nothing is impossible. It “can’t be done”, is just not in the vocabulary or the psyche of our people.
In time and space there is an eternal experience that is a moment that transcends or unfolds like the lotus in the dirtiest of water. We are this people. We are this community that shuts down on the holidays. On Yom Kippur not a car moves in the entire country except for emergencies and an entire people share in the silence and peace of the day in many ways and activities.
At times it is frustrating to live here but when I reflect about where else I would want to live every other place pales in comparison.
In this time of renewal and redemption I ask for your forgiveness and pray that we all will witness the ever changing reality of life as it unfolds before our very being. When in the Torah it was asked of G-d who are you or what shall we call you, it replied. “I will be what I will be”. In the future tense vision and truth can be found. Time in the here and now makes the “I will be what I will be” all the more profound and understandable.
