I received a gift this morning.
I had set my timer for five minutes and closed my eyes.
I first focused on experiencing just my sense of taste (toothpaste),
then switched to hearing (the fan, birds, a hum),
then smell (coffee),
then touch (my shorts on my legs, my back touching the couch),
then sight (some floaties, splotches of color).
Then, gratitude.
Reminded of that idea from Teilhard de Chardin:
We are not physical beings having a spiritual experience,
but spiritual beings having a physical experience.
Inspired to try something I’d never gotten to click before:
To notice whatever it is that is doing the noticing.
If we are not our senses,
if each of us is not what happens to us,
or our emotions,
or our perceptions,
then who are we?
As if sneaking behind a curtain,
I twisted my mind’s eye inside out
to see what it was seeing.
There it was.
A beam of light.
A flickering glow stick of electricity
with no start
and no end.
Remarkable, Transcendent Flow.
When we read “Let There Be Light,”
or see a Ner Tamid,
or dream of an Or Hadash,
we don’t tend to think of ourselves.
But maybe, when we are focused on blessing,
on the wholeness of the universe,
on the Source,
we have the possibility to see the light within,
connecting all things,
creating all possibilities.
As it is said in Psalms:
By your light do we see light.
Dr. Andrew K. Mandel is a rabbinical student at HUC in New York and founder of Yom HaTzedek.
