Mattot-Masai
Where do we direct our attention?
Reflection by Zac Newman, Or HaLev Teacher & Program Director:
"I remember one of my teachers, Rob Burbea, saying `what we give attention to, we amplify.` It reminds me of the power we have to choose where to direct our attention. Our appreciation of this power deepens with the realization that the act of giving attention to something has an effect on what is observed. It amplifies it. When we ruminate, the worry grows. When we linger with what is pleasant, the pleasantness grows.
This week’s double portion Mattot-Masai begins with an extended and precise detailing of the laws of vows and oaths, nedarim and shavuot. What is the Torah calling attention to here? What is it seeking to amplify in our awareness?
Words create worlds. We know this from the very beginning of the book of Genesis. There, it is the Divine whose speaking has such impact. Here, dwelling at length on the significance of vows and oaths, we are reminded that this enormous creative energy flows through our words, too. We are reminded of our nature as chelek eloah mima’al, a portion of divinity from above.
We sometimes wish for our words not to have an impact and to speak freely without consequence. The potential power of our words - all that we might use our lives to say - comes with a responsibility that can be daunting: to choose our words carefully, to hold back when we are unsure, to speak out.
Reading through this passage again, a phrase catches my eye: `God will forgive her`. As I keep reading I find this same phrase three times in these sixteen verses. It strikes me as reassurance and encouragement - as if to say, don’t forget, dear one, as well as this power and responsibility invested in you, there is divine compassion and forgiveness too. This is compounded in the knowledge that this very text is the basis for the words of Kol Nidrei, the annual annulling of vows through which we accept and own our habitual misspeaking, and have it seen and embraced.
And then something shifts. Instead of the paralysis of perfectionism, frozen by the weight of the power of our words, we wake up to a freedom and capacity that is both careful and caring.
Spacious and loving, we are not afraid to make big, careful commitments with our words, in the ways that we need to, and in the ways that the world needs us to.
Spacious and loving, we offer a kind word. Perhaps to a stranger, perhaps to our closest ones. This word might change their whole sense of life at that moment. It might just soften their heart a fraction. And who can measure the true impact of a slightly softer heart?
In what directions do you channel your power to speak something new?
What are you going to bring into being?
We do our best with our words, in small ways and large, and we find peace, knowing that our good intentions and efforts are enough."