Foundation

Last week, as we approached the end of the Jewish holiday season, many of us here in the Bay Area, already overcome with grief at the most recent in the series of devastating disasters rolling across our land--hurricanes flattening Texas, Florida, the Gulf Coast, Puerto Rico and other Caribbean Islands, the mass shooting in Reno, the daily round of bad news--suddenly found ourselves faced with our own local crisis. Massive wild fires in the North Bay (Napa, Sonma, Mendocino Counties) had claimed scores of lives, destroyed thousands of homes and businesses, decimated vineyards and wild forest lands. In the Bay Area proper we found ourselves choking on smoke, peering at the eerie red disk of the sun through veils of wind-born pollution, our eyes stinging. "Shelter in place, keep doors and windows closed, wear N95 masks if you must go out, no strenuous exercise, outdoors or in!"  Banished from our sukkot days early, hearts broken, how would be celebrate the grand finale of this two-and-a-half-month cycle of reflection and renewal that we call our High Holy Days? Should we cancel Simkhat Torah? If we weren't supposed to go outside or do any strenuous activity, how would we dance jubilantly with the Torah?

When my husband and I got to shul (Kehilla Community Synagogue in Piedmont) a few people had gathered for the maariv service. Some toddlers crawled and ran around the big open space, their tot service and puppet show having been canceled. But gradually, the room began to fill up. The band, a mixture of professional klezmer musicians and community folks who'd dusted off flutes and saxophones they hadn't played in years, filed in playing a familiar tune, spirits began to rise, and soon we were whirling and singing, holding hands and running in wild kinetic circles, our joyous, sweaty dancing (with all the doors and windows shut tight, the sanctuary became a sauna!) literally flying in the face of disaster and despair.

Of course we would dance with the Torahs! We would dance for our lives and for the lives of those who couldn't dance and for the lives and livelihoods lost! By the time we got to the sixth hakafa (cycle of dancing), the one in honor of Yesod, the Divine Emanation known as Foundation, the energy was bouncing off the walls and high-beamed ceiling, seeping through the floor, radiating out the sealed doors and windows. This was no solid, stolid foundation, nothing of brick or cement--this Foundation was of breath and movement and energy and the will to survive and thrive, a foundation of compassion and passion--what we'll need to carry us forward in the challenging days of recovery that face us all. The High Holy Days are not over--we must continue the work of reflection, renewal, repair, forgiveness and love!

I delivered the rap-style Yesod introduction I had written in all its juicy and erotic soul-fullness. Sometimes, when it seems that so much is lost, all we can do, all we must do, is dance!

Yesod Hakafa Kavannah 5778
 
Yesod, Yesod,
Yesod rhymes with Hod!
It’s surrender in action!
receiving the flow--
O extreme benefaction!--
of all the s’firot above--
the sublime intersection
of Wisdom and Love
pouring into Foundation!
Joins right leg and left
in ecstatic relation,
throwing off fear
and undue self-protection,
you stomp and you squat
in wild jubilation,
shaking off badness
renewing Creation--
igniting the Torah
of longed-for salvation.
And… Yesod can be quiet,
a glowing power Source,
a magical chalice
containing the Force
of Divine emanation,
a light in the belly,
a ray of intention
a blending of flavors
so pungent, so juicy
a seeding, a needing,
that births every future.
So come on, take a chance,
never mind perspication!
Whether wild or whispered,
get ready to dance
with Yesodic elation!