Every day we can co-create, create the world worth living in. If we are created in God’s image, and inside the Arks of our chest dwells Divinity, we earned another shot at a new day.
My body is an Ark. I am holding in the Divine, and I am keeping out the Chaos.
The תבה (tey-vah, vessel that Noah built, often translated as “ark”) floated alone in the vastness of the water. As the portholes in the sky and the sea opened up, the תהו ובוהו (tohu va-vohu, chaos) flooded in, and the only barriers left that kept it out were the sides of Noah’s תבה. Chaos surrounded, water flowed in from beyond the skies and the atmosphere and the sea and below the sea. Suddenly the only membrane keeping the Order in and the Chaos out was Noah and his ark. Inside this warm, musty, animal-smelling sanctuary floated all the sparks of life that were left in the world. The תבה kept it safe.
It is so hard to look at our own bodies with kindness. To see in our physical manifestation pure, unadulterated Good, to see deep within the flesh and the veins and the cartilage a miracle, and a house of Divinity. To look at our skin, to see it holding in universes, holding in Forever and Nothingness. To look at our wrinkles, our love handles, our knobbly knees, our skin disease, our brittle bones, our varicose veins as the תבה that holds in God and holds out Chaos. We are Good for just existing. There is Chaos swimming around us, and there is Holiness inside. How can we do anything but look upon our תבה with kindness? It is doing so much work.
וַיִּבְרָא אֱלֹהִים אֶת-הָאָדָם בְּצַלְמוֹ,…
And God created man in God’s own image. B’reishit, 1:27
I stand in the ocean, my feet a little too cold to be considered comfortable. I stand in the ocean, and the tide rushes up to me, up my ankles, my shins, my calves. It rushes back, and I’m left standing, breathing, waiting for the next rush. My breath starts to sync with the sounds of the waves, and the tide as it rushes back to me. I’m standing in the Atlantic Ocean, in Revere, Massachusetts, after one of the hardest emotional weeks of my life. I’m standing in the ocean, hearing what everyone keeps saying about “ride the wave,” and “emotions are like the tide.” I am standing in the ocean, I made it to Revere to the Atlantic to this moment. I say a blessing. I realize that if I am created in God’s image, and if my emotions are like waves, and I see the Source in nature, then I am like the ocean. I bless the Ocean, my Creator, and myself.
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה׳ אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם שֶׁעָשָׂנִי בְּצַלְּמוֹ
Barukh atah Adonay, Eloheynu Melekh Haolam, she’asani be’tzalmo
Blessed are you, Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, who made me in God’s image.
Blessed are you God who lets my emotions roll through me, who created high tide, low tide, and the waves between.
בְּתוּבוֹ מְחַדֵּשׁ בְּכָל יוֹם תָּמִיד מַעֲשֶׂה בְרֵאשִׁית
B’tuvo m’khadesh b’khol yom tamid ma’aseh b’reyshit
Every day the work of Creation is renewed
Every day there is a new start. There is another chance to be kind to ourselves, to each other. To be slow, to go slow. To listen, to listen to our bodies and give them what they need. Sometimes the teyvah is holding in the chaos, too, not holding in peace but resisting it, refusing it. Every day, Creation is renewed. Every day we can co-create, create the world worth living in. If we are created in God’s image, and inside the Arks of our chest dwells Divinity, we earned another shot at a new day.
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה’ אֱלֹהֵינוּ רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם עֹשֶׂה מַעֲשֶׂה בְרֵאשִׁית
Barukh Atah Adonay Eloheynu RuakhLit. Spirit. Some new versions of blessings call God "Spirit of the World" (Ruakh Ha’olam), rather than "King of the World" (Melekh Ha'olam). Haolam, oseh ma’aseh breyshit
Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Force of the Universe, maker of the works of Creation.
It is easy to teach that we need to hold each other in love, to understand we all reflect back a spark of the Divine, that we are all struggling to make sense of everything that pretty much never makes sense.
Emotions flow through us, and it is our responsibility not to try to dam the ocean, to catch the tide, to ignore its undulations. We are created in God’s image. We feel like the ocean.
Ariana Katz is rabbinical student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, graduating in the spring of 2018. She is a queer white AshkenaziJew of Eastern European descent. The term also refers to the practices and customs associated with this community, often in contrast to Sephardic (Southern European) traditions. femme 4th generation Philadelphian who sees rooted ritual and radical organizing as her Jewish legacy. Ariana was the creator and host of KaddishThe Aramaic memorial prayer for the dead. Mourners recite this prayer at every service, every day, in the presence of a minyan (prayer quorum) over the course of a year (for a parent) or thirty days (for a sibling or offspring). The prayer actually makes no mention of the dead, but rather prays for the sanctification and magnification of God's name., a podcast about death and identity (kaddishpodcast.com). She is a ritual maker and ruckus organizer, and has taught learners ages 3-93 for over a decade. Ariana has served as a volunteer chaplain at Planned Parenthood and currently sits on the Planned Parenthood board of Southeast Pennsylvania. Ariana is training to be a soferet, scribe of sacred Jewish texts. arianakatz.com.
