Grief and Gratitude
What we see when we look at a picture depends so much on its framing. Often the snapshot of this week’s Torah portion, Toldot, is framed as a story of sibling rivalry. The twins Jacob and Esau struggle with each other in the womb, each one becomes the favorite of one parent but not the other, Jacob cheats Esau, Esau plots murder in revenge, and eventually Jacob flees. The picture we see here is grim, frustrating, and painful.
In a week that holds remembered tragedy (Nov. 20 was National Transgender Day of Remembrance) and present tragedy from yet another shooting, this time targeting LGBTQ+ community in Colorado Springs, this Torah portion tires me. I don’t want to read about more manipulation and violence. My heart yearns for images of a better world.
And yet, there is another frame to the Torah story. Rabbi Elie Kaunfer notes that the word “bless” appears 32 times in Toldot, more than in any other parashah. What if this is a story about blessing, rather than a story about conflict? What if - in the face of hate and violence - we can keep naming the full range of gender and sexuality as blessing, holding each other with care and admiration?
This week Americans observe Thanksgiving, a holiday whose title frames it in one way as a much needed moment of rest, connection, and gratitude; and whose history reveals an uglier story of conflict, manipulation, violence, and oppression. Much like our Torah portion, our experience of this week will be filtered through our interpretive frame.
If we can hold the tension of multiple frames, we might be able to both deepen our gratitude for what is good and nourishing, and sharpen our criticism of what is broken and needs repair.
Rabbi Marcia Prager, in her book The Path of Blessing, offers some beautiful insights into the function of a blessing, or brakha.
Jewish tradition teaches that the simple action of a brakha has a cosmic effect, for a brakha causes shefa, the “abundant flow” of God’s love and goodness, to pour into the world. Lake a hand on the faucet, each brakha turns on the tap…
A brakha completes our energy-exchange with God. We are partners in a sacred cycle of giving and receiving in which we are not only “on the take.” When we offer our blessings, we raise up sparks of holiness, releasing the God-light housed in our world back to its source…
Imagine if at every moment we each embraced the world as the gift it is: An apple is a gift, the color pink is a gift; the blue sky is a gift; the scent of honeysuckle is a gift. Hidden in every experience is a gift, obligating us to heart-filled appreciation, to songs of gratitude.
We are called not merely to notice casually now and then that something is special and nice but to sustain and deepen a profound and sustained gratitude. Indeed, the more we acknowledge our gratefulness, the more we temper our tendency to be users, despoilers, arrogant occupiers…
With our brakha we participate in the flow of divinity in the world.
Rabbi Prager teaches that from a place of gratitude, we are less likely to cause harm. One additional blessing feels needed here, from Rabbi Denise L. Eger, in Mishkan Ga’avah: Where Pride Dwells:
Bless those who need healing from their wounds - a healing of spirit, and a healing of body. And teach us, Source of the universe, to be messengers in this world of justice, truth, love, love, love, love, and love.
May you move through this week with love and blessing, and may gratitude be a trusty guide.
Rabbi Jay LeVine
