Shiviti: Sometimes God's Wisdom is Right Before Us

Sometimes wisdom is right before us.  Sometimes God's presence is nearby, if only we open our eyes to it.

On a plane ride back from installing our former intern, now rabbi, Brett Krichiver as Senior Rabbi of Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation, I was thinking about an issue that was troubling me. Instead of wasting the time playing games on my iPhone, I took out my iPad to read.  Instead of reading the delicious novel, I picked up the book our other Rabbi Julia Weisz and I assigned to ourselves. Next thing I knew, there before my eyes was a response to the troubling issue.

.  At least that's how I see it.

Similarly, the Velveteen Rabbi (a poet, a fellow blogger) explores the desire to find God - and find wisdom - in the most painful of places.  I thank her again for her piercing wisdom.

SHVITI - a poem about finding God, even when it hurts by the Velveteen Rabbi

. -- Psalm 16:8

Always before me:

in the checkout line

at the pharmacy

where I'm reading mail

on my phone, in the pixels

of my computer screen

in the locked ward

where I never know

who will want to talk about God

and who will shuffle past

without meeting my eyes

in the stranger

whose barbed words

leave me sick and sad

and in the tallit

I wrap around my shoulders

to hold me together

in my toddler's cries

at four in the morning

in the painful conversation

I don't want to begin

in every ache

help me to find You

The Velveteen Rabbi continues:

The title of this poem is the Hebrew word "Shviti," which means "I have set" (or, more colloquially, "I keep.") It is the first word of the line from psalms which serves as this poem's epigraph. Artistically, a shviti is an image (usually of God's name) designed as a focus for meditation on the presence of the divine. (

Here are images of a whole bunch of them.

)  

The Baal Shem Tov, founder of Hasidism, teaches that this word is related to the Hebrew word hishtavut, which means "equanimity." When I keep God always before me, then I have equanimity; nothing can shake me. (

I posted about this teaching back in 2007

.) This is not an easy teaching to embody.  

It's easy (for me) to find holiness, and to find God's presence, in the world's beauty: the pink smear of sunrise across the horizon, a child's laughter, the embrace of a friend. It's a lot harder (for me) to recognize the presence of God in suffering and in discord. But even in what hurts, there is opportunity to open the heart to God. 

 Wishing all of y'all a Shabbat of wholeness and peace.