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ספירת העומר
Kabbalistic Sephirat HaOmer - day 38, 5 weeks and 3 days
Tiferet sh b'Yesod
G*D LOVES YOU and ME
Compassion in Bonding
- Joy Krauthammer
Reading in the B'nai Horin newsletter, WHEN GOD IS YOUR THERAPIST, I immediately related to the quotes about "moving from our states or maps of pain to states of maps of joy". Hmm, wonder why. Yet it is true, for me, Joy, because for many years, simplistically, I've been conscious of turning "lemonade into lemons", as others have said publicly about me. Not only lemonade, but transcendence and transformation in a return to joy in Joy.
I'm grateful that Rabbi Stan Levy included the NY Times article, "When G*d Is Your Therapist" because I'd never analyzed my life that way, but realize that for me, that concept has certainly been true. I'll share with you:
After my husband, z"l, died in 2006 (time does heal), although with friends still a little bit around (they had done their loyal devoted compassionate, caring and supportive duty at home and hospitals for years when husband was sick for 18 years, paralyzed, dying and on life-support for six months…) I felt very ALONE. Not lonely, but alone. To prove to myself that I was 'not alone', I made a list of all my friends who were present with me and taped it to the wall adjacent to where I work at home so that I could always see the names and remind myself. I felt ALONE! For healing grief support, I had a short-term bereavement therapist, beloved local rabbis, and after a few months of constant crying --a local church minister-led grief group (where I was the only person and minister kept reminding me that there "is light at the end of the tunnel"), and also a Jewish 'spiritual guide' who blessedly listened in silence to me and my silence or my tears. Books on "mourning" also truly helped. (I needed to learn for myself that I was crying because I had a 'loss'.)
One day, knowing how I felt in deep pain from loss and so ALONE, my Jerusalem Chareidi Rebbe Yosef Ben Shlomo Hakohen, z"l, said to me, "G*d loves you." From that moment, and I wrote the words also on my wall, I never felt alone because I knew that G*d loved me. How simplistic! And I was "a child of the Universe"; I remembered this from the Desiderata, the scroll from 'sixties college days which to this day, still hangs on wall over my bed! Google it. (One myth says a Jewish person wrote it.)
In July 1994 at Elat Chayyim, for the first time-- I had spontaneously proclaimed out loud to Rabbi Marcia Prager that "I love G*d". Until the spring of 2006, I'd never heard that G*d loves me. I share with you that when I feel it appropriate, I have in empathy shared this compassionate statement of love with grieving others.
The 'Therapist' article author, T. M. Luhrmann states, that "tragedy, and prayers that apparently go unanswered, can actually strengthen believers' sense of a bond with G*d."
I also never asked G*d for an explanation as to why I, too, the caregiver angel warrior and wife, had to suffer along with the patient. I had G*d to call out to, scream out to in my garden, loudly cry out to at night when I tried to go to sleep. And G*d listened. I had the Indwelling Presence of Shekhina hold me in Her arms and envelope me so I could finally fall asleep each night. And as I came to understand, a little bit at a later time, revealed were concealed blesSings; answers to the difficult 'why' questions which I hadn't asked, but had felt the pain.
I 'hang out with G*d' a lot in my garden, as I did then, during the difficult years filled with medical trauma and pain. I greet G*d, and converse; That's my vocal "therapeutic dimension". I mamash do love singing in prayer to Hashem. Artistically I photograph G*d daily in my garden, and drum with G*d, and I guess that, too, is therapeutic. G*d loves me. How "theologically simple-minded" is that?
This week during the Counting of the Omer as we refine ourselves and head toward Shavuot and the 50th Gate, we are in the Sephirah week of Yesod. Yesod is not only a foundation, a giving and receiving, nurturing, and a connection--a bonding and devotion with people, but also an eternal bonding with the Compassionate One.
May you be blessed to know that G*d loves you.
BlesSings for health, wholeness, peace, revealed miracles, creativity, discovery, wonder, blooming gardens, majestic sunrises, sighting birds, love and joy,
JOY
Krauthammer
"Serve G*d With Joy"
May the refinement work of cosmic cleansing that I do on myself during the 49 days of Kabbalistically Counting the Sephirat HaOmer help me to mamash/truly be who I am, and need to become. I need to delete klipot/husks (negative influences) and again ready myself for Shavuot by strengthening, elevating and perfecting my midot/character traits.
Note: The counting of the Omer takes place between Passover and Shavuot, and each day is associated with a specific Kabbalistic combination pair of Sephirot. For a greater explanation and understanding of this theme, see Rabbi Simon Jacobson's "A Spiritual Guide to the Counting of the Omer," which may be found on http://www.chabad.org/ or http://www.meaningfullife.com/
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