What is spirituality?

May 24, 2024

Part 1: Underground River

What is spirituality?

The way I’ve been thinking about it recently is that spirituality is like a river that runs beneath the ground. It is hidden and pretty easy to forget about.

But when you sink down a level, beneath the ground, you realize there is something flowing and changing, something alive and rushing. 

That river is what sometimes makes our ground shake. 

It is what holds us up. 

It is what absorbs our leftovers. 

It is what feeds our trees.  

Some people live as though this river does not exist. Maybe they’ve forgotten about it and maybe they don’t want to think about it. To be fair, it is probably good that some people aren’t always thinking about the rushing happening just below our feet. 

But many many of us yearn to feel that deeper movement. Maybe that’s even why we are here tonight.  

Part 2: Four Words

There are four words that keep coming back to me when I think about what we are creating with this Shabbat project. 

Deep. Wide. Present. Free. 

They are simple and they help give me direction in a moment that feels exhausting and pain-stricken. A moment where it feels hard to create something new. 

These words describe the kind of world I want. 

But they are also actionable right here and right now. 

I want us to explore these four words together. I invite you to let your mind make connections. Notice areas of tension or excitement in my words. It is all welcome.

Those four words. 

Deep. Wide. Present. Free. 

Part 3: Deep 

Deep: what does deep connote for you? 

For me, it sounds like being immersed in something. Like I can look around and see the beauty of the depth all around me. There is something a little frightening but also safe in this feeling. 

Depth feels like knowing that I am not the first one to be here, nor am I the last. And that life can be done not just with one toe but with our whole bodies. 

We can be completely immersed in beauty, in shabbat and in torah, in our tradition and our ritual. B’chol l’vavcha u’vchol nafshecha, uv’chol meodecha. With our whole souls, with our whole hearts, and with our whole might. 

Part 4: Wide

Wide. What does wide mean to you? 

Wide makes me think of the massive public pool in the top of Central Park. Wide to me connotes that there is no shortage of room. The biggest pool you can imagine.

A friend of mine once said that, for them, as an antizionist and trans person, it felt like many Jewish communities claim they have a wide open door but then the experience inside leaves something to want. Wide means that we open the door and then we make sure it feels good inside. We make sure that everyone can find a comfortable seat and that they can be their full, widest selves. 

Part 5: Present

Present. What does present make you think of?

Present to me is the moment of jumping in the pool. Present acknowledges that there is so much in our world meant to overwhelm and distract us. Sometimes we need that jolt of cold to remind us how alive we are. Present means we listen to our bodies and the wisdom they hold. Present means we sing, dance, cry, listen, and feel.

Present means Shabbat. It means honoring that for one day of the week, we are invited to exist rather than create. Perhaps the greatest gift God has ever given us. 

Part 6: Free

Free. What does free remind you of?

Free reminds me of a lack of judgement. Free means we talk about what constrains us - interpersonally, communally, and societally and we commit to envisioning and creating a future without those constraints. It means realizing what it is to be free for every human and every being on this planet.

Free means money may be an important tool but everything we do here - pray, eat, sing, be together, are not for sale. 

Free means an end to the inventions of capitalism, racism, bigotry, and the corruptive lie that some people are more important than others.

Free means an end to genocide in Palestine and everything we can possibly think of put toward Palestinian life. Free means freedom and liberation in Palestine. Free means that the grief and destruction of the past 9 months is transformed into healing, compassion, and love. 

Free. 

Part 7: Closing

We deserve the guidance and holiness of living in tune with that underground river. The river of deepness, wideness, presentness, and freedom. The river of spirituality. 

There is a beautiful line in Psalm 27 which you might be familiar with from high holiday liturgy. 

“One thing I ask of Adonai, only that do I seek: to live in the house of the LORD all the days of my life” It is the most perfect expression of the simplicity and hugeness of what we seek. Of what spirituality is about. 

May we build that house together and may it sit right above the river.

Shabbat shalom.