i am an avraham wannabee but i am more of a jacob

i want to walk with god. i aspire to be avraham. but in terms of the journey i am actually more of a jacob. indeed. i have lied. i have cheated. i have tried to bargain with god for my personal gains. in fact it's more like i want god to give me what i want in the way and manner i want when i want. i wrestle with god. but look at avraham. the one time he negotiates with god it's about saving a city of people from the wrath of god. but when god tells him to leave the land where he is born and raised and have a life, and later, to sacrifice his son he obeys. no questions asked. whenever god calls him he simply says, here i am. at eighty years old he undergoes circumcision because god says so. all the time he keeps his life affairs in order with integrity, respect, kindness and generosity. can i walk with god like that? i would hope and think i can but the truth of the matter is i am more of a jacob. as a unique individual i am deeply flawed and screwed. at the same time i have strong yearnings and experiences with the divine power that resides within me. i forget god quite a bit but i also have moments of remembering who and what i am and where god is. let me pray that as i steadily put in spiritual efforts and meditate regularly i would up the numbers of remembrance and shorten the intervals between forgetfulness. i know what to do to take me closer to god but in moments of choosing i often succumb to negative tendencies.

and so it is i come to accept that i am an israelite. one who wrestles with god.

i want to be a carbon copy of avraham

there i said it. and i will say it again and again. whatever avraham stands for i want that. i feel so close to him. on many levels. i left where i was born and raised, crossed the ocean and settled in a foreign land. so when i learned that the first direct command avraham received from god is, go forth, leave your mother-and-father's land, i recognize the avraham in me.

avraham is devoted enough to circumcise at eighty-nine and, at the same time, confident enough to negotiate with god when god says, i want to destroy all the people in sodom. i want to become that.

and i have my own two-cents on the binding-son episode. from my simple, and others may consider simplistic, point of view, avraham realizes that his only son doesn't belong to him. god gave him this child and god can take it away. why? i don't know. i have come to the place that i accept that it's not for me to question and judge but to embrace what it is as it is and deal with it wholeheartedly with calm and clarity without attachment and letting go of the thoughts that say, this is mine, that is mine. and so it is i want to be a carbon copy of avraham.

circumcising the heart

i love the tradition of singing certain prayers at a particular time year after year. case in point. this yom kippur this particular phrase in a hymn that has been sung for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. we ask yhvh to grant us the courage and strength to remove the coverings of the heart. circumcision of the heart, if you will. i've been yah-lah-lah-ing this year after year but this time, for a fleeting moment, something about it resonates deep within me. indeed. my heart is pure but there are layer upon layer of covering over it. all habitual tendencies of one form or another. conditionings. accepted social norms. attachments. expectations. unmet expectations. identification with appearances. confusing perceptions with what's real. desire to be liked, to please, to look good. mistaking acquired stuff as true security. panic in the face of fear. blah blah blah. but, enough is enough. they all have to go because i want to be fully-realized. as in yom kippur, i see the image of avraham accepting the covenance with yhvh and circumcised at the age of eighty. to me it means doing whatever is necessary in order to walk with yhvh.

friends ask, are you ok? my heart is fine. the heart is always fine. the rest are just circumstances to go through and things to take care of.

walking with avraham

for me the great thing about the jewish high holidays is not just about the thrilling prayers, piercing torah commentaries and exhilarating singing and dancing. it is to have this block of blessed time and sacred space carved out for the purpose of examining where i have been 'off the mark' and direct the arrow of attention and awareness to returning to the bull's eye, the present moment, where yhvh dwells and the source of courage, strength and sweetness are. more often than not during the year i forget the inner self and stray from the path. i confuse between the process of thinking and the contents of thoughts. i am not the contents of the mental activity.

in the meditation the rabbi do with us on second day of rosh hashanah i see myself in the meadow surrounding the lake of holy waters in the ashram where i had the great good fortune to live for a few years. then i find myself in the presence of avraham. yes, if there's some figure in the torah i want to be it's avraham. why? he walks with g-d. i want to walk with g-d. i don't know how. so the next best thing is to walk with someone who walks with g-d. anyway, in the meditation, we walk in simple quiet. there's no sense of time. just  crystal clear openness.

meditating on yosef's story. 38 m + 9 m

i still can't get over what a fantastic torah study we have on yosef's story. not only do i have a great teacher in my rabbi learner, i have this bunch of thoughtful and bright congregants (my beyttikkuners, and o-me-o-my they can be so funny too.)

the sweetness of torah

from this meditator's simple mind, the structure of torah study is brilliant and wise.

the five books of moses are divided into sections. every week in the year jews across the planet study the same section. if i don't know which parsha we are to study for a particular week, just log on and search and i am connected to the entire people.

for instance, a couple of sundays ago i was hunting in the bargain section in berkeley bowl west when hwubby comes to me and says, there are 2 men doing torah in the cafe.

avraham. itzak. what's impossible to man is possible to yhvh

there are many things i like about torah study. this is one of my favorites. i get to revisit a story once a year under supervision (and i have excellent supervision), and i am amazed to discover that i always see something i didn't see before. without exception.

for instance. on avraham and itzak. in my simple mind, avraham is the first documented parent who truly understands that a child doesn't belong to the parent but to yhvh. also, what's impossible to human beings is possible to yhvh.

holding this understanding in my consciousness takes away so much of the tendency rooted in 'this is mine, that is mine.'

from this perspective i aspire to be avraham.