September 11, 2021: A Meditation on Being

 

Rosh Hashanah is here. A time to turn and return. Here is one fundamental lesson I learned from a small portion of the sermon, given by Rabbi J. Perlman, something I had not known and found to be utterly amazing. 

The name of the Holy One (one, at least) is not a noun! It is an action verb, an imperfect action verb because the action is incomplete. To offer clarity, scriptural Hebrew has only two tenses Perfect Tense (denoting a completed action) or Imperfect Tense (denoting an incomplete action); these tenses are related to function, not to time. When Hebrew is translated into English, where all the tenses are time oriented (past, present, future), obvious difficulties are encountered.

This is a rather important detail Christian – and readers of scriptures in other language renderings – would likely miss because of the vagaries of translation. Indeed, just how to properly translate certain Hebrew phrases into English and other languages has been argued about for a very long time, and there is no concrete answer or agreement to the discussion. This is an open discussion.

What in the heck am I talking about, you ask?

It is that passage in Exodus (3:14) where the Holy One answers the question Moses asks: “What is your name?” The answer is given in many English renderings as “I AM THAT I AM… tell them I AM sent you.”

The Hebrew, transliterated, is “ehyeh asher ehyeh”; ehyeh is the verb “to be.” Because time is not a factor in Hebrew, verbs must be understood contextually. The meaning of the short phrase “ehyeh asher ehyeh” is less like “I am what I am” than “I was/I am/I will be what I will be as I continue to evolve [because I never end].” As I am not a linguist of ancient Hebrew, I had to consult an array of information on the internet to provide this particular, wide-ranging, personal understanding for you to consider. 

Moses found the enormity of this reply difficult to comprehend; the entity he had encountered was most definitely above and beyond any being he could imagine, but how do you identify – how do you name – such an apprehension, such a limitless, uncontained being, to others? How do you name something that cannot be understood, seen or embodied?

 

Ehyeh realized this was a problem, a stumbling block, for Moses; this is why Ehyeh goes on to say everything contained in the remaining passages of Exodus 3, identifying what has already been done for this set of people l’dor vador (from generation to generation), and what indeed will be done next, if Moses will go back to the people and proclaim the news.

 

The reply of Moses, at the start of Exodus 4, is understandable: They won’t believe me – in part because you have not appeared to them, as you have appeared to me. That response is natural, and it speaks to blind faith in the invisible, which struck me as blind faith in the future, given the context of the Rabbi’s sermon, the one I heard just a few days ago. [In my own Christian tradition, this brings context to that passage where Thomas needs to see the wounds of the Jesus that has returned. Jesus does not rebuke Thomas for his reaction, he draws near, remarking: Seeing is believing.] That would be food for an interesting discussion, but that is not what engaged my mind, on this particular Rosh Hashanah.

 

The Divine is being, and we are being also, in the image of the Divine. I will date myself by making a reference to the Flip Wilson Show, of the 1970’s, where there was an infrequent silly segment called, “The Church of What’s Happening Now.” 

The Holy One is always more about “what’s happening now” than anything that happened in the past, ever urging people to keep up and keep clean with current issues and relationships, rather than dwell on old ones. This is why the High Holy Days are so vitally important. Turning and Returning is not about dwelling on the past; Turning and Returning is about now and future. This is why reconciliation and forgiveness are such important features of the Days of Awe. How can we move forward, after all, if we allow ourselves to be hindered by what happened yesterday, last year, or decades ago. Anything that binds us to the past keeps us from participating in and realizing the future good we can be or make.

Dwelling on the past – also fundamentalism and orthodoxy – can be seen, in this light, as hindering our ability to move beyond “the way we’ve always done things;” it limits what we can apprehend and what our responses should be to what we apprehend. When we Turn and Return, it should always be toward forward momentum, following in the wake of Ehyeh, always moving ahead of us. This does not mean forgetting, this means getting on with life.

In a few days, on Yom Kippur, these words will be chanted (Deuteronomy 30:19), and I have edited the passage to represent the Divine in keeping with this discussion: 

This day, I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love being, apprehend what it is to be, and to hold fast to being. For to be is your life’s work, and being will give you many years in the land Being swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Today is the 11^th of September. We can mourn our losses and remember those we lost. What we should not do is be stuck in a past that leads to further destruction, further strife, further war. 

Even later in the day on Yom Kippur, a portion of these words will be chanted (Leviticus 19: 32-37), and I have edited the passage again, to fit the context of this discussion:

Show honor to the elderly; stand up when they come into the room. And show respect to your leaders. I am Being. Do not do bad things to foreigners living in your country. You must treat them the same as you treat your own citizens. Love them as you love yourselves. Remember, you were foreigners in Egypt. I am Being! [I declare that ]You must be fair when you judge people, and you must be fair when you measure and weigh things. Your baskets should be the right size. Your jars should hold the right amount of liquids. Your weights and balances should weigh things correctly. I am Being. I brought you out of the land of Egypt. You must remember and obey my ethics. I am Being!”

On this September 11^th, let us mark the occasion by remembering, but then by moving forward, choosing life! The best way to honor those we’ve lost is to be! The expectation of the Divine is that each individual engage with Being by being all that we can be, doing as much good in this world as we can. Being is our sacred birthright; being our very best is our sacred duty.

Blessings to you, and let us say: 

Amen.

Classic Order

That photo of me,
shuffling toward you
for the very first time,
says it all:
small being,
newly bipedal,
approaching tall man
emerging from fuzzy background
— and that is how I remember it;
“There he is; go on,” she said,
but my baby eyes
could not see that far ahead.

Sometime later,
you and I stood on the corner
of a very wide avenue,
and little me could only cringe
at the speed of everything flowing by
— fast, so fast, too fast for me —
but when the light changed,
you took me by the hand
and we raced across,
returning to the car lot
before it closed,
because the steed we’d driven off
had failed only blocks away.

It was revived, however,
to become the beloved chariot in which
we rolled over every stretch
of road we could wind along,
from coast to Sierra foothills,
staying at creaking cottage courts
or car camping roadside,
like that time a small dog
tried to catch a mighty river by the tail,
while her human sisters panned for gold
— the golden treasure garnered,
the laughter this triggered in us all.

These are glimpses
of how this child gained vision:
Plans meticulously made
so often veered out of control,
and the lesson always seemed to be
Just Roll With It;
though not always what we expect
(Results May Vary),
rewards can still be reaped,
such as a cozy at-home indoor picnic,
because an unexpected storm
rained out an intended excursion.

Adventures in education,
ever a tilting against windmills
of cultural experimentation;
how could “new math”
compete with “old math”?
Surely there is only onemath;
but while numbers were fated
to be my Achilles heel,
for you they were stock and trade.

Building and design,
weights and measures,
these are living lessons in conformity
and resistance — even revolution;
any angle can be joined,
but will it stand and withstand
the forces of gravity and
unintended use?

Perspective is itself an art,
and everyday proposes a new lesson;
perspective does not always form in
nor heed to the painful symmetries
we are taught to expect,
asked to cultivate.

Any rejected stone
has keystone potential,
viewed with the right eyes
and placed by the right hands,
as masons from Greece,
Europe and Yavapai attest
by way of the monuments
they left behind.

And this is how you taught me,
whether you know it or not,
that symmetry is illusory,
even unnatural;
the human struggle has
always been a vertical challenge
to the gently curving horizon
of a continually growing and quaking earth,
a battle against the natural order;

Similarly, modern science is baffled
in the attempt to unmask
nature as a formulaic perfection,
perhaps because there is
no perfect, simplistic formula,
more an ever growing
agreeable synergy
of complexities.

How many places, things,
people and relationships
have we witnessed that work
in defiance of a stated perfection,
while the captains of industry
fail to produce a toaster that can toast?

Perhaps more to the mark,
nature trains us to cooperate,
revealing the truth that beauty
is uniquely, even willfully, nonconformist,
as can be seen in any garden;
you can nurture and train,
but a garden will go its own way,
and even lowly weeds can flower
with unexpected beauty,
given their moment in the sun.

You’ve lived at the apex
of this age-old human battle
to best nature, and you’ve
tested your fulcrum against
the weight of normative fashion.

I’ve observed that
your preference has been
to lay paths that gently conform
to the soft contour of the natural setting;
there you’ve planted the aloe and reed,
and together we’ve released
butterflies into the wild
— letting go is the magic blessing
that allows beauty to bloom
as it will do.

This lesson in artful living
has not been lost on me,
and these feet of mine
find those paths,
from time to time.

It is in such times and places
where I find a classic order
that allows me to
feel my feet firmly planted
and to see just a little
of what lies ahead.

for Father’s Day

© 2019 BY Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Between Time

The veil is thin
—oh, we are separated
(from sight, sound and touch),
but not by much;
the signs are palpable
that you are near,
as if just ahead,
behind or far to one side,
and the gardener of Eden
has just dropped
(or discreetly stood aside from)
a sign of you in my path
—a bird feather, a colored rock,
a soft leaf or a sound of watery music
that recalls your laughter—
to remind me;
even the wind conspires
to lay your hand on my shoulder.

Ah, precious are these moments we share,
even across the unfathomable boundary,
and I am profoundly grateful
for our continued conversation:
between time is, to me, all in good time.

© 2012 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Remembering Nina

She was a modern day Miriam. Her timbrel had 88 keys and was somewhat less than portable, but every place she where she went and worked had at least one.

Life was all about music, meetings, collaborations and friendship. She lived the life of "music for awhile", where "awhile" meant all the time for her lifetime, and "music" meant any individual's sonorous contribution, from that person's level and heart. She loved community concerts, and led quite a few of them.

The twinkle in her eye was a gift from her mother. There was fabulous humor attached to that twinkle. But it was a quiet humor; sometimes meant to slide under the radar of the less adept listener.

Hers was a quiet revolution. Hacking into the community vibe with strands and strains and daisy chains of sounds from every era (even and especially new works), the magic that she worked was music, musical, and it was indeed viral. None of us who knew her will ever recover. And that is as it should be.

We, her many friends and colleagues, gathered on this cool morning, on a hill in the country. She was returned to the earth, and we helped to return her there, knowing that she has flown on to another realm, and that it is our own healing that will continue to require songs and stories, and even a little piano jazz, as salve for our loss. We received a heavenly gift in that the sun broke through the fog, bringing with it blue sky, light and warmth. Could that have been her smile, coming to us from another dimension?

The mother and the rabbi wondered that she had requested "Danny Boy" to be sung at her graveside. But, sung it was, by a large and familiar choir. When her mother heard the words, she understood completely.

I gave her mother a beautiful yellow winter rose from my garden, saying, "This flower is for you, because you brought to all of us a beautiful gift, who was your daughter. Thank you."

Nina was her name.