Why
exalt a name?
Why
do we need a Name?
From
Before Time Was,
During
Time As it Is,
After
Time Which Will Be
Bless the Ancestral
God or your Personal
God
Or the God of Our Current Understanding or lack thereof,
And
let us say, Amen.
Bless who? what? how do we name the Un-nameable?
Bless
the names of God that we came up with anyway, because we’re human and we need names.
Elohim
Shaddai
Adonai
Shechinah
HaMakom
And so many more.
Bless
the name, Hashem, meaning “The Name”, because even the inadequate names we came
with are a bit too powerful for some of us to say out loud.
Oy,
it’s complicated.
Layer
Upon Layer of attempts to describe the Indescribable.
It’s
a good thing we Jews like that sort of thing.
So
bless our need for a name
It
has made us so creative.
Bless
the Eternal and the Glorious,
The Holy Whole,
And
bless our imaginative attempts to imagine the Unimaginable.
It
makes us happy to think about God
Even though we have absolutely no idea what the truth is,
That's never stopped us before!
Really,
we can’t say it enough,
We
are blessed with this burden.
We
go on and on
Above
and beyond these blessings
Above
and beyond the prayers and psalms and torah reading
We
go on and on
Because
we need to describe what cannot be described.
We
need structure in the face of the vast
So we make up stories.
We
create a personality and voice for God.
It
makes sense of of the apparently chaotic.
So
let us pray for beginings and middles and ends.
These prayers of all the Jews, these prayers of all the world:
For
life despite death
For
joy despite sorrow
For
meaning despite doubt.
May these prayers be answered,
As
unlikely as that may be,
You
never know.
And
let us say, Amen.
Let
us go on and on
So
that we may be heard
Let
us shout if we have to!
You
want us to listen to You?
Then
listen to us!
And
let us say, Amen.
To
all Jews everywhere
Observant,
religious, liberal, secular, cultural…
To
all of our teachers and to their teachers
And
to all their students' students
To
all who study Torah
To
all who want to learn anything
To
all who need to learn,
Here
or anywhere
May
we be at peace,
So that we may enjoy our learning.
May
we know our true selves
So that we can act with compassion.
May
we find wholeness
And
may we share the wholeness
And
receive the same in return.
And
may we have nice long lives in which to share and enjoy the good things of
life:
And
may we have an inkling of a smidgeon of a glimpse of
Of
the shadow of
the back of
God.
Oh
please may we know God’s presence.
Please please please.
Oh wait, God's presence has always been here
And always will be.
Never mind.
God doesn't need any names,
Only we do.
And
let us say, Amen.
May
we have the will and the luck and the opportunity and the grace
To
experience in our short lives:
Love,
Kindness, Compassion
Sexual
Pleasure, Good Food, Fun
Parents,
Children, Family
Knowledge,
Learning, Teaching
Work,
Responsibility, Community
Rest,
Gratitude, Companionship
Health,
Forgiveness, Healing,
Atonement,
Redemption, Salvation.
May everyone everywhere achieve all this
And
let us say, Amen.
And may the Breathing Breath of Eternity
Grant
peace
Upon
us and everybody else.
And
may the Un-nameable be sanctified
And
the Names we have invented to name the Un-nameable be sanctified
And
may The Name we invented to name the names we invented for the Un-nameable be
sanctified.
Layer
Upon Layer of attempts to describe the Indescribable.
It’s
a good thing we like that sort of thing.
Bless
our need for these names,
It
has made us so creative
In our own small way.
Amidst the ongoing Creation
Of the Creating Creator,
May our creations flourish and survive our limitations.
And may we see the good things grow
And the bad things diminish
In our lifetimes.
And if we may be so bold as to hope
For the good things to happen
Sooner rather than later?
Bless
The Name of the Names of the Un-nameable
Now
Until
Then.
Layer
Upon Layer
A Holy Wholeness.
May
all our prayers
Be
understood
And
let us say, Amen
God,
However we understand God on any given day,
God,
Making
peace and
Sustaining
wholeness
Through us
If
we but have the eyes to see,
For each other
And all the world,
Shalom.
And let us say, Amen.
