The meditation text is below - only somewhat related is the insight I discovered today.

In attempting to figure out how to be in the world, I have often been led by the responsibilities that I perceived. For example, in order to be a spiritual person as a rabbi I should be a particular type of Jewish spiritual person.

I believe “should” and “spiritual” may have taken up a difficult place in my thinking.

I have a part of me that seeks and reacts to deeper meaning in the world. My first experiences of this were varied: in nature while on a lake or a mountain, while exercising, in a youth group service celebrating the end of the Sabbath on Saturday evenings, gathered around singing.

Since starting on the path to become a rabbi I took the “should be” of being a rabbi to guide me so that I could be a better facilitator of meaningful experiences for Jewish people and people interested in Judaism.

The thing is, what led me to think that a Jewish path could be a good one was the amazing way in which I found a Jewish echo and teaching in all of those experiences that weren’t stereotypically Jewish. My Judaism was the conversation about what was meaningful regardless of where I found it. My Judaism doesn’t only start in Judaism, it starts in my experiences everywhere and then helps me to reflect on them.

And so this is how Taoist texts help connect me to meaningful thinking and feeling and Jewish reflections on the world too.

Wishing everyone a Shabbat Shalom and a Happy Passover,

Before meditating today I read this:

[From The Lao Tzu (Tao-Te Ching) as found in Wing-Tsit Chan (translator and compiler), A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, (1963), page 151, slightly adapted by Jonathan Freirich]

25.
There was something undifferentiated and yet complete,
Which existed before heaven and earth.
Soundless and formless, it depends on nothing and does not change.
It operates everywhere and is free from danger.
It may be considered the mother of the universe.
I do not know its name; I call it Tao.
If forced to give it a name, I shall call it Great.
Now being great means functioning everywhere.
Functioning everywhere means far-reaching.
Being far-reaching means returning to the original point.
Therefore Tao is great.
Heaven is great.
Earth is great.
And the sovereign is also great.
There are four great things in the universe, and the sovereign is one of them.
Humans model ourselves after Earth.
Earth models itself after Heaven.
Heaven models itself after Tao.
And Tao models itself after Nature.