Pirkei Avot - Not Obligated And Can't Neglect

All right,

So I want to go back to this Pirkei Avot.

The Pirkei Avot is actually a Jewish teaching,

And I cannot obviously have anything to do with anything today without talking about what happened yesterday in the United States of America.

It has impacted the world.

I got messages from cousins and friends from different places in the world asking if my kids were okay.

I have my son,

His girlfriend,

And my daughter in two different apartments,

But in DC they live there.

And so I kind of want to assume everybody knows what happened,

But I'm not going to assume that everybody knows what's happened.

I actually spoke with somebody last night who said,

Yeah,

I had no idea what was going on.

I want to point to this in a world of polarity and balance,

And I find it to be amazingly balanced.

And I'm going to,

I want to point out a few things in the mix and ways that we can take things,

But I,

And also what can we do with it once we've gotten it?

So in the what so,

President Donald Trump did his Twitter thing and speeches and basically incited what became the first very real insurrection on the Capitol since 1814.

Okay.

And so the Capitol was stormed by armed people.

And in fact,

Armed people got into the Capitol and there was damage done with windows broken.

Nancy Pelosi,

Who was the speaker of the house of representatives,

Who is a very guarded human being,

Like there are guards to protect her.

She was not at her desk,

But in fact,

That area is well protected.

And at least one,

Who knows how many people actually got to her desk and left a note on a Manila folder at her desk.

So they were literally at her desk saying,

What did the note say?

We will not back down.

I believe is what it says.

It was violent.

There was a gun standoff at the entrance to the house floor.

The Capitol police called for reinforcements because they literally did not have enough people there to protect the building and the people in the building.

And they did do,

There are some very little known escape routes from the Capitol to secure people in safety,

But there was in fact a stay in place for security order all across Washington,

DC.

And the mayor put down a six o'clock PM curfew and what people were doing,

Who were rioting and storming is they were trying to prevent Congress from doing due diligence of basically ratifying that Joe Biden,

The president elect,

That the electoral votes actually were accurate and that he in fact will be the next incoming president with Kamala Harris as the next incoming vice president.

This was again,

Incited by the president of the United States,

Along with other people,

A violent insurrection in the United States.

It's amazing.

Actually,

This is not what this country is used to.

And it really has been for the most part,

A bastion of democracy and peace.

And it was very much an anti-democratic kind of movement.

Okay.

On the same day,

The state of Georgia,

For those of you who are listening internationally and one of the states in Georgia had a runoff election,

Final results coming in.

And this particular election was determining if the Senate,

One of the houses of the two houses of Congress would continue to be with a majority of Republicans or if it would be a majority of Democrats.

And as it happens,

The two senators who got elected from the state of Georgia are both Democrats and we are going to have a Democrat majority in both the house of representatives and in the Senate.

It is the first time in over a decade that that will be.

I'm not voting like that's a great thing or a bad thing,

But I want to point out things with all of this.

Mostly I'm just giving information.

Please don't hear what I'm saying,

Like a condemnation or a voting for or against anything.

So I don't know what your political affiliation is or your band tonight.

I don't think that's what's coming into this mix.

At least that's not where I'm headed.

The state of Georgia historically is a Southern state and very what we call red or Republican oriented.

And there certainly have been a lot of events that have happened in the last bundle of years with the administration that we've had and the Senate that we have had and the head of the Senate,

The majority leader of the Senate that we have had.

Georgia actually had a small enough margin in the voting in November in the general election for the Senate seats that it required a runoff.

So it was a whole new election a couple of days ago for the two senators,

Which meant four people running.

So there were,

Well,

There were actually more,

But it came down to one Democrat and one Republican for each.

So the way that the election turned out is it was two Democrats who got elected.

But more to the point is that it's the first time in the history of Georgia,

This Southern state,

This historically Republican state,

This part of the Confederacy state,

And with a lot of background and history in untold numbers of events that have been prejudicial and racist in,

Oh my God,

So many ways from that particular state that a black man was voted in as a Senator and actually a young Jewish man was voted in as a Senator.

First time ever.

Then both of those are unique experiences for that state.

There are a lot of factors contributing to this,

Not the least of which is the way that our administration has handled COVID.

That is being talked about quite a bit and that people have really just had enough of the incendiary kinds of comments and calls to action that have been happening.

That is most of what's been going on.

I'd like you to hear that while this violence is going on is when the results from Georgia came in and I love the counterpoint.

And in the very least you can say ironic.

One of the things to really make note of is how many Republican representatives and Senators have commented point blank that it was Trump that incited the actions,

The violent actions that took place yesterday.

It's amazing that you have somebody from his own party,

Not somebody,

A lot of somebody's from his own party who's doing that.

Kudos to Mike Pence,

Our Vice President,

Who in the whatever's come before,

What we actually have is what's now.

And so in the now Mike Pence has steadfastly simply denied Donald Trump from pressuring him to do things that he considered to be illegal by constitutional law,

Which they would have been illegal by constitutional law.

And so Mike Pence did not block or lay to waste the recount of the Electoral College votes and denied to Trump that he would do that.

He wasn't going to do that.

He was just simply going to do what he was supposed to be doing.

And he also had some comments yesterday as well.

And I'm very much in respect of Pence for doing that.

There's a bit of a release valve in the White House as people are leaving,

No longer willing to be of service to this man who actually did pull people into his office when they would come on his staff and any part of his staff and require that they pledge their allegiance not to the United States,

But to him.

And when people responded that the reason they were doing this was for the United States of America and they really,

With their whole heart,

Pledged their allegiance to that,

He still required that they pledge their allegiance to him personally.

These are facts.

So my partner,

Melissa,

Was telling me about something that she read.

She forwarded it to me.

I haven't read the entire thing and I'm not going to say who,

But there is somebody very prominent who talked about essentially that the Capitol,

The building for the United States,

That having the property breached in violence,

Even though it was not successful,

Basically made less sacred,

What I will call holy ground,

In that we are one nation under God.

It is who we say that we are,

One nation under God.

We also have on our dollar bills in God we trust.

And this person who made the commentary that,

I'm going to go to my Jewish roots actually,

That much like the destruction of the,

Actually the first attempt of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem,

That that alone made it less holy,

Less sanctified,

That this is what had happened now,

That the Capitol was less sanctified as the ground on which we stand for having the republic,

The democracy that we have.

And with all due respect,

I actually really differ with that.

And I do mean with due respect,

Given who I know said what they said,

But I will say that I really don't agree.

So I want to point out anew that there was a very interesting polarity and that this is the way that the world works.

We cannot,

It's physics,

It's metaphysics,

We cannot and do not operate in a way that has lack of balance.

It is about coming to a place of neutrality.

In neutral there's no opposite,

There's no polarity when neutral is what's there.

You can't have an up and a down if you're exactly in between.

You can't have half full and half empty when you're exactly in between.

And that is the way of reality.

True in physics,

True in metaphysics.

Neutrality doesn't mean having a lack of emotion.

Neutrality does not mean having a dearth of love or fear for that matter,

Both can happen.

But the moment that we're in one versus another,

It gets tainted when we're in one with a recognition acknowledgement that the other is also there maintaining neutrality.

From neutral we can pick,

But whatever it is we pick,

It is by definition evoking the other.

It's really a fascinating way that the world works.

We have a lot of work to do.

It's really interesting.

I've been making that statement quite a bit for the last few months.

I have a lot of work to do.

And I have this really,

I don't know if anybody else feels this way,

But I will speak for myself.

I have had an increasing awareness of kind of a tick,

Tick,

Tick going on,

Like a running out of time.

I can't tell you if it's a running out of time for me personally.

I'm 66,

I'm 67 years old.

It's not like I'm doing the work that I'm doing as a 35 year old on the second half of my life.

But I also feel while that's true for me personally,

I very much feel that that's true for me.

For us as a world,

As a human race.

There is in this morning's news,

A second vaccine that Brazil has said is okay coming out of China,

Which gives more vaccines available to get out into the world.

I don't know a lot of details about it yet,

But if we really operate as one human race,

It will give us something that as long as we live segmented cannot.

And if I don't and you don't actually give this a vote,

Like one is better,

One is worse,

It's a choice.

And that choice coming from neutral gives us a world.

What world is it that you intend to create?

What world do you desire to have?

Getting in a younger generation,

So I'm going to do this.

I actually really want to credit my son Alexander for giving me this whole year of the,

So actually talking about the Pure K of Vote.

And what I want to say about it is that he said this to me this morning.

I had an amazing texting conversation with my 24 year old son.

So I'm going to read the text,

This little text stream to you.

And this is what it says.

I'm the one who started it this morning.

He actually began it yesterday with what was happening in DC.

I said so much more breathing room this morning.

Love that the election results were ratified in the wee hours.

Oh,

I don't think I said that.

So the senators and whatever,

All of our representatives,

Senators,

Whatever,

Came back in to ratify the election in the wee hours of this morning.

This was a very long day for them and it was very late because it was like early,

Early morning hours.

And I don't think any of them went to bed in between any more than a lot of us did as we were riveted by what's really going on.

And I will tell you that they came back in order to finish this counting of the electoral college votes.

Let me also state in case anybody doesn't know,

As long as I'm doing the news piece of it,

That president Trump signed something as well as make a public statement that he would make sure that there is a peaceful transition of power on the 20th.

That's the inauguration day.

So that handles that piece of it,

We hope.

Handling more of the mischief to it.

Mark Zuckerberg has suspended Trump from Facebook,

Which includes Instagram,

And he's also been suspended from Twitter.

Right now it's indefinitely,

But Zuckerberg made a comment saying that it is at least for the next two weeks up through the transition of power.

And that's that.

So he cannot use the typical forms of communication that he's been using in order to talk to a base of people who obviously will do what he says.

Okay.

So my comments this morning,

So much more breathing room this morning.

Love that the election results were ratified in the wee hours.

Now that's the American spirit I love to see,

But I don't mean it just like America separately.

It's any kind of democratic,

I should say human spirit.

I said,

Wow,

What a day.

Georgia,

Two democratic senators and one is black and one is a young Jew and Biden is done and all kinds of Republicans are standing for the rightness of our constitution.

Our democratic republic is withstanding the test of time.

Ali's response was so far,

Democracy is fragile and it has to be protected.

This administration has shown how much of our government is based on good faith actors.

I love that.

I responded saying,

So it has again,

A statement of the goodness of the culture in which we live.

This is truly land built with heart.

By the way,

Not to say that there aren't people who are not doing that.

Obviously that is true,

But this is the foundation on which we stand and it's the foundation that we've grown up in.

If anybody's listening to this,

We've grown up in this and knowing this to be the bedrock that we have for us as a culture that we actually try to have the more and more of a global culture from love and from goodness and from being social action minded and people oriented as not a person or a particular people,

But all people.

And I continued with your right.

We just,

If we protect and stand in integrity for that which we know to be good and true and frankly of God.

My son's response was for the betterment of all.

I said,

Really all,

At least globally and who knows maybe in your lifetime intergalactically,

But I do think that we have much to learn and much to do.

And he responded so much work to do.

I said,

I've probably said that line every single day for at least two months.

It's actually been longer.

And Alexander responded with this.

What is the proverb?

And this is the topic of today,

The Pirkei Avot.

You are not obligated to complete the work,

But neither are you permitted to neglect it.

So I'm going to say that again.

You are not obligated to complete the work.

It's not going to finish in my lifetime or yours or even my son's.

When I have grandchildren,

It won't be completed in their lifetimes.

The work itself is actually never completed.

Therefore you are not obligated to complete the work,

But neither are you permitted to neglect it.

It's a Talmudic teaching and it's an incredible teaching to live by.

What you will get done is what you will get done.

You are not permitted to neglect what you can do and you're not obligated to finish the job because you can't.

Nor can you turn your back on the part of the job that is yours.

It is what gives birth to a messianic age,

Not some hero that comes down and releases us from any obligation.

But in fact,

Something quite different that leaves us all individually as co-creators in what is called life,

Precious gift of life.

Alexander went on to say,

Also the good old Hillel,

If I am not for myself,

Who will be for me?

I'm not going to make people stop at that,

But it's not the whole quote.

If I am not for myself,

Who will be for me?

If I am only for myself,

What am I?

And if not now,

When?

As we put all of these together,

It comes down to who are you,

Who am I in the mix of actually creating more and more inside your own individual being,

Your own individual self.

The zone of ever widening neutrality,

Where you get to choose from neutral being love in a way that creates love and discovers love and is in the wonder of love,

Not for one person,

But for all people,

Not for one type of an opinionated group,

But for all people,

Not for one color,

But for all people,

Not for one sexual orientation,

But for all people,

Not for one type of height or educational or intellectual prowess or financial gain,

But for all people.

We are one human race.

We are one people with one heart.

And if you don't believe in past lives or future lives,

Then you can say for at least this one lifetime.

This work will never be done and you're not obligated to finish it.

Neither can you turn your back on what it is that you can do.

If not now,

When?

If you are only for yourself,

What are you?

And if you are not for you,

Who will be?

It's all of this together and it's all of us in the that together.

This one person who was saying that the Capitol was no longer as sanctified as it once was,

With all due respect,

When I say I disagree,

I disagree really because while windows may be broken,

Windows can be replaced.

While a folder has been written on,

That folder can be burned and transmuted and a new folder can be used.

I believe that that ground is more holy than it ever was.

I believe it is more sacred and more sanctified than it ever was because what happened on that ground was that when hate came in,

Love prevailed.

That when people tried to stop the democratic process that is funded inside of and founded on top of one nation under God,

That what became of that was in fact a democratic process.

I believe that ground is more holy,

More sacred and more sanctified now than it ever was.

I also want to put in the temporary piece of this.

There is nothing,

I believe,

That is written in stone.

So as you come forward in this conversation we're having and say,

I'm actually moved to do X,

It's not written in stone.

And even if it were written in stone,

It's not permanent.

Anybody here ever go to Philadelphia?

When you went to Philadelphia,

Did you see Benjamin Franklin's tombstone where this amazing human being was buried?

Do you know that you can't read what's on the tombstone because it's so faded out,

It's so worn?

Even written in stone is not permanent.

Unless we carry it on.

The Ten Commandments are something that we've carried on.

If they ever were written in stone tablets,

That writing is long faded.

Except for us rewriting it again and again,

Anew and again and once more,

And brand new one more time and again,

Over and over,

Brand new each time.

Except for us teaching these lessons one more time,

One more time,

One more time.

Thou shalt not murder one more time.

I am so sorry and I send great condolences to the family of the woman who got killed outside the Capitol yesterday.

Life is too precious to be wasted this way.

One more time it becomes something new and each time it is something holy and sacred.

You don't get to turn your back on it.

You're not obligated to do the whole fandangled thing.

So I look at this as holy ground,

What happened yesterday created sacred ground,

Brand new.

And in the temporariness of it,

The last time there was any kind of an insurgency act on the Capitol or the White House of our United States was in 1814.

And while we might know that piece of history,

How many of you go through your life thinking,

Wow,

Remember when 1814 happened?

Remember when 1814 happened?

I don't think we actually do that.

We've moved on and this beat that has come,

It is also gone.

And what we have is an even stronger stronghold with the hallmarks of democracy,

Not just for our country,

But for all people everywhere,

Believing in and promoting the rights,

The unalienable rights of all,

For all.

Bill said,

I believe that when the founding fathers pledged their sacred honor,

They were fully aware that things like yesterday could happen.

That didn't stop them from pledging.

That's great,

Billy.

Thank you.

The people who started this country were trans on Dem,

Actually a lot of them are trans on Demilists,

Interestingly enough,

And Masons.

So this is this moment.

It is absolutely once again,

A call to action from our world for all of us.

Anybody who's got a heart,

Anybody who's got a desire to have this world be what you know in your heart it can be.

It is a call for you to come into action,

Not for the whole thing,

But for the part that you can do.

What is it that you desire?

What can you pledge?

And a really interesting,

Billy,

That you said,

Pledged their sacred honor.

I grew up,

It really came out of my mother's household,

So she grew up this way.

That when you make a promise or say something,

And that it is with the earnestness of every bit of who you are,

It was done with,

These were the words,

Sacred word of honor.

That is so knitted in my cells.

I give you my sacred word of honor that I will do all that I can to get Zoetic out into the world in a larger audience with larger platforms and more people.

Knowing that what we do genuinely makes a difference in the lives of others.

That is my pledge to you.

Makes me want to cry.

I do get scared.

It's humbling to say the least.

I'm aware that I do not and cannot do this by myself.

Thank you to everybody who actually helps to make this happen.

It is definitely a we,

Not a me.

And I know that my pledge means taking in more people,

Thank you in advance,

To do more,

To get more out into the world for what it is that we do.

I am but one cog in that wheel of Zoetic.

With this cog,

I pledge with my sacred word of honor to do all that I can to get what it is that we do into our world more pervasively,

More deeply,

More highly,

And in a way that makes a universe of difference through a universe of time.

Let's meditate.

Get your body into a comfortable position.

Nice and cushy settled.

If you wear glasses,

Take them off.

Scan your body for where you are holding any tension whatsoever from the skin around your skull into your mouth,

Your ears,

Neck,

Throat,

Shoulders,

Upper arms,

Elbows,

Forearms,

Wrists,

Hands,

Fingers.

Just let it go.

Whatever there is there that you're holding on,

Just let it go.

Anything around your chest or upper back,

Your lungs,

Diaphragm,

Middle back,

Ribs,

Heart,

Any of your muscles,

Anything at all that's holding on,

Any tendons or ligaments,

Any of your soft tissues that's holding,

Just let go.

Down through the whole core of your body,

Your upper and lower digestive systems,

Your lower back,

Your belly,

All of your organs,

All of the tissues around your bones,

All the way down to your pelvic floor,

Anything that's holding on around your buttocks or hips or anything,

Anywhere,

Just let go,

Release,

Let go.

Anything holding on around your buttocks,

Thighs,

Knees,

Calves,

Shins,

Ankles,

Feet,

Toes,

Just release,

Let go.

And allow yourself to sink into the surface that is holding your body,

Allowing that surface to do its job and allow your body to simply let go,

Release,

Let go.

Take a deep breath in,

Filling your lungs all the way to the bottom of your lungs,

Below your lower two ribs,

Your floating ribs,

With as much as you can,

Gentle breath.

And let that go.

Remember as you meditate to include and include and include whatever you hear or feel or thoughts happen,

Just include it.

White light is everywhere.

Consciously use that white light to surround your body,

Protecting your top,

Bottom,

Sides,

Front and back,

Underneath,

Covering every curve,

Every nook,

Every cranny,

Every roundness,

Every indentation,

Every crease,

Completely surrounded by pure white light.

Allow your whole body to fill with pure white light,

Filling everything in you,

All of the solids,

All of the air,

All of the liquids.

You are between 70 and 80% water.

Fill all of you,

Surround all of you with pure white light.

Who you are is a being of pure white light,

Both within and without and everything in between.

And now follow your breath into your body and allow it to take you into deeper and deeper levels of your own consciousness.

As that pure white light breath goes into particles infinitely smaller than what you know or can perceive.

Whatever you have imagined in smallness of particles,

Smaller than that and now smaller than that and continue to go into infinitely minute particles within you.

And as you breathe out,

Follow your breath out to infinitely vast spaces and regions,

To the far reaches of the universe,

All the way to the edge of the universe and then beyond that further and deeper and wider and higher and lower than you could possibly imagine or know or perceive and then further than that and more expansive than that.

And as you breathe in,

Continue to travel to infinitely smaller and smaller regions and spaces of you and your consciousness to all the deeper and deeper.

And as you give breath out into the world,

Allow yourself to travel into regions infinitely more vast than what you can know or perceive.

Bring into wider and higher levels of consciousness.

And in feeling yourself in between,

Going deeper within and deeper without,

Recognize that you are in that mutual place in the center.

Allow yourself to experience being mutual with so much that you care about and yet being mutual.

Bring your consciousness to your heart center,

Located in the middle of your body in front of your spine,

Behind the center of your chest.

It's a large center,

It really goes down to the diaphragmatic area,

But in the middle of your body.

That whole region is your heart from above the center of your sternum down to the middle of your diaphragm,

But inside in the middle of you.

Bring your consciousness there.

Reach down to the tips of your toes and bring all of your energy up from your toes and feet up through your feet,

Up through your torso and into that heart center.

And from the tips of your fingers up through your arms,

Bring your energy around your shoulders and then down into your heart center.

From the tips of your hair all the way down through your skull and your mouth and through and into your heart center and down through your chest.

And in your heart center,

Allow to emerge.

What are you called to do?

Knowing that you are not obligated to complete this work,

But neither are you permitted to neglect it.

What is your part in creating our world as that which you know inside of you is possible?

What is there calling to you?

What is there calling to you?

Allow yourself to be given by this that you do desire and that you know calls you forth.

Staying in neutral inside your own heart.

Just simply be in awareness of that which calls to you.

You are not obligated to complete the work,

But neither are you permitted to neglect it.

Take a deep breath in.

Move a deep breath out.

Take another deep breath in and hold that breath,

Allowing yourself and that which is calling to you to reside inside that breath which feeds your body going through your bloodstream to all parts of your body.

From the tips of your hair to the tips of your fingers to the tips of your toes,

Allowing your body to vibrate with that which calls to you.

And give a deep breath out into the world and into the universe.

And one more time,

Taking a deep breath in,

Appreciating the gift that you can bring.

Keeping yourself in your heart center one more time,

Allowing that which calls to you to fill your breath,

To pervasively flow through your body,

Giving to the whole of your three dimensional self and beyond that which is you that you are called for and to.

And give a deep breath out as a gift into our whole universe,

Our whole world,

All people.

I'm going to begin counting up from one to nine as I do.

Allow your consciousness to rise from level to level with your numbers.

When I say the number nine,

Gently open your eyes,

Allowing yourself to simply be as you are.

One,

Two,

Three.

Feel your conscious mind rising.

One,

Two,

Three,

Four,

Five,

Six.

Begin to feel yourself in your body,

Where and how you are sitting or lying down,

The air around you,

The air within you.

Seven,

Eight,

Nine.

Gently open your eyes and simply allow yourself to vibrate as you are right now.