Each day of the Omer can be counted with the movements of the nikudot (Hebrew vowel signs) for the sefirot of that day. For example, tonight (April 21st) we count the 18th day of the Omer which corresponds to Netzach ShebaTiferet. Netzach corresponds to the Chirik and Tiferet corresponds to the Cholam. A person can do the movement for the Chirik followed by the movement for the Cholam in three pairs, one pair for the fixing of any blemish in each of our three levels of soul: our nefesh (appetitive functioning and awareness, creative imagination, vitality), our ruach (emotional awareness, intentionality [linking the physical and spiritual], song), and our neshamah (intellect, spiritual manifestation, creative thought, inspiration).
Below are some words that might help you better understand the sefirot of Netzach and Tiferet.
Netzach (Chirik): sense of purpose, endurance, awareness of eternal structures, decision making
Tiferet (Cholam): beauty, harmony, compassionate balancing of the limitless and the structured, surrendering to a larger all-encompassing perspective
See www.otiyot.com for mini-movies and descriptions of how to do the
movements for the Chirik and Cholam. The descriptions for doing the
movements for all the nikudot which correspond to the sefirot on the Tree of Life can also be found on
this blog under Otiyot Hayyot, and my descriptions for all the sefirot
on the Tree of Life are listed under Kabbalah. You can watch me
performing the movements for the nikudot from Keter to Malkhut in
descending order on my youtube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjrxaCnflQk.
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
More Stories for Hanukkah
CHAINS OF CARING
A Collection of Memories for My Children and Grandchildren
Hanukkah 5775/2014
Hanukkah 5775/2014
by Yehudit Goldfarb
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Table of Contents
Preface: “Generations: A Pantoun"
First Night of Hanukkah: Chesed
Passover Seder behind Grandpa’s Store
Second Night of Hanukkah: Gevurah
The Scar on My Knee
Third Night of Hanukkah: Tiferet
Talent Night at Cal Camp
Fourth Night of Hanukkah: Netzach
Hitting Jeffrey with the Hammer
Fifth Night of Hanukkah: Hod
Piano Lesson
Sixth Night of Hanukkah: Yesod
Meadow Lake
Seventh Night of Hanukkah: Malkhut
Being Danced by the Dance
Eighth Night of Hanukkah: Zot Hanukkah
My Encounter with Doubt
Coda: "Sparks of Light"
The Kabbalistic Tree of Life (definitions and correspondences for the Sefirot)
List of Photos within the Text
These stories are meant for people of all ages to be read during Hanukkah, and all year around, for each day of the week corresponds to a sefirah on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. I originally wrote them earlier this year (2014) during a Memoir Writing class taught in Tzfat by Esther Rubinstein. Many of them were inspired by Nitsan Gordon's Beyond Words classes which I attended during the same time period as I was participating in the writing group. The stories have been revised and compiled for my children and grandchildren for Hanukkah 5775, and are meant to be shared with extended family and friends, with the hope that they will provide a glimpse into some of my early formative experiences, as well as give another perspective on the qualities of the sefirot on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life and the journey toward maturity.
Preface
“Generations: A Pantoun” *
Generations move through time in chains of caringIf parents let their hearts speak truth
When large blue eyes smile at me beneath long lashes
All the world melts into love
If parents let their hearts speak truth
Children would know that the Divine flow never ceases
All the world melts into love
At the touch of a tiny finger newly emerged from the moist womb
If they are permitted to express their natural wonderment
At the touch of a tiny finger newly emerging from the moist womb
The silky skin of an aged face can glow with the same Divine Presence as a newborn
If children are permitted to express their natural wonderment
Hashem's embrace would be evident even to the scoffer
The silky skin of an aged face can glow with the same Divine Presence as a newborn
Both reflect the angelic beings surrounding and supporting them
Hashem's embrace would be evident even to the scoffer
If he or she paused to notice the textures of life's containers
All reflect the angelic beings surrounding and supporting them
Generations move through time in chains of caring
* “Generations: A Pantoun” was published in the English language edition of the Jerusalem newspaper Yated Ne’eman in 2004. It was originally written on October 12, 2004, during a workshop taught by Ruth Fogelman on “The Pantoun" (or Pantoum) at the Tzfat Writers’ Conference for Women.
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First Night of Hanukkah: Chesed
"Passover Seder behind Grandpa's Store"
I am all dressed up in my best dress and black patent leather shoes. My hair is neatly curled in ringlets. Dad says I look like a little blond Shirley Temple. I am happy.
We have driven in our car–a large dark green Buick–to Grandpa's store in the Richmond District of San Francisco. As we walk through the front door, I turn aside to the left to the comic book rack. I can't read yet, but I like to look at the pictures. I get to stay there for a long time while the grown-ups gather in Grandma and Grandpa's apartment, which is through the swinging door at the back of the store. I look through several Donald Duck comic books, absorbing each story from the multicolored pictures. My brother Marty stands next to me reading other comics.
Then we hear Mom call our names: "Martin! Judy! Come into the back for the seder." We walk through the narrow aisles of the grocery store to the doorway behind the counter. I like going behind the counter. I feel privileged when I come close to the cash register and see the shelves underneath. This time we pass quickly though the swinging door and see a long table with a beautiful white table cloth and ten settings of shining porcelain dishes and polished silver.
The room is warm and cozy, with heavy dark furniture along the walls. We take our seats. I am between Marty and Mom. Dad is on the other side of Marty. Grandpa sits near Mom at the head of the table in a large chair with side arms and two large fluffy pillows behind his back. Across from us sit Uncle Jerry (my mother’s brother), Auntie Lee, and my two cousins, Jeffrey and Joel. Grandpa looks imperial at the head of the table, and Grandma’s chair remains empty while she continues to move to and from the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on the table. She brings the last of the tall-stemmed crystal wine glasses. We children all have smaller wine glasses filled with grape juice.
In the middle of each plate is a colorful little book with lots of pictures. On the pages that don't have pictures there are two columns of writing, one with dark thick Hebrew letters and one with thin English letters. I can't read either language yet. I like to study the pictures, especially the one of baby Moses in a basket on the river. Two arms are placing the basket into the blue river. Tall reeds on the river bank hide the body of the person lowering the basket. I feel sad about the baby being left all alone.
As my grandfather begins to read the Haggadah in Hebrew, I study the picture and let myself become immersed in the sounds of the words. I don't understand what he is saying, but I like looking at the dark shapes of the Hebrew letters.
When we get to the part with the four questions, I am asked to say them in English. I have memorized them. I am not the youngest child. My cousin Joel is two years younger than me, but he is too young to recite the questions. My brother says the four questions in Hebrew after I recite them in English. He too has memorized them since he can't read the Hebrew. Then Grandpa resumes his recitation.
I like the part when each of us dips our little finger into our wine glass and removes little drops of juice or wine onto our plates as we say strong words. We recite the words in Hebrew and in English. They are the ten plagues and the picture in the books shows all of them in a single drawing. Later we come to the first of the three songs our family sings during the seder: "Dayanu." It is hardly a song, but at the end of each verse we chant the word Dayanu with a slight lilt. The page opposite the song shows Moses leading the Jewish people on a path between two columns of large foamy waves that rise very high on either side of them.
Soon after the song we eat our meal, the favorite part of which for me is the chicken soup with the long irregularly shaped noodles. And then, after we have had many homemade macaroons and small pastries for dessert, Grandpa asks for the afikomen. My brother, my cousins, and I all start to giggle. We had watched Marty steal the white napkin from behind Grandpa’s pillow while he was out of the room washing his hands. We all know where Marty has hidden it. The bargaining begins. He offers us a dime for the half piece of matzah wrapped in the napkin. We look at each other and shake our heads. He offers a quarter. Then a half-dollar. We keep giggling and shaking our heads. Finally he says: "This is my final offer, a silver dollar," and he puts down on the tablecloth in front of him four shiny silver dollars. We look at each other and nod our heads up and down this time. Marty goes to the drawer in the side cabinet behind his chair and pulls out the white linen napkin with the half piece of matzah inside. He hands it to Grandpa, who then gives each of us children a large shiny silver dollar. I hand mine to my mother to keep for me until we get home when I will put it into my little pink safe with the combination lock.
After we each eat a small piece of the afikomen, we listen to more Hebrew. We sing another song with a long series of statements after each of which we recite a short melody which is almost flat but ends with an emphatic drop: "Ki L’olam Chasdo!” And then we finally come to the song I love best, the one with the picture of a boy carrying a little white goat. In this song the recitation of the statements gets longer and longer with each verse, and after each one we all join together for the refrain: “Chad Gad-yo, Chad Gad-yo."
When the seder is over, Mom puts my coat on me and leads me out to the car for a ride to our home on the other side of San Francisco. I fall asleep on the way, and Dad carries me into the house, gently wakes me enough so I can go pee before Mom helps me to undress and put on my pajamas. She then tucks me into bed and kisses me goodnight. Dad comes in for a very short tickle session and kisses and hugs me good night. And then I easily fall fast asleep visualizing images from the Passover seder at the long table in the apartment behind Grandpa's store.
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Second Night of Hanukkah: Gevurah
"The Scar on My Knee"
I wake up in my room with a feeling of excitement. The sun is shining through my window onto the hardwood floor. I can see the branches of the cherry tree just beyond the window, and I remember that I want to check to see if there are any cherries yet. I want to pick at least one before the birds eat them all.
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But today is not a day for climbing trees. We are going to Calistoga to visit my grandmother Bobo's sister Annie. My cousins Jeffrey and Joel will be there with my Auntie Lee and Uncle Jerry. Bobo will be there, of course, and many of my mother's cousins. It will be an adventure. I am happy that I get to wear my pretty new dress with the flared skirt.I get up and call my mother to help me reach the dress in the closet. Meanwhile I put on the layered petticoat that goes underneath and makes the skirt stick out like a ballerina's. Mom comes to help me, and I get dressed for the trip, even though we are not going to leave until after breakfast. Marty teases me about getting ready so early. "After all," he says, "don't you know we are always late?"
Now we are in the car riding on a winding country road between rows of tall eucalyptus trees. I like being in the country. Even though our house is on Mount Davidson and there is a forest right across the street where I can follow trails through large green plants and tall trees, I still live in a big city, in San Francisco, and we have to travel a long way to get to open spaces where there are rolling hills and wide valleys, and fields upon fields of grapevines. We are all sitting in the wide front seat of the dark green Buick which, when I was younger, I used to insist was black not green. Now that I have turned four, I can see that the color of our car is actually a very dark green. I am next to Dad, who is driving, and Marty is seated between me and Mom. I like to look out the large front window and ignore the conversation in the car.
Finally, I see that we are driving down the main street in Calistoga. There are shop windows on both sides of a very wide street, and I even spot some iron posts where people used to tie up horses. Dad turns onto a side street and soon pulls up in front of an apartment house with a long gravel driveway. Other cars are parked up and down the street. I can see that my cousins have already arrived.
I get out of the car and start to run up the driveway toward them and my grandmother Bobo. I trip and fall hard on the small sharp stones that form the gravel. My right knee starts to bleed profusely. The open cut stings, but it is the blood pouring down my leg that stirs the grown-ups to action. For a short while I am the center of attention. I don’t like being the focus of everyone’s concern. I try to stop the bleeding with my hand as I sit on my mother’s lap while Bobo walks calmly to get a bowl of water, a wash cloth, and a gauze bandage from Annie’s apartment. After cleaning the wound on my knee, she tells me to straighten my right leg so she can wrap the gauze tightly around the knee. It stops the bleeding, and I am told not to run. I have to walk around with a straight leg for the rest of
day. On the way home I sit alone in the back seat so my right leg can remain straight, propped across the black leather. The wound doesn’t take long to heal, but it leaves a shiny scar just below my knee bone, a reminder of that afternoon in Calistoga and my being challenged to curb my natural exuberance.
Third Night of Hanukkah: Tiferet
"Talent Night at Cal Camp"
Tonight is Wednesday night. This is Talent Night, the night when the grown-ups present skits on the stage behind the campfire. I have looked forward to this night from the time we first arrived at Cal Camp. On this night even we four-year-olds get to stay up later than usual. And although it is still daylight when I walk from our small log cabin among the pine trees to the campfire area, Mom has made sure I have my flashlight because it will be dark when we head back after the end of the program.
I can sense my mother's excitement as we leave the cabin. Dad and my brother Marty are at the lodge and will meet us at the campfire area. Mom and I find seats in the amphitheater facing the stage. There are many semi-circular rows of pine logs buried in the dirt and cut in half so that people can sit on the flat part. Mom puts a wool blanket on a log near the front for us to sit on, and we add a second blanket to save seats for Dad and Marty. Mom holds several pieces of paper in her hand. I recognize her small handwriting on them. I saw her writing on the paper while I was dozing off for my nap in the afternoon. When I woke up, I asked her what she was writing, but she only said, "Wait until tonight. I am going to read it on stage."
"Please, please read it to me first," I pleaded, but she stood firm.
Now I see first Marty and then Dad coming from beyond the trunk of the large pine tree near the left side of the stage. I wave my arms wildly in the air so they will see us. They do, and they soon sit down, Dad next to me and Marty on his other side.
The program begins with camp songs, but although I usually love to sing the camp songs, tonight I feel restless. I want to hear what Mom wrote. There are many funny skits and songs before it is Mom's turn, and I get caught up in each one so I almost forget what I am waiting for. I am surprised when the man on stage announces Mom's name: "And now, Juliet Lowenthal."
Mom climbs the warped steps up to the stage and then positions herself at the center of the wooden platform. She is wearing her blue jeans and a short-sleeved red, yellow, and brown plaid shirt. She announces in a loud, clear voice: "The Ballad of the Chemical Can." As she reads her long poem about the out-houses which we all frequent several times a day, I am taken on a journey by her words. I am very pleased that there is frequent laughter from the audience. Much of the time I cannot understand why the grown-ups are laughing, but I feel good because they obviously like her and what she is saying, and at the end of the reading I can see that she is smiling with pleasure as she listens to the long applause. She even gets a standing ovation from Dad and many other adults.
I feel happy for Mom and give her a kiss when she returns to her seat next to me. The excitement past, I begin to sense how sleepy I am, but I want to stay awake for the rest of the performances. I focus very hard on each set and snuggle up to Dad to ask him questions when I don't understand something. This keeps me involved, and I manage to stay awake. Dad is very understanding and whispers in my ear answers to all my questions. He is pleased by my curiosity and persistence. He is very patient with me.
I am still awake when everyone stands up to sing the Cal Anthem at the end of the program. The words of the song are projected on a screen at the back of the stage, but I can't read yet so I listen closely and say the words half a beat behind everyone else, or just hum the melody. I feel proud to be a camper at the Lair of the Bear, the University of California Alumni Camp.
I carry my own flashlight as we walk back toward our cabin, stopping on the way to take a pee in the "chemical can." Dad helps me climb up the ladder to the top bunk, above Marty, and Mom zips me into my sleeping bag. Each kisses me good night as I wrap my arms around their necks and kiss them many times. Then I curl up inside my sleeping bag and am soon fast asleep.
Fourth Night of Hanukkah: Netzach
"Hitting Jeffrey with the Hammer"
Running, running as fast as I can. Jeffrey is chasing me. We are the same age, but he is much bigger and stronger than I am. I can't let him catch me. He is angry. I don't even know why. I run into the house and up the stairs. No one is around. My grandmother Bobo is across the street supervising the construction of her new house.
I get to the landing and go through the nearest door, into Bobo's bedroom. I shut the door behind me and look around for something to defend myself with. Bobo has left a hammer lying on top of the large feather quilt on her bed. I quickly pick it up and go back to the door and push myself against it to keep it shut. Jeffrey starts banging on the door: "Open up! Open up! I'll tell Bobo on you. Open the door!"
With the hammer raised high in my right hand, I begin to turn the crystal doorknob with my left hand. I feel as if I am acting in a slow motion movie when I open the door inward and the weight of the hammer moves my hand downward until the hammer lands on top of Jeffery's head.
His brown eyes open wide in astonishment. He screams, turns, and runs down the stairs crying loudly. I feel stunned. I cannot understand how my hand with the hammer lowered itself onto Jeffery's head. I close the door and rush to the window. Jeffery is running across the street to the construction site, intermittently crying and shouting to our grandmother: "She hit me. She hit me on the head with a hammer. Judy hit me with a hammer."
I retreat into the bedroom and look for a place to hide. I see the door to Bobo's bathroom just to the right of her wide dressing table which has a built-in circular mirror that extends almost to the floor. I glance at myself as I pass the mirror on my way toward the bathroom. I feel and look very small. I am only five years old. I am wearing my blue summer dress with the short flared skirt. I see the shiny scar on my right knee which I got when I tripped on the gravel in front of Bobo's sister Annie's apartment on the other side of Calistoga. My parents had been with me then. Now I am the lone girl left in Bobo's care with my older brother Marty, and my two cousins, Jeffrey and Joel.
I go into the bathroom and turn the key in the door. What will Bobo do to me for hitting Jeffrey on the head with a hammer? "It just fell of its own weight," I keep saying to myself. "I did not purposely lower my hand to strike him." I decide to stay in the bathroom where no one can reach me.
Eventually the sounds of the sawing and hammering from across the street stop. I begin to feel hungry. I have been sitting on the lid of the toilet seat for over an hour and no one has come into the bedroom. Finally, I decide to unlock the door and go downstairs. Bobo is putting dinner on the table. Marty, Jeffrey, and Joel are sitting in their usual chairs. I pull out my chair and sit down. No one mentions what I did to Jeffrey. Bobo tells us that the country fair has opened and offers to walk us to the fairgrounds after we finish eating.
To this day, I am haunted by the sensation of the hammer falling as if by its own volition. On the other hand, Jeffrey once told me that he has no recollection whatsoever of the incident.
Fifth Night of Hanukkah: Hod
"Piano Lesson"
It is a foggy Wednesday afternoon in San Francisco as I walk slowly up the steps alongside the garage of the two-story white stucco house on Stanyan Street. I am nine years old. I was dropped off at the house after school rather than driven to my home across town because today is the day I have my piano lesson. My brother Marty used to come with me, but he now goes to Aptos Junior High School and has stopped taking piano lessons.
As I ring the bell and wait for Mrs. Rodetsky to open the door, my heart starts to pound. I check to see whether I brought everything I am supposed to bring to my lesson: my large red piano book, my sheet music, and the little brown notebook in which Mr. Rodetsky writes the scales for me and any information he wants me to remember.
I see I have everything I need. Mrs. Rodetsky opens the door and waves for me to go up the carpeted stairs to the piano room on the second floor. As I enter the piano room, Mr. Rodetsky rises from his chair between the grand piano in the center of the room and the upright piano along the right wall. I notice that over the summer I have grown to be almost as tall as he is, although he is much broader. He has a round face with a mustache, is slightly bald, and his hair is beginning to turn grey. He motions for me to put my coat on the couch to my left and then escorts me to the piano bench in front of the grand piano. As I sit down with my back to the window which overlooks the street below and place my music on the bench beside me, Mr. Rodetsky asks me how much I have practiced. I had only practiced for an hour the night before my lesson, and for about half an hour the night before that. I say softly, ”Almost every day."
"Good," he says. "Why don't you start with your scales?"
I am relieved. I did practice my scales, and I feel fairly good about my ability to play them without mistakes. Toward the end of the hour lesson, Mr. Rodetsky asks me to play a piece that I hadn't practiced at all. I stumble through it the same way I had the previous lesson. We go over it several times, and he encourages me to practice it more. Then our time together is over. As I get up he tells me what I should focus on for our next lesson the following Wednesday. I carefully pick up my red piano book, the sheet music, and the brown notebook, and then I put on my coat and head for the doorway. I voice a soft, "Good-bye, Mr. Rodetsky. I'll see you next week,” just before I start down the carpeted stairs.
I let myself out the front door, and as I go down the front steps toward the street I think about George Washington and the story of how he admitted to cutting down the cherry tree. He was honest in a much more difficult situation than I just went through. He admitted to a big wrong. Why wasn't I honest about how little I had practiced? I feel badly about my fib. I want to be honest like George Washington. I want to have the courage to be honest about what I have done and have not done.
During the week I practice a little more than before, but still not every day as I am supposed to do. When I come for my lesson, Mr. Rodetsky changes his question at the beginning of the hour. He asks me: "What piece do you want to start with?” And after each piece, he lets me select what to play. I do not have to fudge the truth, and we focus on improving the pieces I have actually worked on. I am grateful for the change in the question. I feel I have more control over my fate.
As I reflect back upon my childhood piano lessons, I recognize that even after more than sixty years it is sometimes a struggle to have the courage to not fudge the truth when someone asks me a question for which I feel an honest answer will disappoint them.
Sixth Night of Hanukkah: Yesod
"Meadow Lake"
I am sitting upright in my sleeping bag in a little meadow in the forest overlooking Meadow Lake. I have been coming to Meadow Lake each summer since I was twelve. I remember the excitement I felt that first summer as we hiked over the hill from California Lake and saw the long deep blue lake with a low dam on the southern end, beyond which we could see Old Man Mountain, the highest and most rugged peak in this area of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. I had heard a lot about the history of the lake, and, in particular, about the gentle slope we were walking across as we approached an old wooden structure near the edge of the lake. In the mid-1860s, almost a hundred years earlier, close to five thousand people had lived on this very slope in a thriving Gold Rush town called Summit City. During my first summer there, some people in our hiking group spotted two metal hoops which had once held together wine barrels. Others picked up rusted nails, and we all found stones in several spots on the hillside that were grouped together as if they had been part of building foundations.
My favorite memory from that first visit to Meadow Lake was the inside of the wooden three-room cabin which was rumored to have been built by an outlaw at the turn of the century. The room at the south end had an old iron stove. Its walls were covered with 1903 newspapers which I loved to browse during the afternoon rain storms when we ran for shelter in the cabin. The outside walls had large openings in places where there had once been windows, and there was only one intact door. It resisted attempts to open it unless approached with determination. The wood was grey and worn from enduring the many harsh winters at this elevation of 7200 feet. Meadow Lake was one of the highest lakes within the Tahoe National Forest.
Now, at sixteen, I enjoy going back in my imagination to the time before the building of the outlaw's cabin, to images of the community of hardy, independent gold miners who had lived on the hill of the western side of the lake for three hope-filled years, from 1865 to 1868. I imagine what it might have been like to hear the toot of the horn from the ferry that once crossed back and forth from the town to the north end of the lake where there were hurdy gurdy houses with dance hall girls and lively music. The music halls were most likely located near the opening in the woods where this summer I have set up my outdoor sleeping quarters for the two weeks we are going to be camping here. I try to image people living through the winter here, enduring at times as much as twenty feet of snow and getting their supplies and mail every week from a courageous man named Snowshoe Thompson who was the link during the winter months between the many isolated mining towns in the area. I empathize with the disappointment of the miners when they discovered that it was not economically feasible to extract the gold ore from the quartz ledges in the area, and I can see in my mind's eye the tiny population that persevered for several more years before a fire swept through the many abandoned structures and the remaining residents left.
I like being a link in a long line of people who have loved this lake, situated as it is on a summit, with tall pine trees and incense cedars lining its northern and eastern slopes, and colorful fragrant wildflowers dotting the broad meadow covering the western slope. All that remains now from previous residents are the deteriorating cabin near the southern end not far from the dam, the small fenced-in cemetery on the dirt road linking Meadow Lake to California Lake, and, from the time when Native Americans inhabited the area, petroglyphs on the surfaces of the large granite boulders above where the original granite stone dam was built in 1858 to make Meadow Lake into a reservoir to supply water to Nevada City and the farmland in the valleys below.
This year I have come to Meadow Lake as part of a small camp called "The Sierra Safari." As a camper, I hiked for three days with my handmade backpack to get to the lake, but the director of the camp, Vic York, drove in over many miles of rough dirt roads with a truck filled with two weeks worth of supplies for a group of fifteen teenage campers and a few adults. Under Vic's direction we built mud-ovens and set up a comfortable cooking and eating space. We even rigged up a shower by placing a barrel on top of some planks laid across the top of a closet-like structure. We drilled a dozen holes in the bottom of the barrel and covered the holes on the inside with a large rubber stopper to which we attached a string that goes over one of the planks and then hangs down so the person taking a shower can reach it. Whenever I want to shower, I heat water on the kitchen fire, pour it into the barrel, and once I am inside the closet-like structure I pull the string when I want to lather up or rinse off. We are living in luxury this summer compared to previous years. I have my private space in the woods where I enjoy the birds singing as the sky turns from black to grey to pink to blue in the cool air of the early morning.
I feel incredibly peaceful and centered as I sit wrapped in my sleeping bag and watch the sunbeams bathe the tree tops in golden light, then move down the broad pine branches with their pointed grey-green needles and dangling brown cones to the broad-leafed crab grass and purple and yellow flowers in the meadow at the base of the trees. Once the sun is fully over the hill behind me, I can feel a gentle wind on my face, and I watch the ripples on the dark blue surface of the lake. My lungs expand. I sense I am free to be fully who I am from moment to moment and from day to day. I can choose to be part of a group–to join in a crafts project, to paint with oils or water colors the natural beauty surrounding me, to go on a short hike or a long back-packing trip–or I can choose to be alone and read a book, write in my journal, or just sit quietly with my own thoughts. I feel no pressure to perform or conform.
I get up and walk to the shore with my toothbrush. I brush my teeth using the lake water to rinse my mouth, and I splash my face with the cool, clear water. As I look to my right along the shoreline, about fifty yards to the north I see the small flat-bottomed sailboat which we have named "Rough and Ready" after a nearby mining town. It has two black and white striped sails. I am a pretty good sailor, and as I feel the wind pick up from the south, I decide to spend the morning sailing on the lake. I like to be in charge of the rudder and the sail at the back. I enjoy the challenge of tacking back and forth across the lake from the north end to the little peninsula where the old wooden cabin still stands, although the 1903 newspapers no longer line the interior walls. But most of all, I look forward to turning the sailboat around and having a strong wind carry me all the way back to base camp.
I return my toothbrush to my sleeping area and start walking toward base camp to find a friend who is willing to join me on “Rough and Ready” and handle the front sail.
Seventh Night of Hanukkah: Malkhut
"Being Danced by the Dance"
Will and I both hear the music at the same time. It is our favorite folk dance. He catches my eye and reaches out his hand toward me, inviting me to the dance floor. I take his hand and we walk together to join the circle of couples listening for the Yemenite love song that marks the beginning of the dance. We move into position, his right hand holding my left, standing face to face. Our eyes lock. Our lips part to form a little smile. As the rich, hauntingly beautiful soprano voice begins to tell her story of love, struggle, and triumph, we swing our linked hands forward as we each step with our outside foot in rhythm with the music. We move together in perfect harmony. Neither one of us leads; neither follows. The music moves inside my body and directs each limb through the intricate pattern of steps, dips, rises, and twirls. Each time the dance brings us face to face, we lock eyes and know we are not simply dancing a dance. Our bodies have no choice. We are being danced at every beat. A force neither of us can resist nor wants to resist directs us, and it feels delicious. At the end of the dance, when the music finally stops and we again stand face to face, I am in awe.
Eighth Night of Hanukkah: Zot Hanukkah
"My Encounter with Doubt"
"But that isn't how it happened," the voice of Doubt scolds.
"I know, I know. I don't remember how I got there. I know I made up the whole beginning of the story. But it's plausible, isn't it?" I plead. "Isn't there truth in the plausible?"
I try to convince Doubt to be on my side. I don't like this unsettled feeling I get when Doubt speaks. The louder Doubt's voice becomes, the more my original image fades. Then I hear a rustling from the corner of the page. Out peeks the head of Storyteller. Her forehead is high, her hair long and curly. Her blue eyes shine with confidence as she stretches herself and begins to climb over the edge of the page of scribbled memories. I admire her slender body and clear skin and watch closely her every movement. She looks down at the letters and starts to read aloud the words I've written. She giggles a little, then frowns, then nods her head as if in agreement. As she stands to the side of the last punctuation mark, I see a teardrop slide down her cheek. She appears solemn and thoughtful, and then a little smile begins to form at the edges of her mouth: "This is good!" she says simply and firmly. "Your story touched my heart. I think you should publish it so it can touch others."
Doubt stamps his foot and shouts: "But it isn't true! She even admitted that she made up the whole beginning. She can't publish something that isn't true."
I look from one to the other. I feel pleased that Storyteller liked what I wrote, and I begin to see Doubt as a petulant child who can only see from one perspective and wants everyone to conform to that perspective. Then Doubt reaches over the edge of the page and grabs a hand. He helps Honesty come into the picture. Honesty speaks in a quiet, barely audible voice: "You know," he says to Doubt, "sometimes the most honest story is one that conveys the essence of an experience. Facts are secondary to essence."
Doubt looks crestfallen. He had counted on Honesty to back him up, to tell me that if I can't remember the facts correctly I should not write about my life experiences and certainly not try to publish what I write. Doubt looks over the edges of the page to see if he can find an ally. He spots Revision coming toward the page, and at first he is delighted, thinking that Revision will cut out all the imaginative details for which there is no verifiable evidence, but then he remembers that he has seen Revision and Honesty hanging out together at the local health club whose motto is: "Stay trim. Let your essence shine."
Doubt realizes that he stands alone. So he decides to sit down, curl up into a ball, and go to sleep. I sigh a huge sign of relief, pick up my pen, and begin to write about the night I walked alone on the mountain.
Coda
"Sparks of Light"*
as I walk the narrow paths in Tzfat's ancient cemetery.
Above the graves hovers a lone hawk in total stillness,
not moving forward, nor back, held firmly
within the midpoint of invisible crosscurrents,
as if it has come to collect the good deeds
accumulated by souls whose earthly vessels
lie quiet in separate chambers beneath memorial stones–
stones that honor those who walked the winding streets
of the city on the hill. I stop to watch the sparks,
an abundance of tiny, shining lights rising, rising
above the newly green foliage between the aged markers.
Minute after minute passes as I witness this miracle of the sparks,
until they are no longer visible in the cold March air,
and the hawk glides south on an upward wave of the wind.
* “Sparks of Light” won Honorable Mention in the 2014 Reuben Rose Poetry Competition and is due to be published in Voices Israel 2015: Poetry from Israel and Abroad, Vol. 41.
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THE KABBALISTIC TREE OF LIFE
THE KABBALISTIC TREE OF LIFE
(Definitions assembled in descending order by Yehudit Goldfarb)
The Sefirot
Keter (Kamatz): experiencing reality beyond ego and sense of self, awareness of the All-illuminating Eternal Now
Chokhmah (Patach): intuitive wisdom, holistic insight, unifying vision, divine intellect
Binah (Tzere): understanding, differentiating, analyzing, noticing the multiplicity
Lower Seven Sefirot listed with the corresponding days of the week:
Chesed (Sunday, Segol): lovingkindness, openness, abundance, flowing expansiveness
Gevurah (Monday, Sh’va): strength and power, setting limits, honoring boundaries, making judgments
Tiferet (Tuesday, Cholam): beauty, harmony, compassionate balancing of the limitless and the structured, surrendering to a larger all-encompassing perspective
Netzach (Wednesday, Chirik): sense of purpose, endurance, awareness of eternal structures, decision-making
Hod (Thursday, Kubutz): splendor, empathy, refining the vision, aesthetics, ritual
Yesod (Friday, Shuruk): relationship, intimacy, communication, connection, bonding, the foundation
Malkhut (Shabbat, The Breath): being present, centeredness, sense of sovereignty, consciousness of being breathed, grounded holiness
Levels of Soul
Nefesh: appetitive functioning and awareness, creative imagination, vitality
Ruach: emotional awareness, intentionality (linking the physical and spiritual), song
Neshamah: intellect, spiritual manifestation, creative thought, inspiration
Chayah: divine integrative life force (The Living One), life-experience connected to source of Eternal Life, will to live
Yechidah: uniqueness (The Unique Single One), holographic unification with Hashem
Neshamah: intellect, spiritual manifestation, creative thought, inspiration
Chayah: divine integrative life force (The Living One), life-experience connected to source of Eternal Life, will to live
Yechidah: uniqueness (The Unique Single One), holographic unification with Hashem
Descriptions and short movies of how to dance the movements for the nikudot (Hebrew vowel signs whose names are listed above next to their corresponding sefirot on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life) are available on my Otiyot Hayyot website: www.otiyot.com. You can view me performing the movements for the nikudot from Keter to Malkhut in descending order on my youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjrxaCnfIQk. The descriptions for the "Dance of the Nikudot" can also be found on this blog, along with other writings, including my Tree of Life Tales: A Collection of Stories for Hanukkah, which I originally compiled in 2013 and have revised and self-published as a work-in-progress. Spiral bound copies of both Hanukkah collections are available upon request: maorhalev@gmail.com.
List of Photos within the Text
Title page:
1. Hanukkah candles at my mother Juliet Lowenthal’s home on the occasion of her 79th birthday, December 24, 1989. That year, my family celebrated both “Grandma’s Birthday” and the 3rd night of Hanukkah at the home where I grew up, 850 Rockdale Drive in San Francisco.
Preface: “Generations–A Pantoun”
2. Juliet with Martin and Judy in the backyard of 850 Rockdale Drive, April 1945.
3 and 4. Reuven and Yehudit as parents to newly emerged Elishama Hesed Goldfarb, born at home on Sunday, January 4, 1981, at 1:01 am, 2020 Essex Street in Berkeley.
5. My mother’s mother (“Bobo”), my mother, and my daughter Maya, 1810 Bonita Street., Berkeley, January 1964.
Passover Seder behind Grandpa’s Store
6. Portrait of little Judy (born as Judith Dana Lowenthal on March 22, 1944, in San Francisco, the birthplace of her parents, Morris and Juliet) shown here with curls like Shirley Temple, probably late 1946 or early ’47.
7. Grandpa (Sol Blumenfeld, my mother’s father) and Grandma (Alice, my mother’s step-mother), visiting in Southern California, probably in late 1940s.
The Scar on My Knee
8. Formal picture of my mother’s mother "Fanny" (Frances Blumenfeld AKA “Bobo”), probably in the 1940s.
9. A very young Martin and Judy with cousin Jeffrey Blumenfeld, probably 1946.
Talent Night at Cal Camp
10. Judy on father's lap at Cal Camp, probably 1948.
Hitting Jeffrey with the Hammer
11. Jeffrey, Marty, and Judy, probably 1950 or ’51 (a year or two after the time of the story).
12. Joel Blumenfeld waving, Judy behind him, 1950 or ’51.
13. Joel, Jeff, Judith, Marty at the Blumenfeld Family Picnic, Tilden Park, Berkeley, Aug. 1983.
Piano Lesson
14. Judy playing Steinway baby grand piano at home (850 Rockdale Drive), December 1952.
Meadow Lake
15. Teenage Judy in the Sierras, probably 1960.
Being Danced by the Dance
16. Yehudit embodying the Alef at Kibbutz Ramat Rachel, Jerusalem, summer 1990.
My Encounter with Doubt
17. Judy Lowenthal (17) with the Hasidic Rabbi Zalman Schachter, Brandeis Camp Institute, August 1961, shortly before taking the walk on the mountain mentioned at the end of the story.
Coda: “Sparks of Light”
18. Yehudit in front of the Holy Ari’s grave in Tzfat cemetery, November 13, 2013, shortly after returning from a visit to the graves of the Hasidic Rebbes of the Ukraine, my spiritual ancestors.
Chains of Caring © 2014 by Yehudit Goldfarb
Saturday, December 13, 2014
Stories for Hanukkah
I intend to upload soon my new collection of stories for Hanukkah 2014 (one memory for each night) called Chains of Caring: A Collection of Memories for My Children and Grandchildren. Please check back.
© Yehudit Goldfarb 2014
Written by Yehudit Goldfarb and arranged according to the sefirot on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.
These tales are meant for people of all ages to be read during Hanukkah each evening while watching the Hanukkah lights, or at any time of your choosing. They are dedicated to my children and grandchildren with the hope that they will provide them and all people with a glimpse into the journey of the soul. They are arranged according to the sefirot of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life and can be read throughout the year on the day of the week corresponding to each sefirah, e.g., Sunday is the day of Chesed, Monday is the day of Gevurah.
Epigraph
First Night of Hanukkah: Chesed
A Great Light in the Darkness: A Midrash about Yocheved, Mother of Moshe
The Tree in the Middle of the Meadow
Second Night of Hanukkah: Gevurah
Yosef Loved to Walk in the Woods*
Third Night of Hanukkah: Tiferet
Harvester of Light: An Unfinished Tale
Fourth Night of Hanukkah: Netzach
Encounter in the Forest
Fifth Night of Hanukkah: Hod
A Hut in the Woods: A Story About Queen Ariella
Sixth Night of Hanukkah: Yesod
Shira and the Green Stone
The Tower in the Forest
Serach and Grandfather Ya'akov
Serach's Story of Yocheved's Birth
Serach and Aunt Dina
Eighth Night of Hanukkah: "Zot" Hanukkah
Chana bat Shmuel
Chana and the Grove of Olive Trees
Chana's Underwater Walk
Coda: Meditation on Rock and Roots
The Kabbalistic Tree of Life, definitions assembled in ascending order
*This story was published in New Mitzvah Stories for the Whole Family, edited by Rabbi Goldie Milgram and Ellen Frankel, Reclaiming Judaism Press, August 2014.
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Epigraph
Layers of space and time
call to me with their hidden stories.
I shy away from being a witness,
yet I am drawn to learn the truth
of how the infinite unfolding
emerges into consciousness
and creates holiness at each winding.
Yehudit Goldfarb (11/30/2009)
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First Night of Hanukkah: Chesed
A Great Light in the Darkness: A Midrash about Yocheved, Mother of Moshe
The Tree in the Middle of the Meadow
Every morning since the baby was born I carefully part the heavy blanket I drape over us during the night, praying that he is still breathing. We have to sleep under such a heavy blanket at night because of the radiant light that emanates from him. To us he is like a candle in the darkness. We are not sure to what degree his light is visible to others, but if anyone were to discover his existence, he would be killed, and, very likely, we would also be.
During the day I keep the shutters closed, and so long as Miriam stands on guard to peek through the shutter at the walkway leading to the house, I lift him from the bed and hug him and nurse him and play with him. But at night, his light is so bright and of a quality so different from ordinary light that I can only nurse him when we are both far under the heavy blanket.
Every morning when he falls asleep after a long drink of my warm milk, Miriam brings me reeds she and her brother have gathered near the river. The reeds are strong and supple. I began to weave a basket for the baby shortly after he was born. Now it has been three months and we can’t hope to hide him from the authorities much longer. I have finished the weaving, and today Amram and Aaron are going to help me line the outside of the basket with pitch so that it will be waterproof and will float on the Nile like a little boat. Miriam has been weaving a large blanket to protect the baby inside the basket, and Amram has created a moveable lid for the basket to protect him from the heat during the day and from the strong wind that comes up every night from the east.
Each day as I sit down to work on the baby’s little ark, I can hardly take my eyes off him. He is so perfect in his beauty. He already has thick dark eyebrows and long lashes. Some of his original curly dark hair has fallen out, but the newer, more permanent hair that has grown in its place is even curlier and has a reddish tint when the sunlight shines on it on the rare occasions when Miriam momentarily opens the shutter. His little lips are full and move in many different shapes as he sleeps, as if he is speaking in his dreams, conversing with someone I can’t see.
I’ve known that there would come a day when I would have to let go and trust in the God of my ancestors to watch over him. There comes a time with every child when that is true, but at three months! That is asking too much from a mother. Yet, yet, I’ve had visions, and Miriam has also had visions, that show this beautiful baby as a grown man wearing very finely woven garments such as those worn by the Egyptian royal family.
So I work and watch and pray. Amram and I have decided to set him in the river tomorrow. It is now almost summer, and the nightly wind has decreased to a gentle, cooling breeze. Tomorrow is Pa’ro’s daughter’s birthday. The Egyptians will have better things to do than look for newborn Hebrew boys to drown in the river. There will be parades and parties and people dressed up in costumes. Hopefully, we will be able to carry a basket of “fruit” to the river unnoticed. And Miriam will be able to stand in the reeds and watch over the basket without being seen. Perhaps, perhaps, someone, maybe some young Egyptian woman, will find him and fall in love with him as we have and take him home to raise him without telling the authorities. Perhaps we will be able to watch him grow from a distance. Perhaps the God of my ancestors, who watched over my Uncle Yosef when he was thrown into the pit, will protect my beautiful son also and will let him live….
Today the most extraordinary miracle happened. I can only praise the God of my ancestors for allowing me to live this long to witness how a day which I expected to be the most heart-wrenching of my life could turn into one of my happiest.
The first sign that hinted to me that greater reality was guiding us was the fact that when we drew the heavy blanket back from the baby this morning, his extraordinary light had diminished, so much so that there was only a slight glow, just above his skin—not so extraordinary a light that a person would be scared of him, but just enough of a glow to attract and draw to him a curious person, or so we hoped. I nursed him for what I thought would be the last time. I held him tenderly, trying to pour through my arms as much love as he would need for a lifetime. Then I laid him gently onto the blanket Miriam had woven for him, wrapped him snugly and placed him in the basket. We all left the house together–Amram, Miriam, Aaron, and myself. I carried the basket, and we acted as if it were a picnic basket and we were a family going to the river to celebrate the birthday of Pa’ro’s daughter.
All went as planned. It was so, so hard to place the basket in the river, but I knew it must be done. Perhaps the most difficult part was turning away from the river and walking home. My whole body resisted moving forward. I made myself put one foot in front of the other, feeling with each step that I needed to consciously send all my energy to my legs if I were to keep from collapsing. I gained some strength from knowing I was not alone. We all walked toward home, sharing our pain in silence, except Miriam, who hid in the reeds along the river bank and became the eyes for us all.
It was barely two hours later when she came home and asked me if I would be willing to nurse a baby for Pa’ro’s daughter, for, as Miriam explained to me when I started to tremble at her question, “Pa’ro’s daughter has found a beautiful baby boy floating in a basket on the Nile and has decided to adopt it since she is convinced that it must have been send by the gods as a birthday present for her.” My gratitude is unbounded, my life restored to me.
"The Tree in the Middle of the Meadow"
The large tree at the center of the small mountain meadow seems wider than it is tall. Its rich brown branches extend horizontally from the broad trunk marked with numerous folds where bark has grown over scars from broken limbs. It is different from the trees in the forest that form the circumference of the meadow. They are all tall and straight, as if competing with one another to reach the sky first. The tree in the meadow seems to want to reach out to each and every tree at the edge.
Second Night of Hanukkah: Gevurah
Yosef loved to walk in the woods alone, especially early in the morning, even before the sun came over the horizon and lit up the small clearings in the woods. He was seven years old, the eldest child of an elderly couple who lived sparingly but comfortably.
One December day, when it had already begun to get cold but before the first snowfall, Yosef wasn't able to take his usual early morning walk because his mother needed him to help at home to prepare for Hanukkah guests who were coming to stay for several days. But his duties were over before the sun had set, so he decided to go to the woods for just a little while. He had a specific tree he liked to visit and sit under to sort out any problems he had in his life.
That day, when he approached the tree, he found an elderly man with a long white beard and a dark brown woolen cap sitting in the very spot he liked to sit. He hesitated at the edge of the clearing, undecided about whether to enter into what now felt like the old man's space. The old man, who had been poring over a very large book, sensed his presence and raised his head. He stared straight at Yosef with large, clear blue eyes that seemed to penetrate deep within his soul.
Yosef shivered, but he didn't feel afraid. The man's eyes had a kindly look. Deciding that he would approach the old man, he gathered the courage to say, Shalom. The man didn't respond in words, but he motioned him to come closer. Yosef stepped into the clearing. As he did, he felt a change come over him. His feet felt bigger, his legs longer; he found it difficult to walk upright. It felt as if some outside force were making his back curve and were forcing his hands toward the grass below. He noticed his hands were changing; they were becoming paws with long nails. Coarse hair was growing on their backs and pushing his shirt out from his arms. He was turning into a bear, a large brown bear.
He wanted to pinch himself to see if he were dreaming, but that was impossible with his new paws. He tried to calm himself: "I am just imagining this. This isn't really happening to me. It is impossible." He wanted to ask the man: "Who are you?" But when he raised his newly furry head, he saw that the space under the tree was empty. He was alone in the clearing in the woods. The sun had sunk below the tops of the trees. And he was a bear!
He moved slowly but gracefully in his new body. He realized his new fur protected him from the cold, and he couldn't help but utter to himself Baruch Ha-Shem (Thank God!).
Needless to say, Yosef didn't return to his elderly parents. How could he now that he had been transformed into a bear? He knew they would be suffering a great deal because of his disappearance. He tried to think of a way to let them know that he was still alive, that they shouldn't lose hope of seeing him again. All he could think of was to visit the garden of his old house every week before Shabbat and move something around from where it had been. He knew his mother would notice the changes, and he hoped that if she saw that there was a change from week to week at the same time each week, she would recognize that someone or something was trying to send her a message. But he didn't want to frighten her, should she happen to see him, now a large brown bear, coming out of the woods and entering her garden. His concern for her kept him from carrying out his plan. He contented himself with watching the house from the woods every Friday afternoon until he could see the light of the Shabbat candles glowing in the window.
This pattern went on for many years. Yosef became a full-grown bear. He learned to find food and places to sleep, and he thanked HaShem (God) that he had at least been transformed into a strong animal with good survival skills and that he hadn't lost his sense of identity as Yosef. He had been an avid reader even at the age of seven and decided during that very first week that he would observe each Shabbat by resting all day and telling himself stories that he had read when he was still a boy. He tried to keep himself from thinking about the future, or speculating on whether the transformation would last forever, or if there was a way to become a person again.
He lived as much as he could in the present and appreciated each gift of food and drink that kept him alive. He remained alone. Once or twice when he saw other bears in the woods, he walked the other way, making it clear to them that he didn't want to socialize. He also remembered to say the Sh’ma upon waking in the morning and going to sleep at night. He did not feel the instinct to hibernate, which meant that he had to work very hard in winter to find enough food.
One Friday afternoon, after he had watched the light of the Shabbat candles in the window of his parents home for an unusually long time, he walked back into the woods along the same path he had taken as a seven-year-old boy. And there, under his favorite tree, sat an elderly man with a long white beard and a dark brown woolen cap. He was holding a very large book, and like that day so many years before, Yosef hesitated at the edge of the clearing. He realized that this strange man might have the power to transform him back into a human, and he felt a fear deep in his belly. What would it mean to be a person again? Would he be able to live with humans and be accepted after so many years living the life of a bear? Did he want to live with humans again?
The old man sensed his presence, raised his clear, bright blue eyes and stared at him. Yosef felt a great change come over him, and he fell to the ground in a profound sleep.
When he woke up it was night, Shabbat in fact. It didn't take him long to realize that he no longer had bear fur growing from his skin. He had indeed turned back into a person, an adult man, who was wrapped in a heavy bearskin pelt. The old man with the clear, bright blue eyes was leaning over him, singing to him softly in a language he didn't recognize but which caused beautiful images to appear in his mind's eye: flowers of many colors and shapes, mountains with vibrantly green trees and glistening streams, lakes with all kinds of animals and birds moving along their edges and reflected on their smooth surfaces, and many other visions that soothed his spirit and felt like gentle guiding lights to accompany him in his transition back into the human world. Then images of humans began to appear, starting with those of his family and friends as they looked when he had last seen them. When the singing finally stopped, Yosef's heart was awake with a desire to reconnect with the human world.
The old man helped Yosef stand up and walked with him in silence to the edge of the woods. With slow deliberate steps Yosef walked through his mother's garden and around the house to the front door. As he approached, tears welled up in his eyes when he saw three small lights shining through the glass box containing his family Hanukkiah. He paused to breathe deeply, letting the Hanukkah lights open his heart in yearning to see his parents whom he had hidden from for so many years. Then gently but firmly he knocked on the large wooden door of his family home.
Third Night of Hanukkah: Tiferet
Alexander wanted to be someone special. He wanted to create something that would bring a smile to people's faces, that would touch their hearts deeply, that would make them better people, wiser and more loving. He didn't know where to begin.
"Alexander! Time to do the dishes. Come in from the porch and wash the dishes from supper. Then go do your homework. You need to get to sleep early tonight because you have a field trip tomorrow and you need to catch the bus by 5 am."
Alexander rose slowly from the rocking chair on the porch where he had been watching the clear blue sky change to orange and red and a deep magenta as the sun descended lower and lower below the horizon. His dreams of being an inventor would have to wait until another sunset before being re-enlivened.
The next day turned out to be a turning point in his life. He went with his school to the ocean. He wandered away from his classmates and discovered a cave in the cliff to the north of the beach where they were picnicking. He didn't hesitate to enter the cave, even though it was very dark and he had forgotten to bring a flashlight. He walked slowly, letting his eyes adjust to whatever light there was and stretching out his hands in front and to the sides to keep from bumping into the walls of the cave. He continued until he found himself in total darkness.
Then he took a deep breath and shouted "Halleluyah" as loud as he could. With that, a door opened at the back of the cave and light came streaming in. He was astonished and pleased, and not at all afraid.
He couldn't see any details beyond the light, but he decided to walk through the door. Then his mother's voice came to him: "Everything is not what it seems. What if you walk into another universe and you can't get back? How do you know that the door won't shut behind you?"
He hesitated. The door shut and the light was gone. Only dark remained, but it seemed a different dark. It felt "sparkly"–that is the only word he could think of to describe the difference, even though there were no sparks. It was as if the light that had flowed in from the other side of the door had remained in some almost tangible form.
"What if...? What if...?" He said to himself several times, not knowing how to finish the question.
"What if I could become a harvester of light?" There, it was out. "But what is a harvester of light? Is it someone who works with solar energy? What is the light I want to harvest? Does it even exist in the material world?"
He began to feel very confused. He wanted to cry. He found himself being flooded by waves and waves of emotions: joy, fear, hope, despair, yearning, doubt, and, in the end, gratitude–overwhelming gratitude for having been granted a glimpse of the light–and humility in the face of task ahead.
Fourth Night of Hanukkah: Netzach
The leaves were beginning to turn incandescent shades of yellow and orange and red. Many had already fallen from the quaking aspen that marked the entrance to the deep green forest with its towering incense cedars and ponderosa pines. I could hear the crunching of the leaves under my new hiking boots that I had bought specially for this cross-country hike between Lake Spaulding and French Meadows. I began to walk with a beat so that the leaves underfoot would become my accompaniment. "Halleluyah!" Crunch, crunch. "Halleluyah!" Crunch, crunch. I swung my arms forward and back in an exaggerated way as I took large steps through the colorful layers of autumn leaves.
When I reached the big trees, there were a few leaves on the ground, but mostly pine needles and scattered cones. I slowed my steps and shortened them. I felt as if I were being watched. I stopped altogether under a very large incense cedar that seemed almost friendly. I stood still and listened to the song of the birds high above me. Then one sound began to stand out from the others. I could see that it came from a small bird resting on a bough not more than five feet above my head. She (for I was sure it was a female bird) was a mixture of deep blue and white, with a small outcropping of red feathers just below her tail. She sang what I could only call a niggun, a soul song. It didn't have any distinct sequence that I could figure out, yet it was always melodious and very, very cheerful. The bird seemed to want to lead me somewhere, for she would move from bough to bough along the right side of the path and would often come back toward me as if to say: "Please follow me."
I hesitated only a moment before going off the path to the right to follow the little blue and white bird. I felt I knew the bird from some other lifetime. It was a former child of mine, or maybe a beloved cousin. I felt I wanted to give it a big hug and tell it my life's story, and I had to keep reminding myself: "It is only a bird in the forest."
"But is it?" I couldn't help responding to my rational self. "Aren't birds a form of angels, each with a specific message for us?"
"What is your message for me?" I found myself asking aloud. And then, from somewhere, deep inside, I heard the words: "Life is precious, patience is golden, love is natural, and joy is the reward."
Fifth Night of Hanukkah: Hod
Queen Ariella was beginning to lose her calm. She had wandered for over six hours in the woods and had kept her hope up that she would stumble upon a trodden path or road and find her way home, but she seemed to become more and more lost the more she walked. She had thought about sitting under a tree and praying very strongly while sending out energy waves of, "Please come find me!" But she was too restless to stay still.
Walking invigorated her, and she didn't feel her hunger so much when she was constantly moving through new environs–even if one grove of trees looked almost identical to the last. Still, she could hear the birds chirping above in the boughs of the tall trees, and that cheered her on. She began to feel that her getting lost was not an accident, that someone was calling to her from deep within the woods and drawing her ever closer, even if it meant that she was moving farther and farther away from her home.
The sun was now just above the horizon which she could barely see through the broad tree trunks. The trunks were heavily covered with moss on their north side. She had tried to use the moss on the trees like a compass, but sometimes the moss was so thick it encircled the tree trunks and she couldn't orient herself by it any more.
The sun was in the west, but that didn't help much because she didn't know which direction home was from where she now stood. And stood she did. She decided to stand still for five full minutes, turn around three times with her eyes closed, and then walk forward for five minutes in the same direction, all the while praying hard that she would get a revelation of the way out of this maze. She figured, why not try this adaptation of a children's game? Maybe being like a child again and surrendering to the magical universe would at least keep at bay a little longer the fear she felt rising in her stomach.
And so she stood still for what she figured was about five minutes, closed her eyes and turned around three times, opened her eyes and walked forward. Before five minutes were up, she spotted a hut. There was a glow coming from a tiny rectangular window on the side of a small hut built of logs. She felt a mixture of delight and fear. Her child's magic had worked! But would the hut have within it a friendly person who could guide her home, or a wicked witch as in the fairy tales of her childhood?
She felt she didn't have a choice. She tried to assure herself that the magic would not have worked were its purpose harmful. And so she stepped forward into the light of the window and peeked inside.
There sat an old woman in a rocking chair by a glowing fire. She was knitting and singing softy to herself. The vision of the old woman, who looked vaguely familiar to Ariella, gave her courage. She walked around to the door of the hut and knocked three times, gently but firmly. She could hear the old woman get up and approach the door. She heard a kerplunk. Perhaps the old woman was limping. Perhaps she had an artificial leg.
The door opened and there stood her Great-aunt Isabella. She had thought Aunt Isabella had left the country on a long sea journey, never to return. She called out involuntarily, "Aunt Isabella!"
Isabella stared at her as if she couldn't see her. Ariella soon realized that she didn't see her. She was blind.
"Aunt Isabella, I am Adriana's grand-daughter, Ariella. Do you remember me? I am now the queen, for my mother passed on last year. I am lost in these woods. Can you help me find my way home?"
A very large smile grew on Isabella's face as she listened to Ariella's voice. She seemed to be recalling scenes from long ago.
"Come in, come in, my dear. I am so happy you got lost enough to find me. I remember you well, even though you were only four years old when I left. You had long blond curls and soft blue eyes that shone like the clear sky in the early morning. I remember you used to love to dance. When I came to visit, you would have me sing and you would create a dance on the spot. You were so proud of yourself, yet not arrogant. I thought you were the most fluid dancer in the world, but, of course, I was partial. I had had only boys. You were the first girl child in two generations. Yes, I remember you."
Ariella glowed inside as she listened to Isabella and remembered those visits of old.
Sixth Night of Hanukkah: Yesod
Shira and the Green Stone
The Tower in the Forest
Shira carried the small green stone in a heart-shaped velvet bag attached to her belt. Her mother had sewn the bag for her out of fabric from the cape her mother had worn on her wedding night. It had been a deep magenta color, but now some of the velvet had worn away and the underlying deep red threads could be seen peeking through.
Shira valued the velvet bag as much as she valued the stone that had been given to her on her sixth birthday by her mother's mother, Grandma Alice. Both her mother and grandmother had died in the flu epidemic less than a year ago, and her Aunt Julie, her mother's sister, had welcomed her into her family until Shira's father would return from the front. Her aunt had received a letter from her father saying that she was to send Shira on a train to a little town just outside of Cracow where he would meet her and take her to their new home.
Shira looked out the window of the train as green fields passed by, interrupted now and then by a clump of tall trees. She held onto the velvet bag with her right hand as the fingers of her left hand began to twirl the yarn that tied the bag's worn top. She debated within herself whether to pull the stone out and look at it. She hadn't done so since her mother and grandmother died, even though she had worn the velvet bag every day since the funeral.
The green stone had taken on a luminous quality for her, and she was afraid that if she actually looked at it, she would find it to be just an ordinary stone, something anyone might find while walking along a beach. Her grandmother had told her that it had been sent to her from the Holy Land by her sister who had settled in Jerusalem, so Shira liked to imagine the people who might have noticed the stone before it was carved out of a larger rock face and sent to Eastern Europe. She also liked to imagine that the stone had a memory of what it had seen in the Holy Land, that if it could talk it would tell her unbelievable tales.
Shira's eyelids began to droop, and as much as she did not want to fall asleep, she seemed to lose all power to resist. Before she knew it, she found herself in a circular green meadow with a very large green stone at its center. The stone was shaped like the head of an elderly woman. The stone had white veins that appeared as wrinkles on the old woman's face. Small plants had taken root on top of the stone so that it appeared as if the old woman's hair stood straight up. The face in the stone appeared friendly, not at all scary. Shira decided to talk to the stone; it looked so much like a person.
"Who are you?" Shira asked. To her surprise the stone remained silent, but she was sure that she had detected a movement around the eyes. She tried again: "Who are you? Did you know Grandma Alice?" Again silence, but Shira felt a tremor from the ground moving ever so slightly, and the tremor made the stone shake just enough to look like a nod. With that nod still vivid in her mind's eye, Shira woke up with a start.
The train had stopped, and she could hear the conductor call the name of the town where her father was to meet her. She started to tremble with excitement. It had been four years since she had last seen her father, and she could barely remember his face. She got up quickly, grabbed her coat and small suitcase, and left her compartment. It was only after she descended from the steps of the train that she reached instinctively for her velvet bag and realized it was gone. At that moment she heard her father call her name: "Shira, I'm over here."
Shira could not believe that the man who called to her was her father. She had always thought he was a very tall man with wavy black hair and an exceptionally large brow. This man wasn't much taller than she was, and the dark knitted cap he was wearing clung so closely to his head that he seemed not to have any hair at all. There was neither a curl nor a wisp of hair peeking out from under the cap, which was pulled down almost to his eyebrows so she couldn't tell if his brow were large or small.
A great fear suddenly enveloped her. She shivered. Her stomach felt like a dozen butterflies were fluttering next to its lining. She felt her heart beating in her chest. Her mouth was dry, but she couldn't swallow.
"Shira, over here. I'm over here," she heard her father's voice echoing in her ears. But she couldn't move, not even in the direction from which the voice came. She felt people bumping against her as they poured out of the train onto the platform and toward the gate that separated those descending from the trains and those waiting to meet them. She knew that she only needed to take a dozen or so steps to reach the gate and come face to face with her father, but her legs wouldn't move. It was as if she had turned into a pillar of salt, like Lot's wife who couldn't resist looking back on the destruction of Sodom.
"Why can't I move?" she asked herself. "Am I afraid that if I embrace my father I'll be betraying my memory of my mother? What if this man is not my father? What if he is only pretending to be my father? What if he is a mean man, or even an evil man?"
"Oh, Mama," she found herself crying out from her hurting heart. "Oh, Mama, where are you? Why have you abandoned me?" Instinctively she reached for her velvet bag, and the emptiness in the place where it usually hung brought tears to her eyes. She had never felt so alone in her life. Even after her mother died, she hadn't felt so alone. Her aunt had so many little movements and turns of phrase that were like her mother that only now did she feel the fullness of her mother's absence.
"Young lady, would you like me to help you find your way out?" she heard a soft, gentle voice beside her say. The gentleness, and sweet lilting quality of the voice, reminded her of her grandmother Alice, who had given her the green stone, and with the image of her grandmother, she found her limbs become light and her life energy return. She found herself slowly nodding her head up and down, to indicate yes, she did want to be helped. "Yes, yes. Please. Can you help me?" she heard her own voice say.
Shira was extremely tired. She focused her attention on placing one foot in front of the other, not even looking ahead to see where she was going. She was on a narrow path in the forest, and there wasn't much for her to see, even if she raised her head. Then she noticed that the ground had turned golden in a circle of sunlight. She lifted her eyes and found that the trees had grown thinner. In the distance she could see a verdant meadow filled with wildflowers. At the far end of the meadow there was a very, very tall cylindrical stone tower that seemed to reach up to the heavens. The meadow was bathed in sunlight, but a mist surrounded the upper part of the tower so Shira could not discern its actual top.
The tower reminded her of stories from her childhood about beautiful women being locked up in towers. She felt strongly drawn to the tower, as if a part of herself had been locked up in it a long time ago. Her energy returned, and her senses became acute. The green of the meadow carpet was exceptionally vibrant. She could smell the fragrance of the flowers without even bending down. She said a silent thank you for the beauty of the vision and then hurried toward the large wooden door at the base of the tower, hoping it would not be locked.
The iron clasp on the door was easy to move, and she soon found herself inside. She left the door slightly ajar and started to climb the spiral stone staircase. There were no signs of human habitation. She climbed up and up, no longer feeling tired at all. In fact, with each step she felt she was being lifted from above. Up and up she went, with only occasional windows on the side of the tower through which she could see the green meadow below and the surrounding forest.
Finally, she reached a level space and saw a red door with white and yellow wildflowers painted all over it. The sight brought a smile to her face. She realized that her breathing had been rather fast and shallow, so she paused and took three deep breaths as she stood in front of the bright door.
She was excited and happy and a little frightened. She wasn't sure if anyone lived inside the tower, but she felt a warmth radiating from the gaily painted door which encouraged her to knock and see for herself. As she raised her hand to knock, she said a little prayer: "Please, HaShem, may You be with me always." Then she knocked lightly on the colorful door.
Almost immediately the door was opened by a very tall woman who was elegantly dressed in a long skirt and long-sleeved blouse with a high neck. The woman was more than a head taller than Shira. Her long hair was arranged around her head in a crown-like braid, and she wore a lavender flower above her right ear. She was the epitome of elegance, of a person well-groomed and dressed in a way that bespoke confident centeredness and great compassion.
Shira stepped back in awe. She knew that this towering woman was one of the "mothers"–even though she didn't know what she meant by that. So she asked in a very soft voice: "May I come in, Mother?" The woman nodded in silence and ushered her inside a room that was lined entirely with richly colored woods.
"Do you have a question for me, my child?" She heard the woman ask, and, indeed, she felt like a child in her presence, for the tall woman had an aura of eternity. Shira had no way of guessing her age, nor did she feel the need to know. She felt her heart growing large with a question, but she had difficulty finding words to articulate her yearning.
"How am I to serve HaShem with my whole heart and still be fully present in this world?" she heard herself ask.
"Being fully present in this world is serving HaShem with your whole heart," the elegant figure in front of her responded. "Here, my child, take this silver amulet to remember that you are in fact always in HaShem's presence and are always serving HaShem. Keep the amulet in this satin pouch around your waist, and if you are in doubt about which way to turn or what decision to make, hold it in your right hand and become as present as you can, as quiet as you can, until the answer wells up within you. You have all the wisdom you need within you. Just practice listening."
At that moment, a young girl of about nine years old came into the room from a door at the rear. She took Shira's hand and pulled her through the door into a corridor in which a still younger girl was leaning on the banister of a staircase leading up. Then she pulled Shira through another door that led to another staircase. As she started drawing Shira upward, the young girl began to sing: "We are seven sisters who live in a tower at the edge of a meadow in the center of the forest. We climb to the seven heavens and bring down the light." As they neared the door at the top of the stairs, the girl stopped singing and turned to Shira with a smile. "I am called Tiferet," she said in a voice that continued the melody of the song. "Isn't Tiferet also one of your names?" she asked.
"Yes," Shira answered hesitantly, surprised that the girl knew about her hidden name, the name she used when she made up stories about herself. "How did you know?"
Before the girl could answer, Shira awoke and found that she had fallen asleep on top of the thick feather quilt in her new bedroom in her father's apartment.
Seventh Night of Hanukkah: Malkhut
Serach's Veil
Serach and Grandfather Ya'akov
Serach's Story of Yocheved's Birth
Serach and Aunt Dina
Serach felt a strong need to be by herself. She had spent all morning with her Grandfather Ya’akov. He had been feeling depressed again. Every few months he would descend into a place of deep sadness and not want anyone around him except her. Yet he wouldn't talk to her at these times. He just wanted her around him, somewhere within his sight. In fact, now that she had some time to reflect on it, she realized that he almost never allowed her to go beyond the garden surrounding the tent.
Until recently, she felt proud that he gave her so much attention. She was his “favorite” grandchild. He would share with her stories from his childhood that she never heard him tell anyone else. He would show her his grandfather’s journal of his trip from his homeland so far away to the land of Canaan. He told her about his Uncle Ishmael and his twin brother Esau, but most precious to her were the stories he told about her Uncle Yosef who had died before she was born.
He had been her grandfather’s “favorite” son. Sometimes she worried whether she too would die young because she was her grandfather’s favorite. Just as Yosef had been given a magical coat that had been passed down from her great, great ancestor Adam, a coat that was supposed to give its wearer the ability to understand the speech of animals, her grandfather had given her a multicolored veil which he told her had once belonged to her great-grandmother, Rivka, who had worn it on the day she met her future husband, Serach’s great-grandfather, Yitzchak. Serach kept the veil buried under the floor of her room in a small wooden box that she had carved herself. She only put the veil on when she felt overwhelmed by the energy surrounding her.
Serach went to her room to dig up the veil, even as she worried that it would somehow bring disaster upon her. After all, her Aunt Dina had been wearing it on the day she was taken by Shechem. And yet, every time she put on the veil she was filled with a sense of love, as if the love of all her ancestors had been absorbed into its fabric and was protecting her. She started to dig in the corner of the room where she had hidden the box. She loved her grandfather so much that sometimes it hurt. She felt a tight knot in her stomach as she thought about his suffering over the dishonoring of Dina and then over the loss of Yosef. She knew that in one part of her being she wished to be another Yosef to him. She shivered. If she succeeded, would that mean that she was fated to be killed by wild beasts? Another part of her cried out to be seen for herself–a little girl who wants to explore the world beyond her grandfather’s tent. But if she does, will she be taken captive like her Aunt Dina? She felt confused. Who am I? What will be my story?
Serach could feel the box with her fingertips. She didn’t mind the dirt under her fingernails. She dug faster until she could get her whole hand around the corner of the box. She could feel the beat of her heart in her throat. She slowly opened the lid and pulled the veil out. As she laid it gently on her long dark silky hair, she felt comforted. She felt loved. She felt at peace.
Then she placed it over her face and she saw the figure of a handsome young man who had the face of her grandfather but the clothing of a very wealthy man, as if he were the ruler of a foreign country. She held her breath as she looked at his beauty. Could this be the spirit of Yosef? She knew deep in her heart that her grandfather didn’t believe Yosef was dead. She was the only person with whom he would speak of Yosef, and she had come to love him, even as she felt that he was the cause of her confinement.
She moved toward the tent opening and looked out at the desert. She saw a caravan in the distance. It was heading toward the tent. Her father and nine of her uncles were returning from Egypt. A wave of fear floated over her, and she heard her grandfather’s voice within her urging her to count the people on the camels. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Nine. There were only nine. Ten had gone down, and only nine had returned. She started to cry. Another brother had been lost. Would she be next?
Each morning I would visit my Grandfather Ya’akov after he had finished his prayers and had eaten a little meal to break the fast after the long night. We had to ration our food very carefully since there was a famine in the land. My father and his many brothers had left for Egypt more than a week earlier to buy some food for us, and until they returned we only had little meals with long intervals between them.
In the mornings, to pass the time, I would sit with my grandfather and he would tell me stories of my ancestors, of his mother Rivka and his father Yitzhak, of his grandparents Sarah and Avraham, and even farther back to his ancestor Noah who survived the great flood many hundreds of years ago. I would ask many questions about little details, such as what was my Great-grandmother Rivka wearing when she met Yitzhak for the first time? Who gave her the veil with which she covered her face when Yitzhak approached her? How did Grandmother Leah come to possess it? I was particularly fascinated with the veil, which my Aunt Dina first showed to me when I was very young, promising me that it would one day be mine, and which my grandfather presented to me on my seventh birthday, with my aunt’s blessing.
I became so familiar with the characters in Grandfather’s stories that I began to create dances to act them out. I would also make up songs to give voice to my ancestors of long ago. My grandfather loved to watch me dance. He would remember, or perhaps create from his own imagination, more and more details of the stories just to see how I would incorporate the new information into my dance. I would play in turn each character in a story. It was a way for me to get inside my ancestors and bring them alive for me.
My favorite scene was from the story of how my Great-grandmother Rivka drew water from the well for all of Eliezer’s camels. I loved pretending to be a camel—to imitate its slow, deliberate, undulating walk, and then to bend over as if I’m lapping up the water Rivka offers me. I would try to convey a different personality for each camel. Sometimes Grandfather would tell me more than one version of a story and then ask me to tell him which I felt to be the true version after I had danced each of them. Occasionally I would dress up using pieces of cloth that my grandfather kept in an old trunk. He would tell me the story of the cloth fragment, and I would then dance its history. Soon I began to understand the significance of inanimate objects in shaping our lives.
Grandfather and I spent many wonderful mornings in this way. During our time together my grandfather’s depression would temporarily lift. My father told me that Grandfather’s depression dated back to the day when Grandfather had sent my Uncle Yosef to seek out his brothers, a journey from which Yosef never returned. No one would tell me the story of that day or answer my questions about Uncle Yosef, except to say that he “is no more.” Although I had heard rumors that he had been killed by a wild animal, my father and uncles would not say straightforwardly that he was dead, only that “he is no more.” Mentioning his name made my uncles angry, all except Uncle Binyamin, whose eyes would fill with tears whenever I brought up the subject. But he too would turn away from me and not answer.
When I asked my grandfather to tell me a story about Yosef, he would not get angry and he would not cry, but he would become very quiet for a long while. Then, in a voice very different from his usual deep resonance, he would tell me a story about Yosef as a young boy. After he finished he would be quiet again and I would sit in silence with him, imagining the beautiful boy Yosef. I wished that he were around for me to play with. I wished that I could know him because I could see how much my grandfather loved him.
Then came the day when my father and uncles returned from Egypt for the second time. They had gone down to Egypt to get food for us. It was very early in the morning, while Grandfather was still deep in prayer and I was playing in the garden in front of his tent, when I saw the camels on the horizon, and I saw many wagons as well. I ran across the dry earth to meet them. My father saw me and got down from his camel and ran to me. He picked me up in his strong arms and swung me around so that my legs flew out. We laughed in joy at being together again. Then he became very serious and put me gently down in front of him.
“Serach,” he said almost in a whisper. “You are now quite a big girl and I have a great favor to ask of you.” I stood up a little straighter and waited for him to speak again. He was silent for a long time. I felt my heart flutter and something inside me knew that he was going to speak of Yosef and that somehow my life would never be the same.
“Serach, you have a very special relationship with your grandfather,” he finally continued. “He talks to you in ways he never talks with anyone else, and his spirit opens to you in a way that happens only with you. He is calmer with you and almost happy. We have some very important news for him, and we are afraid that if any of us were to tell him he would not survive. His heart would stop and he would expire. We want you to be the one to tell him, in your gentle way, with your song and your graceful movements."
My father paused again. He opened his mouth to speak several times, and then closed it, lowering his eyes to the earth and moving his foot in the sand in a little circle, as if to gather the courage to tell me what it was he wanted me to tell my grandfather. Finally he spoke slowly and deliberately. “We have seen your Uncle Yosef. He is alive and well, living in Egypt. He has become a great and powerful man there, and he has sent wagons to bring us all down to Egypt to live near him so we will have plenty of food for our families and our animals. Go now. Go and sing to your grandfather that his beloved Yosef is alive.”
My most vivid memory of our journey down to Egypt is walking beside my Uncle Levi’s wife. She was very, very pregnant. She had put on a lot of weight during the pregnancy and had to walk with the help of a cane. We children had started calling her Candy—sort of a combined reference to her cane and to her custom of giving us candy whenever we happened to come into her kitchen while she was cooking dinner. As she gave the candy to us she would always say with a large grin and twinkling eyes, “I’m giving you this now so you’ll remember how much I love you, but don’t eat it until after supper.” And the remarkable fact was that we would wait to eat it.
Candy was a short woman, a full head shorter than Levi. Her hair was long and dark, and she liked to braid it with colorful ribbons threaded between and around a single thick rope of hair. That was another reason we felt Candy was the right nickname for her: her head sparkled in the sunlight like a collection of rock candies. Her disposition was sweet as well. She never got angry or impatient with us children when we came by to tell her about our latest quarrels or to ask her to explain our dreams.
When we were about halfway to Egypt Candy shared with me that she liked the nickname we had given her but that now that she was about to give birth she wanted to be called Shira. She considered herself a cheerful and upbeat person, and she was concerned that she would moan and scream during labor. She hoped the new name would help her to sing through the birth. So we made a pact. We decided that we would sing all the way to Egypt. We would sing sweet songs, not sad ones, and we would try to influence her fate.
It was an extremely hot day when we finally neared the walls of the first border settlement in Egypt. Candy—or Shira as I had begun to think of her in my mind after six days of singing—told me that she could feel her belly contracting. I offered to stop with her by the roadside to rest, but she said that she wanted to walk through the contractions. It felt more natural to her. In fact, she speeded up so I could hardly keep up with her. Her cane barely touched the earth. It was as if the baby inside of her had became lighter and was giving her extra strength and urging her forward.
Just as we got to the wall of the city, Shira said to me quietly: “It is time.” She wanted me to sing to the baby a song of emergence, just as I had sung to my Grandfather Ya’akov the revelation that Yosef was alive. My song had given Grandfather new life. Upon hearing it, he had told me the story of his other name, the name he had acquired on the way home to Canaan, the name Yisrael. Then he had said to me: “My dearest Serach, if it is really true that Yosef is still alive, may you be blessed to live forever and to witness the unfolding of our family’s story.” I kept imaging that morning with my grandfather as I sang to Shira. Less than an hour later, with the help of my songs, Yocheved was born, and I began to realize that my calling was to be a midwife to souls, both young and old.
Serach had always been a little intimidated by her Aunt Dina. Dina was tall and slender, with dark eyes that seemed to penetrate the depths of her soul whenever she spoke to her. Dina was not harsh. In fact, she was very gentle when she spoke. But she seemed to prefer being alone with her thoughts.
Serach could not remember a time when her aunt had ever approached her, and yet she distinctly felt that Aunt Dina liked it when she would come up to her and show her pictures she had drawn, or tell her about a new discovery she had made, or share with her a dream she had had. After the showing, telling, or sharing was over, Aunt Dina seemed to retreat into her own world again, leaving Serach to wonder about the reality of the connection she had felt with her aunt only moments before.
By the time Serach was a young woman, she had grown to love her Aunt Dina very deeply. She admired the dignity with which she carried herself. She was a little envious of how restrained Aunt Dina was in her speech. Each word she uttered seemed to carry worlds of meaning of which Serach felt she could only get a glimpse. She often felt the vibrations of the words days later, and sometimes she would suddenly grasp a level of meaning that had been hidden until then.
She, herself, loved to talk. She would go from tent to tent among her numerous uncles and aunts seeking someone who would be an audience for her latest idea or story. Her cousins were mostly younger than she, and they didn't have the patience to listen to her long narratives. The adults tolerated her and often let her accompany them as they did their chores. They would help her expand upon her ideas or elaborate on her stories.
But her favorite aunt was Dina because, although she said little, it felt like she listened with a depth that drew out of her a deeper telling than she experienced with anyone else. Over time, Dina's attentive listening inspired Serach to create paintings to accompany each new story.
Eighth Night of Hanukkah: "Zot" Hanukkah
Chana bat Shmuel
Chana and the Grove of Olive Trees
Chana's Underwater Walk
“Connecting to the One of All Being,
sliding into and out of the shells
that support consciousness–
that is the journey we all take.
The narrow place with thick walls nurtures growth
until it reveals the constricting limits.
Boundaries that provide privacy
can become stifling encasements
that accentuate separation and isolation.
Yet, with a turn of awareness,
an elevation of perspective,
a deepening of knowing,
we can melt the too-tight walls,
crack the embryonic shell,
and emerge into a new level
of challenge and growth.”
Chana looked at her mother’s writing on the now yellowed scrap of paper that had once been a letter. She tried to call up in her mind’s eye her mother’s features, her way of moving, her loving gesture of reaching out to gently sweep Chana’s hair from her forehead–a gesture which had felt like a caress and which even now, when Chana concentrated, could evoke the sound of her mother’s voice saying, as she did each time she swept the hair aside: "Chana, let me see the fullness of your face. You are so beautiful. You are G-d’s gift to me after my time of sorrow.”
As a child, Chana did not know what her mother meant by “time of sorrow.” She didn’t know that her mother and father had great difficulty in conceiving, and that before her birth there had been numerous pregnancies that never brought forth a child. Now that she herself was possibly pregnant she sensed a new depth in her mother’s words.
Landscapes had always been an important part of Chana’s life. She grew up on the hillside facing Mount Meron, in an old stone house in Tzfat on the same street and a little to the south of the beautiful Abuhav synagogue. It wasn’t very far for her to walk down to the old cemetery and the tombs of the Holy Ari, Yosef Caro, and Hannah and her seven sons. There was a trail near the north end of the cemetery that led to a grove of six extremely old olive trees. They were short and had knotted broad trunks with many undulations in the bark that formed beautiful patterns of light and shade, especially when the late afternoon sun was shining on them.
One tree had an opening in its trunk that was large enough for Chana to walk through. To the southwest of this tree was an olive tree with two trunks joined about a meter above the earth forming a foundation which in its shape resembled the Hebrew letter Chet, the letter with which her name began. A unified trunk grew from the horizontal line of the Chet and then branched out in all directions a few meters above its base. In the late fall all the branches would become heavy with large black olives. The grove felt like a sacred place where no one would dare to hit the trees to harvest the olives, although, occasionally, she did notice a low branch which had been picked clean.
As a young girl she would spend many hours every week in this grove. Sometimes she would sit on the soft ground facing Meron and observe the shapes, colors, and textures of everything around her. In the winter, each time she came she discovered new plants growing under and near the trees. Sometimes she would close her eyes and wait for images to appear on the screen of her eyelids.
Chana remembered one particular day when she had received a vivid image of her grandmother walking up the trail toward her. The dark green mountain ridge was behind her grandmother. Scattered white and grey clouds were low in the sky above Mt. Meron. The edge of the sun was just emerging from behind one of the clouds so that rays of light radiated down toward the earth and seemed to cause her grandmother’s white hair to glow. The rest of her body remained a silhouette. Chana had felt suffused with warmth from her presence. Then a bird had cawed, and when Chana opened her eyes she had found that she was bathed in the light of the setting sun. Chana remembered how her eyes had filled with tears, and how, putting her face in her hands, she had cried with deep sobs from the intensity of her missing her Savta who had passed away the previous year.
"Dictator of leaves, of falling olives, of tearful babies,
all is within your compass. The rhythmic
ringing of the rain on the metal roof
brings me to the present, the now of eternity,
urging me to let go of visions past and future.
How may I serve You? How gather
my scattering impulses under Your guidance?
When is enough already too much
and quietude an act of giving?
You breathe into me anew at every moment,
how can I know Your will?"
Chana was in a reflective mood. It had been raining for two weeks with only occasional times when for a few hours the clouds would hold back their treasured abundance. On some days, a thick white mist accompanied the rain and transformed the world outside into various shades of grey. Such days often led Chana’s mind into fantastical places.
Now, as she sat on a cushion by the window watching the thickening mist and listening to the patter of the rain, she imagined herself walking along the bottom of a murky lake, her bare feet deep in soft mud, shadowy amorphous plant forms surrounding her on all sides. In the space in front of her was a clear white light shining as if from a great distance and drawing her forward. Each step was filled with the sensual pleasure of her toes in the soft lake bottom, of the gentle water caressing her face and hands, and with the intellectual delight of realizing she could breathe in this underwater world. But she was most conscious of her heart being drawn toward the light and that with every step her heart felt larger and in some inexplicable way both more excited and immeasurably calm.
She began to hear music as she continued to walk forward into the light, random notes on a violin, then a more regular melody on a flute. She stopped to listen more closely, and at that moment she heard the door behind her open and her name being called. She was back by her window in Tzfat.
"Meditation on Rock and Roots"
The tree melts into the rugged rock as if it were liquid butter poured on freshly torn French bread. Its sinuous roots dance in and out of the crevices, joyously joining in delicious elegance on the variegated exposed surface only to part again into sour isolation within the hidden depths beneath the crusty underside.
I stand opposite the tree listening to the melodies it is singing to the rock and hearing harmonies emerge from the playful wanderings of root within rock. My tongue can taste sweetness in their courtship, and I wonder if there could ever be a wedding feast for two such disparate light-beings.
Worlds
Asiyah Behavior/action patterns in the physical dimensions of my being Lower Hey
Yetzirah Emotion/feeling patterns in the emotional dimensions of my being Vav
Beriyah Intellect//thought patterns in the intellectual dimensions of my being Upper Hey
Atzilut Motivation/intention patterns in the spiritual dimensions of my being Yod
Sefirot
Malkhut (The Breath, Shabbat): being present, centeredness, sense of sovereignty, consciousness of being breathed, grounded holiness
Yesod (Shuruk, Friday): relationship, intimacy, communication, connection, bonding, the foundation Hod (Kubutz, Thursday): splendor, empathy, refining the vision, aesthetics, ritual
Netzach (Chirik, Wednesday): sense of purpose, endurance, awareness of eternal structures, decision-making
Tiferet (Cholam, Tuesday): beauty, harmony, compassionate balancing of the limitless and the structured, surrendering to a larger all-encompassing perspective
Gevurah (Sh’va, Monday): strength and power, setting limits, honoring boundaries, making judgments
Chesed (Segol, Sunday): lovingkindness, openness, abundance, flowing expansiveness
Binah (Tzere): understanding, differentiating, analyzing, noticing the multiplicity
Chokhmah (Patach): intuitive wisdom, holistic insight, unifying vision, divine intellect
Keter (Kamatz): experiencing reality beyond ego and sense of self, awareness of the All-illuminating Eternal Now
Levels of Soul
Nefesh: appetitive functioning and awareness, creative imagination, vitality
Ruach: emotional awareness, intentionality (linking the physical and spiritual), song
Neshamah: intellect, spiritual manifestation, creative thought, inspiration
Chayah: divine integrative life force (The Living One), life-experience connected to source of Eternal Life, will to live
Yechidah: uniqueness (The Unique Single One), holographic unification with Hashem
Note: Descriptions and short movies of how to dance the movements for the nikudot (Hebrew vowel signs whose names are listed above next to their corresponding sefirot on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life) are available on my website: www.otiyot.com.
Under Otiyot Hayyot on this blog, I have copied the descriptions of how to do the Dance of the Nikudot. You can view me performing the movements for the nikudot from Keter to Malkhut in descending order on my youtube channel.
All material on this site is under copyright © Yehudit Goldfarb and may be copied only with permission from the owner.
Tree of Life Tales: A Collection of Stories for Hanukkah
(Revised manuscript version of 2013 collection)
Written by Yehudit Goldfarb and arranged according to the sefirot on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.
These tales are meant for people of all ages to be read during Hanukkah each evening while watching the Hanukkah lights, or at any time of your choosing. They are dedicated to my children and grandchildren with the hope that they will provide them and all people with a glimpse into the journey of the soul. They are arranged according to the sefirot of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life and can be read throughout the year on the day of the week corresponding to each sefirah, e.g., Sunday is the day of Chesed, Monday is the day of Gevurah.
Table of Contents
First Night of Hanukkah: Chesed
A Great Light in the Darkness: A Midrash about Yocheved, Mother of Moshe
The Tree in the Middle of the Meadow
Second Night of Hanukkah: Gevurah
Yosef Loved to Walk in the Woods*
Third Night of Hanukkah: Tiferet
Harvester of Light: An Unfinished Tale
Fourth Night of Hanukkah: Netzach
Encounter in the Forest
Fifth Night of Hanukkah: Hod
A Hut in the Woods: A Story About Queen Ariella
Sixth Night of Hanukkah: Yesod
Shira and the Green Stone
The Tower in the Forest
Seventh Night of Hanukkah: Malkhut
Serach's VeilSerach and Grandfather Ya'akov
Serach's Story of Yocheved's Birth
Serach and Aunt Dina
Eighth Night of Hanukkah: "Zot" Hanukkah
Chana bat Shmuel
Chana and the Grove of Olive Trees
Chana's Underwater Walk
Coda: Meditation on Rock and Roots
The Kabbalistic Tree of Life, definitions assembled in ascending order
*This story was published in New Mitzvah Stories for the Whole Family, edited by Rabbi Goldie Milgram and Ellen Frankel, Reclaiming Judaism Press, August 2014.
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Epigraph
Layers of space and time
call to me with their hidden stories.
I shy away from being a witness,
yet I am drawn to learn the truth
of how the infinite unfolding
emerges into consciousness
and creates holiness at each winding.
Yehudit Goldfarb (11/30/2009)
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First Night of Hanukkah: Chesed
A Great Light in the Darkness: A Midrash about Yocheved, Mother of Moshe
The Tree in the Middle of the Meadow
"A Great Light in the Darkness: A Midrash about Yocheved, Mother of Moshe"
Every morning since the baby was born I carefully part the heavy blanket I drape over us during the night, praying that he is still breathing. We have to sleep under such a heavy blanket at night because of the radiant light that emanates from him. To us he is like a candle in the darkness. We are not sure to what degree his light is visible to others, but if anyone were to discover his existence, he would be killed, and, very likely, we would also be.
During the day I keep the shutters closed, and so long as Miriam stands on guard to peek through the shutter at the walkway leading to the house, I lift him from the bed and hug him and nurse him and play with him. But at night, his light is so bright and of a quality so different from ordinary light that I can only nurse him when we are both far under the heavy blanket.
Every morning when he falls asleep after a long drink of my warm milk, Miriam brings me reeds she and her brother have gathered near the river. The reeds are strong and supple. I began to weave a basket for the baby shortly after he was born. Now it has been three months and we can’t hope to hide him from the authorities much longer. I have finished the weaving, and today Amram and Aaron are going to help me line the outside of the basket with pitch so that it will be waterproof and will float on the Nile like a little boat. Miriam has been weaving a large blanket to protect the baby inside the basket, and Amram has created a moveable lid for the basket to protect him from the heat during the day and from the strong wind that comes up every night from the east.
Each day as I sit down to work on the baby’s little ark, I can hardly take my eyes off him. He is so perfect in his beauty. He already has thick dark eyebrows and long lashes. Some of his original curly dark hair has fallen out, but the newer, more permanent hair that has grown in its place is even curlier and has a reddish tint when the sunlight shines on it on the rare occasions when Miriam momentarily opens the shutter. His little lips are full and move in many different shapes as he sleeps, as if he is speaking in his dreams, conversing with someone I can’t see.
I’ve known that there would come a day when I would have to let go and trust in the God of my ancestors to watch over him. There comes a time with every child when that is true, but at three months! That is asking too much from a mother. Yet, yet, I’ve had visions, and Miriam has also had visions, that show this beautiful baby as a grown man wearing very finely woven garments such as those worn by the Egyptian royal family.
So I work and watch and pray. Amram and I have decided to set him in the river tomorrow. It is now almost summer, and the nightly wind has decreased to a gentle, cooling breeze. Tomorrow is Pa’ro’s daughter’s birthday. The Egyptians will have better things to do than look for newborn Hebrew boys to drown in the river. There will be parades and parties and people dressed up in costumes. Hopefully, we will be able to carry a basket of “fruit” to the river unnoticed. And Miriam will be able to stand in the reeds and watch over the basket without being seen. Perhaps, perhaps, someone, maybe some young Egyptian woman, will find him and fall in love with him as we have and take him home to raise him without telling the authorities. Perhaps we will be able to watch him grow from a distance. Perhaps the God of my ancestors, who watched over my Uncle Yosef when he was thrown into the pit, will protect my beautiful son also and will let him live….
Today the most extraordinary miracle happened. I can only praise the God of my ancestors for allowing me to live this long to witness how a day which I expected to be the most heart-wrenching of my life could turn into one of my happiest.
The first sign that hinted to me that greater reality was guiding us was the fact that when we drew the heavy blanket back from the baby this morning, his extraordinary light had diminished, so much so that there was only a slight glow, just above his skin—not so extraordinary a light that a person would be scared of him, but just enough of a glow to attract and draw to him a curious person, or so we hoped. I nursed him for what I thought would be the last time. I held him tenderly, trying to pour through my arms as much love as he would need for a lifetime. Then I laid him gently onto the blanket Miriam had woven for him, wrapped him snugly and placed him in the basket. We all left the house together–Amram, Miriam, Aaron, and myself. I carried the basket, and we acted as if it were a picnic basket and we were a family going to the river to celebrate the birthday of Pa’ro’s daughter.
All went as planned. It was so, so hard to place the basket in the river, but I knew it must be done. Perhaps the most difficult part was turning away from the river and walking home. My whole body resisted moving forward. I made myself put one foot in front of the other, feeling with each step that I needed to consciously send all my energy to my legs if I were to keep from collapsing. I gained some strength from knowing I was not alone. We all walked toward home, sharing our pain in silence, except Miriam, who hid in the reeds along the river bank and became the eyes for us all.
It was barely two hours later when she came home and asked me if I would be willing to nurse a baby for Pa’ro’s daughter, for, as Miriam explained to me when I started to tremble at her question, “Pa’ro’s daughter has found a beautiful baby boy floating in a basket on the Nile and has decided to adopt it since she is convinced that it must have been send by the gods as a birthday present for her.” My gratitude is unbounded, my life restored to me.
"The Tree in the Middle of the Meadow"
The large tree at the center of the small mountain meadow seems wider than it is tall. Its rich brown branches extend horizontally from the broad trunk marked with numerous folds where bark has grown over scars from broken limbs. It is different from the trees in the forest that form the circumference of the meadow. They are all tall and straight, as if competing with one another to reach the sky first. The tree in the meadow seems to want to reach out to each and every tree at the edge.
Second Night of Hanukkah: Gevurah
"Yosef Loved to Walk in the Woods"
Yosef loved to walk in the woods alone, especially early in the morning, even before the sun came over the horizon and lit up the small clearings in the woods. He was seven years old, the eldest child of an elderly couple who lived sparingly but comfortably.
One December day, when it had already begun to get cold but before the first snowfall, Yosef wasn't able to take his usual early morning walk because his mother needed him to help at home to prepare for Hanukkah guests who were coming to stay for several days. But his duties were over before the sun had set, so he decided to go to the woods for just a little while. He had a specific tree he liked to visit and sit under to sort out any problems he had in his life.
That day, when he approached the tree, he found an elderly man with a long white beard and a dark brown woolen cap sitting in the very spot he liked to sit. He hesitated at the edge of the clearing, undecided about whether to enter into what now felt like the old man's space. The old man, who had been poring over a very large book, sensed his presence and raised his head. He stared straight at Yosef with large, clear blue eyes that seemed to penetrate deep within his soul.
Yosef shivered, but he didn't feel afraid. The man's eyes had a kindly look. Deciding that he would approach the old man, he gathered the courage to say, Shalom. The man didn't respond in words, but he motioned him to come closer. Yosef stepped into the clearing. As he did, he felt a change come over him. His feet felt bigger, his legs longer; he found it difficult to walk upright. It felt as if some outside force were making his back curve and were forcing his hands toward the grass below. He noticed his hands were changing; they were becoming paws with long nails. Coarse hair was growing on their backs and pushing his shirt out from his arms. He was turning into a bear, a large brown bear.
He wanted to pinch himself to see if he were dreaming, but that was impossible with his new paws. He tried to calm himself: "I am just imagining this. This isn't really happening to me. It is impossible." He wanted to ask the man: "Who are you?" But when he raised his newly furry head, he saw that the space under the tree was empty. He was alone in the clearing in the woods. The sun had sunk below the tops of the trees. And he was a bear!
He moved slowly but gracefully in his new body. He realized his new fur protected him from the cold, and he couldn't help but utter to himself Baruch Ha-Shem (Thank God!).
Needless to say, Yosef didn't return to his elderly parents. How could he now that he had been transformed into a bear? He knew they would be suffering a great deal because of his disappearance. He tried to think of a way to let them know that he was still alive, that they shouldn't lose hope of seeing him again. All he could think of was to visit the garden of his old house every week before Shabbat and move something around from where it had been. He knew his mother would notice the changes, and he hoped that if she saw that there was a change from week to week at the same time each week, she would recognize that someone or something was trying to send her a message. But he didn't want to frighten her, should she happen to see him, now a large brown bear, coming out of the woods and entering her garden. His concern for her kept him from carrying out his plan. He contented himself with watching the house from the woods every Friday afternoon until he could see the light of the Shabbat candles glowing in the window.
This pattern went on for many years. Yosef became a full-grown bear. He learned to find food and places to sleep, and he thanked HaShem (God) that he had at least been transformed into a strong animal with good survival skills and that he hadn't lost his sense of identity as Yosef. He had been an avid reader even at the age of seven and decided during that very first week that he would observe each Shabbat by resting all day and telling himself stories that he had read when he was still a boy. He tried to keep himself from thinking about the future, or speculating on whether the transformation would last forever, or if there was a way to become a person again.
He lived as much as he could in the present and appreciated each gift of food and drink that kept him alive. He remained alone. Once or twice when he saw other bears in the woods, he walked the other way, making it clear to them that he didn't want to socialize. He also remembered to say the Sh’ma upon waking in the morning and going to sleep at night. He did not feel the instinct to hibernate, which meant that he had to work very hard in winter to find enough food.
One Friday afternoon, after he had watched the light of the Shabbat candles in the window of his parents home for an unusually long time, he walked back into the woods along the same path he had taken as a seven-year-old boy. And there, under his favorite tree, sat an elderly man with a long white beard and a dark brown woolen cap. He was holding a very large book, and like that day so many years before, Yosef hesitated at the edge of the clearing. He realized that this strange man might have the power to transform him back into a human, and he felt a fear deep in his belly. What would it mean to be a person again? Would he be able to live with humans and be accepted after so many years living the life of a bear? Did he want to live with humans again?
The old man sensed his presence, raised his clear, bright blue eyes and stared at him. Yosef felt a great change come over him, and he fell to the ground in a profound sleep.
When he woke up it was night, Shabbat in fact. It didn't take him long to realize that he no longer had bear fur growing from his skin. He had indeed turned back into a person, an adult man, who was wrapped in a heavy bearskin pelt. The old man with the clear, bright blue eyes was leaning over him, singing to him softly in a language he didn't recognize but which caused beautiful images to appear in his mind's eye: flowers of many colors and shapes, mountains with vibrantly green trees and glistening streams, lakes with all kinds of animals and birds moving along their edges and reflected on their smooth surfaces, and many other visions that soothed his spirit and felt like gentle guiding lights to accompany him in his transition back into the human world. Then images of humans began to appear, starting with those of his family and friends as they looked when he had last seen them. When the singing finally stopped, Yosef's heart was awake with a desire to reconnect with the human world.
The old man helped Yosef stand up and walked with him in silence to the edge of the woods. With slow deliberate steps Yosef walked through his mother's garden and around the house to the front door. As he approached, tears welled up in his eyes when he saw three small lights shining through the glass box containing his family Hanukkiah. He paused to breathe deeply, letting the Hanukkah lights open his heart in yearning to see his parents whom he had hidden from for so many years. Then gently but firmly he knocked on the large wooden door of his family home.
Third Night of Hanukkah: Tiferet
"Harvester of Light: An Unfinished Tale"
Alexander wanted to be someone special. He wanted to create something that would bring a smile to people's faces, that would touch their hearts deeply, that would make them better people, wiser and more loving. He didn't know where to begin.
"Alexander! Time to do the dishes. Come in from the porch and wash the dishes from supper. Then go do your homework. You need to get to sleep early tonight because you have a field trip tomorrow and you need to catch the bus by 5 am."
Alexander rose slowly from the rocking chair on the porch where he had been watching the clear blue sky change to orange and red and a deep magenta as the sun descended lower and lower below the horizon. His dreams of being an inventor would have to wait until another sunset before being re-enlivened.
The next day turned out to be a turning point in his life. He went with his school to the ocean. He wandered away from his classmates and discovered a cave in the cliff to the north of the beach where they were picnicking. He didn't hesitate to enter the cave, even though it was very dark and he had forgotten to bring a flashlight. He walked slowly, letting his eyes adjust to whatever light there was and stretching out his hands in front and to the sides to keep from bumping into the walls of the cave. He continued until he found himself in total darkness.
Then he took a deep breath and shouted "Halleluyah" as loud as he could. With that, a door opened at the back of the cave and light came streaming in. He was astonished and pleased, and not at all afraid.
He couldn't see any details beyond the light, but he decided to walk through the door. Then his mother's voice came to him: "Everything is not what it seems. What if you walk into another universe and you can't get back? How do you know that the door won't shut behind you?"
He hesitated. The door shut and the light was gone. Only dark remained, but it seemed a different dark. It felt "sparkly"–that is the only word he could think of to describe the difference, even though there were no sparks. It was as if the light that had flowed in from the other side of the door had remained in some almost tangible form.
"What if...? What if...?" He said to himself several times, not knowing how to finish the question.
"What if I could become a harvester of light?" There, it was out. "But what is a harvester of light? Is it someone who works with solar energy? What is the light I want to harvest? Does it even exist in the material world?"
He began to feel very confused. He wanted to cry. He found himself being flooded by waves and waves of emotions: joy, fear, hope, despair, yearning, doubt, and, in the end, gratitude–overwhelming gratitude for having been granted a glimpse of the light–and humility in the face of task ahead.
Fourth Night of Hanukkah: Netzach
"Encounter in the Forest"
The leaves were beginning to turn incandescent shades of yellow and orange and red. Many had already fallen from the quaking aspen that marked the entrance to the deep green forest with its towering incense cedars and ponderosa pines. I could hear the crunching of the leaves under my new hiking boots that I had bought specially for this cross-country hike between Lake Spaulding and French Meadows. I began to walk with a beat so that the leaves underfoot would become my accompaniment. "Halleluyah!" Crunch, crunch. "Halleluyah!" Crunch, crunch. I swung my arms forward and back in an exaggerated way as I took large steps through the colorful layers of autumn leaves.
When I reached the big trees, there were a few leaves on the ground, but mostly pine needles and scattered cones. I slowed my steps and shortened them. I felt as if I were being watched. I stopped altogether under a very large incense cedar that seemed almost friendly. I stood still and listened to the song of the birds high above me. Then one sound began to stand out from the others. I could see that it came from a small bird resting on a bough not more than five feet above my head. She (for I was sure it was a female bird) was a mixture of deep blue and white, with a small outcropping of red feathers just below her tail. She sang what I could only call a niggun, a soul song. It didn't have any distinct sequence that I could figure out, yet it was always melodious and very, very cheerful. The bird seemed to want to lead me somewhere, for she would move from bough to bough along the right side of the path and would often come back toward me as if to say: "Please follow me."
I hesitated only a moment before going off the path to the right to follow the little blue and white bird. I felt I knew the bird from some other lifetime. It was a former child of mine, or maybe a beloved cousin. I felt I wanted to give it a big hug and tell it my life's story, and I had to keep reminding myself: "It is only a bird in the forest."
"But is it?" I couldn't help responding to my rational self. "Aren't birds a form of angels, each with a specific message for us?"
"What is your message for me?" I found myself asking aloud. And then, from somewhere, deep inside, I heard the words: "Life is precious, patience is golden, love is natural, and joy is the reward."
Fifth Night of Hanukkah: Hod
"A Hut in the Woods: A Story about Queen Ariella"
Queen Ariella was beginning to lose her calm. She had wandered for over six hours in the woods and had kept her hope up that she would stumble upon a trodden path or road and find her way home, but she seemed to become more and more lost the more she walked. She had thought about sitting under a tree and praying very strongly while sending out energy waves of, "Please come find me!" But she was too restless to stay still.
Walking invigorated her, and she didn't feel her hunger so much when she was constantly moving through new environs–even if one grove of trees looked almost identical to the last. Still, she could hear the birds chirping above in the boughs of the tall trees, and that cheered her on. She began to feel that her getting lost was not an accident, that someone was calling to her from deep within the woods and drawing her ever closer, even if it meant that she was moving farther and farther away from her home.
The sun was now just above the horizon which she could barely see through the broad tree trunks. The trunks were heavily covered with moss on their north side. She had tried to use the moss on the trees like a compass, but sometimes the moss was so thick it encircled the tree trunks and she couldn't orient herself by it any more.
The sun was in the west, but that didn't help much because she didn't know which direction home was from where she now stood. And stood she did. She decided to stand still for five full minutes, turn around three times with her eyes closed, and then walk forward for five minutes in the same direction, all the while praying hard that she would get a revelation of the way out of this maze. She figured, why not try this adaptation of a children's game? Maybe being like a child again and surrendering to the magical universe would at least keep at bay a little longer the fear she felt rising in her stomach.
And so she stood still for what she figured was about five minutes, closed her eyes and turned around three times, opened her eyes and walked forward. Before five minutes were up, she spotted a hut. There was a glow coming from a tiny rectangular window on the side of a small hut built of logs. She felt a mixture of delight and fear. Her child's magic had worked! But would the hut have within it a friendly person who could guide her home, or a wicked witch as in the fairy tales of her childhood?
She felt she didn't have a choice. She tried to assure herself that the magic would not have worked were its purpose harmful. And so she stepped forward into the light of the window and peeked inside.
There sat an old woman in a rocking chair by a glowing fire. She was knitting and singing softy to herself. The vision of the old woman, who looked vaguely familiar to Ariella, gave her courage. She walked around to the door of the hut and knocked three times, gently but firmly. She could hear the old woman get up and approach the door. She heard a kerplunk. Perhaps the old woman was limping. Perhaps she had an artificial leg.
The door opened and there stood her Great-aunt Isabella. She had thought Aunt Isabella had left the country on a long sea journey, never to return. She called out involuntarily, "Aunt Isabella!"
Isabella stared at her as if she couldn't see her. Ariella soon realized that she didn't see her. She was blind.
"Aunt Isabella, I am Adriana's grand-daughter, Ariella. Do you remember me? I am now the queen, for my mother passed on last year. I am lost in these woods. Can you help me find my way home?"
A very large smile grew on Isabella's face as she listened to Ariella's voice. She seemed to be recalling scenes from long ago.
"Come in, come in, my dear. I am so happy you got lost enough to find me. I remember you well, even though you were only four years old when I left. You had long blond curls and soft blue eyes that shone like the clear sky in the early morning. I remember you used to love to dance. When I came to visit, you would have me sing and you would create a dance on the spot. You were so proud of yourself, yet not arrogant. I thought you were the most fluid dancer in the world, but, of course, I was partial. I had had only boys. You were the first girl child in two generations. Yes, I remember you."
Ariella glowed inside as she listened to Isabella and remembered those visits of old.
Sixth Night of Hanukkah: Yesod
Shira and the Green Stone
The Tower in the Forest
"Shira and the Green Stone"
Shira carried the small green stone in a heart-shaped velvet bag attached to her belt. Her mother had sewn the bag for her out of fabric from the cape her mother had worn on her wedding night. It had been a deep magenta color, but now some of the velvet had worn away and the underlying deep red threads could be seen peeking through.
Shira valued the velvet bag as much as she valued the stone that had been given to her on her sixth birthday by her mother's mother, Grandma Alice. Both her mother and grandmother had died in the flu epidemic less than a year ago, and her Aunt Julie, her mother's sister, had welcomed her into her family until Shira's father would return from the front. Her aunt had received a letter from her father saying that she was to send Shira on a train to a little town just outside of Cracow where he would meet her and take her to their new home.
Shira looked out the window of the train as green fields passed by, interrupted now and then by a clump of tall trees. She held onto the velvet bag with her right hand as the fingers of her left hand began to twirl the yarn that tied the bag's worn top. She debated within herself whether to pull the stone out and look at it. She hadn't done so since her mother and grandmother died, even though she had worn the velvet bag every day since the funeral.
The green stone had taken on a luminous quality for her, and she was afraid that if she actually looked at it, she would find it to be just an ordinary stone, something anyone might find while walking along a beach. Her grandmother had told her that it had been sent to her from the Holy Land by her sister who had settled in Jerusalem, so Shira liked to imagine the people who might have noticed the stone before it was carved out of a larger rock face and sent to Eastern Europe. She also liked to imagine that the stone had a memory of what it had seen in the Holy Land, that if it could talk it would tell her unbelievable tales.
Shira's eyelids began to droop, and as much as she did not want to fall asleep, she seemed to lose all power to resist. Before she knew it, she found herself in a circular green meadow with a very large green stone at its center. The stone was shaped like the head of an elderly woman. The stone had white veins that appeared as wrinkles on the old woman's face. Small plants had taken root on top of the stone so that it appeared as if the old woman's hair stood straight up. The face in the stone appeared friendly, not at all scary. Shira decided to talk to the stone; it looked so much like a person.
"Who are you?" Shira asked. To her surprise the stone remained silent, but she was sure that she had detected a movement around the eyes. She tried again: "Who are you? Did you know Grandma Alice?" Again silence, but Shira felt a tremor from the ground moving ever so slightly, and the tremor made the stone shake just enough to look like a nod. With that nod still vivid in her mind's eye, Shira woke up with a start.
The train had stopped, and she could hear the conductor call the name of the town where her father was to meet her. She started to tremble with excitement. It had been four years since she had last seen her father, and she could barely remember his face. She got up quickly, grabbed her coat and small suitcase, and left her compartment. It was only after she descended from the steps of the train that she reached instinctively for her velvet bag and realized it was gone. At that moment she heard her father call her name: "Shira, I'm over here."
Shira could not believe that the man who called to her was her father. She had always thought he was a very tall man with wavy black hair and an exceptionally large brow. This man wasn't much taller than she was, and the dark knitted cap he was wearing clung so closely to his head that he seemed not to have any hair at all. There was neither a curl nor a wisp of hair peeking out from under the cap, which was pulled down almost to his eyebrows so she couldn't tell if his brow were large or small.
A great fear suddenly enveloped her. She shivered. Her stomach felt like a dozen butterflies were fluttering next to its lining. She felt her heart beating in her chest. Her mouth was dry, but she couldn't swallow.
"Shira, over here. I'm over here," she heard her father's voice echoing in her ears. But she couldn't move, not even in the direction from which the voice came. She felt people bumping against her as they poured out of the train onto the platform and toward the gate that separated those descending from the trains and those waiting to meet them. She knew that she only needed to take a dozen or so steps to reach the gate and come face to face with her father, but her legs wouldn't move. It was as if she had turned into a pillar of salt, like Lot's wife who couldn't resist looking back on the destruction of Sodom.
"Why can't I move?" she asked herself. "Am I afraid that if I embrace my father I'll be betraying my memory of my mother? What if this man is not my father? What if he is only pretending to be my father? What if he is a mean man, or even an evil man?"
"Oh, Mama," she found herself crying out from her hurting heart. "Oh, Mama, where are you? Why have you abandoned me?" Instinctively she reached for her velvet bag, and the emptiness in the place where it usually hung brought tears to her eyes. She had never felt so alone in her life. Even after her mother died, she hadn't felt so alone. Her aunt had so many little movements and turns of phrase that were like her mother that only now did she feel the fullness of her mother's absence.
"Young lady, would you like me to help you find your way out?" she heard a soft, gentle voice beside her say. The gentleness, and sweet lilting quality of the voice, reminded her of her grandmother Alice, who had given her the green stone, and with the image of her grandmother, she found her limbs become light and her life energy return. She found herself slowly nodding her head up and down, to indicate yes, she did want to be helped. "Yes, yes. Please. Can you help me?" she heard her own voice say.
"The Tower in the Forest"
Shira was extremely tired. She focused her attention on placing one foot in front of the other, not even looking ahead to see where she was going. She was on a narrow path in the forest, and there wasn't much for her to see, even if she raised her head. Then she noticed that the ground had turned golden in a circle of sunlight. She lifted her eyes and found that the trees had grown thinner. In the distance she could see a verdant meadow filled with wildflowers. At the far end of the meadow there was a very, very tall cylindrical stone tower that seemed to reach up to the heavens. The meadow was bathed in sunlight, but a mist surrounded the upper part of the tower so Shira could not discern its actual top.
The tower reminded her of stories from her childhood about beautiful women being locked up in towers. She felt strongly drawn to the tower, as if a part of herself had been locked up in it a long time ago. Her energy returned, and her senses became acute. The green of the meadow carpet was exceptionally vibrant. She could smell the fragrance of the flowers without even bending down. She said a silent thank you for the beauty of the vision and then hurried toward the large wooden door at the base of the tower, hoping it would not be locked.
The iron clasp on the door was easy to move, and she soon found herself inside. She left the door slightly ajar and started to climb the spiral stone staircase. There were no signs of human habitation. She climbed up and up, no longer feeling tired at all. In fact, with each step she felt she was being lifted from above. Up and up she went, with only occasional windows on the side of the tower through which she could see the green meadow below and the surrounding forest.
Finally, she reached a level space and saw a red door with white and yellow wildflowers painted all over it. The sight brought a smile to her face. She realized that her breathing had been rather fast and shallow, so she paused and took three deep breaths as she stood in front of the bright door.
She was excited and happy and a little frightened. She wasn't sure if anyone lived inside the tower, but she felt a warmth radiating from the gaily painted door which encouraged her to knock and see for herself. As she raised her hand to knock, she said a little prayer: "Please, HaShem, may You be with me always." Then she knocked lightly on the colorful door.
Almost immediately the door was opened by a very tall woman who was elegantly dressed in a long skirt and long-sleeved blouse with a high neck. The woman was more than a head taller than Shira. Her long hair was arranged around her head in a crown-like braid, and she wore a lavender flower above her right ear. She was the epitome of elegance, of a person well-groomed and dressed in a way that bespoke confident centeredness and great compassion.
Shira stepped back in awe. She knew that this towering woman was one of the "mothers"–even though she didn't know what she meant by that. So she asked in a very soft voice: "May I come in, Mother?" The woman nodded in silence and ushered her inside a room that was lined entirely with richly colored woods.
"Do you have a question for me, my child?" She heard the woman ask, and, indeed, she felt like a child in her presence, for the tall woman had an aura of eternity. Shira had no way of guessing her age, nor did she feel the need to know. She felt her heart growing large with a question, but she had difficulty finding words to articulate her yearning.
"How am I to serve HaShem with my whole heart and still be fully present in this world?" she heard herself ask.
"Being fully present in this world is serving HaShem with your whole heart," the elegant figure in front of her responded. "Here, my child, take this silver amulet to remember that you are in fact always in HaShem's presence and are always serving HaShem. Keep the amulet in this satin pouch around your waist, and if you are in doubt about which way to turn or what decision to make, hold it in your right hand and become as present as you can, as quiet as you can, until the answer wells up within you. You have all the wisdom you need within you. Just practice listening."
At that moment, a young girl of about nine years old came into the room from a door at the rear. She took Shira's hand and pulled her through the door into a corridor in which a still younger girl was leaning on the banister of a staircase leading up. Then she pulled Shira through another door that led to another staircase. As she started drawing Shira upward, the young girl began to sing: "We are seven sisters who live in a tower at the edge of a meadow in the center of the forest. We climb to the seven heavens and bring down the light." As they neared the door at the top of the stairs, the girl stopped singing and turned to Shira with a smile. "I am called Tiferet," she said in a voice that continued the melody of the song. "Isn't Tiferet also one of your names?" she asked.
"Yes," Shira answered hesitantly, surprised that the girl knew about her hidden name, the name she used when she made up stories about herself. "How did you know?"
Before the girl could answer, Shira awoke and found that she had fallen asleep on top of the thick feather quilt in her new bedroom in her father's apartment.
Seventh Night of Hanukkah: Malkhut
Serach's Veil
Serach and Grandfather Ya'akov
Serach's Story of Yocheved's Birth
Serach and Aunt Dina
"Serach’s Veil"
Serach felt a strong need to be by herself. She had spent all morning with her Grandfather Ya’akov. He had been feeling depressed again. Every few months he would descend into a place of deep sadness and not want anyone around him except her. Yet he wouldn't talk to her at these times. He just wanted her around him, somewhere within his sight. In fact, now that she had some time to reflect on it, she realized that he almost never allowed her to go beyond the garden surrounding the tent.
Until recently, she felt proud that he gave her so much attention. She was his “favorite” grandchild. He would share with her stories from his childhood that she never heard him tell anyone else. He would show her his grandfather’s journal of his trip from his homeland so far away to the land of Canaan. He told her about his Uncle Ishmael and his twin brother Esau, but most precious to her were the stories he told about her Uncle Yosef who had died before she was born.
He had been her grandfather’s “favorite” son. Sometimes she worried whether she too would die young because she was her grandfather’s favorite. Just as Yosef had been given a magical coat that had been passed down from her great, great ancestor Adam, a coat that was supposed to give its wearer the ability to understand the speech of animals, her grandfather had given her a multicolored veil which he told her had once belonged to her great-grandmother, Rivka, who had worn it on the day she met her future husband, Serach’s great-grandfather, Yitzchak. Serach kept the veil buried under the floor of her room in a small wooden box that she had carved herself. She only put the veil on when she felt overwhelmed by the energy surrounding her.
Serach went to her room to dig up the veil, even as she worried that it would somehow bring disaster upon her. After all, her Aunt Dina had been wearing it on the day she was taken by Shechem. And yet, every time she put on the veil she was filled with a sense of love, as if the love of all her ancestors had been absorbed into its fabric and was protecting her. She started to dig in the corner of the room where she had hidden the box. She loved her grandfather so much that sometimes it hurt. She felt a tight knot in her stomach as she thought about his suffering over the dishonoring of Dina and then over the loss of Yosef. She knew that in one part of her being she wished to be another Yosef to him. She shivered. If she succeeded, would that mean that she was fated to be killed by wild beasts? Another part of her cried out to be seen for herself–a little girl who wants to explore the world beyond her grandfather’s tent. But if she does, will she be taken captive like her Aunt Dina? She felt confused. Who am I? What will be my story?
Serach could feel the box with her fingertips. She didn’t mind the dirt under her fingernails. She dug faster until she could get her whole hand around the corner of the box. She could feel the beat of her heart in her throat. She slowly opened the lid and pulled the veil out. As she laid it gently on her long dark silky hair, she felt comforted. She felt loved. She felt at peace.
Then she placed it over her face and she saw the figure of a handsome young man who had the face of her grandfather but the clothing of a very wealthy man, as if he were the ruler of a foreign country. She held her breath as she looked at his beauty. Could this be the spirit of Yosef? She knew deep in her heart that her grandfather didn’t believe Yosef was dead. She was the only person with whom he would speak of Yosef, and she had come to love him, even as she felt that he was the cause of her confinement.
She moved toward the tent opening and looked out at the desert. She saw a caravan in the distance. It was heading toward the tent. Her father and nine of her uncles were returning from Egypt. A wave of fear floated over her, and she heard her grandfather’s voice within her urging her to count the people on the camels. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Nine. There were only nine. Ten had gone down, and only nine had returned. She started to cry. Another brother had been lost. Would she be next?
"Serach and Grandfather Ya’akov"
Each morning I would visit my Grandfather Ya’akov after he had finished his prayers and had eaten a little meal to break the fast after the long night. We had to ration our food very carefully since there was a famine in the land. My father and his many brothers had left for Egypt more than a week earlier to buy some food for us, and until they returned we only had little meals with long intervals between them.
In the mornings, to pass the time, I would sit with my grandfather and he would tell me stories of my ancestors, of his mother Rivka and his father Yitzhak, of his grandparents Sarah and Avraham, and even farther back to his ancestor Noah who survived the great flood many hundreds of years ago. I would ask many questions about little details, such as what was my Great-grandmother Rivka wearing when she met Yitzhak for the first time? Who gave her the veil with which she covered her face when Yitzhak approached her? How did Grandmother Leah come to possess it? I was particularly fascinated with the veil, which my Aunt Dina first showed to me when I was very young, promising me that it would one day be mine, and which my grandfather presented to me on my seventh birthday, with my aunt’s blessing.
I became so familiar with the characters in Grandfather’s stories that I began to create dances to act them out. I would also make up songs to give voice to my ancestors of long ago. My grandfather loved to watch me dance. He would remember, or perhaps create from his own imagination, more and more details of the stories just to see how I would incorporate the new information into my dance. I would play in turn each character in a story. It was a way for me to get inside my ancestors and bring them alive for me.
My favorite scene was from the story of how my Great-grandmother Rivka drew water from the well for all of Eliezer’s camels. I loved pretending to be a camel—to imitate its slow, deliberate, undulating walk, and then to bend over as if I’m lapping up the water Rivka offers me. I would try to convey a different personality for each camel. Sometimes Grandfather would tell me more than one version of a story and then ask me to tell him which I felt to be the true version after I had danced each of them. Occasionally I would dress up using pieces of cloth that my grandfather kept in an old trunk. He would tell me the story of the cloth fragment, and I would then dance its history. Soon I began to understand the significance of inanimate objects in shaping our lives.
Grandfather and I spent many wonderful mornings in this way. During our time together my grandfather’s depression would temporarily lift. My father told me that Grandfather’s depression dated back to the day when Grandfather had sent my Uncle Yosef to seek out his brothers, a journey from which Yosef never returned. No one would tell me the story of that day or answer my questions about Uncle Yosef, except to say that he “is no more.” Although I had heard rumors that he had been killed by a wild animal, my father and uncles would not say straightforwardly that he was dead, only that “he is no more.” Mentioning his name made my uncles angry, all except Uncle Binyamin, whose eyes would fill with tears whenever I brought up the subject. But he too would turn away from me and not answer.
When I asked my grandfather to tell me a story about Yosef, he would not get angry and he would not cry, but he would become very quiet for a long while. Then, in a voice very different from his usual deep resonance, he would tell me a story about Yosef as a young boy. After he finished he would be quiet again and I would sit in silence with him, imagining the beautiful boy Yosef. I wished that he were around for me to play with. I wished that I could know him because I could see how much my grandfather loved him.
Then came the day when my father and uncles returned from Egypt for the second time. They had gone down to Egypt to get food for us. It was very early in the morning, while Grandfather was still deep in prayer and I was playing in the garden in front of his tent, when I saw the camels on the horizon, and I saw many wagons as well. I ran across the dry earth to meet them. My father saw me and got down from his camel and ran to me. He picked me up in his strong arms and swung me around so that my legs flew out. We laughed in joy at being together again. Then he became very serious and put me gently down in front of him.
“Serach,” he said almost in a whisper. “You are now quite a big girl and I have a great favor to ask of you.” I stood up a little straighter and waited for him to speak again. He was silent for a long time. I felt my heart flutter and something inside me knew that he was going to speak of Yosef and that somehow my life would never be the same.
“Serach, you have a very special relationship with your grandfather,” he finally continued. “He talks to you in ways he never talks with anyone else, and his spirit opens to you in a way that happens only with you. He is calmer with you and almost happy. We have some very important news for him, and we are afraid that if any of us were to tell him he would not survive. His heart would stop and he would expire. We want you to be the one to tell him, in your gentle way, with your song and your graceful movements."
My father paused again. He opened his mouth to speak several times, and then closed it, lowering his eyes to the earth and moving his foot in the sand in a little circle, as if to gather the courage to tell me what it was he wanted me to tell my grandfather. Finally he spoke slowly and deliberately. “We have seen your Uncle Yosef. He is alive and well, living in Egypt. He has become a great and powerful man there, and he has sent wagons to bring us all down to Egypt to live near him so we will have plenty of food for our families and our animals. Go now. Go and sing to your grandfather that his beloved Yosef is alive.”
"Serach’s Story of Yocheved’s Birth"
My most vivid memory of our journey down to Egypt is walking beside my Uncle Levi’s wife. She was very, very pregnant. She had put on a lot of weight during the pregnancy and had to walk with the help of a cane. We children had started calling her Candy—sort of a combined reference to her cane and to her custom of giving us candy whenever we happened to come into her kitchen while she was cooking dinner. As she gave the candy to us she would always say with a large grin and twinkling eyes, “I’m giving you this now so you’ll remember how much I love you, but don’t eat it until after supper.” And the remarkable fact was that we would wait to eat it.
Candy was a short woman, a full head shorter than Levi. Her hair was long and dark, and she liked to braid it with colorful ribbons threaded between and around a single thick rope of hair. That was another reason we felt Candy was the right nickname for her: her head sparkled in the sunlight like a collection of rock candies. Her disposition was sweet as well. She never got angry or impatient with us children when we came by to tell her about our latest quarrels or to ask her to explain our dreams.
When we were about halfway to Egypt Candy shared with me that she liked the nickname we had given her but that now that she was about to give birth she wanted to be called Shira. She considered herself a cheerful and upbeat person, and she was concerned that she would moan and scream during labor. She hoped the new name would help her to sing through the birth. So we made a pact. We decided that we would sing all the way to Egypt. We would sing sweet songs, not sad ones, and we would try to influence her fate.
It was an extremely hot day when we finally neared the walls of the first border settlement in Egypt. Candy—or Shira as I had begun to think of her in my mind after six days of singing—told me that she could feel her belly contracting. I offered to stop with her by the roadside to rest, but she said that she wanted to walk through the contractions. It felt more natural to her. In fact, she speeded up so I could hardly keep up with her. Her cane barely touched the earth. It was as if the baby inside of her had became lighter and was giving her extra strength and urging her forward.
Just as we got to the wall of the city, Shira said to me quietly: “It is time.” She wanted me to sing to the baby a song of emergence, just as I had sung to my Grandfather Ya’akov the revelation that Yosef was alive. My song had given Grandfather new life. Upon hearing it, he had told me the story of his other name, the name he had acquired on the way home to Canaan, the name Yisrael. Then he had said to me: “My dearest Serach, if it is really true that Yosef is still alive, may you be blessed to live forever and to witness the unfolding of our family’s story.” I kept imaging that morning with my grandfather as I sang to Shira. Less than an hour later, with the help of my songs, Yocheved was born, and I began to realize that my calling was to be a midwife to souls, both young and old.
"Serach and Aunt Dina"
Serach had always been a little intimidated by her Aunt Dina. Dina was tall and slender, with dark eyes that seemed to penetrate the depths of her soul whenever she spoke to her. Dina was not harsh. In fact, she was very gentle when she spoke. But she seemed to prefer being alone with her thoughts.
Serach could not remember a time when her aunt had ever approached her, and yet she distinctly felt that Aunt Dina liked it when she would come up to her and show her pictures she had drawn, or tell her about a new discovery she had made, or share with her a dream she had had. After the showing, telling, or sharing was over, Aunt Dina seemed to retreat into her own world again, leaving Serach to wonder about the reality of the connection she had felt with her aunt only moments before.
By the time Serach was a young woman, she had grown to love her Aunt Dina very deeply. She admired the dignity with which she carried herself. She was a little envious of how restrained Aunt Dina was in her speech. Each word she uttered seemed to carry worlds of meaning of which Serach felt she could only get a glimpse. She often felt the vibrations of the words days later, and sometimes she would suddenly grasp a level of meaning that had been hidden until then.
She, herself, loved to talk. She would go from tent to tent among her numerous uncles and aunts seeking someone who would be an audience for her latest idea or story. Her cousins were mostly younger than she, and they didn't have the patience to listen to her long narratives. The adults tolerated her and often let her accompany them as they did their chores. They would help her expand upon her ideas or elaborate on her stories.
But her favorite aunt was Dina because, although she said little, it felt like she listened with a depth that drew out of her a deeper telling than she experienced with anyone else. Over time, Dina's attentive listening inspired Serach to create paintings to accompany each new story.
Eighth Night of Hanukkah: "Zot" Hanukkah
Chana bat Shmuel
Chana and the Grove of Olive Trees
Chana's Underwater Walk
"Chana bat Shmuel"
“Connecting to the One of All Being,
sliding into and out of the shells
that support consciousness–
that is the journey we all take.
The narrow place with thick walls nurtures growth
until it reveals the constricting limits.
Boundaries that provide privacy
can become stifling encasements
that accentuate separation and isolation.
Yet, with a turn of awareness,
an elevation of perspective,
a deepening of knowing,
we can melt the too-tight walls,
crack the embryonic shell,
and emerge into a new level
of challenge and growth.”
Chana looked at her mother’s writing on the now yellowed scrap of paper that had once been a letter. She tried to call up in her mind’s eye her mother’s features, her way of moving, her loving gesture of reaching out to gently sweep Chana’s hair from her forehead–a gesture which had felt like a caress and which even now, when Chana concentrated, could evoke the sound of her mother’s voice saying, as she did each time she swept the hair aside: "Chana, let me see the fullness of your face. You are so beautiful. You are G-d’s gift to me after my time of sorrow.”
As a child, Chana did not know what her mother meant by “time of sorrow.” She didn’t know that her mother and father had great difficulty in conceiving, and that before her birth there had been numerous pregnancies that never brought forth a child. Now that she herself was possibly pregnant she sensed a new depth in her mother’s words.
"Chana and the Grove of Olive Trees"
Landscapes had always been an important part of Chana’s life. She grew up on the hillside facing Mount Meron, in an old stone house in Tzfat on the same street and a little to the south of the beautiful Abuhav synagogue. It wasn’t very far for her to walk down to the old cemetery and the tombs of the Holy Ari, Yosef Caro, and Hannah and her seven sons. There was a trail near the north end of the cemetery that led to a grove of six extremely old olive trees. They were short and had knotted broad trunks with many undulations in the bark that formed beautiful patterns of light and shade, especially when the late afternoon sun was shining on them.
One tree had an opening in its trunk that was large enough for Chana to walk through. To the southwest of this tree was an olive tree with two trunks joined about a meter above the earth forming a foundation which in its shape resembled the Hebrew letter Chet, the letter with which her name began. A unified trunk grew from the horizontal line of the Chet and then branched out in all directions a few meters above its base. In the late fall all the branches would become heavy with large black olives. The grove felt like a sacred place where no one would dare to hit the trees to harvest the olives, although, occasionally, she did notice a low branch which had been picked clean.
As a young girl she would spend many hours every week in this grove. Sometimes she would sit on the soft ground facing Meron and observe the shapes, colors, and textures of everything around her. In the winter, each time she came she discovered new plants growing under and near the trees. Sometimes she would close her eyes and wait for images to appear on the screen of her eyelids.
Chana remembered one particular day when she had received a vivid image of her grandmother walking up the trail toward her. The dark green mountain ridge was behind her grandmother. Scattered white and grey clouds were low in the sky above Mt. Meron. The edge of the sun was just emerging from behind one of the clouds so that rays of light radiated down toward the earth and seemed to cause her grandmother’s white hair to glow. The rest of her body remained a silhouette. Chana had felt suffused with warmth from her presence. Then a bird had cawed, and when Chana opened her eyes she had found that she was bathed in the light of the setting sun. Chana remembered how her eyes had filled with tears, and how, putting her face in her hands, she had cried with deep sobs from the intensity of her missing her Savta who had passed away the previous year.
"Chana’s Underwater Walk"
"Dictator of leaves, of falling olives, of tearful babies,
all is within your compass. The rhythmic
ringing of the rain on the metal roof
brings me to the present, the now of eternity,
urging me to let go of visions past and future.
How may I serve You? How gather
my scattering impulses under Your guidance?
When is enough already too much
and quietude an act of giving?
You breathe into me anew at every moment,
how can I know Your will?"
Chana was in a reflective mood. It had been raining for two weeks with only occasional times when for a few hours the clouds would hold back their treasured abundance. On some days, a thick white mist accompanied the rain and transformed the world outside into various shades of grey. Such days often led Chana’s mind into fantastical places.
Now, as she sat on a cushion by the window watching the thickening mist and listening to the patter of the rain, she imagined herself walking along the bottom of a murky lake, her bare feet deep in soft mud, shadowy amorphous plant forms surrounding her on all sides. In the space in front of her was a clear white light shining as if from a great distance and drawing her forward. Each step was filled with the sensual pleasure of her toes in the soft lake bottom, of the gentle water caressing her face and hands, and with the intellectual delight of realizing she could breathe in this underwater world. But she was most conscious of her heart being drawn toward the light and that with every step her heart felt larger and in some inexplicable way both more excited and immeasurably calm.
She began to hear music as she continued to walk forward into the light, random notes on a violin, then a more regular melody on a flute. She stopped to listen more closely, and at that moment she heard the door behind her open and her name being called. She was back by her window in Tzfat.
Coda
"Meditation on Rock and Roots"
The tree melts into the rugged rock as if it were liquid butter poured on freshly torn French bread. Its sinuous roots dance in and out of the crevices, joyously joining in delicious elegance on the variegated exposed surface only to part again into sour isolation within the hidden depths beneath the crusty underside.
I stand opposite the tree listening to the melodies it is singing to the rock and hearing harmonies emerge from the playful wanderings of root within rock. My tongue can taste sweetness in their courtship, and I wonder if there could ever be a wedding feast for two such disparate light-beings.
THE KABBALISTIC TREE OF LIFE
(Definitions assembled in ascending order by Yehudit Goldfarb)
(Definitions assembled in ascending order by Yehudit Goldfarb)
Worlds
Asiyah Behavior/action patterns in the physical dimensions of my being Lower Hey
Yetzirah Emotion/feeling patterns in the emotional dimensions of my being Vav
Beriyah Intellect//thought patterns in the intellectual dimensions of my being Upper Hey
Atzilut Motivation/intention patterns in the spiritual dimensions of my being Yod
Sefirot
Malkhut (The Breath, Shabbat): being present, centeredness, sense of sovereignty, consciousness of being breathed, grounded holiness
Yesod (Shuruk, Friday): relationship, intimacy, communication, connection, bonding, the foundation Hod (Kubutz, Thursday): splendor, empathy, refining the vision, aesthetics, ritual
Netzach (Chirik, Wednesday): sense of purpose, endurance, awareness of eternal structures, decision-making
Tiferet (Cholam, Tuesday): beauty, harmony, compassionate balancing of the limitless and the structured, surrendering to a larger all-encompassing perspective
Gevurah (Sh’va, Monday): strength and power, setting limits, honoring boundaries, making judgments
Chesed (Segol, Sunday): lovingkindness, openness, abundance, flowing expansiveness
Binah (Tzere): understanding, differentiating, analyzing, noticing the multiplicity
Chokhmah (Patach): intuitive wisdom, holistic insight, unifying vision, divine intellect
Keter (Kamatz): experiencing reality beyond ego and sense of self, awareness of the All-illuminating Eternal Now
Levels of Soul
Nefesh: appetitive functioning and awareness, creative imagination, vitality
Ruach: emotional awareness, intentionality (linking the physical and spiritual), song
Neshamah: intellect, spiritual manifestation, creative thought, inspiration
Chayah: divine integrative life force (The Living One), life-experience connected to source of Eternal Life, will to live
Yechidah: uniqueness (The Unique Single One), holographic unification with Hashem
Note: Descriptions and short movies of how to dance the movements for the nikudot (Hebrew vowel signs whose names are listed above next to their corresponding sefirot on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life) are available on my website: www.otiyot.com.
Under Otiyot Hayyot on this blog, I have copied the descriptions of how to do the Dance of the Nikudot. You can view me performing the movements for the nikudot from Keter to Malkhut in descending order on my youtube channel.
All material on this site is under copyright © Yehudit Goldfarb and may be copied only with permission from the owner.
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