Love and Limitation: Offering Blessings

As we come to the end of June, many things are winding down: the school year, various programs and classes.  After this year of uncertainty and disruption, it feels good to have some rhythms remain.  It also feels good to mark these endings with an intentional act and one way to do so is to give a blessing.  May your summer be filled with joy and renewal.  May the memories of our time together continue to enrich and inspire you.  May you be ever more aware of the amazing abundance of the summertime.

One of the things that came to an end for me this month was a fellowship in the Jewish Pedagogy Circle through M2: the Institute for Experiential Jewish Education.  With the support of a fantastically talented cohort of educators, I explored what it really means to offer a blessing and I want to share with you some of what I discovered.

Here is the heart of the matter:  Endings, even desired or small endings, are losses.  They are connected even tangentially to other losses and to all the uncertainty and anxiety and difficulties we are facing.  From a spiritual perspective, one of the best ways we can work through these things and bring greater healing to each other and the larger world is by cultivating our capacity for ahavah (love) and yirah (awe). 

Ahavah helps us really internalize how interconnected we are and gives us the tools to reach out more skillfully towards one another.  Yirah helps us to see the biggest perspective and to accept with greater peace and wisdom the things that we are powerless to change.  Yirah is often a little trickier than ahavah, especially for Jews, because we have experienced such violence and suffering in our powerlessness.  But still, as every spiritual tradition will affirm, an acceptance of our own limits can be a liberating and, as R. Nahman of Breslov teaches, even a joyful experience.

But ahavah and yirah can be overwhelming; how do we even start?  My suggestion is the practice of offering blessings to people.   A blessing is the articulation of a deep desire for another’s well-being (which is an expression of ahavah) wrapped in a formulation that implicitly acknowledges that the fulfillment of that desire is not in our hands but rather far beyond. (This is an experience of yirah.)  When I say a blessing, I can feel both the love and care within me for the person I am blessing and also a sense of my own smallness.  I can’t make someone else’s summer joyful and restorative or promise that the memories of our time together will continue to be a source of inspiration.  But I do hope for those things for myself and for others. 

And blessing people is really fun.  It is a delight to connect in with my good wishes for others and to see their face light up upon receiving that desire for their well-being.  I find that the words don’t matter so much.  The feeling is what counts. 

So I want to invite you into the practice of blessings others.  And may your summer be filled with ease and good health.  May you enjoy the delicious fruits of the season.  May you connect with those you love the most.  May we each contribute in our own way to the healing of our world.

(And for those of you who are interested in the pedagogical implications, as well as what my amazing cohort at M2 worked on, there will be a symposium featuring our work on September 1.  Let me know and I will send you the information about it.)