Awakening: Torah Mussar Mindfulness, Yitro, 17th Sitting

Rabbi Chasya of The Institute for Holiness: Kehilat Mussar leads us in a teaching on the Hebrew Bible portion Yitro through the lens of Mussar Mindfulness with a guided seated meditation practice. All are welcome.

Transcript

Welcome.

Welcome to awakening Torah Musa mindfulness,

Allow yourself to take this minute or two to settle and arrive before we begin.

Welcome.

Welcome to awakening Torah Musa mindfulness,

Take this next minute to allow yourself to settle and arrive before we move into learning and practicing together.

Okay,

Wonderful.

It is 10pm here in Israel,

3pm Eastern Standard Time in the United States and along that Eastern seaboard.

I am Rabbi Hasio Oriel Steinbauer,

The founding director of Hamuchon de Kedushah,

The Institute for Holiness,

Kihilat Musar,

The Musar community where we practice Musar mindfulness together.

You are joining us,

Ms.

Ratashem,

God willing,

For our weekly investigation into the Torah portion,

The Hebrew Bible reading that Jews traditionally do every week,

Studying the portion beforehand and hearing it chanted or read out loud in synagogues throughout the world.

So this past Shabbat yesterday,

We heard the Torah portion of Yitro,

Yitro being the name of the father-in-law of Moshe Rabbeinu.

So,

Before we jump into our learning and practice together,

We always begin with our kavanot,

Our intention for today's practice.

So I'm going to go ahead and pull that up for you.

And if you're joining us on audio,

You will hear me reading this.

We interpret here at the Institute for Holiness that this practice that we do together in awakening is really an act of radical self-care,

In addition to strengthening our relationship with the divine,

And so that we can be a better conduit of God's good to others.

So we start with number one here.

Before doing acts of caring for the self,

Which this is this half hour,

45 minutes together,

This is something I'm doing to strengthen my own soul in order to be a benefit to others in the future.

And then we say before doing acts to strengthen our relationship with God,

With the divine,

This is something I'm doing to strengthen my relationship with the Creator,

So that I can be a better conduit of God's good to others when they need me.

And that's what we hold on to and carry with us to have this intention for today's practice.

Again,

We are coming,

Looking at the Hebrew Bible,

The portion called Yitro,

Which is found in the book of Exodus,

Of Shemot.

And hopefully you've had a chance to look at it,

Do some,

See what some commentators might have to say,

Perhaps your family,

Peers,

Or anyone.

I want to begin by pointing out how embodied this parasha is,

How much experiential knowledge and knowing the yadda,

The yudda and ayin that we've been talking about and knowing to know God is this deep,

Really in the felt sense of the body,

This moral compass that we have and developed.

So we have Yitro comes,

Moshe Rabbeinu's father-in-law shows up.

For all intents and purposes,

Our commentators really believe this is after the receiving of the aser adibroth,

The 10 utterances,

Known as the 10 Commandments.

But he shows up afterwards.

That's less important to our analysis right now whether he actually appears before or after,

But he shows up with Sipora,

With Moshe Rabbeinu's spouse,

And their two sons,

Gershom and Eliezer,

Who,

Up until now we had assumed had gone to Egypt with Moshe Rabbeinu and she was actually heading with Moshe and Aharon to Egypt.

And now we're being told that she was actually in Midyan with her father.

We don't have that tradition in the Torah of what happened while she was sent back.

We definitely have Midrashim about Aharon saying she should return.

But Yitro comes,

And these are the verbs that are used,

He hears,

He heard all that God had done for the children of Israel.

Okay.

And then he expresses simcha,

Joy,

Because of God's good.

Okay,

And he actually uses the language,

Akshah vedati,

Okay,

I know,

Okay,

Who yedah,

Yud,

Dai,

And anon,

He now knows,

What does he know?

This comes from chapter 18,

Verse 11.

And before we were dealing with when he heard God,

What had God had done for the children of Israel,

We heard that was chapter 18,

One through three.

So here he now knows,

And he breaks bread with Moshe and Aharon and the elders,

And this celebration,

This feast of joy and knowing,

Knowing that,

And from Yitro's perspective,

It's that God is the greatest among many gods.

And for Moshe and the rest,

Most likely,

There's one God,

And this is the God of the name Israel,

The children of Israel.

So,

And then,

So we have this experiential where he hears,

He had heard,

And then he knows,

He knows deep inside himself,

And then ra'ah,

Resh,

Alef,

He sees,

What does he see?

He saw that all that Moshe was doing on behalf of the people,

And he says,

Lotov,

Mahot,

Ma'atah,

Asseh,

Okay,

And oseh,

Minin asita,

What you have done.

He's saying to him,

It's not good.

And what,

This is profound.

I just want to pause for a minute.

Your father-in-law shows up.

He witnesses you,

He listens to you,

He celebrates with you.

And then he tells you,

What you are doing is not good.

And God bless Moshe Rabbeinu for modeling for us how to behave towards in-laws and parents,

Which is one of the So what he brought is number five,

Is that you shall honor your father and mother.

And this is,

He models it.

Moshe listens to him.

All right.

And it's amazing,

He's able to hear him,

He's able to listen to them.

This is in chapter 18,

Verses 13 to 23.

I just want to see if I want to share one thing with you.

What's amazing about this,

On many levels,

Is that we're starting to witness that we are shifting,

And we have been shifting for a while,

From these individual relationships with Avraham,

Yitzchak,

Yaakov,

And their spouses and children,

To a people.

And that shift really also comes with it,

A shift in how we are to relate to the divine.

So before it was,

You feared God,

And what did that fearing God mean?

It meant you had a moral compass,

You knew right from wrong,

And you behaved rightly because of it.

We saw this with the midwives,

And the book,

The parasha of Shemot.

We're seeing a shift from this individual consciousness to a training,

And an expectation that there will be a people who live by a rule of law,

Of Torah,

First coming with the Saserat Yibrod,

What we call the Ten Commandments,

And they will live by this rule of law.

And this will shift also what is expected of them.

Suddenly,

The divine is modeling over and over again,

How to behave,

How to eventually imitate,

To emulate,

To treat others the way God has treated the children of Israel.

Through this experience in the desert.

So we see this start with Moshe and how he responds to his father-in-law.

Let me quickly just see if there's something I wanted to share with you.

Okay,

I want to begin with the esnida,

The soul trait of emet,

Of truth.

And it being from a Musar perspective,

Mindfulness perspective too,

A really truth being a way of being and an embodiment.

And in particular,

It's this exercise of the heart as well as the mind as we know.

And in particular,

I want to point out this wonderful article by Rabbi Carol Glass in this book called the Musar Torah Commentary,

Who teaches us that truth and emet is not the opposite necessarily of falsehood,

Right?

It's not about facts.

All right,

It's something much larger than that.

And I want to point this out to you.

That,

Of course,

From a Musar perspective,

We do talk about and even in living nathadarma that this,

It does focus on honesty and reliability,

That you are having rightful wise speech.

But it also teaches that the media is inclusive and respectful both of what is apparent and what is undetected.

So to be mindful and humble enough,

Enough anava,

Humility,

To accept that you will never have the full picture of what's before you.

And therefore,

Because not everything is going to be apparent,

It's just accepting this truth perception that there's always going to be something hidden.

And,

And I bring that up as a media of truth,

Because Moshe Rabbeinu when his father-in-law comes,

He realizes and listens he doesn't have the whole picture.

He's able to listen and take in this highly respected elder and relative,

Himself a priest of Midian.

That he has something to offer and he has insight that Moshe is just not seen and aware of.

You might even say,

How did Moshe allow himself to get to this point?

Why did he think he had to carry all this burden himself?

Well,

There was precedent.

There's precedent of why God selected him.

God chose him to carry the people out of Egypt and deliver the plagues with Aharon.

To give him the benefit of the doubt,

But he wasn't able to see this is a burden and this is too much for me to carry.

I'm not meant to do it alone.

And so he,

He gets this truth.

This,

This that's alluded him to gift to get from God that he sent.

Okay,

So we want to hold on to that this beautiful concept.

At the same time,

We want to honor.

If you haven't noticed yet that Moshe Rabbeinu has come quite un-inbalanced in carrying both family and the responsibility of being that which carries the nation.

And maybe it is impossible.

Maybe the task is too much.

He can't both be this nurse,

The way he even talks himself that he talks about being the nurse that will breastfeed this nation carry this nation and his bosom that he will be this midwife to this nation and be a husband and a father and be present for them.

Maybe he was mindful and aware that he couldn't do that as he headed with Sipora and his child at least Gershom towards Egypt,

That I can't both be present for this task which is highly dangerous.

And also be mindful of our relationship and fulfill my obligations to you,

Which there,

There is,

There are obligations in marriage.

So to give him the benefit of the doubt that might have been what the precedent was.

But also then you have Yitro showing up with Sipora,

His wife,

And two children Gershom and Eliezer.

And then you hear nothing.

Nothing.

And I have to say,

When I read the fifth utterance.

You might call a commandment that is one is to this is in chapter 20,

Verse 12,

That one is to honor their father and their mother,

That Moshe's sons were not really given an opportunity to do this.

And furthermore,

It's the,

It's the only commandment besides Shabbat that's given a little bit of a reason why it's given,

You shall honor your mother and father,

So that it will go well for you in the land so that you live out a long life in the land that type of language.

Moshe Rabbeinu never makes it to the land.

Moshe Rabbeinu honors his father in law,

We hear nothing of his own parents.

He's not enough in relationship with his wife and own children to have that practice of that utterance that practice of fulfilling that nitzvah of honoring the parents.

We hear nothing there's no lineage,

No carry no tradition.

So I think there is a connection here of why Moshe doesn't enter the land.

And we don't know what happens with Sipora,

We don't know what happens with Eliezer and Gershom.

So we'll carry that with us to recognize perhaps it's just an acceptance of the way things are that we may want them different.

We want,

We wish that he had balance and able to be in relationship with his wife and children to model for that for us as we are entering this imitation of the Creator.

So Moshe Rabbeinu is called lovingly the servant of God,

We found this back in the previous parasha,

The shalach,

In chapter 14,

Verse 31,

He's called the servant of God for the first time in that pessuk,

And that's his role.

He is almost spouse to Hashem,

He's a servant to Hashem,

To God.

That is the only role that he can really fulfill and do and not be spouse and father.

And that term being a servant of God will appear 30 more times 30 times in the Torah,

As if we needed a reminder of who Moshe is.

So,

We'll carry that with us that,

You know,

Sometimes there's a truth.

There's hidden truths.

And can we hold it and carry it on be humble enough be create enough space in our practice in our life to accept some things we just don't know or may not have the whole picture.

So,

In our last sharing before I share a lovely poem with you before we move into our meditation.

I want to share some key things with you that we are noticing a cosmic again a cosmic divine large shifts.

And what's happening here.

So,

Very well maybe implicit in the Torah.

That we are being taught as is part of our indoctrination part of our training and our spiritual practice that human means have an obligation to imitate divine qualities.

And we're starting to witness this as this divine response of carrying the children of Israel through the desert is modeling so much of behavior that we are meant to imitate.

And in particular there's this Jewish doctrine that we learned here in the Jewish publication society and page 86.

It's really based later in the book of Leviticus vie craft,

Which is based so much on moose our practice that you should be holy right for I the Lord your God and holy.

And in even in Deuteronomy and the very later on,

We have the enjoins Israel to walk in God's ways.

So we have this model this Moshe Rabbeinu who is a servant of God who is tempting to walk in God's ways.

Sometimes models that well sometimes doesn't doesn't model the balance between family and work if you want to call this work.

Okay,

So we learn like just as God is compassionate as carrying the name Israel so to show we be.

And we're seeing this shift.

Okay,

Very large shift of from what is expected of those individual relationships with Abraham yet second y'all coke a,

You know,

Am you might argue that they were selected or at least one or more of them was selected as a patriarch,

Because they were already imitating these qualities of God,

But there's never any injunction or commandment if anything there's a sense of fear of God.

And when you know,

Abraham says I didn't,

I didn't sense or know that there was any fear of God in this place and that's why I lied about my wife being a sister.

So I feared I was going to be killed.

And so you're noticing this individual shift from knowing God fearing God to a people who are now gaining the rule of law and watching before them as a creator carries them as we're told,

Like an issue like an eagle.

And wings.

And so this is a very large shift that we're seeing playing out coming in this pressure and also in to,

You know,

A treasured people that are moving towards to do shots words holiness.

And the next thing I will share with you is this concept here,

The implications of having this new relationship this new way of being relationship with divine and knowing God is being a treasured people in the sense that in this ideal model of how we are to be is the whole of striving for holiness.

This life of a people is to be the hallmark of our existence.

And this so much is what is rooted in our moose our mindfulness practice that we are on a lifelong journey towards holiness the could do shot we are attempting to get this out.

So,

Again,

If you want to think about this and more local terms before we move into our city.

We have this concept,

Even on the,

The eighth fourth path the noble path of living from the Dharma and the wisdom of Buddhism,

That we are seeking not to do harm.

That's one of the key factors.

One of the key foundational ways of living and you may even witness this with the individual relationship with God right if they're going to live with that moral compass they're going to attempt to not cause harm,

But this shift towards a people who are living with this rule of law suddenly moves from you should not do harm to you should actually live out ways to prevent harm.

You should live out ways that actually relieve the suffering of others,

Because that is what God is imitating for you.

This is a shift this is larger.

This is actually more responsibility.

So,

We will move into our guided seated meditation,

Having some time for silent meditation.

I'm going to share a lovely home.

And fun.

And the shanty teacher for all intents and purposes of Buddhism in some form in the state of California and the United States.

And now to settle and arrive first so again as I always say every week.

So that the pain isn't taking you away.

So that might be lying down with your eyes open so you may awaken alert.

You can do a walking meditation or just stand rooted next to a chair.

For those of us who are seated a either on as awful and meditation cushion a bench or in a chair.

If you're in a chair allow your feet to be rooted in the ground held by the earth and carried,

You are between heaven and earth,

Sitting in upright position you are created in the image of God you sit with dignity.

West Point stiff.

Alert,

Awake presence,

Allow yourself to arrive.

When you feel safe and ready.

Close your eyes or lower your gaze.

Take a deep breath.

We'll begin with reading the poem as we move into our meditation.

Truth is truth is only discovered in the moment.

There is no truth that can be carried over to the next moment,

The next day the next year.

Truth comes in the non seeking mind fresh and alive.

It is not something you carry with you.

Or hold on to truth leaps into view in the mind is quiet not asserting itself.

You cannot contain or domesticate truth for if you do it dies instantly.

Truth prowls the unknown waiting for a gap in the minds activity.

When that gap is there the truth leaps out of the unknown into the known.

Instantly you can comprehend it and sense its sacredness.

The timeless has broken through like a flash lightning illuminated the moment with its presence.

Truth comes to an innocent mind as a blessing.

Truth is a holy thing because it liberates thought from itself.

And it reminds the hearts human heart from the inside out.

Today,

We will sit with our truth.

We will begin by noticing what is here,

Right here right now for us in this moment,

What is alive.

The felt sense of the body.

Are there any sensations that are calling for your loving attention.

Are there any strong motions that are pulling you away from the present moment.

Perhaps you're thinking about something in the past,

Or planning for something in the future.

What is the truth,

Right here right now.

As we sit.

Notice what comes alive for you.

If you make a negative judgment about yourself.

Notice that you are doing that if you are now yourself to come to your breath as your anchor or my voice.

You can kindly ask yourself,

What am I not seeing.

What have I left out.

Surely a negative judgment about myself is not the full picture.

Notice if you have any sensations,

The recording that may go off in your head that you might recognize.

Notice what it is saying.

Notice what your heart is saying.

Are they in alignment.

What does it bring up for you right now in this moment if you were to say both out loud.

Our practice is using the,

I don't know,

Mind,

The beginners mind.

And being okay.

With that,

Knowing that we never fully have the whole picture.

The truth is as much of how we speak and behave with integrity and wise discernment,

Living in alignment.

It is also being fully aware that we never have the full picture.

Let's move into our silent meditation with compassion with non judgmental awareness with nurturing.

See if you can honor whatever voice is there for you.

We will ring the bell when we are to come out of our meditation.

Thank you.

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