Ha'azinu
Returning to the Wonder of Now | Shabbat Shuva
Weekly Wisdom on Parashat Ha'azinu - Shuva, by Zac Newman, Program Director at Or HaLev
This Shabbat is Shabbat Shuva, the Shabbat of Return, which falls in between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. We read Parashat Ha'azinu, the penultimate Parasha in the Torah. Ha'azinu means 'listen' or 'give your ears to'.
The combination of Shuva (returning) and Ha'azinu (listening) is a lesson in itself: that one of the ways we return to connection, wholeness and presence, is by listening. We can give our ears and our attention out, beyond our stories and ideas, out to what is here, what is arriving and emerging, what is fresh.
The journey of return in this way is back from our wandering and forgetfulness, and to the vitality and freshness of now. This is the eternal refuge: now. We can always come back to it, it's always here and it's always available, the ungraspable wonder of now.
If we listen out beyond the narratives, the momentum of habit, the hangover of what has been; if we listen and we listen steadily; we can find that as well as the stories, as well as the pain - which have their reality too - there is also this. This freshness, newly born, this moment, here for us to come back to and rest in.
If we listen steadily
then we remember
and we return
and we are refreshed
and we can go on.