Awakening Vayeishev 5783: Torah Mussar Mindfulness, 9th Sit

Welcome,

Allow yourselves to settle and arrive.

We will begin shortly with our awakening series.

Happy Hanukkah to Rabbi.

Wonderful to see you Jenny,

So glad that you took time to join.

Thank you,

Thank you so much.

All right,

We're ready to begin.

It's 7.

30 here in Israel,

12.

30 Eastern Standard Time.

Wherever you're joining us from across the world,

Welcome.

And here in the evening,

We start holidays in the evening.

It is now Hanukkah,

The first night here.

So delighted to celebrate with you and have you here.

This is our wonderful awakening series,

Where we delve into the weekly Torah portion from the lens of Musa mindfulness.

Musa in the Jewish tradition,

Mindfulness and Theravada Buddhism,

Where we take the synergy and the wisdom and the insight of both to really practice and look at the weekly Torah portion from those perspectives to see how we can learn and grow together.

So before we jump in,

I always announce that this is our ninth sitting together.

And it covers the Torah portion that happened last week,

I mean last Shabbat yesterday.

And that was on the 17th of December 2022.

And it was the 23rd of Kislev of 5783,

Tafshin P'imil.

And today,

However,

Is the 18th of December and the 24th of Kislev,

Now the 25th for me in the evening,

But that's besides the point.

So we always cover what was learned yesterday,

Last Shabbat and what some people study and prepare for all week.

And so we are jumping into Vayiyeh Shev,

Essentially as the Torah portion,

And we will cover our covenant,

Our intentions for today's practice.

Before we begin,

I'm going to share screen with those of you who are on video and can see if you are joining us on audio and podcast later on,

You will hear me read this.

So we see this practice together as an act of radical self-care for the benefit of others and our relationship and service to God.

So we see,

We say this first covenant 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 of benefit to others in the future.

We need this time to engage in our practice,

To strengthen us,

To make us help us be on this path and its potential towards the greatest possible person we can be so that we can be of service.

So then we say,

We're also doing this,

This practice together.

This is awakening together in order for others.

So we say,

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

And finally,

We see this time together during awakening this Sunday that we spent together at 7 30 PM Israeli time.

They say we doing an act to strengthen our relationship with the divine.

So we say this is something I'm doing to strengthen my relationship with the creator so I can be a better conduit of God's good to others when they need me.

So we may,

We merit today fulfilling these covenant,

Fulfilling these intentions,

And that may have this ripple effect out into our most intimate relationships and out to our concentric circles of obligation and joy,

Essentially.

So I'm going to stop sharing screen now for those of you who are viewing it here.

And we're going to jump in.

Now,

If,

If you've studied this portion,

God willing,

You've had a chance to read it through,

Then you know that this is exceptionally long.

It is the entering the classic Yosef story.

It has many different stories and angles and we obviously are not going to be able to cover everything.

We're going to hone in on certain classical discussions and behaviors so that we can learn about our own meadows,

Our own soul traits,

And how we can practice towards what we call to Kuhn Hamidot,

A kind of repairing of our own meadows and to see where we can go with us.

So I'm going to give you a little background.

What's going on here in Vayeshev.

So the whole rest of the book of Genesis is devoted to the story of Yosef,

Except for the kind of intrusion episode of Yehuda and Tamar and also Yaakov's last moving testament in chapter 49.

But here in our story,

It really begins to move into the importance of the Yosef story known as Joseph in English,

Where it basically lays out this kind of chain of events that lead to the descent of a whole people into Egypt,

Into Bitzrayim.

And basically the prelude is this drama of oppression and redemption that constitutes basically kind of an overriding motif of biblical theology.

So Yosef's experience,

As we said,

Is this like accumulation of a series of episodes set in motion by causes that seem to us as temporal,

As petty,

Perhaps as sorid,

As very mundane.

And the concepts of a father's love and favoritism over other children in the family,

Particularly the other boys,

The kind of tattle-telling and wearing certain clothing to be different and stick out and be special from others,

The sibling jealousy that then turns into hatred and then wanting of murder.

It changes from kind of states and emotion to actual wanting to do deeds.

And also kind of egotistical boyish dreams,

We're dealing with a 17-year-old boy,

Yosef.

And I want you to recall that his own father,

Yaakov,

Some partials back,

Was also 17 when he did what he did to his own blind father,

Yitzhak.

And when he basically really hurt the feelings of Esau,

His twin brother,

Right,

Who was also 17.

Yeah,

It was when he had to flee to his uncle,

Levon.

So we're dealing with late-stage teenage boys.

And these elements of this family situation end up being this explosive tragedy.

And in this story,

Essentially,

It appears as if it's very outwardly secular.

Now what do I mean by secular?

The absence of God as a very present in the story,

Even speaking or acting in that sense.

There's the absence of like miraculous or supernatural element here.

But that doesn't mean there isn't obviously divine revelation or something else going on here,

Definitely with communication with Yosef.

But look at how he behaves,

It's so different from his father,

His grandfather,

His great grandfather.

He builds no altars.

He has no association with cultic centers where it was special to his Abba,

His father and grandfather.

God never openly or directly intervenes in his life,

Doesn't show up in a dream of the Sulam or doesn't speak to Gret directly or come to visit him after having a surgery or such.

So Yosef obviously is not included among our patriarchs.

In the Jewish tradition,

It's Avraham,

Yitzhak and Yaakov who are listed as the three patriarchs.

And I think part of it is because of this lack of him having this direct experience with the divine,

That he doesn't build altars,

That he's not concerned with the cultic center.

This is all part of it,

Right?

So the final thing I want to say is that you can definitely see the hand of God here.

There's this man,

This mysterious man who shows up in our story,

Who guides Yosef to his brothers.

You have to remember,

He's a 17 year old boy.

He was on a five day journey to go find his brothers.

So you might question why is his father sending a 17 year old boy on a five day journey by himself to go give him a report on his brothers?

We'll touch upon those things,

But he runs into this man because he doesn't know where his brothers are and the man directs him.

So here's this mysterious man,

Right?

And then there's also this caravan of traders,

What we think are the Ishmaelites,

Right?

Or the Mindianites.

They come to,

They just happen to be going to Egypt,

Right?

And then the Lord,

Hashem,

Is with Yosef in Potiphar's house,

Who ends up buying him as a slave.

And he's also with him in prison.

So it's also significant that God is on Yosef's lips.

Basically anytime there's a critical moment going on in his life,

When he's confronted by Potiphar's wife,

And when he's interpreting dreams,

And actually later when he tests his brothers,

That's later on in the next week's Parsha in chapter 42.

So I just want to say that we want to be aware of something really significant here.

And this is going to be our overarching theme today,

Which is things that we consider small mundane acts that we do on a daily basis,

According to our tradition and here in the Musar mindfulness practice,

Are of great significance.

And I'm going to bring you a source if I can find it here.

Just give me a second.

Where it comes from,

I believe it comes from Ruth Rabah.

I just want to confirm that I have it.

Yes,

There's so much to this Parsha that I have so much material I want to cover with you and I won't be able to cover it all.

So it comes from Ruth Rabah,

Chapter 5,

Pasuk verse 6,

Where it talks about Rabbi Yitzhak Bar Maryon,

The son of Marion.

He says,

The Torah teaches that if a person is going to do a mitzvah,

That she or he should do it wholeheartedly.

Okay,

That's the basis of the teaching.

Now I'm actually even extending this to non-mitzvot.

We might not associate with that,

But daily acts,

Acts of kindness,

Acts of commandments,

Mitzvot,

However we may associate it.

So it goes on to tell the story that if Ruvin,

The eldest of the brothers in our Parsha today,

Had known that God would have written about him,

That God would have put into the Torah the story about him,

Right?

If he had heard,

If he had known that he would have been in there,

That he would have picked up Yosef and carried him straight home on his shoulders.

So what is this?

And then it brings other examples.

If Aharon had known,

Like it's this thing that if,

Had we known that either God was watching or it would have been recorded in the Torah or recorded on our own lives,

That thousands of years later,

People would still be reading about our small mundane acts,

Right?

Then the mitrash is trying to teach Ruth Raba that what we do is more important than we realize and that even simple acts can change history.

They can even bring,

They can bring more compassion,

More kindness,

Or they can go the other way.

Small little acts that add up over time,

Obviously can cause harm and suffering.

So the mitrash suggests here that we should always try to act as if we're,

What we will do will have a major impact and that it will be remembered forever.

And so what's significant about this is this is really the case,

Especially in our practice.

We notice over time that how we act and how we treat people,

Especially those closest to us,

Really affects them and affects their lives and affects the people that they are in contact with.

And it can really have this amazing,

Powerful effect.

And I want us to be aware of that as we move through this parshah that that is where we want to hold that.

We want to hold that kavana,

That intention,

That our small mundane acts are really significant,

That we've been created in the image and likeness of the divine.

And we have that torch in us,

That nair,

That light,

That candle,

And all of us that can bring that to others.

And it can,

It really has a significance and it can even turn into a very large,

Significant on a national level,

Even a global level.

Okay,

So let's move in.

That last week,

We gained insight into this concept of Ganivat Hadaat.

Ganivat Hadaat translates as stealing of knowledge,

Stealing of the mind.

It can even be called Ganivat HaLev,

Stealing of the heart.

And what it means is deception.

This idea that you are coming across as if you're doing something else,

Or maybe not doing anything at all.

And you are clearly doing something else and hiding that knowledge from somebody else.

Okay,

We watched this with Rivka,

Yaakov's wife,

I mean,

Yaakov's mother and Yitzhak's wife.

We watched it with Yaakov towards his father,

Yitzhak,

And also to his brother,

Esav.

We watched it with Levon,

Which is Yaakov's uncle.

And we even watched it with Rachel towards her own father when she was hiding his idols,

Right?

And she lies and says that she's having her vessel,

It's her menstruation and can't get up.

So there's a lot of deception going on in this family,

And it's been going on for generations,

I would argue.

So we get to witness long term harm and suffering,

This kind of stealing of people's knowledge and hearts.

And the Jewish tradition has something to teach about this.

They teach it through the lens of what's called Lashon HaRa,

The evil speech,

And Shemirat HaLashon,

The guarding of our tongue,

Protecting our tongue.

And it's through the lens of deception I'm going to bring this teaching,

Which is that when we deceive,

It hurts the person who is the deceiver,

Who's the one deceiving,

Bringing the lie.

It hurts their offspring and anyone who witnesses it or is associated with it.

It hurts the one who is deceived.

It affects everyone involved,

All parties that are involved,

Essentially.

So why is it so harmful?

Because it tears away at the fabric of the foundation of that family,

Of the society.

It really tears asunder the stability,

The harmony,

The safety of the relationships,

Right?

There's essentially no trust,

Really.

Okay.

So we return to this theme now of deception,

With Genivah Tadat,

With Yaakov now as an adult.

He attempts to settle in the land.

That's why it's called Vayeshev.

Attempts to settle in the land of Canaan,

Where his father and grandfather did,

Yitzhak and Avraham.

He actually covets it,

Right?

There's an attachment to this settling,

His desire to settle,

The fulfillment of closure,

This kind of idea that he wants to kind of grow old in peace.

This is a form of self-deception for Yaakov,

Which is a new concept for us,

Because he's not really awake to what his whole life has been.

It's unfortunate,

Right?

Waking up to how he has lived,

What family he's been a part of,

How they behave and act,

And that this is almost like a karma,

Like a karmic consequence of how this life is going to continue to unfold.

It's not going to be one that settles and has peace,

Essentially.

So what comes,

Right?

In a sense,

He continues to reap what he sows.

So what am I even getting at?

His favored son,

Yosef,

Will be thrown in a pit to be left to die,

Essentially.

He will be sold into slavery.

He will think that he's dead,

That he's been torn apart by a predator.

So this all begins with Yaakov two parashiot ago,

And last week's in the Vayishlach,

Where it is very clear that he favors one wife,

Rachel.

So I want you to just even imagine,

This is part of the Musar mindfulness practice,

Is to contemplate what that would feel like to be a part of a household where there are four wives.

One is completely favored and her children,

And the rest are not.

And it's very obvious about how they're treated and what unfolds.

So imagine you being raised in that household,

Being one of the other wives or the other children.

Okay,

This just sets the stage.

It even comes up when he's going to meet Esau and he splits the camp and who does he have come last?

Rachel and Yosef,

Because he wants,

If in his mind,

The storytelling Esau is going to murder his family,

He wants them to be last because they might escape.

So imagine if you're the child and the other wife that's put up in front,

And then the second and third.

It's that behavior on a daily mundane basis that chips away and basically makes these other people feel so treated poorly.

Okay,

Treated,

There's a harm and suffering that goes along when you are clearly not loved as much if at all.

So it starts with that.

And essentially it goes on,

The conflict continues between Leah and Rachel.

Then the conflict continues between children to children,

Eventually her brothers to Yosef.

This hostility,

This environment,

This unhealthy family environment,

It started a long time ago,

Started when he was young,

When he was 17 and he met Rachel and wanted to marry her.

And it continued all the way into adulthood.

And it has a profound effect on this family.

So people basically,

Hazal,

The parshanim,

Our commentators,

Our rabbis,

Our teachers,

Even modern scholars basically read the Yosef story as the beginning of drama,

Of jealousy,

Of anger and of power,

Like power play and that kind of thing.

But I think if you have followed along with me,

You will know that this has been the case in this family all along,

Especially with Rivka starting first towards her husband Yitzhak,

Then Yaakov towards Esav,

And then Levon towards Yaakov,

Leah towards Rachel,

Rachel towards Yaakov,

Even the prince of Shechem towards Dina,

And then Shimon and Levi toward all the other boys and men of Shechem.

And now with Yosef,

His brothers,

His father,

It reads like a patriarchal,

Violent nightmare if you read it closely.

And that's hard for us,

Especially for us religious Jews or religious people who come to this text looking for role models,

Looking for,

You know,

Why would God give us this?

Why is God sharing this story?

We can touch on this a little bit more,

Right?

But let's just hold this,

What's going on here.

So we want to look from our Musar mindfulness practice of what is going on with the middot,

The soul traits that are so unbalanced in our ancestors,

Right?

That they would even entertain harmful thoughts that lead to harmful deeds.

So let's begin with Yaakov.

He favors Yosef,

So much so he buys him or has him made a beautiful katon et pasim,

This beautiful robe or jacket.

He knew,

We assume that he knew the harm and suffering that is caused by a parent who loves and favors a child more because he was treated that way by Rivka,

His own mother,

And Esav was favored by his father Yitzhak.

He grew up in a family where part of the problem between him and his twin brother was this favoritism and love by only one parent towards the other,

Okay?

So we want to question what does this signify to us in our practice when someone actually knows better from their actual life experience and they still perpetuate it,

Right?

So I want to hypothesize a couple of things.

One I think from a mindfulness perspective,

We might say this behavior by now is habitual.

It might even be societal.

I would say that this is probably common among parents towards their children in that culture and society,

And it definitely is here among our ancestors,

Okay?

So there's this habitual behavior,

Which means it might mean he didn't know better,

Or at least that's just what everyone else does,

Right?

So our assumption might be incorrect when we say he knew better or he should have known better.

That assumption might not be correct.

Of course,

Some people might say this is a form of mental illness to kind of be doing this behavior when we know how unhealthy it is,

Harm and suffering.

I'm not going to go that route.

I just want to honor that if you're feeling that way or have that perspective,

It can be on the table another time.

I want to say that we're dealing with a family that obviously has intergenerational trauma from a lot of deception and certain behaviors.

We're dealing with Yaakov who basically went through a very trying life.

Some of it he caused himself,

And he's really seeking comfort.

He's really seeking to move away from things that will cause him more harm and suffering,

Essentially.

In that process,

Sometimes people can act out with cruelty when they really are attached to wanting their own comfort,

Wanting their own lack of conflict.

It's almost like fight or flight,

Right?

I think he might have the perspective that he feels he deserves to be really loved and to love a child very well in this way,

That after all his years of suffering,

All the years caught up in this cycle.

Let's just hold that in mind with Yaakov.

Now,

We move to Yosef,

17-year-old boy,

Same age as his father when his father had to flee from the rage and the pain and the sadness and the anguish of his own brother,

Asav.

He's told to flee to Levant to escape the potential rage of his brother,

Essentially.

You might want to begin to question in this parsha,

What does it mean that Yaakov never had to face the consequences of his behavior in the present moment?

That when Rivka,

His ima,

His mother,

Told him to flee and run away,

He never had to face his brother's face.

He never had to face the harm and suffering that he caused.

He never had to take responsibility in that moment.

And so he missed out on a key opportunity to develop those skills.

And this has affected him his whole life,

And we're going to see it now.

So we move to Yosef,

Who's the favored one.

He's loved.

There seems to come across as of arrogance.

He takes up a lot of space and speech and sharing of his dreams.

There seems to be a little bit of what we might call the naivety and narcissism,

This kind of self-centered,

Self-involved,

Lack of awareness of other people's feelings,

It seems.

There's a self-importance to him that he considers himself unique,

It seems.

There's a self-dramatization in how he presents his dreams and who he is,

Preoccupation with fantasy.

These are all the classic psychological definitions of narcissism.

I should also remind you of his father,

Who had this dream of the angels going up and down and God standing there and sharing all of it with Levon when he arrives and hugging and kissing Rachel when he doesn't even know her.

Lots of grandiose behavior in this sense of space.

So it comes across to us as modern interpreters of this text that he lacks a certain awareness.

It also seems the same thing from Yaakov,

His father,

Who sends him on a five-day journey as a 17-year-old to check on his brothers.

This whole time we might be saying to ourselves,

What is going on here that this would even happen?

And I want to suggest something else.

I think it's a little radical in the sense that I haven't seen this commentary among Hazal,

Lepershanim,

Or even modern scholars.

If you do know someone,

Please send them my way so that I can learn from them.

What I want to suggest is that this family,

Our patriarchs,

Our ancestors,

They really are in a societal and cultural environment that was full of patriarchal violence and domination.

That essentially the brothers and Yosef are like contenders and competition,

And that leads to potential murderers in this family.

And it started even back with Yitzhak and Yishmael,

Right?

This kind of the mother,

Sara,

Senses this fear that they're going to compete and fight among one another for the resources of Avraham,

And she banishes Yishmael out,

Right?

This is the consequence of a patriarchal,

Zero-sum family and culture and relationship.

She banishes Hagar and Yishmael.

Then you have Asav coming in as a twin,

And we see what happens there.

The deception,

The selling,

The lies,

The hurt,

Where one potentially wants to murder the other one,

At least in their anger,

Their dreaming or wishing about that.

And then you come to this family full of brothers,

One sister that we know of,

Dina,

Where it's just,

It's like Asav and Yaakov times 10.

And not only that,

You have the brothers who don't have,

It seems,

Don't have one parent who loves them and adores them,

Even if it's for the food that they bring,

Where Asav had that.

Asav had his father's love because of the food he brought.

The brothers aren't told,

We aren't told the brothers are loved at all,

Even by their own mothers,

And we assume two of them have passed away by now,

Leyan Rachel.

And it's just Yosef.

Yosef is the only one being loved by a parent,

Okay?

And that parent is the patriarch.

And that boy,

Yosef,

He acts like he doesn't care,

Right?

How his actions affect his brothers.

He shows up with his robe.

He tells them his dreams with no awareness or maybe care of how they're going to receive it or how it's going to feel to them if they're ready to hear it.

It's not wise speech.

It's not mindful speech,

Right?

It's not for their benefit.

And this boy and then future man,

Essentially,

Is showing him how he maneuvers and survives in this patriarchal family where he thinks it's like kind of doggy dog.

I have to figure out a way to dominate.

My dreams are showing me that I'm going to be the one and I have to dominate.

I have to come and do this or otherwise I might be killed by these brothers or at least be left last because I'm the youngest,

Right,

In a sense,

Even though he's the firstborn of Rachel.

He's the firstborn of the favored wife.

So basically,

It requires him being pulled out of this patriarchal family dysfunction and environment.

It takes him being thrown into a bore,

A pit,

And then put into slavery,

Sold into slavery in Egypt to save him from this ongoing violence and unhealthiness,

This harm and suffering of this family,

Of this household,

And these brothers with a father who's similarly checked out.

And modern commentators will go,

They'll have lots of negative opinions about Yosef.

And they'll be like,

How could he lack such awareness?

How could he march around in such arrogance in this jacket,

Right,

This robe?

When I'm looking at it from the patriarchal societal side,

How could he not?

You don't bite the hand that feeds you in that environment.

You wear that robe because the patriarch made that for you and gave it to you.

You wear it and you wear it with pride because you've been selected.

That's who you owe your time and attention to.

That is who you have to make sure you please.

It is the patriarch.

It is Yaakov.

It is not his brothers at all.

If anything,

They all have to fight and work it out,

Who's going to have the patriarch's attention essentially in the end.

And so this is the environment we're dealing with.

He has to be put into slavery to be able to function any differently in this patriarchal environment,

Right?

And so now to survive this new patriarchal environment in Mitsrayim in Egypt,

He needs to be concerned how others feel in order to survive in the prison,

In the bor,

Essentially another hole down below that he gets moved to.

He is concerned with their dreams and he's concerned.

If you look at chapter 40 verses one through six,

He begins to read faces of the butler and the cupbearer.

He saw that they were upset.

He asked why they're troubled.

And it's not as if this boy at 17,

Which he is here,

Didn't have these skills.

He might be in his twenties now,

But he's still young,

Right?

It's not as if he didn't have these skills with his brothers.

I'm going to argue he most likely had those same skills,

But they weren't useful in that household at that time.

He didn't have to read the brother's faces that they were unhappy with him,

That they didn't like that he told on them when the father asked him to,

The patriarch asked him to tell,

You know,

To give him a report,

Right?

He came home with reports.

He's probably rewarded for those reports.

He was rewarded.

He was given a beautiful robe,

Right?

He does not have to be concerned that his brothers don't like him,

Right?

And they're starting to get really jealous of him and hate him.

Concerned,

Right?

And that environment.

In order to survive,

He looked out for number one and he looked out for his patriarch,

His father,

And that's how he responded.

But now in Egypt,

Right?

If he had to please anyone,

It was first Potiphar,

And that's why he was so loyal to him,

Right?

But Potiphar ends up throwing him into prison because he assumes that he was doing something,

Trying to do something to his wife or just to please his wife,

Right?

So suddenly Yosef has to survive in this new prison environment,

Which again is another patriarchal environment.

But in this environment,

He has to pivot.

He has to use the skills to survive there and to survive there.

There's not one patriarch he has to answer to and please.

He has to listen and learn and figure out the other men there and to develop relationships with them.

And so this is what he does.

He listens to their dreams.

He interprets them with God's help,

Even says that.

And what does he do?

He says to not the cut to the cut bearer,

He says,

Remember me when you go back to a paro.

This was a strategy all along.

The boy knew how to pivot in this particular patriarchal environment.

I want to say those skills have been there all along.

It's just a completely different environment when he was locked in that family,

Right?

The one with so much dysfunction.

So a,

You know,

Modern commentators will believe that this might be viewed as a potential development of his skills and wisdom.

I think it's been there all along.

This is how this now 17 year old who he finally comes to power with paro when he's 30.

So somewhere between 17 and age 30 or 28,

He survives and he potentially thrives as a slave in Egypt,

Right?

It's quite amazing and significant.

I'll share one text with you just to give you examples of how this boy really knows how to pivot here and use the skills that he has.

We might want to question and look at what Medota going around for him,

Right?

What does Yosef do?

How does Yosef survive?

How does he get through this unhealthy environment?

Okay.

But there are four stages of his rise in Egypt,

Just like there were four,

Four key events that caused his brothers to really hate him and want to cause harm to him.

So the first is that he comes back with a poor report of some of the brothers.

He basically tells on them essentially.

And Israel,

His father loves him more.

We're told gives him this tunic,

This beautiful multicolored tunic.

And then he has the dreams,

Right?

And we move through how this escalates.

It moves through time,

Like the telling on the brothers,

Seeing their father love him more,

Seeing this beautiful tunic be given to him.

And then the dreams that he shares with his brothers,

That they're all bowing to him.

Okay.

So that's his escalation,

His rise into this kind of patriarchal empire family,

Essentially what's going on here.

And now listen to the same thing happen in Egypt as a slave.

Okay.

He's not sent to the fields immediately.

Potiphar with God's help senses the slaves different.

I'm not going to send him to the fields.

Okay.

The master favors him.

He's allowed to come into the house and start managing everything.

There is a,

He eventually gets moved to be like the top attendant among all the slaves in the house and in a charge of the whole household,

The whole,

Everything that Potiphar owns,

Except for the food he eats,

Which we think is a euphemism for his wife,

Essentially.

So this boy has and knows and did,

And has the skills and wisdom to have pivoted all along.

And we want to look at that from our Musa mindfulness perspective of what does that mean for us today?

And so I want us to encourage as we move into our mindfulness meditation practice around this for us to start tapping into who are we?

What is our social location?

What society are we living in right now?

Where were we raised?

Perhaps we are a person of color of the we're lower class of income.

We're a person of disability.

We are women.

Perhaps we are a queer,

A whole range of refugee,

A whole range of people who often are treated poorly either individually or systemically,

Institutionally,

And have learned from childhood into adulthood to know how to pivot in order to either work the system or survive it.

And we want to look at that in our map and our practice as we move in,

Because one,

It can exhaust us to have to always be on top of things to be able to pivot and survive.

So we do need this practice to recuperate,

To have that kindness and that self care and that self compassion,

But also to be aware that we want to be careful that we don't only act out in this,

That we learn to not always have to respond to how society sees us and is treating us.

So I want to invite you to move into your posture.

It can be a seated position.

It could be lying down.

It could be standing or it could be walking.

If you're like me and you're seated,

I want you to ground your feet,

Especially if you have any trauma in your background or maybe even some chronic pain right now,

You want to feel really held in the sit bones and in your feet and allow yourself to begin to settle and arrive.

And that means that you want to even invite awareness.

You can even say quietly with mental noting,

I'm inviting awareness right now.

And I will guide you with my words.

And I will let you know when it's time to come out of the meditation.

If you have vision,

I invite you to close your eyes now and take in three deep cleansing breaths inhalation.

You can make sounds to let go of the breath,

Let go of any tension in the body,

Inhalation and exhalation.

And inhalation again,

Breathing and ease.

Exhaling that you are arriving,

That you are settling now that you are here.

We have let go of whatever came before this day.

We are doing a gentle scan of our body from toes to head,

Recognizing whatever is here for us.

For having any strong motions or states or sensations in the body to simply honor them.

You can give yourself a little inner bow,

Tell them that you'll visit them later.

For some of you,

It might be preoccupation with thoughts in the past or planning for the future.

You can let your breath settle,

Come to its own natural rhythm.

And begin to scan who you are right now in this present moment with loving kindness.

Facing yourself with curiosity,

With the intention,

The Kavanaugh of insight.

Knowing that you are your own benefactor,

Your own friend,

And at times your own neutral person,

Your own difficult person.

The potential of the practice is in you.

And we invite the awakening of our wiser selves to be free of suffering.

We accept ourselves completely just as we are in this moment.

We think of our ancestors,

Abraham and Yitzhak and Yaakov and their spouses and children,

And how much dis-ease,

How much struggle there was.

And we notice in ourselves if there's any attachment to or desire for ease,

To dwell in peace like our ancestor Yaakov.

And to know that that attachment,

That desire will cause harm and suffering,

Will cause our self-suffering,

That life changes,

Everything is impermanent.

And this is where we learn from our ancestor Yosef,

The boy who at 17 knew how to pivot,

Knew how to accept himself just as he was in the moment,

Knew how to have God on his lips,

Knew who to attribute all the gifts that he had and what he was able to offer.

You can scan your own family life,

Where you are living and perhaps thriving right now.

What trauma was there for you,

What dysfunction perhaps was there for you?

And perhaps is still there for you.

In which way have you learned to pivot,

To respond how you're seen and treated by society from time to time?

How brave you are right now in this moment to engage in this community and practice,

Taking refuge in the practice,

The potential of Musa mindfulness,

This path towards holiness,

Taking refuge in God,

Taking refuge in the teachings of the Buddha and Musa,

Taking refuge in this community,

This Sangha,

This Vada.

How brave to know that you have your own Nair,

Your own or your own candle and light within,

Created in the likeness and the image of the divine.

You know how to guide yourself,

You know how to bring light to the world.

And you will continue to do so in your practice one day at a time.

And this is where we realize that our small mundane acts,

Like in that Midrash called Root Rabba,

That our small acts are quite significant.

May we all be healthy and strong.

May we all be free from pain and suffering.

May we be healed.

May we have well-being.

May we all make a friend of our body and our life.

May we embody love and compassion and understanding.

As we enter Chanukah,

This dedication and rededication to our relationship with the divine and each other and our own temple within.

We are grateful as we stand before God,

Grateful to be on this path together.

We'll enter a minute of silence in our practice and I will let you know when it's time to come out.

When you are ready,

You can gently and slowly open your eyes.

Joining us back in this sacred Zoom space or live stream on our YouTube channel,

On Facebook,

Wherever you may be joining us at this moment or even later.

I thank you for your practice and being here and committing to showing up for the Awakening Torah,

Musar Mindfulness,

Where today we,

God willing,

Have engaged in the awakening of Vayeshev,

Our ninth Torah portion in the book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible and the Torah.

I thank you for your sponsorships and donations,

Supporting this,

What we bring here and enabling us to do so and all the more so as we enter this wonderful festival of lights.

Do you have any comments or questions you need before I wish you farewell for now?

Okay,

Thank you so much for showing up and committing.

So grateful,

Grateful to all of you.

I look forward to seeing you,

God willing,

Next Sunday.

Take care of yourself.

Happy Hanukkah.

Thank you.

Bye bye.

Bye bye.

Thank you.