Lets get ready….
Moshiach IS on his way but can’t get through because he’s blocked by this car☹
This car with the bumper sticker saying “let’s get ready for Moshiach” that is blocking the entire driveway at my kids school this morning — got me to thinking of all the ways that we unintentionally block the very light we are so desperately trying to feel.
What are some of the ways that we subconsciously orchestrate our own emotional gridlock, unwittingly sabotaging our own freedom?
This week in the portion of Yisro we read about the giving of the Torah at Sinai.
G-d issues a warning to a people before this most profound moment of collective enlightenment.
“Don’t come up to the mountain.”
“Let Moses bring Torah to you and guide you expertly and lovingly, as you take the baby steps away from your slavery consciousness….”
“You don’t need to leave your life to have Torah run through your life….to the contrary it’s designed for the way you are IN your life.”
This gives us an opportunity to reflect on the heights we often attempt to scale in search of ultimate answers — answers that turn out to have been down at the base of the mountain all along — in the places of the life that we are already in.
We receive Torah at the base of the mountain of life.
We don’t need to do anything other than get out of its way, clear the snow — and allow Moses to hand deliver eternal truth right to the doorsteps of our lives.
This week we are reminded that all we need sometimes to navigate through our narrow spaces is a drop of mindfulness.
If we can learn to sing our way through the prosaic rhythms of life, humming simple tunes, the eternal earthy melodies of authentic soulfulness — grounded in pure faith and acceptance, about how correct are lives really are — then we can finally let ourselves actually live.
In that song we can pick up the ancient lyrics that flow from the Tehillim …The song of Ascents — the Shir Hamaalot of King David.
This becomes the personal theme song of our lives as well. These become our Psalms.
This must be what King David meant when wrote …”Ashirah Lashem Bechayay” … I will sing to G-d from my life…. My whole life becomes that hymn!
That realization becomes the freest moment of our life — as we look around and finally get it — we are already living perched at the summit of our lives.
In those sacred moments, we are Moses, we are at Sinai fully receiving the Torah, we are the high priest in the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur.
In that space, in that sublime moment — Moshiach is not only on his way, he is there already.
That time and place is right here — right now!
Shabbat Shalom
Much love
Rabbi Yossi