1. Notes on The Path of Blessing
   1. Introduction
   2. The spiritual practice of brakhot
   3. Language and G-d
   4. Baruch – a fountain of blessings
   5. Alef
   6. Atah – a fountain of blessings are You
   7. Naming G-d
   8. The Name Beyond Name – a fountain of blessings are You, whose name is YHVH
   9. Eloheinu
   10. Melech
   11. HaOlam
   12. Using a bracha to introduce a mitzvah

Notes on The Path of Blessing

These are my personal notes that I made when I read: Prager, Rabbi Marcia (1998) Path Of Blessings: Experiencing the Energy and Abundance of the Divine, Jewish Lights. When I make notes, they are just to jog my own memory of the book, so I am aware that they may not always make sense to the general reader. However, I hope they are of some use to you, and perhaps also inspire you to read the book itself. The ideas that I put in square brackets do not come from the writer of the book, but are my own responses as I read; references to ‘Zalman’ mean Rabbi Zalman Shachter-Shalomi (z’l).

Introduction

• Bracha (blessing) is really mindfulness practice
• Triangle of G-d – us – the world
• Gratitude and love practice
• Prayer in temple of the heart (Rabbis)
• ‘Our people’ shows my starting point and does not exclude non-Jews

The spiritual practice of brakhot

• A bracha separates a moment to make it holy
• A bracha turns on the shefa - abundant flow
• Blessing maintains balance in our psyche
• We suffer if we fail to praise/bless
• Blessing reminds us of G-d in everything

Language and G-d

• Creation through speaking. As G-d expresses Creation [through His Words]
• Naming something is not an imposition, but an act of discernment (or recognition)
• Speak ourselves and the world towards holiness
• Hebrew is a ‘depth’ language
• Each letter has a meaning
• We don’t ‘read’ Hebrew, we decipher it.
• Our religious vocabulary must change with life and experience

Baruch – a fountain of blessings

• “One should not toss a bracha from one’s mouth (Talmud).
• “A bracha should be said slowly and deliberately. Don’t rush through as if you are carrying a heavy burden and cannot wait to be free of it!” (Rashi)
• Prepare for a bracha

Alef

[Aleph is the place to where G-d withdraws to make space for Otherness, for Creation. It is the place where all giving originates.]

• Aleph to Beit – “the Wholly One becomes the Holy One” [beautiful!!] [Or the holy becomes the Whole One.]

• Beit in gematria is 2; house
  The story of abundance begins with beit (2)

• Reish = 200; head, container-ness

• Kaf = 20; cupped hands

• On a gematria table, beit-reish-kaf = 222

• Breicha = pool / fountain

• Baruch is powerful in itself

• Bereich = knee

• G-d travels incognito and suddenly, with awe, we notice.

• Humility is knowing we are part of something much bigger

• I recognise myself, and therefore you also, as sacred What is your story? What can you touch in me?

• We are all part of G-d, and have a role to play

• Humility means living in the bond of connectedness [empathy]

• Anavah/humility — most expanded and most mundane consciousness are in harmony.

• Cantillation shows strong break in between the two words Ya’akov Ya’akov, but smoothness between Moshe Moshe; Dov Baer says that "Moses’ two levels of consciousness were in harmony in Moses who was humble, but not in Jacob." (Rabbi Dov Baer, Maggid of Mezritch)

• We can develop the harmonious consciousness.

• Moshe constant consciousness; Ya’akov moments of consciousness.

• True humility is true nobility

• Pesel = idol, something less than whole (pasul = Torah with a scribe’s error in it)

• Serve G-d, the Source of Life and Creation, and be true

Atah – a fountain of blessings are You

Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev wrote a powerful invocation that reads as a sacred love-poem:

• Only the language of relationship can take me to G-d. I must know You.
• Intimacy with G-d – see G-d (shimmering) in everything
• "Every ‘you’ is G-d, and must be in order not to become a ‘use-object’." (Heschel)
• Buber’s I-Thou inspired by his declining company to a boy who later committed suicide.
• “All real living is meeting” (Buber)
• ‘You’ is my affirmation of G-d and that we can be in relationship with G-d
• ‘Image of G-d’ means we are ‘theomorphic’ (not that G-d is like us). [NB. G-d is not in our image.]
• ‘Thou’ (and therefore Consciousness) is the Ground of Being
• We/I am a result of G-d’s longing to express and be known [which means you are too]
• panim el panim to know G-d ‘face to face’
• In our turning to face G-d, G-d turns to face us [‘Face’ – Levinas]
• Feminine = brucha at
• Ancient forms of ‘you’, ati (fem.) atah (masc.) differ in final letters yud and heh, which together spell Yah meaning G-d.
• "G-d is fully present only when masculine and feminine are both present." (Zohar)

Naming G-d

• ‘Not-Two’
• To name frames a relationship
• Hebrew letters and syllables express the essence of something, and creates it
• G-d is not a name but a description of one role / aspect
• Eheyeh asher eheyeh = existence unfolding. “I am the Oneness that lives and points towards life.”
• Tikkunei “No thought at all can grasp G-d.” (Zohar)

[Why say Eheyeh asher eheyeh then on that occasion? The people were going to have to believe possible all kinds of things outside of their past experiences or current understandings. They would have to entertain new possibilities, become something new themselves – evolve. The name given was a teaching – to be prepared for the new, the unexpected. The people must be in the image of this aspect of G-d – willingness to be different, go somewhere new, take a different shape, have no strategic plan or future goals. This reminds us that G-d can be different for the needs of the moment, new to each person and generation. And we must be too.]

The Name Beyond Name – a fountain of blessings are You, whose name is YHVH

• Every time we breathe, we breath the Name of G-d
• To attempt G-d’s Name is to breathe life
  Aleph – YHVH and Aleph: unity and infinity
• Rabbi Levi Yitzchak – Says Isaiah: “Peace to the one who is far and peace to the one who is near.” For one whose soul is in balance realizes that s/he is far from G-d, yet at the same time knows that s/he is near to G-d. We feel trembling awe when we think of G-d as utterly beyond. But from the sense that G-d is close, love arises.
• Human heart = ‘Temple’ for Shechinah (in-dwelling presence of G-d)
• G-d is outside (transcendent) and within us (immanent)
• Aleph = hand beckoning downwards from G-d, and the hand of G-d in us reaching back and upwards.
• Adonai­ – a fountain of blessings are You, whose Name is Adonai.
• Address G-d with an attribute
  (e.g. Brich rachamana malka d’alma marei d’ahi pitta – the Compassionate One Ruler of the universe, maker of the bread)
• Yotzeir = making from something;
• Borei = creating from nothing;
• HaRachaman, The Merciful One. rechem = womb; , Source of Life;
• Ein Sof, the Limitless, without End;
• Chei Ha-Olamim, Life Force of Time and Space;
• El Elyon, the Most High;
• Ma’ayan Raz, the Mysterious Well;
• Goel, Saving Power;
• Atika Kadisha, The Ancient Holy One;
• Yah, Breath of Life;
• El Ro’i, G-d Who Sees Me;
• _HaMakom, the Place of the World, or the Place we go to;
• HaShem the Name.
• Adon, as One with ‘craft’, mastery over Creation
  We are the means by which the Master Craftsman expresses Himself [I like Zalman’s gender-neutral term ‘G-d-self’]

Eloheinu

• “Once a person knows G-d is hidden, G-d is not really hidden.” (Baal Shem Tov)

• A fountain of blessings are You The-Eternal-Breath-Of-Life-Beyond-And-Within, Divine Expansiveness Concentrated within our World

• The first ‘commandment’ (literally, ‘saying’, that was inscribed in the two tablets of stone) is ‘I am The first ‘commandment’.

• It is ‘I am YHVH (The Compassionate One), your Elohim (Absolute Power)” which links with
  a) the Shema, in which the middle pair of words is YHVH Eloheinu, and
  b) a bracha, which begins baruch atah YHVH Eloheinu … (these represent the expansive Chesed - abundantly loving side of G-d, and the Gevurah, disciplining, containing side of G-d)

• G-d is both expansive and contracting, chesed and gevurah.
  This is the kabbalistic interpretation of Ps. 84:12 Ki shemesh v’magein, ­YHVH Eloheinu “For the Lord G-d is a sun and a shield.” The phrase in the amidah – hagadol v’hagibor– incorporating both sides (gibor shares the same root as gevurah)

• G-d is context and content, creating from the outside, and sustaining from the inside.

• Elohim = Aleph G-d lamed channelled heh into life and yud toward mem- abundant generosity

• Gevurah (firm boundedness) is, like Chesed, a source of love

• Gevurah prevents excessive giving.

• “From my flesh shall I see G-d” (Job); “from the physical we can perceive the spiritual” (Baal Shem Tov)

Melech

• Teach children to see G-d in themselves and in each other {NOTE: First Biblical reference to this idea is the image of G-d in ourselves and each other}
• Beware inflicting ‘G-d-abuse’, threatening children with a punitive G-d.
• Melech = mem-lamed-kaf = waters of life source … channelled … to cup (us as receivers).
• Melech is a conduit for G-d
• Kabbalah = ‘sitting’ is code for the flow of G-d-energy into the world. So invoking G-d on a throne = inviting G-d-energy to flow into us.
• G-d wants to fill us, and we want to be filled by G-d

HaOlam

A fountain of blessings are You The-Eternal-Breath-Of-Life-Beyond-And-Within, Divine Expansiveness Concentrated within our World, Channelling Creative Power to Manifest as the Mystery of Consciousness becoming Time-Space

• HaOlam = ‘the’ olam, i.e. universe (i.e. space); l’olam = towards olam, i.e. forever (i.e. time)
• We are infinitely tiny in the universe; we are also infinitely large compared to the sub-atomic world
• Space-time and matter ‘inter-are’; consciousness and reality/existence ‘inter-are’

{NOTE: _Olam_ takes us into the lived experience of One-ness and that we ‘inter-are’.}

{NOTE: Focus on G-d, love devotedly, serve, surrender self, join and embrace, be loved by G-d.}

Using a bracha to introduce a mitzvah

• Intimacy with G-d stirs us to do
• G-d makes us holy, through our fulfilling mitzvoth
  {NOTE: Sanctification is always a double-act between us and G-d}
• “to live sacred lives through sacred action”
• root of mitzvah is tzadi-vav;
  tzadi = right action, shaping energy {form};
  vav = join, project
• mitzvah = make sustained commitment to actions revealing Divinity in Creation
• “be holy as I am holy”
• Connecting to and serving others is integral to the holy life
• “domesticate the peak experience” = bringing expanded consciousness into everyday life
• bikkur cholim = visiting the sick
• Tallit = reminder of the presence of G-d, and commitment to mitzvoth.
• T’fillin = Torah passages.
• Mezzuzah = shema, G-d’s unity, return G-d’s love with ours
• Mitzvot are ethical imperatives from the collective wisdom of Judaism and have greater force than personal values or choices.
• Do good, because G-d requires it of me?
  {NOTE: Should I not do good because it is the right thing to do? But Judaism is a way to awaken this ethic in people who perhaps don't have it, or are unaware of its existence}
• Save time by having no bracha for tzedakah (charity)
• Jews once felt obligated; now we choose to be obligated
• Noah: humanity and all world.
• Abraham: Jewish insight into G-d
  {NOTE: Torah was revealed at Sinai in the silent aleph}
• Strip away and risk everything to hear G-d. We hear G-d from inside ourselves. Moses heard G-d with Moses’ own voice.
  {NOTE: Are these the inner imperatives we simultaneously hear and obey in the shema?}
• yetzer tov which is G-d, and yetzer ra which is our impulse; ie wed authority and authenticity.]
• To do a mitzvah is to enter into I-Thou with G-d
• Reshape behaviour to have more experience of inter-being with G-d
• “Each time we (make) love (with) G-d, we stand at Sinai in Atzliut, in that timeless kiss of shared being.”
• Tap ancient wisdom to serve the future; restore mystical tradition; meditation; psycho-spiritual prayer and joyous celebration from Chasidism
  {NOTE: Borrow the wisdom underlying mitzvoth as principles for today}
• Mustn’t reject tradition, but also not be a slave to it – join in renewal.
• "Torah is an unripe fruit of Divine wisdom" (Zohar)
• "G-d is wherever we let Him in" (Kotzker Rebbe)
• “If the only prayer you say in your entire life is ‘Thank you’, that would suffice.” (Meister Eckhardt)