Cantor Vera's Corner
Cantor Vera's Message
October 2021
For most of October we are in Marcheshvan, our Jewish month without holidays. Some rabbis consider this month to be mar, bitter, from that lack of scheduled celebration, as if we overspent our holiday allowance and now must get by on none. Others point out that mar also means “drop,” a drop of water. Noah’s flood began in the month of Marcheshvan with the first drops of the yoreh, the rain.
Flood or drought. Does either word fit you right now, in the wake of the tidal wave of High Holy Days (Rosh HaShanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Sh’mini Atzeret, and Simchat Torah) that Tishrei carried? In the wake of a summer’s worth of ramp-up and best-laid-planning for a fall of back-to-work, back-to-school, back-to-“normal” that is finally here and … perhaps not what you expected? There are years when that holy anticipatory energy bears me up past the holidays, sending me headlong into the weeks afterward. There are years when I feel hollow and spent afterward, like a conch shell on the beach as the tide recedes.
Judaism has words for these states of being. One theological word for fullness that I love is shefa, the overflow of Divine love that I imagine caused the Psalmist to say “Kosi r’vaya,” my cup runs over (Psalm 23). Shefa is a feeling of a world so deeply saturated with love that it’s spilling, dripping, you catch it out of the corner of your eye every time you look up. Shefa is what our liturgical love songs, Ahavat Olam and Ahavah Rabbah (Cosmic Love and Great Love), praise and direct, evening and morning. Shefa is for sharing; you couldn’t stop it flowing to others if you tried. The wells of your spirit are refilled, and they are springing up.
Our Jewish relationship with emptiness is more complex. The word hollow translates as “chillul,” which can also mean desecration (yanking the holiness out of something). Yet chillul’s same Hebrew root of chet-yod-lamed is present in a chalil (flute) used to make music of praise. Mary Renault’s Merlin calls himself, as he recovers from a vision sent to him by his gods, “a reed with the pith pulled out … a whistle for the winds” (Mary Renault, The Crystal Cave). And the root also gives us words for dance (machol) and laboring to birth (y’cholleil).
We may be emptied out in the aftermath of channeling, or creating, life-force and holiness. But that opened space that remembers the shape of what filled it leaves room and resonance for deeper breath. When some action, some activity, some relationship has left our lives, there are times when we want to refill that space, and times when we want to leave it empty. Hollow. Letting the wind make music in us.
Whether we come to this month drained or overflowing, we can take our own measure, privately and without public obligation, in the days of Marcheshvan. And we can take thought for what potentials we want to let into that holy, echoing space between high points. If our wells are empty—with what do we want to refill them? If they’re overflowing—where do we want to direct that flow?
Only you can tell.
Chodesh tov,
Cantor Vera
Flood or drought. Does either word fit you right now, in the wake of the tidal wave of High Holy Days (Rosh HaShanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Sh’mini Atzeret, and Simchat Torah) that Tishrei carried? In the wake of a summer’s worth of ramp-up and best-laid-planning for a fall of back-to-work, back-to-school, back-to-“normal” that is finally here and … perhaps not what you expected? There are years when that holy anticipatory energy bears me up past the holidays, sending me headlong into the weeks afterward. There are years when I feel hollow and spent afterward, like a conch shell on the beach as the tide recedes.
Judaism has words for these states of being. One theological word for fullness that I love is shefa, the overflow of Divine love that I imagine caused the Psalmist to say “Kosi r’vaya,” my cup runs over (Psalm 23). Shefa is a feeling of a world so deeply saturated with love that it’s spilling, dripping, you catch it out of the corner of your eye every time you look up. Shefa is what our liturgical love songs, Ahavat Olam and Ahavah Rabbah (Cosmic Love and Great Love), praise and direct, evening and morning. Shefa is for sharing; you couldn’t stop it flowing to others if you tried. The wells of your spirit are refilled, and they are springing up.
Our Jewish relationship with emptiness is more complex. The word hollow translates as “chillul,” which can also mean desecration (yanking the holiness out of something). Yet chillul’s same Hebrew root of chet-yod-lamed is present in a chalil (flute) used to make music of praise. Mary Renault’s Merlin calls himself, as he recovers from a vision sent to him by his gods, “a reed with the pith pulled out … a whistle for the winds” (Mary Renault, The Crystal Cave). And the root also gives us words for dance (machol) and laboring to birth (y’cholleil).
We may be emptied out in the aftermath of channeling, or creating, life-force and holiness. But that opened space that remembers the shape of what filled it leaves room and resonance for deeper breath. When some action, some activity, some relationship has left our lives, there are times when we want to refill that space, and times when we want to leave it empty. Hollow. Letting the wind make music in us.
Whether we come to this month drained or overflowing, we can take our own measure, privately and without public obligation, in the days of Marcheshvan. And we can take thought for what potentials we want to let into that holy, echoing space between high points. If our wells are empty—with what do we want to refill them? If they’re overflowing—where do we want to direct that flow?
Only you can tell.
Chodesh tov,
Cantor Vera
Cantor Vera's Video Teachings
Cantor Vera's Writings
D'var for Pesach 5780/2020 (video)
"Practicing Failure, Cultivating Resilience," d'var for Yom Kippur 5780/2019
D'var for Kol Nidrei 5780/2019
"Israeli and American Jewish Identity," d'var for 1st Day of Rosh Hashanah 5780/2019
"The Geir Without and Within," d'var for 1st Day of Rosh Hashanah 5779/2018
"Ki Hinei Kachomeir: Desiring our Yeitzer," for Kol Nidrei 5779/2018
Cantor Vera's Report on Trip to San Diego and Tijuana with T'ruah in July 2018
"Practicing Failure, Cultivating Resilience," d'var for Yom Kippur 5780/2019
D'var for Kol Nidrei 5780/2019
"Israeli and American Jewish Identity," d'var for 1st Day of Rosh Hashanah 5780/2019
"The Geir Without and Within," d'var for 1st Day of Rosh Hashanah 5779/2018
"Ki Hinei Kachomeir: Desiring our Yeitzer," for Kol Nidrei 5779/2018
Cantor Vera's Report on Trip to San Diego and Tijuana with T'ruah in July 2018