What's the Story?

A few years ago, I took part in a Passover writing exercise, offered by my friend, the Rabbi (who is also a writer, and a damned good one): write a short something-or-other, based upon a given prompt, every day for the 15 days of Nisan that lead to the first seder of Passover. I tried, I really did, I tried to write something every day. A noble attempt, but it didn’t happen. Even so, I managed to kick something out for one prompt: Tell. 

Of course, the first thing I thought about, given that Passover prompt, was Bye, Bye Birdie, replete with Hugo, Kim, and Ed Sullivan. Immediately after that brain-grinding shiver, though, åcame Chanukah. I just couldn’t get that Chanukah song to stop running through my head. You know the one - "Who can retell the things that befell us...?" (And now it's running through yours as well; no good deed and all). It works, just the same. At least the opening verse. Just substitute Moses and Aaron and Miriam and that cast of hundreds of thousands for all those Maccabees, and you can pretty much retell the story of oppression and slavery and freedom and bloodshed and war and miracles and redemption, there and back again.

That's the part that I get stuck on, the "...and back again." We tell and we tell and we tell. It’s an awesome story, filled with heroes and pyrotechnics that could keep the special effects masters at Industrial Light and Magic on their toes and at their drawing boards for years. Decades. Forever. The stuff of life is present in every word of this story we tell, all the drama and majesty and love and passion and danger and discovery and betrayal and loss.

Tell this story. Tell it to those who ask and those who don't even know there's a story to tell. Tell it as if you were there, part of the original action. Tell it as if you are still there, that we are all still there, living and experiencing it all right now.

Tell it, and tell it again. It is that important.

But here's what I'm thinking these days (as if my statement above were not hint enough): there are far too many "again's" in our story. That is, how many times do we find ourselves in need of heroes and miracles? How many times must we tell the story of soldiers and blood and war and terror?

Yes, and redemption. And yes, God. I love that these are the base of all of the stories we tell.

When, though, do we learn? When do we change? Of course we must tell the story of the Exodus! Of course we must celebrate our journey from the very narrow places into the wide open space of the wilderness where we meet God! Of course we must tell the story of our journey from slavery to freedom.

It just seems that we tell this same story, with only slight variations, of oppression, of idols and enslavement and fear and war in every generation since then. That's a lot of generations, a lot of oppression and fear and bloodshed.

I love Passover. It’s my favorite holiday. How could it not be? I love that we are commanded to tell this story. As a writer, how could I not? But sometimes, in the quiet, away from the fury of the cleaning and preparing and the cooking, sometimes I wish we could tell the story with a different ending.

I'm a dork. I get that. Sometimes, I wish we could tell the story of a world that, because of our wondrous redemption, there in the wilderness, we needed no heroes, no magic, no soldiers, no war to save us yet again. I wish that we could finally learn that until all of us are free, none of us are. That the story we tell, year after year after day after month, ever and always is the story of everyday miracles, of peace and wholeness and grace...

Once we were slaves, now we are free.

Omer, day 2

Omer, day 2

Breathing is not my strong suit these days. You'd think that after almost 57 years of doing it - most of those years and months and weeks and days, almost every one of those hours and minutes, doing it absolutely unconsciously, just a simple in and out, again and again and again - you'd think I'd be pretty good at it.

You'd think wrong. I'm actually pretty bad at it. There are moments when I'm not quite sure that there will be a next breath, that I will never stop coughing long enough to breathe in again. For the past few months, I've a tendency to cough so hard that I pass out. That's happened while sitting, while standing, a couple of times while driving. Thank God the worst thing that's happened as a result is a broken toe and a couple of metatarsals. Needless to say, Nate has gotten plenty of practice driving, and I've had to learn how to be a passenger.

I'm on a boatload of meds. Mostly, they seem to have had little to no impact on the asthma. They've had a huge impact on my ability to sleep more than 3 or 4 hours, and if you're ever looking for a sure for weight gain method, I have your answer.

This is, of course, the tip of my healthcare nightmare iceberg. Needless to say, I've been down and distracted of late. I've been feeling overwhelmed and just this side of hopeless.

And then, miracle of miracles - a shift. Nothing has changed, not really, but yesterday - a tiny bit of ease. Feeling a tiny bit of hope that, if I won't ever be "cured;" then perhaps I can manage, maybe even be a little ok.

So of course, last night, an asthma attack. A bad one after not having had one in a week or more. At least I didn't pass out. Yay for small favors.

Is that my new bar - at least I didn't pass out? Ugh. I am discouraged and exhausted and yeah, even a little bit anxious. Dammit - I just started driving again, since I haven't passed out in more than a month! Do I have to take away my own driving privileges again?

And there it is. Yes, I'm worried about my health. Who wouldn't be?! Various parts of my body are freaking around their edges, breaking or grumbling under the strain of time. Lucky me.

But. Always a "but."

My biggest concern - at the age of almost 57, all I can do is... wait. Keep doing what my docs suggest. Take my meds, even when I start to maybe feel better. Listen. Ask for help. I get to be a passenger, get to be taken care of, get to not know. 

Still.

I hate that. All the control I insist I have, that I cling to, until I have those little half moon marks in my palms from where my fingers have dig into the skin - it's the worst kind of illusion, because the only person I can fool (and not very well at that) is me.

Time to be a passenger. Time to be carried. I suppose there are worse things than that, yeah? I suppose this old control freak can find a bit of grace, even in that.

#countingtheomer

Fear, Faith, and a Really Big Sea... plus a Miracle or Two

I'm at that damned Sea again. Just when I think I've done it, finally managed to cross the Sea and leave it behind, I find myself staring at its implacable immensity, with the light of heaven mirrored in its unsplit surface. My feet are scarred and just a bit bloody. These reeds can cut like knives, apparently.

I expect to see a throng, or at least a large crowd of people, milling aimlessly about, stymied by the Sea. There is always some crowd, some random group of people waiting to cross, waiting for the Sea to spilt, the Miracle to happen. Waiting to be freed, at last. At the very least, I hope for Nachshon, the first one to get it - the first brave soul who decided that his faith was stronger than his fear, the very first to step into the wind-whipped water even before it split, who walked while the waters almost swallowed him whole, who walked because God had to be with him, because Moshe had to be telling the truth, because what else could he do? And just like that, between one breath and the next - between one hurried gulp of air before the waters covered him completely - the Sea split.

The waters parted, just in the nick of time. Nachshon and all those milling about people and the disordered chaos of all their things, the kids and the goats and the bubbies and zaydes, the aunts and annoying sisters and neighbors, all the knowns and the unknowns and the carts and donkeys and mothers and fathers and bread-that-didn't-have-time-to-rise - all the stuff that they carried, all the crush of people, our distant ancestors who were once slaves were now suddenly, blessedly free - all because of Nachshon's simple walk of faith, allowing that impossible Forever Sea to open enough for them all to cross.

Nes gadol hayah sham. I know, I know - wrong holiday, but the sentiment is the same: a great miracle happened there! Yay God! Yay us! Yay all of us - all the myriad generations that followed, from there to here, and then some. From the Forever Sea of reeds and water to my own Forever Sea. of mirrored surfaces and razor-sharp weeds. 

We are commanded to act as if we. too, had been redeemed from the narrow places, had seen the wonders of Fire and Smoke with our own eyes, had stood at the Sea with fear and doubt, and had found a faith that could carry us across.

I always assume - hope? pray? - that the finding is a one-and-done kinda move. I am naive that way.

Every year, it seems, I find the Sea again, I stand again at its ragged shore, and I wait for the faith to come. Where the hell is Nachshon when I need him? Where the hell is the miracle? Every year, I splash around the edges, getting wet and muddied and loud in my complaints fervent prayer; I feel alone. I feel connected. I need help. I am loved. I am broken. My body is breaking. I am lost. Where are you, God? Why am I here? 

I'm exhausted.

So with all this muddy mess swirling around in my head, i am reminded of a midrash. Not one of my regulars, that feel all warm and comfy and filled with answers that square the circle. This one is different for me. It begins two men; let's call them Shlomo and Ben. They were milling about with all the other lansmen, afraid and unsure. Who is this God we're supposed follow? Where's He been for all these years? (thought Shlomo) What's taken Her so long, if She's so powerful? (thought Ben) And just who is this Moshe guy, claiming to be one of us? This they declared together 

We're supposed to trust them, they thought, shaking their heads as they stared at the water that stretched to the horizon and back. The ground began to shake a little, and in the very far distance, they could just make out the call of a horn. Ben and Shlomo looked around a little, and saw the first line of chariots moving quickly towards them.

Perfect. Rock, meet hard place. 

Ok God - if You're ever gonna save us, now's a good time.

And that's when Nachshon made his move. All those bubbies and zaydes and family and the candle-makers and the brick-layers, all those recently-freed slaves held their collective breath – and the Sea split, and there was dry land. A miracle. Maybe this "God" God is the real deal. And so  all the people ran and celebrated, and sang and danced and were finally free to find the rest of their story.

Shlomo and Ben watched from the sidelines and shallows. They wanted to take their time, to make sure, just in case. They were smart like that. Just as the last family trundled past, donkeys braying and kids laughing and this or that threatening to fall from the over-stuffed, over-loaded wagon, Ben and Shlomo shrugged and followed.

It was a difficult and perilous journey for the two friends. The mud sucked at their feet, trying to claim their sandals. More than once, Ben had to help Shlomo up from the gooey mess. More than once, Shlomo had to do the same in return for Ben. They kept their eyes glued to their muddy, treacherous path, too afraid to do anything else, willing themselves not to fall. Their iron wills failed them, again and again.

We had plenty of mud in Egypt, grumbled Ben. And we used all that mud to make bricks, replied Shlomo. What is this place, they said together. The ground is illusion, seemingly solid until it sucks at our feet, drinking us down. The water seeps into every crack and hollow, and the damp gets into our lungs. What is this if not Egypt?

The day grew darker, the air more damp, and it wasn’t long until they were alone. Still they walked, grumbling and frightened, so sure of the mess they were in. The mess, they knew, was as forever as the Sea that may or may not have been their current escape route. Their wretched journey from one narrow place to another - so they were positive - only proved them right. This was no deliverance. 

When they finally reached that distant shore – they never quite noticed. Sure, the ground wad more solid, and there was certainly green grass mixed in with all that muddy brown, and the air dried out and even smelled sweetly sometimes, and they could hear a little music mixed in with the drone of bees and the soft roar of water. But Shlomo and Ben could only look down, could only see their own feet, their own fear.

They missed the miracle. They missed the play of light against the straining walls of water, and all the fish and sea creatures who swam up to watch them, flaunting their scales and fins and their bright colors before the delighted eyes of the people who walked between the watery walls. They never saw the sun kiss the very top of those walls, looking as if the water were liquid fire. They missed the faces of each one of their fellow ex-enslaved people, who would, each of them, in their own time, look about in wonder and awe and joy and absolute delight at the watery world around them as they danced (as best they could) through that muddy, squelching path to the Beyond – beyond the narrows, beyond the captivity, beyond the pain – and they rejoiced.

Shlomo and Ben? All they got was mud.

I have been here before, at this Forever Sea, I have stared out at it, afraid, alone, immobilized, praying for the faith of Nachshon to finally have courage enough to step into it, even just an inch or two. To walk, and know that I will be carried, that the Sea will split, that I will be able to walk through whatever it is that keeps me tethered to this place of doubt or grief or fear. Please God, release me from my self-imposed bondage, so that I can finally walk on dry land, and leave this Forever Sea.

I have  prayed, year after year after year. And every year – ta da! – a miracle of movement, and the world shifts and the light shines and I am through it, whatever that it may be. Or, if not exactly through, then at least making progress towards. 

And it hits me,  not all at once,  but slowly, building as inexorably as the rolling tide: I may be on the shores of this all roo familiar Sea yet again, but I am different. I am not searching out my annual vision of Nachshon, waiting to find my faith, to jump on the bandwagon of leaping and letting go. This year, I'm looking for the lesson of looking up.

I've spent way too much time looking down at the mud at my feet, hearing the desperate squelching of the ooze. I've become so intent on movement, on doing and fixing and working and changing, I seem to have missed the miracle.

I miss the colors and the wonder and the absolute awe of being carried, not from narrow to narrow, but just carried. I miss the grace of kindness and the intimacy of my vulnerability. Just as I need not wait for Nachshon to begin it all, I don’t need to lurk on the fringes in the back with Shlomo and Ben.

So this year, my prayer as we approach the shores of that Sea, as we prepare for redemption and faith and miracles  is a little different – 

Dear God, who is surely in my doubt as much as in my faith, who creates the waters that carry us and the light that shines – let me learn to be. Let me learn to look up, to see the glory that abounds, even in the darkness and the squelching mud. Let me know that even when the ground becomes suddenly unsteady and the silence becomes too loud that there are hands to hold and shoulders upon which I can lean. Teach me, please, that the Fixer of Broken Things can be, herself, fixed. 

Let me know, finally, that my truest prayer, and most honest, no matter what words I may use, is, ever and always: Dear God, I need help – and let me be brave enough to accept the help that surely comes, every time.

And let us say, amen.


Chag pesach sameach.

5778

Eleventh Nisan - Celebrate

My Bubbie’s Brisket

(with translation)

Passover is coming. I am, once again, contemplating kashering my kitchen (making it ready for Passover and the clearing away of “chametz” - anything with leavening). I am also thinking about brisket, probably because it is almost Pesach. In my family, which managed to show its devotion to God mainly through food and only peripherally through prayer and ritual, brisket meant holiday and celebration. It was, for us, the 11th commandment.

I got this recipe from my bubbie. I’m sure she got it from hers, who got it from hers, who got it from hers – you get the idea: a long, forever line of amazing and strong and devoted women who cooked and fed and made sure that, no matter what was going on in the world, she would make sure that there was enough, and then some. Genug! Enough!

The Recipe	The translation, with commentary
Get a brisket, ½ a pound to a pound per person. Top cut is more expensive, but my bubbie swore by it.	The range is big because brisket has a magical shrinking quality. One year, you plan for ½ a pound per person (because last year, there was so much left over!), and the brisket shrinks enough that you contemplate only having soup for dinner, to make sure there is enough. Or, if you’re my mother, you buy a second brisket, just to be sure.
Rinse and pat dry.	Remember the movie “There Will Be Blood”? Do this part in the sink. Trust me.
A few yellow onions, sliced	Use a mandolin if you want to be fancy. Otherwise, cut away, until you have enough to layer the bottom of the pan, and then enough to layer the top of the brisket.
Place a layer of sliced onions in the bottom of your roasting pan.	No translation necessary – just throw ‘em in the roasting pan and be done.
The Dry Rub: Paprika Garlic Salt Salt and Pepper	Please don’t ask for exact amounts; no self-respecting bubbie of mine would deign to measure an ingredient if her life depended on it. These are things you’re just supposed to know. So – the brisket should be covered with the paprika. The other dry ingredients – “enough” is as specific as I can get here. As my bubbie would say, “You’ll know.” Reminder: all seasonings should be on top and bottom of the brisket.
The Other Rub: Ketchup	Yup – ketchup. Slather this all over the brisket. It’s a messy job. Trust me, it’s worth it.
Top brisket with more onions and sprinkle a packet of dry onion soup mix	Depending on the size of the brisket, you might want to use 2 packets. Again, this is cooking by sight.
Last Step: mix about ¼ to ½ cup of ketchup with about a cup of water. Pour this over and around brisket. Cover pan tightly with foil and roast at 350 for several hours.	So, you finally get to measure something! You only need to actually measure the first time or three until this, too, is cooking by sight. As for how long – what? You thought my bubbie would provide some exactness at this point in our cooking adventure? I usually cook the brisket for 4 or 5 hours. This is something that cannot be overcooked! You know when it’s done? When it smells like brisket, when it smells like it’s done.
Take it out of the oven. Let cool. Refrigerate at least overnight.	Remember to open the foil away from your face! There will be steam. (This is a bubbie quote, akin to “Blow on the soup; it’s hot." Behind all the words though, is the sentiment “I love you.” Bubbie spoke many languages - Yiddish, English, food. I miss them all)
Slice the brisket while cold	I can’t stress this enough. No self-respecting bubbie of mine would deign to use an electric carving knife. Cut it cold - but before you do, remove the hard orange shell (the polite way to say “fat.”) Dispose. Taste a piece (or two). This is the “testing for poison” phase. This is a critical step. Do not over-test however; you do have guests arriving soon. Replace sliced brisket in the pan with all the onions and the juice (and assorted vegetables, as desired) and cover tightly with foil.
Place in oven heated to between 325 - 350 degrees.	A lower heat won’t hurt. Again, this is cooking by additional senses. I usually keep the brisket in the oven for another 2 - 3 hours. The desired doneness is when the meat “fels’n part,” Yiddish-ish for “falls apart.” Brisket should be fork-tender; no knives required (just as matzoh balls should be hard as rocks - but that’s a different essay entirely).
Serve	On a huge platter. It is totally ok to forget the gravy, which is really just the pan juices poured into a gravy boat; this creates additional opportunity to apologize for the meal, and for the guests to show their love, and tell you how amazing the food is.  If you've planned it correctly, you will have made too much, the exactly right amount.   The onions can stay with the brisket; the other veggies, if any, can be placed around the meat or in a separate serving dish. Your call. Bubbie often forgot to serve these, but had enough other vegetables (all of which, for some reason, included things like honey, raisins, marshmallow and pineapple). The salad never came out until five bites before everyone was ready to burst, with cries of “Oy! The salad!” Wine and juice got poured and drunk and spilled. Matzoh crumbs littered the table and more than a few laps and the carpet. The kids fidgeted, their parents split their attention between the kids (allowing them some semblance of freedom until there was inevitable escalation from happy-to-see-the-cousins exuberance to a true-to-life demonstration of Moses masking an example of the Egyptian taskmaster and the events of the seder and silently pleading with the seder leader to speed it up and do we really have to talk about what the rabbi's said on their sleepover? And all around you is the happy chaos of a family celebration, in whatever iteration your family settles into - family by birth, by the beloved family you find along the way, by the orphans, acquaintances and disparate others who may have had no other place to spend the holiday - and you sort of get a sense of that original Pesach meal, all jumbled and joyous and not quite perfect as you rushed around, stretching your legs on the slippery new place of Freedom, and maybe no one knew everyone around, so you all just garnered together, to eat and remember and thank and hope and pray and love.

So, this is the recipe - the pared down, out-loud version that was given to me, handed down much as the Torah went from God to Moses to Joshua to a thousand generations of our people, to your niece who chanted so beautifully at her bat mitzvah not too long ago, or your son who is struggling with its ideas (much as you did - and still do) and perhaps this recipe goes back to  Sinai as well. Perhaps.

And every time I make it, I remember, and give thanks and feel love. And then we gather, the chaos of family and friends and kids and love - and we remember, just like we were there, and we tell the story of our redemption, and we tell the story of our family, and we celebrate wroth brisket and matzoh and stories and love.

Thank you to my bubbies, both of them. Your memories have been a blessing to us all. Chag pesach sameach!

First of Nisan - Launch

I missed the launch. This should not surprise anyone. 

Yesterday was the beginning of the month of Nissan, and thus, the launch of #BlogExodus, a creation of my friend Rabbi Phyllis Sommer. The trick is to write, blog, post, snap or chat, based upon a prompt that she has provided, for the fourteen days that lead up to Pesach (Passover) and the Exodus.. Yesterday, being the first of Nissan, the prompt was "Launch."

As I said, I missed it. Oy. Well, almost missed it, if I can eke out a few words on the prompt before sundown. Glory be - Jewish days always begin at sundown (thanks to the original launch, otherwise known as Creation, where we read "it was evening, it was morning; one day"). Which, according to the prophet Google, is at 7:14 pm. So, I have plenty of time.

Which brings me back to "launch," and missing it - or just barely making it. I tell myself that I hate being latte, which I do. Late always meant sitting on the curb in front of the school, its windows dark and the sky going that lovely shade of gray just before dusk, waiting. I felt like Godot, every time, and wondered, will this be the time, out of all the times, that they forget to pick me up? They never forgot. They were just always late. So my mantra has always been "I'd rather be three hours early than 2 minutes late."

And I have awesome intentions of being on time. And I mostly am. But more and more these days, I run late. And the simply late is morphing into the merely late, into the very late, more and more often. So late, that I ran the risk of missing the launch altogether.

Which may not be a bad thing, in this case. One, I write better (so I like to think) under pressure. I hate having a blank screen to stare at, with nothing but time between me and the pixels. I spend most of that time writing and deleting the first sentence of the thing I think I am writing. My Editor, the one who lives in my head, has a veritable field day on those days. I don't have the time to dust off the eraser when I'm pushing a deadline (mea culpa (if I can borrow the phrase) on all my various typos and grammatical vicissitudes).

Two, though, now that I know I'm running late, racing for the launch (so to speak), I got to thinking about our ancestors of way back when, when they really were fleeing - and fast. And what about anyone who might have been late? 

Timing was tight, I think. We go from the actual passing over of the Angel of Death at midnight, to taking up their clothes and possessions, their cattle and goats and sheep, along with their bread before it was leavened, to "borrowing" the gold and silver from the Egyptians, who were weeping and wailing at all the death, to the journey itself - all those people, all those kids. Obviously, they had different kinds of kids back then - I have one (got a perfect one on the first try), and I have tried to leave lickety-split with him from infancy on, and quick - let alone orderly, with everything one is supposed to take for even the shortest journey on the first try - is a miracle of the highest order. For me, it was a miracle I could only dream about.

So maybe I re-think the "timing was tight" thing. There was a helluva lot of movement happening, and even more moving parts. Pharaoh was (I presume) still in dazed mourning, so he wasn't yet amassing his hosts and their chariots. Still, with 600,000 men, plus the women and kids and anyone else - that's gotta take a helluva lot of time to communicate, coordinate and commence.

It had to take some time to launch. And so maybe everyone launched together. Maybe everyone got it together, so if little Joshua forgot his pet lamb, certainly his cousin Ya'akov would grab it. And maybe Yael really needed to polish her cymbals, so Ruchel packed up the last of the plates and cups. And they all knew, once they got where they were supposed to go, it would all get sorted out in the wash.

Still, there had to be someone who was late. Someone who wasn't quite as organized as her neighbors; someone who had a few extra treasures he wanted to bring - a rock that looked interesting, that would remind him of the home he had made in these Narrow Places, or an embroidered tablecloth that had been handed down since the last time they were in Canaan. Or something. Someone of those 600,000-plus people had to have been late.

So - what then?

So maybe, redemption comes when it comes. Maybe it comes when we do the work of it. And maybe - just maybe - it comes when we are finally willing to leave the Narrow Place in which we find ourselves, when we let go of the bondage to which we cling so tightly, when we are finally able to look up, to see, at last, the wonders being offered to us with an outstretched hand, and so begin  our journey. 

So, today, the first of Nissan, we launch into our journey, some together, some rushing to catch up. 

I'll meet you at the Sea, timbrel in hand xoxo

For anyone interested in Blogging Exodus, here are the prompts Rabbi Phyllis has created:

Collateral Damage

God, but I was thirsty -
thirstier than I'd ever been,
I heard my young one cry out
"Mama!"
And even my tears
turned to rust
just like the river,
just like the Sea.
But it's ok;
this isn't meant for me.
This is a plague
for the Powers that Be -
the King of Stones and Sun.
We merely wait,
Collateral damage.

The stink of rot is strong,
but I can be stronger still,
tho my skin is marked
by runnels of rusted red,
testament to the itch
and sting
of all those things
that fly
and crawl
and skeetch across
my body.
And my baby cries -
weakly, tired from all
the swatting
and swelling
and fear.
but this is a plague
for the King of
Stones and Sun.

I thought  the rains would
bring a cleansing,
curtain of water
and life, but no:
the storms came, with
searing hail that
burned my skin
and tore through the land,
leaving little for the
locusts to devour,
except perhaps those few
carcasses still left;
cows that had died
Mysteriously.
Plagues are like that;
they steal everything,
even gods that
masquerade as cows.
Even light.
Even life.

And the darkness
weighs like stones
on my back
and I can barely
lift my arms
to shield my young one
from the Ghosts
that haunt the darkness.
She does not cry
any longer.

The King of Sun and Stones
carries these plagues
that have bent him
and bowed him,
that have stolen
his land
and his love
and his son.
His first-born son
the one he loves,
lies lifeless
in his arms,
Collateral
Damage

What's the Story?

A Passover writing exercise, offered by my friend, the Rabbi (who is also a writer, and a damned good one): write a short something-or-other, based upon a given prompt, every day for the 15 days of Nisan that lead to the first seder of Passover. I tried, I really did, I tried to write something every day. A noble attempt, but it didn’t happen. Even so, I managed to kick something out for one prompt: Tell. 

Of course, the first thing I thought about, given that Passover prompt, was Chanukah. I just couldn’t get that Chanukah song to stop running through my head. You know the one - "Who can retell the things that befell us...?" (And now it's running through yours as well; no good deed and all). It works, just the same. At least the opening verse. Just substitute Moses and Aaron and Miriam and that cast of hundreds of thousands for all those Maccabees, and you can pretty much retell the story of oppression and slavery and freedom and bloodshed and war and miracles and redemption, there and back again.

That's the part that I get stuck on, the "...and back again." We tell and we tell and we tell. It’s an awesome story, filled with heroes and pyrotechnics that could keep the special effects masters at Industrial Light and Magic on their toes and at their drawing boards for years. Decades. Forever. The stuff of life is present in every word of this story we tell, all the drama and majesty and love and passion and danger and discovery and betrayal and loss.

Tell this story. Tell it to those who ask and those who don't even know there's a story to tell. Tell it as if you were there, part of the original action. Tell it as if you are still there, that we are all still there, living and experiencing it all right now.

Tell it, and tell it again. It is that important.

But here's what I'm thinking these days (as if my statement above were not hint enough): there are far too many "again's" in our story. That is, how many times do we find ourselves in need of heroes and miracles? How many times must we tell the story of soldiers and blood and war and terror?

Yes, and redemption. And yes, God. I love that these are the base of all of the stories we tell.

When, though, do we learn? When do we change? Of course we must tell the story of the Exodus! Of course we must celebrate our journey from the very narrow places into the wide open space of the wilderness where we meet God! Of course we must tell the story of our journey from slavery to freedom.

It just seems that we tell this same story, with only slight variations, of oppression, of idols and enslavement and fear and war in every generation since then. That's a lot of generations, a lot of oppression and fear and bloodshed.

Here's a secret. I love Passover. It’s my favorite holiday. How could it not be? I love that we are commanded to tell this story. As a writer, how could I not? But sometimes, in the quiet, away from the fury of the cleaning and preparing and the cooking, sometimes I wish we could tell the story with a different ending.

I'm a dork. I get that. Sometimes, I wish we could tell the story of a world that, because of our wondrous redemption, there in the wilderness, we needed no heroes, no magic, no soldiers, no war to save us yet again. That the story we tell, year after year after day after month, ever and always is the story of everyday miracles, of peace and wholeness and grace...

Once we were slaves, now we are free.

Elul Day Three - Search

I write a seder for Passover every year. It is one of my most favorite things to do. Of course, I time it all wrong. I don't pay attention, and wham! There it is, staring me in the face, again. Daring me to cook and clean and write and cook some more, all in record time. And it's not like Pesach is a surprise. It comes, every year, at the exact same time. I know, I know - it  seems to float around the calendar, but really, the date never changes. I just live on one calendar, and Pesach lives on another. Maybe that's what lulls me into a false sense of time, and having enough of it.

Maybe it's just a matter of paying attention.

I don't do that nearly as well as I'd like to. Sometimes, I fear I don't do that nearly at all. I seem to pass through my life (no pun intended), barely touching the surfaces. Any depth only comes through hindsight. Oh! That's what was going on! I say, days or weeks or months later, when something else entirely jogs my memory (tapping me on the metaphorical shoulder, or kicking me in the slightly less metaphorical gut) and transports me back. I get it now. 

And the engines of time start up again, whisking me away to traipse through my days once more.

So I write a seder every year, and I write it for my son. I write it because I am required to tell the story to the one who is too young to even know how to ask what the heck is going on (a paraphrase, I'm sure). The seder has changed year by tear. The story is the same; the way we tell it isn't. One year was sock puppets. One year was a tale of magic and suspense, told by talking birds, and I think a butterfly. There was "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" Seder, and of course, the ever popular write-your-own-adventure seder, where we broke up the story into segments and teams were encourage to act out their section as creatively as possible.

One year, I was inspired. I wrote Game Day Seder - a series of games and quizzes and challenges to tell the story from beginning to end. There were a lot of kids that year, so it was great, good fun. That year, I started with a treasure hunt for chametz. Now, you should know: I don't get rid of chametz - bread and other rising stuff, and stuff that doesn't actually rise but gives the appearance of doing so, and rising stuff you can't even see but someone will know it's there, even if it's only you and God. I don't use it or eat it during Passover, but I also don't scour my house of it. This year I didn't, next year? Maybe.

Even so, we had a treasure hunt. I hid eighteen large croutons around the house, divided the kids into two teams, and armed each team with a feather and a flashlight. I considered a candle, but then, I knew the kids and their clumsy intentions and willingness to throw themselves into the fun. Flashlights were a good choice.

On your marks. Get set. Go.

And they midfully and intentionally went about their way, searching for hidden chametz. Piece by piece, they found all that was hidden, with enthusiasm and frustration and triumph. Every piece accounted for, eventually. All that was hidden, brought to light, then offered, all together, a flaming, smoking pyre atop my grill, sending up a pleasing odor as dusk gathered in the light from the corners of the sky and the first few stars trembled in the heavens.

I love that we are required to search for all that is hidden. I love that we are given so many hints and reminders throughout the year to do so, so that even people like me, who rip and run and race and stumble and fall through the days can still be reminded to pause, long enough to search all those hidden places, to find - with triumph and trepidation and joy - all of the stuff that was hidden.

I think of Elul as another one of those blue threads that reminds us to pay attention, a gift to allow us to bend and dive and search and find all of the things we hid away, to shine a light in the dark and murky corners and sweep it all together with a feather touch, ready to offer it all up and so be made free. And so be made whole.

#blogelul

Hide - 05 Nisan

I had lunch with a Facebook friend today. We had never met before; not face-to-face, at least. In fact, we've only been "friends" for a short time - maybe six or seven months. But as it happens, on Facebook and other brands of social media, we have struck up - if not a friendship per se, then at least a conversation. One that is interesting enough to open the door, just a crack, for me to leave the comfort of my hiding place, the one that lays just in front of my computer, where I can exist as thought, as pixels and ether , armed with a huge monitor for my battered eyes and a heavily-used delete key for my battering wit and my battered heart.

I do a lot of hiding. I wear too many masks.

I hide behind my computer; I hide behind my words. I hide my heart because it's been broken and bruised once too often. I hide my desires; I hide my fears. I wear a mask of cynicism and take refuge in sarcasm. I can lose myself in self-righteousness just as easily in my self-doubt and self-deprecation. I hide in study and hide behind God.

Mind you, these hiding places are not oases of lies to dole out with capricious grace. I am honest. To a point. I am also quite guarded. I don't dole out truth; I dole out bits and pieces of me. At the first hint of danger, I retreat behind my invisible, unscalable walls, and I take out my masks - the Intellect; the Mom; the Writer; the Hell Raiser; the Snarky One; the Human. Oh, yes; the Human is a mask, too, a perfect disguise when I feel lost and clueless and outside of and less than.

All these masks. All these hiding places. All me, in bits and pieces.

And if I know a thing or two, I know that so many of us feel this need to hide. We hide our need and our doubt and our fear. We hide our faith. Our sexuality. Our talent. Our intelligence. We hide our love. We hide our anger. We put up walls to hide our selves - our heart and our spirit. We hide all the damaged bits, the hurts and the pain.

What we forget - what I forget - what is hidden cannot be healed or be whole. If I can only give bits and pieces, that is all I will ever be. I will always be incomplete. Perhaps that is the lesson of the Afikomen - the broken piece of matzoh that gets hidden and then found. Our seder is incomplete until the Afikomen is found and returned.

Perhaps this year, I will find all those broken pieces and bring them out of hiding. Perhaps I will have courage enough to find healing and wholeness, with no need to hide.

Once we were slaves, now we are free.

Grow - 04 Nisan

"Pain is the touchstone of all spiritual growth"

Ugh. If that's true, I am the Paul Bunyan and Babe, the Blue Ox of spiritual growth, combined. And with a side order of Godzilla and King Kong for those long, dark nights of the soul to spare. I have done pain - I have lived in it and feasted on it and denied it and wrapped it around me like a blanket until I fairly suffocated in it. 

I've mastered pain. 

So why is it, then, with all my experience and mastery, that I am still caught off guard by it? Why am I still surprised when it tethers me to its twin, fear, and traps me in its embrace? Why then, if pain is the touchstone of spiritual growth, do I feel so small?

I have learned so much in this almost too-examined life that I lead, and if I am honest (and, here, among the intimate anonymity of these pixels, I am), I will say that pain has not trapped me in its embrace, actually. Rather, I am the captor in this little tango; I cling to it like love or breath. It is impossible to grow, so long as I refuse to learn the lesson of my pain and let it go.

I have learned this lesson, again and again. It is so easy, so familiar, so safe to choose the path of pain. It is so easy to stay small, unchallenged. 

It is so easy to remain a slave. To stay stopped by the Sea and wait for all that pain that's there, gathering at the horizon, gaining speed and rushing headlong towards you, spears at the ready. I know. I've done that, again and again. And I've welcomed all those wicked charioteers like long lost comrades-in-arms.

But... once we were slaves; now we are free. That has to mean something. I can stand, immobile, unchanged, waiting, or, like Nachshon, I can chose to leap. I can choose to grow, to spread my spiritual wings  and soar (or stumble, or walk, or skateboard) into the unknown. I can choose to leave my pain at the shore, and dance a path towards freedom.

This is it. The time is now.

Fly...

Cleaning Up

Something gets dirty, every time I clean.

I will do ten loads of laundry, and the minute I have folded the last pair of jeans and hung the last shirt (and immediately made the beds because folding a fitted sheet, no matter how many times you've asked your mother, no matter how many youtube videos and life hacks you've watched, that particular skill just escapes you even now), there suddenly appears five socks and a washcloth. I wash dishes, and as I'm drying my hands, my son slips a fork into the sink.

For all that something gets dirty every time I clean, I still have to do it. Even when I blink and find another six loads in the basket, there is something so incredibly satisfying about cleaning. I feel so accomplished like I should get a round of applause or a medal. At least a gold star, right?

So why is it that I have such a hard time getting into the Passover cleaning frenzy? So many of my friends seem to have such a healthy love-hate relationship with this ritual. I have a friend who barely does Jewish all year long, but chooses, of all our holidays and celebrations,  to keep Pesach, scouring his kitchen, cleansing it of chametz, readying his home and himself for the holiday. 

I have such a hard time wrapping my head around that. I grew up a deeply superficial Jew. In our family, holidays were less about commandment and God, and much more about the menu. They were joyous affairs, and there was even an occasional prayer that tumbled out, as if by accidental embarrassment, but as with so much else, we tended to slip over the nitty-gritty detail with nonchalant alacrity.

So, Passover meant a last minute trip to the grocery store to find an elusive shank bone, moving the bread to the other side of the shelf to make room for the matzo,  a kitchen that smelled of dill and roasting brisket and heat, and a makeshift seder plate because we were apparently surprised that Pesach came every year, and who knew you needed a Seder plate? While we managed to pull off most of a Seder while my grandparents were around (performing the ritual that I lovingly call Dueling Zaydes), once they were gone, Passover became a wonderful excuse to dust off the soup pot and overtax the refrigerator.

There was no cleaning, other than the normal cleaning done by the housekeeper before guests came to the house. We didn't switch dishes. I could mostly guarantee that we'd at least make it through the two seders without eating bread (we didn't know from chametz so I wouldn't swear by anything there).

I'd love to claim my disconnected puzzlement with the whole concept of cleaning for Pesach the result of my mostly secular upbringing. And these days, I could use my changing and challenging health stuff as an easy excuse to merely theorize about cleaning and kashering. Either reason would be awesome. Both would be wrong.  I've become more and more observant over time. I've dived into my Judaism with joy and intention. But not in this, and I really have no clue why. Passover is my favorite holiday. With its themes of redemption and freedom and faith, how could it not be? 

So why? Why not dive in here, clean my kitchen, cleanse my home, prepare, at last, for miracles and wonder? Life gets messy; it's time to clean it up.

I have no answer to these questions. I flirt with the idea, stare at my pantry, think how my newly repaired dishwasher might aid in the kashering process.  I mentally gather the dishes in my pie safe, the "good one" that I got from one of my bubbies, and the other ones, the arty ones I bought in San Francisco a thousand years ago that I love, that have gone unused post-child because they were  really expensive and I used to have a disposable income but now not so much, and I could use these for Pesach, right? And I think about hot soapy water and the smell of Pine-Sol, which always meant clean.

So really - why not dive in here? Why not be commanded, not just to tell the story, to act as if I were there, actually there, in the narrow places, being freed, seeing the wonders and the smoke and fire, but follow the commandment to prepare for it as well? Why not?

And I sigh, shrug a little, glance at my kitchen one last time and turn back to whateverthehell I was doing. This year here; next year I will clean.

Once we were slaves, now we are free.

02 Nisan - Bless (#blogExodus)

Sometimes, I'm convinced that I am cursed. Sometimes, I'm absolutely certain that my Higher Power, whom I mostly call God, but occasionally call something more suitable for an R-18 rated essay - I am certain that S/He is, in actuality, God's evil twin, and S/He is definitely out to get me.

I know this because life can be really crappy. Not just the every day crappy of traffic jams and paper cuts. I'm talking the huge, almost insurmountable crappy that can seep into all the cracks of your life, spreading over everything, until it's just ooze, from here to infinity plus three. It's all that big stuff that tears you apart, fills you with shame, tastes like despair. And after two or three or six times you realize that the bottom you swore you had finally landed on turns out to be just another trap door - all of that crap seems to wrap around you like cotton, muffling all the sounds, and blurring all the light.

Hard to see blessings through all that cotton batting and those loose trap doors.

So I curse, from the depths of whatever sub-basement of the six kinds of hell into which I've fallen. And into that echo-y, empty space that contains no light and holds less hope, I cry and mumble and dream and yell (depending upon the day, or the phases of the moon, or just how depressed/angry/ scared I really am) a string of invective that could blister ice. I swear - really, really swear. And I curse. A helluva lot. 

There's not a blessing to be found. 

This is what I tell myself: I must be cursed, and since this must be true, I only have curses to give. And I give them all to God. That's what fills this basket I carry with me - my anger. My pain. My despair. All the broken bits and open wounds. I carry it all with me, cursing God, cursing me, over and over, again and again.

But at some point in my twisty, winding, stumbling life, I learned this one holy thing: this, too, shall pass.

It is a holy thing. Trite to be sure, but no less a holy statement for all of that. This will pass. I know this, I have experienced is time and again, yet I wrap myself in that cotton, I slog through that desert of ooze that sucks at my feet and swallows my shoes, I curse and I moan and feel lost in forever. And I am surprised, still (always), that it does. There are times when I have no idea why it passes, just that one day, I felt buried by a mound of fifty-seven things that I couldn't climb on a good day with every superhuman power anyone could ever think of, and the next I wasn't.

Don't get me wrong. The crappy stuff, from tiny and stupid and annoying to the huge stuff that crushes your spirit and sips at your soul - all that crappy stuff is still there. The job is still lost. The bills are still stacked and overdue. People you love still die. Life is still hard. 

What changes though, is not the stuff. What changes is you. Perhaps it's all the cursing. I am convinced that it doesn't ever matter what you pray, only that you pray. It is my continuing conversation with God - whatever God's name I call Her/Him, whatever mask I demand God wear - that makes a difference and changes me. 

I don't know the mechanism for this change, or the equation that solves for X, where X is my pain, traveling along the Y-axis of my doubt divided by time and intention. I have no clue, and I am, much to my surprise, okay with that. I am learning to let be, let go, breathe. And you know what? That, too - that enlightened, spiritually wonky place of serenity and being-ness - that, too will pass. No matter how tightly I hold on, they pass.

Here's what I do know - when I stumble, when I stagger under the weight of my despair, there have been people who have caught me and carried me until I found firmer ground to stand on. There have been hands to hold in the darkness, shoulders upon which to lean and hearts to shine a light on hidden paths. I have been offered kindness, I have felt love. I have seen my son smile and heard him laugh as if pain had never been invented. 

I may carry my curses with me, lugging them along as I trudge from place to place. But I carry my blessings, too. 

I am blessed beyond imaging.

Once we were slaves, now we are free.

Begin - 01 Nisan

Begin? Seriously? As if I'm ready! Thank God that we number our days from evening to evening, or I'd be behind before I'd even begun. The first blessing of the day...

Today, the first of Nisan, and the prompt is Begin. Start. Go. One foot, then the other. Gah! I am so not ready for this - not the beginning, not the journey, not the anything. There's a house to clean (seriously-for-this-holiday clean, which I've never done before, but it seems right to do so this year and I have no idea what I'm doing and I can't believe how much stuff there is to do, just to do this one thing and I'm wondering if I can just expand the scary closet (don't ask!) to house all the stuff that I just can't get to in time), and thinking that paper plates and plastic silverware are an excellent option, and the manuscript to edit and the worry about money and jobs and, you know, just plain-old stability in my life - in Nate's life. The car needs to be fixed and the groceries put away and the tutor is coming and I forgot I'm chanting Torah this morning, but there are these words rattling around in my head, begging for release, begging to float in ghostly delight on my computer screen.

There are all these tiny, little threads - some frayed, some not (some knotted beyond belief), and I run from here to there and back again, times infinity, trying to hold onto them all, trying to keep them all in order. Not that I have the slightest clue about order. Each thread, each task, each job - they all occupy the exact same space in my head: insistent and immediate. DO THIS NOW - at least, do it until the next thing, the next thread drifts into my field of vision, usurping my time and attention until the next thread. So mopping the kitchen floor and getting the breaks on the car checked hold the same urgent necessity - at least for a moment, while I see both threads peeking through clenched fingers in my fisted hand.

How in the world can I possibly begin, when all these things, all these threads, all these tasks remain?

Maybe this is why God gave the Children of Israel no time. Yes, yes - there were plenty of major hints and promises along the way, including ten rather horrific plagues and some awesome magic. And sure, there was the sheep standing in the middle of the living room, waiting. There were some really huge clues that they were getting ready to leave, and soon. Even so, there's a huge leap, sometimes, between "Getting ready" and "Go!"

There's always one more thing. There's always wait just a second. There's always ooops, I forgot, let me just run back inside, I won't be a minute. There's always tomorrow.

I will never not have a gazillion threads in my hand. If I waited to tie off each of them, finish each task, complete each job, be 100% totally ready - let's just say I would make Moshiach hold on a second, I've just got to do this one more thing...

Sometimes, no matter how much prep work I do, no matter how much still needs to be done, no matter how unready and unprepared I feel - it's time to put one foot in front of the other and begin.

For anyone who is interested in playing along, here is the list of prompts created by my friend, Rabbi Phyllis Sommer, chosen to help us bend a little more, think a little differently as we prepare for Passover and freedom. Blog daily, pick a prompt that fairly sings to you, and let the pixels come out to play on your screen. There is a lovely hashtag (#blogExodus), so that you can follow all the various threads. If pictures are more your thing, there's a hashtag for that, too (#Exodusgram)

Once we were slaves, now we are free...

Fear, Faith and a Really Big Sea: Freefall Redux

I have been here before.

I have been on this edge, this razor-sharp edge that offers no protection at all. It is merely a separation, a narrow space between one wilderness and the next. My feet are rooted, tangled in my fears, and my fingers turn white with strain, holding so tightly to this tether that keeps me bound to this place.

I have been here before, at this exact spot. Every time, I have stood, bent by the weight of my solitude and fear. Every time, I have listened to the howl of that mindless wind, felt the ache of static endlessness. Every time, I have stared, sightless-- or sight turned inward, searching for a path too dark and overgrown to be of use. Every time, I have stood immobile, and yet I spin madly, careening down a Mobius path to nowhere. Or, perhaps, everywhere.

I am exhausted. And I can't seem to let go.

Letting go feels so much like defeat, and I can't take one more defeat, one more loss, one more failure. I can't, I can't, I just fucking can't. I have been here. Exactly here. It is different every time, except for the howling of the wind and the ache of endlessness.

And yet. Goddamn it, and yet. Every time, every single time that I have been exactly here, clinging to wind and sound until I am broken and bloodied-- every time, I have let go.

Freefall.

And I have been caught, in the palm of God's hand. And I have seen God, in the kindness of strangers and the compassion of friends. And I have heard God there, and felt lifted and caught and freed. Such a simple thing, to let go. Such an monumentally difficult and tortuous thing. But there is grace in it, and redemption, and wonder and hope, when I find the faith, finally, to let go.

This year, I am again stuck. And afraid and not breathing well at all. This year, I am holding on for dear life and I am more exhausted and defeated in my efforts. This year, I stand at the edge of that endless Sea and I pray to have the faith, again, to let go, to enter the freefall that leads me to somewhere else, that is not that edge of howling madness. 

This year, once again, I reflect, as I have for the past few, on Fear, and Faith, and that really big Sea:

(Originally posted for Passover, 2010/5770)

I'm in one of those places: stuck, prickly, at the very edge of letting go, trembling with the effort to not tip over the edge into the abyss of the unknown, desperate to take that final leap of faith and soar towards light and wholeness. I am astounded, as always, when I think how inextricably intertwined my fear and my faith have become. I have heard (more times than I care to remember) that Fear (always pronounced with a capital F) is an absence of Faith. No. I think not. I demand Not. I am too intelligent--- God is too intelligent-- to demand unthinking blind faith like that, to insist that faith is a guard against fear.

Fear keeps the lights on at night and smells of sweat and tension and anxiety-- sharp and unpleasant. If the fear is great enough, it can keep me rooted and curled in on myself, covers pulled tightly over my head, unmoving. Paralyzed. Stuck. Tentative. Invisible.

But my faith: sweet and sure and graceful. It wraps around me like light, like breath, like life. It sometimes moves mountains. More often than not, it is just enough. Enough, not to beat back the darkness or vanquish my demons, but enough to put one foot in front of the other, to walk, however falteringly, forward. To know that, no matter what, I am enough, I will be ok.

And so, faith and grace being what they are, I think of my fear, and my stuckness, and I am reminded that it is Pesach (Passover). And in the midst of all of this darkness, there is also redemption, and release.

I got to tell the story of Nachshon at assembly a while back during Sunday school. It is my favorite midrash, I think. (For those of you reading this who are now totally lost in the tangle of my narrative, a midrash is a rabbinic story, a device used to fill in some of the blanks and the holes in the Torah. Kinda folkloric, they are the stories behind the stories.) So, Nachshon-- he was a slave with all the other Israelites who found redemption at the hand of God. He was Let Go, with a capital L and a capital G, brought out with a Mighty Hand. He packed and didn't let the dough rise and ran, breathless and scared and grateful, away from the land of Pharaohs and pyramids and crocodiles and slavery--- ran into freedom.

And then he got to the sea. He and 600,000 other un-slaved people. Stopped cold by the Red Sea. It was huge, and liquid and deep. You couldn't see the other side. It was so big you couldn't see any sides. Just wet from here to... forever.

And behind him, when he (and 600,000 others) dared to peek: Pharaoh and his army of men and horses and chariots. And spears and swords and assorted sharp pointy things. We really can't forget the sharp pointy things. Even at a distance, the sharp pointy things loomed quite large in the eyes of Nachshon and his recently-freed landsmen. Caught between the original rock and a hard place. Well, ok: between water and pointy metal stuff. At this point, I don't think anyone involved cared much about getting the metaphor exactly right. What they cared about was getting out from that perilous middle. Fast.

So Moses, because it was his job, went to have a chat with God. And just like that, Moses got an answer--- a Divine Instant Message. All that the Children of Israel needed to do: walk forward, into the Sea, that big, wet, deep forever sea. God would provide a way. "Trust Me," God seemed to say. "I got you this far, didn't I? I wouldn't let you fall now!"

And Nachshon and the 600,000 stood at the shivery edge of that Sea, staring at that infinite horizon in front and the pointy, roiling chaos of death and slavery behind them. And they stood. Planted. And let's face it: not just planted, but rooted in their fear and mistrust and doubt. They may have felt reassured by the image of God as a pillar of smoke or fire--- impressive pyrotechnics to be sure--- but the soldiers and the Sea were so there, so present, so much more real.

And then, in the midst of that fear and doubt, something changed. Nachshon, lately freed, trapped between death by water and death by bleeding, Nachshon did the miraculous-- he put one foot in front of the other and walked into the sea.  And the 600,000 held their collective breath, watching the scene unfold before them. Nachshon did what 600,000 could not: he decided to believe, to have faith. To leap. And tho the water covered first his ankles, then knees, then chest, then kept rising, until he was almost swallowed whole, he kept walking, kept believing. And just when it seemed that Nachshon was a fool for his faith, would surely drown in that infinite forever sea, another miracle:

The waters parted.

The Sea split and Nachshon, so recently in over his head, he walked on dry land. And the 600,000 breathed again, in one relieved whoosh of air, and they found their own faith and followed Nachshon into and across the dry Sea to the other side.  And then the journey truly began...

I pray to have faith enough to walk into my own Sea--- of doubt and fear and darkness. I want to walk and feel the waters part, to be released from the tangled web of thought that holds me immobile and disconnected. I have learned, again and again, without fail: when I take that step, when I find the grace and the faith to put one foot in front of the other, to trust, as Nachshon did, I am carried forward, I am freed from my self-imposed bondage. I am enough, and I can walk again on dry land to freedom.

I think I am finally ready to let go, to leave the desert, to stumble at last along a narrow bridge to light and hope. There is fear; yes. But there is also faith and grace and redemption.  Even for me, there is redemption. 

Once we were slaves, now we are free.

Chag Pesach Sameach. 

Happy Passover

2014/5774