Spiritual Enrichment Weekend 2008

“Deepening Our Experiences of Shabbat and Holy Time”
A Weekend with Rabbi Elliot Ginsburg, Ph.D.

From Marian Rosen:

On March 1st and 2nd  our scholar-in-residence was Rabbi Elliot Ginsburg, Ph.D., Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and Rabbi at Pardes Hannah Minyan. Dr. Ginsburg is not a sound byte. He is a full and satisfying meal. He spoke four times between the fire that starts Shabbat with the lighting of the candles to the fire that ends Shabbat with Havdalah. In each session he shared his great knowledge and love of Shabbat.

I've talked to several people about the weekend and they all said something similar to this: "At first he was a little hard to follow, but all week I've been thinking about when he said ..." 

Some of the things being thought about are: 

• The temporal structure of Shabbat is architectural; the time itself becomes a sukkat shalom.

• Explore the balance between shatteredness and wholeness - the balance between expansion and contraction

• Moses put both sets of commandments in the ark - the ones that were whole and the ones that were shattered.

• Try the discipline of not always needing "more."

• The wholeness of Shabbat is not the wholeness of uniformity, but the wholeness woven of diversity.

• New nigguns, new melodies...

It was an inspiring Shabbat experience. People at the closing Havdalah session did not want it to end. We could feel that the spaces between us were full - full of music, thought, respect, love - full of oneness.
It might be a really good idea to read this guy's books! Who knows? Maybe we could put together a Saturday afternoon study group. Let us know if you're interested.

From Michele Long:

I came to this weekend's teaching with no expectations, opened to learn, taking home with me a kaleido-scope of treasures. In the Saturday afternoon session alone, as Rabbi Ginsburg taught of the balancing between shatteredness and wholeness; one could hear Maimonides' observations of the need for balan-cing in our lives echoing in his teaching. He said: "There is the one who opens the lock with a key, and one who does not have the key but must break open the door and the lock with an ax." How often do we again balance our lives between swinging the ax and turning the key? How is it that sometimes from the inside looking out, we only see the ax swinging, overlooking the key when it turns?

He reminded us of the importance of knowing the negatives as they exist, so that we could desire to choose, appreciate, and look forward to the positives; clearly pointing out that there are lessons to be learned at both ends of the spectrum. While he talked of the two sets of commandments, I wondered if it was possible that the shattering of the first set of commandments and the giving of the second set was to remind us that when we break those commandments, we can start over in the wholeness of the Source's love for us because we were intentionally provided with that second set; a second chance?

As he made the distinction: "We live with expansions and contractions," you could visualize the different steps to breathing in life; the times we inhale, gathering the strength we can; the times we hold our breath to give that strength time to grow and nourish us, body and soul; and the times we exhale, giving birth to the newer self that has just evolved, transformed from those expansions and contractions. He reminded us that: "You can't put the vessel back together the exact way it was before it was shattered; the shattering has changed it." Yet putting it back together reaffirms who we have come to be and only stands to make us stronger. The clincher is that this stronger self is what will be needed to draw from to get us through the next life experience.

Counting our blessings: having the ability to put the pieces back, stronger than what they were originally; having the ability to able to work, to enjoy the taste of fine foods on our palate, to smell the honeysuckle in the spring breeze, to see the beauty that surrounds us, to cry among friends in our times of sorrow, to laugh among friends in our times of joy and peace, to grow with our family as we venture through life together. And, in this continued balancing, one is well aware that while we have all this, one day it might be gone, or we might be gone. Yet if we lost it all, we will have these sweet and bittersweet memories forever for our nourishment.

Blessed be the Source who has provided for us all we need in this life. We have enough.