I stood at the edge of the northernmost point of Mission Peninsula, a finger reaching out into Lake Michigan. The day was bright and a cool breeze tossed refreshed the moment and the small waves at the shoreline beckoned me to get my feet wet. The distant laughter and chatter of tourists at the lighthouse made me realize that the world spins and life goes on even when one person’s day has just gone all wrong and human aberrations still dominate religion. The breeze moved the trees and the water and the sky in it’s iridescent blue framed the day. But I knew something was wrong. After all this was Yom Kippur and my husband and I had just left the local synagogue group to find a place to relax for a couple of hours and decide if we would return or if we would write off the whole mess. We still were shaking inwardly at the thought that the rabbi and his “partner” were homosexuals. And this rabbi (though I feel he does not deserve the title) had invited his “father in law,” an Anglican minister to give the sermon on the holiest day of the year. A day when congregants seek forgiveness of sin and assurance of a good new year. What absurdity! And all the preparation of the month before in examining our souls for repentance and cleansing on this great day, now seemed about as important as the laughing crowd down the beach. A willow tree swung its weeping branches across my vision and I realized that the Creator might just express things better in nature than in these hunks of twisted humanity that fit nowhere and yet assume the position of a pulpit to lead G-d’s people!

The black sand got all over my shoes but I didn’t care. I stood there wishing I could plunge beneath the gentle waves and cleanse my soul, and in a way it was a better service than the one we just left. Let nature speak to me, for what do the lies of mankind matter? Dressed in white and wishing for something that would help us enjoy the day, we felt nauseous after what we had gone through in the morning. We had said nothing about our thoughts to anyone at the synagogue. We actually did not realize the significance of the scene before us until after the sermon, when the minister remarked in his parting words. “Yes, G-d sees things differently than we do! My son married a rabbi, who wanted a hog roast for his wedding reception!” And that is when we knew. As we walked out of the foyer one of the chatty older women asked us how we liked it. We asked her if the rabbi was really a homosexual, and she replied; “oh yes, and isn’t he wonderful?” and I wanted to vomit and to scream. But we quietly left to drive up to the beach and get away from it all. Driving is something we do not usually do on Holy Days, yet at this moment, it was a better choice of mitzvah. And now we were at the beach, but the light and meaningless chatter behind us reminded us that we share a world with the careless and that even there, we would not find the needed consolation.

Who decides what is right and what is wrong when there are few fundamental principles that are engraved, as it were in stone, set up as a basis for eternal judgment? Has mankind progressed to such an extent that he no longer needs a guide as archaic as the ten commandments? When the ancient wisdom handed down from a loving Creator is no longer deemed viable for a world that bases its truth on relativity and adaptation, where, I ask will we end up? Religious fundamentalists infer that the world’s horrific natural events stem from its defiance of the laws established by the Creator are mocked and derided and they go into their closets and end up keeping their mouths shut.

Society’s liberal laws protect from judgment those who debase themselves and foster unnatural affection, burning in lust for that which mankind was never created. And those who show a disregard for this society run the risk of lawsuits and jail time and the hatred of the mob for inferring that what they do is not right.

Religions, to show their progressive acceptance of society’s abrogations of the fundamental rules of the Bible, hire clergy who are anything but examples of truth and piety. Instead of helping these abnormal souls, lost in a world of disobedience and sin and defiance of the G-d of Heaven, it is as if, society and its misplaced compassion for those that practice evil, find an excuse to spit in the face of the Almighty. These mixed-up creatures need someone to lead them to repent and return to the ONE who made them, but instead, churches embrace them not only as normal but as special people who are fit to lead others in the observance of that which once was about G-d and his desires for mankind. They are esteemed as examples of that which can lead the masses to follow more closely the divine plan. And the congregants love them and boast: “Look how we have progressed!” And all heaven shudders as G-d positions himself to raise up off his holy throne and declare war on a world gone mad.

Who among the sons of man will stand in awe of the holiness of G-d’s name and declare the separation of the children of light from the children of darkness? Who will draw the line in the sand and ask “who is on the LORD’s side?” Who will insist that those of clear and untainted conscience step over into the safety of the few who attach themselves to the eternal precepts of G-d’s word?

The world of religion, where not fully aligned with the agenda of evil, is weak. Fear of loss of worldly comfort keeps many from speaking out and they go along to get along and the world tolerates and reels to and fro as the drunken orgy of wickedness leads those who once dedicated themselves to the truth to follow weakly along, embracing that which G-d hates. There is little faith and little hope in mankind and the world cries under Heaven’s hand as hurricane after hurricane hits the vulnerable planet and fires burn as if added fuel has been added to devastate great parts of the earth. And this will happen until somebody gets the idea that the evil must be stopped. Who will stop this nonsense and return us to a humble religion of piety and regard for the Creator who made us? Or has society gone so far that there is no return? Can a kingdom of peace be established when war is not made with sin? Light was the first thing created by G-d at the beginning. The very next thing that G-d did was to separate the Light from the darkness. But man continues to say that his ways are better and that light can exist within darkness. It is only the mind of rebellion that tries to mix darkness and light. There is NO middle ground no place for mixture. Until light stands alone to reveal the darkness for what it is, there will be no change and the world careens towards an abyss that buries the light in indifference and unwillingness to stand. The end of all things may well be just around the corner UNLESS…

Shabbat. I pull on a hoodie and tie my tennis shoes, pop out the door and head for the water front.

Down to the boardwalk, across several docks, the ocean and the plaintive call of seagulls calling to me to look out upon the open water, out over the rocky jetty on the other side where the water is dark gray green, sullen and deep. The water seems to have a soul. It cries to me, touching a torrent of tears in my heart. Tears for things I do not even understand. I feel down to the very bottom, wherever that is.

Is it 20 feet deep here? I feel myself pulled as if by a supernatural force—pulled towards the depths, desiring to be there and yet my brain tells me that I can’t breathe down there. What is it about deep water that calls to my soul? My thoughts play before me as an old tape unreels before my mind. I am standing on another dock’ alongside the lock in Seattle where giant boats pass into a harbor. I am four years old. Drippy rain, damp slippery wood, the salty smell of seaweed, barnacles encrusting rocks and metal, slime and rotting fish, the suffocating smell of motor exhaust billowing from behind immense gray ships—I look down at the gushing water over the edge of the boardwalk where I am standing not ten inches away. I tremble as it pulls me. I feel I am falling and I envision myself pulled inside its depths, down down in to the cold murky silence. I close my mouth against a silent scream. My mother notices my panic and takes my hand. She leads me to where my father stands by a guard rail watching the giant vessels pass through the canal. We watch as immense concrete doors mechanically open while the water drops 50 feet in less than a minute, or surges up at the same rate when the doors close. Some man up in a tower is pushing a magic button to a machine that makes the world do strange things. Things a child could never imagine.

Birth trauma, that’s what the psychologists called it. But I wonder as more than fifty years have passed and water still has the same effect on me. Giant green breakers crash on the beach, turning to innocuous white foam in a matter of seconds. Unharnessed power shattered in an instant and revealed again in the next wave. Yet the shore has been commanded to hold back the tide. Oceans of furious water remain bound by their preordained limits. What if the Eternal slept? What if the Power that binds the Universe was released? We trust, sometimes we take for granted that we will always be here doing what we have always done. But we do not know tomorrow’s tide, not for a fact, we can only presume that tomorrow will be like today and continue ad infinitum. And we go on in our ways, racing against time to amass the material, experience the temporal—heaping up money, houses, and gadgets. Rarely do we take time to breathe and ponder, to open our minds. Do we ever stop along life’s boardwalk to peer into the murky depths and ask; who am I? Why am I?

The windswept beach created an uneasy feeling in my heart as I walked and tightened the belt of my trench coat. It was July fifth and the Pacific Ocean shore was chilly–not the most welcome weather for a summer Shabbat. It was as if the very atmosphere felt my indecision—I asked the Eternal what was the direction of my life and where I would go after three months alone at the ocean?.

I fought the temptation to anxiety,  I prayed and blessed the Creator and walked farther. Shabbat was not a day to struggle with G-d. And I tried to let it all go and to realize that His Hand would guide me in my future no matter which path I should take. Long blades of gray green grass and sage waved along the path, clumps of daisies here and there nodded as in the distance summer vagabonds plied the waters with their surfboards. I turned from the huge rocks along the beach and walked again. I stopped.

“Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokenu…Hashem Echad.”  I felt lighter, but still there was a slight burden on my heart as I started back on the paved bicycle path towards my RV. Where was my destination? What was my purpose? What was my next turn? I had not managed to afford the move to an observant Jewish community, something I felt I should do. I shrugged as I admitted to myself that it was something I had only halfheartedly tried to do. It seemed I needed someone to reach out to me and hang onto me. It was not easy to abandon everything and go for an unknown purpose when it seemed that doors were either shut or that I must force myself into a situation which was not at all familiar to me. I carried these thoughts as I neared the end of the trail.

Suddenly something coaxed my eyes up to the sky. Above me I saw the Hebrew letter Shin formed by a soft fluffy cloud. I knew what it meant. Shin is the letter that is written on my Mezuzah. Shin begins one of the names of G-d, El Shaddai. It signifies provision and protection. Joy sprung from my soul and I blessed Hashem! I took this to be his promise that he would be with me in the unknown and forbidding future that seemed to engulf my days in worry and uncertainty. The cloud formation stayed above me for more than 15 minutes as I finished my walk. I knew that G-d was with me. I knew then that I could walk whatever path I was called to walk. And that the Shin was shown to me to remind me of his caring and provision for me no matter where I would be called to go, even to an unknown land. And I remembered “Lech Lecha” the words of G-d to my father Abraham, and the Parsha which I chose for my adult Bat Mitzvah in the fall of 2009, a journey to a land that was still unrevealed to him and now to me.

And thus it has been…

I Shall not Want

What does it mean, “I shall not want”? Most of us pass through life longing for success: money, fame or popularity, seemingly never satisfied, continually thinking that we are somehow imperfect because we have not achieved a higher status than someone else we know or perhaps because we have not basked in the applause of the masses. Our self-image is often less than good and we tend to believe that somehow if we can make others love us it will help to bolster us in our own eyes. But is this true? Is this reality? I have noticed that much too frequently, some Hollywood star, rich and famous, ends his or her life when he senses a decline in his achievements or popularity. Why? If money opens doors to anything the heart desires, why fall into despair? People often make money their sole means of success. When we are not satisfied with the things life provides and when we think that somehow the whole ballgame depends on our worthiness in the eyes of humanity, it is easy to see money as the medium through which we can achieve the power or status we crave. When there is no money, there is often no hope. Rich and poor long for money, thinking it is the answer to their gnawing poverty, whether materially or in the world of human acceptance. The rich frequently deem the poor as stupid or lazy. I think we need to understand the phrase: “I shall not want”.

When I cannot do anything about my situation—trapped in some difficulty, painted into a corner from which I cannot move—I can have perfect confidence that my life is worthwhile, that G-d will provide a way to supply my needs and open doors of opportunity. When life binds me about with illness or financial loss, I will perceive that G-d is still there. Can I raise my face to heaven and thank G-d for my situation? Can we allow others to care for us and not despise our situation? Or do we worry that others may look down on us?

I know some of this only too well. Despair is a little demon that raises its ugly head when it seems we are bound with shackles that make it impossible to work to sustain our lives. The economy in our world does not provide adequately for those whom it deems less than useful. It is a common lie that broken people want to be dependent on what others provide. On the contrary, many of the unfortunate feel unworthy to be a part of society because they cannot give in a way that society deems worthwhile. Few among the wealthy have ever considered that the poor are in the world as a test.

Some of us experienced the devastating and corrosive influence of Naziism with its desire to destroy those who were not deemed useful to society. Can we see what it did to our world in the last century? Do we realize that those same evil seeds are deeply planted in almost every human soul? We want a world that presents no obstacles to our personal success and growth. We feel we do not need the poor and that they are, frankly speaking, dangerous to our lives. Maybe we don’t realize that this attitude serves the g-d of mammon and self. These evil seeds and their devastating influence on our world must be eradicated before society will turn its swords into plowshares! I shall not want—I wonder if that is another way of saying “thou shalt not covet?”

Often when things seem dark, we realize that the hand of G-d has brought us into the shadow of death. When it is painfully clear that our suffering is in line with his purpose, we must daily commit our spirits into His hand in order to escape despair. Hashem brings the trouble and he brings the cure. He brings the tempest so that he may be the Rock of our Refuge. It may seem counter-intuitive to most, but suffering, if understood correctly, teaches us to trust G_d and allow ourselves to depend fully upon him.

Does it mean that I have to stop wishing for what I cannot have? –that I will be happy with what my Creator provides through opportunities, inspiration, health, energy, finances, friends hopes and dreams? He is my Shepherd, so where he leads me there WILL be enough pasture to lie down in and provision for my daily needs.