AncienTrails

The Mountain Summer Moon

Monday gratefuls: Ruth, the young woman. Alan. Cheri. Rabbi Joe Black. Eitan Kantor. David Ross. Jewish music. Downtown Denver. Walking. Breathing. High Summer. Lugnasa on its way. Stoic and Genuine Seafood. Oysters. Fish and chips. Union Station. Restaurants. Amtrak. Destination for the W line. And the A line. And all the RTD lines. Getting back home, up the hill. Cooler and cleaner air.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth, the soon to be college student

One brief shining: The server put a small metal ring on our table, then brought a platter filled with shaved ice, four Granite Bay oysters, two small dishes with melted garlic butter and horseradish in ketchup; Ruth said, I feel awkward since she had never eaten an oyster but we put the horseradish/ketchup sauce on, slipped the oysters down with a gulp and she said, it tastes like the ocean.

Kavanah for the day (intention): Charging the heart with Responsibility – Achrayut (אחריות)

A bit of explanation is in order here. Since becoming a member of CBE-well before my conversion-study has marked my path. Kate and I went together to mussar on Thursday afternoons and to the MVP group once a month. Mussar means discipline, instruction, ethics and it focuses on developing character traits* as a way of living a holy life, a moral life.

Practicing mussar has three potential elements. The first is a kavanah, an intention, for the day. This means throughout the day we seek opportunities to engage the character trait named in our intention. Today, for example, I plan to focus on some financial matters I don’t want to deal with. But need to. So my overall intention focus will be responsibility.

This will encourage me to pay attention not only to working all the way through the financial matters, but also to seek opportunities to do something for someone else. When we have an intention, we also have a practice. That is, I will look for chances today to be of service to someone or I will create chances. The practice is the second element.

The third element is journaling about my experience in the evening. I want to become more intentional about my mussar practice, so I’m adding my daily kavanah to Ancientrails.

There are three other areas of intensive study. Kabbalah. Torah. And, the study I did for my conversion sessions. I studied kabbalah for a while, then stopped. Will begin again in the fall. Now doing Torah study with Gary Riskin as a Men’s Torah Study and once a month with Rabbi Jamie.

Can you see why Judaism appeals to me?

One more thought: Judaism has a layered understanding of the soul. Two layers jump out in this conversation. The first is neshamah. The neshamah notion is equivalent to buddha nature, I am, made as sacred reality. We are a neshama, a pure and sacred soul. Nothing can change this because the neshama represents the very way you are part of the ongoing becomingness that is all reality. The nefesh is how the particularity, the uniqueness that you are as part of that becomingness, develops itself in and through your life. The nefesh is the seat of mussar practice.

* There are many lists of character traits. Here’s one from the Mussar Center: