James Stone Goodman — Teachings
To My Community on Rosh Hashanah
5770, since the creation of the world
[as we reckon time]
Every day I get up and say you‘re the master of the Universe
Thank you
Now give me the strength to do the right thing
What more do I have to say today
What’s new on the Rosh Hashanah.
Every day I get up and present
I take three small steps and place myself in front of you
What’s my assignment
Make me a vessel of your will
Help me do the right thing
Plant within me the strength to be the person you intended me to be
Let me be grateful for all the days I have been given —
I am I say
I am You say
Let us be I am for each other.
Every day I get up and I listen for the voice of clarity
There is small clarity
Not much certainty
I am listening I promise you
There is theater
There is posturing
There is a move here and there
The best is a good move but it’s a move
It’s rehearsed and it’s a practiced move
I am looking for the spontaneous move of deep sincerity
Basketball moves
That move.
I have been rehearsing for that move
I’ll put it this way: I have been practicing my scales
When I am required to sing
The sound that erupts out of me will seem unrehearsed
It will surprise me most of all
That kind of move
It may inspire you.
To my community
Your moves inspire me
Because you’ve got up every morning and said
Master of the Universe
Into Your hands I entrust my spirit
At the time I lie down and the time I rise up
And with my spirit my body too
You are with me
I shall not fear
Give me the good move
I need it now
I think.
There are four images this year
I call them Imago #1, 2, 3, 4,
And a fifth
There are four, and a fifth
Let’s refer to them that way:
The four, and a fifth.
Imago. Like the word image but better
Imago as biology -- after transformation
It’s the emergence from the pupa
After transformation
Don’t you love these words?
It is also reminiscent of image
But it’s better:
Imago. There are four this year, and a fifth.
I will show them to you, describe them, study them with you if you like
Give them to you, I have written them in several forms.
I have the traditional and the non-traditional versions.
I also have a generic version.
There are four, and a fifth
Imago #1 I call the kabbalah of repair
The instrument when it is broken and repaired
Is stronger more beautiful than if never broken at all
I love the broken, the wounded, the partial, the incomplete
Because it integrates and even if not, it is whole.
The partial is the All
In the individual is the One
There is something in each individual version
That recreates the All
So there is no broken no incomplete
Even the wounded the broken has a sense of Everything
Everywhere.
Imago #2 was given to me by Rabbi Rivkin
On a sleepy morning, Tuesday, Sept. 7, 1993
He shuffled in and explained to us how the Baal Shem Tov
Taught teshuvah
Teshuvah -- the transformative days of awe preoccupation
Imago
I will turn away from here and approach there
Teshuvah – to be unstuck.
Not arrival but journey
Not destination but pathway
Not there but here
Movement
Unstuck.
Imago #3 the moon is the image
The growth arc this time of year
The moon when it’s hidden at the beginning of the month
Tonight go outside and see the dim image of the new moon Tishrei
We draw something new into the world
Something entirely new
On Rosh Hashanah it’s hidden
Like the moon
And not revealed fully understood
Until the full moon of Sukkot, the 15th of the month,
Make a tekiah with the shofar to awaken something new
Pay attention – what it is might not clarify for a few days
We are listening these days
Fifteen days – the time from the first of the month to the fifteenth of the month
This is the time of all time
To pay attention.
Imago #4
We are all connected to God and to each other
by invisible fibers of connection,
When we sin we cut the connection
When we make teshuvah we knot the connection back again
Diminishing the distance
Thus it is written in the Talmud (Brakhot 34b)
In a place where the one who makes teshuvah stands
Not even the thoroughly righteous can stand,
The person who makes teshuvah is on a higher spiritual plane
So to speak
Than someone who never committed a sin at all
It’s more than: all intentional sins become unintentional
Mistakes
Inadvertent
It’s the elevation of past actions to advantages
When they once were serious errors.
This year is the year of the good intention
May it be the year of Iyyun
In our language of acronym secret anagrams and clues
Let all the signs
The stars too
All the angels and energies, totems and intentions
Conspire to be the year of the good intention
The focused action
May it be that year.
That’s the fourth image/imago for this year
A hope for the future.
There are four, and there is a fifth
The fifth is how do we meet the challenge of the future
With more than a wish --
How do we meet the challenge of the next year
With more than happy new year.
That’s the fifth imago
It’s the imago of finding our silence
And the focused intentions that rise only in silence.
That’s what Moise our teacher taught,
Following the guideline of Hashem.
Hashem said to Moise:
Shush, find your silence.
Am I lost? Asked Moise.
Nice lost, said the Holy One,
Good lost.
Lost enough you may not know when you’re found.
Find your silence.
That’s what I did, said Moise,
I went searching for my silence.
I came to the sea of tears. I sat silently with my stories
Until I recalled every loss.
I enjoyed each act of freedom
As it was given and taken away from me
And everyone I have ever loved came to visit,
One more time.
That’s how I found my silence, said Moise.
The Holy One said to Moise,
Silence, thus rises thoughts before Me.
Find your silence, said the Holy One,
and the thought will rise for you
As it has for Me.
You probably didn’t know you were lost.
Good lost, nice lost.
That’s the fifth imago – find your silence.
There are four, five images
Imagos this time of year.
I give to you as a gift, an intention, an understanding between us
we are trying to know something deep
beautiful holy and sustaining.
The transformational imagos
In four, five images
That we share these Days of Awe,
5770 since the creation of the world
as we reckon time.
This is it.
jsg,usa
Address to Congregation Neve Shalom on Yom Kippur
O my dears –
I am an imperfect perfection
God has blundered more than once
in creating me whole
with broken parts.
I have learned with the Sefas Emes
that all my broken parts are whole
and even if not --
none of us are partial
we are all miniatures of G*d
in some inscrutable way
that will clarify if not in this world
in the next.
I apologize
For what I have said or done
intentionally or inadvertently
or I may do or say
in the coming days
that has hurt or may hurt
in any misconstrued way --
forgive me.
I need you more than you know,
your friend always,
james stone goodman
united states of america
If I run into the angel Gabriel
I will tell him how fine, fine
Super-fine
you all are.