Bracha
Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al s’firat haomer.
Blessed are You, LORD God, ruler of the Universe, who hallows us with the mitzvot, commanding us to count the Omer.
Today is the forty-second day — six weeks of the Omer.
Today’s Reflection
Some days I feel very stuck in my patterns, the same stories about myself that I repeat to myself and others on a loop. While this habit may serve me to some extent, the reality is that it’s not who I am. It’s who I was. These stories of personal defeat and failure, of wild personal success and triumph, are the records of my life that play endlessly on repeat. Rabbi Kedar teaches, “We cling to the weight of our lives, thinking it saves us, grounds us, keeps us from drifting too far from our past. But drift we must, if what holds us down keeps us down” (Kedar, pg. 139).
What if I had the courage to “find a way to live beyond the boundaries” of my stories, my stuckness? Because within the well-tended fence of our spud we hold on to so much that we no longer need” (Kedar, pg. 139). What purpose do these “stories” actually serve for me? Every time I repeat these stories, I vocalize and unconsciously internalize my perceived limitations; not letting possibilities for my life actually unfold naturally. Rabbi Kedar breaks it down even further: “…with all the strength and might that you have, dare to live, to be whole again, not fragmented by memory and pain” (Kedar, pg. 139).
May I have the courage to let go of the weight of the repeated personal stories that I tell myself, that limit my potential. May I have the courage to be my whole self, my authentic self, even if it doesn’t match my stories.
And so it is. Amen selah.