The Promise | Rabbi Shefa Gold

I will give you HaMakom, the land of your life, to possess, to know, to inhabit, cultivate, refine. The awesome place that I give you is none other than the House of God — I live there at the heart of every molecule and I shine out through the windows of your own eyes when you are open to this truth. And this awesome place is the Gate of Heaven — connecting all realms and dimensions, Heavens and Hells, connecting you with your own wildest dreams.

I will give you descendents. You will be a delicate flower held up to the wind. You will be blown open, that your seeds may scatter and take root, blossoming in places you could not imagine. The winds of history and circumstance and coincidence will spread your essence, your song, your sigh, mixed with the pollens of desire, to the far corners of the world. Your fragrance will waft through the farthest garden.

Through you and your descendents, all the families of the earth will be blessed.

I will be with you.

I do not promise that it will be comfortable or that you will not suffer. I do not promise that you’ll never be hungry or feel depair. I do not promise that your heart will never be broken. My promise is simply that I will be with you — in your suffering, your hunger, your despair, through your wandering, your stumbling, your confusion — Eh’yeh Imach — I will be with you, even when you feel abandoned.

Shabbat is the time to rest in the promise — to receive and inhabit the Land of your Life, to surrender the fruitfulness of your efforts as they are scattered on the winds. and to lean back into the embrace of Presence.