Episode 14: Listen to the Siddur (with Rabbi Steve Sager)

11:06PM Feb 8, 2022

Speakers:

Eliana Light

Steve Sager

Keywords:

bracha

baruch

prayer

people

kaplan

rabbi

hear

liturgy

idea

reconstructionist

yehuda

daven

overflow

pray

imagination

world

mitzvah

word

life

listen

Shalom, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Light Lab Podcast where we hold the gems of our liturgy up to the light, and see what shines out and explore what a prayer practice can mean to all of us. Working on taglines, I'm also thinking of prayer and liturgy illuminated. Let me know what you think about those. I'm really grateful that we get to share with you the second half of our interview with Rabbi Steve Sager. You can listen to the first half of the interview back in episode 12. We've been getting a lot of really great feedback about it. So if you haven't listened to it, I really encourage you to. Rabbi Sager is the Rabbi Emeritus of Beth El synagogue here in Durham, North Carolina. That's how I got to meet him and learn from him. But he has been a mentor and a teacher, to so many clergy members to so many learners to so many human beings, all around the country. And here we really get to learn from his wisdom. In our last interview, we talked about tefillah, as a word as a concept, we talked about what it means to lead tefillah. And here we get a little more into Rabbi Sager's life, how he ended up doing what he did, how he ended up in the places that he did, and a little deeper into the concept of blessings, which I also brought up in a previous episode. So I'm really excited for you to take a listen. Rabbi Sager is the director of Sicha: continuing the conversation. He is an adjunct faculty member of the Duke Divinity School. He is a senior rabbinic fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute. He has been the president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association and the Greater Carolina's Association of Rabbis. I could keep reading his bio, but I will just say Rabbi Sager is one of the wisest and most menchiest humans that I have ever gotten the ability to get to know. And I'm so excited for you to hear this. Our second interview, again, hopefully not the last by a longshot with Rabbi Steve Sager.

Welcome back Rabbi Sager so good to be talking to you.

Thank you! I'm enjoying it!

Yeah, for those of you listening, we started talking about tefillah and we realized pretty quickly that it was going to be more than one conversation. So this is being recorded at the same time as the previous conversation, it's probably come out at a bit of a different time, just so glad to be continuing our conversation together. And I was asking you before we started recording, but it might be interesting to the listener, you received your smicha, your rabbinic ordination from RRC, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, and was wondering if you could share a little bit about how you ended up there, and what caused you to it and what you appreciate or have learned over the years, from that particular way of thinking, and being?

Thanks for asking. I've been asked that question a lot of times. And a lot of times very, very seriously, when I was applying for the job as the Rabbi of this Conservative synagogue, and even before that people who recommended me for this job saying, Yes, he really he really is a serious person who grew up in the conservative movement and is very familiar with and lives in that language. Don't be distracted by the Reconstructionist label that's, that's now attached to him. And I think that that's a really good representation of the facts on the ground I did grow up with in the conservative movement, very dedicated, very dedicated to its educational principles, very educated, very dedicated to its youth group, and to those aims, and very much a movement person. But on the level I would say of prayer, it was really, it was in a very large way, on the level of liturgy. I learned I could sing well. And I could speak or articulate Hebrew very well. And so that lead from one task to the next Oh, he would be really good to get as a leader of birkot hashachar and pseukei d'zimra. And oh, he's a good person for birkat hamazon, and all of that kind of thing. So it was, it was a matter of, of skill, and of the sound of my voice. And that kind of self appreciation, narcissistic impulse that comes from being a teenager that makes you really want to do it and do it well and have a sense of what the community means by doing it well, was very, was very good for me. And the, the personal stuff, the meaning of the fullness of being part of a member of a community where everybody was singing the same thing. And we're my singing, and leading could actually motivate other people. That spirit inspiriting of things came in sort of through the back door. But once there it was really, really there and not possible to take it apart from the liturgy. It was, they were part and parcel of the same thing of the inside and the outside. And I grew up that way in the conservative movement. And as a high school senior, and got interested in Mordechai Kaplan a little bit, because here was a different way of thinking through matters that were interesting and important than the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College was just opening matters of approaching G?d, which had had not come to me in doctrinal ways. I loved the conservative liturgy because it sounded good and it rolled off my tongue. And I had no problem with any parts of it because I loved the way they sounded and the way they felt. And whenever David Rose in junior congregation led Musaf, I loved the way he would say, in the kedusha, ki mechakim anachnu lach, ki mechakim, ki mechakim, I loved it. Ki mechakim anachu lach, and other phrases through which we would just sing and swing from one word to the next. And the sound and the affect and the spirit that came from it was not not doctrinal. It was aesthetic, it was soulful. And so Kaplan was not a radical to me. He was exploring things that were interesting to me. But I didn't have a very firm opinion, G?d is this, and G?d it is not that and so on. So Kaplan became interesting. And then I went to New York, because the movement guy needs to go to the Jewish Theological Seminary, and set foot on holy ground, but not draw too close to the bush that's burning. But isn't it burning up, you know, which is what it used to say about the library. I don't know whether it still does or not in the rebuilt library after there was a great fire there many years ago. But I went to the seminary. And I spent whatever four or six weeks, four weeks at the seminary, living in the dorm and taking courses that was were taught mainly by rabbinical students, senior rabbinical students who were hanging around for the summer and needed to gig and they were teaching courses in philosophy and they were teaching one professor, real professor was teaching a course in Hebrew literature, which I took. Anyway, I started to realize how important Kaplan was in the conservative movement, and how frightened people seem to be of him. And that just got me more and more interested. And then something extraordinary happened. Kaplan came to speak at JTS he was I think, 88 years old at the time. And it was the first time that he had been in the buildings since he had retired. And that was a big question that people were debating in the hallways and in the library and so on is this one going to come, the senior faculty going to come that they're going to listen to Kaplan when he talks in the seminary for the first time in many years. And they didn't. The junior faculty came, and rabbinical students came, and all of us came, those of us who were there studying. And here was this little old man in a three piece suit, with clear piercing eyes, and a little beard and shoulders that were angular and erect, and standing up straight and tall on the corner of 123rd and Broad Street, with traffic flowing below, on a hot summer day with the windows open. And he was speaking articulately and beautifully about these ideas about what G?d was and answering the questions, asked by rabbinical students. And all of those ideas were provocative. And they meant nothing to me, in terms of the liturgy that I love, I saw no conflict between what he was saying, and the words that I was using. Because he was saying, G?d is the force that makes for salvation. G?d is the force that makes a renewal, G?d is the force that makes for creation. G?d is the felt presence of all Israel together. And all of these things seemed exactly right. And he named G?d so many ways. That in a sense, it was like what I learned later on about, about the Zohar, that the Zohar has so many, many names for G?d, that you are encouraged, implicitly, to take them all seriously, and also not take any of them serious, at exactly the same time. And that's what I did. So that was no problem. And in fact, Kaplan really helped, because some of his ideas were soothing and strengthening for me, in terms of what G?d might mean, as a power as a force that infused the entire world, and was available to everyone who would tap in whether you were Jewish, or you weren't Jewish, the same foundational forces that made the world spin. And that made us overflow in spirit, they were very much Kaplanean. I would consider that I am a Kaplanean, more than a Reconstructionist. Because Reconstructionism, has taken on certain kinds of associations and its own scriptures and structures over the years with which I don't necessarily agree and they would take us far afield from prayer. But I'm very happy with the Reconstructionist education, and the fact that it allowed me to come to a conservative synagogue with an appreciation of the fullness of the Jewish people and come here and found a kehillah that was orthodox. So I have only good things to say about what I learned about learned of reconstructionism, and from reconstructionism and the idea of reconstructionism, as being a framework for reconstructing Jewish life, Jewish civilization in within various frame was very helpful. How do I know I can daven in in English? Well, because I feel that there is an impulse to reconstruct Jewish life in the synagogue in a lot of different ways. And one of them means davening in English. Not something that my grandpa would have ever thought reasonable or possible.

Right. I want to come back to this idea of prayer in English. But first, I want to ask you, what do you think those JTS professors were so afraid of? What made them afraid of Kaplan's G?d ideas? And did you think that that? Do you think that that fear was, you know, founded?

Well, the fear is, is my attribution of their my assessment of their affect, when they would ask me questions. What do you think about shatnez? And what do you think about Mordecai Kaplan? And what do you think about G?d? Those are the three questions that I was asked in the pre interview interview by junior faculty members. Shatnez, the mitzvah of mixing wool and linen. Well, it's, it's clear, it's a mitzvah, and there's no real reason that we can imagine. So I want to know where you come down on that. What do you think about shatnez? What do you think about G?d? What do you think about Mordecai Kaplan? All of these in the same breath.

Wow.

To me, that seemed like a fear that there was a right place to come down in a wrong place to come down. And we were all pretty smart people in the room, everybody knew the right answer. The question was, would you say it? And what would you say about it? I don't remember how I answered their question, I probably banged off on almost all of them. I hadn't really thought that much. And that articulately about G?d, I certainly didn't know what shatnez was at the time. And Mordecai Kaplan, I was just learning about him. And I thought he was a fine writer and had a lot of important things to say. So I probably soft pedal the whole thing.

Right. What I'm thinking of is that when I work with kids around G?d and prayer, of course, a lot of their hangups and this is a hang up for a lot of adults, too, is that we're praying to G?d, as if G?d had the power to do the things that we're praying for right? To fix this, to do that to heal people. And that if you think about it in that kind of a one to one causality, then if the thing doesn't get better, or the person doesn't get healed, what does that say about G?d? And or what does it say about me? And my deficiency? And I'm wondering, as someone who works with kids, how might you approach that with a child or even an adult? Whose reaction is, well, this doesn't make sense, this doesn't have a bearing on my life, because either it is a one to one, and G?d could do the thing, and just doesn't, or there really is no or because that's what G?d is. So if it doesn't work, then there is no G?d. Does that make sense?

It does make sense. And I don't know that it's easy. No. But I now invoke another important teacher of mine, Rabbi David Hartman, of blessed memory, who would say, listen to the Siddur. Listen to the prayer book. The prayer book is there for you to listen to it. What do you hear? You find it, it's just washed up onto the shore. And it's in beautiful shape with all of its skin all of itself, spirals and elegance swirls to it. And it's Fibonacci sequence of, of, of little points and spear heads and so on. The hold it up to your ear, what do you hear? Hold the Siddur up to your ear and what do you hear? You can hear the hopes and aspirations of the people of Israel that have been developed and refined. Some of them washed back to sea, some of them washed up again in the Cairo Geniza and other places were rituals that never quite caught the community spirit or big enough part of the community spirits to become mainstream reside today. And some of them, taken into community view and community consciousness and committed to writing and canonized and so on. But they are nevertheless the hopes and aspirations fantasies and feeling of the Jewish people. And they are. They are more Mordechai Kaplan's the power that makes for salvation, the power that makes for healing, the power that makes for revelation, the power that makes for redemption. Does it mean that you are going to be redeemed? No. It means that there is a power in the world that precipitates and makes for redemption. It's possible. Do you have any place in it? This is something that just happens to you while you're sitting back and reading the New York Times or doing the crossword puzzle? No, it's not the way it works. It starts by listening to the Siddur. Listen to it. Healing. Baruch atah, rofei cholei yisrael, Who heals His people Israel. Does everybody get healed? No. But the aspiration is for people to be healed and for there to be healing. And on another level, when you allow yourself to breathe deeply enough for there to be another level. Maybe people get healed, even if somebody doesn't get healed. Is there a healing in the world because there's a renewal of something in the world or because people recover memory, or because the person who has died now becomes part of a pulse of life that continues to pulse and strengthens other people and such. But here's the first task, learn to and the first challenge. Learn to listen to the Siddur. Don't leap immediately to if there's a G?d, then why was there a Holocaust? That's not, that's not a first step. It's not a place to go. Listen to the Siddur. Listen to the - Can you hear the fragility? The tenuous life that's expressed in - we declare the awesomeness of the day, unetaken tokef kedushat hayom. Can you hear how the people yearns to live? We yearn for renewal and survival. Hear the tears, hear the yearning, hear the longing, hear the aspiration. And that's what I would encourage children or new pray-ers to do, we can all do it that we can all do. I remember, once upon a time, the father of the bat mitzvah to be coming in and sitting on the edge of my couch, perched on the edge of the couch, nervously not knowing whether he wanted to relax into the conversation or have a conversation or whether I would even be open to it. And here he was nervous, and trembling, white knuckled trembling, with the possibility of having to sit down with his daughter and read the Parasha that would be for her but mitzvah and studying it some with her. And he said to me, Rabbi, I have no earthly idea about G?d. And that struck me as being such a wonderful turn of phrase, and I have not forgotten about it. I haven't turned it loose since.. No earthly idea about G?d. Well, that's where you start with an earthly idea. Can you listen? Can you listen? Can you hear the yearning? Can you hear the celebration? Can you hear the relief? Can you hear the possibility that everybody can do that? Or we can at least train ourselves to do that. But that's that's doable, earthly idea, start with an earthly idea. Don't go someplace else first.

I love that there's something in prayer that is just about living an aware life. About living fully in our desires, in our hopes, in our feelings and our actions. actual experience, but letting ourselves experience because it can be very easy to go through life with blinders on. Not allowing like the force of the world to kind of soak in. And when we let the siddur talk to us, and we listened to it, which is an image that I love, we could be inspired by those callings out that deep life of our ancestors to find some of that ourselves at least that's what I'm hearing in that today.

Yes, yeah, I think that's exactly right. There's a story written by Shai Agnon called siddur naeh al siddur tfillati if I remember correctly. And I think it's been rendered into English not exactly translated, it's a long story. But it's been paraphrased and put into English in a book called A Book That Was Lost. I believe, edited by Alan Mintz. This is a story about I've known as a young man, I assume he's the character whose father every year goes to the fair and loschovitz and every year brings him a gift. And this year was a siddur. And he loves to siddur, and he can open up his Siddur. And turns first, he opens it up to Hanukkah. Why? Because he just happened to open the Hannukah. And he can smell the latkes. And he can hear the brachot. And he can envision and see the neighbors coming in and shaking the snow off their beards and off their coats. And then his friends coming in and playing dreidel with him and so on. The Siddur as a scratch and sniff experience. That's really what it is. Got to be able to be able to have that cultivate that. These that's what what let's say a black belt pray, might do. One who can fantasize into, curl up inside the letters.

There's got to be a big component of imagination -

There does.

There. I've often said, you know, prayer spirituality is playful, is imaginative. I'm not really sure if I ever do what I meant by that, like it feels necessary. Because we're both experiencing the world as it is and imagining what it could be. So where does that play and imagination come in for you?

One consequence of the imagination as you might not get through the whole shemoneh esrei. You might not get through all 18, you know, or Shabbos, all seven, you probably won't. I go through, I go to lots of synagogues balance and these days on Zoom. You know it's really interesting and it's one of the interesting things about zoom that you can click your way to a synagogue in another timezone and another timezone and you can catch the beginning you can get the kriya three times if you want and just not leave the United States or you can go around the world or whatever and all day long. That's right, Shacharit all day long. And I mentioned that because hardly any prayer leader leaves enough time.

Yeah.

Yeah, certainly not for me, but I think if not, if not for me then maybe not for anybody. Because I have the capacity to be able to catch up kind of quickly if I zone out on one thing, but nobody leaves enough time for the imagination really to kick in. But it can kick in. Take a week and just do the first bracha in whatever way you do it. Magein Avraham U'foken Sarah, shield of Abraham and protector of Sarah. Or Magein Avraham if you're davenning in a traditional fashion. Elohei Avraham Elohei Yitzchak V'Elohei Ya'akov. There is a story an extraordinary story in the Talmud about you don't mind if I tell you a story?

Oh, please! Yes!

About Eliyahu Hanavi coming to the Beit Midrash to learn with Rav Yehuda Hanasi, and as a fill in the backdrop the whitespaces of the stories have been coming for almost a month and it's now going to be rosh chodesh, and Rav Yehuda Hanasi is anxious for Eliyahu to common experience Rosh Chodesh with his minyan. And time passes and time passes and time passes, and eliyahu doesn't show up. And Rav Yehuda HaNasi, again, I'm reading into the story, is disappointed. Finally Eliyahu shows up and Yehuda HaNasi says to him, why is the master late? And he said, Well, first I had to wake up Abraham. And I had to help him wash his hands and get him up and wait from the daven, and then put him back down again. And then I had to wake up Isaac. And I had to help him wash his hands and get up and daven and lay him back down again. And then there was Jacob. And I had to get them up, and what helped him wash his hands and wait for him to daven and then put him back down again. And by the time I did that, the time had passed. And I was late. Rav HaNasi says to him, Well, why didn't you wake them all up at the same time, you could have saved some time. And Eliyahu said to him, I reasoned that if I woke them all up at the same time, and they prayed all at the same time, that their collective voice would have the power to bring the Messiah before his time. And so I didn't. There are more implications there than I want to come we shouldn't go into right now. But in any event, it wasn't my point. Nor was the rest of the story my point. My point is that if I take my time with the first bracha, and the first thing I have to do is wake up Abraham. And then wake up Isaac. And then wake up Jacob. And that can take a long time. Abraham, what am I saying? Who is this? Abraham? He's a guy who was ready to slaughter his son, because G?d asked him to? Who was? Who is he to wake up? Why would I? Why is he part of this prayer service? What do I think about him? What do I more broadly? What do I think about him? Yehuda Amichai, the greatest really poet said, really? And we call him avinu? We call him father? So there's that level. Then there's another level in which Abraham is my great grandfather, whom I never knew. And who never came to this country. He sent the rest of the family to this country. But he didn't come because it was not a religious place. And he wouldn't come. So how do I feel about that? How do I feel that Abraham being a part of my life? Am I waking him up too? How do I enliven him? How do I wake him up? Isaac, Yitzchak, it's my father's name. My father who lives to the last doesn't need to have 15 years of his life with Parkinson's. Little hard to get him up in the morning, you know, displaces bodyweight getting him up from the chair, I'm imagining moments of having to let's move from here to there, dad, you know, that kind of thing. Jacob, that's my grandpa. That's Abraham son. So it's not in chronological order. But I got an Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And I want to I want to wake them all up. And how do I do that? And from what do I want them to shield me? Or in what way? I could miss all of rosh chodesh you know, you doing that. I might spend the whole silent Amidah time as they call it, just zoning out on that. Pick your bracha. Pick your, your element, pick your theme. So I think sometimes imagination is in some way, I want to say if not the enemy that at least the impediment to liturgy.

But it's also what opens up the imagination. I mean, I find like that too. Yeah, it's on and off but when I do pray from the liturgy at home, for example, often I won't get past one word. I'm really open to approaching with a sense of play and imagination and wonder, the word of the Siddur it all totally comes alive. And I it's almost like I can't bear to part with it. I don't want to put one word down because it means I don't want to pick up another one because it means that I'll have to put the one that I have down. And I find that incredibly powerful to be able to commune with that one idea in that way. And I don't know what that means for communal prayer. Because you're right, there hardly is ever any time. And when they're, well, I was gonna say when there is enough time, but is there ever like really enough time when there is enough time, what we sacrifice is the amount of liturgy that we do, unless we're in a place where we can daven in all day, but those are very rare. So I'm, I'm wondering, what is the use of or the function of how can we incorporate imagination into our davening, even within a communal prayer structure?

That doesn't mean that there has to be some limitation, you have to agree that you are going to join up with the community at a certain point. And that there is a peloton, you know, there is a group that sort of governs how things go. And that the poor prayer leader, the shaliach tzibur, has a tough job.

Yeah.

She or he needs to figure out how to need and possibility. And that requires our compassion. And not, you might say, You know what, I wish she gave me two more minutes or five more minutes, but you can't say I needed another hour. Okay, because kiddish will be over already, in a day when you could actually make kiddish together in the same room. So there has to be some limits to it. And it is a balancing act, you can make a decision, I'm going to let imagination go go wild for this and I'm gonna let it pass me by for that. And one bracha at a time. And the shaliach tzibbur, the prayer leader, this, the shlichat tzibbur, female prayer leader can, can do what - whatever she can to make people feel comfortable, and to pass from one mode to another in the easiest fashion. And I think it's one of the things of I can say it that, that you that you do well, and that I find very helpful. And that is to move from the words to the melody, and just the melody. Because the melody somehow is more spacious and gracious. The melody does not force you to into so many syllables, you know, it doesn't cut up your ahh- you air stream past your vocal cords, it doesn't cut it up into so many little pieces, as words do. So to be able to sing the words and get the words to get some sense of the theme from somebody who's worked at it, like you can say. And here's the theme, and some elegant way. Think about the theme. We're just gonna sing the melody. I think that I think that helps. And I also think that it helps to do these things regularly. It's good for us that, that that Shabbat comes every week

Yes.

But say, because we get a chance to try these things out in fairly short order. It's more difficult Rosh Hashanah, those things that that are so intense and so short lived. You can really strain your self and say, Oh, I'm not doing that for another year. Well, it's true.

Right, can only handle it once?

That's right. That's right.

We talked about this earlier, but I've been thinking a lot about blessings. And you've used the word bracha almost interchangeably as liturgy. But we know that not every piece of liturgy has a bracha structure. Wondering what distinguishes something with a bracha structure and for you, what does the bracha do? Like what is the why of a bracha?

Yeah, bracha is a certain kind of mindfulness. It's not a prayer towards the future. The rabbis called tefillah akal atid a prayer towards the future, a note to self that this should happen. Bracha is a celebration, a consolidation of the things that have come before. I know you can do this because you've done it before. Baruch atah magein Avraham, Baruch are You, shield of Abraham, I know you can do that because you've been the shield of Abraham before. Not only my great grandpa, but all the other Abraham's that have come. So that's what a bracha supposed to do. It's the summation, in terms of the structure of the Amidah is the summation. It's the thing on which you base the prayer, which is a hope for the future. And this is not pie in the sky. I am - I'm praying for this. Because you have demonstrated that this is a real possibility in the world. So I'm only asking you to do what you do best. But to do something that you've done, I think I think that's a major difference. In a clear halachic difference between a bracha and a T'fillah. In rabbinic terms, I would say that, let's say clearing up the, a puzzlement that people oftentimes have, or make us making a stab at it, to say bless it, are you Oh, Lord, our G?d is is not a good translation. I think that bracha, there are some scholars who would disagree. But I think that Baruch means overflow. And it has, if you were to find that word on the beach, and pick it up and listen to it, you would hear overflow. Transcendence. More than the sum of the parts. Cornucopia. That's what you read here. To say baruch atah means overflowing are You. This is not me, blessing G?d with, you know, the normal associations that we have with that I'm going to make you better I'm going to infuse you with something. Even that I think is wrongheaded. But baruch, is baruch is not to be translated as blessed, or bless-ed or Benedict. Benedict, is the Latin translation. A good word, you know, to say a good a good word. It's more that it's it's way more than that. It's the overflow, it's efulgence, is more than the sum of the part. It's transcendent. So does a bracha need a form? I'm thinking about a time when of, Well, I'm thinking about a number of times, but I'm thinking about a time when I went with with my wife and two other couples who've been celebrating New Years together, which is the anniversary of one of the couples for a very long time. And I want to say on the 45th year that we did this together, we went to the Grand Canyon. Never been to the Grand Canyon before. And you wait your turn to stand up against the guardrail and look over. And on the way up there, I heard all kinds of things. Whoa, I don't believe it! Holy blank. Would you look at that? Give me a chance to to think well, what what do you do? What do you say? When you get there? You say baruch atah oseh ma'aseh bereshit? Overflowing, are You, the author of the works of creation? What would that do for you? If it's is that the same functionally as holy blank? Does the soul insist that you say something? That you force up some air past your vocal cords and shape it in some way? And how mindful are you? And how practiced do you have to be? Because there's a aah experience that comes before baruch atah. You got to, Can you can you make baruch atah flow easily? Are you part of a culture that we're that's important maybe you're not! Maybe Whoa is good enough. But does it shape the moment for you? Not a moment that you have created or that you hope to create because the thing's already there. It's a demonstration have something that's real in the world, and you want to appreciate it. And so you say, baruch, overflowing. Ah, maybe that's enough. There is a disagreement in the mishnah, about whether bracha needs a form or not. And one sage takes a very clear position that says, if it's not part of the way that the sages have stamped, the coinage, you know, the the words that have to be said that it's not a bracha. Then there was another position that seems to be a little bit more liberal, if not a lot more liberal. But it's a very ancient discussion, a very ancient machloket, argument. So I think that bracha consciousness is a way of of us helping to shape ourselves. What do you apprehend? In what way do you comprehend it? Not apprehend in terms of being apprehensive, you know, but to apprehend in order to do that is to say to take it in? What makes your breath catch in your throat so that there are no words? What's that thing? I once saw someone who watched the moment when her husband died. And it was as though she was looking at the Grand Canyon. No words. No words. I once asked a group of people what makes the breath catching your throat and somebody said, I go to 30, 40 baseball games a year. And every time I walk through the tunnel, out to the bleachers out to the seating area, and I see that expanse of the stadium open up and 1000s of people out there. Ah, that's what does it for me. What does it for you? Can it only be one thing? Rabbi Mayer would say, we should make 100 brachot day. Say transcendence, say overflowing 100 times a day? Can you do it? As a lot, it's a tall order. Some people say well, you have to subtract from that all the ritual brachot that you would have to say if you are a traditional pray-er who prays three times a day and so on, but take it seriously as a challenge. What, what makes you your breath catch in your throat during the course of the day.

What I love, also so many things and what you said but that the blessing tradition is the same for the Grand Canyon, as it is before you eat, or after you go to the bathroom. Or these things that we might take for granted as not being incredible, are kind of raised to that level. What if you saw this as a breath catching moment? What if the ability to eat or the ability to do a mitzvah, engage in ritual, what if these were also breath catching moments, at least that's kind of what I'm taking from it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And the idea also of the, of the brachot in the Siddur, being connected to the kind of action brachpt, which sometimes I have a hard time connecting the two. But this idea that I am coming into a world where things have already happened, and things have been created. And I get to be part of this flow by recognizing that there is this overflow, this abundance. It's also recognizing that things have been one way and things can be that way again, or that there can be more of that in the world. And then how do we work towards making more of that in the world?

Yeah, yeah. Let me move back to it a story from the Talmud that I told you already, but only told you the first part of it. From what verse what biblical verse, do we know that G?d prays? And then we have the biblical verse, and then we have the next question, which is well, what does G?d pray? And G?d prays, may it be my own will that my attribute of compassion outweigh my other attributes in that I deal with my children according to the attribute of compassion. Then in the next part of the story, the high priest comes in to the holy of holies on Yom Kippur, and sees G?d, that's its own discussion, sees G?d. And G?d says to Ishmael, the Cohen Gadol, Ishmael beni, barcheini. Ishmael, My child, give me a bracha. And what Ishmael says is, may it be your will, that your attribute of compassion outweigh your other attributes, and that you deal with your children according to your attribute of compassion. In other words, is bracha is the exact same thing as G?d's prayer. For G?d, it's a reminder, it's it's akal b'atid. It's a note on the refrigerator. It's a sticky note on G?d's refrigerator. Can I just stop being so damn judgmental. But for Rabbi Ishmael, it's a bracha, here's my bracha for you. You overflow in this particular way, you are transcendent in this particular way. You have done it throughout history, history drips with this. I know you can do it, therefore do it some more. Let me celebrate the fact that you can do it. So and G?d then nods and shows approval. So the same thing as the both the prayer and the blessing according to that story.

Once again, I feel the overflow of this conversation, and so many more, but is there is there a bracha for us, for our listeners, as we close this chapter.

Hmm. Sure. There's always a bracha. Nut just in terms of the the key of the of the conversation, I would say baruch atah, in terms of like sort of liturgical form, let's say. Baruch atah, who makes my breath catch in my throat or who allows my breath to catch in my throat? And in saying that, you've done it before do it some more. You've done it before and I want to celebrate that. Overflowing are You who makes my breath catch in my throat. I have this capacity for wonderment capacity for wonderment. And I would also say this just as a final final word that I think I just demonstrated that it is okay to say baruch atah and say the rest in English. Use what you can use, use what language you can use. And just the language is interesting to you the rest of it will come but there are plenty of things that are available in even in the in the word baruch. Baruch are You will, who makes my breath catch in my throat. Amen.

Amen. Thank you so, so much. Always such a blessing. Thank you. My pleasure. And thank you all so much for listening. Our podcast is edited by Christi Dodge, show notes and social media by Yaffa Englander. By the way, our show notes are incredibly detailed. If you're like, What was the name of that organization? What's that Hebrew word? What's that text? Go to elianalight.com/podcast. That's where you'll find our show notes for now. Maybe someday they'll be in their own website. But for now, that's where our amazing show notes are in our social media for now is on Instagram at the light dot lab. Please like, share and subscribe. All of the things that people ask you to do for podcast - sharing be the biggest one. We want this to grow into a conversation about tefillah, about prayer and liturgy, what it is, why it is and what we can do with it. Next week ,we're continuing our series on the amidah, very excited for you to hear our conversation digging deep into who wrote the second blessing of the amidah. So we hope to see you very soon. Thanks y'all! Bye!