Month: October 2017

How to Be a Blessing

Esther Goldenberg

Earlier this week I had an assignment in a class I’m taking to list 100 things I’m grateful for. This was easy for me. When it comes to counting my blessings, I can outlast the Energizer Bunny.

This particular list ranged from clean air, fresh water, and a safe home, to dancing in the car, matching socks, and peanut butter and pickle sandwiches. (Don’t yuck somebody else’s yum. If you try it, you’ll thank me.)

I count my blessings early and often, and I highly recommend it.

Today I want to look at the question:

How can a person BE a blessing?

This week’s Torah portion begins with God telling Avram (later named Abraham) to leave his land, his birthplace, and his father’s house and go to a land that God will show him. God continues by telling Avram:

“I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you. Those who curse you, I will curse, and you (will) be a blessing”

After that, Avram packs up all his possessions, tangible and intangible, takes his wife and his nephew, and they’re off. Thus begins an epic journey that lasts for decades and includes things like…

Avram pimping his wife out to a pharaoh and agreeing to banish a woman pregnant with his child into the wilderness. And let’s not forget that time he took his son to the top of a mountain, bound him to an alter, and raised his knife to kill him.

This guy is a blessing?

To be fair, I only listed his transgressions. He also was known for his hospitality, his fairness in battle, and persuading God not to destroy innocent people along with guilty. And monotheism. But still. I mean, really. Still.

So I’ve been looking at this question: What does it mean to be a blessing? And how do we go about doing it? I’ve come up with two steps, but I’d love to hear your thoughts.

1. Be

2. Be

I know those look the same, but let me break it down.

Let’s start at an easy place. If you’re a parent, you likely feel that your child is a blessing. Though you might be biased here, you’re probably not wrong. At the very least, they’re a blessing to you, right? I mean, vomit and carpool and heartache and all… still a blessing.

I think using a child as an example, whether you’re a parent or not, helps illustrate that the first part of being a blessing is just to be. That’s all. Exist. Each one of us is a miracle, and if a miracle isn’t a blessing, I don’t know what is. By our mere presence we all contribute something unique to the whole.

So, thing one: Be.

Now, let’s assume you’re doing the best you can, because that is all we’re ever doing, really: the best we can in each moment under each set of circumstances. And let’s assume that we’re falling short of perfection, because perfection is an unattainable and inappropriate goal. So let’s assume we’re making “mistakes” as we go along. Hopefully not as egregious as some of Avram’s bigger ones, though the truth is, there are many people in the world doing worse right now.

I don’t excuse or condone dangerous, harmful, hurtful, acts. Of course not. But I do think that it’s possible to be a blessing, even under such circumstances – just as Avram was. And that brings me to the second Be.

I think the second Be is to let others see you being. A different way to say it might be: don’t hide. Be an example. Live loud and proud. Let others see you. The good, the bad, and even the ugly. You never know how someone else might grow from it.

The Torah is filled with stories of real humanity: triumphs and failures. Both. Untold generations have learned from the examples that Avram set. Learned what to do, and what not to do.

In my opinion, that is a blessing.

So, how to be a blessing in two simple steps?

1. Be

2. Be

The first one is easy, the second one… not as easy. Not all dirty laundry needs to be aired all the time. But letting others see us Be is a blessing. When I count the blessings in my life, I count clean air and water and a safe home, but I also count many people; I bet you do, too. And not a single one of those people is perfect. I count them even though their actions have sometimes been less than stellar – sometimes because of that.

I’m going to go make myself a peanut butter and pickle sandwich and thank some of those people for being blessings in my life. Now that you know about this delicious snack, you can, too. Let me know how it goes.

The stories on this website are a selection of the stories compiled into A Story Every Week (Three Gems Publishing, Sept. 2018). Sign up here to get notification when the book is released. It will be free for the first few days of publication.

How long can you wait to become great?

Esther Goldenberg

Did you hear the story about the dog and the elephant who became pregnant on the same day? Three months later, the dog gave birth to six adorable puppies. When those puppies were three months old, the dog became pregnant for a second time, and three months after that, she gave birth again.

Nine months after the day that the dog and the elephant both became pregnant, the dog was the mother of twelve adorable puppies. Some were older and full of energy and learning to play and work together. Some were brand new, needing her all the time, with eyes still closed. When those brand new puppies were three months old, the mother became pregnant again.

This pattern continued for eighteen months. By that time, the dog had two dozen furry, friendly offspring. She was happy and proud and surrounded by loved ones. She felt good. And also a bit unsure about what was going on with the elephant who had conceived on the same day.

So the dog approached the elephant and said, “Are you sure you’re pregnant? We conceived on the same day. I’ve given birth to two dozen beautiful, wonderful, warm and loving puppies, many of whom have grown to become dogs already. And you are still pregnant. What is going on?”

Before I tell you what happened next, I want to ask you:

DO YOU THINK A DOG AND AN ELEPHANT WERE REALLY TALKING TO EACH OTHER? HAVE YOU EVER HAD TO WAIT A REALLY LONG TIME FOR SOMETHING?

In this week’s Torah portion, we read about Noah and the Ark. Remember that song, Rise and Shine?

The Lord said to Noah, there’s gonna be a floody, floody…

Anyway, God told Noah there was going to be a flood to destroy everything. God was fed up with people and animals. They all had to go. Except for Noah, who was a righteous and pure man in his generation (so, like, compared to everyone else…). Noah and his wife and their three sons and daughters-in-law would survive on the ark, and so would representatives of all the animals.

The animals they came on, they came on by two-sies, two-sies…

And when all were aboard who were going aboard, the flood began. “All the fountains of the great deep burst apart, and the floodgates of the sky broke open. It rained on the earth for forty days and forty nights.”

Or if you prefer:

It rained and poured for forty days-ies, days-ies…

Forty days after the rain began to fall, it stopped.

Do you know what else happened for forty days? When Moses went up on Mount Sinai, he was there for forty days and forty nights. Remember Jonah who got swallowed by the whale? After the whale spit him out, Jonah spent 40 days warning the people of Ninveh that they needed to change their ways so their city would be saved. And of course the Children of Israel were in the desert for 40 years after leaving Egypt.

It’s possible that in the Bible, the number forty means forty. But it’s also possible that it means a

REALLY

LONG

TIME.

At the end of each of these really long periods of time, something really big happened. The city of Ninveh was spared. Moses got the Ten Commandments (both times). The Israelites finally arrived at the promised land. And with Noah: the flood destroying the world stopped and he could begin anew.

And as for that elephant who was still pregnant a really long time after she conceived, this is what she told the dog: “What I have in here is not a puppy, it is an elephant. It takes nearly two years for it to grow. When my baby hits the ground, the earth feels it. When my baby stands in the road, people stop and watch in admiration. What I am carrying is mighty and great and draws attention.”

Did an elephant really say that to a dog? Did the animals really board the ark two by two?

Either way, both these stories are a reminder, at least to me, that big changes are preceded by a period of discomfort that can feel like it lasts for a

REALLY
LONG
TIME.

Sometimes we really want to move things along. Get those puppies out into the world already. But it’s not always puppies. That time is necessary in order to arrive at the post-flood, received-the-commandments, saved-the-city, arrived-at-the-promised-land, birthed-a-creation-that-shook-the-earth new version of you. And that is always worth waiting for.

 

The stories on this website are a selection of the stories compiled into A Story Every Week (Three Gems Publishing, Sept. 2018). Sign up here to get notification when the book is released. It will be free for the first few days of publication.

I don’t get it

Esther Goldenberg

The day I learned how to make cow’s udder kosher was the day that I quit my Talmud class. I understand the challenge: can’t mix milk and meat, there’s both in the udder…. But I couldn’t take it. I just couldn’t spend time on such a question.

My attitude was: I don’t get it and I don’t like it.

What does this have to do with me? What does this have to do with life now? Why should I learn this? Where’s the connection?

But then I took this Torah class. And you might think that I’d find less connection with something even older and seemingly more removed. But I found more connection there. A lot more.

That semester we spent several months just studying the very first Torah portion: B’rayshit. That’s this week’s portion. There is SO much in there! The creation of…. everything! Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, the snake! There’s so much to explore. We studied it for much more than a week.

It was in that class that I first learned what *really* happened with the forbidden fruit: Adam had been there while Eve was being talked into the fruit. I had never pictured him right there for that. I mean, after the fact he blames Eve — actually, he blames God and Eve — for his eating of the fruit. I thought he’d been tricked. No, he was there. It says so right in the Torah text, plain as day.

This opens up so many real-world, contemporary issues. Like accountability for your own actions. Like a tendency to blame others for your choices. (Okay… that’s kind of the same thing, but not completely.) Like how stories get told and remembered and passed on. By that I mean the not-exactly-what-God-said story that Adam presumably told Eve about the eating/not eating of the fruit, in addition to the story that we perpetuate about him having been duped, as well as the stories we tell about ourselves and others these days.

The first time I learned the Hebrew word ah-room (and ah-roomim, which is the plural) was when I was studying B’rayshit. It was another eye opener for me. The word comes up a few times in a row:

Just after Eve is created from Adam’s side: “And the two of them were ah-roomim, the man and his woman, and they weren’t ashamed.”

Very next verse: “Now the snake was the most ah-room of all the animals of the field that God had created…”

Right after they ate the fruit: “Their eyes were opened and they realized that they were ah-roomim….”

There are two more instances of ah-room/ah-roomim while still in the garden.

So why is this word translated as conniving when referring to the snake, but as naked when referring to Adam and Eve? It’s the same word. And by the way, next week we’ll read that Noah’s son uncovered his father’s nakedness after he (Noah) got drunk. The word there isn’t ah-room, it’s ervah. So…

What does this mean?

It’s too much to contain within just a few paragraphs. Not to mention the accountability question and all the other happenings in B’rayshit: creation of the world, of humans…. being banished from the Garden of Eden. Cain and Abel and Seth (remember Seth? Adam and Eve’s third son?)…. This Torah portion has so many things to explore!

I would love to explore those things with you!

If you’re interested in learning more about what’s in B’rayshit, I invite you to study it with me on line for one month. We’ll be examining the ah-room question and lots of other intriguing bits up close and in depth. Lots of conversation, lots of learning, lots of discovery.

Email me for details. I can’t wait to dive into this Torah portion together!