Perhaps, like me, you have not been able to figure out what day it is all week. With a civic Christian hegemonic New Year holiday (Happy Gregorian!) happening on a Monday, and school and work all starting on a Tuesday (for my family), it has been hard to track.
I write this, for example, on Thursday afternoon despite Hila having a clear deadline of Thursday at noon for newsletter content. I have asked for forgiveness, and appreciate the ways that this week, Hila was able to accommodate my tardiness.
Meanwhile, in this week’s parasha, Moshe (Moses) is said to have led the sheep “beyond/after/behind the wilderness” (Shemot/Exodus 3:1). Moshe might have been one of the first documented multiverse traversers, at least according to some explanations of this confusing choice of words in the Hebrew. Thus moving outside of geography and outside of time. In this space, Moshe experiences connection with the Divine at the “burning bush.”
And in many ways, we all are traversing the multiverse.
We are here, wherever we are (I write this from Coast Salish Territory of the Duwamish Tribe), and yet we are aware of, and emotionally and spiritually traversing, events happening all over the globe at various times in various places. It is hard to hold it all. And perhaps it is here that we too might experience connection with divinity.
And so, without a complete ability to hold it all at once, but while trying, I will say that I am writing this in solidarity with the people of Japan and its diaspora as people heal and care for those injured in a shocking earthquake and mourn the dead. I am writing this in solidarity with Muslims everywhere who are reeling from the news of an Imam shot and killed, a Black man, outside his place of worship, his masjid. I am writing in solidarity with Black and disabled people everywhere who know the experience of the Rev. Dr. William Barber II, a disabled Black champion of civil rights and economic justice after being forced to leave a movie theater in North Carolina. I am writing this in solidarity with the Palestinian, Israeli, and Jewish survivors and those mourning the over 24,000 people killed in Palestine and Israel over the last three months, and those wishing for the safe and speedy return of thousands still held as hostages and in illegal detention.
I am writing this with these and more in my heart and mind as I think about this week’s torah portion where we see the rise of the Torah’s first emperor. And we see immediately how quick, how courageous, how feminine-led, and how universal the resistance to power used to divide and conquer can be. Thank G-d for these ancestors and their teachings in the face of such a world.
And, I am writing in appreciation of the time – the time that was beyond, after, and sometimes behind time – that I had the privilege and the opportunity to work with my colleague and teacher, Morgan Scherer. Here is a note from them that says more.
L’shalom – toward peace,
R’ David
I write this, for example, on Thursday afternoon despite Hila having a clear deadline of Thursday at noon for newsletter content. I have asked for forgiveness, and appreciate the ways that this week, Hila was able to accommodate my tardiness.
Meanwhile, in this week’s parasha, Moshe (Moses) is said to have led the sheep “beyond/after/behind the wilderness” (Shemot/Exodus 3:1). Moshe might have been one of the first documented multiverse traversers, at least according to some explanations of this confusing choice of words in the Hebrew. Thus moving outside of geography and outside of time. In this space, Moshe experiences connection with the Divine at the “burning bush.”
And in many ways, we all are traversing the multiverse.
We are here, wherever we are (I write this from Coast Salish Territory of the Duwamish Tribe), and yet we are aware of, and emotionally and spiritually traversing, events happening all over the globe at various times in various places. It is hard to hold it all. And perhaps it is here that we too might experience connection with divinity.
And so, without a complete ability to hold it all at once, but while trying, I will say that I am writing this in solidarity with the people of Japan and its diaspora as people heal and care for those injured in a shocking earthquake and mourn the dead. I am writing this in solidarity with Muslims everywhere who are reeling from the news of an Imam shot and killed, a Black man, outside his place of worship, his masjid. I am writing in solidarity with Black and disabled people everywhere who know the experience of the Rev. Dr. William Barber II, a disabled Black champion of civil rights and economic justice after being forced to leave a movie theater in North Carolina. I am writing this in solidarity with the Palestinian, Israeli, and Jewish survivors and those mourning the over 24,000 people killed in Palestine and Israel over the last three months, and those wishing for the safe and speedy return of thousands still held as hostages and in illegal detention.
I am writing this with these and more in my heart and mind as I think about this week’s torah portion where we see the rise of the Torah’s first emperor. And we see immediately how quick, how courageous, how feminine-led, and how universal the resistance to power used to divide and conquer can be. Thank G-d for these ancestors and their teachings in the face of such a world.
And, I am writing in appreciation of the time – the time that was beyond, after, and sometimes behind time – that I had the privilege and the opportunity to work with my colleague and teacher, Morgan Scherer. Here is a note from them that says more.
L’shalom – toward peace,
R’ David
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