Once again, it was my turn to study and report on the week’s Torah portion for my Jewish meditation group. This week’s themes caught my attention as a writer and a dreamer. Read on to discover why tonight and tomorrow are known as the “Black Sabbath” and why this is the perfect moment for dreamers! (This week’s Torah portion is D’varim, Deuteronomy 1-3:22)

Words

The word D’varim, taken from the first sentence of this week’s Torah portion, means “words.” And the words in question are spoken by Moses to the Israelites as they prepare to cross the Jordan and enter the Promised Land. And since he won’t be entering the land with them, the words will have to stand in for Moses.

These words tell the people’s history, recount their failings, and rally them to have faith in God’s never-failing presence on their journey from slavery to freedom, in battle and through long stretches of hopelessness and despair. And they remind the people that to succeed, they must follow God’s law.

As a writer, words are always on my mind, but this week in particular I’ve been thinking about how the written word has guided me on my life’s journey. For example, earlier this summer I spent a week at a writing retreat, and when I wasn’t actively composing poems and essays, I was clearing out literal closets filled with old journals and files personal writing. On these pages I chronicle my journey from metaphoric slavery (fears, outdated beliefs, resentment, insecurities)—toward what could be seen as a “promised land” of understanding, forgiveness, wisdom, and healing. I was aware as I undertook this process that one day my daughter would inherit these pages of words, and I should choose carefully which to keep. Words outlive and outlast us.

Just as Moses offers the Israelites a kind of performance review in D’varim, so too we call ourselves to account when we take time to reflect in writing or in speech on our own life’s journeys. Our words record the story of who we are, who we have been, and where we’ve strayed from our course, and who we can become.

On both a personal and collective level words are sacred when used with intention and purpose. But lately we are seeing what happens on a global scale when words are used to denigrate, to deny the truth rather than search for or reveal it, and to rile people up with fear and hatred, rather to counsel them toward greater wisdom and restraint.

The writer in me was inspired by this portion, which is a call to higher purpose and also a warning. But I also learned something from studying this portion that interested me as a dreamer.

Vision

In studying for this week’s Torah talk, I also I learned that D’varim is always read on the “Shabbat Chazon,” or the “Sabbath of Vision”.

This is the last Sabbath before the fast of Tish B’Av, and prepares for mourning a series of disastrous events that holiday commemorates, notably the destruction of the First and Second Temple.

The word vision refers to the prophecies of admonition and doom that are read during this time. Indeed, the other name for this day is “Black Sabbath.” This sabbath is followed several weeks later by the White Sabbath, which arrives before the holiest day of the Jewish year, Yom Kippur. On this sabbath at the start of the Jewish New Year, prophecies of consolation, hope and redemption, are read to prepare us for a time when people will turn from evil and learn to do good.

The Chasidic Master Rabbi Lev Yitzchak of Berdichev has a mystical interpretation of the Sabbath of Vision, which appeals to me as a dreamer. As the Rabbi tells it, on this day we are each granted a vision of the “Third Temple.”

Twice we had a divine temple in our midst, and twice we failed to measure up to its gift, the Rabbi explains. So this third temple, unlike its predecessors, is not constructed by people and thus it can not be desecrated by them. Instead, it is eternal and invincible. God is said to radiate his light through its windows.

This Third Temple will only materialize when we are ready to live up to its holiness, the rabbi explains. But once a year, on this special Sabbath, we are granted a glimpse of it.The vision comes to each of us, but we cannot see it with our eyes—only our soul sees it. We likely won’t even recall that we have seen it. This vision of a world that has realized its divine potential reaches us only at the subconscious level. But our brief brush with its majesty can inspire us to be worthy of it.

A message for the individual and the collective

Individually, we all have divine potential, but—like the Israelites crossing the desert, and the ones that lived in the times of each of the temples—we’re often unable to live up to it. We can, however, choose our actions so we come as close as we can to being worthy of the light of the divine temple of our richest imagination.

Our country was founded on principles that represent the best of what we can aspire toward: Liberty, justice, equality, and the right of all people to pursue happiness are sacred principles. And these values are now being tested, challenged, and in some cases trampled.

This week’s Sabbath, when prophecies of warning and of mourning are read is an opportunity to reflect on where we are as a nation. We are better able to endure these prophecies of despair knowing that another set of prophecies of comfort, hope, and redemption awaits us at the end of this journey, when we enter a new year.

Just as the Israelites were counseled to have faith in God, I choose to believe that we will move through our collective midnight together, and emerge on the other side renewed and redeemed. This will require both action and patience. This Torah portion asks us to have faith, but also to live by God’s Law. To me that means to live by the law of goodness, love, compassion, and neighborliness. This is difficult as voices all around us try to seduce us into fear and greediness for our own personal safety during a time of great suffering.

Close your eyes, open your heart

Today, let’s each try to envision that Third Temple, a world where divine love shines through the windows of every holy place and house, and from the eyes of every person. Today in your meditation, and tonight, perhaps in your dreams, open your inner eyes to such an image, and then commit to becoming worthy of living within it.