One, One, One

If you ever had the opportunity to sit in heartfelt conversation or consultation with Rabbi Wayne, you know he had a remarkable ability to listen deeply, and receive your inner truths with profound respect and grace. He was a great listener, and we always felt absolutely heard, honored, and loved in our sharing. He gave us the gift of his open presence. 

Once again this month, Rabbi Wayne hears the depths of where we are at, and is ready to receive and respond with gentleness and wisdom, lovely stories and clear reminders of Who we can be.

No matter how tired he was in the last weeks of his life, Rabbi Wayne was ever-striving, and succeeded in writing almost all of this just before he passed — one year ago. I know he would have fiddled and played with it over and again, before deciding it was complete (for now), but never had the chance. 

Because it was this piece, even in its semi-raw state, that he wished us to have this month, I took the liberty to very lightly edit it — so if it is not completely filled with Rabbi Wayne’s gracefully soaring writing, I offer you my apologies and ask his and your forgiveness. 

At this one-year anniversary of Rabbi’s passing, please know how grateful I am to each of you for walking with me through the most difficult year I have known, and for continuing to desire his teachings and wisdoms, his Light and his Love. 

Ellen, continuing the work of the Elijah Minyan

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The Pomegranate

What is stopping us from radical loving? 

What is stopping us from seeing the Face of God?  

What is stopping us from seeing God in the face of every human being? 

What is stopping us from making the life of another as precious as our own?

What is stopping us from building a world of unity, of love, of Oneness? 

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”  

“Vanity will set a crown upon its own head and wonder why all men do not rush to acknowledge it king. It will bray like an ass and imagine itself singing in a grand opera.”  

We are blinded by our own egos. We are “puffed up” by our own perceived power. We become “legends in our own minds.” We think that we can bend the universe to our own will. 

We forget that it is God — and God alone — who has set out the Divine Design for our lives. And we know that God loves us all equally, and respects and celebrates the myriad ways we have conceived to be in the Holy Presence.

An old story:

Four great sages went to Paradise to be in intimate connection with God.

The Light emanating from God was so bright, so incredible, that one of the sages died. Another sage went mad. The third became a heretic, a non-believer. Only one sage was so great that he emerged from the Divine Presence whole and whole-hearted.

From that time on, the one who had become a non-believer— even though he had previously been a highly respected teacher and decider of the law — was called “The Other,” for he had separated himself from the community.

Even in the Heavens, when God, GodSelf, reviewed the decisions of the Earthly sages, God would not speak the teachings of “The Other” for, by becoming a heretic, he had given up his place in the halls of learning, rendered his pronouncements moot, forfeited his place as a spokesman of God, and even lost his identity — the name by which he was known on Earth. 

Yet, “The Other’s” disciple, a man named Meir, still respected and honored his teacher, and continued to quote him and his teachings.

He was asked, “Why do you still speak the words of ‘The Other?’  He has left us and no longer has any standing among us.”

Meir replied, “The rind of the pomegranate fruit is bitter and inedible. So, I peel away the rind and throw it away. But, the seeds inside are still sweet and good. I drink of their nectar and benefit from their sustenance.”

When God in Heaven heard Meir’s explanation, God declared that the heretic would no longer be called “The Other,” but by his name, Elisha, and that his pronouncements would once again be spoken in the Heavenly Court. 

God lays out the right path, and knows that the diverse and beautiful ways we come onto the path are the rainbow of humanity. 

Not “Either – Or.” 

“And.”  

“These AND these are the words of the Living God.”   

“The only important decision we have to make is to live with God. God will make the rest.”

How do we best live with God?  

We, who are created in the Image of God, strive to be as God-like as possible.

And, how do we be God-like?

Like God, we strive to be holy. 

And what does it mean to be holy?

The word holy means to be set aside, as special from all others like it: setting aside a particular goblet to be used for sacred ceremony, makes that goblet holy. It might look like other goblets, but it has been set aside and dedicated to the sacred. When we dedicate a shelf as the place of our altar, we have set it aside from all other shelves, because we have dedicated it to the sacred, and so, made it special — and it becomes a holy place. When we marry, the Rite of Holy Matrimony sets aside this particular woman or man from all other for us — and we become holy, sacred, to one another.

They say that performers and house managers count people in the audience, “one, two, three, four,,,” and so on. But that God counts the people in a room, “One, One, One, One, One…” because each one is equally precious and dear to God.

What if, like God, everyone and everything could be seen by each of us a holy? What if everyone and everything were precious and dear — uniquely special and dedicated by each of us as sacred?

We strive to compassionately cast away the bitter rind, and celebrate the luscious and lustrous fruit of the pomegranate. Perhaps our simple striving every day brings us ever closer to the Eden-on-Earth our hearts know is possible. Bless our striving!