We Are Reflections Of The Divine

Saturday Morning Unplugged on June 3rd, 2023 was an especially learning-centered service.  We apologize for the spotty audio quality of this episode, but the touching insights shared by Rabbi Lizzi and Rabbi Steven make this installment worth a listen!

****

For upcoming Shabbat services and programs, check our event calendar, and see our Accessibility & Inclusion page for information about our venues. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook for more updates.

Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

Transcript

Transcript

Rabbi Lizzi 
One of the questions I have about Jewish prayer is whether having all the words is ultimately helpful or a hindrance to prayer? Because once you have the words in front of me, will you think there's a right way to do it? And if you don't do it, the way that the words say that maybe you're doing it wrong, and in fact, human beings have been prayed long before there was literature, or pens or paper or the printing press, or you know, before, before they could before they were paid paychecks, that was rare.
 
I'm struck this morning, because there's a lot of these things, big kid attitude.

And it's good. But, you know, as a parent, if you do everything for your kid and tell them exactly what to do, and how to do absolutely everything, good luck man and adult kid, you know, like there's a certain permission that we need to get things wrong as children our whole lives in order to be functional, healthy adults. And then at some point in adulthood, we're on our way to adulthood, we get the idea that if we do things wrong, we're bad or you know, we're not as worthy of love or something like that. And so I just want to affirm for us in this prayer about love that mistakes are a part of the human person being a healthy human person. It's good for us to make them it's good for us to put ourselves in situations where actually we might feel like there's a right way and then to do it a different way and see that the sky doesn't come crashing down on our heads and that we're not smitten or smoked you know by a beam of divine lightning telling us we did it wrong because actually we discover in that moment that that is not what God does. God just loves us period full stop

that's an invitation for how we might love each other


Rabbi Steven
So the moment we're going to turn to page 58 for the job, actually, is to turn back for a second. Oh, okay. Yeah, turning 49 You don't have to. I mean, I just want to I noticed a phrase, I actually, I'd love to see your, I guess a beautiful translation by also a bit of a Hebrew nerd. And so sometimes I notice idiosyncrasies in the translation that necessarily I don't disagree with, I might have translated differently. And so if we look at a second to last kind of stands up alone, a Bush, Obama and Cuba share my culture. I could go behind Roberts half now, which is beautifully translated, that's because we trust in you and your redemptive power will never experience rejection that is so now exists, right? So you will never experience shame Bucha shame Kiba shim, push it because your holy name type of dove 100 greats and exalted that's happening like we are like, a short of trusting, trusting but like, that's hard, because like, sure, like, yeah, sure, we're sure to maybe believe in it. We trust in it, you're certain of it.

And so like I've seen, it'd be like, how do you get from like, we never experienced shame, because like, you're awesome. You're awesome. Oh, God, so you never experienced shame? Why does that mean? Sticking like, it's because we're, that's the image are created, right? We're certain like, like, when you call God and I enter the world that thing bigger, that's for certain that it's a pretty, it's awesome, like, Oh, my God, inspiring sense. And also, like, in a great sense, it's beautiful. It's, it's majestic. It's beyond comprehension. We're sort of that. And then we're told that that's actually the image that we're creating. So how could we ever experience shame?

If we actually actually believe that we're a reflection of that thing that's bigger than us. Just Let's thicken it. It's like it's Pride Month, you're gonna hear me talk about this a lot. Because we're just

thinking like, what does it actually take by right, that sense of like, the opposite shame, to say that there's something fundamentally wrong with us pride, say, actually,

this is who I meant to be. And who I meant to be is really awesome, and great and inspiring, because I'm reflection, that thing that could be

there was nobody else who carries that particular stamp of the divine in this role. So as we go into the Amita, flip back in the house page,

like this is not only about standing before, I think bigger than us but also standing before selves.

And celebrating pride and gratitude and joy in that image.

That we are reflecting out of that it is a reflection of us as well.