The Sound of the Shofar

I have been reflecting back to when we began together our global pandemic journey. I remembered how it felt to read this poem. As I read it now, it seems even more relevant as this path goes farther and deeper into uncharted waters.

Pandemic

What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.

And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.

Promise this world your love--
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.

--Lynn Ungar 3/11/20

It reminded me of the Jubilee Year, another practice from the Jewish tradition and close kin to the weekly Sabbath. 

Every forty-ninth year God requires the following so that the household of freedom will not succumb again to slavery: 1. Slaves are to be freed, 2. Debts are to be cancelled, 3. The land is to lie fallow, and 4. the land (wealth or access to livelihood) is to be returned or redistributed to its original holders (Leviticus 25:23-24)  

While it cannot be proven that the Jubilee year has ever been practiced, the very act of blowing the Jubilee horn (shofar) is a ritual sound of God’s will that all of God’s created order be free.  While it may seem an unattainable goal, the very longing points us in the direction of change we desire and may be our next small step. It may be the sound of the shofar we are hearing on our streets, in our conversations, in the prayers of our hearts. 

“May your longings be our longings” JP Newell prays in his translation of the Lord’s Prayer. When we make a practice of listening deeply for the heartbeat of God within us, likely we will feel a yearning for all people to be free from oppression of every kind, a yearning that our planet and all humankind breathe freely. 

More than ever, we benefit from companionship for this journeying. This may be a time to find those who can be a community for deep listening to the Holy yearning within you, to turn the ear of your heart toward the whispering of the eternal amid so much uncertainty.

You are invited. 

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