Malchut shebe Malchut
Nobility/Sovereignty within Nobility/Sovereignty
Tuesday evening June 11 and Wednesday June 12
Who am I walking with today?
You.
Hod shebe Malchut
Humility/Gratitude within Nobility/Sovereignty
Saturday evening June 8 and Sunday June 9
Shavua Tov
“I love this walk,” he says. “It’s so good every year. Farede Aklum,” the man walking near me introduces himself. He is wearing a light blue button down shirt.
“Samira,” says the woman in a red flowered dress.
“You know,” says Farede, “I read the bit you wrote about Judith. Did you know there is another Judith in our story? A queen.”
“Queen Judith?” I ask, unfamiliar.
“What is the legacy of Ruth and Boaz?” I ask. “If not King David?”
Chesed shebe Malchut
Lovingkindness within Nobility/Sovereignty
Tuesday evening June 4 and Wednesday June 5
I don’t think she hears me. Her steps have quickened and as she approaches the back of a man about her height who has crossed in front of us she reaches out her arm and rests her hand on his shoulder. When the man stops and turns I see his green and brown eyes light up. They embrace, holding one another close. The throng moves like a river around them.
Malchut shebe Yesod
Nobility/Sovereignty within Foundation
Monday evening June 3 and Tuesday June 4
Fourteen people have come up around me.
Seven and seven.
Some of them are walking quietly, some are talking loudly, some are in a signed conversation communicating with their facial expressions as much as their hands . . . a few are laughing.
These are the attendants of Batya and Esther, and today, a day of Malchut before the week of Malchut they have joined me.
Malchut shebe Netzach
Nobility within Endurance
Monday evening May 20 and Tuesday May 21
As I walk into this day, I listen to a podcast, Judaism Unbound, Episode 431, interviewing Rabbi Jess Belasco. Rabbi Belasco runs the Disability Justice Torah Circle, which hosts classes, facilitates connection, and provides pastoral resources for disabled, high-risk, and chronically ill people who desire Jewish community. In the podcast, and in life, they ask, “What does disability say about Judaism?”
Malchut shebe Tiferet
Royalty and Nobility within Compassion and Harmony
Monday evening May 13 and Tuesday May 14
Yom Ha’Atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day
Kumi lach . . . Arise my friend, oh beautiful one, go to yourself… (Song of Songs 2:10) What if every relationship could be an opportunity for us to call each other into the realization of our full potential? Shefa Gold
A young girl near me gasps, “It’s Queen Eden!” she whispers in awe.
“Eden haMalka!” someone shouts near me.
“It’s HER!” Another voice calls out.
Malchut of Gevurah
Nobility within Strength
Monday evening and Tuesday
Evening May 6 and Day of May 7
Some teach that malchut is the most important sefirah. They say that in malchut God doesn’t act by God’s self, but through us and that malchut is the goal God had in mind when creating the world.
That isn’t my personal theology, but I respect it and it helps me to stretch and think this way. What if it were? What if malchut is God’s existence and God’s actions resonating along our veins?
What if Rabbi Regina Jonas is Jewish royalty?
Malchut of Chesed.
Sovereignty of Loving-kindness
On this journey to Sinai, we are walking with all of the Jews who have ever been and who will ever be. That means we are also walking together, you and me and everyone alive and here now.