Breathing Torah into the World: A Day Retreat for Shavout

1401 Middlefork Drive,Lake Forest IL 60045

11 May, 2023

Description

In this special day retreat to prepare for Shavuot, we will explore the life-giving power of our connections to each other. The Hasidic tradition teaches us that we are not just given Torah; we create Torah - through our loving actions. Using selections from the Book of Ruth and other Jewish and secular teachings, we will dive into the question: how do we bring more nourishing Torah into the world through the ways in which we reach out and connect with one another? How do the relational threads in our lives sustain us and others? The day will interweave study and conversation, movement and personal reflection, nourishing food and mindfulness to prepare our inner soil for receiving and birthing new Torah on the holiday of Shavuot. Sefat Emet teaching on Shavuot: And we read the Book of Ruth on Shavuot because it is the essence of Torah She Ba’al Peh. God requests that we add to the written Torah through our actions and deeds. The actions of the righteous create new Torah… And this is the essence of Boaz whose name means “Bo Oz” - within him is strength… It is an issue of truth and trust/faith (emet v’emunah). The written Torah is given to us without anything hidden. But the People of Israel must find the truth through trust and faith. Because the unskillful parts of ourselves try to rob us of our wellspring of inner trust… But the life-giving energy of the Divine dwells within each human being… Martin Buber, I and Thou In the beginning, is the relation - as the category of being, as readiness, as a form that reaches out to be filled, as a model for the soul...Man becomes an I through a You...The purpose of relation is the relation itself - touching the You. For as soon as we touch a You, we are touched by a breath of eternal life. John O’Donohue, Anam Cara In the Celtic tradition, there is a beautiful understanding of love and friendship. One of the fascinating ideas here is the idea of soul-love; the old Gaelic term for this is anam cara. Anam is the Gaelic word for soul and cara is the word for friend. So anam cara in the Celtic world was the “soul friend.” In the early Celtic church, a person who acted as a teacher, companion, or spiritual guide was called an anam cara. It originally referred to someone to whom you confessed, revealing the hidden intimacies of your life. With the anam cara you could share your inner-most self, your mind and your heart. This friendship was an act of recognition and belonging. When you had an anam cara, your friendship cut across all convention, morality, and category. You were joined in an ancient and eternal way with the “friend of your soul.” The Celtic understanding did not set limitations of space or time on the soul. There is no cage for the soul. The soul is a divine light that flows into you and into your Other. This art of belonging awakened and fostered a deep and special companionship. David Whyte, Consolations Through the eyes of a real friendship an individual is larger than their everyday actions, and through the eyes of another we receive a greater sense of our own personhood, one we can aspire to, the one in whom we have the most faith. Friendship is a moving frontier of understanding not only of the self and the other, but also, of a possible and as yet unlived, future...the ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believe in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.