I was studying this week's parasha, Behar-Bechukotai, and stumbled upon a lovely teaching by Ovadiah Sforno, the 15th-Century Italian Sage.
In Bechukotai, the Torah enumerates blessings and curses. Blessings, for those who abide by God's strictures. Curses, for those who disobey. Among the promises offered to the obedient is this:
...I will establish My sanctuary in your midst, and My Being will not abhor you. I will walk in your midst and be your God, and you shall be My people (Lev. 26:11-12).
Commenting on the phrase, "I will walk in your midst," Sforno notes that the verb form for "walk" (hithalech) is in the reflexive, which Sforno interprets to mean, "walking from place to place." From this point Sforno extracts an important lesson: for the Jewish people, God is not confined to a sanctuary, a shrine, not even to a holy land. God is found wherever we seek God; indeed, "wherever the righteous of [each] generation are to be found, that place is the holiest dwelling of the Most High" (Sforno, ad loc).
I am heading into the sanctuary now, but remember that God is not in that place alone. Where do you find the Most High in your life?
Part of me wants to say that you can find the Most High when you seek the Being. When I find the Most High is when I am in a safe place that allows me to be my best self. Now that can be a wonderful exchange of words with someone close or someone with whom I have no existing relationship. It could be praying silently or with voice allowing my whole - mind, body and spirit - to welcome the breath - the exhale of what was and the inhale of what is. It can be found by looking at the green of the grass and delighting in its color, its lushness and its enhancement to the place where I am at that moment. The ability to enable those moments to exist positively everyday in life is my mission to find the Most High.
ReplyDelete-jaira
jaira, you project that which our sages say about the verse
ReplyDeletein Tehillim (Psalms 150)
כל הנשמה יהלל ד' הללוי-ה
they say, you can read the word
נשמה
also as
נשימה
That is to say, just as our soul, for its existential being,
ought to express praise to God, so too we can and ought to
praise God with every breath we take!
thank you for the smile that warmed my heart at the start of todays breaths..... - jaira
ReplyDelete