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.
Gevurot shebe Malchut
Strength/Judgment/Boundaries within Nobility/Sovereignty
Wednesday evening June 5 and Thursday June 6
I want to be in the tent listening when Esther, Batya, Miriam, and Yocheved stay up all night talking strategy. I want to be standing beside them when Esther and Ruth rinse their feet in the river to cool them and share stories about their families. I want to have my own cup of tea and be sitting near the fire when Esther, Judith, Yael, and Deborah reminisce about directly confronting power. I want to be a silent witness when Esther and Dina hold each other in deep understanding. Most of all I want more time with her.
“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.
Yesod shebe Yesod
Foundation within Foundation
Sunday evening June 2 and Monday June 3
I look up to a sky full of clouds and think about that one - the first cloud to hold a rainbow. I think about the cloud Moses entered when he went up the mountain. I think about what Rabbi Strausberg offers us, that the rainbow itself said to Moses, “Take me with you. When you go up on the mountain, when you are before God, you are going to need all of this color.”
Hod shebe Yesod
Humility and Splendor in Foundation and Bonding
Saturday evening June 1 and Sunday June 2
Shavua Tov
40 are the days of night and day rain in Noah’s generation.
40 are the days Moses was on Mount Sinai before he returned with the stone tablets.
40 are the days we waited for him under the mountain.
40 are the days between the first day of Elul until Yom Kippur.
40 are the four sides of the world according to the Kabbalah, each containing ten Sefirot.
40 are the se’ahs (a measure of water) of a mikveh - a ritual bath.
40 are the years in the wilderness.
40 are the years at which - according to the Talmud (Avot 5:26) - a person transitions from one level of wisdom to the next.
40 are the days the spies scouted the Land.
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Tiferet shebe Yesod
Compassion in Foundation (the salt of the earth)
Thursday evening May 30 and Friday May 31
“I wasn’t jealous,” she sounds put off, but also deeply sad.
The ox she leads has no bells on its horns
“Okay,” I say.
“When those men came, how was I to know they were angels?” she asks, but doesn’t. She looks at me expectantly.
“Okay,” I say again.
“If you think I’m going to tell you my story, you are mistaken,” she points at me.
“Okay,” I half-turn to continue on my own.
“Lot never thought he was good enough. He was always comparing himself to Abraham and me to Sarah,” Idit says. I keep walking with her and hold my peace.
Gevurah shebe Yesod
Strength and Boundaries in Foundation and Bonding
Wednesday evening May 29 and Thursday May 30
אני הולכת הביתה. | ani holekhet ha'bayita. | I am going home
“Na’eem m’od,” says the donkey kindly, blinking as she tilts her head this way and that, sizing me up. “Who are you?” she asks. “Where are you going?”
“You know who I am,” I respond, because of course she does.
“Well I don’t have to tell you that it’s been a while,” she huffs.
“No,” I agree. “You don’t.” Not that it’s been that long.
Hod shebe Hod
Splendor/Gratitude in Splendor/Gratitude
Saturday evening May 25 and Sunday May 26Shavua Tov!
Lag Ba’Omer
With gratitude to Jewish authors and storytellers every where and every time.
“Forty-nine days is one beat of a sunbird’s wing.”
The voice is gravelly, but not gruff. Round-sounding, and soft.
He is resting by himself.
I walk over and sit - not too close, but . . . not too far.
“For forty years we flew like a hoopoe, low to the ground. Slow. Deliberate.”
Para, para, says my mind to itself. Cow, cow. An idiom. Slow and steady like my breath.
This is Moshe Rabbeinu. Moses our Teacher, our Storyteller.
Netzach shebe Hod
Endurance in Splendor/Gratitude
Friday evening May 24 and Saturday May 25
Shabbat Shalom
As I was walking today I got to thinking about Samson.
I was, although even I can’t quite believe it now that I’ve read more, already thinking of him when I heard that the 7th Armored Brigade had discovered the tunnel shaft and Shin Bet had retrieved the bodies of three more hostages.
I don’t know much about Samson, really.
I know he was in some ways a human golem with super strength.
I know he had beautiful hair and was betrayed by a woman named Delilah.
Not much, really, what I know.
Gevurah shebe Hod
Strength/Might/Judgment in Splendor/Gratitude
Wednesday evening May 22 and Thursday May 23
Gevurah.
Strength.
Hod.
Gratitude.
I don’t know.
I do know that today I’ve been walking with and praying for Liri Albag, Karina Ariev, Agam Berger, Daniella Gilboa, and Naama Levy.
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?”
Yesod shebe Netzach
Foundation and Bonding within Endurance
Sunday evening May 19 and Monday May 20
Jonah walks like he’s on stage, and not just any stage. Jonah walks as though he were in a musical and any moment the opening bars of a song will pour from the sky. Jonah walks like Chaim Topol as Tevye and Barbara Streisand as Fanny Brice . . . or probably as Miss Marmelstein.
Surrounded by children, Jonah is telling them his story.
Netzach shebe Netzach
Endurance within Endurance
Friday evening May 17 and Saturday May 18
There is old, and then there is 969 years old.
Which is to say, there is old, and then there is Methuselah son of Enoch.
Tiferet shebe Netzach
Compassion within Endurance
Thursday evening May 16 and Friday May 17
Tzivia turns to me and asks, “Did I ever tell you about the vessels?”
“No,” I say. “Tell me?”
She grins and gestures to the people near us. “They were all part of it,” she says.
“All of them?” I ask.
“Every one,” she nods. “It was like this. My husband, Obadiah, had died. My children and I were really suffering. Of course, we missed their father, but also we were so poor and so hungry. A creditor came to our house and threatened me. ‘Pay your debts, woman!’ He scolded me. ‘Pay them or next time I come I will seize your children as slaves.’”
I sigh, “What did you do?”
Gevurah shebe Netzach
Strength/Might and Judgment within Endurance
Wednesday evening May 15 and Thursday May 16
I don’t feel compelled to ship together all of my favorite women from the TaNaKh, and I wouldn’t have thought Judith and Devorah . . . but here we are, and here they are, and . . . welcome to the way my mind works. Watching them together, they sure seem well-matched.
I’m liking the idea of a romance between these two elders.
Chesed shebe Netzach
Lovingkindness within Endurance
Tuesday evening May 14 and Wednesday May 15
Amira is shaped like a greyhound but her ears are long and fluffy.
She’s the color of sand and her eyes are bronze.
Running toward me she looks like the light at is shifts on the desert rocks, poetry in motion, right up until she pulls up in front of me and does her goofy whole-body-wag.
Yesod shebe Tiferet
Foundation within Compassion and Harmony
Sunday evening May 12 and Monday May 13
“I think she is one of the young Egyptian women who served Batya,” I say.
“When she went down from her father’s palace to rescue Moses?” Rabbi Leff asks.
“I think so,” I say.
“Who is that with her?” he asks.
“I think it’s one of Miriam’s nieces,” I say. “One of Aaron and Elisheva’s daughters.”
“What makes you say so?” he wants to know.
I shrug and smile, “Nothing in particular. It’s the story I want today. I want to be walking with Miriam’s niece and Batya’s maiden who just ran into some Jewish and Palestinian kids from the Jerusalem Youth Chorus as we all make our way toward Sinai together.”
Hod shebe Tiferet
Gratitude within Beauty
Saturday evening May 11 and Sunday May 12
That is 4,749 days I have counted since my bone marrow transplant on May 12, 2011.
Which was the 8th of Iyar that year.
This year, the 8th of Iyar is May 16th.
I’m going to go ahead and celebrate both days.
The sun glows extra warmly tonight as it sets and one by one, and group by group, so many people come to walk with me that a Biblical author would tell you we count in the thousands. Tens of thousands. Hundreds of thousands.
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