Of Narrow Places and Miracles...Using the Energy of Passover

I've been living in a few narrow places. That's what the Hebrew word for Egypt, Mitzrayyim, means. Narrow Place. When Passover comes along we have to look at where in our lives we've struggled with our own narrow places. I don't have to look far this year to see mine.

My husband has been without a job for several months. That represented a very narrow place. Living in California with not much money in a savings account and a huge mortgage and very little income definitely made us feel as if we were being squeezed from all sides. However, this week he began a new job. The possibility of a job and then the job offer felt like the Red Sea parting. Negotiations and waiting for the deal to be sealed represented the crossing on dry land with the waters threatening to descend at any moment. And now we are standing on the other shore looking backward and looking forward, able to heave a sigh of relief, to take a deep breath and move forward once again.

Our relationship has suffered in the process, my husband's and mine. He has lost his faith. Mine has been strengthened. I married a man with whom I thought I'd always share a spiritual path. Now, I'm not sure we will ever share that path again. This place in our 20-year marriage feels like a narrow one. I feel I'm living in Mitzrayyim, not necessarily enslaved but restricted, unable to express myself fully, unable to share totally, unable to open myself with abandon to the man I love. I feel squeezed, as if sometimes it's hard to breath in my relationship. I stand at the edge of the sea hoping for a miracle. All I have right now is the promise that my husband will work on some of his issues and my promise to try and move forward together despite our differences in beliefs and approaches to life. I can't yet see the other shore. I'm willing to walk into the water, like Nachshon, who walked into the sea when it didn't part for Moses and whose faith brought about the miracle that saved the Israelites. I have faith that it will part, but I don't know what I'll find on the other side of the sea. I wish Moses' staff and God's will would create a miracle for me and return my husband's faith. I don't want to walk to the other side alone. I know God will be with me, but it's human companionship I desire as well.

I've been in a narrow place at work as well, feeling restricted by the publishing world's requirements and lack of time and support to do what my agents and publishers require for me to achieve my own goals. I've felt that I couldn't do what I wanted in the way I wanted and at the time I wanted. I was ready to change directions, to tell the literary agent I sought for so long that I had to follow my heart and find another agent that would take my project and run with it now, right now. And then the water parted before my eyes, and my agent agreed to take on my project and to help me find a publisher for it. A miracle. Now I just needed to get to the other side of the sea.

I find myself in a new narrow place between one shore and another. (Do they just follow one after the other?) I am afraid to move forward with this project that lies so close to my heart. (This narrow place is of my own making. It exists in my mind. It's the "Not Good Enough" thought that underlies so much of what I do and that holds me back. Do you have that thought?) I'm afraid to put myself out there. I have to speak my truth, and I am afraid. I know this narrow place. I know this fear. It has stopped me often, but I know that it is the trepidation that comes when I am on the right path, the path I am meant to take. This time, I must enter the water myself and create the miracle. I must move through my fear and towards my highest purpose. As I do, the water will part and my path will become clear. Then I'll find myself on the other shore, free, unrestricted, liberated, and successful. When I can fulfill my purpose, write my book and have it published, I will feel the expansion of who I am -- to myself and to others. (Not that I couldn't use another miracle. Not that a little Divine help wouldn't be nice in the area of finding a publisher and a publishing contract and an advance.) I'll keep walking with faith that on the other side the other miracle awaits.

Narrow places. How well I know them. How freeing it is to move beyond them. Miracles. Lovely to experience and to create.

Do you know your Mitzrayyim? Do you know how to squeeze out of your narrow place and into a more expansive place? Passover is just a week away...Use the energy of the holiday to help you create your own miracle of liberation. I'll be liberating myself, praying for miracles while walking, step by step, into the water, my faith helping bring those miracles into my life. I hope you will be doing the same.

Freedom to Live Your Life Fully this Passover

I was just reading a blog by Rachel Barenblat (http://www.velveteenrabbi.com/) that made me think about living fully this Passover. She comments on a recent posting by Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi called Toward Freeing the Seder, in which he takes the fifteen steps of the basic seder structure and offers creative suggestions for making each of them one's own. For anyone who has ever sat through a boring seder, the home service conducted on this Jewish holiday, you know that creative suggestions often are much needed. Reb Zalman is a genius when it comes to this sort of thing -- and in general. So, take a look at his post. It's well worth your time. I printed it out for my own use, and you can be sure that elements of it will show up during my seder.

Among other things, Rachel chose to highlight the section Reb Zalman wrote about the Four Questions, and I just loved the idea of doing this section differently. In fact, Reb Zalman's suggestions made me start thinking about how well these questions play into my Living Fully Challenge. Here' s what he says about the Four Questions:

Use your pencil and paper to jot down your four questions. What are
they?

Or your four questions about Judaism.

In other words, if I want to get some answers to my questions this
night, what are my real questions, the ones I want answered?

Mah nishtanah halyla hazeh? Why is the night different? And
what about life? Why is life different from what I expected? Jot
down four "Differents," four "It isn't as I had thought it would be"-s.

Rachel commented: "Imagine using those four questions in your seder, questions that arise out of who you are this year, in this moment, as this festival unfolds! How would that change your experience?"

I think I'll ask participants at my seder to answer, "How am I different this year." And, given that the topic of discussion in general revolves around freedom, "If I were free, how would I choose to be different?" By that I mean, if nothing were holding you back -- finances, ego, doubt, family, boss, time, etc. -- how would you change? I'm not necessarily talking about external situations now, because those issues would be gone. If nothing were in the way of you being the best you possible, who would you be?

Of course, the question that logically follows is: Can I be that person now despite what I perceive to be holding me back? Can I be free to live my life fully right now?

Now, whether you are Jewish or not, you can ask yourself these questions. You don't have to participate in a Passover seder, nor do you have to wait for Passover or a seder to ask these questions. In fact, ask away right now if you want!

To read all of Rachel's blog, go to http://www.velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/. She's also got a Passover haggadah of her own. Check it out. Plus, she's a great poet.

Signs of Life After Death and Passover Narrow Places

Okay, so Passover is over. I feel like I missed most of it…and while I’ve moved through a few narrow places and come out the other side of the parted waters, I’m still stuck in a few other tight spots.

I missed a good bit of Passover this year, because my father-in-law passed away on Friday, March 30th at about 8:35 PST. I know the approximate time, because my kids and I were in the process of doing Shabbat blessings (a little late, I know…). We had lit the Shabbat candles and said a special prayer for their grandfather, Miles, to have an easy transition and each in our own way said good bye to him – let him go. Some time after the candle blessing and before the blessing for the challah, one of our candles went out, and I checked the time as I wondered if this was a sign that Miles was gone. About 15 minutes later, my husband, Ron, called to tell me Miles had died. I knew then for sure that my father-in-law had heard our prayers, come to say goodbye and then had felt released. Granted it was not just our prayers that released him. His wife had just gone to bed. My husband had already voiced that he was ready for his Dad’s suffering – and his own – to end. Still, it provided me and my children with evidence of the non-local nature of the soul and of life after death. It proved to me once again that prayers have tremendous power.

So, we cancelled our first-night seder and boarded a plane on Monday morning to go to Missouri for a funeral. We had a hard time observing the dietary restrictions while staying in my mother-in-law’s home, but we finally opened out boxes of matzoh on Thursday upon returning home and had a seder on the seventh night of the holiday rather than not at all.

As for narrow places...well, my father-in-law’s illness and passing definitely constituted one. There has been my search for an agent, which is over, but I am still waiting for a publisher for that book and literary representation for my cookbook...and that feels like a narrow place (widening a bit but still tight). Time continues to feel tight, and my work load feels crushing. Financially, my husband and I are in a tight spot as well, but it should be opening up soon as well. So, some freedom has been achieved, but I don’t feel totally on dry land yet.

Is it possible to be totally on the other side of the Red Sea, dry and free? Or is there always another narrow place? Is it like one birth canal after another? Can we be sure the waters will always part when we find ourselves trapped on the edge of the ocean? Will there be life on the other side?

I suppose life often presents us with narrow places. More than that I see that when we keep putting goals in front of ourselves – like writing a book…and earning more money…and getting in shape…and losing 10 pounds…and proposing another book – we continually create new narrow places. And if we keep moving forward with faith – like Nachshon entering the water of the Red Sea up to his nose – the waters do, indeed, part. We aren’t always sure what we will find on the other side, but with faith and perseverance we do end up on the other shore, closer to our goal, a little bit more free, changed a lot or a little, still alive.

So, here's to Miles, who lived a good life and lives on in the memories of his family and friends and whose memory is a blessing. And here's to narrow places, rebirths and life itself. L'chaim. To life. To Living.

Mitzrayyim Makes My Passover Meaning-full and Spirit-full

I remember as a child sitting through the Passover seder each year with little sense of why I was there or what we were doing. I knew the Exodus story, but the actual celebration of Passover meant little to me. The only thing that got me out of the Mitzrayyim, the Hebrew word for Egypt, of the too-long ritual meal was drinking as much of the Manichewitz wine as the other children and I could without the adults noticing and sneaking bits of matzoh and charoset when we knew we weren’t supposed to be eating anything. We would get sillier as the evening wore on and were almost too giddy to consume the hard boiled eggs and matzoh ball soup we were served at the long-awaited start of the meal.

I continued celebrating Passover as a young adult more out of a sense of obligation than anything else. No matter where I lived, I would find somewhere to attend a seder, but other than feeling that I had done what “I was supposed to do” my observance of the holiday felt empty. Later, after marrying and having children, I began learning a bit more about the holiday and its symbolism, but I was more concerned with the fact that I couldn’t eat bread – my favorite food – for a week than I was about my ancestors being freed from slavery by a God with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. In fact, except for the matzoh ball soup I ate just once a year – ‘till this day I wonder each year why I don’t make it more often –Passover felt devoid of anything meaningful or spiritual but full of a sense of being stuck in Mitzrayyim, a narrow place where I was enslaved by the rules and laws that went with the holiday.

As I began to host my own seders, and as my family became more ritually observant, Passover became a new type of Mitzrayyim. I had to figure out how to get from the slavery of housecleaning, reviewing haggadot and stressing over the actual seder leading to the other side of the Red Sea where I could return to “normal” living without fear of hametz in corners, making a ritual faux pas or accidentally ingesting something that puffs up when cooked. (See my article on this subject at http://www.jewishmag.com/112mag/passover-prep/passover-prep.htm)

These days, however, Mitzrayyim provides the meaning to my Passover observance and my seder. I find that revolving the week, as well as the seder, around the idea of moving through narrow places, tight situations and difficult experiences lends meaning to all aspects of the holiday remembrance. I have discovered that looking at how I come through these and become someone new – am reborn – gives me a chance to connect with who I am at a deep enough level to make the experience spiritual as well. And after all, during the telling of the Passover story, we are supposed to all feel as if we were there at the edge of the Red Sea and on the other side.

It’s easy enough to find those narrow places that exist in our lives right now or have in the past 12 months. I have been through the narrow place of finding a literary agent, my father-in-laws cancer and impending death, money issues, and struggles with time (not having enough) and work (having it take over my life and my husband’s life). I’ve been in the Mitzrayyim of needing to create a teleclass, finish a book proposal, write an article on deadline. Any or all of these are things I can place on the Passover table – the misbeach (altar) – for all to see and to hear my story. My story, and my guests’ stories become the new version of the Passover story. They bring us to that place of feeling the struggle of slavery – to anything or anyone – and, if we are already on the other side of the parted sea, and the joy of freedom as if we were, indeed, there with those we read about in the Torah and with the story we retell in the Haggadah. It causes us to be present…now and then.

This practice, this new ritual, this focus, gives the holiday, the seder and the retelling of the story meaning for me and for my family and friends.

And, it reminds us to have faith that we will, indeed, come out of the tight place. All we need is to trust like Nachshon, who entered the waters of the Red Sea even when Moses could not part the waters with his words or his staff. He walked into the water until it was up to his nose and he couldn’t take another breath without drowning. And then the waters parted. His faith caused the miracle to occur. And our faith can do the same today, now, in this moment, or the next time we feel ourselves squeezed, in a tight place, between a rock and a hard place, in Mitzrayyim.

And this brings into the observance of Passover and the ritual seder a sense of spirituality.

Thus, for me at least, revolving my Passover observances around this idea transforms the cleaning, the food restrictions, the seder – all the elements of this holiday – from empty observances to both meaning-full and spirit-full ones. And, I’m released from the Mitzrayyim I’ve experienced around this holiday in the past. Ah…Another tight place from which I have escaped, been released, been freed, to share, and one which I can place on the Passover table with the others.

(I’m sorry to stay that I remain in Mitzrayyim, however, when it comes to not eating bread for a week...)

Happy Pesach!