Awakening Emor: Torah Mussar Mindfulness, 32nd Sitting

Welcome.

Allow yourself to settle and arrive.

We'll begin in one minute.

Welcome.

Allow yourself to settle and arrive.

We'll begin in one minute for those of you who have just arrived.

Okay,

We're at the top of the hour.

3pm Eastern Standard Time.

2200,

10pm here in Israel.

Welcome.

Welcome to the Institute for Holiness Kehilat Musar's weekly awakening Torah-Musar mindfulness talk and guided mindfulness meditation sitting.

I am Rabbi Hasya Ori El Steinbauer,

The founder and the director of the Institute for Holiness.

Welcome for those of you arriving just now.

And we live stream weekly on Zoom,

On our YouTube channel,

On Facebook,

LinkedIn,

And Twitter.

So I welcome all of you.

And as we begin each week,

We begin with our Kavanah,

With our intention for our practice,

Which I share with you on the screen briefly.

And here in front of you,

Hopefully you can see,

Give me a thumbs up if you see kind of purple flowers.

Thank you and welcome.

Welcome,

Gina.

Good to see you.

So we share our Kavanah,

Our practice for today,

The first and the third,

And I will read them out loud for those of you listening on audio.

So before doing acts of caring for the self,

We say,

This is something I'm doing to strengthen my own soul in order to be a benefit to others in the future.

And then we skip down to the last one where we say before doing acts to strengthen our relationship with the divine.

This is something I'm doing to strengthen my relationship with the Creator so that I can be a better conduit of God's good to others when they need me.

So we take in that Kavanah,

That tension for today,

And may we merit bringing it to our practice today.

As we enter our 32nd sitting today on Sunday,

May 8th,

The 22nd day of the Omer,

We've entered it here and it's the seventh of ER here.

And we're going to be looking in Israel here.

We are looking at the parasha from yesterday,

Amor.

But for those of you outside of Israel,

You will be coming up on this Torah reading for the Shabbat that's coming.

So we're now in a little bit of a split calendar.

And so that's what we're covering today.

Awakening Amor and we'll jump right in.

So first I'm going to give just a brief summary of what you see here.

So for those of you who haven't had a chance to look at it,

We're in what we call the holiness code.

It's in the book of Leviticus known as Vaikra in Hebrew.

And this is actually a special parasha in the sense that it really isn't addressing B'nai Israel.

It's not addressing the whole community,

The children of Israel known as the Israelites.

Instead,

It's really directed at the priesthood.

And I'll give you a brief summary from the Jewish Publication Society.

I sometimes bring them in their book on Leviticus here.

So they share with us that essentially it's addressed to the priesthood and it reflects the special content of these two chapters.

And so it deals with the laws of purity,

Dealing with Tahor,

And that prohibits the priests from having contact with the dead.

And there are marital restrictions imposed on the priest.

There's this idea that they have to marry a certain type of woman and the women outside of that are not acceptable.

So therefore,

His purity is affected by who he marries.

So we're going to hold that in mind because I'm going to bring that up later.

And then the requirement of physical soundness for officiating the priesthood.

So I'm just going to say this more transparently and directly.

There's a real concept that the body has to be a certain way.

And it for me,

It brings up issues of fascism in the sense that no one can have any physical sign of disability,

Of defect or anything of that sort in order to serve,

In order to officiate in the actual sanctuary.

The person can still be a priest and they can still partake in the food known as true ma,

But they can't actually officiate.

And so we're going to want to hold on to that.

Also,

What that means about our community and how it's involved.

And then finally,

In the fourth prerequisite,

There's this idea of taking the sacred donation known as true ma,

And it's allocated to the priest as their food.

All right.

So just like the animal that's up for sacrifice and that sacrificial system back then,

That animal has to be free from defect,

Any sign of injury or illness.

And the same thing with the priest.

We really are seeing this.

And they turn it a scapegoat,

But in the sense of being a replacement,

The animals,

A replacement for the actual human sacrifice,

And I think that's what we're witnessing here.

So that's the background.

Okay,

That's what I want you to really have in mind this kind of special status of the kohanim of the priesthood.

They're actually called kadusha,

Which is like this holiness.

We now have this concept of a whole class of people of the priesthood who are signifying this holiness here,

And they have to stay pure,

They have to stay to horror in order to serve.

And if they can't or they don't then they won't be able to officiate.

That's how it's mapping out right now in the Michigan in the desert.

And so,

With that background,

There's so many things I wanted to touch on but I really want to focus on a couple areas because part of our practice and most of our mindfulness is really noticing when where we're triggered in the text.

And of course,

I'll hear from whoever who's ever here now if they were triggered or what came up for them.

But for me,

I will share with you what really begins to come to mind for me and what's what I'm somewhat having trouble with.

So,

So the first is,

I want to for us to remember the biblical concept of kadusha of holiness,

And to keep in mind that in that kind of biblical religion that we're witnessing here in the Torah,

That holiness cannot be achieved by individuals alone.

We have a very strong concept of individuality today,

How we practice how we live,

We tend to think that we can almost live as an island of ourselves and then sometimes we give we give credence to the idea that we're all one and we're connected,

But there's still very strong individualism,

But back in the biblical mindset and into our ancestors that that holiness could not be achieved by just one individual doing well and being ethical and giving to the community.

It really was a communal thing that a really only found its life in the community acting together.

And what you end up producing in that kind of environment and I think we're witnessing it here in this partial of a more is for me a little bit of an unhealthy codependency.

Let me explain what that means.

For the priest,

And particularly the high priest.

For him to have to very marry only a virgin,

A woman who's never had intercourse with a man or been married,

And that she must be married and his priestly clan.

And there's this concept that in the divorce woman for instance is one that is always suspicious that she's only been divorced because infidelity.

All right,

And then there's not even wanting to marry the widow.

This concept now that you're so intertwined with this other person that they're going to determine your purity status and affected and what you're going to end up doing in the sanctuary.

So this is,

This is quite new we haven't witnessed this in the book of Genesis,

We haven't witnessed this.

Even in the book of Exodus,

This is a new concept and new type of marriage and relationship like we didn't witness this with obvious This like there definitely was a codependency,

But it wasn't based on like having to have complete complete purity in the household and what and who you married and what you did.

And the same thing where he can't be around these any dead bodies,

Particularly the,

The cohen good deal the high priest right.

He can't even marry his own,

Not marry bury his own parents.

The other priests can but there's this like real intense am really communal connection that one can even live out its life,

Almost as an individual in a sense,

Without being totally at one and connected with others.

Okay,

So I want to bring that in as a background.

Because it then goes on to affect this concept of what we're going to call a moon,

A moon mean the chapter anymore discusses priest who are born with physical disabilities defects whatever language you want to use.

They're not allowed to serve the,

And it's tied to animal sacrifice and those also.

And this is where I was really triggered because just this idea that there would be this category of a human being created and likeness and image of God and it's not acceptable based on that there's some defect that's considered in the Torah,

Not to be allowed within the holiness structure to serve.

And this is a little bit surprising to me in the sense that,

I mean it is surprising in the modern sense like,

But I can see it in the biblical sense but I want to point out the difficulty for us that we're having this concept that you should be holy,

And that we all supposedly as a community can participate in and have to,

We rely on one another to keep that purity and holiness in order to have God dwell in the camp and reside there.

But now you have this category of person that's not allowed to serve.

Because,

Let's put it in the language of the Bible,

That God has had them born this way.

And there's a challenge there.

Okay,

There's a challenge that I think we need to honor and carry with us that today,

That we don't honor,

That we try to respect and honor everyone no matter what they look like,

What they disability or able ism that might be exists or not,

And that everyone has this potential to be on the path of holiness and to serve and to practice.

And we have to keep in mind this roots,

And keep in mind that we have evolved and there's something really positive about that evolving that we shouldn't see it as a leaving some,

You know,

Pure intention there.

So,

That what I want to share right now and just touch upon before we go into our city meditation is one pessuk,

And I'm going to share the screen with you one verse from the Torah.

This comes in chapter 22,

Which is in our weekly parasha.

And here you have the Hebrew and the English,

So I read both the law to follow it,

Shim code she veneer dash t but talk the 90s.

Any other night make a dish,

Okay,

You should not profane profane my holy name that I may be sanctified in the midst of the Israeli people,

I will sanctify you.

This drives our ancestors crazy in the sense of the rabbinic exegesis all sudden,

And no comma liberal it's in her wonderful book on a vicar on Leviticus brings him a great question arises right.

How can man the human and earthly creature made of dust profane or sanctify God,

The source of holiness.

Indeed,

Is not any holiness that that the human may reach at all merely just an imitation of the divine holiness and the spirit of the commandment you shall be holding right to the shim to you,

Because I am holy.

So what strange commandment,

This is that enjoy it on us who are not holy to sanctify as God's name.

So,

This concept that the human being could not possibly sanctify God right like how is this possible that we could actually affect God.

And this is where I feel the Dharma from the Theravada and even Zen tradition,

Although my specialties in Theravada Vipassana,

It can teach us something about this and I'll describe a little bit more but in,

In,

In the classic texts of the Buddha,

For example,

Let me stop sharing here.

There is this concept that gets developed later on.

And by followers later Buddhist teachers essentially who basically face a problem of resign resolving contradictions that they find in the text,

This should sound familiar even within biblical study right.

So,

The Buddhist teaching of the Dharma,

Maybe reviewed as a path of release from Dukkha right of suffering.

And so the first noble truth equates life experiences with pain and suffering,

And the language is very simple and colloquial,

Because it was meant to reach certain people.

So,

Because of the various statements actually can appear contradictory later Buddhist teachers suddenly start to try to resolve these and they come up with this wonderful concept.

And it's an accidental exit,

Digital I hope I can say this is excuse me,

My English,

And it's a technique distinguishing between two levels of truth.

And the absolute truth.

And there's quite something quite beautiful and useful in our practice to be able to live with this.

So the relative is a dimension of our reality in which each and everything is identified and defined,

And it's relative positions.

So anything that like manifest and happens.

Anything that we can kind of see separate from us it's this solution of separateness right there's individuality there's uniqueness.

There's difference,

There's interdependence.

It's the life that we live here and now and how we label things.

And the absolute truth is this dimension of reality in which each and everything is part of a seamless whole.

It's when you hear practitioners say,

We're all one.

And we kind of have to think well what does that actually mean.

But often when people are using that term it's this absolute truth,

This reality that is manifesting through phenomena through sometimes what we can't even see what we might label the mystery,

The great mystery of the divine for instance.

And so,

There's a beautiful concept comes to us.

And I think it's very helpful and useful today for us addressing this text on suddenly,

How can we,

How could even be Israel.

In its unified community and so concerned now about purity and a way that wasn't there before.

How can they affect God,

How can they affect the presence of God.

So you might say that that's part of,

I've been I've been struggling with this so I want to hear feedback before,

After our,

After our sitting together.

I would say this might be a part of our relative truth.

What we see is that we know that we are we inherited and we believe that we're supposed to behave in a certain way in order to affect God's presence the community and in the sanctuary in the temple.

And that's the relative truth and we get really caught up in these laws of purity,

What have you know how the priest has to be who he has to marry what bodies he has to stay away from we start getting into really strict rigid rules rigid to us today often.

The absolute truth.

Okay,

We would probably say,

No,

The human being really probably doesn't affect God and the way that we're thinking in this relative truth that there's this larger wholesome way of being and that the human understanding resides more in this relative truth and where we feel that we're commanded or at least we've been passed down to from our ancestors,

And how we live that out.

So,

And this is how it gets worded through in the common level it's but let's use some of that language from the Dharma because it's very helpful.

So she says the answer may be found if we distinguish between the essential holiness.

So we might say here the absolute truth here.

The essential holiness of God which transcends time and place unaffected and unchanged by them.

And the holiness of God's name,

Which is what's what we just read in that verse the pursuit.

The holiness of God's name is this relative truth here.

And that is the propagation of human acknowledgement and recognition of God and the relationship and the following a certain way of being in order to have that relationship.

So,

The positive precept to sanctify God's name among the community among the children of Israel,

And the negative one that you shouldn't profane it really reside in this world of this what I'm going to say the relative truth.

All right.

And I think that's very helpful to us where we won't have to get caught up,

Because a lot of people get caught up even today.

I'll hear discussions of this extreme over human.

There's no way we're affecting God or God even knows we exist or even have this relationship.

And I don't think we need to stay there.

That's a stuckness.

I think we can open ourselves to this other relative truth to say,

We now recognize that our behavior does affect our community.

Maybe not to the extent that we need to be so codependent and we can't even function without certain rigid rules of what we look like or who we marry how we behave,

But that in,

We do recognize that our communal behavior and who we are affects each other on a global grand level.

And that in sense affects our path,

Our practice towards holiness,

And a sense the divine and look at climate change,

Like look at,

Look at this relationship but there's a relative truth that we do have great power and how we behave on a daily basis and there's great consequences also how we behave,

Especially at the communal level.

So I want to hold that relative truth and we can also honor the absolute truth that there's something larger and mysterious that we're not affecting and that will go on and exists after us,

Because this is always been even happening before us,

And to respect and honor that also.

So,

With that,

I want to move into our guided mindfulness meditation sitting and then we'll leave time for,

You know,

Comments and questions,

Towards the end.

So,

Sitting with us right now if you are sitting,

And you feel comfortable enough,

Meaning there's no trauma or intense discomfort that's going to pull your attention away from the present moment.

Then please sit and really root yourself,

Your sit bones,

I want your feet on the ground and in city sitting in a position that is sense really respects your dignity,

Created in the likeness and the image of the divine,

Not West Point stiff,

But upgrade for you to be able to arrive.

For those of you that do need to have another dignified position,

Please lie down if you need to.

I recommend keeping the eyes open so that you remain awake and alerts for others they might go and sit on their soft or their question.

For others,

You can also do a walking meditation or even stand next to a chair I recommend so that you will feel protected if you begin to,

You know,

Feel unstable.

And with that,

Allow your hands to rest and whatever position works for you if you're new to meditation you can just gently.

Let them rest on your lap.

Some people like to hold their heart to begin to feel where they are in this moment.

And if you feel safe and able and ready,

You may shut your eyes,

Otherwise lower your gaze in front of you.

And take three deep cleansing breath,

Allowing yourself to settle and arrive.

What does that mean it means letting go of any thoughts from the past that you may be remembering or thinking about any planning for the future,

Allowing your mind and spirit to rest right here and right now.

For some of us it might be strong sensations in the body that are calling for our loving attention.

Simply honor them,

If that's where you are right now.

You can even whisper which is a form of mental noting.

I will visit you later.

For others,

It can be located and strong emotions.

Either you're triggered by the text or sharing or something else that happened in your life.

Maybe there's something greatly pleasant going on.

You can gently label.

This is unpleasant or this is neutral.

This is pleasant,

Allowing yourself to come to the present moment of your breath as your anchor,

My voice,

Where you want to locate yourself.

For those of you with any trauma of breathing,

Perhaps from surviving COVID or any asthma or anything else,

Please allow your anchor that keeps you in the present moment to shift to sensations in the body,

Or to my voice.

I will go silent from time to time so feel free to shift to a different anchor besides the breath.

This is a deep moment of radical self care to take this time to encounter our Torah.

Address it from our lens of most our mindfulness.

It's a gift that you are giving and being refuge and community.

One that will strengthen you and affect how you care for others,

Which is how we see bringing God's good to the world.

I play with so much collective and intergenerational trauma with war,

Climate change,

Terrorism,

Institutional racism.

The deep pain that I feel for my sisters and everyone who supports them dealing with the Roe vs Wade ongoing controversy and discussion and who knows where it's headed.

In some sense,

We're all have a moment.

We all have a defect.

We all come broken hearted.

We all come recognizing how deeply human we are.

All it takes is sitting practice together to recognize and allow just how judgmental we can be towards ourselves and towards others.

Now we develop together by sitting together,

Strengthening our compassion muscle,

Knowing that if we can practice self love and self honor over time.

It strengthens how we honor and love others and care for them.

We also have a profound sense of peace as we practice,

Knowing that we are connected to the divine who loves us and accepts us just as we are.

Now an investigation of the felt sense of the body.

This is calling for your attention.

You can gently ask yourself,

Can I be with this,

And then take a deep breath to accept all that is here,

Right here and right now.

As we enter the fourth week of counting the Omer known as the fear that all man tradition and Judaism of counting from the second day of Passover to the festival of weeks known as Shavuot in Hebrew.

We enter the week of netsach of endurance,

A vision of eternity.

So we tap in as we learn Torah together and engage in this practice.

What is it that helps us lift our eyes to practice compassion,

Metta,

Chesed,

Loving kindness.

What helps us believe,

Trust,

Imagine,

And the expansive possibility.

This fourth week of counting the Omer reveals deeply what our souls know this absolute truth that everything is connected,

Intertwined,

Interdependent.

We are woven together with all life that ever was and ever will be.

And as Rabbi Levi,

He teaches we are here for a short time.

Our relative truth.

And everything we do matters.

Our choices,

Our actions,

Our devotion.

We continue to create the world.

We continue to affect each other.

In this trying moment right now,

Whether you are here in Israel or in the States or elsewhere,

Let us not be tricked into thinking that there is nothing we can do.

Everything we do matters every moment of connection creates strength,

Your connection to yourself right now and your practice with all of us here at the Institute.

Every act of kindness,

Compassion,

Generosity endures.

And as we learn and to heal them in Psalm chapter 119 verse 138.

Let us act with justice,

Grounded in deep faith.

Let us remember that love extends beyond time and space.

As we enter into some time of silent meditation,

Allow yourself to practice radical kindness and honor of the Omer.

What is a compassionate and loving response that you can give yourself to your sensations,

To your emotions and to your thoughts.

We enter into silence.

We enter into silence.

We enter into silence.

We enter into silence.

We enter into silence.

We enter into silence.

We enter into silence.

We enter into silence.

We enter into silence.

This last minute of meditation,

Ask yourself how I can act with generosity in this moment.

Where can you send nurturing to your body to your spirit.

This non judgmental curiosity,

Befriending yourself.

What is the compassionate and loving response.

Let us honor the isolation and pain of our ancestors who were excluded like the priests who had disability.

Something else different with their bodies.

Know that they are rooting for us.

We honor the ancestors of the woman who was not believed of her fidelity,

Easily divorced and cast aside,

Not worthy of marriage to the coin name.

We honor her and bring her into our compassion.

Knowing that she is rooting for us how far we have come,

And still so far to go.

And the generation to come holding us in their prayers.

This absolute truth.

Let us act in their honor for the well being of all beings.

You can join us back in this sacred circle.

Circle on zoom and YouTube and Facebook,

LinkedIn and Twitter wherever you may be joining us or even on their website.

Okay,

He lot more sorry calm.

I am Rabbi has your real Steinbauer founder and director of the Institute for holiness Kehila was our.

And I am honored to have you here.

Welcome Gina if you feel comfortable you can unmute yourself and let us know where you're coming from,

And any comments or questions.

Of course I don't see anybody else on my right now there are there there's zooming in through other through,

What's it called the live streaming through other means so it's just it's nice to be here.

Thank you so much I'm from Montreal,

Quebec,

Canada.

Wonderful,

Wonderful.

I'm going to try to unpin myself so we can have a better image of you.

I'm so I'm still not so great with the technology.

Here we go remove pin.

There we go.

And do you have any comments or questions for today's talk or even guided meditation.

Well,

I love the emphasis on the importance of inclusiveness for all beings regardless of what they're coming into a community with it just feels so antithetical to my understanding Judaism you for that to be present.

So I'm glad you emphasize the importance of an inclusive today.

Thank you.

Yeah.

It's going to be very for me at least very challenging and hard to do a really close reading of the text because it's there.

It's just over 2000 years of rabbinic exegesis we've decided as communities that we're not going to live the way it's in the Torah,

And a lot of people have a hard time saying that are admitting that but there's something positive about that,

And we can have this and honor it but change also.

I think if anything it's honoring the divine and all of us to do that,

And not leave it in a static way that we have to live that way.

So I mean a question that comes up for me not to hog the time is a better word.

Is,

You know,

Do you still feel that that attitude exists in contemporary communities within Judaism that I know it's a hard question but.

But I wonder what your thoughts on that.

I mean,

This idea that we should remain in some kind of pure biblical aspect it,

It's less residing in the Bible.

That's more of where often you see Christianity take it,

You know where they feel that you do a certain reading of the Old Testament or New Testament and that's how you should live.

But you definitely have communities in Judaism,

I mean we have a full range of people we have kind of what I would call right wing Orthodox all the way to secular.

So you do have different communities that have a certain concept that they think they're living a more authentic,

You know,

Real Judaism that's based in 2000 years of halakhic development Jewish law development and how they think they're supposed to live in their communities.

But I'll bring one brief example where I'm witnessing this I'm writing about it right now so I don't have it all laid out,

Which is.

I'm realizing that,

Okay,

So just let's start off by saying that Christians come from the Jewish community they originally were Jews and then eventually developed into Christian Christians and Christianity.

And so what we're witnessing today I think in,

At least in the United States with this intense kind of.

I'm just going to label it like a right wing kind of white supremacist almost like certain certain way of Christianity around women's bodies and controlling whether they get pregnant and what they can do with that pregnancy and marriage,

And all those laws around it I think actually you can find it deeply rooted in today's Persia.

And today's version today's Torah portion because if you have this concept that a coin a priest cannot,

He has to marry a certain type of woman and she has to maintain a certain type of purity in order for him to be in his role.

Then it's this idea that men have to control certain women and be with certain women in a certain way and they have to live out a certain path for them to do their own job.

And so I feel like we're witnessing this with this concept of trying to control,

Particularly poor women but all women their bodies who they marry,

And the kind of a punishment to them if you know we're going to make you carry this child full term and move from there and I started really seeing it in today's text so I just want to honor that as much as modern liberal Judaism,

Loves to say that we as Jews support abortion and it's okay we're pro choice which is true and rabbinic law.

There's in this deeply trench old wave being within our ancestors from thousands of years ago that I feel is still in this strain in this idea of who's connected to home and then who's controlling home,

And I really feel that today.

What do you think about that.

Great,

Great.

I feel it too.

It's almost hard to put into words,

Because it's so not,

You know,

Obvious but I agree,

I think it's really relevant.

Yeah,

Yeah.

So,

We have to honor that and then,

You know,

Keep working for what is really,

I think,

Just the holiness path in the sense of really honoring each person as a holy soul and all sentiment beings,

You know,

Not causing harm and suffering which we just do,

We do on a daily basis and on a communal and global level.

So that's our work here one day at a time one one sitting at a time one talk at a time.

One breath at a time.

Exactly,

Exactly.

So thank you so much for your practice.

Thank you to everyone who's logged in today and joined in.

And I God willing will look forward to seeing all of you next Sunday.

Thank you so much.

Be well,

Thank you.

You too.

Bye bye.