Class 8, Part 1: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Class 8, Part 2: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Class 8, Part 3: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Class 8 Part 4: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Class 2, Part 1: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Class 2, Part 2: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Class 2, Part 3: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadMin hametzar karati ya, Anani v’merchav ya. This is verse 5 from Psalm 118. It means ‘From the narrow place I called to You. From the wide place You answer me.’ We are, of course, talking to God, the One who hears and answers our prayers.
In Macon we have lived in that narrow place for much too long. It’s time for us to move to the wide place. But it’s not that easy. We can either focus our attention on the narrow place, hoping to get out of it, hoping to be saved from it. Or we can focus on the wide place, the place that we really want to live in.
If we focus on how narrow the place is, then we allow ourselves to become more comfortable in that narrowness. But if we focus on the wide place, we propel ourselves into it before we even know it.
Knowing that freedom is really in the wide place is essential for us to even imagine it. We must imagine our deepest dreams and hopes. Even if in the past we have been disappointed and hurt by doing just that, we must still imagine how sweet and expansive that feeling of freedom is.
We need to talk to our neighbors and friends, our families and co-workers, people who look like us and those who don’t. We have to plan with them what our future will be and the more we can envision it, the sooner we will find ourselves out of the narrow place and into the wide place.
And of course, it is God who helps us to do that. God helps us remember what our dreams are even when we forget them. God opens the doors that we think are nailed shut and gives us the chance to walk through them.
We have to remember that we can no longer live in the narrow place. We can no longer allow our differences to cover up our commonalities. It is time for us to move together with God’s help.
Holy Blessed One, please help us leave the narrow place and move to the wide place, where there is enough room for all of us to live whole and complete lives. Let that wholeness give all of us in Macon the courage to create a new start together and let us say, Amen.
Class 7, Part 1: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Class 7, Part 2: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadThe following podcast recaps Intro to Judaism Class 6.
The following podcast recaps Rabbi Bat-Or’s Intro to Judaism Class 5.