Gettin Real

Last night we had a graduation ceremony for the men who participated in the last two “Seasons of Transformation” workshops. I’d say that close to 80 men showed up and a third to a half of them were guests who had never participated in one of our programs. Some of the recent participants shared their experiences very eloquently. I spoke a bit about the courage it took for each man to step up during the workshops, to be real and vulnerable and share with integrity. Many of them bravely battled toxic, negative judgments and fought for his own wellbeing and his right to be a clear channel for God’s light into the world.

I also was aware that we are becoming an organization. We are more than individuals sharing; we are a container that was able to receive that sharing, to listen and appreciate from our own common humanity.

The distinction between the individual and the communal is important on so many levels. When does one start and the other begin? There are needs of a community versus our own needs. There is our own self expression which needs to be considered in the context of the greater organization we might exist within. When is it my time and/or time for my family?

And it’s not just me as an individual in relationship to a bigger whole such as my family or an organization I might belong to. My family, for instance, is the individual unit in relationship to the larger organism of community.

It’s the nature of reality that an individual whole is always a part of a greater whole; whether it is an atom within a molecule, a word in a sentence or an individual within a community. And we all have a drive for freedom and individuality on one side and a drive relationship and intimacy on the other. You can say the former is more masculine and the latter is more feminine, but I think in different proportions we all embody both impulses.

It can be said that this distinction of freedom and intimacy, of self and belonging is the greatest arena of our free choice. We are not just atoms swimming around in molecules. We have been given the gift of consciousness to appreciate the Greater Whole we ultimately exist within as well as the consciousness to maintain the wellbeing of our individual selves.

Some of us lose our selves in the greater wholes we are a part of. Some of us create walls around our selves behind which we don’t feel our connection to the greater whole.

This week, Yaakov blesses Yehudah that the scepter of kingship will not depart from him.

Yehudah personifies the quality of Malkut, Kingship. The root of his name is modeh to acknowledge. We see in Yehudah an ability to acknowledge his individual issues to the whole, in his case with Tamar, as well as his ability to hold the bigger perspective of his family and our mission as a whole.

Malkut is that consciousness. David, who comes from Yehudah, was so involved in his life with vulnerability, fear, courage, love, war… and always with the consciousness of who’s greater Presence he was in the presence of.

Last night I experienced individuals acknowledging parts of themselves as well as recognizing the greater whole we are a part of, vulnerably sharing self while responsibly being a part of a greater organism; in my opinion, a movement towards Malkut.

I need to make some decisions; choices regarding self within whole, family within community.

I’m at the graduation and I’m blown away with the greater organization that seems to be forming.

I’m feeling good.

It’s real.

I go home and open an e-mail from my daughter who borrowed the car which now, all of a sudden, needs a new $1,800 transmission.

A new transmission? $1,800? What the… ?!

Just as real.

It seems we still have to do “the laundry after the ecstasy”, and, you know what, they’re both opportunities for the consciousness of Malkut.

Have a great Shabbos,

Simcha