Day 3; תפארת שבחסד; Balance in Lovingkindness

Levels and Parts

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
                                                            Psalm 42

We are the ones we have been waiting for.
                                                           June Jordan, "Poem for South African Women"

When we moved to our house in Mt. Airy, the first place we found on Craig's List, we bought a grey plastic toolbox.  We keep it under the sink for when we need a hammer, measuring tape, scissors, wrench, screw-driver or level.  They call it a "spirit level," for the tube of yellow ethanol inside with the air bubble that slides as things lean one way or another. We used the level to hang our Ketubah above the fire place, a collage our friend Nava pieced together with textured tissue paper pomegranates, sunflowers, olives, anemones, poetry and sheaves of grain, each letter of the egalitarian text inscribed by hand.  This year we have been sliding back and forth between cities, bubble-like, arriving, departing, thirsting, waiting. Learning to feel at home in our love and its moving parts.

Day 2; גבורה שבחסד; Boundaries in Lovingkindness

The Birdfeeder

Gevurah she'b'Chesed/ גבורה שבחסד
What is it like?

Like how my dad hung a birdfeeder
from the Bradford pear tree in the backyard.
A cylinder of millet and seeds.
A resting place for robins, sparrows
and the occasional cardinal passing through.
But squirrels got there first, straddled the plastic pole
and gobbled up all that was inside.
Dad refilled the dispenser and it happened again,
And then again . . .
Until he doused it with WD40.

Gevurah she'b'Chesed -

like slippery squirrel steps
and sated sparrows.

Day 1; חסד שבחסד; Lovingkindness in Lovingkindness

NEST

A seder first:
The egg on the seder plate is bluish-gray and freshly-laid.
One of the guests nearly missed the meal waiting
for his hen to push it out into the hay.

The Ishbitzer Rebbe teaches:
It takes twenty-one days
for the hatching of an egg
And the name of God
from which redemption springs
is made of letters
matched with numbers
that add up to twenty-one.
 א–ה–י–ח
 Alef-Heh-Yod-Heh

The name:
"I-will-be-what-I-will-be,"
The one that the One tells Moshe
as the flames burst
but the branches remain.

We are coming out of Mitzrayim now
We are becoming something different
We are shedding our skins scarred with shame


Midrash Rabbah teaches:
What is it like?
Like the King whose son has been sick.
"Send him back to school," they say.
But the King wants things another way.
"The child needs time."
Medicinal time.
Days to sit
Space to rest
Time to heal

Chesed she'b'Chesed/ חסד שבחסד
Now is the time for nesting
Now is the time for leaning
Soft into the heart of all that is yet unknown