OT: Reflections on slamming into 1st Advent

I feel like I’ve had a spinning head for days. Between Thanksgiving, impending Chanukkah, the end of the term, the grading, the drive ahead of me, the general holiday chaos, I’ve just been overwhelmed by everything for a week. I can’t believe that Advent is starting already, but I don’t know why I am surprised. The Christmas music’s been in the air for a week already.

Happy beginning of the church year to all the Christians reading. Advent was a big deal in my life as a child and I still mark the days because of the theme of the human yearning for redemption. I have written a few posts about Advent music: one on a famous German advent hymn from the war years; and one about my favorite Advent hymns from childhood and their modern versions.

Armitageworld bloggers have already been busy writing about the day today, with posts on the first Sunday in Advent in Sweden and on childhood memories of Advent Sunday afternoons from Germany. And in a related mood, our fellow fan, Beverly, reminds us to stop and be thankful in the midst of everything.

Not in ArmitageWorld, my favorite Norwegian blogger opens her annual Advent calendar. And a Presbyterian pastor I admire preaches about Advent as Apocalypse (Revelation).

***

Before I forget:

First, I’ve been busy endorsing Richard Armitage’s charity preferences for the last week or so, and I’m going to do that again in this paragraph. If you’ve loved what and how he’s been doing this week, send a message to him with a gift for one of the JustGiving charities attached to congratulation him. In the process, you will help someone and feel great, too. You can donate as little as one pound! If you’d rather donate food in your local community or give blood, connect up with spReAdthelove, which I’m told already has found eleven donors this season. A message will be left in their honor at JustGiving, also to congratulate Mr. Armitage on everything. Thanks to all who have given.

Additionally, I’m going to go out on a limb for myself and make my own charity endorsement for Advent, the same as last year, a group called Advent Conspiracy that asks people to spend more time with their loved ones and to buy a different kind of Christmas gift this year: water for a village that has none — or freedom for a slave. (Yes: a slave. Human trafficking affects a minimum of two million souls each year.) Advent Conspiracy does not collect money itself but funnels giving to organizations that pursue these worthy goals. They have a moving video that makes me teary every time I see it:

Please consider any of these charities as the recipient of your donation.

***

What’s on my mind? I want to put this here, but I don’t have time to formulate it all. I’ll just put the pieces down. Hopefully I can come back.

***

Yesterday’s Torah portion was Vayishlach.

There are two telling moments in this reading for me.

First, Genesis 32: 24f (KJV):

²⁴ And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.

²⁵ And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him.

²⁶ And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.

I won’t let go until you bless me, G-d. Not because I’m so determined or especially virtuous, but because I’m caught up in your gaze, and I don’t know how to let go of You.

In v. 29, the angel refuses to Jacob his name. “Why do you ask?” he says. Why indeed. But the angel changed Jacob’s name to Israel and blessed him.

***

I particularly love the German translation of this text as Luther did it: “Aber er antwortete: Ich lasse dich nicht, du segnest mich denn.”

Here, the setting by J.S. Bach:

***

Then, also Genesis 33: 8f (NIV), when Esau and Jacob meet for the first time after Jacob tricks Esau out of his birthright:

⁸ Esau asked, “What’s the meaning of all these flocks and herds I met?”

“To find favor in your eyes, my lord,” [Jacob] said.

⁹ But Esau said, “I already have plenty, my brother. Keep what you have for yourself.”

¹⁰ “No, please!” said Jacob. “If I have found favor in your eyes, accept this gift from me. For to see your face is like seeing the face of God, now that you have received me favorably. ¹¹ Please accept the present that was brought to you, for God has been gracious to me and I have all I need.” And because Jacob insisted, Esau accepted it.

The notes in the Stone Chumash reports that Rashi distinguished between Esau’s statement that he has “plenty” and Jacob’s statement that he has “enough” (the Stone Chumash also translates the latter reply as “everything”). Rashi says: Esau’s answer reflects greed, whereas Jacob’s statement sufficiency and gratitude.

Chabad comments on how Jacob’s favor before G-d affected him.

I need to be more grateful. Like Jacob, I have everything. G-d has given me enough. G-d has given me everything.

***

And, weird transition to the Christian past, the d’var Torah yesterday mentioned that Jacob offered Esau donkeys. The rabbi noted that Moshiach will come on a donkey. The donkey symbolizes physicality — the arrival of the Moshiach on the donkey stands for the ability that we will have to subdue our bodies and live spiritually. May Moshiach come and help us to live in the spiritual world.

When the Messiah comes, Israel will live in peace with the nations.

Christians also believe that the Messiah arrived, riding on a donkey. (Yes, I know they took it from the Hebrew scriptures.) The donkey symbolizes humility.

***

For the first Sunday of Advent in year A (yes, I know we started year C today, liturgy mavens), the RCL suggests Isaiah 2:1-5. This is the verse that the rabbi was quoting yesterday when referring to peace:

2:3 For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

2:4 He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

2:5 O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!

We sing the first verse every week when we take the Torah out to read it:

כִּ֤י מִצִּיֹּון֙ תֵּצֵ֣א תֹורָ֔ה וּדְבַר־יְהוָ֖ה מִירוּשָׁלִָֽם׃

I need to pray harder for peace.

***

I think it comes down to this: I want justice and peace and in order to get justice I must resign my hopes for peace. Or that’s how it feels on a day to leave, when I constantly have to point out injustice, to say that justice denied to one is justice denied to all. No man is an island. When one person is denied personhood, I am also no longer a person.

At the same time, Micah 6 — this is not an active move, it’s resignation. I can’t do anything else, other than act in justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with G0d. Because I simply lack the capacity for everything else. For everything else beyond that I am not enough. Like the Mennonite who says, My G-d says thou shalt not kill and I am not smart enough to figure out the rest of it and I don’t have to because the message against my incapacity has simply to be enough. Because that is enough it is everything and vice versa.

***

Hymns my mom reported that they sang in church today:

***

How to speak and let go of caring about the outcome. To create the room to speak, but to speak as if no one is listening. Not to care what people think. To simply become a voice and a word and nothing else. To reduce everything to its essence. To create and let the created thing be and walk away from it as if I had forgotten it and who I was. Flow, flow, flow.

To connect this with being a mensch. To feel joy in the midst of destruction. To do as well as possible every time. To let myself not do well.

What to keep, what to lose? Like I have any control?

***

Sorry this is so disjointed. I have to grade …

Chanukkah in six days.

~ by Servetus on December 3, 2012.