“Shabbat is a serene island of time in the midst of the often-raging sea of a restless world.” ~Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
Tag Archives: Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
Summer Vacation at Realm Central
Summer has just begun, and here at Realm Central we’re already feeling the urge to go outside to walk, garden, and eat ice cream at every opportunity. And speaking of ice cream, a hearty “Thank You!” goes out to Therapy Ice Cream & Coffee Bar in Akron, Ohio for hosting a Realm book signing last Wednesday. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
So, as our minds and hearts wander outside, and our bodies closely follow, the writing diminishes in quantity ever so slightly. I used to fear the lull in my writing like the plague, and in doing so, I’d force myself to sit for long hours in front of a laptop while I stared longingly out my back sliding door, dreaming of basking in the sunlight instead of the glow from my computer. Needless to say, and yet I’m going to say it, the scant writing produced during just such a session was garbage. I mention this to remind myself to never return to that dark place.
What I’ve learned to do instead is extend myself some grace and find another way to be productive while simultaneously enjoying the summer. This has been achieved by crafting teatails. What is a teatail? I’m so glad you asked.
I have built upon my passion for tea by experimenting with brewing times, chilling the teas, and blending them with complimentary spirits. I’m sure I’m not the first person to think of adding alcohol to iced tea, but my goal is to not make a teatail so top-heavy in booze that the tea is reduced to a mere color in the drink. Search “teatails” to find what we’ve created so far. If you want to read everything I’ve posted about tea, search “Tuesday Tea.”
Another reason the writing (novel and blog posts) will probably slow down this summer is that I’m in the research phase for a portion of my current WIP. I need some info on sailing, and while I’ve made a contact through a writing friend, the new contact is out of town, so writing is on hold at the moment. Bring me another teatail!
But I’m no fool, and in making the best use of this time, I’m staying in touch with writing by reading. Rabbi Sacks’s Covenant and Conversations, specifically his essays on the book of Bamidbar (Numbers) at this juncture, has gloriously dominated my reading. As I mentioned in a recent blog post (Say My Name, Say My Name), R. Sacks’s essays are so full of life that I simply cannot believe this man has passed on.
I’m also revisiting C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, and I’m halfway through The Silver Chair. I find Lewis’s work to be timeless and influential, and whether reading his fiction or nonfiction, I’m taken back to the foundation of my own writing. Sidebar: Narnia reminds me of another favorite book from my childhood, South Star by Betsy Gould Hearne, which also heavily influenced my writing. I didn’t realize how much until I reread it last year. Perhaps a blog post on this would be a good idea.
Anyhow, Realm Central is always open and at least one staff member will be present to answer your questions and reply to your comments. If you need a great summer read that’s great all year long, and one to which you’ll return again and again, we highly recommend Realm. We’ve made it easily accessible to you with the handy links below.
Stay tuned for updates and remember to have a great summer!
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Say My Name, Say My Name
After reading this week’s Torah portion, Naso, I continued my studies by reading Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’s essays found in his book series Covenant & Conversation, Numbers: The Wilderness Years. The essay What Counts? discussed the census at the beginning of the book of Numbers, B’midbar in Hebrew.
As always when reading Rabbi Sacks’s works, they are so infused with a passion for Torah and a love of Hashem that I must often remind myself that he passed on. I cannot believe this brilliant man is gone. Fortunately, and with much gratitude to Adonai, the Rabbi’s works live on.
One point Rabbi Sacks made in this essay was the importance of the individual to Hashem. He quoted one of my favorite Psalms (147:4) which says that Adonai “counts the number of the stars and calls them each by name.” He went on to say:
A name is a marker of uniqueness. Collective nouns group things together; proper names distinguish them as individuals. Only what we value do we name. God gives even the stars their names. All the more so does this apply to human beings, on whom He has set His image. When God calls, He calls our name, to which the reply is simply, “Hineni,” “Here I am.”
And that’s when it hit me.
Hebrew is an amazing language with a message for all humanity encoded into the very letters themselves. Learning to read and speak Hebrew will only enhance one’s Biblical studies, so I strongly encourage digging in as soon as possible. But this time, English came through, and not just the words but a smidgeon of punctuation, too.
What first leapt off the page at me was the fact that with the simple addition of a comma, one could render the response, “Here, I am,” or even better, “Here, I AM.” The focus is taken off the person and placed with much respect on Adonai Himself. The reply acknowledges Him by name in the same way a student might say, “Here, Mrs. Smith” when being called on by a teacher or other authority figure.
The second way I saw and understood the reply “Here I am” was as a bridge between myself and our Father, Avinu, who is also our King, Malkeinu. This perspective enabled me to see that while Adonai the King often seems to be over there because He is so vast, there is nothing else, and “in Him we live and move and exist” (CJB), Adonai the Father is also right here because He breathed into humanity, and I am a living soul. In other words, what many call the divine spark resides within me.
It’s as if Adonai said, “There I AM, here I AM, and everywhere in between I AM because where could you possibly go that I AM not?” We are in Hashem, and He is in us. Please do not hear me say that I am in any way equal to Adonai; I am merely a conduit through whom He speaks. But it is because He is in me that I, created in His image, can answer “Here I am” knowing that “here He is.”
Lastly, as Rabbi Sacks mentioned in a footnote included in the passage above, when Hashem calls our name, He often does so twice. It is done as an expression of love, an endearment. My favorite instance of this is when Yeshua spoke Martha’s name twice thus elevating this humble woman to the level of the patriarchs. But that’s a discussion for another time.
May Adonai call on you, and when He does, may you remember to simply say, “Here I am.”
(I recommend watching the link above in the Brave browser to avoid advertisements.)
~~~
Sacks, Jonathan. “What Counts?” Numbers, The Wilderness Years, First ed., Maggid Books & The Orthodox Union, New Milford, CT, 2017, pp. 76–77.
hl gibson, author 