Acknowledging our Blessings, Even in Hard Times

These last couple of weeks have continued to be filled with dizzying news stories: videos of bloodied female IDF soldiers being taunted by Hamas, truly horrifying images and accounts out of a refugee camp in Rafah, and now of course a verdict in the Trump trial. Recently, a number of Kavana community members have asked me some version of how I am managing, on a personal level, through this intense and difficult time. I have typically answered that I'm acutely aware of the gap between how the world feels (like a great big dumpster fire, most days!) and what others elsewhere are experiencing, and my own personal life here in Seattle (where it's springtime, I have a job I love, my family is doing well, etc.). 

The truth, though, is that it takes work to stay grounded even (and most especially) when things around us feel so hard. One of the primary "spiritual technologies" we Jews have at our disposal is the tool of gratitude: the art of noticing and uplifting the small blessings that otherwise we might easily take for granted. Doing so gives us the fortitude to deal with the hard stuff.

This week's Torah portion, Bechukotai, is famously filled with both blessings and curses. The set-up is pretty straightforward. "If you follow My laws and faithfully observe My commandments," says God, these blessings will follow; "but if you do not obey Me... if you reject My laws and spurn My rules..., I in turn will do this to you" (here's a link to the text of the parasha, beginning with Leviticus 26:3). I will note, as an aside, that I have never really bought into the reward and punishment theology of the Torah, at least not literally. I know all too well that "bad things can happen to good people" (as Harold Kushner framed it) and that good things can happen to bad people; this feels particularly obvious in wartime. I do see that actions have consequences (at times, it's clear how outcomes do stem from human decisions/ behavior), but sometimes life simply feels random. This line of theological questions is probably a much bigger topic for another day, but for now at least, I can offer assurance that in rejecting a literal reading of Bechukotai, I am part of a long line of Jewish commentators and thinkers who have struggled with the concept of Divine reward and punishment in Judaism's core texts.

That said, the blessings enumerated by the parasha do ring true to me as blessings. The first of these reads (Lev. 26:4):

וְנָתַתִּ֥י גִשְׁמֵיכֶ֖ם בְּעִתָּ֑ם וְנָתְנָ֤ה הָאָ֙רֶץ֙ יְבוּלָ֔הּ וְעֵ֥ץ הַשָּׂדֶ֖ה יִתֵּ֥ן פִּרְיֽוֹ׃

I will grant your rains in their season, so that the earth shall yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit.

According to our parasha, the produce of the earth and the fruit of the tree are prime examples of blessings. These are, of course, a basic building block of human life; without the earth bearing food, none of us could continue to live for very long. The Torah reminds us that we cannot take our food for granted. As an illustration of this, later in the same chapter (in Lev. 26:20), the text states the inverse in its list of curses: "Your land shall not yield its produce, nor shall the trees of the land yield their fruit." Our world is so filled with harsh realities, that there is always a very real possibility that things will not turn out well, that we will not always be able to reap our harvest. Parashat Bechukotai's blessings and curses remind us of the precariousness of life, and how fortunate we are to have what we do.

No one says this more eloquently, in my mind, than poet Marge Piercy. In her poem entitled "The Art of Blessing the Day," this is precisely the message that comes through in her stanza about a ripe peach (and if you like this verse of the poem, I cordially invite you to click here to read it in its entirety):

This is the blessing for a ripe peach: 

This is luck made round. Frost can nip 

the blossom, kill the bee. It can drop, 

a hard green useless nut. Brown fungus, 

the burrowing worm that coils in rot can 

blemish it and wind crush it on the ground. 

Yet this peach fills my mouth with juicy sun.

As Piercy is keenly aware, every single juicy peach -- every piece of fruit, every morsel of food that comes into our hands -- is the happy ending of a success story, and deserves to be received as a gift. To accept it as such -- even and most especially while acknowledging all that could have gone wrong, and just how easily things could have turned out otherwise -- is to live life inside "the art of blessing," that is, with a posture of gratitude.  

This time of year, I find it relatively easy to feel aligned with the spiritual practice of blessing food and understanding food as a blessing. Yesterday happened to be the first Queen Anne Farmers Market of the season. I walked from my office to the market in the late afternoon; after a cloudy morning, the sun had just come out in full force; produce stands were filled with neat rows of asparagus and garlic scapes, beets and strawberries. Surrounded by this bounty, and by so many people out to appreciate it and partake of it, I felt so deeply fortunate! (Incidentally, I will also mention that I think it's pretty cool that the agricultural growing cycle of the Pacific Northwest matches the growing cycle that the Torah has in mind. Both here and in the land of Israel, a rainy season is just coming to an end; in both places, the bounty of summer harvest is just beginning. The Jewish calendar markers of first fruits/bikkurim at Shavuot and the end of the harvest season at Sukkot also happen to correspond quite neatly to my beloved seasonal Queen Anne Farmers Market, which runs weekly from late May to mid-October.)

Returning to the bigger frame, I feel myself to be living inside such a sharp contrast, with a keen awareness of both the blessings and curses of this moment, of what I have and what others do not. I walk home from the market, feeling the weight of the fruits and veggies I'm carrying in my bag, while thinking about the suspension of operations at the Gaza pier and the debates over the Rafah border crossing, both of which have big implications for how much food aid will be distributed and consumed in Gaza (where of course very little harvest can be reaped this season). My gratitude for the blessings of my life, both large and small, catalyzes empathy within me, and a desire to contribute whatever I can from my corner of the world, as we continue to move through such difficult times.

Shabbat Shalom, 

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum